Tuesday, October 25, 2016

5E slings

Good house rules for slings here: http://ludusludorum.com/2016/05/12/a-defense-of-the-humble-sling/

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If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way.

"Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else."

Tuesday, October 18, 2016

CO2 Into Ethanol

Argh. I'm not educated enough to know what the implications are for this process with "high Faradaic efficiency (63 % at −1.2 V vs RHE) and high selectivity (84 %) that operates in water and at ambient temperature and pressure".

On the one hand, I remember how thermal depolymerization (turkey guts into oil) didn't pan out. On the other hand, I remember that one reason WHY it didn't pan out was that it turned out to be more expensive than anticipated to get the turkey guts--they had hoped to get them for free, but it turns out that normally turkey guts are sold for animal feed, and when the oil-makers had to pay for it, that cut into their profit margins. Plus, they had some early problems with odor that gave them PR issues. Neither of these would be expected to be an issue with ethanol-from-CO2, although I imagine that producing sufficient concentrations of CO2 to make the process work could be an engineering challenge. Also, "ambient temperature and pressure" seems like a big deal to me and very good news.

Overall I'm cautiously optimistic. Using nuclear power to turn CO2 into ethanol seems like a win-win-win scenario--although you'd obviously have to compare it to the competing scenario of using nuclear power to turn water into hydrogen for fuel cells, since both scenarios are really just ways of distributing energy. But I assume the PR for CO2-into-ethanol would be much better, which could make things politically easier.

I don't think this is a silver bullet. I doubt that more than 20% of the world's auto fuel will be produced via this method even twenty years from now--I expect we'll still be pumping most of our fuel out of the ground. But it will be great if this is a mature technology at that point which is proven to work reliably and economically.

Pop-sci article: http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/green-tech/a23417/convert-co2-into-ethanol/ 
Link to actual paper: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/slct.201601169/full

-Max

--
If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way.

"Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else."

Saturday, October 15, 2016

Sentiment

I like it when girls don't do the "boyfriend" thing and boys don't do the "girlfriend" thing. I appreciate people who have the foresight and moral courage to do "do, or not not" as Yoda would say; "there is no try." As near as I can tell, you don't lose out on anything important by just doing things the same way that Anne Shirley and Gilbert Blythe did, to name one example*: be friends, get to know each other, be frank about your (hopefully-mutual) admiration, and make commitments when you're ready to actually commit. But there's no reason to make a temporary semi-commitment ("boyfriend") right there in the middle.

Whenever I find out that someone else thinks that way too, it cheers me up inside. Maybe I'm crazy, but at least I'm not crazy AND alone.

* Other examples: Garion and Ce'Nedra, Peter Joshua (Brian Crookshanks) and Regina Lampert, Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet, Apodictic Blue and Yellow Amusement.

--
If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way.

"Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else."

Saturday, October 8, 2016

Insight

I realized today why it is that I'm so allergic to exercising leadership and telling people to follow my lead. I mean, I can step up and get things done when no one else is doing it, but it makes me uncomfortable and today I realized why:

It's because fundamentally, I'm a teacher at heart, not a leader. If I'm telling you what to do, then that means I'm depriving you of the chance to learn how to lead yourself, and I'm failing as a teacher. Instead of saying, "Go that way and do this," I want to say, "Well, here are some of your options and the likely consequences of each. Which one are you going to choose?"

My goal is never to collect minions. I am only comfortable wanting to bring people up to my level; I want to make them my peers.

--
If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way.

"Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else."

Thursday, October 6, 2016

5E Sorcerer Archetype: Instinctual

Instinctual Sorcerer

You are an instinctive magic-user. Magical effects "just work" for you, as easily as your muscles work to move your body around. You may not even be aware what's happening--perhaps you found a lucky feather which, you think, turns you invisible when you wear it, until one day you lose the feather and realize the power was within you all along. Or perhaps you are like Spider Man or the X-Men, shooting energy blasts from your hands like a mutant power. Whatever it is, your magic is deeply a part of you in a way that most people could never understand.

[Instinctive Casting] Starting at first level, you have no need for verbal, somatic, or material components when casting your sorcerer spells.

[Made of Magic] Starting at sixth level, you can use your physical reserves to fuel your magic. When you are in your own body and form, you can convert HP to sorcery points as a bonus action on a 1:1 basis. Your HP maximum is reduced by the same amount. Once reduced, your HP maximum cannot be restored by any means except rest. You regain points equal to your Charisma modifier (with a minimum of +1) each time you complete a long rest.

[Magic Eater] Starting at fourteenth level, you can absorb hostile magic and turn it to your own ends. When a spell is cast that targets only you, you can use your reaction to absorb the spell, nullifying its effects and giving you as many sorcery points as the spell's level. If this would take you above your sorcery point maximum, lose the extra points and suffer the effects of a Feeblemind spell, DC 10 + (level of the absorbed spell).

[Magical Virtuoso] Starting at eighteenth level, your magical coordination improves. Like a musician playing two different instruments at once, once per short rest you can cast a sorcerer spell that requires concentration without losing concentration on another sorcerer spell that you are already concentrating on. If you lose concentration following that point, both spells end.

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If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way.

"Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else."

Dazzlingly clever or angelically good?

An attractive personality is better than a pretty face. And a beautiful character is better than an attractive personality.

I dig girls who are courageous, kind, generous, honorable, and valiant. If they are clever and funny too, that's strictly a bonus.

--
If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way.

"Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else."