In discussing a couple of the initiatives at work, my colleagues were somewhat impressed by my knowledge of the various initiatives and when I asked if they would appreciate a more thorough rundown, they all agreed it would be helpful. My basic plan is to post one issue each day, with Pros, Cons, My Bias, and My Verdict sections as best as I can present them. I will do my absolute best to make the Pro and Con sections as free from bias (mine or otherwise) as possible.

My General Biases

• Politically, I’m closest to a libertarian. That makes me socially liberal and fiscally conservative.
  • Fiscal Conservative - The government should be as small as possible to ensure the common good - i.e. low government spending, and as a result, low taxes. I tend to favor a “free market economy” and oppose governmental regulation of business unless it is necessary to correct a market failure or imbalance.
  • Socially Liberal - The government should interfere as little as possible with the private lives of its citizens. So long as something does no direct harm to a citizen, the government has no business sticking their nose in. As such, I’m strongly opposed to most “morality” based legislation which seeks to impose a tyranny of the majority.
• I tend to oppose special interest groups. The benefits allocated to special interests usually result in an increase in taxes and the size of government.
• When in doubt, I prefer the status quo. Unless there is a compelling reason to change the law, I prefer to err on the side of not changing it until such a clear reason becomes available.
• I have no affiliation with any of the groups behind the initiatives.

I’m very interested in hearing any comments anyone might be able to provide - discussion could very well reveal flaws in my logic and might change my opinion.

The article presents the hypothetical situation - if you find a watch in the forest, do you assume that it was the product of endless iteration and random chance, or do you assume it was made by a watchmaker? The only time the former is plausible is if you do not allow for the possibility of a watchmaker. Where this argument fails is that it simply presents a hypothesis, which is decidedly not the only step necessary in science.

The Scientific Method presents the following iterative sequence of steps:

1. Use your experience
2. Form a conjecture
3. Deduce a prediction from that conjecture
4. Test - run experiments both to confirm and falsify the conjecture.

If the conjecture is falsified, then you must go back to step #2 and form a new conjecture that takes into account the new information.

Intelligent Design fails as a scientific theory in two very crucial ways:

• Intelligent Design offers no predictive value. Given the theory of Intelligent Design, there is no way to make a logical prediction of how the universe works that is not already in evidence. Any prediction made by a proponent of ID is simply random guesswork.
• Intelligent Design is not falsifiable. There is no way to disprove Intelligent Design. Any evidence that is presented contrary to the theory can be hand-waved away by saying “God made it that way” - the “theory” never adapts to new information, it simply accepts any new information without any need for critical thought.

There’s also the infinite regression problem - Intelligent Design requires the axiom that a Designer exists. Taking the existence of a Designer as a hypothesis, the theory has the same problems as Intelligent Design - it provides no predictive value and is not falsifiable. In the event that unquestionable proof that Designer(s) exist is found, we’re still left with the question of how that Designer came to be, why he chose to design life, and most importantly why he chose to add so much superfluous “junk” DNA and otherwise pointless organs like the human appendix. It’s somewhat ironic that the latter can most easily be explained by assuming that the Designer was intelligent enough to realize that he could create an infinite variety of robust lifeforms using the relatively simple mechanism of genetic drift and natural selection - rather than spending billions of years hand-crafting lifeforms.

Currently, I’m hovering right around 240, so I’m looking to drop 40 pounds to a goal weight of 200. This morning, I restarted the Hacker’s Diet - a relatively simplistic diet plan based only on eating less and exercising more. I’m starting at Rung 16 of the Lifetime Ladder with the medium-term goal of reaching Rung 30 by August 1st. This morning’s effort felt pretty good, but I usually find that the first day back on an exercise routine is easier than the next few days. The first 30-day trial is focused on exercise, but I’m also planning to twitter all of my meals, with an eye to reducing my reliance on fast food and pizza. Since trying to change multiple habits simultaneously is more prone to failure, I’m not going to hold myself to a strict diet regimen until the second 30-day trial.

If you’re at all interested, you can follow my progress here and on twitter - and if you see me slipping, please give me as much harassment as you like.

All the parts arrived on Monday, and I had everything assembled and ready to install. I plug in the Vista install disc, and leave it to run overnight. After waking up, I find Vista is installed, and waiting for final configuration info - which I enter, and then start the OS. Everything runs fine for about five minutes, before the system mysteriously reboots. Figuring it was just some patch or driver install, I log back in, and about two minutes in, I get a lovely BSD, followed by a reboot. After getting back in, the troubleshooter tells me there’s an unrecoverable hardware error with either the CPU, RAM, Power Supply, or the Motherboard. I’ve gotten the occasional bad part before, so I take it at face value, and start testing the various components. Three days later, after running the most stringent testing programs running for over 16 hours each, I’ve discovered no errors, no reboots. Of course, my testing utilities all run off Linux kernels, so I’m reasonably certain there isn’t a problem with the hardware.

Still, every time I boot into Vista, I get IRQ conflicts, random graphics errors, and the repeated BSDs that Windows seems so fond of. I’m almost ready to break down and install Windows 2000 - since it served me so well for so many years - I actually managed to achieve a maximum uptime of 74 days. Of course, the video card manufacturers seem to have decided that Win2k is no longer viable, and have stopped writing drivers for that OS. If I do go that route, I’ll probably have to drop $40-$150 on a older video card, or I could finally take the Windows XP plunge I’ve managed to avoid for so many years, also at a cost of $130+.

Suffice to say, I’m not a fan of Microsoft at this moment.

First, there is no “correct” amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere - the concentration has varied dramatically throughout history, sometimes being many times the current value (such as during the Mesozoic Era). Using the weight of carbon dioxide is a poor metric, so I’ll use a percentage concentration value instead. Over the past 600,000 years (using a time-frame more appropriate to the evolution of our species), we can get a pretty good estimate of carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere from ice core samples. Based on those results, the value has fluctuated from about 200 parts per million (ppm) to 300 ppm up until the time of the Industrial Revolution. Since that time, it has jumped nearly 100 ppm to almost 400ppm. Based on the Vostok Ice Core samples, a variation of 100ppm correlates to (but not necessarily causes) a 6-8 degree temperature change.

Your use of the hurricane example implies that humans are the primary source of energy. In truth, the sun provides virtually all of the energy driving any climate or weather. The human activity that may threaten global climate change need not be massive or focused. It need only take advantage of the effects of resonance - a small change made in the right circumstance can cause a dramatic effect. By increasing the carbon dioxide concentration of the atmosphere, we may slightly increase the global temperature. That small increase can perturb the normal carbon cycle - releasing greater quantities of natural CO2 from the oceans, increasing H2O (another greenhouse gas) evaporation, both of which will increase the temperature change. Those changes will in turn force other changes, eventually driving the climate to a new equilibrium when (and if) the forcing effects are either balanced or removed.

Your example on volcanism as a superior greenhouse producer is flawed in several points:

First, your use of Mount Pinatubo as a “typical” eruption is far from accurate. Pinatubo rated a 6 on the VEI scale - making it one of about 40 or so eruptions in the last 10,000 years. On average, we’d expect one such eruption every 250 years. Consider also that the VEI index is exponential, such that VEI 5 is only 1/10 as explosive as VEI 6. The typical “10 daily” volcanic eruptions have a VEI of 0 or 1. Therefore, your “for the cheap seats” calculation - that the volcanoes erupting daily were even 1/10th as powerful as Pinatubo - is off by several orders of magnitude. The daily eruptions are typically less than 1 millionth of Pinatubo’s power. That means that the actual daily volcanic contribution to global warming is approximately equal to about 2 hours worth of human pollution. Or, humans produce twelve times as much “pollution” as volcanoes.

If we instead use Pinatubo as the benchmark and based on historically documented eruptions, we’ve had approximately 200 VEI6-equivalent eruptions in the last 10,000 years, or one every 50 years. That would make volcanism approximately 6 times as effective at polluting as humans.

The EMA quote does mention that Pinatubo released the largest cloud of “climate-modifying” gases since Krakatoa. While the volume of aerosols is most certainly accurate, and far in excess of anthropogenic greenhouse gases. However, that statistic is misleading - it strongly implies that all the aerosols released in the eruption have greenhouse effects. It ignores the fact that only very few gases have a greenhouse effect (in that they strongly absorb infrared radiation at specific wavelengths). The vast majority of volcanic aerosols do not exhibit the greenhouse effect - I’ve seen estimates that CO2 concentration in volcanic aerosols is as low as 1%. In fact, the vast quantity of larger particulates - which act to shade the earth from insolation - dominate the relatively small effect of what few greenhouse gases are released. This is born out by worldwide temperature charts which routinely show a drop in temperature following a major volcanic eruption.

Still, let’s assume that volcanism is a significant source of atmospheric CO2 - on the order of 6 times more effective than human pollution (i.e. assuming that the entire volume of volcanic aerosols have greenhouse effects). Even at 1/6th intensity, the human contribution will have some effect on the equilibrium concentration of CO2. If the climate was “balanced” before the addition of the human effect, then that effect will serve to steadily drive the climate in that direction. It really doesn’t matter how large and dramatic the natural cycle is - human contribution represents an unbalanced variable to the equation. Imagine a scale with two 60-ton weights balanced equally - adding an extra ton to one side is going to tip the scales. If you add a ramp between the two 60-ton weights - such that the higher one pours material into the lower, representing the forcing effects in the carbon cycle - you may not even need a full ton, it’s possible a single pound difference may start the transfer, resulting in a dramatic imbalance.

Now, there is still plenty of debate on exactly how the climbing CO2 concentrations will relate to climate change. The effect will definitely increase global temperatures, but how much? Is it dominated by other effects (such as increased cloud cover)? While the Kyoto Protocol does recommend the prudent step of limiting CO2 emissions, it’s effect is not uniformly applied to the global community. Kyoto specifically does not address the potential dangers of the Chinese Industrial Revolution - the world’s largest population using heavily CO2-emitting technologies that have long been replaced in first-world countries. It’s probably not the time for dramatic or draconian measures to restrict CO2 emission, unless they are applied universally to the entire planet. Even if we were to stop all anthropogenic emissions today, some estimate it would take 60-100 years before CO2 concentrations return to pre-Industrial Revolution levels. If existing CO2 concentrations are going to cause a change, there is little (if anything) we can do about it. I’ll also agree that it’s possible that conditions in some areas will improve with climate change, but I strongly suspect that such changes will be balanced by deterioration in other areas, resulting in a zero-sum game. Furthermore, the primary reason to restrict CO2 emissions is to prevent the change in climate - if that change is already inevitable, we are likely better off investing our resources in minimizing the effects of that change than trying to prevent it in the first place.

Of course, the primary effects of global climate change will be felt by those without sufficient resources to cope with the change (mostly Third World countries). Given that those primarily responsible for the change are First World nations, the entire process of climate change is yet another massive transfer of wealth from the impoverished nations of the world to the wealthy. Thus it doesn’t seem particularly fair (at least to me).

Finally, I find it hard to take seriously the scientific opinion of a man who says 2.97E12 has no common English word for it. I’ve personally heard the word “trillion” bandied about in fairly pedestrian conversation. If he doesn’t know it, that casts some serious doubt on his scientific credentials. I’d especially call into question his “junk science” statement. I’ve read a several of the scientific papers in support of (and in opposition to) Global Warming - all of them were far more scientific in their presentation than his article.

The first point is that trying to judge a half-seen preview as representative of the entire game is a potential problem. It’s entirely possible that the impression he’s gotten is based only on the limited information currently available, and with the release of the full rules (not due until early June) those impressions will prove to be unfounded.

Second point - decrying 4E for not explicitly supporting unusual actions, while giving a pass to earlier editions seems unfair. None of the earlier editions had explicit rules for throwing sand in an opponents face, or using a spear to pole-vault. Just because 4E doesn’t have them either doesn’t make it any more or less D&D than its predecessors.

I don’t believe either of these points forms the crux of Mr. Wiker’s opinion. Rather, his article seems to decry the trend that favors the rules over empowering the DM. While I’ll agree that the trend towards increasing the authority of the ruleset has definitely occured, I disagree that the purpose of it is to disenfranchise DMs. I further disagree with the conclusion that the purpose in increasing the authority of the rule system is meant to homogenize the play experience by making all DMs the same. I do agree that it’s highly unlikely that any two DMs will run a game exactly the same, and that attempting to achieve that goal across the entire breadth of the role-playing community is impossible.

The focus of increasing rules authority in 4th Edition is to reduce the reliance on the DM to adjudicate everything. More standard options means that most PCs are capable of staying “in bounds” while still having a variety of exciting choices. Players in 4E can still go “out of bounds” - but anything that isn’t explicitly covered in the rulebook still has to be handled by the DM. Minimizing DM adjudication does indeed reduce the minimum skillset necessary to become a DM. As a result, you will likely see more DMs who are uncomfortable adjudicating things that aren’t explicitly covered by the rules. However, you will also see more DMs. By lowering the barrier to entry for DMs, 4E will likely increase the abundance of DMs. They may not hold a candle to the old guard of 1E DMs who have run thousands of campaigns and can wing an entire campaign fueled only by caffeine and pizza - but they might eventually reach that level.

Simply put, DMing is hard. Some may have an inherent gift for it, but I’d wager that the vast majority of players consider it a much more daunting task than being a player. A proof, consider how many books, blogs, or other sources are focused on “being a better player” compared to the number on “being a better DM.” Increasing the authority of the rules can take the pressure off the DM. Less pressure to perform means more opportunity to pursue advancement (through reading the aforementioned material, or simply through more practice).

To use a restaurant parallel - older editions offered a menu with three courses: appetizer, main course, and dessert. 1E offered salad for the appetizer, steak for the main course, and cheesecake for dessert. If you wanted anything different, you could make a special request to the chef - who might have the skills and supplies to accede to your request… or he might not. 4E offers a list of a couple dozen appetizers, main course, and desserts, all ready-made from the factory, just heat and eat. You can mix and match off the menu as you see fit. If none of the menu options seems worthwhile, you can still ask the chef to prepare something special. Chefs in the 4E style may be less capable of special orders than the old 1E chefs, but there are likely to be a lot more of them.

D&D is the gateway drug of the RPG community. Most players start out playing D&D, and those who become most addicted to role-playing eventually try other systems. By lowering the barrier to entry for DMs and players alike by making the rules both simpler and more expressive, Wizards has the potential to expand the relatively niche RPG market. I’ll agree that the overall quality of DMs or players may decrease as a result - but an increased market means more money for RPG publishers, which in turn can lead to more quality RPG material, more freelancing opportunities, and a more compelling role-playing experience for all involved.

Empowering DMs is a good thing. I don’t believe for a second that 4E will encourage existing empowered DMs to suddenly stop running their games as they see fit. I might believe that we’ll see an influx of players who are less comfortable with DM empowerment - especially if those empowered DMs fudge the rules to the detriment of their characters. If the DM is fudging for the sake of a better experience - increasing the enjoyment of those at the table - I don’t believe that there is any problem. If, on the other hand, the DM is fudging for his own aggrandizement at the expense of the players - I feel that the slighted players are perfectly within their rights to complain.

Finally, there is also an argument to be made - by increasing the scope and authority of the rules, it makes it easier for DMs to grasp their own empowerment via imitation. As an example, based off of the material available to date, I could probably make a pretty interesting “sand to the face” power. An encounter power (once used in an encounter, enemies are unlikely to fall for it again) requiring a standard action and access to some sort of material (dust, sand, water) and a range of 1 square. Attack roll is Dex vs Reflex. A hit results in the target being blinded, save ends. I won’t say it only took me two seconds to come up with, but it certainly wasn’t long.

• Write for at least one hour every day
• Post the results of your writing at least once every 2-3 days
• Keep writing for at least 30 days.

I’m currently on Day 7 - and I’m starting to feel the “quality crunch.” Specifically, that the quality of my posts is declining, and I’m less willing to post what I write. Given my tendencies towards perfectionism, I’m forcing myself to publish even when I’m not really satisfied with the results - following the philosophy that more “good enough” content is better than less “perfect” content. Hopefully, the added practice writing will improve my ability while at the same time providing some meaningful content for you, the reader. That said, please don’t hesitate to provide constructive criticism (should you so desire), as it can only help me improve.

• Keep playing 3.X indefinitely
• Keep playing 3.X until more information on 4E is available
• Switch to 4E as soon as possible
• Abandon D&D entirely for another RPG system
• Abandon RPGs entirely

This division will fragment a once unified (or at least mostly unified) player base and that fragmentation will make it more difficult to find players.

Fragmentation has occurred before, with the release of every new version of the franchise. There are still players for every edition of D&D that has ever been in print. There have always been players who adamantly refuse to switch to the latest edition. There are always players who, after making the switch, will fondly recall older editions, and choose to return to them from time to time. In general, however, most players eventually “upgrade” to the latest edition.

For my part, having played most of the D&D versions, I see little advantage in returning to an older game system. I’ve occasionally gone back to my old rulebooks, and flipped through them nostalgically. I’ve regularly run classic adventures - Temple of Elemental Evil, Keep on the Borderlands, and even the killer-DM Tomb of Horrors - but it’s the stories I crave, not the mechanics. As D&D evolves over time, there may come a time when it evolves into something I no longer recognize, and no longer have any desire in playing. I can understand those who believe that 4E has already made that transition, but it is not a belief that I share.

The early months will certainly be difficult - especially as the dividing line may transect existing gaming groups, and players who share your preferred edition become more scarce.

• Cutting Teeth - I’d just gotten the Basic D&D Boxed Set (red box). I’d run a dozen or so adventures for my friends, and finally managed to wheedle one of them (Mike) into running a game for me, one-on-one. The unimaginatively named “BJ the Elf” managed to get through three rooms of the dungeon I designed before Mike grew bored and we shuffled back to his NES. Total Game Time: 1 Session - 45 Minutes
• Dungeon Crawling - After several years of experience, I finally stumbled upon the first player that I hadn’t introduced to the game. I played a cursed copper dragon trapped in the body of human thief. Besides my vivid memories of cowering from an ominous scratching at the door while we trying to rest up and regain hit points, and being turned into jelly by a ten-ton block of stone after a missed remove traps roll (something I only had a 15% chance of succeeding at), there isn’t much to say. Total Game Time: 1 Session - 3 hours
• Jedi vs. Aliens - Senior year of high school, another good friend (Adam) wanted to run a Star Wars D6 adventure. I conned him into letting me run one of my pet NPCs - a relatively capable Force-user who was far more powerful than the other PCs, but I promised to keep my Force powers hidden. We were helping a Star Destroyer defect to the Rebellion, but the Star Destroyer had some unknown encounter before we got there, leading to a Alien (of the Giger variety) infestation. The only reason we survived was by breaking my promise and unleashing Jedi-awesomeness against the Aliens (with strong assistance from the GMPC Star Destroyer Captain) - allowing most of the group to escape with out lives. Barely. Total Game Time: 1 Session - 4 hours
• Temple of Elemental Evil - My roommate and good friend Mark had an opening in his RPG group, as one of the players got clobbered by a Real Life. I took over playing an NPC gnome fighter/rogue named Wonilonn and actually managed multiple sessions for the first time in my player career. Unfortunately for me, the absent player got over his Real Life fixation and returned to the game. I was allowed to continue for another session or two, but my expertly-run flank-happy stabber was significantly better at all things roguish than the other guy’s rogue, and I was soon asked to leave. Total Game Time: 4 Sessions - 20 hours
• Vampires ‘R Us - The returning player from the ToEE felt a little guilty at my dismissal from the group above, and invited me to his nascent Vampire the Masquerade Chronicle. After spending hours detailing the history of my diablerist Assamite assassin turned Camarilla spy, I made it through a single session where absolutely nothing at all interesting happened. Despite having four players, none of us had any interaction except with the DM, so it was basically four concurrent one-on-one sessions. Thinking perhaps my character design was at fault, I volunteered to create a new character for the next session, a bat-shit crazy Malkavian with severe Multiple Personality Disorder - with the GM controlling which of the 6 distinct personalities was in control at any time. Unfortunately, the second session was likewise without any redeeming value, and I politely asked not to be invited back. Total Game Time: 2 Sessions - 8 hours (or 2 hours, if you count the time I actually got to do something)
• God-slaying for Goodness! - After moving to Denver, I managed to get recruited into a long-running campaign that had reached nearly epic levels. Not wanting to disrupt the group dynamic, I asked the DM (Ben) for any suggestions on character concepts, giving him a list of a dozen or so candidates I could try. The response was an incredibly generous “play whatever you want, oh, and triple the standard gp value for equipment.” After putting my eyes back in my head, I built a wind-walking cleric of Shaundakul (Forgotten Realms), and showed up eager to play. I’m not certain, but I think I seriously short-circuited the adventure, early on with a convenient teleport (possibly bypassing days-weeks of travel), and at the climax when I managed to one-shot disintegrate a crucial enemy who was shielding the Unholy Ritual to Destroy the World. The adventure ended happily, but so did the campaign. Total Game Time: 1 Session - 5 hours
• Jedi Futurama - Fortunately, despite the ending of the previous campaign, Ben chose to start up a new Star Wars campaign, set many years after the movie trilogy and any novel. Kell Vaska, a fringer-turned-Jedi adept in technology, telekinesis, and healing, managed to set a new personal record for sessions completed. Total Game Time: 8 Sessions - 40+ hours
• Shadowrun Fiasco - An online ad led to a (very) brief stint as Bryce Fairfax in a typically dystopian Shadowrun campaign. On the plus side, the GM was the first to use video in a session, a technique I’ve been trying to adopt. On the down side, the game was heavily biased towards combat - the ganger troll had about 3 hours of spotlight time fighting per session, while my medic/technician earned about 15 seconds of spotlight time reducing (but not eliminating) injuries sustained. I sent what I thought was a polite and constructive critique to the GM, but the game disintegrated soon thereafter (or I just stopped being invited). Total Game Time: 2 Sessions - 5 hours
• Star Wars One Shot - During a lull in my Convergent Threads campaign, Ben volunteered to run a couple adventures. My spec-ops infiltrator, Aren, managed to kill a robotic super-villain and steal some ultra-top-secret plans before being forced into some sort of witness protection protections program. To be fair, though, this one died mostly because everyone (myself included) wanted to get back to my campaign. Total Game Time: 1 Session - 5 hours
• Shortest Campaign Ever - After the conclusion of my year-long Convergent Threads campaign, Ben offered to take up the GM reins again, this time with the old Palladium Heroes Unlimited setting. I remember scraping my jaw off the floor when he told us the power levels - 3 major powers, or 2 major and 5 minor powers. I built the redoubtable Maxwell Olsen tightly bonded with Phil’s Melissa Jamison. Given the effort invested and interplay between the characters, I had the highest hopes for the campaign. Sadly, it ended a mere hour after it began - our power levels were so high that Ben simply couldn’t really challenge us. Total Game Time: 1 Session - 1 hour
• Age of Worms - Another online recruitment gave me a hour commute to northern Denver for Matt’s game. After having my first seven (yes, seven) character concepts rejected, I rolled up Garik Soulforge. The group met exactly twice, and we made it all the way through the first chapter of the campaign. Personality disputes with one player led to the dissolution and reformation of the group (a passive-aggressive tactic I didn’t much care for), but we were supposed to pick up with new sessions soon thereafter. Soon quickly became never. Total Game Time: 2 Sessions - 9 hours
• St. Albert’s Bay - My then-girlfriend (and long-time player) Julia decided to try running a game. The charming cassanova warlock Nalyx Ahriven paired up with a sole companion for several adventures in some post-apocalyptic hijinks worthy of John Carpenter’s Day of the Dead George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead. We made 4 whole sessions - which I still contend was done just to ruin my long-held claim of 3 sessions and out. Total Game Time: 4 Sessions - 14 hours
• Star Wars Saga - I convinced one of my long-time players to try running a Star Wars Saga game. We made it through the prelude, and were eagerly anticipating the first real adventure. Unfortunately for the campaign, but fortunately for the GM, he found a new love interest - game over. Total Game Time: 1 Session - 3 hours
• Average Total Game Time: 2.2 Sessions - 8.7 hours.

Given that I am the only constant variable in all these equations, I must assume that I am somehow the cause of all this misfortune. Possible explanations include:

1. I’m just really unlucky when it comes to gaming
2. I’m such an awesome GM that everyone else fears the unfavorable comparison. </sarcasm>
3. I’m such a terrible player that no one can stand me in the group.
4. I’m too willing to GM to get my gaming fix. By the time anyone else works up the desire, I’m already running a game.
5. I just haven’t found the right group yet.

I’m hoping it’s #5.