Category Archives: Idle Speculation

An Elemental of Surprise

Character Classes, Games!, Idle Speculation, Puns

Elementals

Elementals are incarnations of the elements that compose existence.

Surprise Elementals

Surprise Elementals inhabit the demiplane of Surprise, a mildly chaotic-aligned[1] plane loosely connected to the Prime Material plane. They embody the plane’s ethos of “always be surprising, especially when you are not”. This ethos separates the demiplane of Surprise and the Surprise Elementals from beings of pure chaos, as it acknowledges the refractory period between surprises which exists in most species.

Stealth-related skills are very common among denizens of the demiplane of Surprise, and Surprise Elementals are no exception. As surprise is a key component of their makeup, there are actually many exceptions. There are few things more surprising than a Surprise Elemental walking down a hallway towards you, sword in hand, yelling about bees[2].

The demiplane of Surprise is loosely connected to the Prime Material plane in a manner similar to that of the Ethereal plane. Any Surprise Elemental summoned will likely have been observing the actions of the summoner for some time.

When summoned to the Prime Material plane, Surprise Elementals are (usually) composed of the least likely substance nearby (DM’s discretion).

Relations with other Elementals:

Surprise Elementals are standoffish towards the four standard types of elementals. Surprise Elementals consider them excessively regular, that even the chaos of Fire Elementals is of an expected kind.

Relations with other Planes and Demiplanes:

Surprise Elementals have more in common with beings from the positive energy plane, who are some of the few beings who can be quicker and more energetic.

As Surprise Elementals are mildly chaotic-aligned, they tend to get along best with beings from planes that support changes of all forms. Beings from lawful-aligned planes tend to try to destroy or banish Surprise Elementals whenever they see them. Beings from the strongly lawful-aligned demiplane of Expectation are in direct opposition to beings from the demiplane of Surprise.

Combat:

Surprise Elementals always act in every surprise round, and can take full round actions, even though most beings can only take one action during a surprise round. Note that this means that they can use their ‘Surprise!’ special ability (see below) during a surprise round.

The actions and abilities of Surprise Elementals can vary from encounter, even from round to round, depending on their whim. Some ideas for skills, feats, and special abilities are below.

Surprise Elementals are often described as ‘going faster than one might expect’. They can travel as fast as is required to be surprising, up to a normal maximum of 120′. It is not fully known what method of transport they use. It may be somewhat dependent on the materials from which they are formed.

                     Surprise Elemental, Medium   Surprise Elemental, Large
Size/Type:           Medium                       Large
Type:                Elemental (Extraplanar)      Elemental (Extraplanar)
Hit Dice:            4d8+8 (26 hp) 	          8d8+24 (60 hp)
Initiative:          +8 (+see above)              +8 (+see above)
Speed:               Up to 120' (see above)       Up to 120' (see above)
Armor Class:         4d8+8 (26 hp) 	          8d8+24 (60 hp)
Base Attack/Grapple: +3/+4                        +6/+12
Attack: 	     Surprise. (see below)        Surprise. (see below)
Full Attack: 	     Surprise! (see below)        Surprise! (see below)
Space/Reach: 	     5ft./20ft. (see below)       5ft./20ft. (see below)
Special Attacks:     Surprise. and Surprise!      Surprise. and Surprise!	
Special Qualities:   Varies (see below)           Varies (see below)
Saves: 	             Fort +1, Ref +3, Will +9 	  Fort +2, Ref +5, Will +13
Abilities: 	     Varies (see below)           Varies (see below)
Skills: 	     Any (see below)              Any (see below)
Feats: 	             Any (see below)              Any (see below)
Environment: 	     Demiplane of Surprise        Demiplane of Surprise
Organization: 	     Solitary or groups           Solitary or groups
Challenge Rating:    5 or varies                  7 or varies
Treasure: 	     Varies (see below)           Varies (see below)   	
Alignment: 	     Mildly Chaotic               Mildly Chaotic
Advancement: 	     5-7 HD (Medium)              9-15 HD (Large)
Level Adjustment:    —                            —

Surprise.: As a move- or attack-equivalent action, a Surprise Elemental can attempt a ‘Surprise.’ This is based on any skill that the Surprise Elemental chooses, although they may not choose the same skill in two consecutive rounds, unless they do. The damage done is all subdual, and is equal to the DC achieved minus 20. The damage may be avoided by the target spending an action on an opposed skill check.

Surprise!: As a full-round action, a Surprise Elemental can attempt a ‘Surprise!’ This is a similar attack to ‘Surprise.’ above, but with a +5 to the roll, and if the attack is successful, the target is confused for one round. Note that this ability can be used during a surprise round, as Surprise Elementals are able to perform full-round actions during a surprise round.

Space/Reach: Normally, medium and large Surprise Elementals take up a 5′ square. If it is surprising enough (DM’s discretion), they can reach up to 20′ away to perform an action.

Special Qualities: Most Surprise Elementals have Sense Darkvision, 60′, so that they can better understand what the beings around them can perceive. Surprise Elementals have the following general traits of Surprise races:

– +1 bonus to Surprise lawful creatures, +2 to those associated with the demiplane of Expectation
– -2 penalty to saving throws against spells, spell-like abilities, and supernatural abilities with the Expectation subtype or used by creatures of the Expectation subtype
– Any one of the special abilities of any elemental subtype (does not breathe, stability, fire resistance, or natural swimmer)

Saves: Surprise Elementals depend on mental flexibility, and therefore are not as physically flexible (except for when these are reversed).

Abilities: Typically, Surprise Elementals will have the following abilites:

Medium: Str 11, Dex 14, Con 4, Int 21, Wis 11, Cha 11 	
Large:  Str 11, Dex 16, Con 6, Int 25, Wis 11, Cha 11

Note that Surprise Elementals are typically very intelligent, and will plan their surprises, skills, and feats to be the most surprising.

These abilities may vary wildly with no warning from one Surprise Elemental to another.

Skills: Surprise Elementals receive (6 + Int modifier)*4 skill points at first level, and 6 + Int modifier per hit die above that. All skills are class skills. The skill points may be allocated any way the DM wishes. a random generation may yield the best results. Remember that the Surprise Elementals will be working to optimize their ‘Surprise.’ and ‘Surprise!’ attacks, and so will tend to specialize and diversify, except when they don’t.

Feats: Any. Choose the most surprising. Horseback riding for an elemental that commonly takes the shape of a horse is a good example.

Treasure:

Surprise Elementals cannot generally bring items from the demiplane of Surprise when summoned, but will pick up any surprising items as they go past them when moving on the Prime Material plane. Treat this as version of ‘Kender Pockets’.

When encountered on the demiplane of Surprise, Surprise Elementals can be carrying literally anything, even things one might not expect them to be carrying, or they should not be able to carry (DM’s discretion). It is rumored that some Surprise Elementals incorporate dimensional rifts into themselves (similar to a portable hole) so as to be able to carry arbitrary objects.

Player Characters as Surprise Elementals:

This should not be allowed, unless you are running a very unusual campaign, and all characters are elementals or similar creatures. Any player character playing a Surprise Elemental should be expected to roleplay all surprises.

[1]The demiplane of Surprise is mildly chaotic, while Delight is mildly chaotic good and Prank is mildly chaotic evil. Expectation is strongly lawful, while Hope is strongly lawful good and Presumption is mildly lawful evil.

[2]Bees?

Unusual Pluralizations

Idle Speculation, Puns, Thoughts on Thoughts, Words!

‘Quartermasters General’. ‘Quarterpounders with cheese’. Some time ago, we talked about unusual long form names.

Today, we talk about unusual pluralizations.

You’re probably familiar with pluralizing ‘Quartermaster General’ to ‘Quartermasters General[1]’, and ‘Quarterpounder with cheese’ to ‘Quarterpounders with cheese’, but are you familiar with the pluralization of ‘Foot Locker’? How about ‘Head cheese[2]’?

‘Man-of-war’? ‘Attorney General’?

It’s enough to make mongeese pull their hairtholomew out.

[1]Not to be confused with the possessive, “Quartermaster’s General”, or the other possessive, “Quartermaster General’s”.

[2]Not to be confused with the ‘Head Cheese’, who stands alone.

Ethical In-Game Purchases

Economics, Games!, Idle Speculation, Internet Culture

Throughout the history of computer gaming, people have tried many different business models.

Early on, models included rental and sales of coin-operated machines, shareware, mail-order sales, sales through distributors, and doubtless others that I’m forgetting.

Monthly subscriptions were a more recent innovation, for games such as World of Warcraft, in an effort to find a more consistent revenue stream.

More recently, ‘Downloadable Content’ or ‘DLC’, and ‘in-app purchases’ have become de rigeur.

At their heart, they seem to be trying to solve the same problem as monthly subscription fees, but in a more explicit and a-la-carte fashion.

My recollection is that DLC was first, being a model very similar to the old shareware and multi-episode games. You would try the first one for free, or perhaps pay for it (depending on whether it was shareware), then that would entice you to purchase the next episode, and the next.

You knew pretty much what you were getting, the developers got a more consistent revenue, everyone was happy[1].

DLC then started branching out into partially or mostly cosmetic items, like the Oblvion Horse Armour

This still seems reasonable to me. You were playing a single player game, you wanted more features, the developers gave them to you for more money.

Then the ‘Free to Play’ games started becoming more and more popular. They would start out being free to play, but you would then need to play to continue after a certain point. Almost exactly the same as shareware, no problem. You purchased access after you had tried out the game. Totally reasonable, still very ethical.

But then the ‘Freemium’ games started coming out, the games that which were ostensibly free to play, but you could only play so many turns before you had to wait for your energy or whatever to recharge. However, you could play ‘just one more turn’ if you were to pay a little more money. This has gone from ‘money for content’ to ‘searching out and exploiting addiction‘.

In a somewhat orthogonally unethical category are games which allow you to pay to achieve an unfair advantage over other players in a multiplayer game. One of the games I currently play is an online turn-based strategy game, where you can pay money (about $15CAD) to get unlimited turn undos. This allows you to not pay for scouting units, and know the disposition of all of your enemy’s units, mostly obviating the ‘fog-of-war’ game mechanic. I’m sure it’s also very profitable.

In summary,

Ethical:
– Pay for more content/features
– Pay a subscription fee to keep playing on company-run servers[2]

Not so ethical:
– Pay to take more turns in the game with no ability to unlock as many turns as you want for a reasonable sum of money
– Pay to achieve an unfair advantage over other players

[1]Perhaps not game developers, but that’s a different story.

[2]We haven’t talked about games which stop working when the game company goes under and the server goes down…

A Long Tail of Whales: Half of Mobile Games Money Comes From 0.15 Percent of Players

Why do I Write?

Administrivia, Idle Speculation, Thoughts on Thoughts, Writing

Earlier today, after showing him my ‘Beenary‘ post from yesterday, M asked me: “How did you get the motivation to write every day?”

I ended up writing a lot on the topic (apparently I have feelings here), and I wanted to share it with you. (I’ve also said a few things on this topic in a previous post.)[1]

There are a few ways to interpret this question:

1) What started you writing every day?
– I was on vacation for the holidays, and had a few days to just sit on the couch and write, to get me started. Last year, I did some Project Euler problems, this year I decided to write. I ended up making some posts, and a bunch of extra drafts, which I mine when I’m looking for inspiration.

2) Why do you keep writing every day?
– I want to be able to look back and see things I’ve done, both for the feeling of satisfaction, and so I don’t forget things.
– It feels *really* good to finally be releasing (in the software sense) some of the thoughts and ideas that have been kicking around in my head for so many years.
– I know that I now feel like I have something to tell the world…I’m not sure where that changed. I know that when I was writing on LiveJournal, that was not the case, and that’s a lot of what stopped me.
– At the same time, I’m doing this for me more than for others. There was a time in February when my readership dropped by more than half for a week, but I found that it didn’t really change my motivation to write (turns out deleting a post manually (I had mistakenly hit ‘publish’ rather than ‘save draft’) on fb turns off autoposting).
– At some point I would like to write a novel (the category ‘Rollick’ is the closest I’ve come so far), and this is a convenient way to break it down into chunks and get ‘er done.

3) How do you keep writing every day?
– I’ve made it a non-negotiable. I’m allowed to get a day or two ahead, but I’m not allowed to fall behind. It helps that I usually finish them in the late evening for the following day, so I can trade a bit of sleep for writing the post that day.
– I currently have 127 drafts on the go, in addition to hundreds of emails to myself and a bazillion Apple Notes to myself. If that runs out, I have 19 years of journals and five figures of photos to mine for ideas.
– But don’t let that daunt you. After doing this for a bit, I find that I can take some random words and spin a story in about an hour that fills a few hundred words, sometimes more. I often start with puns, or two words which sound the same but are not really related. ‘Bracer, Embrasure’ started this way, I envisioned a hallway with display cases, a thief creeping down the hall, then I fit it into the existing ‘Rollick’ universe.

One thing I’m finding is that I would like to do more more in depth posts, but they are much more difficult to do on a work-during-the-week writing daily schedule. I usually have to give up an hour or more of sleep to get the focus and time required to get one of them done. Not sure how to solve this, other than doing more ‘quicker’ posts and giving myself more time for the more in-depth ones.

Really all of the above is a lot of words to say that I’m doing this because I enjoy doing it, and more fundamentally, I enjoy the act of creation.

[1]For those of you keeping score at home, this will be post 157, daily post #77, meaning I had 80 posts during the previous ~4.5 years. I also have 128 drafts, and 2 of my drafts went to the trash. 4800 emails, and 480 emails in my project folders. I’m releasing faster than I ever have, and the backlog is still piling up. Turns out prioritization is important in everything. (Compare with 5 Jan, where I had just finished my 10th daily post, I had 93 drafts, 0 Trash, 3600 in my inbox, and 400 in my project folder.)

Beenary

Fiction, Idle Speculation, Programming, Puns, Science!

It was never really taken seriously. It was most often expressed as a joke:

Q: What type of logic do hive dwellers use?

A: Beenary logic!

And this was true, to an extent. Bees did in fact use beenary logic. But like their honeycombs, it was a hexary, or six-valued logic system. As part of the ‘hive mind[1]’, they would dance in one of six directions for each hat[2] of information conveyed.

Most bee historians had indeed converged on the conclusion that bees were the true inventors of hexary logic, and were the first to answer yes or no questions in one of six ways.

So it was for this reason that ‘beenary trees’ had six children for each node, that a ‘beenary search’ would involve a bee making a ‘bee line’ out from a central hex, and ‘beenary star systems’ were much more complex.

Also, in their preferred computer language, the conditional operator was ‘Bees?’.

cah-bees

[1]Scuttlebutt has it that the bees always hated the term ‘hive mind’, both because “Yeah, we live in a hive, and we have minds. What of it?”, and because it was mistakenly applied to other colony forming insects.

[2]Binary uses ‘bits’ of information, the natural log uses ‘nats’ of information. Ergo…

Silos and Agile Project/Product Management

Agile, Idle Speculation, Software Development

Earlier this week, I was talking with a friend of mine who had been recently promoted from Scrum Master/Product Owner[1] to being a project/product manager[2].

The issue they were experiencing was that they had a number of teams (think 10+), each of which was producing a good product, but the product as a whole was terrible. Also, the last time they tried to assemble a team to deal with this, it foundered because of intense opposition and inertia.

So, how do you deal with this, especially as a product manager in charge of the whole project, with no direct reports[3]?

We ended up almost working backwards to find a solution. When they were on a team, their sideways management[4] style was to learn how each of the people tick, and to help fit them with doing the work that was best for them.

My first idea was to have a working group with a member of each of the teams, where they would work together to make all the parts work better as a whole.

To me, this felt like it was iffy, and could easily be torpedoed by a small number of people obstructing it, or even not being engaged.

So, we came up with something simpler. In any project of this size, there must be some more obvious pain points, and some people who are more interested in collaborating to solve them. So, you just need to get a few people in a room together. Maybe only two. You find a few quick wins where they can quickly show the benefits of working together. Maybe the things they’re working on are even useful to their own teams.

To me, this is really using the Agile principles the way they’re supposed to be used. You find the most obvious problem, find a small number of people who are most interested in solving it, get some quick wins, and then spiral out from there.

We’ll see how well this ‘Agile from Below’ worked. Here’s hoping.

[1]This is how they described it, but didn’t go into detail, and I might have misheard it. If true, I’m not sure how this would work in practice, perhaps as a counterweight to supervisory management?

[2]They described it as one or both of these, and the role described above could be defined (as far as I know) as either. Thinking about it some more, it feels more like a product management role, which is how I decided to write it above.

[3]That you can direct. Ha!

[4]I use ‘sideways management’ to mean things positions like ‘Scrum master’, where your job is to remove blocks from people who don’t report to you.

Four Colours

Idle Speculation, Thoughts on Thoughts, Visualizations

Today, I wanted to share with you an ‘organizing things to do’ method that Y showed me a long time ago.

This method is from a podcast by a talented individual known as Chris Westra[1].

I also love ASCII 4-quadrant diagrams, so we’ll start with one[2]:

  Spend 80%       Spend 20%
  of your time    of your time
  on this         on this
  column          column

  DEEDS           TASKS
*---------------*-----------------*
| Red:          | Black:          |
| Things which  | Required, but   | 
| Move your     | Not Important   |  TODAY
| Project       | in and of       | 
| Forward       | themselves      |
| in a Big Way  |                 |
*---------------*-----------------*
| Green:        | Blue:           |
| Things to     | Maybe important |  TOMORROW
| Automate or   | in the Future,  |
| Delegate      | but Not Now     |
*---------------*-----------------*

The upper left corner (Red) is ‘Things which move your project forward in a ‘Big Way’. This is the writing that important post, writing that module[3], calling that important new client, building that thing. Basically, anything that is a deed, not a task. Done once, will move your project forward.

The upper right corner (Black) is ‘Things which are required, but not important in and of themselves’. Chris uses the example of ‘changing the printer ink’, to mean anything that needs to be done, but you really shouldn’t take more time than you need to. Anything which is a task, something that you do repeatedly is in this category. You should be constantly looking for ways to automate or delegate things in this category (we’ll cover that later). This category contains tasks which may feel somewhat satisfying to perform in the moment, but ultimately are meaningless in the grand scheme. The tasks here tend to be easier and require less decision making than red tasks, so it’s easy to get distracted here.

The lower right corner (Blue) is ‘Things which are maybe important in the future, but not now’. All of your undirected R&D is in this category, Chris mentions reading trade publications, lots of random browsing can be in this category.

The lower left corner (Green) is (for me) where this method really shines. In this category is ‘Things which you can automate or delegate’. Something where you spend an hour today which saves you a minute a day for the rest of your life[4]. Chris says (and I agree) that it’s important to do one or two of these every day. You will thank yourself later.

In my first phase after discovering this way of thinking, I rotated from Black/Blue to Blue/Green. Through considerable work, and some life coaching, I feel like I’m finally making the rotation from Blue/Green to Green/Red. This takes considerable self-discipline, and can feel emotionally difficult as you give up spending time on things which give short-term accomplishment feelings, but don’t really help you towards your goals.

Comments? Put them below!

Note: I added the column and row labels above. They’re not quite accurate. If you have better suggestions, comment!

[1]I can’t seem to find him online any more. If I do, or if someone points me to him, I’ll put it in the comments below. EDIT: I added http://christopherwestra.com above. He also has a site at http://icreatereality.com which is…a little…on the strange side of new age. But the mental model above is still very useful.

[2]Some people have said that it reminds them of ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People‘

[3]This would be true for any of the 3+ meanings of ‘module’.

[4]A handy chart from XKCD on when this is worth it. This may understate how worth it is, if it also reduces your ‘open loops‘.

Peep-to-Peep Computing

Fiction, Idle Speculation, Internet Culture, Puns

[chirrp][chirrp][cheeerp](whirring noises)[chrrreeep][cheeerp]

It started out as a humorous RFC, something that you would share with your friends and have a quick chuckle over.

[chbeep][chrsssssh][weeooweeoo][bloooop?]

But then the solar flares started. They only caused small problems at first, a little more static on your VOIP call, your conference calls became a little more annoying.

[maaa][maaaa]

Soon, it was all they could do to keep the electrical infrastructure in place. It would have to all be refit, and that would take years, if not decades. A different solution had to be found. Luckily, someone had managed to cross pigeons with mockingbirds.

[booooeyp][booooeyp]

You were limited to the speed of sound, but with creative sampling and filtering, you could train the ‘Mimidae Columbida‘ (or MimiCos, as they were called) to only listen for specific types of sound, and to re-chirp them as soon as they heard them.

[beeyooop][chiiiip?]

Many things became simpler. When you could only send data at 300 baud, IRC and MUDs flourished again. Twitter shortened its character limit to 100, then 50 characters. Emoji encodings became even more compact. People became adept at ‘hearing’ the messages before they were decoded, some were even forgoing the decoding stage, and speaking only ‘beakspeak’.

[yeeebeep!][gshhhhh][yeeeniiip]

Oh, that’s an urgent message coming through! Gotta run! [yeeeneepneep!]

#internetofbirds

From S

BOF VII: More Vignettes:

Idle Speculation, Internet Culture, Nostalgia, Thoughts on Thoughts

(Some mild editing to protect the more innocent.)

Belleville, Day2.
Science question:
Irritating life partner #1 is going “Aaaugh”.
Irritating life partner #2 is going “Pffftbbbbr” at a 45 degree angle.
At what angle does the associated weather pattern emerge, and which irritating life partner grows more damp as a result?

“The person who rebuffs you… Are they already shiny?”
S, D, and L like this.
GW: wait… if they’re rebuffing you, isn’t it you that was/is shiny?

“Post-modern Rube Goldberg machine. Discuss.”
MC: Facebook? The most convoluted advertising mechanism every built. Founded upon our natural narcissism and need for attention.
Me: Kind of like gossip/tabloids 2.0?

Me: Sherriff = Shire + Reeve. Huh.
K and D like this.
SED: Shire = village, reeve = protector. You’ll never guess where “fireplace” comes from!
Me: A type of fish that lives in fir trees?
RG: Yes that’s right.
AK: Neat. Word etymologies are fun for the whole family. I use this site, which seems pretty nifty: http://www.etymonline.com/
Also, “spitfire” used to be more profane: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=spitfire
– Etymonline, a map of the ‘wheel-ruts’ of English.

Me: Do you get your money back when you return an error code?
You, P, and S like this.
IM: Yes, but in bitcoin
DR: yes but…in counterfeit bills?
IM: Or error bills– collectors’ items

Expanding Your Horizons

Idle Speculation

“Expanding your horizons”

Stop for a second and really think about what that phrase means…

How exactly would one expand one’s horizons? If you’re down a well, the horizon would appear to be a small circle far above you, but if you’re at ground level, and outside, your horizon is pretty fixed.

Really, the way to expand your horizon if you’re outside is to remove all obstructions. Mountains? Mountains only block your horizons. Skyscrapers? They only block the sky[1].

The other way to expand one’s horizons is to be higher off the ground, so you can see further. The Burj Khalifa’s upper floors are so high up off the ground that a daily fast will last 2-3 minutes longer because your
horizon has expanded and you can see the sun further into the evening[2].

Perhaps ‘expanding your horizons’ means increasing the number of dimensions you’re looking at? Yes, a 4-D hypersphere would have a 3-D horizon, or event horizon in the case of a 4-D black hole, which is one theory for how the Big Bang started our universe[3].

So, it turns that to expand your horizons, you must first invent the universe[4].

[1]They don’t even scrape it. Really, there’s no way to scrape the sky. It’s not a solid. Technically, you could take air in the upper atmosphere and freeze and condense it such that it would be scrapeable, but your building would probably crack at that temperature anyway.

[2]Thanks, Neil deGrasse Tyson!

[3]This is so very cool. Read the article!

[4]“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe” – Carl Sagan