I'm Out!

Today is my last day of work at the company I've worked for for the past 6 years. Here's my going away email. Also, if anyone's interested I have the actual files of the "highlights" mentioned below to share.

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I have to be quick. There’s not much time. They’re escorting people from the building and I don’t know where they’re taking them. You’re given little warning before being removed forever and there’s so much I have to tell you all….

Actually, aside from the fact that apparently we’re escorted out of the building on our last day I made most of that up. But yes, today, after 6 years is my last day at the company known as DFI/DeticaDFI/Detica/BAE Systems Inc. In that time I’ve seen a fair amount of change, despite various assurances that “NOTHING WILL CHANGE!” I’ve had 14 different desks, 13 different admin managers, 9 different projects, 5 different organizational structures, and 4 different company presidents. When I started there were 54 people employed at DFI Government Services, BAE Systems apparently employs 106,000. That’s 1962 times as many people. In my mind 1962 is a year, not a coefficient, but it is what it is.

In that time there have been many highlights, and I’ve saved a few of the best here: H:\Staff\Billy Hileman\Good Bye Email. We used to get personal folders on the H drive, by my count 12 of the 109 will still be in use by employees on Monday.

I’m off to Law School – UC Hastings in San Francisco – and while I’m excited for the next phase I will miss each of you I’ve bcc’d on this email. If you’re ever on the Left Coast please feel free to give me a call (edited from blog post) or shoot me an email (billy.hileman@gmail.com). It’s been a pleasure knowing all of you and good luck with the rest of your lives!

Old Books

I rarely go anywhere without a book. This has been true since I was 8. That gives me 18 years of always having a book near at hand. In this span of time I've read most of the published works of fantasy and science fiction that are worth reading. Given the fact that I generally go through about a book a week, and authors don't seem to publish quite that frequently, I'm generally rereading something for the 10th+ time. Currently I'm on my umpteenth reread of Edgar Rice Burrough's (ERB) Martian series, specifically Warlord of Mars (really specifically, JC and Woola (best dog name ever) are on the Koalian road). This experience prompted me to write about old books for two reasons.

The first reason is that this particular series is the first one that I have a meaningful memory of (yes, that sentence ends with a preposition, bite me). These books are my dad's all time favorite, and I have many fond memories of the back yard in our Chicago home, taking whichever book in the series we were on out to my dad and smilingly entreating him to "weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed" (juxtaposition of w for r intentionally there - it was more cute as a 6 year old). In retrospect I'm convinced that this early experience is why I prefer the fantasy/sci-fi genre, why I have my nerdy predilections, in essence, why a huge part of who I am exists. The series is filled with sword fights, ship battles, last minute rescues and all manner of derring do. When the stakes are the existence of a world, it's hard to care about one-limbed-Inuit-lesbian-communists struggling to find themselves, or whatever else "good literature" is these days.

It was books like these (ERB's Venus series specifically) that really got me reading. We were on vacation, half way through one of the books when my dad had to go home - I think for the trip that would eventually lead to us moving to San Fran. He had been reading the book to me, but I really wanted to find out how it ended, so it go left with me. I remember reading about T-rays and chases in the Venusian atmosphere while sitting in an airport in Florida. Ever since that day, deciphering the 6pt font text I was hooked. Going back to those first books always brings a smile to my face and warm memories of (in retrospect) easier times. That's half of why I fondly remember these as "old books".

The other half is that they are in fact very old. "A Princess of Mars", the first of ERB's Martian tales was published in 1912. That's almost 100 years ago. The science is dated, the dialogue is laughable, and the characters are all caricatures. That said, it's incredibly readable. The action is fast paced and the derring is always doing. It's sad that the long discussed movie is still in pre-production because all the books are tailor made to become movies. And unlike Harry Potter style movies which, while good, end up missing tons of detail to save on time, ERB's pulp fiction style means that each chapter would serve as a ready made scene. For a hundred year old book it's pretty impressive how well it's aged.

Any other favorite "old books" out there? If so please feel free to sound off in the comments section.

p.s. an added bonus of weirdness

p.p.s. apparently things are further along on the movie adaptation than I initially thought, pretty cool stuff

Things to Come

We live in exciting times. A small part of life that make it enjoyable is the internet. Think back 10 years. Most of you were probably using dial up, or, maybe if you were lucky, getting a first generation high speed connection. Most people still communicated by phone, cell phones were the exception rather than the rule, google, facebook, youtube, twitter, blackberry, itunes/pod/phone, blogs, all were unheard of concepts. The beauty of this change is that it begets further change. The world of 10, or even 5 years from now will likely have similarly unthought of tools that will make our life easier.

One of the better writers chronicling these changes is Farhad Manjoo, and his latest discussion can be found here. Personally, I'm writing this post from a Chrome window - I like Google. Who knows where I'll be blogging from (if it's even something people still do) 10 years from now....

Be Sober When You Look at This

Well, this is one of the more mind numbing things I've seen in a while. Kinda cool to know that you can trick your body this easily.

Shut Your Eyes!

Well, I guess it's better than only being known for your pirates. Still, if anyone offers to open it up around you be sure to keep your eyes shut. Remember, it was the Old Testament God, he of fire and brimstone, who had this thing made, not the turn-the-other-cheek New Testament version.

(EDIT: Also, the Google ads that show up next to this post are kinda scary, thank me for not monetizing)

Trifecta for the Day!

Because you will be hearing more about this silly thing over the next year, here's a preview. Say it with me everyone, the vu-vu-zela!

Good Advice

Not that the 4th is even a glimmer in my eye at this point, but here are some good pieces of advice.

I will caveat it by saying that it is tougher to force a child to cheer for a non-home, non-winning team. Sorry dad, but me being a Browns fan was a non-starter.

Games and their Fluff

There's changes afoot in the world of games-Billy-enjoys. Wizards of the Coast (WotC - makers of Magic) and Games Workshop (GW - makers of Warhammer and Warhammer40k) are both in the process of changing, to varying degrees, the nature of their games and the ways they approach their customers. I was struggling to figure out how to present this particular situation. I knew that WotC was handling their change far better than GW (surprise surprise), but explaining why without just rehashing previously made points was giving me trouble. To resolve the problem I did something I haven't done for any of my previous blog posts - I started outlining. My result? WotC attempts to understand their game and their customers on a regular, iterative basis. GW ignores its customers and believes utterly in its own view of the world.

I'm writing about this now because for the second time in its 16+ year existence, Magic is getting a rules overhaul. This overhaul won't be as significant as the 5th-6th edition change, but it's definitely going to throw people for a loop. If anyone is interested you can find a very detailed summary of the rules changes here, and the head Magic designer's (Maro) comments about the changes here. I recommend clicking the first link and just looking at how much text they spend explaining the changes. If you want, read one or two of the explanations (pick a shorter one). There's no need to understand the specific rules, just read the way the language is presented. It's clear, concise, and precise. One of the better sections that illustrates my larger point is found under #4 where it states, "The Fix: We are matching most players' expectation by changing the rule such that the owner of a token is, in fact, the player under whose control it entered the battlefield." Again, knowing about token ownership is besides the point. The fact that they changed the rules to match the players expectations is important for a variety of reasons. First, they understood how the rule used to work. Second they understood how their players were confused by the rule. Third, they understood how to change the rules to fit players perceptions. Fourth, they changed the rules to make their games more intuitive.

As Maro said in his piece above, "What is the greatest threat to Magic, in my not so humble opinion? We stop getting new players. While we have excellent player retention, for various reasons, people do leave the game. Without a counter balance of fresh blood, the game would hit the point of diminishing returns and then Magic no longer becomes economically viable to produce. But Magic is an awesome game. How would we ever stop attracting new players? The answer is what I consider to be the biggest danger to the game: complexity creep." These games are not necessarily easy to grasp. Or at least, the perception is that they are complicated. Honestly, I could explain either game to an interested person in about 20 minutes and we could be playing our game fairly effectively within an hour. Sure both have 100+ page rule books, but you can get by on the basics. WotC recognizes that fact, and is working to make their rules match with players expectations. GW - not so much.

There are two examples for this that I can come up with. The first is in a frequently asked questions document found here. One of the many armies in Warhammer has an item, a magic puppet, that lets them modify a very specific type of die rolls. Ok, easy enough, but what happens when both players have the same puppet, whose puppet takes precedence? The answer is as follows, "A. Easy! First the player that rolled the Miscast makes his roll on the chart. Then, either player declares that he’s using the Puppet, rolls the D3 and modifies the result. Finally, the other player (with a swashbuckling move and a sound: ‘aha!’), reveals that he also has a Puppet and modifies the result again by a D3." There are several things wrong with this answer. The first is that it doesn't actually answer the question. Because subtraction is not a commutative property (i.e. 5-2 is not the same as 2-5) it really does matter who modifies the die roll first. In the above answer, the resulting situation is that both players stare at each other waiting for one to make the first move. Ok, so the answer fails miserably because it doesn't actually state how to resolve the situation. It also fails because it demonstrates that the person answering the question doesn't understand the primary purpose of the question. It's not, what happens in total when there are two puppets, it's what happens first. The fact that their rules makers don't understand their own game is a MASSIVE failing on the part of GW. Finally, the answer fails because of the "swashbuckling move and sound" section. Games should have senses of humor. I'm sure chess players have stock jokes (probably something about congress between pawns and queens), that said, rules clarification documents are not places for them. Anyone asking this sort of question wants a black and white answer - neon polka dots should stay away.

The other example came about in the latest revision of the Warhammer40k rules. A definition (defensive weapons) changed from 4th edition to 5th edition. An army was created right at the time when the change was taking place. A unit from that army was designed with full knowledge of the change. The lead designer for the army and the game designed the unit as a mobile gun platform. The change of the rules negated that intent. When asked by the customers in a Q&A session about the role of the unit the designer stated that it was intended as a mobile gun platform. When it was pointed out that the rules (which he had written) didn't allow for his initial intent he was stumped, and then reversed course and said the unit was a troops transport. Regardless of the specifics (and whether the story is apocryphal or not) the mismatch of intention and result still exists. It demonstrates that GW itself doesn't get its own game. Not only can they not provide the clear and concise summary of what is changing that WotC did in the above link, they can't even keep it straight in their own heads!

This brings me to the next issue with GW - intentionally pushing customers out of the store. The most recent way they've figured out to make coming to their game centers less palatable was to do away with the free paints, brushes and hobby supplies. Now sure, it cost them money to have all this stuff sitting out for the free use of any patron. However, it was an AMAZING selling point for coming into the store. You could bring some models, do some work on them and generally just shoot the breeze with like minded individuals all day long. A sizable portion of the stores patronage lacks basic social skills, so the ability to keep your hands and eyes busy during the lulls in conversation made hanging out at the GW store a much more palatable option. And if you're hanging out there it's much more likely that you'll impulse buy something. Now, without that hook, unless you can get a game (on the increasingly limited tables) there's little reason to hang out and wait. Doing away with the free hobby supplies is a classic penny-wise pound-foolish decision. They won't be spending the $100/month on new paints. They also won't be getting the $1000/month in impulse buys they used to receive...

Anyway, that all came out much more rant-ish than I intended. Sorry. If anyone has any questions please feel free to ask, and as always, please do sound off in the comments section with any thoughts or feelings.

(7 more calendar days to go at the current job - retirement's looking AWESOME!)

Um, I'm in Trouble

Ugh: http://www.celsias.com/article/san-francisco-newsom-ushers-organic-composting-law/

My future city is crazy, I know, but really? This? Are they going to be sifting through my trash? Am I going to have to buy a compost bin? Seriously, wtf!?

Two Things

First, I don't ride the Metro much at all, Red Line even less, so I am very much alive, although it's nice to know some people out there did worry.

Second, I'm behind a firewall at work right now, but expect another rant about good and bad game design later tonight when I can get home and do some linking.

Summer Doldrums

With the end of the NBA season on Sunday night we're officially in the summer TV doldrums period. The time where there're no sports to watch and when any form of scripted TV generally goes away. At least the second part used to be true. These days some of the best TV actually shows during the summer. The only caveat is that you won't find it on the major networks. Instead, this summer you'll have a much better time checking out HBO, AMC and USA.

Tonight for example there's both Burn Notice and Royal Pains on USA. Burn Notice is McGyver as a spy in Miami, and Royal Pains is the latest show that involves rich people behaving richly. Both shows are good eye candy, have plots just on the good side of inane, and have characters that are all eminently enjoyable. Burn Notice is on its 2nd official season (although season 1 had a pretty long interlude in the middle) and Royal Pains is showing it's 3rd episode tonight. You can catch up with both of them on Hulu, which is god's gift to the bored, and I highly recommend both.

Entourage will be coming back in early July, and if the story goes in the direction last season's finale would suggest, things are looking up for the boys. I understand how it's easier to grow characters when they're facing adversity than success, but two seasons of down times got pretty dull. Now that Vince is going to be starring in Scorsese's version of Gatsby should mean that his career is back on the upswing. That said, I'd take 30 mins a week of Ari, Llyod and Drama just being themselves. HBO generally does marathons of shows as they're coming back, so it should be pretty easy to catch back up a week or two before the season premier.

The last show of the summer will be Mad Men's season 3, which is scheduled to come back some time in August. The characters and writing on this show are easily the best of the four I've mentioned. It's definitely slower, but it's "good TV". Unfortunately, like a lot of other "good TV" out there it doesn't get the ratings to match its awards. Fortunately, it's on a cable channel, so it shouldn't go the way of Studio 60 and other network shows that these days have a much better shot at survival on a cable channel.

If I had more uumph in me right now I'd go on a long tirade about how TV creation, distribution, ratings and marketing need to seriously grow up in the current age of digital distribution. Aside from Lost, which I'm a total junkie for, I can't remember the last time I watched a show live, without at least a moderate tape delay on my DVR. I watch a ton of shows on Hulu, Netflix, or just from my DVR. Unfortunately, as easy as it would be for companies to see what it is that I'm watching (digital footprints anyone?) it seems that unless you have a Nielsen box your viewing doesn't count. As a result, American Idol "wins" the ratings regularly, and quality shows like Terminator get axed. I read somewhere that a network TV show needs 15 million + viewers a week to be considered successful, whereas a cable show is a hit if it breaks the 1 million mark. If that discrepancy means that I'll only like shows on cable in a few years so be it, but with all the new ways companies have to follow my viewership and target me with ads, there's got to be a better way. Now someone just needs to find it (and maybe hire me as their lawyer.... bwahaha)

Summer Movies

I've mentioned several times in this space that this summer's crop of movies is one of the more promising sets I've seen in recent years. There have been some disappointments, some not-as-good-as-it-could-have-been-but-lets-give-the-trailer-makers-an-Oscar offerings, one movie I definitely liked more than the 'rents, and if we're willing to go backwards a few months, one movie that shows why books are often a better story telling medium than movies.

Normally that quartet would be more than enough for an entire summer. Fortunately for yours truly there are still two 80s toy franchise movies still to come, one big-gay-Austrian satirist, a gratuitously violent look at WWII, a movie that should actually be good, and another proof that books are often better than movies (although the movies can be fun too). The early buzz on this one is pretty bad, although the previews look pretty sweet, so I'll have to wait and see how awful the reviews are, and I wish this one was playing in the theater across the street from me, cause it looks awesome!

By my count that makes 12 movies this summer that I'd like to go see. I'll probably end up missing a few of them, but that's an incredibly deep list of movies that at least have the potential to be entertaining. Now, I'm not counting on any of these movies cracking my "3 movies on a deserted island that has a 50HD tv, DVD player and infinite power source for the two" list (Casablanca, Princess Bride, Star Wars), but I wasn't disappointed (too much) by either Terminator or Watchmen. Wolverine I knew would suck going into the theater (couldn't convince my friends that it really was going to be that bad - I mean, the helicopter exploded twice! The love interest died, twice!), but Star Trek was thoroughly enjoyable from start to finish. I'll agree with my maternal unit's assessment that the plot sucked - Romulan miners from the future come to kill the Federation, and give the writers an excuse to retcon whatever they want - but there wasn't a slow moment throughout the entire thing, I thought the casting was great, the dialogue was fun, and the more successes movies like that have the more likely my space opera craving will be hit (come on, do a Serenity sequel already!!!!)

It's rare that any "action" movie can stand the test of time: Star Wars 4-6 (and people will ding me on the Ewoks), Indy 1 &3, Terminator 2, Matrix, Top Gun, Fifth Element (although that's more of a cult following), Die Hard, Gladiator (does this count?). That's 11 movies going back over 30 years, less than the total coming out this summer. Basically what I'm saying is that summer movies are like one night stands - you're doing it for fun, not trying to find a life partner. That's why I have to disagree with the Maternal Unit's assessment of Star Trek. I contend it was fun, and that's really all I'm looking for. If my life depended on it I'd say that none of the movies from this summer will join the list that started this paragraph, although I'm willing to be pleasantly surprised. That said (which is apparently my trade-mark typed saying (thanks sis)), I'm extremely happy with the direction that Hollywood is going this summer. Before Spiderman and the Lord of the Rings movies, most of my nerd interests had about a 0% chance of actually making it onto the big screen. These days it seems like its more of a question of when, not if (although this holy grail really needs to get green lit).

All I'm saying is that as a self professed nerd, the movie titles this summer make me happy! Now lets just hope some of the actual celluloid (or digital bits and bytes as the case may be) can live up to the names.

Sad but True

Found this article hilarious, and also kind of disturbing. Also, the gauntlet has been thrown, so expect a run down of this summer's movie scene a bit later today.

Darn, and it Looked So Promising

Ok, I'll be the first (although surely not the last) to admit that I've become a little too enamoured with the concept of the warp drive. On a deeply visceral level the idea of a universal speed limit just doesn't jive with the way universe is set up. There HAS to be some way that galaxy (ooh, or even trans-galactic) empires could exist, and that's not going to happen if it takes 100+ years to visit your closest neighbor. So, the warp drive, even though it's probably centuries away (although who knows wtf our scientific progress is going to start looking like), was definitely near the top of my science wish list (hmm... that's a cool idea for a later post).

Unfortunately, I just came across this story, which suggests there might be a few down sides to the warp drive. Oh well, back to the drawing board I guess.

Because it's Cool

I've mentioned this to various people over the past year or two, but given how cool faster than light (FTL) travel is, most folks haven't heard about this concept. If we're ever going to travel the stars, here's a good guess of how it's going to happen.

Freedom isn't Free

Upon reading that title, the more high minded out there are probably thinking of the Thomas Jefferson quote about the Tree of Liberty and the blood of patriots and tyrants. The more scatologically minded are probably thinking about the song in Team America. While both are worthy thoughts, neither captures the intent of the title. Rather, I'm thinking of freedom in the Tocquevillian sense.

The best teacher I've ever had in my life was my college advisor, Joshua Mitchell. He wrote this book about Alexis de Tocqueville and I was lucky enough to take a class with him on Tocqueville's master work Democracy in America. Of the many mind altering thoughts put in my head during that class, one of the most important is the concept of limited freedom. The basic thesis of this argument is that if you give a person unlimited freedom they will be paralyzed by indecision. I'm big on mental imagery to understand difficult concepts so here's the image:

Imagine a person on an infinitely large grid who is told they need to reach the end of the grid in order to receive a reward. They can take any path they want, but the goal is to reach the end. If put in that situation most people would have no idea which way to go. All directions seem equally vast, empty and pointless. If instead you were to say go through door one or door two, the individual would have far fewer choices, and so would be able to reach a conclusion more readily. Infinite freedom is the first case, limited freedom the second.

The conclusion to this argument is that only when a person is free to chose from a discrete set of options will that person be able to exercise his/her free will. Hence - freedom isn't free, rather, you need to limit a persons freedom in order for that person to be able to use their freedom. Hopefully that made a modicum of sense. More hopefully, seeing why I'm talking about it will make things make more sense.

Right now I'm feeling like the person on the blank grid who's being told to "find the other side". I have no idea where to go, and the enormity of my task is freezing me into inaction. Sure, you'd think, "ok, Billy's going to Law School. His choices are pretty limited, what's he obsessing about? Jeeze GROW UP!" Absent for a moment the fact that I, like the Lost Boys and the kids in the Toys 'R Us song don't ever want to grow up, there's actually a surprisingly large amount on my plate right now. I need to get a loan for school, find a place to live, figure out my insurance situation for the summer (really? insurance? apparently...), register my gaming organization as a charity/non-profit (government bureaucracies are fun), coordinate with the charities our organization selected for our season ending tournament, coordinate with the tournament location, write up a script for a SGi podcast, go to the gym (I'll have soo many more clothes to wear if I could just fit into all of them), eat, sleep, shower, have fun. Sure, towards the end of that list there were things that are more long term/general upkeep, but it all takes time.

So, to tackle that mess I'm picking things and randomly doing them. For example, today I got all of the initial charity registration done that I can do without getting other's signatures. That's a big step forward and let me cross something off the list. I'm also making an appointment to go to my bank on Monday and talk to a loan officer about getting deeply into debt for school. Those two are the biggies, and once they're done the rest kinda sorta fall into place - I'll have dropped my total options of "things to do" from 20 down to 5, at which point it all seems more manageble.

Why am I writing this blog post? Well, first, many of the naggers read this blog, so I figured it would help them to realize that not only do I have a plan, but I'm making progress on that plan. If various naggers see that theirs is not the only nag on the list, they might all be nicer in their nagging (although anyone who knows me knows that nagging is necessary, gah the vicious cycle!). Second, it's cathartic to write about one's worries. Third, another item on the list of "things to do" is blog. By whining about all the things to do on my blog I am able to check off one of those things (yes, that sentence tortures the rules of grammar, but 1) I don't care, 2) you get the point). Fourth, um, oh, right, fourth, by sharing a deeply philosophical understanding of why people procrastinate I achieve two aims. One, everyone gets better insight into the black box that is Billy's brain, and two I get to look really smart while being really lazy.

Anyway, that's all for now, hopefully you've learned a little something, or at the very least wasted some time (and now you know that by wasting time you're not being lazy, rather you're falling victim to a Tocquevillian crisis!). Blog to you later!

1% Chance of DOOM

Yeah, so there's a .8% chance that some time in the next 5 billion years that Mercury will align with Jupiter and turn the solar system into a cosmic game of billiards.

Start worrying now!

Better Late than Never

Last weekend I participated in a Warhammer Fantasy tournament. Here's the AAR (after-action report for those not in the know) as well as some general thoughts.

I went into the tournament talking quite a bit more trash than is my usual, fly-below-the-radar style. For the none-of-you out there who don't know but do care, I play demons. In general this is like bringing the '96 Bulls against the 1996 CYO Mt. Carmel 7th Grade A-team. It's just not a fair fight. The tournament had put in quite a few restrictions to try and hamper my army, but I'd play tested a bit, had my army nice and ready to go and was confident that I could pull out a victory.

The first round I was paired up against a lizardmen army. Lizards have a lot of different abilities that are tailor made for going up against demons, and the guy had an army that looked reasonably well put together. He had made a few choices that I thought of as sub-optimal, so I pegged him as a good-not-great player. He ended up being one of the better players at the tournament, and my early misappraisal of his abilities definitely hurt. In the game I made 2 mistakes, and had one run of truly terrible dice rolling. I should have switched the deployment of two units, I thought something was within 20" of me when it was actually 20.25" (ouch), those were the mistakes. On the other hand, I managed to get three of my main combat units into a fight with his one main unit, a fight where I'm roughly a 75% favorite. Sadly, the dice came up on the 25% side, and my army ended being completely wiped out.

The tournament used "battle points" to determine an overall winner, and after the first game I was at 0. My opponent had picked up 20. I knew then that I had no hope of winning, but figured I could make a good charge at the "top something" by wiping my way through the losers bracket. The round two pairings came up and I was being pitted against the youngest person in the tourney. One of the tournament organizers (with whom I'm pretty good friends) came up to me and said "be nice". I replied, "of course, but there's only so much I can do".

The kid had a very nicely painted chaos warriors army (turns out his dad painted it) and he was a pleasant enough opponent who knew the rules pretty darned well for someone his age (13 I later found out). That said, he just had no hope. His entire strategy revolved around charging into combat with me. The problem was that given a modicum of intelligence on my part (which I displayed in this game) the units he was trying to get into a fight with me had no chance of winning. I ended up tabling him after turn 4 (of 6). I really tried to be nice, and he seemed to have a good time of it, so I didn't feel too bad.

After getting 20 points from the kid I had gotten some of my pride back, and had the equivalent of two draws. That said, there were people in the high 30s, so I still had a lot of work to do. Game 3 I was pitted against another chaos warriors army. This opponent had driven all the way down from New Jersey, and was a really nice guy. That said, his army suffered from the same issue that my previous opponents had, although to a lesser degree. Also, the huge amounts of Capt. Morgan and Coke he'd been drinking probably didn't help that much. He had a slightly sub-optimal army (chose the wrong type of spells - Nurgle instead of Tzeentch, and yes Mom, Nurgle is the guy who has the Great Unclean One) and he split his army into slow and fast sides. I was able to deploy across from only the fast side, and pretty much nullify his slow moving portion. The dice didn't screw me and my guys were just better than his. Still, because I ignored half his army I was only able to get 14 of the 20 possible points.

This put me at 34 points after 3 games. The top tables had roughly 50, so again, no hope of winning. That said, I'd managed to eke my way back above several of my friends who'd won their first few games, so that was nice. My last game was against yet another chaos warriors army. My 4th opponent had played another of my friends in game three and I'd been able to watch enough of it to know that he knew what he was doing. Also, he had the best army build for chaos warriors that was possible under the tournament rules. However, his build requires one model get a certain spell in order for it to be most effective. Spells are randomly rolled, and he had a 1/6 chance to not get that spell. Fortunately for me, it was that 1 in 6, and so I wouldn't have to fight his army at its peak.

Unlike my previous opponent, this guy's entire army was mounted, so I couldn't just ignore one half. Fortunately, my guys are still better than his. In one instance one of my hero models was surrounded by ten of his basic troops. My guy was just flat out better and won. It was that kind of a fight. It was a pretty close fight until the last turn when I forced his general to charge mine. He threw in another unit as well, but I was able to use a rule which allows only our two generals to fight. Mine slaughtered his (mine was a 20 foot tall demon, his was a wussy wizard, it kind of makes sense) and ran down the other unit. This was a big enough swing to give me a 16 point victory.

At the end of the day I managed to finish 10th out of 50 with 50 battle points. The tournament winner had 68 although 20 of those came when his last opponent forfeited the game over a rules dispute... On the whole I'm pretty happy with my comeback. I'll definitely be haunted by the possibility of what might have been if that one charge in the first game had actually worked out. Especially looking at the top tables near the end of the tournament I know that my army would have an AWESOME match up against anything it would have fought there. Oh well, play better next time.

Overall the tournament went well, and I thought a lot of the individual balance restrictions that were in place worked well. That said, I think most of them worked because so many of the attendees assumed the restrictions would work, and so brought sub-optimal lists. From a pure power perspective I think there were maybe 2 or three other lists in the tourney that could match me, and so I'm still pretty annoyed that I only finished 10th. That said, 50 points in 3 games isn't too shabby so overall I'm pretty pleased.

I do still think that demons are utterly broken, and on my road trip across the country this summer I plan on proving that point. I'm going to be stopping at stores across the country and challenging people to games. I'll definitely be blogging about it (that trip is a main reason this blog started), so expect fairly regular updates about the state of play in Illinois, Missouri, Arizona and California at least (we'll see if I make it down to Texas). And that trip is coming up in just about a month, now all I have to do is get the financing in place (ugggggh, anyone have $70k they want to loan me? I'm good for it I swear! I just don't want to deal with the loan application process, BOO WORKING!)

Something Cool

I find this strangely mesmerizing. Thought I'd share it with you all. Also, I played in a Warhammer tournament this weekend, will probably share way too many thoughts about it later today.

Fantasy Basketball

Here's the promised second part of the fantasy draft series. This one took place immediately after MVB threw in the towel on the NFL draft. In his defense, I've played this game for many years with my dad, and MVB was just winging it, so I did have a pretty serious advantage. For the NBA draft, Sleve (name changed) had been putting together a list of players he'd want to draft, so he was slightly better prepared for this than MVB had been for his.

As I've explained in previous posts, the general idea is to put MJ on one team, Bird and Magic on the other, then give Jordan's team the first pick from there. Sleve didn't want to take me up on that, and instead just took Magic first, letting me have Jordan. Ok, if he wanted to do that who am I to argue. So first picks: Sleve - Magic, WTH3 - MJ. (I'm going to hold off scoring this one until the end, because I think you can make very good points about each pick, so it's hard to say who "won". That said, in the future I think you have to take MJ out of the discussion, cause basically, his team just wins... anyway)

Second pick Sleve took Hakeem. As mentioned before it is my opinion that the top three picks should always be MJ, Bird/Magic. Sleve definitely threw me by taking Hakeem this early, although he would have been the first center I would have taken off the board as well. I just think there are enough quality centers that 1-6ish are pretty even. If Sleve wasn't going to I definitely was going to take Bird. MJ and Bird on the same team is just so much combined "I WIN" factor.

Third pick Sleve took LeBron. Now, this was just after game 2 of the Eastern Finals, so LeBron's stock was about as high as it's been (and probably will be until he wins a championship). However, if LBJ doesn't have to be your number 1 option he brings great size, speed, D and ball handling to a team. Like Magic he can basically play all 5 positions, and putting the two of them on the floor at the same time would allow your team to go very big without losing anything in terms of back court play. Having five 6'9"+ players on the court at once is nasty. Falling behind on size, I took Tim Duncan. Assuming you don't play centers out of position, Duncan is generally regarded as the best PF ever. He has 4 rings, plays great on both sides of the floor and is a great teammate. At this point I'm down on the overall athleticism of my team, but I have 13 rings to Sleve's 7, so I'm feeling ok.

Fourth pick Sleve took Kobe. I'm not a Kobe hater like Simmons, but neither am I his biggest fan. I respect the fact that he is a beast on both ends of the floor, but in my mind he wants to be better than he is. He sees himself as Jordan, but he also has a pout button that Jordan never showed. Plus, I'm just not sure how well he could fit into a team where he wasn't the best player. Basically, Magic+Kobe has me nervous. Wanting to solidify my inside presence I took Bill Russel. He's a bit undersized to play center these days, but the idea in these drafts is to normalize size/speed based on era, and in that case there're no worries. He's also the greatest winner of all time. One of the things I like is that my team's Finals record at this point is 24-2 (both being Bird losses to Magic) and Sleves is 8-7. My team is just full of more winners and to me that matters.

Fifth Sleve took Karl Malone. Solid pick, definitely a physical force who plays both ways, but the lack of championships hurts. Yes, he was unfortunate to go up against Michael, but in every game that mattered Malone was made to look silly next to His Airness. '98 Finals Game 6's last 41.9 second, and all that. Still a fine pick. Fifth, I added Wilt Chamberlain. This pick hurts my ridiculous 92% Finals winning percentage, but having Wilt's scoring come off the bench is just too good to overlook.

This is going long so I'll summarize the last 7 picks on both sides (not necessarily in order). Sleve - John Stockton, Dennis Johnson, Grant Hill, Chris Webber, Patrick Ewing, Oscar Robertson and Moses Malone. WTH3 - Pete Marovitch, David Thompson, Scottie Pippen, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Dennis Rodman, Jerry West and CP3.

Sleve basically lost the draft in his three pick run of DJ, Hill and Webber. DJ was a solid role player, and apparently won the 79 Finals MVP. Hill and Webber are both testaments to almost-lived-up-to potential. All three are great players who would fit into a championship team, I'm just not sure they're all timers. Ewing (while a Hoya, he's a Hoya I remember as a hated Knick, so am always ambivalent towards) never could win the big one. Stockton is a solid pick, although I can see taking Isiah over him. Big O and Moses are both great picks, and in my opinion are the strength of Sleve's later rounds.

Not much you can say about my last few picks. I've got a soft spot for Pippen and Rodman due to their Bulls affiliations. You could make the case that neither deserve to be on this team, but I took them more for their athleticism and D. The '91 Bulls combo of Jordan and Pippen were just amazing perimeter defenders and I liked both of those two in picks 8-12. West I got 12th, which is just sad, because he's the frikken logo and probably the third best guard of all time. Younger players just see a White Guy and don't think about him, so he's definitely someone who can be picked up later. Kareem changed the rules of the game (no more dunking) cause he was so dominant. Russell, Wilt, Kareem and Duncan as my bigs makes me pretty confident about controlling the post, especially compared to Hakeem, Malone and Ewing. I especially like the mental toughness edge I'd have over Malone and Ewing. Pistol Pete and CP3 could handle the ball for me, although given my overall talent, they're probably some of the first to go to the bench. Jordan, Bird, West, Duncan and Russell are probably my best starting 5, and I'd put CP3 and Pete out there when I want to run. Thompson is largely referred to as the athletic freak of the league before Michael, and would be a great sub for MJ. Ok, apparently I did have a lot to say about my last few picks, sorry.

Ok, so those were the teams. It really was pretty close until Sleve's threesome of average. As with the NFL, I heartily recommend this as a time passing activity. That said, I've clearly done this before, so don't expect a cake walk if you take me on.

Enjoy the weekend!

Finally an Answer!

Since I was a small boy many questions have haunted me. One in particular is, "if knowing is half the battle, then what is the other half?!" Well, here is an answer!

Fantasy Sports

Everyone loves fantasy sports. If you don't well, then there's probably something wrong with you (for the purposes of that statement, being over the age of 50 counts as something wrong, sorry Dad). That said, there's a different take on the term "fantasy" that I think is worth a thought experiment at the least, and many a conversation during the lulls of a sporting event at the best. This version of fantasy sports operates on the following premise - "what is the greatest team you can make using players from any era, assuming they play at their best (i.e. Bulls Jordan, not Wizards version, Bird before his back went, 9ers Montana/Rice, not the Chiefs/Seahawks versions, etc.)" As I alluded to in previous posts, I've been playing this game a bit, and have not failed in having a great time doing it. Here are rundowns of the most recent NFL and NBA fantasy drafts I've done.

Both of these took place during my recent beach vacation, and both took place several hours into the evening's festivities. My opponents in each draft are free to claim that these "festivities" harmed their thinking process, but I was more "festive" than both, so bah and humbug to those excuses. To protect the innocent (and incompetent), I've changed the names of players.

The NFL draft was first, and tailed off rather quickly. It was against someone we'll call Mikel V Bront or MVB for short. The draft started based on the ludicrous statement by MVB that if you were picking an all time team you'd take Adam Vinatieri first because, "you'd never lose a close game". Ok, first pick, Vinatieri to MVB. Calmly, coolly and collectedly I took Joe Montana as my QB. For those scoring at home, first blood to WTH3, not MVB.

Sensing I think that he was digging himself an early hole he took Peyton Manning as his QB. Fine pick, though I could easily make the case for Elway, Marino or even Brady over Manning. Elway and Brady both have more superbowls, and Marino (at the moment) still has quite a few statistical marks over Manning. Still, if you like the cereberal, coordinator-on-the-field approach, Manning is a fine pick. Second pick I went with Jim Brown. Again, for those scoring at home, a top 5-7 all time QB, or the greatest running back of all time? Right, WTH3 - 2, MVB - 0.

Ok, so things might not have been going so well for MVB at this point. Knowing, correctly, that a solid line on both sides is key to any successful team, MVB went with Orlando Pace as his 3rd pick. A good pick. However, we had stipulated that you had to place line players at their spot, not just pick the top 5 left tackles of all time for your line. I could come up with more than 3 other good tackles, so I figured I'd let him determine who the top two were, and then just take 3 and 4 (for the record, I got Jonathan Ogden pretty late in the draft). At this point I had the best QB of all time and the best RB of all time, why not add the best WR as well? Jerry Rice, come on down! WTH3 - 3, MVB - 0.

Teams at this point:
MVB: P. Manning, O.Pace, A. Vinatieri
WTH3: J. Montana, J. Brown, J.Rice
(I win, and btw, it seems if you want your son to be good at football, have his name start with a J)

Once more, bandwagoning on my WR pick, MVB went with Marvin Harrison. A totally fine pick, and could be argued that he fits the Rice mold as well as anyone since. However, since I had the best three offensive skill position players of all time I figured I'd jump over to the D side of the ball and take Lawerence Taylor, probably the best defensive player of all time... WTH3 - 4, MVB - 0.

At this point things started to fall apart quickly. The team MVB put together before we called it quits was: QB - P. Manning, RB - W. Peyton (probably his best pick), WR - M. Harrison and C. Carter, TE- S. Sharpe, T - O. Pace, R. Grimm, G - J. Hutchinson, LB - Jack Lambert, CB - C. Bailey, D. Green, S - S. Taylor, K - A. Vinatieri. Pretty much all of those guys are hall of famers, but a few, Hutchinson, Bailey and Taylor are probably just good pro bowlers. Also, his team shows a propensity for the Redskins that while understandable given his loyalties, is just not the way to go in this game.

On the other side, my team was - QB - J. Montana, RB - J. Brown, WR - J. Rice, R. Moss, T- J. Ogden, DE - R. White, D. Jones, LB - L. Taylor, D. Butkus, CB - D. Sanders, S - R. Lott, E. Reed. Every single one of those guys aside from Reed, Moss and Ogden are probably best ever at their position, and those three are also likely first ballot hall of famers. We called it quits once I started putting his team together for him, but wow, that's just a beating.

Overall, football is a fun game for this, although given the fact that you have to go 44 players deep, it does demand a pretty good historical understanding of the game. If anyone ever wants to play this with me please let me know, its a great time.

I had planned on doing the basketball draft in the same post, but this is already probably way too long so I'll save it for another post.

For the record, I still want to do basketball fantasy draft and have a discussion of movies this summer in the next few days, so expect more increadibly long posts in the next few days.

The Business Cycle

All large organizations go through cycles of growth and decline. My (soon to be ex) job is at an interesting point in that process at the moment. We're growing rapidly, but with all growth comes change. I'm going to law school, so I'm able to be a bit more dispassionate in my appraisal of the current situation. There seem to be quite a few "doom and gloom"ers, and a fair amount of people are jumping ship.

I've been with this company for nearly 6 years now (week and a half to go on that one), so I've seen quite a bit. I think the first "this ship is sinking" comment came back in 2004, and the boat still seems to be afloat. It's a very different looking boat, but the water is still on the outside.

We're having a big all hands meeting today at 3 and we'll see where things go from there.

Normally I wouldn't share stuff like this, cause honestly, who cares, but I realized that if the all hands meeting starts at 3 that will probably mean no other posts from me today. I have a few things I really want to talk about, so keep the faith alive that DA will have interesting content again. I swear.

I'm baaack

Sorry all for the long delay between posts. I was on an awesome beach vacation and have barely touched my computer in the past week and a half. That said, I do have some good fodder for new posts, so expect fairly regular updates the rest of the week.

In the interim, feast your senses on what could hopefully, maybe, possibly be the future of gaming (and I even have the right system for it!)

Some Good Points

The man writing this link raises some interesting questions. Saw the movie last night, it's better than the reviews, but definitely could have done with a better writing staff. Worth seeing, just not as supremely awesome as it could have been. More to come later today.

Oh, and Happy Birthday Sister-type!

Grab Bag

I'm going to see Terminator tonight. I already saw Star Trek and Wolverine. There are about 6 more movies on the list that I need to see this summer. Expect a full blown summer movie post tomorrow.

Until then, thoughts on basketball. If I had to guess before the game ones which favorite would lose I definitely would have gone with the Lakers. Instead they won by two and the Cavs lost by one. Odd. I'm revising my estimates and going with two 6 game series that should be pretty enjoyable to watch. Still banking on a Lakers-Cavs final. Between David Stern and the Nike-Muppets commercial the fix is in.

Finally, a teaser paragraph for a later post. After the TNT guys did their all time starting 5 my dad and I picked top 10 teams, alternating picks. Dad got Bird and 1st pick, I got MJ and 2nd. The teams broke out as follows:

Dad: Bird, Magic, Hakeem, Jabaar, Big O, Wes Unseld, Malone, Isiah, Wilt and.... I'm forgetting the 10th
Me: MJ, Duncan, Russel, David Thompson, Jerry West, Bill Walton, Scottie, LeBron, CP3, John Stockton

It's a fun game to play and you really can't go wrong doing it. Anyway, that's fodder for a more full post at some time in the future.

Oh, and I'm currently 3-3 in my 40k League. I feel like I'm getting the hang of my new army, but am very much looking forward to next month's version. So much more versatility, wayy better speed and much better ability to deal with the abundance of mech lists out there.

Any and all thoughts about any and all topics much appreciated in the comments field.

Slow Day

Sorry all, just not a lot going on today. Hopefully the basketball tonight will provide me with useful fodder for future posts.

That said, I did just find out that I have 35GB of emails on my work account. The top tier that they counted in the email telling us to start deleting our emails was 15GB. I am so proud of my email account. 6 years of undeleted emails are awesome.

$50 BILLION!!!!

Based on my previous assertion that if and when the Lakers defeated the Rockets China would owe the United States the outstanding trade balance it looks like our country is $50B richer today than it was on Saturday. Pretty awesome, huh?

Seriously though, as I stated in the initial post about Rick Adelman's snake-bit history against Phil Jackson I wasn't sure what the precipitating cause of the Rockets' defeat would be, just that I knew they would lose. Well as the post game 6 articles will show, it really wasn't that Phil out coached Adelman. Rather, as the case seems to be in virtually every situation a combination of superior talent and just plain bad luck conspired against Mr. Adelman.

As I'm want to tell anyone who will listen, you should never take betting advice from me. That said, I would qualify this particular situation by pointing out that it really wasn't a bet. It was a sure thing. And if we've learned anything over the past few years, it's that sure things should always be cashed in on.

Predictions for NBA conference finals - Lakers in 6, Cavs in 4; Cavs in 5 in finals.

Am I Turning into my Mother

Here is the article in question. Given my overall high opinion of my mother there are drastically worse fates that could happen. I'd like to stay about 5'1" though if I had the option...

Planning on a few more updates over the course of the day, so stay tuned, or don't. That's cool too.

National Pizza Party Day

No, I'm not making this up. Those of you who know me, and if you're reading my blog you know me, know that there is no more perfect holiday for me. I think I'll need to co opt it into the International Church of Billy (ICOB - membership 1 and always recruiting, leadership positions are available). The even more amazing thing - I'm actually going to a Pizza Party tonight.

Awesome meter officially set to 11.

Justification for Higher Education

As a reward to anyone who read my earlier opus, feast your eyes on THIS!!!! When I'm up until 4am regularly during my 1L year, things like this will help me stay awake.

Relating to Understand

I realized relatively early on in my life that I most readily understand a concept only when I am able to relate it to something else with which I am familiar. If you've been reading this blog at all you'll notice that I'm constantly comparing one thing to another, comparing sports and modes of expression, strategy games and financial markets, love and a time of cholera (ok, not that, but I needed a third thing and that title has always stuck in my mind - not that I've read the book, although I hear good things). I'm currently reading through Michael Lewis' new book "Panic: The Story of Modern Financial Insanity". As I was reading I came to yet another semi-baked theory that I'd like to share with my massive readership.

First, a little about the book. I received it as a birthday present, and both the Official Giver of Gifts and I thought that the book was authored by Lewis. He is definitely one of the X amount of people I'd want to sit around a dinner table with, so anything he puts out will immediately draw my attention. I was a little disappointed when I saw "Edited By" above his name (and in very small print, trixy publishers!) on the cover, but I figured I'd give it a short read to see if I could learn anything. I was pleasantly surprised by how he structured the book - intros written to each section/financial panic, and those sections comprised of news stories written about said panic. It's an interesting way to get a sense of the mind set that goes into each of these "catastrophes".

In the section on the Asian crash of '97 he writes about the hedge fund Long-Term Capitol Management (LTCM). Starting the story back in the context of his initial book Liar's Poker (a mandatory read for just about anyone) he writes about the crash of '87 and how it marked a change in power on Wall Street. At the start of that book he describes the average trader as someone who traded more from his gut than his head, and at heart was a salesman - emotional intuition was more highly valued than rigorous analytics. In the anecdote from Panic he writes how in the '87 crash, in the midst of Black Monday (Oct 19, 1987, the biggest single day drop %-wise in the financial markets ever) John Merriweather and his group of "young professors" were able to realize a fundamental truth about the crash and everyone else's reaction to it.

Lewis describes how the emotionally effective traders had essentially (very much simplified for the sake of narrative) been using cheat sheets to determine what the prices of their bonds should be. The specific set of circumstances that arose on Oct 19th, 1987 was not covered on those cheat sheets. Lewis is a much better writer than I'll ever be, so I'll just quote his section here:

This brute with razor instincts, it turned out, relied on a cheat sheet that laid out the prices of old long bonds as the market moved. The move in the bond market during the panic had blown all these bonds right off his sheet. "he's moved beyond his intuition," one of the young professors thought. "He doesn't have the tools to cope. And if he doesn't have the tools, who does?" His confusion was an opportunity for the young professors to exploit.

In order to exploit that opportunity, the young professors developed a series of mathematical models that would allow them to accurately price those bonds in more extreme and increasingly exotic ways. They took an area of knowledge that could previously be condensed down to a cheat sheet and evolved it out to the point where people needed multiple Ph.D.s in order to follow the math. Along the way they made hundreds of millions of dollars and kinda-sorta inadvertently triggered a follow-on financial panic in '97 and can be round-aboutly blamed for the current financial fiasco in which we currently find ourselves.

Ok, now that you know wayyy more about esoteric financial details of the 80s and 90s I'll explain the revelation that made all of this make more sense to me.

The analogy that makes the most sense to me is to compare the evolution of the financial markets to post-Newtonian physics. The "brute with the razor instincts" from the above passage was working in the equivalent of a Newtonian version of physics. He was dealing with actions and reactions that he could experience in his daily life. Sure some of them were complicated - the equivalent of a dropping weight spinning a rod that pulls a string that's attached to another weight that's on an incline, and figuring out how fast the weight goes up the incline. There's a lot to that problem, but you can relatively easily build the system, and none of the math should be beyond a pretty smart high school student.

What the young professors did was invent the equivalent of Relativity Theory and Quantum Dynamics. These two theories work just the same as Newton’s theories in every day environments. It’s only when things start moving really Really REALLY fast or gets really Really REALLY small that Newton’s laws break down, and you need either Relativity or Quantum Dynamics to explain what is happening. Analogously (did I just make up a word there, not sure) the old bond pricing cheat sheets worked really well in most cases that would ever come up. However, when that 1 in 50 million situation occurred the cheat sheets were invalidated. You needed much more complicated equations, using wayyyy more Greek letters than most people would recognize to begin to make sense of what was going on.

The result of this evolution is that instead of anyone who was particularly smart in High School understanding exactly how the world around them works, only those who majored in physics in college would be able to accurately explain what’s really going on. Of course, just like with physics, the financial markets didn’t stop there. The young professors busted out in the late 90s, but instead of going back to the easier days of everything on a cheat sheet matters just got more complicated. Wall Street began courting people with degrees in advanced physics and mathematics even more strongly than they previously had, and these people did what they normally do – torture the numbers to try and understand reality.

If you’re as big of a lay physics geek as I am you’ll know that the current Holy Grail of physics is to unify Relativity with Quantum Dynamics – explain what happens to the really big and the really small with the same set of equations. This quest has lead to terms you might have heard: String Theory, M Theory, Brane Theory, the Multiverse, etc. While it is possible to have an extremely basic understanding of what all these theories suggest (Brian Greene is the author you’re looking for), there are probably 50 people in the whole world who could really keep up with the math that goes into it. Similarly, as financial matters have gotten more and more complex – credit default swaps, collateralized debt obligations and a host of other oddly named financial products – the amount of people who can intelligently comment on them have similarly shrunk. It got to the point where the people in charge of the big banks playing with the money didn’t totally understand the models that their decisions were made on.

Now, there are tons of different implications for this realization, and I’m sure I’ll happily digress onto many of them in the future, but I’m onto my third page of single spaced text and I’m sure no one is still interested in reading this. The take-away should be that there is an interesting and informative parallel between the growing complexity in our understanding of the physical universe and the growing complexity of our manipulation of the financial universe.

Hopefully this comparison can help others with their understanding of the world, and as always, I look forward to hearing your thoughts in the comments (I think I’m up to 4 total comments at this point! WOOT!)

Why precise language matters

I was reading about a new bill that's going through congress right now that is aimed at curtailing cyber-bullying. Stepping away from whether bullying in general and cyber bullying specifically should be criminalized, what really struck me about this particular bill was the critique that it was "broadly worded" and could be interpreted in ways other than the so called intent of the authors. The specific language of the bill can be found here, and to my as-yet-untrained legal reasoning it does seem to provide a bit more leeway than Rep. Linda Sanchez seems to suggest is the intent. The original cnn.com article rightly points out that elected officials are not generally the most tech-savvy bunch, Ted "Series of Tubes" Stevens, and I realize that lawyers make their hay on interpretation of "loosely" written laws, but it would be nice if the people making our laws understood what they were talking about.

This article brought to my mind a larger (in the Billy universe anyway) issue of poorly written rules, and the great Rules as Written (RAW) vs. Rules as Intended (RAI) debate. As previously mentioned throughout this blog, I regularly play tabletop strategy games known as Warhammer and Warhammer 40k. These games have many strengths, but clarity in the rules is not one of them. The designers of the games excuse this by saying that the players should follow RAI instead of RAW. Their logic for this is that it should be clear in all situations what the "intended" outcome is, and where the players are unable to readily reach an agreement they should effectively flip a coin to figure out what happens in that particular case. The problem with this approach to the rules is that it assumes you play the game with the same 3-5 people every time and that house rules can be developed over the course of your friendship to cover the odd corner cases that sometimes come up.

The problem with this strategy is that it breaks down when people do not have regular opponents. I might always play using certain conventions (forests are infinitely tall in Warhammer being one of those), but players in Chicago might play differently (use true model's eye view to determine how tall the trees are). Both of these interpretations are equally supported in the rules, and it rarely is an issue because we are geographically separated enough that the conflict doesn't ever come up. However, on my cross country road trip to Law School this summer I plan on stopping at various locations and playing these games. I know that there will be multiple instances where my opponent and I are going to have differing interpretations of the rules, and both of us will, strictly speaking, be correct. A properly written rule set would provide us with the means to settle these disputes. Sadly, Games Workshop, the company that makes Warhammer and Warhammer 40k, does not seem to care about my particular plight, and I will undoubtedly go to my grave harping on these same issues.

Taking this example out of the nerd-o-sphere and into the "Real World", there is an unfortunate similarity between Games Workshop and Rep. Sanchez's view. Both assume that the intent of the rule/law are apparent, and that their interpretation of that law is the only one that could ever come about. Sadly, this is not the case. Yes, actions with "the intent is to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person" covers the actions of a cyber bully, but it could also be argued that they cover your average Internet forum poster. Anyone who has read the comments section of Deadspin will know that they pretty much only post with the intent to intimidate or harass the subject of the post. I don't think Rep. Sanchez believes that all Deadspin commenters should be imprisoned, but as written, that is what her bill will allow for.

There is no great solution to this problem as constituted. Not because I can't outline a solution (write clear, well defined rules/laws) but rather because the people in charge of writing those laws need to have their points of view radically altered before such a solution becomes feasible. Ultimately this is my argument for having smart people hold elected office, and why I'll always vote for the smart person I disagree with over the moron who shares my views. A smart person will be able to write laws whose consequences, while I might disagree with, are intended. I'm much more afraid of the unintended consequences of a poorly written law whose intent I agree with.

As always, please feel free to sound off in the comments section, but be careful, you could be committing a felony!