Me:  (Looks up something online)

Mrs:  "No cheating!"

Me:  "How can you cheat at a jigsaw puzzle?"

The first iteration of my public mask. Isn't it funny that just a few months ago, antifa members were being told to take off their masks or face arrest. Now we're all wearing masks. If the bank lobbies were still open bank guard would suddenly be the hardest job in America.

My sister says I look like a Marvel comic book villain. She's not wrong. But damn, I need to beat back those eyebrows a little.

A long-awaited day has arrived: Seas of Vodari is now available as a PDF on DriveThruRPG!

I hope you'll check it out, I hope it'll become your new favorite thing, I hope you'll tell all of your friends!

It has been a delight to work with Shawn Ellsworth, Colin McLaughlin, Jack Houser, Michelle Klein Houser, Rabbit Seagraves, Tomas Giminez, Mark Cookman, and Dave Jumaquio. Consummate professionals all!

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/308461/The-Seas-of-Vodari?affiliate_id=242797

If you need a mask and you can't sew, this might help. 
http://blog.japanesecreations.com/no-sew-face-mask-with-handkerchief-and-hair-tie

Why not just wear a bandanna? This fits on your face more snugly, and you'll see that it has more layers. 

How am I supposed to get an 18" square of fabric? Dude, if I can cut up a pair of pajama pants, you can cut up an old t-shirt or a pillow case. 

I put away my sewing rig for now, I was tired of having it take up the entire living room. It's streamlined now and I brought it up to my office. I'm still obsessed with watching mask tutorials, though: the idea of making something flat into something three dimensional and useful continually astonishes me. 

I accidentally added a blank post to my queue, and it posted. 
Okay. 

In other news, what was that thing Boutell said about intelligence and wisdom being separate D&D scores? 

Astrophysicist gets magnets stuck up nose while inventing COVID-19 prevention device​​​​​​​

what can I say, except, "you're welcome..."

So far due to good luck and enormous privilege, we're healthy and working hard to remain so.

Mask up, friends, wash your hands, and stop touching your face.

Today, while driving, I was listening to The Creative Penn podcast. She was talking at one point about how it's better as an entreprenuer to have an online business right now because people can still purchase your books, and that will help you stay afloat in the hard(er financially, at least) to come.

My mind wandered as it pretty much always does. That brought me to the simple idea that art, in all its various forms, are luxuries. They're not absolutely necessary for us to exist. Yes, I know. I, too, feel like it's pretty much life's blood, but logically, it's not.

That, in turn, made me think about the fact that many (most?) folks will have to cut back dramatically on their purchasing of any form of art in the near future. I myself was thinking about how I need to go on a 'financial diet', and get rid of a bunch of recurring payment stuff that I simply don't need.

But here's the thing - if we assume that TomTom isn't going to be forced to take us off the road, AND that I'll continue to be employed there for the forseeable future and of course that I don't get sick, I'm going to be okay. I still have a job. Art doesn't pay my bills. This is probably the first time in my life I'm thankful for that, even if only marginally.

All of which brought me around to "But what about those who aren't in my situation?"

I got really upset at that thought.

There are just so many people who are going to be struggling. And the artists out there who have been scraping by with the income from their art? Forgoing the 'niceties' of things like health coverage because they would rather be creating than healthy? Or maybe a step up from that - those who were able to get by, but certainly couldn't put even a penny away for a rainy day?

Ouch.

I know that there's talk of governmental help. I know that creatives aren't the only folks who will be hurting. But I just felt like... I dunno. I guess I just want to do something to help.

I have no idea what that is / should be.

Any thoughts?

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4227879-is-data-human-the-metaphysics-of-star-trek

I gave this book, "Is Data Human? The Metaphysics of Star Trek", to my friend Chris shortly before he died from complications of muscular dystrophy.  I don't know whether he had time to read it.

It ponders a lot of the philosophical conundrums inspired by Star Trek tech, such as androids and transporters.  Our friend Tom B. says that he's chill with the idea of being scanned, destroyed, and re-created as an identical copy.  But what if the process goes awry?  This happens to Commander Will Riker, who winds up with a "twin" eventually named Thomas.  Is the "duplicate" going to be just as sanguine about being destroyed to balance the equations?  What if it's unclear which copy is "excess"?

If you played Rock-Paper-Scissors with yourself to solve this problem, would you keep tying endlessly, or are you already different enough to make different choices?  If you're already different, are you really exact duplicates?

I did jury duty a few weeks ago. It was a rape case, and there were five charges in total. We were able to only deliver one verdict, guilty on the charge of traumatic injury to an intimate partner. The case was complicated by having only a single witness, the victim, who also was rather unreliable. She admitted freely that she did not remember many of the events of that day, and what she did remember, she wasn't sure of their order. Both people involved had been smoking meth, which was used as a way to further cast doubt upon her testimony, despite clear instructions during jury selection that we should not let that bias us. Three of the four charges which we were hung were overwhelmingly tilted towards guilty, where one juror held out because she felt that the witness was not reliable at all, again despite instructions regarding the single witness rule. The one charge where we were definitely not close to any consensus was the actual rape charge.

It's difficult not to come away from a trial like that feeling that the system is tilted away from justice for the more vulnerable population, or feeling that, by thinking that she could have gotten a more just verdict if she had been a more reliable witness, it's not that far from saying that the victim didn't do enough, which is certainly not compassionate. There was no question that the defendant was a manipulative creep, in addition to his prior history, including a misdemeanor conviction of domestic violence.

After the trial, the judge asked the jury if we would stay behind to speak with both lawyers in order to talk about the case and ask any questions or give any feedback. Half of us did it, and I'm glad that I did so. During deliberations, the court recorder came in to read testimony back for us, and she commented that it was a dream trial in the sense that both lawyers were not only on their best behavior but actually worked well with each other. I noticed how remarkably civil and helpful they were, a far cry from the scripted undercutting and backbiting you see on television. I asked the public defender how well-funded his department was, and he said that he would only consider working for Santa Clara County, San Francisco, or New York.

Sometimes I really don't understand folks.

And generally, my mindset can be summed up as:

ETA: I did a new episode of 1100 to add a little of my own mirth to the topic: