Flipped coins not fair?

It should not be a complete surprise that flipped coins do not exactly meet the ideal of fair 50/50 outcomes. After all the stamp on each side must shift the balance, however slightly. Here researchers find the "up" side when flipped is slightly more likely to be the end result. 

I suspect dice have a similar bias, especially when you don't give them an energetic shake and throw.

Flipped coins found not to be as fair as thought

 

The Grinder

Why did I ever think it was a good idea to put the date in the title of these things?

The Daily Weekly Occasional Whenever I Get Around To It Grinder

Just in time for Halloween: The Battlemech costume!

Found in this Gizmodo article

The LOL in MADCAT

MadCat

It's hard enough to face one of these when playing Battletech, but now my allergies can also suffer!

DeviantART MURO a very cool little drawing application (Java?)
Hat-tip --> John Schutte

I started a Tumblr, but I'm not sure quite what I'll do with it. I don't seem to have any time for more bloggish stuff, but I could divert the cartoons I post on Google Buzz here.

Top 10: Los mejores robots gigantes
This appears to be a childs' playset.
These kids have a very cool Dad.

That is all. Keep those dice rolling.

Actually, no. That's not all. I've got a bunch of good stuff half written and no time to fix/finish to publish here. It's very frustrating.

10 Games To Be Forgotten

image source

As a follow-up on my contribution to the 15 Games That Will Always Stick With Me meme, my better half suggested "10 Games I Would Rather Forget" as a follow up. The rules are a simple modification of the previous ones:

The rules: Don't take too long to think about it. List 10 games you've played that somehow didn't click with you. These might good games, but something about them wasn't fun, a game that just didn't reach its best potential, or even a bad experience with a game you really like. List the first 10 you can recall in no more than ten minutes. Pass the meme along if you can, and link back so other can follow the responses (or just post them here).

To be clear, I intend to include games I like and play,

1. Striker (GDW) - Miniatures rules for Traveller, with a detailed construction system that let you create you own soldiers, weapons, armored vehicles and aircraft in the full range of Traveller tech levels. VERY COOL. The down side is that it came with no very little in the way of pre-designed soldiers, weapons, armored vehicles, or aircraft, so if you wanted to play you had to create all of these things for yourself. This meant hours of paperwork and hand-calculations (this was 1981) to create the gun you wanted to mount in a fast scout tank, only to find out that it was too heavy and you have to redesign the gun or redesign the tank. Very frustrating. File this under "Too far ahead of it's time."
2. D&D - Yes, this was on my "Stick With Me" list too, but this time I am specifically referring to persons or player groups that were just unbearable. My example is a Dungeon Master who only wanted to feed his own ego, and letting him be in charge of running the game was just a bad idea. File this under "Bad Experience."
3. Mechwarrior 3 - The Lifepaths character creation system from this RPG is practically a game in itself, and is perhaps it's best aspect. Character creation can also be tortuously complex, so it's also a bad aspect. After all this work, you either end up with a character that is mediocre at everything, OR, if you work extra hard to twist things to turn out a certain way, you could actually have a really good skill level in one area. None of this matters much, because the 2D10 exploding dice skills system tends to minimize the importance of skills anyway. File this under "Why did I bother?"
4. Life - Sort of a personal thing, but I got "fired" in the game shortly after losing a real job, and it stung. File this under "Well, that sucked."
5. Trivial Pursuit - Fun once in a while, but the amusement quickly fades. There's little worse than being stuck in a group of people who are keen to play "just one more round" after you have already played 2 or 3 games. File this under "Enough Already."
6. Battletech Total War - Battletech is another game from my "Stick With" list, and the single game I have played more than any other. - BUT - The were some rules changes in the new Total War edition of Battletech that never should have been. The Battlemech will always own this game, but in older editions it was possible to play armored vehicles (tanks!) and have fun challenging the new kings of battle. Under the Total War rules, already weak vehicles were totally emasculated by critical hits and motive hits. In a typical game, your vehicle is quickly immobilized, and then it explodes. If you are lucky enough not to explode, then you can enjoy playing a pillbox for as long as you can (but usually not long). The critical and motive hits rules are a good addition to the game - they add interest - but they are unbalanced. This has sort of ruined vehicles as being interesting and fun, where they used to be a good feature of the game. (Don't ask me what I think about WiGE's.) Mea Cupla: You will find my name among the playtesters for this book; I complained then, but now I wish I had complained louder. File this under "I'm going to catch some heat for this."
7. Diablo - I enjoyed playing Diablo, until I tried playing it online. I thought I knew what "bad behavior" in online gaming was, until I tried playing it online. If the transcendence of WoW is any indication, some of those issues with early online communities have been worked out. I sure hope so. File this under "Does not play well with others."
8. Zynga games - 'Nuff said (but I'm lookin' at you, Facebook.). File this under "Exploitation of privacy."
9. The Lottery (most any lottery will do) - Otherwise known as a tax on people that can't do math. File this under "Tax the poor."
10. Dawn Patrol (TSR) - I like air combat games, or at least I think I do, because I own a small  fleet of them. I don't own Dawn Patrol, but it illustrates a serious flaw. I expect an air combat game to be about crafty maneuvers and outwitting your opponent in an aerial duel. In Dawn Patrol the planes are generally mobile enough to get a good shot at whomever may have moved before them, and moving first is a death sentence. There is no strategy, no outwitting your opponent, just luck in who happens to move first or last. Interestingly, this same thing often occurs in Batteltech, with 'Mechs forming a "conga line of death". The outcome in these situations is much more uncertain in Battletech, and the player generally has a chance to either escape or go down fighting. File this under "Barely Interesting."

That's my 10, pass it on and link back (please). Or not.

God Bless Nerds

If you follow any web-comics or comics-blogs, you might have heard something about ComicCon happening this week in San Diego. You might also have learned that the despicable Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church Hate Group* were going to be there picketing the event. Con-goer heard this too, and they have responded in fine fashion. Blog posts with pictures, commentary, and video are available from:

Comics Alliance [photo to right]

TV or not TV [photo below]

Phyrangula [That wretched hive of scum and villainy where I acquired the other links]

WAY TO GO NERDS!

* You DO NOT want to know any more than what is on the Wiki page. Trust me on this.

Gundam vs. Gundam

Gundam vs. Gundam:




A remote-controlled Gundam battle, filmed at the International Robot Expo.
 Click thru for the video.

[Hat Tip 2 Mr. Q. Wowbagger]

From XKCD: Sex Dice

I love XKCD, and today's strip is just too good not to share.

Sex Dice:


Click-thru to read the mouse-hover message. :-)

Battlemech Recovery Vehicle, circa 1962

Click thru for more on this at Big Lorry Blog.

My life is complete: Mario performs 'Don't Stop Me Now'

Strange and annoying, but somehow compelling. Click thru for the video.

My life is complete: Mario performs 'Don't Stop Me Now':

Is there a term to describe those Super Mario World levels that play themselves and sometimes make music as a result? I'm sure there is, but I don't know it. 'Automatic Mario' doesn't count, because that sounds silly. At any rate, you surely know what I'm referring to.

The good folks at GoNintendo have stumbled upon what has to be the greatest of them all -- it's Queen's 'Don't Stop Me Now' as played by four different Mario levels running simultaneously. The more I type, the longer it will take for you to watch it, so I'm going to cease talking.

Gotta love Freddie and the boys tho.

Engine 371

No robots today - This is a short film - Engine 371 by Kevin Langdale about (stay with me here) the Canadian Transcontinental Railroad. It's also a model railroader's dream come to life, and illustratse how model railroad enthusiasts see their creations.

Battletech players Gamers are the same way about their miniatures and the game worlds they come from. The imagination lets it come alive and surpass the borders of the table top.

More images of the 2007 Camospecs diorama on my p-bucket albums. Blame Steven Satak for the incredible Union dropship model.

Pilgrimage To Mecha

[From The Escapist magazine]

Make no mistake: Gundam is a big deal in Japan. To put it in context for a Western audience, Gundam is the Japanese equivalent of Star Wars, complete with an iconic masked antagonist, laser swords and modern installments of dubious quality. But that comparison doesn't explain the presence of a 60-foot statue that took over two months and millions of dollars to complete.

What's so special about Gundam, anyway?

How about a quick unscheduled trip to Japan to explore their love of all robots, giant and battling?

I missed out of the Gundam shows as a kid, but somehow I still managed to find and read the first three Robotech book series. As bad as those books were, they still managed to capture my imagination.

In Japan it seems to have capture the whole country.

When I discovered Battletech through various computer games, I actually started having Battletech dreams on a regular basis. Weird? Maybe. It seemed to allow me to play out a sort of superman fantasy. I don't see myself as any sort of superman, but that particular sort of escapist fantasy does seem to be very popular.

But enough of my ramblings. Go read John Funk's Pilgrimage to Mecha for yourself.

Know your Audience, and other Humor

Life has been busy, so here is some entertainment to fill the gap.

[Found on Probably Bad News]

[Found somewhere on Mental Floss, but I lost the page.]



[Zero Punctuation is always rude, crude, and highly entertaining.]



see more Funny Graphs
[From GraphJam]

20 Sided Women

If you combine a friend and a blogger, do you get a blend or a frogger? :-)

My fellow blogger D20 Sapphire has started a new blog, the 20 Sided Women Project:

Sapphire writes: So what is this project, you say? Its simple in concept. Essentially I don't feel like there is enough out there about women in the role playing game community. There are a couple essays here and there, but there hasn't been a real investigation. So I decided to investigate.

Good luck to Sapphire, I'm very curious to see where she takes this. Go investigate for yourself what else she has to say at the 20 Sided Women Project.