De Fenestra

Serialized

Wed, 01 Jan 2025 15:04:47 GMT

Over on my gaming blog, I'm doing the Character Creation Challenge for 2025. Let's see how long my motivation lasts.

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Malleolus

Sun, 22 Dec 2024 02:08:02 GMT

There I was, minding my own business, carrying a 40-pound bag of salt for the water filter downstairs. My left foot missed a step, caught the next one, and went in a couple different directions in which it was not designed to go.

And that's the unrewarding story of how I broke my ankle today. Probably gonna spend the next six to eight weeks with crutches and a cast.

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Good Boy

Sat, 24 Aug 2024 11:37:56 GMT

In the spirit of Hollywood's tendency to strip-mine itself, I present my pitch for the next mega-million-dollar franchise:

A shot-for-shot, line-for-line remake of the John Wick series, altered only as needed to support one key change - the dog, rather than John, is the protagonist.

After John's death, the dog becomes anthropomorphic. This occurs out of frame. No explanation is ever given. Before John gets dropped, it's a dog. After John gets dropped, it's a dog with opposable thumbs, upright locomotion, and human speech.

Everyone recognizes the dog as John's dog. Everyone knows it's an anthropomorphic dog. No one comments on the sheer fucking incongruous oddity of this.

The dog inherits all of John's standing at The Continental and throughout the society of assassins. Everyone accepts this as a completely normal occurrence, too.

There are no other anthropomorphic animals in the film. Only the dog.

The dog is, of course, voiced by Keanu Reeves.

One good boy in a world full of horrible people.

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Pitohui

Thu, 04 Jul 2024 10:57:37 GMT

The world needs more neurotoxin-producing birds.

There's probably a gaming cryptid concept here, but the real-world thing is awesome enough.

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Match Grade

Sun, 05 May 2024 11:38:03 GMT

One of my new co-workers is on the board of a local gun club. (He's trying to get me to join the waiting list for membership, but NRA membership is a requirement, and fuck the NRA's bigotry and corruption with a dead rat wrapped in rusty barbed wire.) He's one of the organizers of their monthly competition events. Six months a year, he's running pretty standard IDPA/USPSA-style matches - defensive pistol, holster work, symbolic cover garment. It's all very stylized bullet golf.

In the off months, however, he's mixing it up a little bit. March was a BUG match: backup guns. Yesterday's was a combination BUG and shotgun (in separate stages - three each).

In theory, the BUG stages are for semi-autos or revolvers suitable for pocket carry or deep concealment. Each stage is designed for six rounds, no reloads. Also, because some of these bicentenarian motherfuckers have never heard of safety and shake like a dog crapping a peach pit, no drawing from a holster or pocket - each stage either starts with the gun in hand at low ready or staged on a table in front of the shooter.

I ran the March and May BUG events with a pocket revolver - double-action only, 2" barrel, iron sights. It's a long walk from my usual carry guns, but in the four months before the move, I shot almost 500 rounds with it in training, so I'm fairly comfortable with it. If I don't rush my shots too badly, I'm getting very acceptable accuracy at normal match or defensive distances.

It's been interesting to hover on the periphery of the side conversations at these matches and hear the complaints of the guys who don't actually shoot their light-duty carry guns that much (or at all). Sights are too small, can't get a good grip, trigger is too heavy, gun isn't reliable... okay, so the latter is not all that surprising in light of some of the bargain-basement weapon selections I've seen on display.

All of these are lessons I've had to learn myself, sometimes through expensive fuck-ups. It makes me highly aware of much I still don't know.

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Recapitulation

Mon, 22 Apr 2024 10:37:42 GMT

I'm getting ready to restart my not-entirely-pure-Twilight: 2000 campaign after a months-long hiatus. To reorient my players (and maybe myself as well), there's a summary of events thus far over on the other blog.

(As always, the full index of campaign posts is available too.)

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Cancellation

Sun, 22 Oct 2023 23:40:15 GMT

I killed off my old Mindspring email account yesterday. bad_karma@mindspring.com is now a dead address.

To be fair, I hadn't used it regularly since about 2007. I got that account in 1997 as part of my dial-up internet service in my apartment in Bowling Green, but once I switched to Macs for home productivity and writing, I jumped on the mac.com/MobileMe/iCloud integrated services and switched over all my correspondence. The old Mindspring account had a lifetime's worth of saved emails, but they were all stored in Thunderbird, which won't even run under newer versions of MacOS. So with those only available to me on the backup laptop, I was paying eleven bucks a month for nostalgia and the someday-maybe thoughts.

With the events of the past couple of months, I've been looking at things from my past that I can afford to cut away. This was one of 'em.

Also canceled Netflix and my Adobe Creative Cloud subscription, but there was a lot less introspection associated with those decisions.

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COBRA 27

Wed, 18 Oct 2023 00:32:25 GMT

The internet sure is a thing.

Leaving a medical appointment today, I looked up to see a four-engined, bulbous-nosed, USAF-liveried jet in a low-altitude bank. Sixty seconds on my phone gave me an ID:

So that was a Rivet Joint ELINT training flight out of Omaha.

But I'm sure the pants-on-head crowd will something something chemtrails mind control vaccine 5G.

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Redirection

Sun, 15 Oct 2023 12:49:24 GMT

Irregular (but more frequent than here) gaming-related blogging is happening at https://libellus.de-fenestra.com/.

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Throughput

Wed, 04 Oct 2023 13:52:44 GMT

Every time I run a backup on the new MacBook Air, I am utterly astonished at the speed difference between older USB standards and USB-C.

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Antiauthoritarian

Sat, 23 Sep 2023 22:56:02 GMT

You can't be promoted high enough to not be wrong.

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Borderland

Thu, 21 Sep 2023 23:55:36 GMT

It's not a War on Christmas, it's a War to Defend the Territorial Integrity of Halloween.

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Fluid

Sun, 12 Feb 2023 16:29:08 GMT

One of the things I loathe about living in Iowa is the extended (compared to what I'm used to from Kentucky) winters. My last couple of years in Lexington, I was able to start bike commuting - about seven miles each way, with a great shower facility and secure bike storage at the office. The equivalent facilities here are much less satisfactory, and honestly, living less than two miles from work means it's not actually good exercise to ride in. Counting the time to prep riding gear and change clothes after arriving, it's actually more of a time suck than driving - whereas in Lexington, I was actually seeing no time loss compared to driving in.

In months that don't suck, and on weekends when the prairie wind isn't howling, my partial substitute has been to ride downtown to pick up mail. That's about an eight-mile round trip, but I usually screw around for a couple of hours and extend it to 20 or so by doing laps around downtown and campus. However, that's only viable on good-weather weekends about May through October.

This is one of several reasons that my general fitness level has been slowly but steadily deteriorating since the move.

I've been eyeing indoor bike trainers for a while, thanks to DC Rainmaker's site (which I originally started following just for reviews on Garmin watches, but dude knows his shit). Over winter break, I broke down and wandered into the FLBS. I came away with their entry-level option, a Saris Fluid2.

I've gotten in about a dozen "rides" since then, which is pretty good considering I hadn't been on my bike since last August. The mind-numbing boredom of pedaling for an hour and going nowhere is alleviated by my ~~excellent foresight and planning~~ fortunate but completely-unrelated random action of wall-mounting our smaller television in the basement on an oversized VESA arm. I have to crank the volume up to hear it more-or-less-clearly over the hum of the trainer, but I can quite readily watch an hour-long show while maintaining a simulated pace of about 10-12mph. It's helping me chew through my various streaming queues, which I otherwise kind of forget are there.

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M2

Tue, 17 Jan 2023 13:48:22 GMT

I bought my MacBook Pro in early 2014. It was my third Apple computer and second Apple laptop, a belated graduation present to myself after finishing my master's and landing my first full-time emergency management job. It's been uncomplainingly robust until fairly recently, when it started to labor under what I guess is, for it, intensive load - large InDesign layout jobs and some other stuff that seems to tax its graphics capabilities. It's not throwing any errors but I don't want to risk a catastrophic hardware failure at an inconvenient time, and nine years is a lot to get out of any laptop. It feels like I'm pushing my luck.

I have an uncomfortable cheap/atavistic streak that wants to get the most out of any piece of essential hardware while simultaneously feeling guilty about setting aside something that still works just fine. But I'm also in a place where I can afford to spend money to (a) forestall problems and (b) have a backup system of known quantity in case the new primary craps out. So yesterday, I threw Apple a fair bit of coin for a mid-range MacBook Air M2.

The transition has, so far, been remarkably straightforward and drama-free. File transfer on a peer-to-peer wireless connection took about four hours for ~380 GB of data and applications. Leaping a few years of MacOS updates in a single bound will no doubt throw minor complications in my face for some time to come, but the basic user experience is the same, and it seems that almost all my accounts and credentials transferred over without issue.

I'll continue working in parallel on both machines for a bit until I'm sure the new rig is stable and I haven't lost anything essential in the transition. But the MacBook Pro is now in the basement with its external monitor, where it will likely remain for a few more years as the workshop's research/YouTube computer. It's a well-earned semi-retirement.

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Arterial Bleeding, Ranged Combat -2 with two-handed weapons

Sat, 19 Feb 2022 14:46:27 GMT

I hope to get back to Five Parsecs From Home soon. I paused progress on it this week to dig into the combat rules for the 4th edition of Twilight: 2000. My first impression is that this is both much faster and much more lethal than previous editions, though it has some idiosyncrasies that I'll probably house-rule.

I generated a party of six PCs with the life path rules (which are a separate issue begging for a better character creation system). I selected the most combat-capable three of those and put them up against three stock marauder NPCs with AKMs. At the start of the fight, the marauders were looting an abandoned farm when they spotted the PCs coming and tried to set up for an ambush. The PCs were just starting after escaping from Kalisz and hoping to acquire a vehicle; the marauders' HMMWV provided an appealing option.

The marauders' plan was to take the PCs under fire as they entered the open space between the two main houses. However, the opposed Recon check did not go in the ambushers' favor and combat played out without ambush effects.

( Read more... )

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VotO #7: Campaign Turn 3

Sun, 06 Feb 2022 21:26:51 GMT

Having done some ballistic investigation work, the crew of the Obfuscator greets the new day with renewed vigor (and a renewed armory). What shenanigans await them on Streron 41C today?

( Read more... )

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VotO #6: Post-Battle 2

Sun, 06 Feb 2022 16:44:52 GMT

The defeated mercenary tells what he knows, but it isn't much. He was hired for the hit via an anonymous comm call. Flash smirks, holding up the data crystal. "I'll bet I can dig something out of this," she purrs.

[quest progress: +1 quest rumor, next quest mission remains on this world]

( Read more... )

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VotO #5: Battle 2

Sun, 06 Feb 2022 16:28:57 GMT

Some legwork gets a line on the location where the murderer is hiding. He's allegedly holed up alone in a disused cargo handling facility. Six to one odds should be easy, but he is reported to have a colony rifle, so it'll pay to be cautious...

( Read more... )

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VotO #4: Campaign Turn 2

Sun, 06 Feb 2022 15:05:07 GMT

A hive swarm invasion of Hunnistea IV is imminent. The crew of the Obfuscator has a little advance warning, but not much, and a maintenance accident has left them with a ship of questionable reliability. They need to get off-world before things go completely bug-hunt. Crane thumbprints the fuel invoice [-5 credits] and begins snapping out orders...

( Read more... )

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VotO #003: Post-Battle 1

Sun, 06 Feb 2022 03:53:12 GMT

The team rushes to Beech's side. After a quick examination, it's clear that the cuts look worse than they are. her equipment harness deflected the worst of the attack, and the homemade dazzle grenade is not looking very reliable.

Hearing a call for help from inside a nearby cargo container, the team advances carefully. Otter hotwires the lock and the doors swing open to reveal a shipyard worker who's been hiding here for four days, subsisting on things best not dwelt upon. Legs stands guard over him while the rest of the team checks the area. The search turns up a machine pistol, still clutched in its previous owner's severed hand, and the briefcase full of Cerian spice that Beech heard rumors of.

Feeling unreasonably fortunate, the crew escorts the laborer to safety and heads off to the meet with their patron. The MHI representative is stunned to hear what they faced - the evidence confirms fears of an imminent alien invasion! He hands over their payment without further questions, then turns and heads for his vehicle, pulling out his pocket communicator as he goes.

The crew looks at one another. "I think we need more shotguns," Legs observes.

( Read more... )

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VotO #002: Battle 1

Sun, 06 Feb 2022 03:37:18 GMT

The reason for MHI's urgency and pay rate becomes clear once the briefing comes through. One of the company's building slips has an infestation of an unknown form of alien life. The critters are roughly human-sized, fast, aggressive, and tough. Corporate security is refusing to go in due to a clause in its union contract, so the company needs outside contractors - and fast, before the hive spreads to the neighboring drydocks.

( Read more... )

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VotO #001: Campaign Turn 1

Sun, 06 Feb 2022 01:13:22 GMT

We begin with the crew on Hunnistea IV. Hun-IV has a thriving shipyard industry thanks to the population's [technical knowledge], but to deter industrial espionage, the shipwright syndicates have convinced the planetary government to put [travel restrictions] in place. Thankfully, this regulatory overreach doesn't extend to the job market, so our band of freelancers can seek employment.

The Obfuscator has been dirtside for a few weeks and the crew has pulled a couple of small jobs that have yielded some contacts. Legs took care of one of the aforementioned industrial espionage issues for McGowan Heavy Industries, yielding a [corporate patron]. The investigative fallout from this led Crane to help out the local cops, giving him a [local government patron] on the force. Meanwhile, Flash was out drinking and making friends, including another [local government patron] in the form of a records clerk.

( Read more... )

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VotO #000a: The Ship and The Campaign

Sat, 05 Feb 2022 23:39:12 GMT

The Obfuscator is a Bartuk Systems Constellation light freighter. She's an [unreliable merchant cruiser] requiring constant attention. Her major systems are in tune but the amount of work required to keep them in that condition means the little stuff tends to slide. Faulty seals on Beech's hydroponic systems keep the humidity a touch too high and make half the compartments smell like salad, the hull fittings creak and grind alarmingly under high thrust or when hitting atmo, there's a persistent echo in the 1MC... that sort of thing. It's always something new. Fortunately, Ice scored a two-for-one deal on espresso machines on the last planetfall, so at least there's a spare for the most critical life support equipment.

[the ship has Hull 30 and the crew is 24 credits in debt on her]

[ship's stores include one dose of booster pills and one med-patch]

[other startup stuff here: the crew starts with 7 story points, 20 credits, 1 quest rumor, and 3 patrons]

[I'm going to run my first campaign in easy mode, so I'm setting my victory condition to Play 20 campaign turns... if I stay interested that long, that's a good sign]

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VotO #000: Meeting the Crew

Sat, 05 Feb 2022 23:23:27 GMT

I recently picked up a copy of Five Parsecs From Home. In lieu of any in-person gaming (or doing productive work on any of my other projects), I'm going to start chronicling my crew's shenanigans here. Let's see how long this entertains me.

( Read more... )

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Retrohoplology

Sat, 30 Oct 2021 13:01:05 GMT

Walk into any gun store in this country and you can't swing a proverbial dead cat without hitting some flavor of 1911. The Cult of Colt has kept the ancient .45 alive well past its centennial. However, another John Browning-designed* pistol improved on the 1911 (he said trollishly) and achieved equally-lasting international regard despite never gaining more than lukewarm acceptance in the U.S. I refer, of course, to the Browning Hi-Power, otherwise variously known as the Grande Puissance, HP-35, and GP-35. Licensed production and quasi-legal copies and derivatives proliferated internationally, and some have made it to our shores, but there hasn't been an American-built Hi-Power clone.

Until now.

Springfield Armory announced this week the SA-35, their take on the Hi-Power. From their own advertising and, more importantly, early pistolsmith reports, it is a faithful copy with full parts compatibility and a few key differences. Those differences include the factory omission of the magazine disconnect (a French military requirement in the original spec that contributes to the Hi-Power's greatest weakness, its mediocre trigger), a less-bitey hammer (never a problem for me, personally, but I don't have strangler's hands), a slight bevel to the magazine well for more reliable loading, and a more accessible factory safety. In short, Springfield's factory-spec pistol includes many of the improvements that the Hi-Power enthusiast community considers necessary for a reliable defensive pistol.

Springfield has a mixed reputation in firearms circles but their higher-end 1911s seem to be pretty well-regarded. Combine this with the fact that their own web page for the new gun is titled "SA-35 Series Handguns" (emphasis mine), and there's a certain implication that the initial release will be followed by additional variations. Possibly just different finishes, which still would not be bad... but I'm crossing my fingers for an optics-ready version or an SA-35 TRP. There are also a couple of Hi-Power variants that Springfield might decide to delve into, such as the "artillery" model with a detachable stock (have fun with that one, ATF) and the shorter-barreled "Detective" model from Argentina's FM.

This has my attention. The only development in pistol-world that could make me happier would be someone stepping up to release a lightly-modernized H&K P7...

* Technically, Browning did the initial design work before passing away. Dieudonné Saive of FN picked up the torch and finished the Hi-Power. Saive later designed the most beautiful battle rifle of the 20th Century, the FN-49, as well as the later and much more famous FAL. Dude doesn't get nearly enough name recognition.

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