I know I've mentioned my love for The Drawing of the Dark by Tim Powers several times, most recently in my review of Alternate Routes [https://thelastredoubt.com/on-higher-powers-pt-2/]. The book made a profound impact on me decades ago in middle school, and held up well as more than childhood nostalgia disorder when I read it again recently. Nevertheless, I missed a lot of the symbolism in it. For example, the connections between the events in the book and the liturgical year. Then I came acr…
One of the skills I picked up in college was that of cooking actual food, a practice I've kept up since. I've occasionally posted here as both a break from all-politics and because it's one of the things, along with gaming, that I love. For past posts see: * Putting together your essential cooking tools [https://thelastredoubt.com/a-fisk-on-a-whisk/]. * More cooking tools [https://thelastredoubt.com/more-kitchen-stuff/]. * Why I like my cast iron pan [https://thelastredoubt.com/cast-iron…
I was recently pointed to a video by Russel Brand [https://youtu.be/mR52Cg__xYM] discussing "who won COVID" for Trump getting contracting and healing back from getting COVID-19. In truth - though I don't strongly recommend taking the time - Brand, for all that what he is saying is filtered through a leftist lens, at least a) understands rhetoric, and b) how much the press is lying. Of course, he considers Trump's rhetoric to be lies, and the "calm, dialectic" stuff (a bit of a misapprehension…
A few odds and ends of catching up. First - Eric Raymond posted this a while back, but looks at the moral justification of Kyle going out in times of civil unrest [http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=8752] as not only "not wrong", but a duty. > That is, all males of military age who are or intend to become citizens of the United States are under federal statute the “unorganized militia”, and have the duty of the militia to defend the Constitution of the United States against enemies foreign and domestic…
The other day I delved deeper into the T5 rules by showing how to develop a character [https://thelastredoubt.com/traveller-5-thoughts-and-characters/]. Yes, it came out complicated. Or is it? Let's step back a bit. The original classic Traveller character rules came from the era of Moldvay Basic and AD&D, but they had a different focus. D&D is class-based: you rolled your stats, chose a class compatible with those stats, and noted down the associated bonuses. You only had a few significant c…