Episode 1100: Guns, Jerks, and Steal

2nd October 2014 15:45

Original source

Episode 1100: Guns, Jerks, and Steal

The d20 roleplaying system allows you to “take 10” on a skill roll for which you would normally roll a d20. This means you can settle for an “average” result of your skill check, without bothering to roll to see if you do any better. Taking 10 also means there is no risk of performing badly at the skill, which may carry a penalty if, for example you roll the die and roll a 1. Another option is to “take 20”, which means you spend a long time trying the skill repeatedly, until you eventually achieve a result equivalent to rolling a 20. This can be used, for example, to pick locks, where repeated failures carry no penalty apart from the time taken to try again. Eventually you’ll get it right and, if the lock is at all within your capability of opening, you open it. If you take 20 on a task for which there are penalties for failure, you automatically trigger those penalties, since it assumed that you actually fail your skill check several times before succeeding. So you can’t take 20 to sneak past a sleeping dragon, for example, unless you don’t mind waking the dragon. For better or worse, there is no mechanic for “taking 51” on a d20 skill roll.

Are the World’s Religions Ready For ET?

1st October 2014 23:17

Original source Science_afficionado writes: At the current rate of discovery, astronomers will have identified more than a million exoplanets by the year 2045. That means, if life is at all common in the Milky Way, astronomers could soon detect it. Realization that the nature of the debate about life on other worlds is about to fundamentally change, lead Vanderbilt astronomer David Weintraub to begin thinking seriously about how people will react to such a discovery. He realized that people’s reactions will be heavily influenced by their religious beliefs, so he decided to find out what theologians and leaders from the world’s major religions have to say about the matter. The result is a book titled Religions and Extraterrestrial Life, published by Springer this month. He discovered that from Baptists to Buddhists, from Catholics to Mormons, from Islam to the Anglican Communion, religious views on alien life differ widely.

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David Cameron Says Brits Should Be Taught Imperial Measures

23:17

Original source 00_NOP writes: Children in the U.K. have been taught in metric measures in school since (at least) 1972, but yesterday British Prime Minister David Cameron suggested that they should actually be taught in Imperial measures (which are still in use officially to measure road distances and speeds, but not really anywhere else). Is this because he hasn’t a clue about science or because he is catering to a particular political base?

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The Physics of Space Battles

28th September 2014 21:24

Original source An anonymous reader writes PBS’ It’s OK to be Smart made this interesting video showing us what is and isn’t physically realistic or possible in the space battles we’ve watched on TV and the movies. From the article: “You’re probably aware that most sci-fi space battles aren’t realistic. The original Star Wars’ Death Star scene was based on a World War II movie, for example. But have you wondered what it would really be like to duke it out in the void? PBS is more than happy to explain in its latest It’s Okay To Be Smart video. As you’ll see below, Newtonian physics would dictate battles that are more like Asteroids than the latest summer blockbuster. You’d need to thrust every time you wanted to change direction, and projectiles would trump lasers (which can’t focus at long distances); you wouldn’t hear any sound, either.”

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TYRANT: SOUTH FORK MOVES TO SYRIA

09:15

Original source

I was on Front Row a couple of weeks back, discussing Tyrant with Kirsty Lang (you can listen to the programme here for another year!). Lang, and brought it up again on my Americarnage podcast (link here) as Gnat Coombs and I weaved our way through the arty ‘Three Points’ section before moving on to American sports. Kirsty’s first question was what did I think about Tyrant, and my response was that it was ‘all over the place’. And so it is.

The credits say it was ‘created’ by Gideon Raff, who did the Israeli series that became Homeland in the US. But I suspect Raff came up with the pitch. Homeland took an American, turned him into a Moslem, and then brought him back to America to do the bidding of his terrorist mentor in Islam. Tyrant works the other way around: take a Moslem, in this case the younger son of the ruler of ‘Abbudin’, turn him into an American, and then bring him home and have him stay to help his brother rule the country when their father dies.

If you consider the concept far-fetched, don’t forget that Bashar al-Assad was studying opthamology in England when he was called home after the death of his older brother Basil. But even as you remember that, you need to accept that the concept is far fetched and the execution is fetched to infinity. Because the show seems to have been developed by Howard Gordon (24, Homeland) and Craig Wright (Six Feet Under, Lost, Dirty Sexy Money) and it seems trying desperately to incorporate as much of all those shows as possible. So what you get is a family soap opera but in an opulent fantasy setting, Dallas with revolution in the air, Dynastywithout blow-dried hair.

The family saga owes a lot to the Godfather. Bassam Al-Fayeed is the younger brother who wanted out of the family business. He has traumatic reasons buried in his past, and he’s trying desperately to hold them in. Which Adam Rayner, a British actor playing this Arab-American, does by holding everything in. He makes doe eyes to show he’s struggling within, he makes sad eyes to show he doesn’t like what he has to do. If he’s Michael Corleone, older brother Jamaal is Sonny Corleone out of Caligula. Ashraf Barhum is a kind of Arab Mark Strong, and the role lets him let everything out, including rape, pillage, and killing. To make it more interesting, his wife Leila (Moran Atias), the Alexis Carrington of this show, all plotting and accessorizing, has ‘history’ with Bassam, which will eventually, one supposes interfere with Bassam/Barry’s American wife. Although Molly is also supposed to be a doctor, Jennifer Finnegan plays the part with the wide-eyed surprise of a guest on Oprah discovering things in her life are not the way they seem.

I also found it curious that Bassam would be called Barry, since America has only one ‘Barry’ who’s also (allegedly) a Moslem in thrall to powers from the world of Islam, and that of course is President Barack ‘Barry’ Obama. I note only that the show airs on Fox’s FX network, for whose audience the default position is fear of the different, unknown, and Islamic, and leave it to you to decide how coincidental that all is.

In case you believe my Dallas anology might be forced, wait for the moment Barry’s English-born mother, played by Alice Krieg comes on stage in full Miss Ellie mode. ‘Oh Bassam, I know your brother is a sadistic unstable homicidal rapist and abuser of his people, but if he’s late for the barbeque at the palace Friday I’ll never forgive him!’.

And then there are the kids. This is the part of the show that bears Gordon’s heavy touch, as both 24 and Homeland seemed to relish their subplot of obnoxious troubled daughters who exist mostly to create desperate situations for their fathers. You need to remember that the 18-35 market of TV watchers is assumed not only to have zero interest in anyone or anything older than they are, but zero intelligence to comprehend the same. So give them kids to identify with. In Tyrant, the daughter is actually the reasonable one, but Barry’s son Sammy is both obnoxious and gay, both of which are dangerous things to be in this kingdom. I really don’t want to hang around and see the way that pans out.

It is a shame they killed off the father in the first episode, as the conflict between the brothers could have been milked more effective with his presence, and because Nasser Farris as Khaled is very good; he’s a subtle actor, which suits the nature of his character here. There is one major problem, however. Khaled has always favoured older son Jamaal, but after the ‘twist’ which ends the first episode, you would have thought that he would have recognised something different in his sons. Instead, Bassam becomes Barry. He’s lucky he didn’t move to Britain, or he would have become Bazza.

Meanwhile there is an actual revolution fomenting, and Barry is tasked with trying to be the reasonable American with good intentions who can just get everyone to be nice to each other, while preserving the status quo. Sounds very familiar? The most interesting character, potentially, is the CIA agent John Tucker (Justin Kirk), who somewhere along the line ought to be shown to be less straightforward and good-intentioned that he was in the first two shows. Or he’ll never get a spot as a Fox Contributor on Megan Kelly or Sean Hannity’s shows.

Shot is bright light, with little depth or shadow, Tyrant reflects its presentation, but since I did the Front Row segment, FX has commissioned a second series of the ‘political’ drama, as they call it. It’s one of those shows you might feel compelled to watch, just to see what outrage Jamaal will perpetrate, or what horrible plot twists will drive Adam Rayner to have to emote, but it’s the Middle East as soap. All that’s missing is the Abbudin Oil Barons Club.