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FiascoCon

Today I attended a mini-con at the great game store in Oakland, Endgame. I had once or twice signed up to participate in similar mini conventions there, but it hadn’t worked out. They have a great space upstairs with ten-twelve tables for gaming, and they hold events like this througout the year.

I had bought Fiasco from Indie Press Revolution (in PDF) some time ago, and at some point last year I convinced my game group to play it. I was hoping it might be a gateway to finally playing some Prime Time Adventures. Unfortunately, it just didn’t go that well, partially because I didn’t have a good handle on how the game is meant to be played, partly because the dynamics of the Playset we used were probably not great for our group, but largely because they just weren’t into it that night. We’ve had a lot of fun with Inspectres, which has a similar free-form, scene-framing nature, and the one time we played Zombie Cinema we had a good time. But Fiasco did not go well.

In the meantime, Fiasco kept building more and more buzz and acclaim. It was becoming an instant Indie classic. It was frustrating to me that my group didn’t want to play. I proposed it more than once, but the group wouldn’t go for it.

So, when I saw (via Twitter) that Endgame was going to have a Fiasco Con, I thought this would both allow me to finally participate in an event at Endgame and play Fiasco. Presumably with people enthusiastic about playing it, and probably with some who knew it well.

It’s about a 90 minute drive to Endgame from my house. Not a big deal, but enough that you wouldn’t just slip away on a Saturday afternoon. Not if you have kids, anyway. I had signed up for the morning session (11-2:30) which meant I probably needed to leave by 9:00 to ensure I was there on time, allowing for traffic problems. This afternoon was the Giants-Packers game, which I wanted to watch, so I thought about trying to find someplace near Endgame to hole up after Fiasco where I could watch at least the second half by the time we were done.

I arrived at Endgame a bit earlier than I had intended, just shortly after 10:00. I bought a hardcopy of Fiasco and, what the hell, Dread then lingered about upstairs. At first it seemed that it was just going to be completely free-form with people (as I was told) coagulating into groups and playing Fiasco. But, as more folks showed up (including Fred Hicks, distinctive in his flowing mane of blue hair) some structure was imposed. I found myself joining first a table with Fred, but when the tables were re-balanced, at a table facilitated by Steve Segedy, the editor of Fiasco. There were two other noobs at the table, and a fifth veteran, who I gather was Jeremy Tidwell, to round things out.

Steve helped layout how the game was played, and did an excellent job leading us through it without letting us get caught up in the weeds, too much. Fiasco is a very straight-forward game, and it’s easy to maybe read a bit too much into things, to over-think it. That’s not to say that there are no rewards for thoughtful play. Jeremy not only did an absolutely first-class job role-playing his black widow character (my character’s predatory hot granny), but also subtly kept the story moving in a deft arc. I threw some things out there, in crafting my scenes, leaving key elements open-ended, but they didn’t really end up going anywhere.

I made sure that I had a scene with every character, and two with the guy who seemed to be having the hardest time with the improv aspects of the game, to make sure he was included. In one of my final scenes, I had to go toe-to-toe with Jeremy, and while he was great, I felt I held up my end OK.

The game was really a blast. Both Steve and Jeremy really brought their characters to life, creating edgy PCs who would have fit in in any Coehn brothers movie. They also kept the story moving for everyone else. Steve was very generous and patient with us noobs, and was smart enough to give Jeremy some NPCs to play so he could stretch out a bit. Jeremy’s Minister Bob character was a scene stealing, scenery-chewing beast.

Playing Fiasco at Endgame was exactly the experience that I had hoped it would be. I feel that I have a good handle on the mechanics of play, but I also began to figure out some things to look for at the table, for making my part of the story better cohere with the group narrative, and also to be more interesting on its own. In particular, it doesn’t pay to be too subtle. Don’t expect other people to spend their precious allotment of scenes working on resolving your character’s conflicts — they have their own conflicts to resolve. Move your story along, but leave attachment points for others to hook to, but don’t make your story too dependent on others. Be thinking about the Aftermath, especially in your last scene.

I’m not sure how I’m going to get more Fiasco-fix, but I’m hoping to get my players to give it one more shot.

It’s great, so soon in the New Year to get two RPG itches (an Endgame Minicon and some Fiasco play) scratched. I’m now more enthusiastic than ever to get back to Endgame for more play. Maybe the January Mini-con?

Posted in games.

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By admin – January 15, 2012

New Year’s Resolution 2012

As I wrote about previously, I’ve been thinking about what to do for a New Year’s resolution for this year. Some ideas in contention:

  • Give up Starbucks for the year
  • Give up buying anything on Amazon for myself for the year
  • Something health/fitness/diet/exercise-related
  • Something creative, like doing a 20-minute writing Pomodoro daily
  • Something social or charitable, perhaps once a week for a year

Those are all good. I’ve done the Starbucks thing, back in, I think, 2009. But I definitely bought too much Starbucks coffee last year, so it didn’t take in the same way that quitting soda in 2010 did.

Ultimately, I want to commit to recording what I did about those things every day. I’ve written before about Joe’s Goals. It’s a great, very simple website for tracking positive and negative activity daily. It’s built on the principle, often credited to Jerry Seinfeld, of marking off something positive (writing a joke, in his example) on a calendar and creating chains of consecutive days of having achieved that positive thing. Psychologically, it becomes tougher to break the chain, so the more you do the positive thing, the more you want to keep the chain going. It creates its own momentum, seeing that you have done whatever it is that you want to challenge yourself to do, for 5 days, 10 days, 100 days in a row.

I have created the following categories of positive and negative behaviors, that I want to, respectively, encourage myself to continue to demonstrate and minimize in my life:

  • Writing pomodoro
  • Yoga
  • Meditation
  • Socialize/charity
  • Made lunch (versus bought)
  • Starbucks

I’ll leave open the possibility of adding more later. Obviously, I want to find a way to do more of these activities (Starbucks is a negative behavior, it takes away a point). Rather than set some arbitrary or unrealistic goals, I just plan on recording how I did for each category every day.

I’ll try to check in monthly, at least initially, to report on things like changed behaviors, longest chains, best days, et cetera.

So, a rather modest resolution. This is going to be a big year for us all, given the Presidential election, and the (hopefully) rebounding economy. I’m not trying to make it any more complicated.

Posted in fitness, health, productivity.

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By admin – January 12, 2012

iPad vs Air: Fight

On the latest Macbreak Weekly, they talked a bit about rumors of new Macbook Airs possibly coming in the first quarter of this year.  I listened with interest, as I haven’t purchased a new iDevice for myself since my iPhone 4 back in the Summer of ’09.  My white Macbook, circa 2007 or 2008 is getting a bit long in the tooth, despite RAM and hard drive upgrades.  I’ve contemplated putting an SSD drive in the Macbook to make it a bit more zippy, but that would be money spent that could go to something new.   I admit, I have reservations about getting caught up again in the forced annual upgrade cycle for all this stuff: iPad, iPhone, Macbook, AppleTV, et cetera.   I love my iPad.  I’ve had a couple conflicting experiences with it:   + Last night, in my hotel room, I wanted to try to hook up my AppleTV to the TV in the hotel room.  My thought was to be able to stream content (probably Netflix movies) to the hotel TV from my phone to the ATV.  In order to do that, I’d need wifi for them to talk, at a minimum.  The hotel has pay-as-you-go wifi, but who wants to pay for that?  I had brought along my Airport Express for the specific purpose of providing a wifi bridge between the two devices.  However, no matter what I did, including using the Airport Utility IOS apps on both the iPhone and iPad, I could not get the Airport to show up.  It just flashed it’s little yellow (orange?) light at me.   I knew that, if I had had my Macbook here, I could have gone into the Express and configured it. Or if I had a Macbook Air…  But the iPad alone could not get it done. +Today at our CiMH Leadership Institute training, we had to do a presentation.  I told the group that I could do a PowerPoint-style presentation via the classroom’s projector, on my iPad.  And while it was a bit stressful working with Keynote on the iPad under pressure, I was able to do it.  I wasn’t able, given the very stringent time requirements to do any fancy animations or anything.  But accompanied by music through my Tecsun PL-390 portable radio and the narration of one of our team members, we pulled off probably the most impressive presentation of the day.  It was great.  It worked because I had my iPad and the VGA cable with me. Would a Macbook Air be able to do that?  Of course.  And better.  But would I always and without fail bring an Air every place that I bring the iPad?  Would it be able to make it through the day, battery-wise, like the iPad can?   My strongest argument thus far for replacing the iPad with an Air is that there are just a number of apps that are never going to come to the iPad.  Including network tools like Nmap, Nessus, et cetera, particularly since there’s no Ethernet port.  I am trying to write using the pomodoro approach.  There’s a great Pomodoro app for the Mac, the Pomodoro apps for IOS are nowhere near as rich.  Right now, I am writing this on the iPad while “Pomodoro” runs on the iPhone.  Sometimes you can do that; replace the multitasking you would do on a Mac with two discrete things running separately on the iPad and iPhone.  That’s mostly fine, but not always convenient (twice the battery expense, for instance) and rarely as complete a solution as just running them both on the same Mac.   In my bag, I carry a Bluetooth keyboard and a Stump iPad stand, as well as the iPad VGA cable.  Combine those items and they weigh more than an Air and are more awkward to transport.  Now, of course, sometimes I just take the iPad alone to meetings and use the original Apple iPad case to put it in a position for typing.  Is that as good a solution as bringing an Air to that same meeting? Well…  the iPad’s battery life is superior, of course.  The iPad is instant-on (pretty much).  The Air’s keyboard is greatly preferable to typing on a sheet of glass, and the choices of typing apps, TextExpander snippets, et cetera makes it a clear winner in that regard. There’s also the issue of acceptance.  People have now gotten used to me bringing my iPad and have come to accept it.  It’s obviously not a “real computer”, so it’s less threatening.  If I start bringing an Air… It might cross an invisible barrier and make people start to question the validity of bringing a personal device to work functions.   Obviously, I haven’t made up my mind what to do.  I want to see what a putative new Macbook Air, and presumably a next-gen iPad with a higher-res screen and who knows what other capabilities will look like.  I don’t have to change at all.  The iPad is not perfect.  But it is still wonderful.  And I don’t want to let go, yet.        

Posted in IT, tech.

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By admin – January 5, 2012

Let it be Resolved?

For the past few years I’ve done a sort of Lentan sacrifice, if Lent lasted 12 months. In previous years, I’ve given up chocolate for a year, then Starbucks, then soda… These haven’t really been “New Years Resolutions.” They haven’t generally begun exactly at the New Year, and they haven’t been about an ongoing commitment, just 12 months. But I have subsequently stopped drinking soda entirely. My relationship with chocolate has changed modestly; mostly I try to mindfully eat only chocolate I really love, not just whatever happens to be around. But it’s not a simple thing. Starbucks… well, there’s still room for improvement, there.

Last year I tried a diet-related resolution, which failed, though I ended up losing 20+ pounds in 2011 and feel pretty good about my weight. I’m far from being in perfect health, but I’m reasonably confident that I can get where I want to be.

Of course, I’ve been thinking about what I should do in 2012. Some items I’ve been considering:

+Fitness. I want to get to 199 pounds. I weighed myself today and my weight was just under 219 pounds. So, basically, I’d have to lose another 20 pounds. With my FitBit, I think I can do that over the course of 12 months. The resolution would probably not be to lose 20 pounds, but rather to do the things that it takes to lose weight: burn 3,000+ calories a day and consume 2,000- calories a day, while walking 10,000 steps a day. That’s one possibility. One consideration: do I give myself a time-out for holidays, anniversaries, etc?

  • Finances. We’ve ended the year with a great deal of credit card debt. I’m sure we’ll get a sizeable tax return, though probably not enough to fully pay off the credit cards. I’m a little bummed that we are in this constant cycle of blowing out the credit cards, then using the Christmas savings account and tax return to pay it down. Never really getting ahead. We have other savings accounts, of course, for college for the kids and for retirement. But now that I’m making less money, it’s more important than ever to be fiscally responsible. One possible resolution that gets at the heart of my spending: no personal purchases on Amazon for the whole year. Amazon Prime is just so seductive, I end up buying a lot of stuff that I could readily live without. And with an Amazon credit card… it’s just a bit too much.

  • Mindfulness. Eventually I have to get serious about meditation, don’t I?

  • Creativity. I’ve been thinking about writing 20 minutes a day. Every day. I’m using the Pomodoro app on my Macbook as I write this, now. Twenty-year old me would be hopping up and down, yelling that I have achieved exactly what I always wanted professionally: a not-too taxing, mostly 40-hours/week job that pays the bills, allowing me to focus on writing for the hours that I’m not at work. While my job certainly requires more involvement that the sort of job I thought I wanted when I was younger, it pays way better and is way more rewarding. But I certainly have enough cognitive surplus, to borrow Clay Shirky’s phrase, to do all the writing I want.

  • Service. I haven’t clarified a specific goal, here, but I think I’d like to find some way, perhaps in a technology consultant capacity, to help out non-profits or other community organizations.

I haven’t made a firm determination about what exactly I want to do. I think I’ll give myself until my birthday (January 11) to decide for certain. Some of the possibilities identified above are so compelling that I kind of want to do several of them. Best to let them all percolate until I’m sure what I want to commit to.

Posted in diet, ethics, fitness, tech, writings.

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By pegibson – January 1, 2012

New Years Resolution 2011 Closeout

I think it’s safe to say that my New Years Resolution for 2011 was a failure. Another, more positive spin would be to to quote Edison: I’ve discovered a way not to lose weight.

My original intent was to lose weight by eating very carefully 6 days a week, including no snacking, 6 days a week and then eat what I wanted on the 7th. I found it too difficult to stick to this diet and I think the “eat what you want every 7 days” is probably not sustainable. It’s too easy to eat 4-6,000 calories if you can have however much of whatever you want, and can easily undo modest gains, even assuming you were perfectly diligent the other 6 days. This approach may work for someone, but it did not work for me.

However, after I abandoned that approach and tried the FitBit, I became much more successful. I have lost over 20 pounds, am continuing to gradually lose more weight, feel great, and not just healthier, lighter and fitter, but am generally in a better, more ambitious mood. I am wearing clothes that I haven’t worn in years. My size 40 waist pants were feeling snug, now my size 38s are feeling loose. I’m not skinny by any stretch, but my goal of >199 pounds, while probably a couple months away, feels more achievable than any time since I left the Army.

I do watch what I eat, tracking it on the FitBit site. I’m eager to get to my weight goal and stop logging everything. I feel that, as long as I am getting my 10,000 steps in, and if I can get enough extra exercise during the day to get near 3,000 calories burned, as long as I eat sensibly, I should be able to maintain my weight at whatever level I wish.

I’m inclined to get a Withings scale, so that I can automatically capture my weight. That way, with the FitBit tracking calories burned and the Withings tracking fluctuation in weight, I can make dietary adjustments as required without tracking every single thing I eat. Though, it really isn’t that hard to track food. I think we are probably not too far off from menus/food packaging containing nutritional info as a QR code or other scannable-by-smartphone code that would allow us to readily record our intake.

The FitBit works so easily, so you certainly feel that some always-on bloodpressure cuff/pulse rate monitor combined with a pedometer is the next big thing.

In some ways, carrying a FitBit all the time, even in your sleep, makes you a small-c cyborg. It’s not exactly nanites in your bloodstream, but it’s a step in that direction.

Posted in diet, fitness, health.

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By pegibson – December 27, 2011

Put Me to Work!

I’m at a leadership conference (hosted by CiMH, the California Institute for Mental Health) (don’t ask me why the “i” in “CiMH” is small; it’s a style thing, I guess) this week. Today, our presenter Jerry Estenson from the California State University system, introduced us to a group exercise. It involved blindfolds, seeing eye guides, nylon straps, bungie cords, buckets and some hugely dangerous biohazardous material. Notionally, biohazardous, I hasten to add.

I’d heard of this exercise before by someone who’d participated in it. The operational task is to guide four blindfolded folks through stretching out the four nylon tethers which are joined to a bungie cord at the center. The bungie cord is the hub, with the tethers radiating out like spokes. The blindfolded participants have to be lead, carefully to the biohazard area, marked off by ropes on the floor, at more or less cardinal points around the circle made by the ropes. They then have to collaborate on stretching the bungie cord out enough to fit over the mouth of a five gallon bucket, lower their tethers (and thereby the mouth of the bungie cord over the bucket), then release enough tension that the bungie cord tightens around the body of the bucket. Then, simultaneously they have to lift the bucket by lifting their tethers, while maintaining enough tension to lift the bucket off the ground. They have to navigate the roped area and place the bucket on a nearby table, then release the bucket from the bungie noose. Then do it again. And again. While blindfolded. The last bucket has a koosh ball on the lid that rolls around as the bucket is transported, but which must not fall to the floor.

It was actually harder and more complicated than that. There were rules about the guides not being touched by the tethers, about the blindfolded folks not being able to see the room where this was to be performed in advance, etc.

Jerry through us a curve by asking first for volunteers, and those initial 5 people were to be those blindfolded. Then he asked for volunteers again, and those folks were to be the guides. Those who were left — that is those, at least theoretically least engaged and enthusiastic, were given the task of organizing the whole operation. They were the only ones told what the objective was and given the authority to proceed.

I was one of the first volunteers, and thus had the most passive role. And, even worse, the way that our organizers chose to do this — probably correctly, I hasten to add — was to try to use a single team for the whole exercise, when there was enough equipment, et cetera to have three teams working concurrently. So a number of us had to wait in the next room, not allowed to watch what was occurring, and the only possibility of participating was if someone else made a mistake and was disqualified. We were all 3rd string quarterbacks.

And it sucked. We had been those most enthusiastic about participating, and most of us got to participate not at all, and in fact couldn’t even observe. It felt exactly like not being picked at all for the basketball team. If you also were not allowed to even watch the game. For over an hour, we sat, and waited, and got an occasional update about how things were going. And did nothing else. We were permitted to help not a whit.

During the debrief afterwards, a few of the other people who had been in the same circumstance as I voiced their displeasure about being left out. Jerry rolled seamlessly into an observation linked to a previous point that he had made during his lecture preceding the exercise: as managers we need to find a way to take advantage of extra resources. That our unproductive people may just not be given enough challenges or at least not the right challenges. And that our job is to find a way to make use of them.

He didn’t dwell too much on that point, but that will be one of the key takeaways form this conference. I need to remember how disgruntled I felt, being left out that way. If my work life was like that, I would become a shitty employee pretty damned fast. It’s made me think about a lot of what I hated about my experience in the Army. Being an Interrogator in peacetime is a lot like that. No one needs you nor knows what to do with you. I was a crappy soldier, in part because I was an immature, arrogant punk, but also because my options at work were so lame.

I tell my kids to use their brains, since they have to lug them around with them, anyway. Employees spend forty hours a week breathing your air. While you have them there, you should probably find a way to put them to work on something that needs to be done. Or, don’t you have enough work that needs doing?

Posted in IT, management.

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By admin – December 1, 2011

Partisanship

If you watch Fox News, you are probably doing it because they say what you want to hear. Likewise MSNBC, though from the opposite perspective. You aren’t seeking an “independent” perspective, you want one that is “honest”, as long it’s not so honest that it challenges your beliefs.

We all do this, to one extent or another. And the more the topic aligns with our passions, the more prone we are to do it and the more insidious it can become.

If you are a sports fan, think of how much affront you take from someone criticizing your team. Even if, under different circumstances you might agree with the analysis and might in fact proffer similar views.

There are doubtless aspects of your job that you are very opinionated about, and about which you are apt to be vocal if a different perspective is promoted.

Certainly, there is a nationalistic impulse that most of us feel. It’s fine for Americans to criticize America, but let the Brits or, God help us, the French do it, and the pitchforks come out.

We like the music that we like and we sneer at the rest. We see a black guy walking down the street dressed a certain way and we are instantly angered. If we saw a white guy with the exact same attire — we might not be impressed, but we don’t have nearly the same reaction.

And the purchases we make. Apple fans can bloviate about the needed improvements in the current iPhone, unless there’s an Android fan present.

I have been guilty of all of the above.

After I was discharged from the Army, and back in the U.S., going to the local Junior College, I was turned on to Rush Limbaugh. A good friend of mine had heard him while going to U.C. Davis and thought he was great. I listened in and was immediately hooked. Rush was hilarious, and fearless, and finally — finally! presented the conservative view point in a media landscape dominated by liberals.

I used to tune in every day, back when I did computer service for a small store. I’d be in the back, in the shop, with Rush blaring away all day. I’d catch him on the AM radio in my pickup if I had to go out on a call. I bought his book as a gift for my father-in-law.

I remember when Al Franken’s book “Rush Limbaugh is a Big, Fat Pig” came out, and I bristled.

But, in small increments, I began to stop listening. I don’t remember any particular epiphany, but I began to become embarrassed by him. I’m not sure what the impetus was, but one day I admitted to myself that despite Rush’s emphasis on trying to get the suppressed truth out, he was a liar. I’m sure I realized at some much earlier point that Rush “occasionally” stretched the truth to make a point. Or he interpreted a certain event that looked bad for Republicans in such a way that minimized the damage. Or he gave a conservative the benefit of the doubt in an embarrassing situation.

I’m sure that I observed and tacitly agreed to these minor transgressions against the actual truth of the matter. Rush was “spinning,” sure, but that’s what you have to do, sometimes. For the good of the team.

At some point, years after I stopped listening to Rush, I realized that I despised him. And what I most despised was not his views, as obnoxious as many of them are. What I really objected to was the lying. It was clear to me that Rush said things that he did not believe. Rush says things to get his audience fired up. He spins and twists the truth and purposefully misleads his audience, many of whom, if they are exposed to any other source of news or political criticism, it is the same sort of self-selected echo chamber that I describe above. It’s singing to the choir.

I’ve heard the concern raised that the increased access to information that we all now experience due to modern information technology fosters this echo chamber effect. That we can readily find a source, online, for reinforcing our existing beliefs and prejudices. And that most of us are inclined to do just that.

I’m coming around to the understanding of just how much this partisanship plays a role in my own life. It’s a fine line between engaging with like-minded enthusiasts and becoming a rock-ribbed fanboy. I’m trying to take a look at the media that I consume and what of it is actually useful and brings joy and enlightenment, and which simply makes me feel more smug.

I want to always be growing as a person. This type of self-limiting narrow-mindedness is a barrier to improvement. I need to continue to examine my partisan affiliations and try to extricate myself from them.

I am liberal in most of my beliefs. But that doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t be able to recognize when someone from a different camp has a good idea or a useful viewpoint. I have changed a lot from days of listening to Rush Limbaugh. I can’t really tell you what happened, though I always harbored some left-leaning views. I believe that Rush is bad for this country. But I also need to acknowledge that lefty spinmeisters like Ken Olbermann and James Carville have a similar allergy to the truth.

I will go this far, and if you know me personally, you will know how much this means to me: I will stop rooting against the Oakland Raiders. That’s how serious I am.

Posted in ethics, health, rants.

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By admin – October 3, 2011

Remember the Milk

I’ve been working with David Allen’s “Getting Things Done” methodology for a couple of years, now. One of the things that I really love about GTD is that it is so open-ended; so adaptable. There is no prescribed way to get things done; just guidance.

Being an IT True Believer, while I have played around with paper-based GTD systems, I feel better using a computer-based system. It just feels wasteful to write something down, when I know that if I type it, I can copy, paste, re-use, etc. It’s just more efficient. That’s why the market in paper bookkeeper’s ledgers ain’t what it used to be.

I’ve tried different web/iPhone task management solutions, including

  • iwantsandy.com
  • Things
  • ToDo
  • Reqall

But the tool that I keep coming back to, though it is not Apple-y in style, and doesn’t have voice recognition like Reqall, is Remember the Milk. I found it excessively fidgety at first and it took a while to realize that I didn’t have to actually use all the knobs. Such a concept. But, RTM has a web interface, an iPhone and iPad app, an email interface that is quite rich, a useful bookmarklet for adding items directly from a browser… Pretty much any way of inputting data that you would want. Including a Twitter interface. Because, you know, I want all of my to-dos in my Twitter time-line.

It does not have a voice interface. I’m really hoping that the voice features of iOS 5 will make the RTM iPhone app more voice-friendly. But the key things that I need of a task management app are all here. It’s trivial to set reminders, to assign tasks to contexts or tag them for easy retrieval/management. And, while it is full-featured, it is still very simple and straightforward.

RTM could use some graphic design help. And I’d like to try out the sharing features, but I don’t know anyone else who uses RTM. But after using a lot of other stuff, RTM remains, plugging along, not fancy, but reliable and functional.

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By pegibson – September 30, 2011

iPhone 5?

I don’t know why I’m bothering. I’ve done this once before, regarding the original iPad announcement, and failed miserably. But, I guess I feel that most of the pundits have it wrong, and for some ridiculous reason, think I can predict what Apple is likely to do next.

Foolishly Rushing In

I don’t think there will be an iPhone 5 announced on October 4th, 2011. I think Apple is going to stick it out with the iPhone 4 line, and introduce an improved iPhone 4. The iPhone 4 design is still striking, and all of the new iOS features coming would almost overshadow a big, new iPhone redesign. There’s just a lot going on, and Apple will want their next phone to be able to stand out. A completely new redesign plus a major new iOS release the same year? Seems like too much. I’ve thought this for a while, but everyone keeps saying “iPhone 5!” I think the iPhone 5 is still a year away.

A few folks, like Gruber seem to be of a similar opinion. It’s definitely a minority opinion, but not completely unique. But here’s the second part of my prediction, and one that I haven’t heard any support for: the new phone will be the iPhone 4G. Not “S”, as a few have predicted. Even those folks typically are suggesting an iPhone 4S as a lower-cost, second-tier phone to be released alongside the iPhone 5.

Nope. I think the only new phone announced by Apple in 2011 will be the iPhone 4G. That is, an iPhone 4, with perhaps some very minor design tweaks (just noticeably different from the current iPhone so that those “in the know” will recognize it as something different), the hardware enhancements that we’ve all heard about (improved phone, processor, memory and — hopefully — 64GB of storage, finally!) but with 4G radios.

I’ve heard plenty of speculation that it is too soon to announce a 4G iPhone, that AT&T is too far behind the curve in rolling out their 4G network, etc. I can’t believe that Apple is going to let AT&T dictate whether their flagship phone, sold, increasingly, all over the world, supports 4G or not. And, if there’s a chance to put a little heat on AT&T to get their rollout going, I don’t see Apple missing a chance to do that.

Plus: iPhone 4G! Exactly like the 3G, one of it’s most distinguishing characteristics from it’s predecessor: high speed network access, is baked right into the name. Why buy a modest redesign of an iPhone 4? Sure, maybe it runs a little faster and takes modestly better photos… but what if it also supports 4G network speeds?!?

Where available.

I haven’t heard any of the usual suspects describing this exact scenario. I’ve heard a million reasons why this scenario will not play out. But Apple has done an extraordinary job (even for them!) of keeping a lid on what is coming. Guessing what Apple is going to do is a sucker’s bet. And I think I’m just as big a sucker as the next guy.

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By admin – September 30, 2011

The New Shiny

I’ve played a lot of different RPG systems and settings over the years. I began with D&D, of course (AD&D was the first game I played, though I owned OD&D) but have generally been open to try any game. There have probably been two systems that I never played because I refused to: Vampire: The Masquerade and Shadow Run. Now, I wish I had tried those games when I had the chance. Though I still think that elves in the future is dorky.

I’ve played Traveller, Aftermath, James Bond, Champions, even some Rune Quest. I’ve introduced my game group to a lot of different systems over the years including GURPS, FUDGE, Mutants & Masterminds, and more recently indie games like InSpectres and Fiasco. Most have not been big hits, and we typically come back to D&D; now 4e.

But I’m always interested in new gaming experiences, and listening to Paul Tevis or Brennan Taylor describe some new game always gets me pumped up. I own a lot of games that our group has never played; some due to my inability to convince the group to try them (Primetime Adventures), some due to my acknowledgment that the game wouldn’t fit the group (1,001 Nights).

Relatively recently, we’ve had pretty good experiences playing InSpectres and 3:16. Those games are pretty far out of the D&D mold, but the guys enjoyed them. The one game of Fiasco that we played did not go over well, and I have my doubts we’ll try it again. There are probably one or two players who are really open to trying new games, and at least one who is generally opposed to it, with the balance in the middle.

Since we are taking a bit of break from D&D for a while, after shutting the door on Dark Sun, I want to try at least a couple of new games. To that end, I have prepared the following table:

Game Genre Rule Complexity Social Interaction Level Degree of Player Control over World/Outcomes
Burning Empires Science Fiction/Space/Military High (Burning Wheel) Medium? Medium?
The Burning Wheel Fantasy High (Burning Wheel) Medium? Medium?
Mouse Guard Anthropomorphic/Low-No Magic Fantasy Med-High (Burning Wheel) Medium Medium
Dogs in the Vineyard Western Fantasy (limited magic) Med-Low Medium-High Medium-High
Savage Worlds Generic Med-Low Medium-Low Medium-Low
Zombie Cinema Zombie Apocalypse Low High High
3:16 Science Fiction/Space/Military Low Medium Medium-High
a penny for my thoughts Lost Identity Med-Low High High
Labyrinth Lord High Fantasy Med-Low Medium-low Medium-Low
Fiasco Loser Heist Low High High
Primetime Adventures T.V. improv Low High High
Don’t Rest Your Head Modern Fantasy Medium Medium Medium-High
Dresden Files Modern Fantasy Medium-Low (FATE) Medium-High Medium-High
Trail of Cthulhu Horror Medium-Low (GUMSHOE) Medium-Low Medium
Godlike Superhero/World War 2 Medium? Medium? Medium?
Monsters and other Childish Things Modern Fantasy/Horror Medium-Low? Medium? Medium?
Spirit of the Century Pulp Action Medium-Low (FATE) Medium-High Medium-High
D&D 4e High Fantasy Medium Low Low
D&D 3.5 High Fantasy Medium-Low Low Low

As you can see, it lists a number of game systems that I own, rated by how complicated the rules are, how “social” they are, in terms of how much built-in interplay exists between characters, and how much of an impact the player can have on the game world, or in dictacting outcomes of challenges. I threw in D&D 4e and 3.5 as reference. The others are mostly game systems that we have never played but that are sitting on my shelf.

I am most intent on trying out a FATE-based game, and Spirit of the Century seems the best place to start. But I intend on handing out this chart next time we all get together and asking each of them to separately fill it out as a ballot, listing in order the top 3 games they would most be open to playing, then compiling the results. There are games that I think it would be tough to jump into (Buring Wheel, in particular, that system intimidates me a bit), but everyone chooses it, I’m game.

As it where.

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By pegibson – September 25, 2011