C.I.T.O.K.A.T.E.

Penguicon 2013 Dominion Tournament Postmortem Analysis

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 13:58:22 GMT

I prepared for this year's tournament more meticulously than any before, but got a worse outcome than ever before. Contestants: I hear you, I understand exactly what caused this, I have a plan to fix it, and it will never happen again. Previously, I have never had such space constraints that I would have to make it clear to the programming team that my event needed tables empty for an hour beforehand to set up the tournament. That was my downfall.

The sign-up sheet was almost full. The tournament was scheduled to start at 4PM. I was scheduled to be in the Penguicon Board of Directors meeting from 3 to 4 PM, so I got some minions to set up the tournament. I gave them setup instruction sheets and one pre-assembled material packet per table. Unfortunately, there was a presentation going on in the Private Dining during that hour, so all the tables were full of gamers. My minions are kind-hearted and would never kick gamers out of the only places available to play. Due to space constraints, they would effectively close down the entire game room, end all the games in progress, and kick pretty much everybody out. I was the only one assertive enough to do that, and I was in a meeting.

As a result, setup did not take place, and the tournament started almost an hour late in a huge panicky disorganized rush, while the room was crowded with contestants. A lot of our signed-up players walked out during this time, meaning we had to re-organize the seating chart, and it took even longer. There were some setup errors, so some games had cards in them which I did not intend, resulting in extremely slow and/or swingy games.

How to fix it:

1. A sign on each table at the start of the day, saying "Please be done with games on this table by 3PM, to allow for Dominion tournament setup".
2. Do not accept being scheduled to do something else during setup.

Congratulations to the winner, Mike Riverso! He jotted his contact info and shipping address on Evernote on my phone. As soon as he left, it gave me a "java.io.IO" error and lost his information. I put up a sign in the lobby, and he sent me his info through email, so all's well that ends well. He will receive a copy of the new Dominion expansion, "Guilds", in about a month when it is published.

New things that went well:

Penguicon's new Dominion collection. The convention now owns two copies of every Dominion product, so we had enough cards. With thirty-two players and eight simultaneous games, it was the largest Penguicon Dominion tournament ever, so we needed it!

Using a megaphone. No more shouting myself hoarse.

I ordered plenty of "Estate" "Duchy" and "Province" ribbons to hand them out to each contestant. I have next year's supply already.

My Penguicon Presenter Schedule

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 14:48:31 GMT

I am presenting in the following events at Penguicon:

Friday, 8 PM: Sci Fi on the Radio
Come attend a live dramatic reading of several early century radio scripts! Close your eyes and use your imagination, and allow our talented voice actors and foley artists to create terrors and intrigue!

Friday, 9 PM: Vinyl Cutting Demo
Your own custom design would be way better for your car window than stick figures of your family, or Calvin peeing on things you hate. This class will explain and demo how to: make vector art; use a plotter to cut it out of vinyl; weed the excess off; transfer it to a masking tape backing; and apply it. Bring an SVG or AI file on a thumb drive to go away with your own decal.

Saturday, 1 PM: Laser Cutters
The i3Detroit hacker space in Ferndale raised $6,800 in donations to buy a 150-watt laser cutter and engraver with a 3'x4' bed, capable of cutting through up to half an inch (depending on the material). This will be a presentation of photos of the machine, samples, a description of the process and capabilities, and a demonstration of the laser cutter software. This class can be your first step in certification to use it.

Saturday, 3PM: Penguicon Board Meeting
No, it's not spelled B-O-R-E-D! The important, long-term decision making squad assemble for a quarterly meeting. Open to the public.

Saturday, 4PM: Annual Dominion Tournament
Plan to play through 2 games with pre-designed sets. You can sign up at Ops to make it easier on me, but if not, please just walk in! Winner will be shipped a copy of the "Guilds" expansion when it becomes available. In this million-selling “non-collectable card game”, players start with the same simple deck, and use their cards to buy cards into their collection from the middle of the table. They go through their deck repeatedly to use their new cards to buy even more lucrative cards. Whoever buys the expensive victory cards first, wins.

Saturday, 11PM: Divination With Dominion Cards
Just for fun, we will pretend to perform cartomancy with Dominion cards. I have devised an intricate system for interpreting 20 randomly-selected cards, to tell you the winning strategy for the next few days of your life.

Roll With It: FestiFools 2013

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 03:16:26 GMT

This was the most noteworthy of all FestiFools in which I have participated. The differences were pretty interesting, so I'm writing about it. I didn't make a puppet of my own this year, and decided to help out as a volunteer puppet operator.

I went with Adrienne, who some of you may know from conventions and others may know from i3Detroit hacker space. We went to a pre-meeting last weekend. Some of the central organizers for the event are new this year. One of them gave a description for an elaborate choreography that they were going to try to introduce. The very idea of choreography struck me as a bit out-of-place, given that the theme of the event is chaos and spontaneity, which has always been pretty fun. But in reality, the spirit of Festifools is not so much "chaos and spontaneity" as "whatever happens, roll with it, and see what emerges". So I rolled with it.

On the day of the event, we showed up a little bit later for setup than anticipated. After we signed in for volunteering, the organizer had to pause and give some thought to which puppets needed more operators. That was unusual, in that normally they have been starved for puppeteers.

One of the event organizers teaches an art class at the university of Michigan, and this class produces most of the puppets for Festifools. We were directed to what the organizer called "that grid thing over there". The artist who made that grid thing over there was one of the students. The artist was on the phone, and attempted to have half a conversation with us until I suggested that we discuss it when the call was complete.

The grid thing was a cage with a multitude of mannequin arms which were painted brown. After the phone call, the artist explained the message of the artistic thesis, concerning the perpetuation of slavery into the modern day. We were introduced to a paper-mache head that the artist had made to come out of the top of the cage. It was a blackface caricature, with googly-eyes and big red clown lips. To the cage were attached large cartoony paper-mache shackles which we were to wear over our necks.

"Are you OK with your mouths being duct-taped shut?"

"This doesn't look like it's a lot of fun", I said. "Is it intended to be a fun part of the festivities?"

"No, it's not fun. We're going to operate these arms in a way that expresses grieving and desperate fear."

"I'm not sure I know how to do that in a way that would get across your vision. I'm really good at giving a light-hearted or comical performance, but I might not be the right performer for this." I did not also say that I don't want to be guilty of cultural appropriation as a privileged white heterosexual male, pretending to be part of an aggrieved party, while benefiting from oppression.

The blackface minstrel show artist was really cool about it. We went back to the event organizer to see if I could be assigned to a different art project and the artist could recruit a different random stranger to use insulting stereotypes to promote social justice in an April Fool's Day parade.

After being directed to several puppets whose artists told me they were full up, we finally landed in a puppet troupe centered around a performer who carried a huge melting clock. Another carried a replica of the face of Salvador Dali. Each other member of the troupe carried a pole bearing a paper mache blob. I had the good fortune to carry the only other recognizable object: a human ear. The artist explained that when aligned in front of the clock he was carrying, these blobs would form up into a recognizable approximation of a human face, inspired by the surrealist style of Salvador Dali.

We were instructed to keep the pieces separated and show no connection until instructed to assemble. Until that time, this puppet had to be explained to the crowd by the artist shouting at them.

"IT'S SUUUUURRRRRREEEEEEEEEAAAAALIIIIIISMMMMMM!"

"SALVADOR DALIIIIIIIIIII!"

Fortunately, when we performed our Voltron-like assemblage, the face emerged and there was much applause.

One part of this artist's vision was for us to suddenly hand out our parts of the puppet to random onlookers in the crowd. We had been carrying the puppet pieces for about fifteen minutes when he called upon us to do this. "Roll with it", I thought, and immediately held out the pole with the ear, and asked the audience who wanted it. About a dozen hands raised eagerly. Unfortunately, one hundred percent of the hands were that of children. I gave the ear to the nearest child, who was the first to respond. You can guess what happened next. Her parental unit didn't want to be dragged into the parade, and wouldn't let her wander off. I pointed out to the artist that the ear was still poking out of the crowd about a block behind us. The artist thought that was fine.

Adrienne similarly divested herself of her puppet part, as instructed. No one else had rolled with it. The two of us followed our assigned group, not as puppeteers, but just a couple of people wandering through the middle of the parade for no apparent reason. So I took some pictures. I had been a parade participant for probably twenty minutes, tops.

Soon a drum beat started up, and the artist said we should all conga, so I rolled with it. Once again, Adrienne and I were the only ones who followed his instruction. It was as if no one else heard him at all. So we all stopped.

I'm not sure what happened to the choreography that guy planned out for the overall procession. If anyone enacted it, I didn't notice. But that's fine! Each FestiFools is a more vivacious spectacle than the last, and this one was no exception. The lesson learned this year is to once again make my own puppet for FestiFools 2014, or at least, to not be late and get stuck with the last pick of the puppets.

Review of Tokaido

Sun, 31 Mar 2013 19:28:05 GMT

The French illustrator Naiade is my favorite game artist. FunForge has started cranking out games that immediately grab my attention with his art. So naturally, Tokaido caught my eye.

This is a game that moves quickly, and only takes about forty-five minutes.

It has a very light and non-violent tone. This is a game of vacation planning. You attempt to have as good a trip as possible along the East Sea Road ("Tōkaidō") in medieval Japan. Eat sumptuous meals, view gorgeous panoramas, buy beautiful souvenirs, and meet interesting people. Each stop along the track gives you one of these in the form of a card, which you keep face-up in front of you. Mostly, you are trying to collect combinations of cards.

The gameplay is simple: if your pawn is the farthest behind on the road, it's your turn. Move it forward to one of the tourist attractions, and take a corresponding card. Whoever is now in the back of the line-- even if that is still you-- takes a turn.

The attractions can get too crowded. Each attraction can only accommodate one or two guests at a time. In order to make sure nobody crowds you out of an attraction that is important to completing a set of cards that you need, sometimes you should pass an empty attraction and skip ahead. You can usually have exactly what you want, if you are willing to sacrifice.

The first question you will hear during an explanation of Tokaido is "So, as my first move of the game, I can go all the way to the end of the road?" There are inns at the conclusion of each of the four legs of your journey. You are required to stop at each inn and wait for all the other players to catch up. Besides, you wouldn't want your first move to go as far as the game rules permit, because your first leg of the journey would score you only six points (your meal at the inn), while your opponents would soak up all the luxuries you skipped. Probably the most subtle and crucial decision in the game is when to skip an attraction.

Be advised, each player starts with a different character who confers a unique advantage. The tacticians among you may wonder if your choice of character at the beginning of the game has an undue influence on who wins. This is also a game in which you are unlikely to win if you focus on yourself. Observe which sets of cards your fellow travelers are attempting to build.

The production values make the equipment a joy to use, the play is suitable for children and adults, and it's short enough that I found myself wishing the East Sea Road was a little bit longer.

Guitar Made From Commodore 64

Thu, 12 Jul 2012 11:57:38 GMT

Ladies and gentlemen, I humbly suggest we may have found our next Penguicon Hack of Honor. Not to mention that the creator of this device is renowned in the hardware hacking community and is GoH-worthy in her own right.

Dominion Regional Qualifier

Sat, 23 Jun 2012 21:37:59 GMT

Minutes ago, I was in the final elimination round of the Dominion tournament. I was in a 3-player rather than 4-player game, so that was easier on us. The cards were mostly from the Seaside expansion, which my opponents had never played, and which I've been playing for years.

I noticed they both bought Outposts, widely considered one of the worst cards in the game.

I used Ambassador to put my least useful cards into my opponents' decks, and Salvager to recycle the rest for money. This left me with a tiny powerhouse deck of cards into which I put two Treasure Maps, and used Haven to store them so they came up together. The Treasure Maps put four Golds on top of my discard pile. My opponents complimented me on these fancy stunts and said they were in awe. We all agreed I had the game in the bag.

But when the score was counted, I lost by four points. It took too long to set up all those flashy stunts, and I wasn't able to catch up on their early lead.

But no matter! I won the new base card reprints with gorgeous illustrations! I got into the elimination round! It's been an incredible day.

Laser Cutter Pledge Drive Reaches $4K

Tue, 19 Jun 2012 11:47:00 GMT

I noticed some of yesterday's laser cutter pledgers are from MakerWorks in Ann Arbor, as one of their members put this pledge drive on the Shop Mates mailing list. We now have 22 pledgers.

Not even one person has filled out the "$0" option in the questionnaire yet, so who knows? If you haven't pledged zero dollars, maybe you're still going to pledge a few bucks! If you're one of those, is the two-thirds mark what you were waiting for? Because we passed the $4,000 dollar mark yesterday! $6,000, here we come!

Remember, please keep spreading the word about this! We need ideas for other groups where we might be able to find pledgers. Thanks!

Reward levels & FAQ

Why You Might Want To Contribute To i3Detroit's Laser Cutter

Thu, 14 Jun 2012 23:41:12 GMT

I'm running a fundraiser for i3Detroit to buy our own laser cutter for $6,000. We have raised $2,560, and the first day of the fundraiser is not even over yet!

And here's why maybe you should chip in a few bucks. I will laser-cut a project of your choice from Thingiverse (laser-cutter projects only-- wood or chipboard will be substituted for acrylic), and ship the parts to you, with your name engraved in it if you want. A TARDIS, unique booklet cover, Settlers of Catan board that locks in place, adorable chibi Cthulhu, flyer rack, and many more.

Just make a contribution of at least $15. Add $25 per square foot if your project has to be cut from acrylic.

Donate $20, send me an image, and I will design and make a custom jigsaw puzzle of your choice, in which the shapes of the pieces conform to bits of the drawing, and ship it to you. Or, a box of literally any size and shape up to 3 feet, with an image of your choice engraved on it.

Donate at least $50, and you can dream up any laser-cutter project that could fit in a breadbox, and I will design brand-new schematics for you. Then I'll cut it, glue it together, and ship or deliver it to you.

Donate at least $80, and you get the $50 reward level, plus custom art engraved on it, drawn by me, based on your own description.

Let me know if you would like a larger reward level than that, and I'll see what I can work out.

We're more than a third of the way to our goal. Can you help us break the halfway point on the first day? Pledge here!

FAQ

Q. Why a laser cutter?
A. This is an overwhelmingly useful tool for basic fabrication of components for a wide variety of projects, as well as complete projects using nothing but this tool. A laser cutter serves as the flagship of the best hacker spaces.

Q. Doesn't i3Detroit already have one?
A. Not any more. The member who owned the laser cutter sold it.

Q. Then what was that laser cutter you were using recently?
A. The one at TechShop. They gave me a free six month membership because I make cool stuff. Once that runs out, their membership fee too expensive to continue.

Q. How much are you getting for $6,000?
A. It's amazing. 150 Watts is more than double what we had before. That's powerful enough that eventually, we might be able to modify it to blow oxygen and cut through paper-thin sheet steel. The bed is just short of 3 feet by 4 feet. The gantry also travels faster, to get the job done quicker. This model is able to run on powerful software, not the poorly-translated Chinese workaround we had to use with the previous machine.

Q. Who owns it?
A. It will be the property of i3Detroit hacker space, a nonprofit membership group. i3Detroit has a facility near 9 Mile and I-75 in Ferndale, Michigan, open to guests most days of the week, with membership available to anyone for $39 a month.

Q. Is my donation tax-deductable?
A. Yes. Your donation is to i3Detroit, a 501c3 educational and public service nonprofit.

Q. When do you need the money?
A. When our pledge drive passes the $6,000 goal, which I predict to happen in about a week. If you need longer, just let me know and we can work something out.

Q. What if it breaks?
A. Our system of charging members an affordable hourly rate to use the laser cutter has always generated more than enough income to replace the bulb or power supply when they wear out. As for the rest of the machine, it is straightforward CNC motion as used in plotters, vinyl cutters, plasma cutters, CNC routers, and so forth. Many members of our group are exceptionally skilled, and experienced, in maintaining this form of technology, and have demonstrated a willingness to do so for the group. There is a massive amount of tech support from the CNC community online through such sites as chineselasersupportforum, cnczone, and Sam's laser FAQ.

Q. Are you taking into account the cost of shipping the machine?
A. Yes. One of our members found a way to ship it to the port of Detroit and save about $4,000 in shipping costs alone. Our funding goal includes all stages of shipping.

Why Eugenics Is A Bad Idea

Wed, 06 Jun 2012 03:33:10 GMT

I should frequently repost the comments that I make on interesting OKCupid questions. Today's question: "Would the world be a better place if people with low IQs were not allowed to reproduce?" No.

Taking the value of reproductive liberty as a given, there are also more complex and surprising reasons to reject this measure.

Suppose one's reason for supporting this measure is to get a smarter population of offspring. Those who know anything about genetics know that is not how it works. All you get is a population that is evolved to be good at rigging the eugenic system. They'll still be dumb in all other respects.

The best reason for dumb people not to reproduce is that children are their greatest source of misery (though they're too hopped-up on parent-infatuation hormones to recognize it). But I will defend to the death everyone's right to screw themselves up.

Most parents are not dumb, but nearly 100% of dumb people are parents-- depending on whether we define dumbness to include incompetence at family planning. But this illustrates how difficult it is to measurably define intelligence. Often, as in this case, measuring intelligence merely penalizes is people who are different from me, because I'm the one doing the measuring.

If Money Doesn't Make You Happy, You Probably Aren't Spending It Right

Thu, 03 May 2012 11:29:49 GMT

This research (PDF) shows those who get more happiness from their money...

(1) buy more experiences and fewer material goods; (2) use their money to benefit others rather than themselves; (3) buy many small pleasures rather than fewer large ones; (4) eschew extended warranties and other forms of overpriced insurance; (5) delay consumption; (6) consider how peripheral features of their purchases may affect their day-to-day lives; (7) beware of comparison shopping; and (8) pay close attention to the happiness of others.

My Schedule of Penguicon Events

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 11:36:07 GMT

Friday, 11:00pm: Polyamory Primer -- Polyamory is the concept and practice of being in multiple romantic relationships at the same time, with the knowledge and consent of all parties involved. This diverse panel of poly educators and enthusiasts will share their experiences, and more importantly, answer your questions about polyamory! (Brent Barker, Matt Arnold, Melissa Gilchrist, Sofia Maystrenko)

Saturday, 11:00am: Penguicon Board Meeting -- The Penguicon Board is not the same thing as the Convention Committee. The Board meets four times a year to elect a Conchair, approve a total budget figure for next year's con, and take care of multi-year ongoing expenses. The public is always welcome to Board meetings! (Aaron Thul, Gini Judd, Jer_, Mark Szlaga, Matt Arnold, Randy Bradakis, Steve Gutterman)

Saturday, noon: ConCom 2013 Meeting -- Open Concom Meeting for the brainstorming and organization of 2013. Not sure how to get involved in the convention? Let us show you how it's done! This is just the first step for opening up for next year. Come meet the Conchair for 2013 and tell her all of your brilliant ideas. All are welcome! (Cylithria Dubois, James Gamble, James Hice, Jer_, Matt Arnold, Sarah "Sparrow" Slovik, Jon Wallace)

Saturday, 3:00pm: Divination With Dominion Cards -- Just for fun, we will pretend to perform cartomancy with Dominion cards. I have devised an intricate system for interpreting 10 randomly-selected cards to tell you the winning strategy for the next few days of your life.

Saturday, 6:00pm: Annual Dominion Tournament -- In this million-selling “non-collectable card game”, players start with the same simple deck, and use their cards to buy cards into their collection from the middle of the table. They go through their deck repeatedly to use their new cards to buy even more lucrative cards. Whoever buys the expensive victory cards first, wins. Winner will be in the Champion Invitational this weekend, and win the deluxe set of base cards with fancy new graphics. You can sign up at Ops to make it easier on me, but if not, please just walk in!

Saturday, 8:00pm: Dominion Champion Invitational -- Come watch the past Dominion tournament winners, including this weekend's winner, compete in one epic game!

Saturday midnight: Poly Relationship Transitions -- In polyamorous relationships, a break-up can mean more than parting ways. We discuss what happens when a relationship changes - from primary to secondary, secondary to just friends, and more. What can we do to help smooth this transition? What can it look like? When could it happen? (Brent Barker, Edward L. Platt, Katie Danger, Matt Arnold)

April Fool's Day: Google Maps 8 Bit

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 14:00:33 GMT

MAPS.GOOGLE.COM HAS A QUEST MODE! THIS MAKES ME SO HAPPY!!

Festifools Is Tomorrow!

Sat, 31 Mar 2012 23:31:10 GMT

Come out tomorrow for the annual April Fool's Day parade in Ann Arbor! Festifools is 4 PM on Main Street between William and Liberty. Giant puppets will run up and down the street in a jubilant festival.

A couple of weeks ago, Karen asked me how we're going to top the puppet I made for last year's Festifools (seen above), because that was so much fun. We were short on time, so I came up with an idea that could be done quickly. It's a fifteen-foot-tall character made out of multi-colored nylon mesh, on a framework on coat hanger wire and bamboo. She did most of the sewing, and I made most of the structure. We just finished! Please be there tomorrow and see it!

Dating and Job Interviews

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 17:09:50 GMT

Well, it happened again. Someone sent me a job ad working as a graphic designer for a company that I really like, and I had a full-blown attack of something. A panic attack? A freak-out? I don't know what to call it. I would really like to get to the bottom of this weird phenomenon that happens to me when I read job ads.

I have a co-worker who keeps asking me why on earth, with all my talents, I'm doing unskilled labor for barely more than minimum wage. This is why.

The irony is that the job ad is for a website about intimate relationships. You know "That Guy" on dating sites? The one who messages every woman asking for sex right off the bat? That's what most job ads are like. This invites a comparison I have often made, between professions and intimate relationships, which I would like to go into in more detail.

A job ad feels exactly like being asked to have sex for money. I am not trying to be insulting and hyperbolic. I am quite serious about this, and have been for years, not just the heat of the moment. Professional job ads ask me to start a very serious capital-R Relationship with total strangers, instantaneously accelerating from a dead stop to full speed. This job ad even uses the word "passion". I am expected to feel passion in exchange for money. They want you to join their "family" (their word). I'm supposed to care deeply about crafting the identity of complete strangers!

It's like that scene in "Joe Vs. The Volcano" in which the limo driver pulls the car over, and says, "You say to me you want to go shopping. You want to buy clothes, but you don't know what kind. You leave that hanging in the air, like I'm going to fill in the blanks. Now that to me is like asking me who you are, and I don't know who you are. I don't want to know. It's taken me all my life to find out who I am and I am tired, now, you hear what I'm saying?"

This is why I don't date. Everybody hates dating, and for good reason. Dates are universally creepy and desperate, because it's an interview with a stranger, for the position of Most Important Person In Your Life. I find that insane. Instead of dating, I make friends, and after I've gotten to know someone, I see if she would like to gradually increase the involvement. That's why my love life is so successful. I don't think that translates to the workplace. In the job world, I'm not sure how I would develop a passionate vision for how someone else's website should look, then go and ask for a job.

Picking Me Up From The Hospital

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 11:16:59 GMT

Is one of you available to pick me up from St John Macomb Oakland Hospital after work on Friday, February 10? I also need a ride back on Saturday to get my car.

Problems with the Institution of Marriage

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 00:03:12 GMT

I believe you will find the advice in this post useful, even if you are happily married. It may help you strengthen your relationship. I want you to avoid the wrong expectations about marriage. Don't assume a wedding changes a relationship for the better. You are making a cost-benefit tradeoff. If you think you are just trading up a relationship status for a better one, you will be unprepared for the costs, and will be unhappy.

But first, you want to know why you should read advice about marriage from a man who refuses to get married. Why? Because I'm good at marriage. I could make a marriage last forever if I wanted to. I was good at it right up to the point, nearly a decade ago, that my wife and I agreed we would rather be single than married, for reasons I am about to outline. It wasn't about any problem with each other. Our relationship, while stable, was in the wrong form. To this day, we still go out to dinner every couple of months.

Yet another pair of my friends is headed for divorce, and I just can't help but wonder how marriage made their relationship worse instead of better. I don't know which fate I dread more for them-- that their marriage will end? Or that it will last forever?

What is different between marriage and committed co-habitation? These differences come in two major types:
1. Benefits, which come from other people.
2. Stresses, which apply to the actual partners involved.

The only thing it does to the bride and groom is add more potential for stress to the actual relationship itself. Do you let yourself go? Take each other for granted? Fight over money now that you're on the hook for each other? I hear you saying that all these obstacles are surmountable, with communication and trust. True. But why add stresses unless you have to?

I can see clear legal, financial and contractual reasons why so many indisputably smart people get married. But all those benefits are about other people:
* throwing a party to celebrate your love in front of others.
* reducing how much others tax you.
* making others allow you to visit your children.
* getting past others to your lover's hospital bed.
* getting the respect and acknowledgement of others.

To you, those benefits may be worth the damage to your relationships. To me, they are not.

Marriage awkwardly combines romantic entanglements with legal and financial entanglements. It feels like "The party of the first part may kiss the party of the second part. I now declare you liable for damages." These two areas of life are already complicated enough, without worrying that breaking up with someone would mean I'd need to find a new place to live, and a new bank account, and split up possessions, and so forth.

Don't say marriage is more commitment. Commitment is a decision, and you can simply make that decision and tell your partner. You either trust your partner when they tell you that, or you don't. If you don't, you have a problem that is not fixed by shackling them. The best married couples understand the wedding improved their standing with their other loved ones, but didn't change anything between them that wasn't already there. Brides and grooms who get married in order to change themselves and each other are at exponentially higher risk of divorce from disappointed expectations. With marriage you'll just have to go to extra trouble to disentangle when it's over. But don't kid yourself; If you want out, you'll get out. It'll just be worse.

I'm not down on marriage for everybody! I love married people. (Frequently!) It may not be something I desire for myself, but I understand marriage makes many people feel good. It's a tradeoff, just like polyamory, or monogamy, or celibacy, or any other relationship form. You have to walk uphill against the challenges that each form brings. You choose them based on whether they put enough wind in your sails to surmount the obstacles.

Finally, we come to the most important reason not to get married: do you have a personality that buckles under to social pressure? I would like to point out that a lot of married people-- perhaps even the vast majority-- have not thought about the tradeoffs at all. Too many couples get married because of its symbolic value; to feel a connection to a long-standing tradition. Well, those people are going to feel a connection to Prozac in about seven years. I would like to encourage you to completely remove this reason from your list of priorities, if you possess the emotional wherewithal.

The problem is the default cultural script, followed unthinkingly. For instance:
* An unspoken assumption that you are each other's property and therefore can run each other's lives.
* Unrealistic expectations that marriage will change your partner.
* Or that they won't change.
* The announcement of monogamy that you wear on your finger.

Do you assume that you both have the same ideas about that? Even if you do, the people sitting in the audience at your wedding probably don't. Are you sleeping with them? No? Best not to get them involved.

So, if I want to celebrate my love, I would throw a party to do so, and not call it a wedding. But I won't. Frankly, as much as I love you all, it doesn't involve you. This may be the point that I lose many of you, because I know a lot of people like to put a couple photo as their profile pic on Facebook, and kiss in public, and really get the community involved in seeing them as an all-or-nothing unit. Too clingy for me, but whatever floats your boat. I'm not condemning, I'm just trying to help you not faceplant.

I'll just say this. Marriage is a stamp of approval by the community, that separates approved relationships from unapproved relationships. I take issue with that entire concept. How is it anyone's business to approve your most intimate, private, personal relationships? We let lawyers, legislators, clergy, and nosy family members in our bedrooms, in exchange for access to the approved group. There should be no formal, official approval. The government should not be in the business of sanctioning our private lives. You can join a church if you want that.

So all the drawbacks go to you and your partner, and all the advantages go to other people by giving them control over the shape of your private life. What are the benefits? Access to your kids, a tax break, getting on your partner's health insurance, getting to visit them in the hospital. Do you think society is doing you a favor with this trade? I leave you with this thought: How whipped are you, that you think you shouldn't have that already?

Reesa Brown

Sat, 14 Jan 2012 04:36:23 GMT

It was pointed out to me that Kit's memorial entry is friend-locked. I've stopped reading me and Reesa's old IM logs and leaking from the eyes long enough that I have some of my own things to say.

Reesa was fascinating; and she was interested in interesting things.

I don't talk much about past or present partners; but anyone with whom I have privately discussed Reesa knows that I pretty much glow about her, and that I'm not just praising her now because of the circumstances. She gave of herself with an generosity, courage, and forthrightness that served as a positive role model for me when I needed one. I'm not saying she was perfect. But her flaws never really did much to me. My trajectory through her life was caught in the spotlight beam of brilliance. She just didn't seem to settle for anything, even if everybody in the world thought you would obviously fail. She was an example of how the whole world could be wrong about that. The whole world was wrong about a lot of things. Whether it be in her entrepreneurship, her relationship style, her resourcefulness, her innovative ideas, and her courage in all areas of life; I admired that, and admiration has always been an aphrodisiac to me.

I never imagined a world without Reesa in it. I really thought she had it licked for the last time, and was out of the woods. I'm proud to have introduced her to her husband Nathan Elliott, and my thoughts go out to him at this time.

Reesa Brown, In Memoriam

Sat, 14 Jan 2012 01:34:27 GMT

Kit says it better than I could.

Goodbye, Reesa. :(

[Edited to link to kitoconnell.com]

Penguicon Website, New Conchair

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 12:12:58 GMT

Sorry for the delay, but Penguicon 2012 has a website now! For some reason, nobody could get the new custom CMS working on Penguicon's server. They finally settled for Wordpress, but it still uses many art elements from the design I made nine months ago. It's something to build on! Also, you may have heard Penguicon's absentee conchair resigned, and there is a new one. Well, I had to remind myself hardly anything has ever gotten done until January anyway. Let's all award a million Internets to Chuck Child for stepping up to the job!

Offended

Sun, 18 Dec 2011 21:10:03 GMT

I just encountered the word "offended" again, spoken in a public relations apology. "Offended" is a word that takes facts off the table, and centers the conversation on subjective reactions. "I apologize for offending you." Translation: "I'm right, but I'm willing to lie and pretend to agree with you because your emotional reaction is more important to me than facts. Later, I'll complain in private over cigars and scotch about how political correctness is pressuring me to live a lie."

Self-Validating Insular Cultures and "Baby, It's Cold Outside"

Sat, 17 Dec 2011 05:30:11 GMT

"Baby, It's Cold Outside" is reviled in some circles for being about date rape. If you're interested, I would like to explain why this interpretation is perfectly reasonable depending on what lens you look through, and at the end, discuss something I learned about lenses.

To start with, let's face it. Mid-twentieth century America was not a sterling example of sexual equality. But they were too wholesome to accept a song about a woman being roofied and date-raped. Times really have to change for this interpretation to emerge. For purposes of illustration, I will construct an amalgam from actual blog posts I've read, and call this person Christmas Carol.

Carol grew up around no one but sexists. They considered it only to be expected when a man pressured a woman for sex. If he wouldn't stop turning up the pressure until he got it, they considered this an understandable and forgivable offense. Later, in Carol's early adult life, she and every woman she knew filled their lives almost entirely with men who thought that way. Those men abused every substance imaginable and tended to be in and out of jail a lot. Her life was in constant danger. At some point in adult life she decided she neither deserved this treatment nor had to endure it, and escaped.

After she got used to life without constant threats, Carol had a revelation that she was not the only person who considered her personal boundaries normal and acceptable. It no longer felt like Carol vs. the world-- a world of harrassment, molestation, and excuses for it. That was only the world she grew up in. There are other, better people. At that point, Carol became a little less angry.

So if this is the case, Carol wondered why we wrote, and sung, and listened to (much less enjoyed), a song in which a cornered Doris Day tried to escape from a pushy and demanding Bing Crosby who spiked her drink and is likely to impregnate her, thereby ruining her life. Unfortunately, people from warm and happy places thought every place was warm and happy. They had no clue why Carol was hating on a cute little Christmas song in which Doris Day tried to come up with excuses to do what she wanted to do (instead of what a sexist society told her she ought to do), and Bing Crosby passively provided those excuses. Carol became a little more angry again.

So in these blog posts, Carol did some consciousness-raising. She explained to the rest of us that there exist entire invisible subcultures, right here in our wholesome suburbs, which enculturate men and women to tolerate sexual entitlement. You don't know because you don't see their home lives. I won't go into the harrowing details of Carol's biography, because I just ate. Suffice it to say that people with that upbringing have given me a new perspective every time I encounter a woman I don't know. I try not to stand between her and a door. Because I'm a man, she might be scanning for escape routes.

This week, a lawyer who works with a domestic abuse charity told me the highest rate of domestic violence around here is Oakland County. Pretty, idyllic, prosperous Oakland. I look in the mirror, and it's difficult for me to imagine anyone feeling threatened by me. Then again, it's difficult for me to imagine feeling threatened by Oakland County. I never thought I would be OK with the idea that someone can go ahead and think something horrible about me that I don't deserve. But you know what? I'll be fine.

The people inside rape culture and the people outside it mostly don't know the other culture exists until they're told about it. The way their world works seems like the way the whole world works.

Imagine something you think everyone knows. There are probably entire communities walking around on this planet, not only unaware of that obvious thing, but not even aware that anyone in the world thinks otherwise. The first time they are exposed to disagreement on that topic, they will react with incredulity. Not incredulity that they were wrong. Incredulity that you believe the obvious thing. Even hostility, depending on how much they cherish their misconception. For that matter, you might react that way in return.

I can tell you from personal experience that consciousness-raising is more difficult to do graciously when you think the entire world sings songs to celebrate what happened to you. Mistreatment by an isolated jackass: this, you can roll your eyes at. When you feel like the isolated one, the isolation itself brings on a whole new level of rage. This is why I try not to listen to Christian radio. The holiday season is a bit harder, because it's pretty much every channel, but it gets easier every year.

I'm not equating the seriousness of my own grievances with someone else's. I'm saying many examples like "Baby It's Cold Outside" have opened my eyes to how a person's background colors their interpretations. That includes me and my background. It also illustrated to me that when someone blows something out of proportion, there are constructive ways I can react.

I came from an incredibly insular self-validating subculture. The thing about fundamentalism is that it doesn't just fall into this human failing; it calls it faith. It admits it, celebrates it, promotes it, and criticizes you for not doing it. Since I don't want to fall out of the frying pan and into the fire, these days I'm constantly checking my own social environment for the insularity and self-validation inherent to human groups. It's as if I'm scanning the room for an escape route.

Of course, we all fall prey to this weakness. Once you oppose something, you might think you're not vulnerable to it any more, but that just makes you more vulnerable. Basic drives like sex and groupthink need to be channeled and managed in a healthy way. Groupthink scandals are embarrassingly common in the secular community, the same way sex scandals are embarrassingly common to Christians. In fact, the analogy is perfect. Religious devotees embrace groupthink the way secularists embrace safe and responsible sex. Fundamentalists embrace groupthink the way thugs embrace gangbangs. I meet religious moderates who sincerely have no idea how bad it gets, much less how prevalent it is. Our experiences will color how we overestimate or underestimate threats and put-downs when we hear expressions of religious sentiment.

Enjoy the Christmas music!

A Dream Deferred

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 03:41:41 GMT

Remember when I learned Motion Capture Animation? Let's just I got an opportunity yesterday which I had to turn down. I had been really excited about it at first. My heart kind of broke. I guess that's all that would be appropriate to talk about here. Ask me some time.

Gifts. Don't Make This Weird

Sun, 27 Nov 2011 21:31:26 GMT

One of the best rules of thumb for successful gift-giving is "don't make this weird". If you're the receiver, don't act like the giver was obligated to give it. If you're the giver, don't act like you are creating an obligation for the receiver. If either of these are true, it wasn't a gift.

If you give a gift, and you're upset because something didn't happen that you thought was supposed to happen, just don't give the gift again. If you announce you're not giving the gift again because of the behavior, you just made it weird. If you want reciprocation, your best course of action is to propose a tit-for-tat transaction from the outset. Otherwise you have created what I call a trap gift: throw benefits at someone, give more than is worthwhile to you, and then start listing expectations. Maybe you don't think the receiver will agree to become obligated to you, so you disguise the transaction as a gift. The problem is, you are pressuring an obligation, when you might have gotten agreement in advance.

I could talk about romantic relationships, workplace bonuses, church attendance and tithes, and all kinds of things, but I'll use Penguicon as an example. Let's say you volunteer to present a ridiculously excessive number of talks at Penguicon. Your track head probably thought "hey, somebody wants to give talks. Their motivation is that they want to people to hear what they are so excited about. What an awesome person! I accept". Then you come up to me on Sunday of the convention and complain that you had to pay to get into the convention, and you're not pictured in the program book with a bio. Why are we only hearing about this now? That would have been totally negotiable beforehand. Maybe your track head would have happily agreed to it. Maybe she would have said "tell you what, you do fewer talks, and we'll give you this and that but not that. Is that worth it?" Then everybody's happy. The problem is, it's too late now. You've already used up everything you were offering. We can't strike a smaller deal, because we can't give you back your time. Don't make this weird.

We've had more than one person who was a huge hit at the convention for years, and then started turning down invitations while remaining friendly. We made them full guests of honor in later years, all-expenses-paid. Whereas we won't invite back a trap-gift complainer.

For three years, three or four days a week, I would wake up, and think about how awesome it was that Jen was next to me. She felt the same. The default script in our culture is that by sleeping with each other, we are creating an obligation to continue. Following the default script would be to wake up, shrug, say "of course she's here" and gripe when she isn't. What a yawnfest that would be! The great thing about our lack of obligation to each other is it made it possible for our relationship to be a gift. If someone is obligated to be with you, it doesn't matter whether they want to be with you.

I would like for it to matter whether you spend time with me because you want to. Whether you read this blog because you want to. Whether you collaborate on a project because you want to make it awesome. Whether you give me your cast off stuff, because you want it to go to use.

If you're not excited about any of those things, no big deal. By contrast, I hear a lot of people complaining about spending time with their families this Christmas season, because it's gotten weird, but they're going to do it anyway. If a family member has given you decades of trap gifts, and they're making it weird, just stop showing up. You will be told by our culture that your excitement is less important than your commitment. But look around you: this has worked out as a recipe for misery.

If you're not excited about attending or contributing to your church, your church will encourage you to think of yourself as a bad person. Just stop showing up. Remember this Christmas season that the story of Jesus of Nazareth is this. I've seen too many church members trying to force themselves into a mandatory enthusiasm, and pretend to be excited about a crucifixion which is a trap gift. It's a little bit painful to watch. Don't make this weird.

Be grateful for what you have, while you still have it, by making it awesome. If you can't make it awesome, just do something else. Don't make it weird.

Welcome To The Neighborhood

Sat, 26 Nov 2011 03:25:13 GMT

Wow! I just answered the door in my bathrobe to find three police officers. A neighbor saw me pull in and thought they heard me kick in the door.

I don't mind. I'm glad to know the police are responsive in case someone does try to kick in the door.

I Am An i3Detroit Member!

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 23:58:21 GMT

I achieved a short-term life goal on Saturday, by becoming a member of the i3Detroit hacker space. I just let myself in with my key. It's the first time I've been alone in here. Let's get this party started, people! Come on over, members and guests alike! 1481 Wordsworth in Ferndale.