Thursday, January 31, 2008

Slashdot on the Pope

Working in information technology, I make it a point to visit slashdot, a technology news site, a couple of times a day. The subjects covered on this site are many and varied and the same can be said of the user comments attending each news item. Today, they linked to this story, in which the Pope spoke on various bio-ethical issues. Hilarity ensued. My favorite comment was this:

"First lets deal with the ridiculous: An institution whose authorities have never experienced marriage and procreation presents itself as an authority on marriage and procreation."

You could say the same of a lot of scientists and slashdot readers.

Friday, January 11, 2008

Backgammon

My father-in-law is a backgammon fiend. Having learned the game from him this past Thanksgiving, I was eager to play with my wife as well. I surprised to find that she did not know how, but I soon understood. I am myself the son of a highly competitive (he accused me of cheating at Candy Land when I was six) bridge player (it occupies almost all of free time), and despite the fact that my entire family plays, I do not. Fathers, it seems, often have difficulty passing on their passions.

After much cajoling, I convinced my wife to give backgammon a try. The rules were easily explained and before I knew it, we were off! Our first game was fairly bloodless... between her natural caution and my reluctance to ruin the game for her, no blots were sent to the bar and we both began bearing off at the same time. Fortune favored the cautious, apparently, because she won while I still had 5 checkers on the board.

Our next game was almost as bloodless... timidity was our by-word, but I did manage to swat one of her blots and keep it off the board for a couple of dice rolls. We both began bearing off at roughly the same time, but I'd had an extra turn or so to position my checkers in my home quadrant and, aided by some good rolling, managed to carry the day.

By this time it was late and time for bed, but I was pleased to see that she'd enjoyed the game and was looking forward to playing again!

On a side note, we'd been playing on a backgammon set I'd gotten for Christmas. It was a wooden set from Amazon that I thought would be nice. Sadly, however, the checkers are quite insubstantial and both die rolls and board jostling send the careening about like crazy. My father has a set that is fabric with leather pips, with stone checkers... I'd like to shoot for something like that.

Game Night: 221-B Baker Street

My wife absolutely adores Sherlock Holmes and this game is a particular favorite of hers. Even though I quite enjoy it, I am often loathe to play it because the game has limited shelf life, at least in terms of the number of cases available to solve.

She overcame my reluctance last night, however, and we tackled the case of the murdered inventor. We both "rolled and moved" about London and as we did, it occurred to me that, at least in two player games, starting with one each of the Scotland Yard and Skeleton Key cards is less than interesting. Because your opponent already has a Skeleton Key card, there is little incentive to place a Scotland Yard card... your opponent will, with a faint smile upon her lips, simply breeze through it as if it weren't there. You then laugh mirthlessly as you realize that you must go back to Scotland Yard if you want to try blocking another location. Why bother, you ask yourself, since your opponent will surely have the mystery solved by the time you get it. It might be an interesting variant in two player games to start off with 1 Scotland Yard card and no Skeleton Key. Or perhaps skip the cards all together.

But the game was afoot... I had scarcely entered my 4th location when I noticed that my wife was headed back to 221-B Baker Street. Good God, had she solved the case already? In fact she had, in just 4 clues!

In the post game discussion, she said that she'd taken a page out of Holmes' book and been bold with her accusations... often, in "Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective" we'd spend hours looking for proof beyond a reasonable doubt... a signed confession, a self published book by the murderer entitled "How I Did It", etc. Anybody who's read Holmes, however, knows that he will trot out the old j'accuse on the slightest scrap of evidence. Her boldness also paid off, it seems, because she had it all: motive, weapon and killer. Drat!

Saturday, January 5, 2008

For Pete's sake

If you feel like risking your sanity, read this article by the Ochlophobist. Owen writes:

But then again, one might begin to make suggestions that the bourgeoisie in the West have embraced baroque and folk Catholic art as perfectly acceptable. My boss, a wealthy white male who is an agnostic that reads Zen literature, keeps a poster of Our Lady of Guadalupe in the office restroom at work.

Could not the same argument be made about Byzantine Iconography?