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For the last few years I've half-jokingly suggested that there is no upper limit on how much people are willing to discuss the Mass Effect games. This series is going to put that idea to the test. This series is going to run for the next eleven months, and by the end it will be the length of a novel. This is not a joke.
Yes, I have discussed this series to death over the years. In Spoiler Warning our group covered all three games, in excruciating detail, over the course of 36 hours of running commentary. You'd think there would be nothing left to say at this point.
But we played and commented on those games in their time. Today I want to look back and examine the series as a whole, now that we've seen it through to the end. The white-hot nerdrage has cooled, the reflexively defensive fans have moved on, and we have a couple of years of perspective between our expectations, the results, and where we are now. Mass Effect: Andromeda has been announced, and so I want to take one last look back over the whole trilogy with an analytical eye and (hopefully) without so much rancor.
Also be warned that since we'll be discussing and contrasting all three games at once, there will be no spoiler tags for anything whatsoever. Use your head.
So much of the discussion of Mass Effect focuses on the ending of the trilogy. That seems to be where a majority of the audience checked out and stopped trusting the storyteller. But while the ending is the source of the controversy, I don't think it's the source of the problem, and it's not where the interesting changes take place.
The Changing Face of BioWare
Mass Effect tells the story of Commander Shepard as heYes, Shepard can also be a female, but I'm not going to add one of these footnotes EVERY! SINGLE! TIME! Shepard comes up in pronoun form. You're smart, you know how this works. tries to save the galaxy and maybe fails at it? We don't know, actually. It all depends on your definition of "saved". But more interesting than the story of Shepard is the story of the company that created him. If we look at the tone and construction of the games it tells a story about a development house that was transformed in both personality and focus, over the span of just five years. Companies change all the time, but few games give us such a clear view of such a rapid transformation.
To those of us stuck on the outside of the company and who don't follow the ongoing soap opera of equity firms and holding companies, the story of BioWare gets a little murky in 2005, when they teamed up with Pandemic studios. Then in 2006 they opened a new studio in Austin to produce the Star Wars MMO The Old Republic. Then in 2007 they sold themselves to Electronic ArtsOr rather, "In November 2005, it was announced that BioWare and Pandemic Studios would be joining forces, with private equity fund Elevation Partners investing in the partnership. On October 11, 2007, however, it was announced that this new partnership (organized as VG Holding Corp) had been bought by Electronic Arts.". In 2009 they opened yet another studio, this time in Montreal.
The development of the Mass Effect series overlapped with all of this chaos. When work on Mass Effect 1 began, they were a single quasi-independentInasmuch as they weren't directly owned by a publisher. studio. By the time the third game launched, they were a collection of three studios owned by the Borg Collective of games publishing, they were running one of the most expensive, high-profile, and ambitious MMO titles ever developed, and were developing Dragon Age and Mass Effect titles simultaneously.
I don't care how informed your leadership is, how nice and talented your employees are, or how much money you have in the bank. You can't go through that sort of radical growth and shift in focus over such a short timeframe and retain your company culture. It's one thing if you make chocolate snack cakes. As long as you don't mess with the equipment or the ingredients, your product can stay the same. But if you're a creative company and your products come directly from the hearts and minds of your talent, then retaining your creative identity amid such a drastic influx of new blood is fiendishly difficult. That doesn't mean your products will necessarily be worse, but they will be different.
To put it another way: Sir Terry Pratchett was an amazing talent. But if J. K. Rowling had hired him in 2002 to help her pump out Harry Potter books twice as fast, it would have fundamentally changed the tone of the series. Different creative people come up with different ideas, and this will give the new work a different textureYes, she could have guided him as an editor until the tone was right, but that would have taken time. The point here is that RAPID growth is transformative.. And even if it's an improvement – even if you want to argue that Pratchett-Potter books are better than Rowling-Potter books, the new books will still feel ill-fitting and alien to people who fell in love with the originals.
The Ages of BioWare
Mentally, I divide BioWare's history into three broad periods:
- Early BioWare: Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights They were a major studio by the standards of the late 90's, but their sensibilities would come off as extremely "indie" today: Top-down, number-crunchy roleplaying games with lots of clear connections to their tabletop roots. The games were more tactical than visceralAnd also during this time period they made MDK 2, for some reason. That game is such an anomaly in the BioWare library that I'm just going to set it aside for now. It's a great game, but I don't want to get sidetracked exploring it. This series will be gigantic enough as it is..
- Classic BioWare: KOTOR, Jade Empire, Mass Effect, and Dragon Age: Origins. Here the company gradually moved away from their mechanically complex roots and tried to make games with more mass appeal: Third person camera, rich characters, voice acting, cutscenes, three-person squads. The automated dice-rolling mechanics gave way to the player pushing buttons to make attacks happen.
- Nu BioWare: Mass Effect 2 and beyond. If we're being churlish, I suppose we could call this "EA BioWare". You can haggle about where to draw the line between "Classic BioWare" and "Nu BioWare". Maybe you want to draw it with Dragon Age, since the "blood and sex and heavy metal" marketing campaign felt pretty un-BioWare, even if the gameplay held pretty close to their standard formula. Or maybe you want to draw the line at Dragon Age II, which felt so completely unlike Origins in pacing, gameplay, tone, scope, themes, and environments that it felt like the franchise had been handed off to a different studio.
No matter where you draw the line, it's very clear that Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 3 are radically different games, and within the series we can see the change from "Classic BioWare" to "Nu BioWare". At the start we have lavishly detailed worldbuilding, very trope-ish arch characters, stiff animations, and gameplay with generally lousy game feel. At the end the focus is on characters instead of worldbuilding, and the old RPG mechanics have been replaced by mainstream action shooter sensibilities.
This creates an unfortunate rift in the fanbase. Love it or hate it, those new shooter mechanics are a lot more popular than the RPG-focused combat of Mass Effect 1. A big chunk of the player base hasn't even played the first game, and shooter fans who fell in love with Mass Effect 2 went back to see what they missed in the first game and found it completely unplayable. It's a bit like the argument between fans of the different 3D Fallout games:
Alice: Fallout 3 was stupid. New Vegas was so much more coherent!
Bob: But New Vegas was boring and ugly and Fallout 3 was way more fun!
We start out trying to critique specific elements of a game, and end up dragged into a pointless argument over which game is "better". This distracts us from the more important discussion of understanding the art we consume and understanding why we enjoy itOr don't..
So what we're going to do here is step through all three games, examine their moving parts, and try to identify the magic that made us love them so much, as well as the failure points that lead to the ending controversy.
What is This For?
I've got three main points I want to make in this series:
1) The ending of Mass Effect 3 is where the problems culminated, not where they began.
The ending was deeply controversial, so that's where everyone focused their attention. It didn't hold together, it didn't make sense, it was tonally wrong, etc. A lot of people lump me in with MrBtongue, because we've both had a lot to say about Mass Effect and our points had a lot of overlap.
Link (YouTube) |
But even though I'm a pretty huge fan of MrBtongue (including that one really oddball episode on soccer) I'm going to diverge from his position that the first 99% of Mass Effect was great, and it all held together until the Star Child showed up. For me the major cracks in the story don't come from the end of the third game, they come from the start of the second. Those cracks spiderweb outward, creating more problems down the road and eventually leading to the unraveling at the end of the series.
2) The failure of the Mass Effect story can't be blamed on any single individual or decision.
Lots of people like to point out how Drew Karpyshyn was the lead writer of the first game, he shared writing credit with Mac Walters on Mass Effect 2, and then Karpyshyn departed the company, leaving Walters to handle the third installment on his own. This provides a tidy narrative: "Karpyshyn made it good, and then Walters came along and ruined everything!" I admit it's tempting to jump this conclusion, simply because it offers a perceptible reason for the changes we see in the story.
But I don't think it fits. There are sketchy bits in the first game and brilliant bits in the third, and the actual downfall of the story is a complex, multi-faceted problem
3) Themes are just as important as facts.
We often get so caught up in haggling over lore and continuity that people overlook the importance of deeper, more foundational elements like themes, ideas, philosophy, and tone. While it's "easy"Not actually that easy, but it feels like it should be. Following lore is at least straightforward. to fact-check your story and make sure you keep the people and places straight, it's much harder to nail a particular tone. Shifting the philosophical bent of a story can often be more damaging to our enjoyment of it than getting some of the facts wrong.
We're going to look at the games, how they fit together, and talk about how disappointments over the games have lingered in a way that (say) the public disappointment with Duke Nukem Forever didn't. I don't know if you'll find it cathartic, informative, illuminating, or annoying, but I do promise you'll find this series to be exceptionally long.
Buckle up.
[1] Yes, Shepard can also be a female, but I'm not going to add one of these footnotes EVERY! SINGLE! TIME! Shepard comes up in pronoun form. You're smart, you know how this works.
[2] Or rather, "In November 2005, it was announced that BioWare and Pandemic Studios would be joining forces, with private equity fund Elevation Partners investing in the partnership. On October 11, 2007, however, it was announced that this new partnership (organized as VG Holding Corp) had been bought by Electronic Arts."
[3] Inasmuch as they weren't directly owned by a publisher.
[4] Yes, she could have guided him as an editor until the tone was right, but that would have taken time. The point here is that RAPID growth is transformative.
[5] And also during this time period they made MDK 2, for some reason. That game is such an anomaly in the BioWare library that I'm just going to set it aside for now. It's a great game, but I don't want to get sidetracked exploring it. This series will be gigantic enough as it is.
[6] Or don't.
[7] Not actually that easy, but it feels like it should be. Following lore is at least straightforward.
Fixing Match 3
For one of the most popular casual games in existence, Match 3 is actually really broken. Until one developer fixed it.
The Best of 2011
My picks for what was important, awesome, or worth talking about in 2011.
Punishing The Internet for Sharing
Why make millions on your video game when you could be making HUNDREDS on frivolous copyright claims?
Steam Summer Blues
This mess of dross, confusion, and terrible UI design is the storefront the big publishers couldn't beat? Amazing.
Batman: Arkham Origins
A breakdown of how this game faltered when the franchise was given to a different studio.


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Thrive Hearing App
You're in Control With the Thrive Hearing Control App
The Thrive Hearing Control app lets you easily control listening environments for maximum Hearing Performance, monitor your health using Healthable Technology, and enjoy the convenience of Intelligent Assistant features.
Hearing Performance
Edge Mode
Conducts an AI-based analysis of the environment and makes smart and immediate adjustments with just a tap – and helps to make it easier to hear people who are wearing face masks. Exclusive to select technology levels of Evolv AI and Livio Edge AI.
Mask Mode
This custom memory boosts certain frequencies to help you better hear people who are wearing face masks. Mask Mode is available on select technology levels.
Speech Enhancement
AI-enabled IntelliVoice feature helps improve speech understanding for those with significant hearing loss.
Phone Calls
Answer calls with the touch of a button and hear the conversation streaming directly to your Evolv AI, Livio Edge AI, Livio AI or Livio hearing aids via Bluetooth® technology. (Requires Remote Microphone + for Android phone users)
Better Wireless Streaming
New technology provides consistent wireless performance through your smartphone or wireless accessories while streaming phone calls, TV, music, and other media.
Personalized Memories
Create multiple custom memories in the Thrive Hearing app. You can geotag memories so that your Evolv AI, Livio Edge AI, Livio AI or Livio hearing aids will adjust automatically next time you visit that location.
Remote Control
Change volume and switch memories on your hearing aids right from your smartphone.
Auto On/Off
Easily and automatically save battery power when you're not using your hearing aids. Set your hearing aids on a flat, stable surface and they will go into a low-power mode after 15 minutes. Full power resumes when you put them on again. Available in Evolv AI, Livio Edge AI or Livio AI hearing aids.
Healthable Technology
Activity and Engagement Health Tracking
Compatible with both Android™ and Apple® smartphones, the Thrive Hearing app lets you track Engagement and Activity, giving you an overall Wellness Score. Only available with select technology levels of Evolv AI, Livio Edge AI and Livio AI hearing aids.
Fall Detection and Alerts
With integrated sensors, Fall Alert can detect falls and send alert messages to selected contacts. Only available with select technology levels of Evolv AI and Livio Edge AI hearing aids.
Intelligent Assistant
Thrive Assistant
You can conveniently troubleshoot hearing aid and accessory issues and ask a question like, "How do I customize my hearing aid settings?"
Find My Phone
Using your hearing aids and Thrive Assistant, you can now locate your lost or misplaced phone by having it ring.
Consult with your hearing professional virtually to make remote adjustments via video chat Live Sessions.
Conversations are captured on your smartphone so you can read, save and send what's being said. Available in Evolv AI, Livio Edge AI or Livio AI hearing aids.
Language Translation
Communicate easily with people who speak other languages. Requires an internet connection. Available only for Evolv AI, Livio Edge AI, or Livio AI hearing aids and requires an Apple device.
Find My Hearing Aids
Locate your lost hearing aids with ease using the Find My Hearing Aids feature. A signal detector sends a stronger signal the closer you are to your hearing aids.
Self Check
Allows you to perform a diagnostic test on your hearing aids.


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Mark Stencel
Mark Stencel is managing editor for digital news. He is responsible for overseeing the journalism on NPR's website and other platforms and gizmos.
Since Stencel joined NPR in 2009, the network has been recognized as one of industry's leading digital news services, honored with the 2011 Eppy award for best journalism website from Editor & Publisher, a 2010 National Press Foundation award for excellence in online journalism, two Edward R. Murrow Awards, a Peabody award, and the 2011 Webby and People's Voice awards for news from the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences.
Stencel previously worked in both print and online journalism, and on the editorial and business sides of publishing. He was the executive editor and deputy publisher at GOVERNING, a monthly magazine and website written for leaders in state and local government and published by Congressional Quarterly. Stencel served as a managing editor at CQ, where he helped lead one of the largest news staffs on Capitol Hill, coordinating daily coverage of Congress, online and in print. Stencel also wrote regular columns and e-mail newsletters on technology trends for both GOVERNING and CQ Weekly.
Stencel began his career at the Washington Post as an assistant to syndicated columnist David S. Broder and as a researcher for the newspaper's national politics staff. After a stint as a science and technology correspondent for The News & Observer in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina — one of the first newspapers in the country to publish a web edition — Stencel returned to the Postin 1996 to help launch the company's first website: PoliticsNow, an election-year multimedia partnership involving ABC News, Newsweek and National Journal. Stencel then directed washingtonpost.com's award-winning political coverage, including President Clinton's impeachment and the 1998 and 2000 elections. Later, as a senior editor on the newspaper's breaking news desk, he served as a liaison between the Post's print and online newsrooms, coordinating coverage of the 2003 Iraq invasion, the 2004 election and other major stories.
In addition to his work as an editor, Stencel was a vice president at the Post Company's online division, Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, where he directed the business side of early mobile and multimedia efforts and managed content partnerships and projects with other news organizations, online publishers and mobile phone carriers and device makers. Stencel worked with the company's editorial, marketing and sales leaders to cultivate the Post's growing online audience across the country and around the world — a new line of business for what had been a local newspaper, despite its national reputation. (In that role, he briefly served as the digital division's "vice president for global conquest.")
Stencel is the co-author of two books on media and politics — Peep Show: Media and Politics and in an Age of Scandal, written with political scientists Larry J. Sabato and S. Robert Lichter; and On the Line: The New Road to the White House, written with CNN's Larry King. He continues to write about science and technology, including digital media trends, on his personal blog, "Assignment: Future"
The biggest "whopper" involved Mitt Romney's claim that President Obama went on an "apology tour." But the president is also getting some dings for stretching some truths.
Ann Dunham's fight with an insurance company before her death in 1995 is under scrutiny once more. And this time, a few words may tell a different tale.
The rolling NASA laboratory called Curiosity kicked off what's expected to be a two-year mission on the Red Planet with a tricky automated landing in a Martian crater.


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School-Aged Child Nutrition
Helpful feeding information for your school-age child
School-age children (ages 6 to 12) need healthy foods and nutritious snacks. They have a consistent but slow rate of growth and usually eat 4 to 5 times a day (including snacks). Many food habits, likes, and dislikes are set during this time. Family, friends, and the media (especially TV) influence their food choices and eating habits. School-age children are often willing to eat a wider variety of foods than their younger siblings. Eating healthy after-school snacks is important, too, as these snacks may contribute up to one-fourth of the total calorie intake for the day. School-age children have developed more advanced feeding skills and are able to help with meal preparation.
Helpful mealtime hints for school-age children
The following are some helpful mealtime hints:
Always serve breakfast, even if it has to be "on the run." Some ideas for a quick, healthy breakfast include:
Cheese toast
Peanut butter sandwich
Take advantage of big appetites after school by serving healthy snacks, such as:
Vegetables and dip
Turkey or chicken sandwich
Cheese and crackers
Milk and cereal
Set good examples for eating habits.
Allow children to help with meal planning and preparation.
Serve meals at the table, instead of in front of the television, to avoid distractions.
7 School Lunch Tips for Picky Eaters
Getting your child to eat healthfully is a struggle for many parents, especially if you have a picky eater in your family. Picky eaters often bring back unopened lunch boxes or ignore the healthy foods you've packed and go straight for the dessert. Learn helpful tips and tricks for outsmarting your picky eater from a Johns Hopkins pediatric dietitian.
Healthy food choices
The MyPlate icon is a guideline to help you and your child eat a healthy diet. MyPlate can help you and your child eat a variety of foods while encouraging the right amount of calories and fat.
The USDA and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services have prepared the plate to guide parents in selecting foods for children age 2 and older.
The MyPlate icon is divided into 5 food group categories, emphasizing the nutritional intake of the following:
Grains. Foods that are made from wheat, rice, oats, cornmeal, barley, or another cereal grain are grain products. Examples include whole wheat, brown rice, and oatmeal.
Vegetables. Vary your vegetables. Choose a variety of colorful vegetables, including dark green, red, and orange vegetables, legumes (peas and beans), and starchy vegetables.
Fruits. Any fruit or 100% fruit juice counts as part of the fruit group. Fruits may be fresh, canned, frozen, or dried, and may be whole, cut up, or pureed.
Dairy. Milk products and many foods made from milk are considered part of this food group. Focus on fat-free or low-fat products, as well as those that are high in calcium.
Protein. Go lean on protein. Choose low-fat or lean meats and poultry. Vary your protein routine. Choose more fish, nuts, seeds, peas, and beans.
Oils are not a food group, yet some, like nut oils, contain essential nutrients and can be included in the diet. Animal fats are solid fats and should be avoided.
Exercise and everyday physical activity should also be included with a healthy dietary plan.
Nutrition and activity tips
Here are tips to follow:
Try to control when and where food is eaten by your children by providing regular daily meal times with social interaction and demonstration of healthy eating behaviors.
Involve children in the selection and preparation of foods. Teach them to make healthy choices by providing opportunities to select foods based on their nutritional value.
For children in general, reported dietary intakes of the following are low enough to be of concern by the USDA: calcium, magnesium, potassium, and fiber. Select foods with these nutrients when possible.
Most Americans need to reduce the number of calories they consume. When it comes to weight control, calories do count. Controlling portion sizes and eating nonprocessed foods helps limit calorie intake and increase nutrients.
Parents are encouraged to make recommended serving sizes for children.
Parents are encouraged to limit children's video, television watching, and computer use to less than 2 hours daily and replace the sitting activities with activities that require more movement.
Children and adolescents need at least 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity on most days to have good health and fitness and for healthy weight during growth.
To prevent dehydration, encourage children to drink fluid regularly during physical activity and to drink several glasses of water or other fluid after the physical activity is completed.
To find more information about the Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2015–2020 and to determine the appropriate dietary recommendations for your child's age, sex, and physical activity level, visit the Online Resources page for the links to the ChooseMyPlate.gov and 2015–2020 Dietary Guidelines sites. Please note that the MyPlate plan is designed for people older than age 2 who do not have chronic health conditions.
Always talk with your child's health care provider regarding his or her healthy diet and exercise needs.


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E-Mail Configuration
When configured, Moin features two email-based services; sending mail, and receiving mail. Both are explained on this page.
Sending mail
The most common scenario is configuring your wiki to send mail, which is used in the following situations:
- Recovering passwords
- Users who have forgotten their passwords can request an email (which will be sent to the email address on file) and will contain password reset instructions (and a token to authenticate the password reset.)
- Change Notification
Any user can subscribe to changes of wiki pages by either clicking on the envelope icon , or by adding a regex to the "Subscribed wiki pages" field of his user preferences. The system then sends, whenever a page is changed and the author doesn't uncheck the "Send mail notification" checkbox, an email with the author, a link to the page, and the diff of the change. The author does not get notified of his own changes.
To configure mail-sending, the following options need to be configured in your wikiconfig.py file:
Variable name |
Default |
Description |
mail_from |
None |
From: header used in sent mails, e.g. mail_from = u'Wiki Notifier <email@example.com>'. [unicode] |
mail_login |
None |
"user pwd" if you need to use SMTP AUTH |
mail_smarthost |
None |
IPv4 address or hostname of an SMTP-enabled server (with optional :port appendix, defaults to 25). Note that email features (notification, mailing of login data) works only if this variable is set. |
mail_sendmail |
None |
If set to e.g. '/usr/sbin/sendmail -t -i', use this sendmail command to send mail. Default is to send mail by an internal function using SMTP. |
In order to enable support for outgoing mails, you must specify the From: address with "mail_from". Furthermore, you must enable a transport, either by SMTP (use "mail_smarthost" to enable it) or by sendmail (use "mail_sendmail" to enable it). If you use "mail_smarthost" and the server requires authentication, then set "mail_login", too.
- mail_from
This value is used for the "From:" and "To:" headers in the emails sent (the "To:" has email address privacy reasons, email is not really sent to this address, but we don't want to disclose any real recipient address). The address is also used as the envelope sender and hence should exist so your wiki's emails are not blocked by spam filtering software.
- mail_login
This is only needed when you use mail_smarthost and a server that requires SMTP AUTH to send mail; in that case, set this to the username and password separated by a space, i.e. "user pwd".
- mail_smarthost
This is the IP or domain name of an FOLDOC:SMTP enabled server. On a Unix host, you can try to use localhost; on a Windows machine this will normally be a machine in your LAN or some host of your ISP.
- mail_sendmail
- This is a local command to run to send a message. If set to e.g. '/usr/sbin/sendmail -t -i', use this sendmail command to send mail. This is only useful on machines that have a mail transport agent installed.
Receiving Mail
Moin is able to receive mails. Mainly, you need to know what the e-mail address of the wiki is and send a mail to it. If you supply the target pagename before the wiki address (typing MyWikiPage <email@example.com> for example), you will get your mail into the wiki quite easily.
If you want to import mails to your Moin wiki, i.e. allow it to receive and store the mails, you have to setup a few things.
First you have to setup your mail server to pipe every new mail into Moin. The command is moin xmlrpc mailimport. Note that you can use the parameter --config /path/to/dir to supply the path to a directory with a suitable Moin configuration file. Then you have to ensure that there is a file called mailimportconf.py in that directory.
Now you can configure the wiki. There are the following configuration options:
Variable name |
Default |
Description |
mail_import_wiki_addrs |
[] |
The e-mail address(es) of the e-mails that should go into the wiki. |
mail_import_pagename_envelope |
u"%s" |
Special use, see below. |
mail_import_subpage_template |
u"$from-$date-$subject" |
This is the template for the pagename generated by the mail import code. |
mail_import_pagename_search |
['subject', 'to', ] |
Where and in which order to search for the target pagename. |
mail_import_pagename_regex |
r'\[\[([^"]*)\]\]' |
Special use, see below. |
mail_import_secret |
"" |
The secret that matches the mailimportconf.py configuration file. |
- mail_import_wiki_addrs
A list of e-mail target addresses of e-mails that should go into the wiki. Moin searches for these addresses to know the target pagename, it should match the address that is known to the mail server. If you use some kind of forwarding mechanism, please put the address(es) your wiki users use to address the wiki first into that list and the address(es) you forward the e-mails to after that.
- mail_import_pagename_envelope
The default value of this setting is u"%s" and that just means "use the pagename unmodified". You could also configure it to be u"+ %s/" which would add a plus and a blank char in front of what we got and a slash char after what we got from the mail subject or target addr. This is to save your users some typing if you ever want the behaviour triggered by the plus and the slash.
- mail_import_subpage_template
- This is the template for the pagename generated by the mail import code. See below for supported placeholders.
- mail_import_pagename_search
Where (and in what order) to search for the target pagename, default is ['subject', 'to', ] to first look into the subject and then (if we didn't find anything there) to look into the target addresses.
- mail_import_pagename_regex
The pattern (regex) we search in the subject line for determining the target pagename, default is r'\[\[([^"]*)\]\]' which simply looks for something like [[TargetPageName]] (same as freelink syntax).
- mail_import_secret
The secret that matches the mailimportconf.py configuration file. The secret is used to let the script authenticate itself at the wiki. The URL consists of the regular wiki URL and ?action=xmlrpc2. It should look like this (there is a sample file shipped in wiki/config):
# This secret has to be known by the wiki server mail_import_secret = u"foo" # The target URL mail_import_url = u"http://localhost:81/?action=xmlrpc2"
After you have configured the settings explained above, you should be able sending yourself mails. The actual usage is explained below.
- From
- We check the From: header if it is from a valid wiki user. Of course this is no real security, but maybe better than nothing.
- When we create a mail overview table, we use the email address part of From: to try to lookup a wiki user account with that email address. In case we find some, we will link to his homepage from the From: column of the table. If we don't find a matching user account, we just list the realname part in the From: column.
- To / Cc
To: is (as usual) made of 2 parts, like TEMPLATE <email@example.com>. We use the "realname" part to make up the target page name template (can contain special chars, blanks etc.) and the email address part to get it to the right destination. The simplest form of a target page name template is just a pagename like WikiSandBox.
- See the example for the 2 different modes of operation.
- When we create a mail overview table, we process To: and Cc: for the To: column in the same way we do it for the From: column (see above). We do not include the address of the wiki server (and if we only have the wiki server email, we just display "-").
- Subject
- The page name template can also be extracted (and also removed) from the first occurance of mail_import_pagename_regex within the subject.
Subj: [[TargetPageName]] will work if you put it either at the beginning or the end of the subject. Subject: bla bla bla [[PageName/$date]]
The text of mails with such subject will be added to the pages
TargetPageName or PageName/2006-07-20T14:48:27
The full subject will also be used to build the change comment, prefixed with "Mail: "; variables are not replaced there.
- Mail body
The new page content is made from old page content (if any) plus the content of the email appended at the end. Page content will never get overwritten. Mails that are sent as alternative are shown with their HTML body on the page which is processed by a HTML parser.
- E-Mail attachments will get put into page attachments under the page where the content will be put. Attachments will never get overwritten. The attachments will be linked from the content page (e.g. from a list of attachments at the end).
- Generated content
If requested by a leading +-sign (e.g. + PageName/), Moin adds a table item to the parent page listing details about the e-mail.
- Pagename generation
The placeholders $from (containing the name of the sender), $date (the date) and $subject (subject line) are supported.
- The pagename is generated like explained below:
- Check if one of the mail target addresses (to, cc, ...) is in mail_import_wiki_addrs
- Process TO/SUBJECT in order as given by mail_import_pagename_search until we have found a pagename or have to give up:
- Try to get the pagename template from the target addrs, or
- Try to extract the pagename from the subject (explained above).
- If we didn't find a pagename, use mail_import_subpage_template as last resort.
- Apply mail_import_pagename_envelope to (optionally) extend the pagename.
If the pagename ends with a slash, append the configuration setting email_subpage_template (see above) to the pagename.
- Expand the pagename template to get the actual pagename.


text:
Extraordinarily fine shoyu made of Non-GMO organic soybeans and organic wheat by brew masters skilled in traditional methods. Aged in stainless steel casks for 2 years. It melds, brightens, and brings out depth of character in any food. George Ohsawa called this soy sauce 'tamari'. Shoyu soy sauce is macrobiotic 'tamari' soy sauce. 55 gallon steel, food grade drum.
Organic Eden Shoyu Soy Sauce continues a craft that began centuries ago. Brewing masters, heirs of the traditional old fashioned way, skilled in the art of koji fermentation handed down through generations, produce this soy sauce. Made of koji Aspergillus oryzae inoculated organic whole soybeans, organic wheat, pure water and the finest sea salt carefully tended and aged in stainless steel casks through two seasonal cycles at natural, ambient temperatures, in the same ancient and traditional manner used for over 500 years.
It is difficult to pinpoint exactly what it is that tastes good about shoyu. The most noticeable quality is not its own flavor, but rather its ability to combine with, harmonize and enhance the flavor of other foods. The complex, natural chemical makeup of shoyu gives it an extraordinary full and deep flavor. In addition to flavor, the irresistible aroma that shoyu contributes to food can make it smell delicious even before it is tasted. These qualities are a result of long, slow traditional fermentation.
Soy sauce should be chosen with care as one would choose a fine wine or extra virgin olive oil. The flavor and aroma of natural shoyu cannot be duplicated with chemically produced soy sauce. Today, authentic soy sauce is rare. Almost all commercial soy sauces are chemically defatted soy isolate, sugar, water, refined salt, and caramel color, genetically engineered organism artificially derived enzymes, quickly fermented under temperature controlled artificial conditions. They are commonly made with genetically engineered soybeans defatted with hexane gas.
In the 1960's George Ohsawa introduced macrobiotics to the West, and first introduced a natural soy sauce that he called 'tamari'. This soy sauce was not a true tamari, but a soy sauce called 'shoyu' in Japan. The product he called 'tamari soy sauce', was made of soybeans, wheat, koji, water and salt. Mr. Ohsawa wanted to distinguish naturally made soy sauce, traditional shoyu, from commercial, chemically processed soy sauces that were marketed under the name 'shoyu' at the time. He did not anticipate the introduction of real tamari into North America, as it was a rare commodity and byproduct of making hacho (soybean) miso. Purposely, and unfortunately, misnaming the product 'tamari' eventually led to much linguistic confusion in the 1980s, when 'wheat free tamari' was introduced. Eden Shoyu is traditional, naturally made, macrobiotic soy sauce.


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Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Spicy Orange Bison Balls - Feeding My Inner Adolescent
Are we still so immature as a nation that we can't just serve balls? Do we have to keep adding those extra letters for fear some 15-year old can't control his giggling at Hooters? Besides, now that 72% of all information (my estimate) is transmitted via text message, I would think we'd all benefit from chopping off a couple letters, e.g., MMA Tonys 4 bison balls.
This recipe is inspired by the retro classic, cocktail meatballs in grape jelly. I took that idea, along with my love of spicy orange beef, and came up with this combination. I chose bison as the meat due to its lower fat, and slight subtle gaminess. The very simple, spicy-sweet sauce with the savory bison balls makes a great pair.
These can be used for a main course over some rice, but are really great served as an Hors d'oeuvre at a party. Just make sure you make enough. These are very addictive, and you don't want to leave some of your guests hanging. They could get testy. Enjoy!
1 pound ground bison
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup plain breadcrumbs
1 egg, beaten
1/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp fresh ground black pepper
1 tbsp vegetable oil
2 tbsp sambal Asian chili sauce, or red pepper flakes
1/2 cup orange marmalade
1 tbsp soy sauce
1/4 cup rice vinegar
3 cups water
* Please help support free video recipes, and visit my new sponsor, MOZO Shoes. Find out why chefs (like me) are buzzing about their great shoes!
34 comments:
- AceTravis said...
If I wanted to use that spicy orange sauce with some chicken, would I do a procedure sort of like the Slanted Door's Caramel Chicken dish with chicken thighs?
- February 25, 2009 at 3:30 PM
- Chef John said...
exactly. I've trained you well. ;)
- February 25, 2009 at 3:31 PM
"high time this practice is sacked"
"a great pair"
"leave some of your guests hanging."
"They could get testy."
Chef John, continuing to prepare fabulous food whilst proving to women the word over there is a part of every mans brain that ceases development at fourteen.
;-) - February 25, 2009 at 3:53 PM
- Chef John said...
For a non-male, you certainly had no trouble picking those up.
- February 25, 2009 at 3:59 PM
- JadedOne said...
I giggled at the end of the video. Thanks for the recipe and making me smile on yet another craptastic day at the office.
- February 25, 2009 at 4:39 PM
Nice use of double entendre. These look tasty, though an actual demonstration on how to cook real cows testicles would be nice. Another offal i'd like to see would be a sweetbread recipe. Perhaps in the future.
- February 25, 2009 at 5:09 PM
Well you have shamed me into admitting that I would not mind having these balls in my mouth. They look tasty.
- February 25, 2009 at 5:51 PM
- blogagog said...
"Balls have always been problematic for menu and recipe writers. You can't write "Pork Balls" on a menu, you have to write "Pork Meatballs."
Can't we continue this trend? No one wants to eat balls, no matter which animal they came from. That's not going to change. Even in California. - February 25, 2009 at 7:13 PM
Well, it looks like you've just blogged yourself off of Nancy from Ohio's Christmas list. Nice going.
Incidentally, I kinda agree with her. I mean, if you really read today's blog and listen to it closely, I'd think you were trying to subversively trick us into thinking filthy thoughts... It's the worst kind of subversive too, the kind that you don't even know is being done.
And have you ever played one of these videos backwards?! For shame, Chef John... for shame.
Chicken Breasts! PorkLoins! I looked up the real meaning of "Giambotta"... The jig is up, Chef John.
And while your blog on "How To Enjoy A Salad Without Dressing" was delicious, I felt ashamed, and demeaned, and-and-and cold. My face was beet red when I sat down to eat it and realized what you were doing. As was my mother-in-laws' when she walked into the room.
I guess it's just a matter of different strokes (ahem).
Scott - Boston - February 25, 2009 at 8:43 PM
Wait! I almost forgot the obligatory "ball" joke...
okay... um... let me think. (Nice job by everyone for hogging them all) ... hmmmm... okay, got it -
Hey Chef John, nice recipe. Can't wait to try it. Incidentally, I have no problem with balls at all. I mean, after all, where would we be without 'em!
Scott - Boston - February 25, 2009 at 8:53 PM
- Chef John said...
Thanks Scott, I'm sorry you couldn't get in earlier to use one of the easier references. That must drive you nuts.
- February 25, 2009 at 9:24 PM
- ragecg said...
Am I the ONLY 14yr old (minded) one here?
"uh, huh huh, he said balls..."
...man, tough crowd.
Oh, can I feed these alongside Alec Baldwins "Shwetty Balls"?
...ok, I'm done I think:) - February 25, 2009 at 10:57 PM
Hey, may I suggest a simple way to go around the stark shock of the word "BALLS" showing up on your menu: Use another language! A short trip to Google translator has these and more:
Bile-Romanian (Hmm, maybe not this one though, eeww.)
The other languages were font-twitchy and wouldn't show up here, but you get the idea. The IQ's of those who'd be offended, why they'll never even pick up on it! However, they will be the first one yelling about how the dish being served is just meatballs though... - February 26, 2009 at 12:23 AM
Hey, may I suggest a simple way to go around the stark shock of the word "BALLS" showing up on your menu: Use another language! A short trip to Google translator has these and more:
Bile-Romanian (Hmm, maybe not this one though, eeww.)
The other languages were font-twitchy and wouldn't show up here, but you get the idea. The IQ's of those who'd be offended, why they'll never even pick up on it! However, they will be the first one yelling about how the dish being served is just meatballs though... - February 26, 2009 at 12:24 AM
- AceTravis said...
Hey Chef. Another question about the sauce. Would I use less water if I was preparing the sauce before dumping 1/3 of it onto the browned chicken thighs? The site says 3 cups of water.
- February 26, 2009 at 12:50 AM
- An Ng. said...
Shwetty balls, LOL. I still giggle every time I listen to the NPR food programs.
"See how they glisten?" - February 26, 2009 at 12:52 AM
- Chef John said...
Yes Ace, I would use half the water, you can add more of course.
- February 26, 2009 at 1:13 AM
Saaaayy, what's the big idea Ace? (putting on my best Edward G. Robinson impersonation). Chef John put his balls on the table for us and you want to ask food question? Now's not the time! :)
Incidentally, Chef John, my balls are too big, maybe I should add a second cup?
Scott - Boston - February 26, 2009 at 10:37 AM
- Grams Pam said...
I'm also sorry I couldn't get in earlier to use one of the easier references, and yes, it does drive me "nuts"
However, I think I may be the first to bring up the South Park show where "Chef develops a new dessert treat for the film festival crowd, while Mr. Hankey beckons from below."
And may I suggest another way to get around the shock of the word "BALLS" showing up on a menu: Use an alternative ...
bison "globes" anyone? - February 26, 2009 at 12:31 PM
I make balls all the time and yes people get testy when I don't have enough. Scott don't worry if they are too big, sometimes bigger is better. In Madrid there are tasty bull's balls at the market.
Chef loved the drum roll in the video. - February 26, 2009 at 12:38 PM
I'd like to put my 2 cents in this discussion. It's all just a sack of nuts!
- February 26, 2009 at 1:40 PM
Would the bison balls pair nicely with your cousin Tony's sausage?
- February 26, 2009 at 1:43 PM
- Luatica said...
Oh well, some people do eat animal's balls, some say they are tasty, just never bothered.
I guess Beef would work nice here. Bison is not really available in Europe. I wonder since Bison is leaner, if a specific beef cut for the ground is needed. - February 26, 2009 at 2:22 PM
- Chef John said...
A ground round would be fine, any cut really as long as it's gound "lean" 90%
- February 26, 2009 at 2:45 PM
- Greg said...
The realization that I need to make these hit me like a kick in the *****.
- February 26, 2009 at 7:15 PM
I heard that when a buffalo mates with a cow to create "beefalo", the cow then becomes sterile. The problem is I enjoy beefalo more than regular buffalo.
- February 26, 2009 at 10:12 PM
- Unknown said...
I do many balls at one time, so that I can enjoy some balls right away, and still have some for later. I did a lot of balls for my mother last week, so that she'll be able to enjoy them when I'm not there.
I prefer to do balls in the oven, which leaves my hands free to do other things.
I love saucy balls, and hope you'll blog about them again, because I love variety when it comes to balls. - March 6, 2009 at 4:07 PM
- Unknown said...
I just made these bison balls tonight. They were really good, and fabulous as a party food. I loved the spicy orange sauce. I'm going to cook buffalo meat more often.
- June 14, 2009 at 12:40 AM
Here in Zimbabwe traditionally when the men kill a cow, they roast the genitals and eat them wherever they would have slaughtered the beast. Women are not allowed to eat that stuff.
- July 9, 2009 at 7:24 AM
- Deepty & Tariq said...
Hello Chef John,
I am a regular visitor to your site. Thank you for the wonderful easy to cook Bison Meat balls,
Well, I am writing from india so bison meat is not available here. I guess I can use bufflo meat, which is commonly availabe.
The other thing I wanted to consult is about Orange Marmalade. It is available, but I am not sure if it will be really liked in India. Are there any other alternate like pickled lemons with some honey??
Please advise.
Tariq Mumtaz - December 19, 2009 at 8:54 AM
- Chef John said...
Buffalo and bison are the same thing. Yes any sweet/tart fruit condiment should work, even mango chutney! Enjoy!
- December 19, 2009 at 11:39 AM
Made this 7/28, it was really good. I used Ground beef instead of the buffalo, but I think lamb would have made a better substitute. The sauce was delish, I certainly will be making this again!
- July 29, 2010 at 7:39 AM
- 1Bigg_ER said...
Eeww, use some peanut oil and you'll have balls with a nutty flavor...
- February 24, 2012 at 12:10 PM
- rodentraiser said...
Yeah, 6 years too late to the party, but I couldn't resist.......you guys all missed the chopping them off part.......
- July 19, 2015 at 2:15 PM


text:
For as much as Frog Prince and I love bread, we rarely make bread sticks.
Now, we might have to make an exception.
These bread sticks are amazing! Great flavor, and really easy to make. I couldn't go all out whole wheat in this recipe because, well, Olive Garden's bread sticks are not whole wheat. But, I did use 1 C of white whole wheat flour, just to make them a little more Finding Joy in My Kitchen style!
Olive Garden Breadsticks - Misadventures of Mrs. B
- 3/4 C warm water
- 1 1/8 tsp. yeast
- 2 1/4 C flour {I used 1 C white whole wheat}
- 1 T butter, melted {unsalted}
- 1 T sugar
- 1 tsp salt {I used sea salt}
Begin by dissolving the yeast in the warm water, in the bottom of your mixing bowl.
Add the melted butter, salt and sugar to the mixture.
Then, shape into 8-10 bread sticks.
Bake at 400 for ~7 minutes.
Meanwhile, mix together 1 T melted unsalted butter, 1 tsp. sea salt and 1 tsp. garlic powder.
Brush each breadstick with melted butter mixture.
Brush the rest of the melted butter over the breadsticks. Serve warm.
Linked to: What's on Your Plate? URS


text:
The decision on whether the Kings will play in Sacramento or Seattle next season will probably take longer than anticipated, NBA commissioner David Stern said Wednesday. Speaking in New York after representatives of groups from both cities presented to a committee of the league's owners, Stern said the league might not meet its original target date, the Board of Governors meetings April 18-19, to decide the franchise's fate.
Stern did not specify a new timeline, but announced that the league's owners are not interested in dragging it.
"It's not clear what our precise timeline is for a final determination here is because the most important thing is doing all the work that has to be done," Stern said. "We're doing it as fast as we collectively can together. It may well slide past the board meeting, but I wouldn't expect it, if it does, to slide by a lot. Because there's a combined interest in having some clarity come to this situation."
Seattle-area investors, led by Valiant Capital's Chris Hansen and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, agreed to purchase a controlling interest in the Kings from the Maloof family in January and filed paperwork to relocate the franchise to Seattle, where it would assume the SuperSonics nickname and play in KeyArena until a new arena is constructed.
Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson and four principal investors, including 24 Hour Fitness founder Mark Mastrov, billionaire Ron Burkle, TIBCO chairman Vivek Ranadive and Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs, have worked to keep the Kings where they are, recently agreeing to terms on a new Downtown Plaza arena deal.
Stern said presentations from both groups were compelling, but that questions remain, especially about arena construction timelines, because the franchise would be forced to play in a "sub-optimal arena" until a new building in either city could be completed.
"We heard a day full of extraordinary presentations of a complex real estate, arena, construction timelines, potential obstacles and team funding in two really great cities," Stern said. "It was a long day without any breaks and both sides made, in my view, very, very strong presentations."
The joint finance/relocation committee — consisting of Peter Holt (Spurs), Glen Taylor (Timberwolves), Clay Bennett (Thunder), Jim Dolan (Knicks), Ted Leonsis (Wizards), Larry Tanenbaum (Raptors), Herb Simon (Pacers) and Wyc Grousbeck (Celtics) — will meet again before the Board of Governors meetings.
Stern ruled out expansion as a way to accommodate the demand for an NBA team in both cities, as he did during comments made at All-Star Weekend in February.
"Right now, expansion (riding in) on horseback, so to speak, is not a prudent way to run a league," Stern said. "Without knowing what you're selling, what the next TV deal is worth, what the full scope of international (revenues are), what our social media and digital (revenues are) . . . to cut off a chunk of that and have an expansion, is imprudent on a quick decision. That doesn't mean that at some point in the future it's on the table, but right now it's not."
Representatives from the Seattle group and the Sacramento group expressed confidence and satisfaction with their presentations to the committee.


text:
Best 5 Star Hotels in Kanchipuram
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text:
Welcome to Dragon Cave! Dragon Cave is an online adoptables game. Collect eggs, raise them to adulthood, and then breed them to create interesting lineages. New dragons are added regularly!
Frilled Dragons are smaller than most other breeds, but when threatened, they stretch out their wings and frills to appear larger. They generally do not like to fight and prefer hiding to confrontation. Frilled dragons live in small groups and often band together to scare off potential threats. Males also use their frills as a way to attract mates, with those displaying the "best" frills being more likely to breed.
Dragons are highly-intelligent reptilian creatures that—from a human perspective, at least—appear to live forever. Many different varieties of dragon exist, each with their own unique qualities, habitats, and behavior. Adolescence in dragons is usually marked by the growth of a hatchling's wings, although not all breeds of dragons grow wings and some breeds have other traits that indicate the beginning of maturation. In Galsreim, dragons and humans coexist peacefully.


text:
Export 1 results:
Filters: Author is David Beeler [Clear All Filters]
Perceiving social interactions in the posterior superior temporal sulcus. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 114, (2017).
CBMM Memos were established in 2014 as a mechanism for our center to share research results with the wider scientific community. Click here to read more about the memos and to see a full list of the memos.


text:
Product Description
This is a DOWNLOAD product.
Steely. Seasoned. Smart-alecky. The storied San Francisco snooper is back!
Share the exciting exploits of Dashiell Hammett's famous gumshoe through this thrilling 6-Hour collection. Featuring all of the episodes from both our Volume One and Volume Two collections, Howard Duff and Steve Dunne star as Sam Spade in twelve madcap capers from 1946 - 1951.
As crass as he is charismatic, this dynamic detective attracts a curious clientele: gentlemen who tend to drop dead and ladies who are drop-dead gorgeous. Each case leads our wise-cracking detective to the danger of the dark alley - and leads you to discover the timeless appeal of this hard-boiled hero. But, fair warning…a knock on Spade's door can mean wild goose chases, scams, and set ups of the seriously deadly variety.
Once again, these digitally restored and remastered episodes are available from the Radio Spirits Archives Collection - featuring re-releases of our most popular discontinued collections.
Episodes Include: Starring Howard Duff: Sam and the Psyche 08-02-46; The Bow Window Caper 11-09-47; The Insomnia Caper 10-24-48; The Love Letter Caper 03-27-49; The Overjord Caper 06-05-49; The Tears of Night Caper 07-24-49; The Chargogagogmanchogagogchabunamungamog Caper 09-25-49; Starring Steve Dunne: The Terrified Turkey Caper 11-24-50; The Sure Thing Caper 02-09-51; The Vendetta Caper 03-30-51; The Rowdy Dowser Caper 04-20-51; The Hail and Farewell Caper 04-27-51.
Download Collection: 12 Episodes
Running Time: Approx. 6 Hours
Item D45492


text:
It's funny how we spend time with people and still don't know hundreds of things about them. Or we think we know something, but we don't (This is not a philosophical post, I promise).
I was going through a couple of books trying to choose something for lunch and suddenly João looked at a photo and said "why don't you cook this?" - I looked at him and replied "but you don't like cannelloni. And you don't like ricotta either". "Of course I like cannelloni. And I would definitely try your ricotta cannelloni - but don't add spinach, please"
After my jaw was back where it belongs, João was off to the grocery store to buy the ingredients and I was glad to know he's more open to trying new food. :)
I'm submitting this post for the Weekend Herb Blogging, this time hosted by Scott, from Real Epicurean.
I adapted a recipe from this book and used a combination of parsley, chives and basil to replace the spinach.
Herb ricotta cannelloni
adapted from Modern Classics Book 1
500ml readymade tomato sauce
4 fresh lasagna sheets, halved lengthwise
½ cup finely grated parmesan cheese, extra
750g (1 ½ pounds) fresh ricotta
2 tablespoons virgin olive oil*
4 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley
4 tablespoons chopped basil
4 tablespoons chopped chives
1 cup finely grated parmesan cheese
½ cup fresh breadcrumbs – I made my own with some stale Italian bread
salt and freshly ground black pepper
Preheat the oven to 180ºC/350ºF.
To make the filling, combine the ricotta, olive oil, parsley, basil, chives, parmesan, breadcrumbs, salt and pepper.
Spread 1/3 of the tomato sauce over the base of a greased 20x30cm (8x12in) ovenproof dish.
Lay a lasagna sheet on a flat surface, spoon on some ricotta filling and roll up. Place in the baking dish, seam-side down. Repeat with the remaining filling and sheets.
Pour the remaining tomato sauce over the cannelloni, sprinkle with the extra parmesan and bake for 25-30 minutes or until heated through.
* I added the olive oil because the ricotta I used was too crumbly – it helped create a creamier filling
Serves 4


text:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Melissa Block.
And I'm Robert Siegel. President Vladimir Putin traveled to Crimea today to mark the anniversary of Russia's victory in the Second World War. It was his first time there since the peninsula was annexed by Russia. His visit was criticized by the Ukrainian government and Washington, but Putin told Crimeans that by being together with Russia, they're stronger.
PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN: (Speaking foreign language)
SIEGEL: The annexation of Crimea followed a referendum in March. Next door in Eastern Ukraine, pro-Russian activists are planning similar referendums for Sunday. NPR's Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson reports from Donetsk on the preparations.
SORAYA SARHADDI NELSON, BYLINE: To hear pro-Russian activists tell it, they are all set to hold Sunday's referendum on independence from Ukraine, even though the Kiev government and its western allies continue to denounce it as illegal. Roman Lagin is an election official with the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, who says they've printed 3 million ballots that are being delivered to 1200 polling stations across the region.
ROMAN LAGIN: (Speaking foreign language)
NELSON: He says 15,000 volunteers will run the election, which he adds will be transparent and meet international standards. But a half hour drive south in the small town of Dokuchayevsk, preparations have barely begun. Pro-Russian activists have set up a small tent in front of town hall here. Inside, a handful of volunteers answer people's questions.
NATALIA LUBANITSKAYA: (Speaking foreign language)
NELSON: One is Natalia Lubanitskaya, who says she hands out fliers to as many people as she can explaining how the pro-Western government in Kiev doesn't represent people's interest. Another flier lists the single question pro-Russian activists want Eastern Ukrainian voters to answer. Do you support the independence proclamation of the Donetsk People's Republic?
Where those will cast their ballots is still unclear. Yuri Lekstutes, who is the local representative to the Donetsk People's Republic Council, says they won't be setting up polling stations until an hour before opening on Sunday.
YURI LEKSTUTES: (Speaking foreign language)
NELSON: He claims they don't need permission from their local government, which is still under Kiev's authority to enter schools and community centers where votes in Ukrainian elections are normally cast. But to avoid confrontations with officials or police, he said they will set up ballot boxes outside the entrances, that way the vote will also be transparent, Lekstutes adds.
Elsewhere in Donetsk, the pro-Russian separatists are reported to be less accommodating.
GOV. SERHIY TARUTA: (Speaking foreign language)
NELSON: Gov. Serhiy Taruta tells reporters that masked separatists are threatening school officials to try and make them give up their buildings for the referendum. He praised those officials for refusing to back down in the face of danger. His administration later told principals not to fight back if they are approached by pro-Russian activists wanting to set up polling stations in their schools and to instead limit their access to a single floor.
But talk of the referendum in Donetsk was quickly set aside after clashes erupted in the regional port city of Mariupol. There are said to be fatalities on both sides after fighting between government forces and pro-Russian gunmen who Ukraine's interior minister said were trying to storm the police station. Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson, NPR News, Donetsk. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.


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The current conservative Supreme Court majority has a well-earned reputation for protecting the First Amendment right to free speech, whether in the form of campaign spending or protests at military funerals.
But in one area — the First Amendment rights of public employees — the conservative majority has been far less protective of the right to speak out. Now the court is revisiting the issue, and the result could have far-reaching consequences for public corruption investigations.
Edward Lane was fired because he testified truthfully that an Alabama state legislator was a no-show employee, being paid by the taxpayers for no work.
He was hired in 2006 to head a program for juvenile offenders, providing counseling and education as an alternative to incarceration. The program was run out of Central Alabama Community College and received substantial federal funds.
After he was hired, Lane conducted an audit and learned that one of the program's best-paid employees, a state representative named Suzanne Schmitz, was not showing up for work. After Schmitz refused to change her ways, Lane had what he describes as an "ugly" meeting with the state legislator.
"She began to tell me who she was, and did I know who she was for real," said Lane.
Lane says that people in his office warned him not to tangle with Schmitz because of her influence, but, as he puts it, "To me, it's like being president of the bank. If I know one of my tellers is stealing from the bank, and I allow it to go on, I'm complicit."
And so he fired Schmitz.
About that time, the FBI came calling, Lane says. The bureau was conducting an investigation of public corruption in Alabama and subpoenaed Lane to testify first before the grand jury, and later at Schmitz's two trials. She was subsequently convicted in federal court of fraudulently obtaining $177,000 in public funds.
Lane, however, was not rewarded for his conduct. He was fired just before the community college was to request additional money from the state Legislature for the program he headed.
"I was the only one who was terminated," Lane said. "And to me, it made it look like I had done something wrong. You know, I was the one who was doing what was right."
And so he sued, contending that he was fired in retaliation for his testimony and that such retaliation violates the First Amendment guarantee of free speech.
While the Supreme Court in 1968 extended to public employees protection for statements made as a matter of public concern, the court has since narrowly defined what constitutes a matter of public concern.
In 2006, the court upheld disciplinary actions against a Los Angeles deputy district attorney after he testified in a trial that an affidavit to obtain a critical search warrant was false. By a 5-to-4 vote, the conservative Supreme Court majority ruled that the First Amendment offers no protection for speech that public employees engage in "pursuant to their official duties."
The court said that a public employee's speech is only protected when he speaks as a citizen on a matter of public concern, not as an employee.
In Edward Lane's case, the federal court of appeals based in Atlanta ruled that Lane was not protected because he was testifying about information he had learned as an employee.
Lane appealed to the Supreme Court. Monday his lawyers will argue that public employees have a duty to testify truthfully when subpoenaed, and that the First Amendment protects public employees from retaliation for performing that duty. If there is no such protection, say Lane's lawyers, employees who know about fraud, waste and abuse in government will be afraid to come forward, and public corruption will thrive.
A decision in the case is expected by summer.
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.


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Monday, November 23, 2009
A Nod from the Cimmerian
I don't deny that many D&D staples, such as the demihuman races, for example, are largely unthinkable without the influence of Tolkien. What I do deny, though, is that D&D would be impossible to imagine without the influence of Tolkien. I think a "de-Tolkienized" D&D is quite conceivable and, to my mind, much more philosophically coherent. Even if one doubts the veracity of Gygax's frequent claims about the degree to which the good professor influenced him, the simple fact of the matter is that Gygax clearly misunderstood Tolkien and his writings. He rather famously described The Lord of the Rings as an allegory about World War II, clearly ignorant of both Tolkien's feelings about allegory and that the story the novel tells predates the 1939-1945 war.
Tokien is, in my opinion, simply one influence among many that shaped early D&D. The game, after all, sprang up in the midst of the pulp fantasy revival of the late 60s and early 70s, when books that Gygax had read as a younger person were once again being made available to the mass market. That's why I find it quite credible that authors such as Howard, Leiber, Vance, and Merritt, all of whom Gygax regularly cites, had a far greater influence on him and the game he co-created. (Dave Arneson muddies this question somewhat, as players in his Blackmoor campaign attest to its strong Tolkien influences).
In the post, Mr Richardson also postulates that Merritt's The Ship of Ishtar and The Dwellers in the Mirage had more influence on Gygax than the books I alluded to. I'm willing to concede that point in principle, but I can only say that Gygax himself most frequently cited The Face in the Abyss, Creep Shadow, Creep!, and (especially) The Moon Pool as his favorite Merritt books. Again, I suppose it comes down to the extent to which one is willing to take Gygax at his word. I may be more credulous when sifting through his comments than I ought to be and, if so, I welcome correction. That said, I'm far from convinced regarding Tolkien and I look forward a future post on the subject by Mr Richardson, something he suggests he may tackle sometime later.
Until then.
34 comments:
Although I always had Tolkien on my mind in those early days (late 70's) of my gaming, I cannot disagree with you on this, James.
I think that, like a lot of people in my age group, Middle Earth had more influence on me than Lankhmar and others because it simply seemed like a much better place to live. Even my mom, being British (Scottish, to be exact) could appreciate Tolkien because of all the tea and biscuits and kicking back by warm fire places. There wasn't much a mom could appreciate about Lankhmar or Stygia. For some old school gamers like me, you get older and you start to appreciate the darker corners of the Earth (or wherever).
And as such those places had more influence on my game world. But as a 14 year old boy creating his first game world, I cannot deny that it was at first more Middle Earth than it was anyplace else.Even granting the (sometimes later) inclusion of Hobbits/haflings, "tall" elves, and treants, even as a kid, I knew Gygax had a tin ear for Tolkien. That is why we played MERP and Rolemaster for quasi-Tolkienism.
I don't think it is a coincidence that a fairly well-accepted point of divergence from Gygaxian fantasy is the Dragonlance epic - which was the first real push into a mock-Tolkien pastiche, with regards to story.James,
In future years, I wonder if would-be-scholars will be second-guessing the meaning of your quotes regarding your views on OD&D and such like, interjecting eisegesis apparent to the future commentators.
--I suppose it happens to everyone in print, as once the words are on the wing, as it were, they cease to be one's own and join in the collective archive.James! I'm not Deuce, but I thought I'd also chime in on your article.
My own feelings on D&D and Tolkien is somewhat in between that of yourself and Deuce's. I think much of the elements from Tolkien - and Howard - are definitely there, but through either misinterpretation or otherwise, manage to be a bit superficial. The surface elements like pointed eared elves, short bearded dwarves and that stuff are all present, but it results in something like a stereotype.
I certainly blame D&D (and its wee brother Warhammer) for much of the modern interpretations of Tolkien's dwarves, elves and orcs, as I blame it for the interpretation of Howard's barbarians. Stuff like Dwarves being drunken, fight-obsessed Scotsmen, Elves being prissy, androgynous nature-folk, and orcs being pig-faced greenskins.
Just talkin aloud here. 'Twas a grand article, well done.- AnonymousNovember 23, 2009 at 2:53 PM
James, have you seen Ringers - the story of fandom of Lord of the Rings**. While not directly about RPGs (although, they do subscribe to the popular theory that RPGs grew from Tolkien)...it does make an extensive study of the whole impact of Middle Earth within Popular Culture.
Therefore, RPGs, were possibly not influenced by Tolkien but they certainly were influenced by Popular Culture around them. It is more than likely that Gary sensed this and began to co-opt into their new game. Much as Traveller co-opts and assilimates Asimov's Foundation or Lucas' Star Wars without being directly linked to them.
**Happy to lend you a copy, if not. While I agree with you on this, James; it seems to me that both Blackmoor and Greyhawk—and then D&D—were all about borrowing superficial elements from everything and using them to decorate whatever the judge had come up with. If it hadn't been Tolkien, no doubt there would be some other influence we could've had the same discussions about. (Arthuriana?)
The other thing is that Gary's "marketing ploy" worked very well, so once the thing was out of his hands and being shaped by the fans, a whole lot of those D&D fans were Tolkien fans.I will just say that Tolkien can protest all he wants, but LOTR is most definitely an allegory on contemporary Europe.
Just because WWII hadn't started yet doesn't mean people didn't see the gathering storm.
WWI through WWII was not some separate, magical time barrier like many modern observers like to think.
WWI led directly into WWII, and in the mistakes of the past war with Sauron, when there was this one chance for peace, it's really hard to argue that the events of WWI, which fed into the much more awful WWII were not percolating somewhere in Tolkien's mind.
Was it a direct retelling of WWII? No. Was it necessarily conscious? Maybe not.
But neither of those is required for allegory.Tolkien and the war: he began writing LotR before WWII, but he was a participant in trench warfare in WWI and lost friends in that slaughter.
My understanding is that Tolkien simultaneously held that the novel was not allegorical but also not merely escapist, that Middle Earth was our Earth (obviously not literally true, so huh?)
Also in vogue at the time (and in London when LotR was being written) was Freud. Certainly the horrors of war were largely seen as confirmation of Freud's theory of the id: that we all have an inner selfish animalistic core without the discipline of civilization, religion (which Freud saw as useful despite being an atheist), higher calling.
There's much to be said for LotR being a depiction of the conflict between Id and Super Ego; a depiction of Sauron and the Ring as the Id personified and the temptation to fall to Sauron instead of holding to higher ideals. Gollum works as a mirror to Frodo if he were to give in to his Id instead of listening to his Super Ego - Gandalf and civilization in general. Freud also wrote a lot about competing life/death drives but I haven't read enough of that except to say that there are potential parallels.
The trouble with Freud is that it is subjective enough to be applied to nearly anything.
But my point is that the viewing of Tolkien as a morality play is totally absent in Gygaxian D&D.I think it is pretty obvious that the Lord of the Rings is not an allegory for World War II, but an audience will often read whatever seems most pleasing into the works of an author, even when the author explains that such a reading was unintended.
I think the "popular culture" influence is quite a good point. Most interesting is perhaps the fact that neither in LotR nor in the Hobbit are the ears of elves described as pointed. As I understand it, that is largely a result of the illustrations that followed, spurred on by correspondence between Tolkien and the artist.Sounds like we might have to lock both of you in a cupboard to fight this one out (perhaps will have to throw in Cerebus, Elrod and Lord Julius for good measure, too) *jk*
I'm not sure that D&D was ever intended as a literary collection rather than a roleplaying game and, yes, there could have been more hints given back in 1974 (and onwards, for a good while) as to how to play the game which perhaps might've given stronger allusions to underlying preferred ethos/inspirations, but this whole business of playing "spot the item/race" is, as stated before, at least in large part a matter of playing "spot the window-dressing" as published rather than digging down to the actual inspirations - and even literary ones at that, since the likes of Lovecraft is almost unseen in 1974 but was very definitely present in game development at/prior to that date.
If looking for slides to China and Canopus (well, Fomalhaut, but Rob seems to have had half a plot there ;) , y'might as well cite The Time Tunnel as creative inspiration. But, of course, since those were neither "published" nor alluded to in the 1974 woodgrain box that obviously "never happened"?
D&D as released with "Vancian magic" is, at least, a different kettle of fish to stating "...it's hard to find much concrete evidence of REH in the game as it was presented 'round about 1980, despite what Gygax had to say about Howard's influence. There were no true serpent-men in the first Monster Manual..."; but even then there /were/ spell points around prior to 1974: it's just those didn't make the cut for whatever reasons (read "EGG in control").
{/light-hearted digression} :)Clearly, Gygax, having read widely in the swords & sorcery genre, could have developed D&D without Tolkien's influence. However, probably none of us would have ever heard of D&D or RPGs if it had not been for the popularity of LOTR. Tolkien gave mainstream appeal to the fantasy genre, and thus prepared the ground for RPGs.
By Gygax's own admission (see Dragon #95), D&D incorporated LOTR elements as an explicit marketing ploy to capitalize upon the Tolkien craze of the '70s.
It worked. In some ways, it worked too well. In several early issues of the Dragon, players wrote in to point out contradictions between D&D rules and LOTR, reducing Gygax and others to mantralike recitations that D&D is not LOTR.
Often, Reading early DragonI will just say that Tolkien can protest all he wants, but LOTR is most definitely an allegory on contemporary Europe.
As with Gygax, one can either take Tolkien at his word or assume him to be disingenuous (consciously or not). Given his overall philosophy, I think it far more plausible to assume he knew just what he was doing and why and the novel was not about World War II (or World War I, for that matter).I think it is pretty obvious that the Lord of the Rings is not an allegory for World War II, but an audience will often read whatever seems most pleasing into the works of an author, even when the author explains that such a reading was unintended.
Indeed. There were people who, at the time of the movies' release, read into the films commentary on events in the Middle East, despite the fact that most of the "evidence" cited derived directly from Tolkien rather than being ham-fisted interpolations by Jackson and company.I think The Fellowship of the Ring with it's large party of mixed races and abilities and the trip through Moria had a lot more influence on D&D since the beginning than seems popular to acknowledge. Don't forget that smaller groups in the style of S&S are a more modern gaming norm...
Both the Fellowship and Moria had their influence certainly, but they're not the only influences on either the "adventuring party" or on dungeons. In fact, having re-read a lot of Victorian era "boys' adventure" stories, I'm more and more convinced that the early D&D adventuring party owes more to Haggard and his ilk than to Tolkien, particularly when you take into account the train of henchmen and hirelings that was common back then.Tolkien's literary project (including LotR, but also and especially The Silmarillion) as opposed to his philological one, had much more to do with forging an alloy of Christian morality and Norse myth than with examining the contemporary European geopolitical situation. Parts of the latter work are lifted almost directly from Norse mythology (paging Turin Turambar and Gurthang), other episodes are pretty clearly Christian stories overlaid with a veneer of Nordic storytelling style (e.g., ejection from Eden vs. destruction of the two trees by Melkor, the Kinslaying, etc.).
Tolkien was familiar with the entire breadth and scope of northern European mythology, and could read these works in their original languages (Icelandic, Old English, even Finnish and Welsh to some extent, etc.). To assert that he was being mendacious when claiming that LotR wasn't an allegory is to disregard his extreme erudition and literary sophistication.
Of course his experiences in WWI had some influence on his work, but that hardly proves that it's allegorical.Both the Fellowship and Moria had their influence certainly, but they're not the only influences on either the "adventuring party" or on dungeons.
Certainly not, but the large AND multi-race/class party (including Warrior, Wizard, Elf, Dwarf and Hobbit!) seems pretty strongly influenced by The Fellowship of the Rings. ;)
We also tend to focus a lot on the literary inspirations, but old fantasy and monster movies like Jason and the Argonauts and the various Sinbad films were very clear inspirations as well and also included larger adventuring groups.
I asked Gary about old Monster Movies and he confirmed he was a big fan. :)We also tend to focus a lot on the literary inspirations, but old fantasy and monster movies like Jason and the Argonauts and the various Sinbad films were very clear inspirations as well and also included larger adventuring groups.
You will in fact find discussions of the Harryhausen films on this very blog. Both Gygax and Kuntz have consistently spoken glowingly of those films and it's clear that early D&D owes a lot to both of them.Richardson's piece goes off the rails in the first paragraph. D&D and AD&D elves are clearly not LotR elves or anything much like them. That leaves dwarves, who both JRRT and EGG based on folklore, hobbits which are indeed clearly lifted, half-elves which probably are lifted as an idea but not in detail, and gnomes which are again from folklore. Orcs and Ents are also clear lifts but it's significant, IMO, that trolls are not.
The Tolkien influence on the actual game rules are minuscule, although not zero. Folklore has a great deal more effect on the human, demi-human, and humanoid races, sometimes via the distorting lens of movies.
On the other hand, I think the "LotR as war" analogy is very underplayed because of Tolkien's statements on the matter. Personally, I think the two world wars had a lot of influence on the story that plays out in LotR. RotK was not published until long after Hiroshima and I think it shows.
Tolkien largely made up LotR as he went along, writing in a letter that he had reached Buckland but as yet had no idea who the black riders were or what they wanted with Frodo! Writing in that manner, it's impossible to believe that the events in the outside world would not find themselves affecting the characters and meaning of such a slowly written book. Possibly without JRRT realising it, possibly not. Similarly the idea that WWI did not influence the book is frankly laughable.
I think JRRT was upset that people saw the book as only an allegory for WWII and in reaction to that denied it completely, but I don't think that his absolutist stance here holds up under scrutiny or even common sense.@James: Both the Fellowship and Moria had their influence certainly, but they're not the only influences on either the "adventuring party" or on dungeons. In fact, having re-read a lot of Victorian era "boys' adventure" stories...
That's going to be a very difficult influence to untangle, because Tolkien was influence by some of those same boys adventure stories himself.
Of course, I always find it interesting when people try and figure out exactly what was and wasn't an influence.
Does it matter?
D&D as a stew is clearly a unique dish. The attempt to figure out if the base is beef stock or chicken stock, and whether its home made or from a bullion cube always strikes me a little odd.Does it matter?
C'mon Chuck, be nice!
Of course it doesn't really matter, but sometimes it's think pieces like this exchange that can open our minds and all us to think about our gaming in new ways. I think this was a thoughful pair of columns that lead to a neat discussion about what inspired D&D and, in a broader sense, what inspires us when we game.@ James V:
I wasn't so much talking about these particular columns.
I've heard (and had) this discussion as long as I've been gaming, so at least 30 years now.
And the part that seems a little silly to me is that of course LOTR had an influence, everyone knows this, Gygax admitted it.
It's the constant need to affirm HOW MUCH influence, and thereby to confirm that the game wasn't dependent on Tolkien.
Gygax's need to do so is easy to figure out. He had IP to protect. There were serious lawsuit concerns, especially in the early days of D&D.
So beyond saying it was probably more influential than Gygax was willing to admit to, for a host of pragmatic legal reasons, I see no need to try and put Appendix N into numerical order of importance.> Gygax's need to do so is easy to figure out. He had IP to protect. There were serious lawsuit concerns, especially in the early days of D&D.
*g* No particular sympathy on that score since the actual threat of a lawsuit from the Tolkien estate was nowhere near as strong as that from EGG vs. anyone else in the RPG field early on; ask Ken St. Andre & co.
Rather grateful to Dave Arneson for getting that back towards a level playing field, even if that was a very messy and long-drawn out process that had other obvious negative impacts, too. :/This is one where my attitude towards EGG's distancing himself from Tolkein is a case of "methinks thou doth protest too much". Clearly he had motive to do so, and he's not a totally reliable witness.
One primary thing I can't get over is that in Chainmail's introduction to the Fantasy supplement (ultimately, "the tail that wagged the dog"), what is the very first thing that EGG mentions there? Tolkein.
"Most of the fantastic battles related in novels more closely resemble medieval warefare than they do earlier or later forms of combat. Because of this we are including a brief set of rules which will allow the medieval miniatures wargamer to add a new facet to his hobby, and either refight the epic struggles related by J.R.R. Tolkien, Robert E. Howard, and other fantasy writers; or you can devise your own 'world,' and conduct fantastic campaigns and conflicts based on it..."Delta,
Thanks for the insights into the Chainmail side of things. I think this is the first bits of evidence that have made me consider re-evaluating or at least modifying my position on the issue. I'll have to give it some additional thought, but this is important stuff to consider.
Thanks again.