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Great power and Acquiescence - Baptism of our Lord
Heavenly Father – we pray - for the baptism of Jesus, when He was made one with us, and for our baptism when we are made one with Him and one another, we praise you, O God. As we enter a new year, help us to remember whose we are, so that we might glorify and enjoy you forever. Amen.
Today is the closest day on the Calendar to what is understood to be the Baptism of our Lord
And so that will be our focus
This time of the year - we move fast in the church… just two weeks ago we were celebrating the birth of Jesus
Then last week, while Jesus was still a baby, we celebrated the visit from the wise men from the east – in what we call … Epiphany
And this week we have fast forwarded 30 years and are marking the Baptism of Jesus our Lord
…In many ways much of the same message of last week applies today – Epiphany – God's revelation to all … carries with it the incredible message of God which is also shared with Christmas
The message of the Gospel – the message of the incarnation – that God has come into the world for us – for All Humanity – over all time – Our God walked amongst us
Christmas, Epiphany and the Baptism of our Lord all celebrate this incredible news
This week as I have been doing my home work, in preparing for this sermon the chorus of a Christian song kept running through my head:
Our God is an awesome God He reigns from Heaven above With wisdom power and love Our God is an awesome God Michael W. Smith - Our God Is An Awesome God Lyrics
When I was reading my notes, when I was studying the bible and reading the commentaries and reviewing other people sermons, I simply just had this thought rolling through my head - Our God is an Awesome God
You see we Christians have something that no other religion has – we have Jesus
When I was going to seminary, as one of my electives, I had the opportunity to take a 'world religions' course at the neighbouring Regis College
Now, it is fair say that through-out all high school, all college and then seminary, I have been a very average student
And at seminary, I came across some of the smartest people I have bumped into anywhere in my life – where I had work much harder then before just to be an average student
But for that 'world religions' course I got my only A+
I got it mainly because of my final paper, which was worth, I think 70% of the whole grade
The course's focus was centered on the premise of studying world religions as 'dialogue' – meaning not for 'comparison for the purpose of conversion' but to understand each other peacefully
I tell you this because; my thesis for my paper potentially directly challenged this notion
My thesis was that dialogue was important and vital for so many of the societal wants and needs but limited because of Jesus
Because, we Christians, are based on Jesus the Christ, and Jesus is not some words of a prophet or some meditated idea or ideals… but a person
Jesus came in the flesh to live as one of us – to teach us who God is and what God is all about – because Jesus is God
…Our God is an Awesome God…
Today, we celebrate the Baptism of Jesus
We worship a baptized God…. Wait a minute! … God got baptized?
What could that mean? Well, for one thing it means that God intimately knows the trials involved in being a humble servant working for a kingdom that has yet to be fully realized.
But, perhaps more importantly, Jesus in the Jordan demonstrates that the Christ will never ask us to go somewhere that he is not.
And so this week, as I was preparing for this sermon, I was trying to think of a story to illustrate just what it means that Jesus was baptized and I thought of the movie "We Were Soldiers"
It is a 2002 American war film that dramatized the Battle of Ia Drang on November 14, 1965 — the first major engagement of the United States Army in the Vietnam War.
The film was directed by Randall Wallace and stars Mel Gibson. It is based on the book We Were Soldiers Once… And Young by Lieutenant General (Ret.) Hal Moore and reporter Joseph L. Galloway, both of whom were at the battle.
Lieutenant Colonel Hal Moore (played by Mel Gibson), a dedicated U.S. soldier, is deeply committed to training his troops, who are preparing to be sent to Vietnam.
The night before their departure, the unit's officers hold a party to celebrate.
Moore learns from a superior officer that his unit will be known as the 1st Battalion / 7th Cavalry Regiment.
He is disquieted because the 7th Cavalry regiment was the unit commanded by General George Custer in the 19th Century when he and his men were slaughtered at the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
Moore is also dismayed because President Lyndon B. Johnson has decreed that the war would be fought "on the cheap," without declaring it a national emergency.
As a result, Moore believes he will be deprived of his oldest, best-trained soldiers
Just prior to shipping out for Vietnam, Moore delivers a touching speech to his unit:
"Look around you. In the 7th Cavalry, we got a Captain from the Ukraine. Another from Puerto Rico. We got Japanese, Chinese, Blacks, Hispanics, Cherokee Indian, Jews and Gentiles -- all American.
Now here in the States some men in this unit may experience discrimination because of race or creed, but for you and me now, all that is gone.
We're moving into the valley of the shadow of death, where you will watch the back of the man next to you, as he will watch yours, and you won't care what color he is or by what name he calls God.
Let us understand the situation; we're going into battle against a tough and determined enemy.
I can't promise you that I will bring you all home alive, but this I swear, before you and before Almighty God: when we go into battle,
I will be the first one to set foot on the field, and I will be the last to step off.
And I will leave no one behind. Dead or alive, we will all come home together. So help me God."[1]
This powerful and moving speech captures the deeply conflicted emotions of the moment and leaves one inspired by Lieutenant Colonel Hal Moore
It is the closest thing I could think of, that was comparable to what Jesus is for us
The Lieutenant Colonel was declaring that he would not ask anything of his men that he himself wasn't also willing and prepared to do.
…As wonderful as this is – it is but a mere glimpse of what Jesus did for all of us
Moore was a man and solider – Jesus is God
Moore inspired and affected the 7th Calvary regiment – but what Jesus did it was for all humanity over all time
…Our God is an Awesome God…
Today, in our worship – in our celebrations with God and to God – we celebrate that God was baptised
Let's take a step back for a moment and consider some of the details that setup this story
This is Jesus' first public act and thus unquestionably important in the Gospel narrative. After all, the first two chapters of Matthew narrate events which happened to and around Jesus.
He is but a child in the travels from Bethlehem to Egypt and finally Nazareth.
Now that Jesus acts directly, now that he has stepped foot onto the stage as an adult, what tone does this scene set? Why is this first step in Jesus' earthly ministry so significant?
Secondly, Matthew's gospel, to be understood more fully, is to understand the writer
He was a disciple; he was a tax collector, meticulous about details
And he was a Jew writing an account to fellow Jews – laying out a case as to who Jesus is
In fact, Biblical scholars point out that the first three chapters of Matthew are primarily concerned with defining the identity of "Who is Jesus?"
A reader can almost overwhelmed of what is listed by this point in the gospel:
· Jesus is the Messiah.
· He is the son of King David.
· The son of Father Abraham.
· He is also the child of Mary.
· The offspring of the Holy Spirit.
· He will save people from their sins.
· He is Emmanuel, God with us.
· "The King of the Jews," says Herod.
· He hails from Galilee.
· He is the Nazarene.
Next, lets consider John the Baptist… from Luke's gospel account we are told
There was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly order of Abijah. His wife was a descendant of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. 6Both of them were righteous before God, living blamelessly according to all the commandments and regulations of the Lord. (Luke 1:5-6)
To them, in their old age, they have a son – He is named John
And although being born into a priestly family of some notoriety
He chooses to live out in the wild – living on bugs and honey
He preaches and baptizes a message of preparing – of getting oneself ready by repentance
And he prophesies of the messiah that is to come
John could have enjoyed all the luxuries of a well-known priestly family and yet he lived as he did and challenged anyone that came to him
He challenges the Pharisees and Scribes that come to him – even calling them a 'brood of vipers' – he challenged even the ruling King Herod for taking Herodias, his brother's wife as his own wife
One would suspect John normally defers to no-one
It is to John that Jesus came
And in that moment we are told that John understood the significance of what was being asked of him – we read:
14John would have prevented him, saying, "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?"(Matthew 3:14)
Yet, to the head-strong John, who renounced a life of privilege – in the end, John defers to Jesus.
Does it seem odd that Jesus felt compelled to be baptized?
What about the fact that John's baptism was a baptism of repentance – Jesus had no need of repentance
Like so often in scripture, God takes the bad, and even the good that we do and shows us more
Opens up questions that are deep and broad
We wonder if Jesus' baptism was it to set an example?
Or was it to provide credibility to John the Baptist?
Consider that every journey has a starting point, and for Jesus, this event marked the first step in his public ministry.
This event marked both the identity and the inauguration of Jesus' adult ministry
But for us, it becomes an image of Jesus being one of us, and so much more.
…Our God is an Awesome God…
When Jesus comes from Galilee to be baptized in the Jordan River by John, John's first impulse is to resist the gift.
For John, it is all wrong. Jesus is the greater one, Jesus should be the one to baptize him, not vice-versa.
What John doesn't yet understand, perhaps because Jesus' ministry is just getting started, is what it means for Jesus to be the greater one is for him to submit to the lesser one.
Soon we will hear it everywhere Jesus goes: the last shall be first, the least greatest, the humble exalted.
In Jesus' baptism, we don't hear Jesus preach this message; we see him embody it.
Jesus' gift to John is the gift of submission.
The long-awaited Anointed One allows himself to be plunged into the water by John and as a result, emerges from the water as the Beloved Son, the Suffering Servant.
It is Jesus' submission that is pleasing to God, for it "fulfills all righteousness."[2]
"Fulfilling all righteousness" – that is certainly an expression laden with layer upon layer of meaning
Some understand that whereby the Israelites were the chosen people – called to be God's 'holy nation' – as representatives to world
That Jesus, as the perfect fulfillment of the promise of the "holy people" must encapsulate their journey into His… and then, as we know, live out into completion what they could not
The early history of the Hebrew people was when famine occurred in their land – they went down to Egypt, a way prepared by God in the life of Joseph – they flourished there
There they lived for 400 years and after a while the Egyptians forgot their special relationship and made the Hebrew people slaves – and they suffered
Along comes Moses and after several stubbles along the road of his life, he answers the call of God to bring the Israelites out of bondage and into freedom.
Initially Pharaoh doesn't want to lose his work-force, but after 10 incredible plagues they are released, only to have Pharaoh change his mind and chase them to the edge of the sea
Here God performs the most incredible escape route ever
God using Moses' staff parts the sea and the people walk on dry land – going through the waters
The Hebrew people, the Israelites, were the chosen people – set to be a model – a witness to the world of the covenant relationship with God
They went down to Egypt and began their journey of freedom - going through the waters
And Jesus the Messiah, the perfect Israelite, having escaped after the Magi left, because of Joseph's vision in a dream, to Egypt as a baby
Then coming out of Egypt and beginning the model life of the perfect Israelite
Going through the waters of baptism - to show us a life of freedom
Fulfilling all righteousness
Understanding this righteousness can also be seen as typical of what righteousness means elsewhere in Matthew:
It means doing what God wants without regard to how it might make us look.
Jesus' obedience receives much attention in Matthew.
His righteousness is not primarily about being right, but about doing what God wants and that is never unconnected from God's saving, compassionate purpose.
Divine pleasure makes special sense after Jesus chose not to comply with John's request, but to submit himself in humility to the waters of baptism.
…Our God is an Awesome God…
Jesus' baptism inaugurated his public ministry by identifying with "all the people."
He allied himself with the faults and failures, pains and problems, of all the broken and hurting people who had flocked to the Jordan River.
By wading into the waters with them he took his place beside us and among us.
Not long into his public mission, the sanctimonious religious leaders derided Jesus as a "friend of gluttons and sinners." They were surely right about that.
With his baptism Jesus openly and decisively declared that he stands shoulder to shoulder with me in my fears and anxieties. And with you and your fears and anxieties
He intentionally takes sides with people in their neediness, and declares that God is biased in their favour, Hebrews 4 declares:
"For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in our time of need" (Hebrews 4:15–16, NIV)
God's abundant mercy, Jesus declared, is available directly and immediately to every person;
It's not the private preserve doled out by the temple establishment in Jerusalem.[3]
Lastly, I want to close with one last observation
Consider God the Father Words stated publicly for all present to hear
"This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased."
Consider how different it would be if this declaration of God's favour had occurred later in Jesus' life.
It would sound very different if it were said only after Jesus had done various things like healing or preaching or even death on the cross
But God the Father's words were at the beginning…
…And God's love is like that
They are at the beginning for all of us too…
In our culture where "what have you done for me lately" is all too often the understanding of one's value
Where praise is something you earn. Where you have to do something to be praised.
And when we seek praise often enough and receive it eagerly enough,
It can come to seem as if everything—even love—must be earned
But… But… God's ways are beyond our mortal inclinations
God's unconditional love… is at the beginning… and for ALL
…Our God is an Awesome God…
Thanks be to God - Amen
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Were_Soldiers
[2] http://christiancentury.org/blogs/archive/2008-01/baptized-submission


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April 17, 2013
Airborne Observatory Reveals Mystery Of Star Formation
Brett Smith for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online
Using observations from an airborne observatory, NASA researchers have discovered new details on how massive stars form within a cloud of interstellar gas and dust.An emerging star known as G35 has been observed forming in an orderly process similar to the one undergone by smaller stars like our sun, according to the scientists´ report in the Astrophysical Journal.
Lead author Yichen Zhang said the observations of G35 made with NASA´s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) run counter to what astronomers expected to find.
"The focus of our study has been to determine how massive stars actually form," said Zhang, an astronomer with the University of Florida (UFL). "We thought the G35 protostar's structure would be quite complicated, but instead we found it is simple, like the cocoons of protostars with the sun's mass."
Observations of the emerging star were made in 2011 using SOFIA, a modified Boeing 747 that can carry a powerful telescope to altitudes as high as 45,000 feet. SOFIA replaced NASA´s previous flying observatory, the Kuiper Airborne Observatory, in 2010.
According to NASA, G35 was an ideal target for study because it is in the beginning stages of formation. However, because infrared light coming from G35 is so strong, astronomers weren´t able to rely on any number of orbiting observatories for capturing detailed images. The emerging star is also deeply enmeshed in the surrounding cloud of gas and dust that it cannot be accurately imaged from the ground in the visible light spectrum.
In the thin upper reaches of the atmosphere, the NASA team was able to use the Faint Object Infrared Camera for the SOFIA Telescope (FORCAST) to distinctly see G35 shrouded inside a dense interstellar dust cloud. FORCAST was able to collect infrared light emitted from the cloud to make out faint details at wavelengths inaccessible to other telescopes on the ground or in space.
"Massive stars, although rare, are important because there is evidence they foster the formation of smaller stars like our sun, and because at the ends of their lives they create and distribute chemical elements that are the basic building blocks of Earth-like planets," co-author James De Buizer, a SOFIA staff scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, said in a statement.
Using computer modeling, the scientists were able to refine the images taken on board SOFIA, revealing a protostar heating the interstellar cloud and expelling cone-shaped jets of gas.
According to a statement from NASA, the study´s findings reinforce the value of an airborne observatory like SOFIA and give "scientists hope that data gathered in this way substantially will advance their understanding of the Milky Way galaxy."
The findings also call for a reevaluation of theories surrounding star formation. Stars typically form within dense regions filled by molecular clouds and remnants of former stars. The clouds of stellar material are typically composed of 70 percent hydrogen and the remaining material is mostly helium.
These "stellar nurseries" form stars through the collapse of interstellar plasma into spheres, which then ignite to become stars.
Image Below: NASA's SOFIA flying observatory lifts off from Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, Calif., at sunset on July 15, 2011 to begin an all-night astronomical observation mission. The highly modified Boeing 747SP carries a high-tech 100-inch infrared telescope. Credit: NASA / Carla Thomas

subset: commoncrawl


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Having problems with your Digital Cameras ?
I have been use sony cycle Energy Rechargable batteries AA 2000mAh. They are properly charging. But now I'am purchased another sony cycle Energy Reechargable batteries AA 3000mAh. But they are no charging properly Why
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It's likely your charger. You probably own a "fast charger" but it's also probably designed for your lower mAh power batteries. The charger does not understand the power difference of your newer high-capacity battery, thus it is automatically stopping the charge before completion sensing something is wrong. You'll need to either purchase a newer charger, clearly stated capable of charging 3000mAh batteries. An alternative is to use an older "trickle" charger (one of those that charges at very low power slowly overnight). These don't automatically turn off when the battery reaches full charge, thus will charge your battery.
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Hi,It seems camera main board got problem and main board repairing requires high expertise level, related service manual level-3 copy in hand and very scpeail tools to remove/ install SMD parts on SY-180 main board of this camera. It is not eve ... Sony DSC-T2 Digital Camera


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Anti-coal activism has been, err, gathering steam over the last couple years, as Rainforest Action Network activist and SFGreen blogger Scott Parkin can tell you.
But this week, they've scored what I think is the mother of all PR coups. Massey Energy is one of the dirtiest, nastiest and most powerful coal companies in the country. They practice mountaintop removal, an egregiously destructive mining technique in which a mountain is simply blown up—permanently turned into a small pile of rubble—to get to the coal inside it.
Massey is currently planning to blow the bejeezus out of a mountain sadly called Coal River Mountain.
Enter the green PR wizards. They've done a little homework and figured that the same mountain, if allowed to remain, you know, a mountain, could host enough wind turbines to power 150,000 homes. Oh, and unlike mountaintop removal which employs just enough people to press the "blast" button, the wind farm would create 250 permanent jobs and generate tax revenue for the county.
The wizards go one step further, offering to allow Massey to continue conventional mining on the mountain because it also creates more jobs than blowing the bejeezus out of mountains does.
To give you a sense of the power the coal companies have in Appalachia, however, recall that Kentucky Lt. Governor recently said:
A lot of people look at mountain top removal as a negative, but I see it as a positive. We need to stop apologizing for coal … I want us to promote mountain top removal, because we need flat land. We can not have economic expansion without places to do things and part of mountain top removal is for places like hospitals, airports and different type of merchants.
Too bad it chokes off all the potential consumers.


text:
Birth: Feb. 23, 1918
Death: Dec. 10, 1919
Son of John F. Jennings and Grace A. (Wiles) Jennings
Contributed on 10/24/08 by richardson10
Email This Contributor
Record #: 85189
On this site you can upload gravestone photos, locate ancestors and perform genealogy research. If you have a relative buried in Arkansas, we encourage you to upload a digital image using our Submit a Photo page. Contributing to this genealogy archive helps family historians and genealogy researchers locate their relatives and complete their family tree.
Submitted: 10/24/08 • Approved: 10/24/08 • Last Updated: 7/29/12 • R85189-G0-S3


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American Airlines: 'Our operations are back to normal'
American Airlines says its operations are mostly back to normal today (April 17), though poor weather and out-of-place aircraft are creating lingering problems at the airline's Chicago O'Hare hub.
That comes a day after a computer systems failure forced American to ground its entire fleet for several hours on Tuesday afternoon.
"Our operations are back to normal this morning," American spokeswoman Andrea Huguely tells Today in the Sky, though she acknowledged schedules are still a bit uneven at O'Hare.
"We have canceled approximately 100 flights today due to weather in Chicago and to help with crew and aircraft repositioning. Again, we apologize to our customers for the inconvenience yesterday and thank our team for their continued efforts," she says.
FLIGHT TRACKER: Is your flight on time?
AA.com: Important updates on our recent system outage
VIDEO: Apology from AA CEO Tom Horton regarding the system outage
By afternoon, the number of cancellations in Chicago pushed closer to 200 as weather conditions have "gotten worse," according to Huguely.
She said AA added five extra flights to its schedule today in an effort accommodate passengers stranded in Chicago, Dallas and Los Angeles.
All told, the snafu forced the nation's third-biggest airline to cancel more than 1,000 flights — including more than 930 flights on Tuesday.
The failure affected nearly two-thirds of scheduled flights aboard American and American Eagle. And it was a public-relations nightmare for American, which is preparing to merge with US Airways to become the world's biggest carrier.
Passengers took to social media sites to criticize the airline, which for hours could only apologize and say that it was trying to fix the problem.
On Wednesday, American posted a video apology from CEO Tom Horton that provided the airline's most detailed explanation of the outage.
"As you'd imagine, we do have redundancies in our system," Horton said, standing in front of employees and banks of computer monitors in the airline's control center in Texas. But in this case, the software trouble had wide-ranging effects.
The man who will lead American in a few months, US Airways CEO Doug Parker, has said he would prefer to convert his planes and employees to American's computer system rather than the other way around.
US Airways declined to comment on whether Tuesday's breakdown would cause Parker to rethink his plans.
The Associated Press contributed to this post.
TWITTER: You can follow me at twitter.com/TodayInTheSky


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Having problems with your PC Desktops ?
I have a kt400 dragon motherboard on the top of the agp slot theres a plug-in that looks like a power supply wire would plug in there, is that what its for? or is it for a agp card to plug into or sumthin?
Answers :
That is your ATX 12volt 4 pin connector. Some video cards need extra power so that is where this plug comes in. A plug from your power supply plugs into it. If everything is good with your graphics then you don't need that extra power.
That is your ATX 12volt 4 pin connector. Some video cards need extra power so that is where this plug comes in. A plug from your power supply plugs into it. If everything is good with your graphics then you don't need that extra power.
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I have a kt400 dragon motherboard on the top of the agp slot theres a plug-in that looks like a power supply wire would plug in there, is that what its for? or is it for a agp card to plug into or sumthin?
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Branwell Brontë (1817-1848) was the brother of authors Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë.
Mr Mybug was not the first person to postulate that it was Branwell who wrote Wuthering Heights, and that his sisters were engaged in deception. It is also on record that Branwell Brontë did have some literary ambitions: he wrote during his adolescence and in later life published some poetry in local newspapers under a pseudonym, although he never achieved the same success as his sisters.
He worked at various times as a portrait painter, railway clerk, and tutor, and on several occasions got into scrapes which led to his dismissal. He died of tuberculosis at the age of 31, after having developed addictions to both alcohol and laudanum (a form of opium).
Click here, here and here to read about theories relating to Branwell Brontë's authorship of Wuthering Heights, and his influence on the novel.


text:
Stour Valley Community Archaeology's first excavation reveals tantalising clues at Bulmer site. Dr Carenza Lewis points out some of the features.
Emma Brennan West Suffolk chief reporter Friday, June 13, 2014
A community archaeology group has unearthed some interesting clues to the ancient history of an area on the outskirts of Sudbury.
Stour Valley Community Archaeology (SVA) has just held its first excavation over two weekends at Goldingham Hall in Bulmer, on the Suffolk/Essex border.
The dig was made possible thanks to a grant of £2,500 from Dedham Vale and Stour Valley Environmental Fund via the Essex Community Foundation.
The group was also able to use equipment donated by Marilyn Matthews, the widow of amateur archaeologist Mick Matthews, who took part in many excavations in the Stour Valley and particularly enjoyed metal-detecting.
The inaugural day's digging was dedicated to Mr Matthews' memory, and his wife attended and saw the tools being put to good use.
The six days of excavating were supervised by a team of archaeologists from Access Cambridge Archaeology under the leadership of Dr Carenza Lewis, who is best known for her appearances on Channel 4's Time Team and Michael Wood's Story of England.
The site at Goldingham Hall was chosen because geophysical surveys carried out last year revealed many interesting features that were previously unknown.
SVCA committee member Nick Moore said the dig concentrated on three features, which after many hours of backbreaking digging and sieving eventually revealed a large complex containing a food preparation area with six bread ovens and a series of ditches filled with burnt pottery and bones.
Post-excavation analysis will reveal specific dates, but preliminary thoughts date the site to late Anglo-Saxon or Norman times.
Mr Moore added: "Many finds were discovered, including an in situ medieval arrowhead, and most incredibly, a 'flint face' found at the bottom of the post hole of the structure. We are wondering if this could have been a good-luck charm placed in the foundations of the building.
"We would like to reiterate our thanks to Marilyn for donating the equipment, which has been put to great use and is very much appreciated." Stour Valley Community Archaeology was formed in late 2013 as a legacy of the Heritage Lottery-funded Managing A Masterpiece project.
Original article :


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rpl writes:
Here's my favorite part:
Apropos of this week's Econ Talk, this positively reeks of regime uncertainty. They know they should dump the CDOs for whatever they can get for them so they can get on with their lives (and since CDOs are being valued basically at zero, it would actually improve their balance sheet, right?) The problem is, if the government comes along in three or four months with a big wad of bailout cash, the executive who dumped them for fifteen cents on the dollar will be the one losing his job. No, better just to sit tight and see what happens.
Posted December 16, 2008 5:48 PM
Comments for this entry have been closed


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New York—The big box retailers may be garnering most of the Black Friday buzz, but come Saturday, Nov. 26, thousands of small, independently-owned business hope to step into the holiday sales spotlight as part of the second annual Small Business Saturday.
Backed by a coalition that includes American Express and more than 200 advocacy organizations, Small Business Saturday encourages consumers to shop small businesses in their communities while still cashing in on some deals.
In addition to small retailers offering special promotions or hosting event, American Express offers a $25 statement credit to a limited number of its card members who pre-register their eligible American Express Card on www.facebook.com/SmallBusinessSaturday, and then spend at least $25 at a small business on Small Business Saturday with their registered Card. And FedEx distributed 40,000 $25 Shop-Small-branded gift cards through www.facebook.com/Fedex, to drive more business to small retailers on Small Business Saturday. The gift cards were snapped up in less than one hour.
"Last year, independent merchants who accept American Express saw an average boost in sales of 28% on Small Business Saturday," said Mary Ann Fitzmaurice Reilly, senior vice president at American Express OPEN. "Shoppers sent a clear message that shopping local is an important part of the holiday season and small businesses are rewarding that loyalty with what their customers care about most–superior service, unique selection and some great deals."
Events Scheduled in 15 Cities on Nov. 26
In fact, last year more than 1.5 million Facebook users, 130 public and private organizations, and 41 elected officials declared their support for Small Business Saturday. More than 100,000 small businesses downloaded marketing materials, 10,000 businesses signed up for free Facebook advertising about Small Business Saturday, and 200,000 consumers registered their American Express cards to receive $25 statement credits.
This year, Small Business Saturday is expected to be even bigger drawing an estimated 89 million consumers, Reilly said.
To help registered cardmembers take full advantage of the $25 statement credit, the Small Business Saturday Facebook page includes a map of small businesses where the card offer is accepted. The interactive map allows consumers to find local businesses and "like" their favorites directly through the "Get Involved" tab. Consumers are encouraged to search for new small businesses in their neighborhoods, give shout-outs to their favorite small businesses, and most importantly, "shop small" on Small Business Saturday and throughout the holidays.
Women Impacting Public Policy (WIPP), a nonpartisan organization which educates and advocates on behalf of women-owned businesses, has organized Small Business Saturday events in 15 cities on November 26 to drive even more customers into small businesses.
From holiday celebrations to block parties, the events will take place in: Boston (Roslindale), Charlotte (South End), Chicago (Hyde Park), Cincinnati (Over the Rhine), Fort Worth (Sundance Square), Detroit (Midtown, New Center, Downtown/Business District, Eastern Market), Los Angeles (Culver City), Miami (Coral Gables), New York (TriBeCa), Philadelphia (Manayunk), Scottsdale (The Plaza on South Bridge and Old Farmer's Market), San Diego (North Park), San Francisco (North Beach), Seattle (Edmonds), and Washington, DC (Adams Morgan).
Shoppers in New York, Chicago and San Francisco can also take advantage of shopping guides found on www.facebook.com/SmallBusinessSaturday under the "City Guides" tab on the left side of the page. The deals featured in the guides–sourced by Paper magazine–are for all shoppers, not just those with American Express cards.


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Barbecue is a passion for most Americans including the 2foodtrippers. That's why it was a no-brainer for us to stop in Lockhart Texas during our United States road trip so that we could live out our own personal Lockhart barbecue fantasy.
After enjoying the crazy-good Brisket at Smitty's Market in the heart of Lockhart, Texas, we couldn't avoid exploring where all the magic happens – in the back of the butcher/barbecue shop.
While admiring the primitive smokey pits, we spoke to temporary pitmaster Jim Sells. Sells didn't hesitate to show off the meaty morsels that were parked on the pit smokers. A simple bonfire burned on one end of the brick constructed pits while smoke was drawn through a large simple ceiling fan that looked as old as the century-old building that houses Smitty's.
"My wife does all the real work every day. I'm just filling in," Sells said.
So goes the day-to-day routine for one of the epicenters of Texas barbecue and one of the true eating treasures of the United States.
Lockhart Barbecue
Lockhart Texas is a barbecue fantasy for lovers of smoked meat. Located just 30 minutes from the Texas state capital yet decades away from its hi-tech neighbor, Lockhart is a great day trip for non-vegetarian travelers enjoying a long Austin weekend getaway. Walk into some of the great meat markets of Lockhart, and you'll feel like it's 1950, and much of the barbecue is still made that way.
Eateries like Smitty's Market take cooking to its core essence and produce some of the greatest slow cooked and smoked meat products on the face of the earth. Old line markets like Kreuz produces sausages that make you wonder what you've been eating your whole life. Restaurants like Black's Barbecue purvey Brontosaurus sized ribs and fixings that are born of cooking traditions handed down through the years with love.
There were only two of us on our road trip, so approaching Lockhart barbecue was a challenge. Contrary to rumors, we can only eat so much. So, armed with empty stomachs after a two-hour drive from Houston, we attacked the town with as much abandon as our two stomachs could handle.
Kreuz Market
We began our journey at Kreuz Market. The smoky smells transported our olfactory senses straight to BBQ land as we pulled our trusty Nissan Sentra into Kreuz's large gravel parking lot. Their layout is simple. An amply sized eat-in dining room yields to three large ordering counters where customers place their orders by the pound. There are really no secrets here. As soon as your order is taken, the sales clerk reaches back to one of the large pits behind the counter where prodigious quantities of smoked brisket, ribs and sausage wait in Kreuz's large brick barbecue pits. On this stop, we ordered ribs, brisket and one link of cheddar jalapeño sausage.
The flavors of the ribs and brisket struck us right away. Texans don't mess with a lot of complicated spices. There's even a sign that proudly proclaims the market's ban on barbecue sauce. Here in Lockhart, the seasoning mix is basically just salt and pepper. What makes Texas BBQ so great is the art, decades in the making, of low and slow cookery. This approach enables the deep and rich flavors found in the meat to meld perfectly with a simple spice blend. After tasting the brisket and ribs, we dug into the sausage – which absolutely stole the show and our hearts (no pun intended.)
At Kreuz Market, meat is basically served on butcher paper with a plastic knife and NO FORKS. It's really not all that messy due to the 'no sauce' thing, so all you have is a knife and your fingers. With the sausage, we gripped the one end, sliced open the link and watched with awe as the precious porky juices slowly flowed from the center. Once in our mouths, the sausage made a perfect snap upon chewing. And the flavor? It was perfect – the jalapeno was spicy without being overbearing, ending with a cheesy, smoky flavor punch.
We've eaten more than our share of great sausages in our lives, but the link at Kreutz Market may be the greatest we've tasted so far.
Pro Tip: Go to Kreutz Market on a weekday. There are no lines for food and plenty of parking.
Kreuz Market is located at 619 N Colorado St, Lockhart, TX 78644, United States.
Smitty's Market
When visiting Lockhart, you can easily travel around the town's cute yet walkable center. As we walked toward the city center, we were drawn to the town's late 19th-century courthouse building that screamed small-town Texas. There are a few small bars and even a couple of art galleries. Of course, being there on a BBQ mission, we headed to Smitty's Market for the second stop of our day.
Smitty's Market has two entrances. We entered through the back, but we recommend entering through the well-lit front entrance. Once inside, we noticed a dining area with long tables, fluorescent lights and an old-school lunch counter vibe. There are some interesting quirks to Smitty's menu like the popular prime rib (which, unfortunately, they were sold out of) and smoked pork chops. We opted for the moist brisket and, out of pure curiosity, a pork chop.
Let's start with the pork chop. Pork chops are lean and don't lend themselves well to low and slow cookery but the true treasure is in their ends, cooked hours to spicy, carmelized meltiness. Then we tasted the moist brisket – that was the treasure of Smitty's.
Smitty's brisket is nirvana for the meat lover. Once the deeply barked meat is removed from the pit, you can see the juices flow out gently as the knife courses its way through the fatty, succulent beef. We enjoyed every bit of it. Mindi loved the bark-like outside. (Real burnt ends – Are you paying attention Kansas City?) Daryl relished in the fatty meat with its smoky, beefy, melt in your mouth flavors.
Add in Smitty's old-time ambiance, and you have the essence of a Texas barbecue fantasy.
Pro Tip: Be sure to explore the rear of Smitty's Market so that you don't miss out on seeing where the magic happens.
Smitty's Market is located at 208 S Commerce St, Lockhart, TX 78644, United States.
Black's Barbecue
Black's Barbecue may be the most conventional dining hall of the bunch, but what makes Black's different is the sides… and the Brontosaurus sized Texas ribs of course.
Instead of being a butcher shop/lunch counter like Smitty's and Kreuz, Black's is more of a family-style restaurant featuring tables lined with plastic gingham and walls covered with nostalgia. Customers line up and pick their choice of sides like peach cobbler, sweet potatoes, green beans and potato salad.
For our third stop of the day, we ordered the brisket and a huge beef rib. The brisket was solid with good smoke and nice bark, but the fattiness of the rib conveyed the true essence of great barbecue with its nicely browned bark edge and juicy meat. The peach cobbler was especially good – gooey yet not too sweet with a buttery, cinnamon crust. While Kreuz and Smitty's make for excellent barbecue excursions, Black's provides a range of options for a pleasant night out.
Pro Tip: Don't be scared off by the price of the beef ribs at Black's Barbecue. They are big, meaty and worth every penny.
Black's Barbecue is located at 215 N Main St, Lockhart, TX 78644, United States.
And, like a dream, our Lockhart barbecue fantasy ended. We didn't have enough appetite left to try Chisholm Trail, a fourth barbecue spot in the tiny town. Next time we go to Lockhart, Texas, we'll go with friends so we can taste more stuff.
Until then, we will always have Lockhart barbecue in our dreams.
Read These Next
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During a Wednesday evening home victory over Atlanta, Denver's J.R. Smith sank 10 three-pointers in 17 attempts, the most by any player this season.
This begs the question … who's made the most threes in one game, ever?
Reggie Miller? Nope.
Ray Allen? No.
Dennis Scott? Close, but no.
The answer is L.A.'s own Kobe Bryant, who made 12 three-pointers in 18 attempts on Jan. 7, 2003 against Seattle.
Joining Bryant at the top is Donyell Marshall, whose 12 bombs came on March 13, 2005. Scott converted 11 on April 18, 1996, while Smith also managed to get 11 triples to go on April 13 of last season.


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Golfimbul was an Orc-chieftain of Mount Gram, who led a band of his Orcs in an invasion of the Shire in Third Age 2747. He was met at the Northfarthing of the Shire, and defeated, at the Battle of Greenfields by Bandobras "Bullroarer" Took. During the battle, Bandobras charged at Golfimbul and knocked off his head with a club. Golfimbul's head flew through the air for 100 yards and went down a rabbit hole. It is said that this is how the game of gold was invented.
- The Hobbit, "An Unexpected Party" pg. 26


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Thread: The Zhang San Feng Festival 2010
3/31/2010 10:26am, #1
The Zhang San Feng Festival 2010
brothers and sisters,
Yours truly is going to be presenting a selection of martial arts workshops at the 2010 Zhang San Feng Festival which is going to be held at the Hudson Valley Resort!
I will be presenting three workshops along with many other outstanding teachers.
Come out and support Chinese martial arts!
Shaping The Wedge and The Ball of Jiulong Baguazhang
Instructor: Shizi Dale Dugas
Jiulong Baguazhang is a unique and powerful system of bagua that is taught with simple concepts and exercises that can be applied to many arts. One of the most effective concepts from the Jiulong system is the wedge and the ball. In this workshop, Shizi Dale Dugas of Boston Baguazhang will introduce you to these simple but effective concepts. You will learn how train them for your own practice, and how to utilize them in both healing and self defense applications. Join Shizi Dugas he teaches you old school techniques for todays practice.
Grasping the 18 Hands of the Lohan
Instructor: Shizi Dale Dugas
According to history, the legendary Da Mo (Bodhidharma), came to the Shaolin temple and saw that the monks had difficulty staying awake during prolonged meditation. To solve the problem, Da Mo eventually devised three distinct exercise sets, designed to strengthen the monks and increase their health. These exercises eventually formed the basis of what we now know as Shaolin kungfu. In this workshop, Shizi Dale Dugas will teach you one of these powerful qigong sets, the 18 Hands of the Lohan. You will receive step by step instructions for each posture and exercise. You will also learn how to use the system to improve your health, and increase your internal power. Join Shizi Dugas as he helps you grasp, the 18 hands of the Lohan.
Tui Shou to Shuai Jiao: Giving Yourself the Edge in Push Hands
Instructor: Shizi Dale Dugas
Shuai Jiao is a grappling martial art, developed in the Zhou Dynasty, between the 12th and 13th centuries. Considered the oldest existing Chinese martial art in the world, it is comprised of throwing techniques, strikes, blocks, joint locks, and attacks on pressure points. Tui Shou taijiquan, better known as push hands, is a precursor to sparing which is designed to train listening skills and control of opponents. In this workshop, Shizi Dale Dugas of Boston Baguazhang will teach you how to merge the ancient techniques of Shuai Jiao with the complex skills of push hands, to give you the edge in any situation. You will learn how to blend throws, strikes and joint locks, with your listening skills. Join Shizi Dugas in this hands on workshop that marries the oldest martial art, with the most complex.
3/31/2010 11:07am, #2
Looks like you will be a busy man, Dale.
Have fun and have a great turnout.


text: Hi All, Didn't just want to post the link straight up as forum rules and so on but i got a app to run 32 bit plugins in Logic X that 100% works it is a paid app that cost $99 but am willing to hook Logic users up with it if forum mods allow it. If this is unacceptable please feel free to remove this thread. Cheers


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Judgment Day After Day
When it comes to being a gamemaster, you must pay attention to precedent.
As someone who has gamed for years, I cannot begin to stress how much this needs to be said. You would think this would be norm, that consistency would be a fair argument, but I cannot begin to describe the number of times situations like the one you described come up, where one character uses dex and the other str to perform the same task.
I don't really care if the rules make perfect sense as long as they are consistent. We once had a long discussion (ok, argument) over whether a person with a Strength in the 20s but no ranks in Jump should be able to jump further than a person with a 10 Strength and a lot of ranks in Jump. I came down on the side of the higher Strength is more important to jumping far, ranks in Jump just help with the skill of the jump (for instance, you can have a billion ranks in Jump, I don't think an average human will ever jump over 2 m straight up from a standstill, but a human with a high enough strength, like 50, could conceivably launch himself to the moon). The GM saw it the other way, and ranks in Jump became equivalent to max distance. I think it was silly, but we in the party new the rules now and could plan for that. He stuck with that rule and people stopped griping because it was set. Think of the problems if he changed his mind within that campaign. Now people want skill points back because they wasted them, etc.
I'm running a game now and we have an official record keeper. It's her first time playing and a few sessions in, we realized she was just keeping notes on everything, every stat, every character, things people say. Now, I keep my own records (because obviously the players don't know everything that's going on), but it's really helpful to have hers too. To see what they think is going on is invaluable, and to have players call me on things is actually a benefit to the campaign. They make appeals to decisions based on precedent. They cite previous examples or call me out when I'm wrong. It's not annoying, it's fantastic. It establishes a lot of trust between the party and myself, which is important because I like to run campaigns with a lot of secrecy, intrigue and general conspiracy. It also allows me to say "No, I screwed up when I said that, I really should have said this" on occasion and the party accepts it, because they know I only do that when it matters and not on a whim.
Ok, this sort of got away from me and is really long. Anyways, great article on a topic that needs to be said, though I really wish it was just assumed.
I think my players would kill me if I came up with 27 pages of house rulings. Then again, I play Pathfinder which covers the mechanics pretty well. I am curious regarding this rule;
�"Spells which effect every creature in an area (e.g. Fireball) or a random number of creatures in an area (e.g. Confusion) cannot be cast on targets in melee without affecting opponents with whom the target(s) are fighting."
Was that brought about due to a party member engaging a creature at the edge of AoE spell and the inherit funkiness with character placement on a typically scaled battle-mat?
An interesting correlation you've pointed out there.
About rules-light games merely being rules-heavy games in progress, I will say that the design of the original rules is a very large influence over how many and how complex the amount of rules that need to be added are. Simple games like early D&D are a different breed entirely from simple games like Risus, Dread or 3:16 Carnage Amongst the Stars. Situations not covered by rules in the former encourage some often-times convoluted route to your character's attributes, but the latter systems have a much quicker route to new rules through creative design. Risus and Dread just make the GM eyeball your described character abilities and assign a rough difficulty to what that action should be for your character, followed by die rolls for Risus or drawing one more blocks from a Jenga tower. 3:16 just lumps actions into either non-combat or combat and then demands a die roll.
Of course, that design philosophy tends to eviscerate any guarantee of what your character can reliably do (a very large part of why I hate games based on it.) But I figured it was worth a mention here - it's an example of ways to design rules-light games so that further rules are extraordinarily easy to develop.
I would guess, because I've seen it happen, it came up when a Mage cast Fireball directly at an enemy engaged in melee combat with an ally, and then argued that it should only hit people he wants it to hit. Or, if the person were a bit more experienced, cast it into the enemy's back and argued that the body should shield his ally.
I've never run into your argument, but I see how it would work. Actually, now that I think about it, I'm surprised people don't try that all the time.
What is your position on changing the way you arbritrated something before hand for identical situations if you were not happy with the way you ruled the first time. What for example if on the spur of the moment you decided that everyone tested dex to cross the chasm but on return you realised that you made the wrong choice the first time and you would prefer them to roll strength.
Usually we get together and discuss rules after game session, decide what is working and what isn't and agree on changes where we feel things aren't working. During this process the GM usually takes suggestions but is final arbiter of what rules are to be used. This can cause an inconsistancy with previous sessions but we prefer it to simply repeating old mistakes.
Would you rather keep an old rule for the sake of consistancy or change a rule to improve playability?
The whole 5ft occupancy and threatened areas has caused me more anguish than I care to recall, mainly from experienced gamers coming from other gaming systems.
Your description of the difference between "rules light" and regular games is far from accurate. A rules-light game does not necessarily become "rules heavy" over time because very frequently the only precedents that are applied in that style of game are interpretations of existing rules. The entire purpose of rules light games is that the GM has to decide fewer things--there not being a specific rule is used to let the PLAYERS decide what happens instead of forcing the GM to make a de facto ruling every single time a new situation comes up.
For example, I created (with some significant effort, I might add) a rules system that was designed to allow tactical combat in an online chat game where a battle mat would be, at best, cumbersome and annoying, and at worst introduce all sorts of complex technical problems. Instead of an arcane system of rules for determining that X character is 45' away from Y NPC and needs Z movement value in order to be able to close the distance in a combat round which lasts W seconds, initiative was based on a countdown and "engaging" an enemy in melee combat was a certain type of action that took a certain static number of ticks. If the enemy was behind an obstacle, you had to do a "clear the obstacle" action first.
It was totally arbitrary, no precedents, no rules. Just "is there an obstacle?" Nope. "Okay, I engage." 3 ticks. A proper rules-light system is one that encourages a certain amount of these arbitrary decisions by making them matter less in the grand scheme of things and, very often, removing the impetus to roll for every single little thing. If your group prefers to tell a huge, sweeping, epic tale, maybe they don't want to be rolling the dice over every single boulder or stream.
I agree with you completely. It's not quite as bad as martial arts people, but still pretty bad.
In case you haven't run into it, martial arts people are, as the name implies, people who take Karate or Kung Fu classes, usually at the local Y from a 50 year old fat guy who doesn't know anything, but it can be legitimate. They always argue that they should be able to just punch through a door or crush a guys windpipe with a single strike because it's not that hard and they know the technique. They completely ignore game balance and insist that as a level one, they should be tearing through guys with their bare hands.
Strangely, the people who make this argument the most are all people I would not want around during a fight. People who actually look like they could take care of themselves in a fight never make this kind of argument.
I can see how some "rules-light" systems certainly could develop into, for lack of a better term, common-law rules-heavy systems. I don't think its necessarily inherent and inevitable to every system, however. A free-wheeling game like Toon that minimizes consequence in the name of improvisation and entertainment discourages rule-accumulation in the name of being fast and funny; someone who complains bitterly about consistency of the rules is playing it wrong. Similarly, Amber (or "Amber Diceless") has a narrow selection of absolutes but encourages the players to work around them through role-playing, imagination, and planning; the players might complain that the other players, very likely their rivals, might be unfair, but are unlikely to make that case against the game-master or system.
And of course (and you say nothing to contradict this, but I think it should still be said) the length of a campaign will also have a lot to do with it. Something like Feng Shui: Shadowfist doesn't bear a lot of thinking about in the hard mechanics, but that's part of what makes it excellent for one-shot, "night-of-gaming" gatherings.
I'd like to see those 27 pages of house-rules; sounds like it'd say a lot about your campaign! (Talisman of Ultimate Good = awesome.) I've been annotating my 1E Gamma World rulebook with marginalia about the rulings we've made in play, which has the advantage of having both sets of law in the same place.
David Wesely (out of whose Braunstein game Blackmoor evolved) told me that in the earliest days of Dave Arneson's Blackmoor campaign (out of which D&D evolved) relied entirely on common law rulings. Initially there were no codified rules that players could consult: you'd say "I chop through the back of the troll's knee with my claymore" and Arneson would say "OK, the troll falls", or not, depending on his interpretation of the imagined reality.
Wesely said that the incorporation of the Chainmail medieval miniature wargame rules (co-authored by Gary Gyax, thus his first involvement in what was to become D&D) came about because Arneson had made so many rulings he couldn't possibly keep them all straight. Players wanted to know why someone else could jump a river but they couldn't, and argued that since their characters lived in this fantasy world they should be able to predict something about what would or wouldn't be possible. Adapting Chainmail gave the Blackmoor players a corpus of civil law that they could rely on to calibrate their expectations about the referee's common law judgement calls.
The Chainmail rules also introduced dice to Blackmoor, which I think take a lot of the pressure off the referee by creating a neutral arbiter. I find it a lot easier for my group to get consensus that there's an X in 6 chance of successfully rigging a complicated trap, rather than making a hard and fast judgement about whether it is or isn't possible. Leaving an element of probability makes everyone feel that they have a chance, and lets the dice decide whether the details on this side of the argument or that prove to be essential.
JMeganSnow, I think you're talking about level of abstraction instead of rules-light. Whether the scale is the epic sweeps of armies or the placement of single footsteps, some groups are going to want the things a rule-heavy approach does well (taking lots of factors into account in a deterministic way, having a predictable outcome) and others will be happy with a rules-light approach where lots of different factors are swept up into a single dice roll or abstract mechanic.
Rules light is not
Rules-light is NOT rules-heavy-in-earlier-stages. Rules-light is 'Open-to-rules-heavy-houseruling'. Those 27 pages or many of our other large sets of common law precedent is indicative of a game basically designed so that the individual GM can adjudicate based on the campaign and group needs.
We run Classic D&D and don't play with a battlemat. The combat is kept in our mind's eye so there's a necessary amount of abstraction. And that leads to circumstances such as Bojac6 describes:
To avoid those sort of disputes, I laid down a black-and-white rule that you can't use an area of effect on opponents in melee without hitting both.
I can see how it could be very annoying in 5-foot square battlemap situations, too, but that wasn't my intent.
I handle it much like you do! I definitely think you need to change the rule to improve playability, because otherwise you can get "stuck" by a bad ruling made during a late night and out of nachos. But I would be explicit that it's a rule *change* and acknowledge it as such. If I changed the roll at the moment that a player attempted a deed based on my past ruling, I'd offer to let them use the prior roll this last time, and then going forward the rule change would apply.
It is inevitable if you don't want inconsistent outcomes over time. Therefore it won't be inevitable in two circumstances:
It's an established truth that the modern "rules light" systems, such as Carnage 3:16 or Forge games, are NOT designed for ongoing campaign play. They are designed for one-offs, or at most short "mini series" that might run for a few weeks, 3 months tops. When I talk about an ongoing campaign I'm referring to a timespan measured in years.
You show me a campaign in any rules set that's been run week after week for a year or more consistently and I will show you a game with a lot of house rules. The rules may be unwritten but they will exist.
Erik Wujcik, who I had the privilege to befriend prior to his death, had his own house rules for Amber that he consistently applied. He actually discusses these a bit in the rules - including his ruling that a high enough War attribute allows you to fight invisible characters.
I'll email you the house rules, Tavis. I need to send you a ton of material, actually.
I didn't know that, but it makes total sense. Thanks for sharing that juicy piece of history!
Well, that's the beauty of Table Top right there, you can correct design mistakes on the fly in a way that is (generally) viewed as fair by everyone. The entire game is a negotiation between the players and the GM. And I mean everything, not just the rules. The world, the creatures, everything takes place in a place between the GM's imagination and the players' imagination. Sure, a great GM who is very descriptive can make everyone see things the same way, but there are always little differences.
Take weather, for example. Unless specifically stated otherwise, I always picture the world as overcast. I just think Fantasy worlds should always be a little dark, even in broad daylight, because of the mystery. I have been startled out of my gaming "trance" before when somebody mentions the sun. Suddenly I realize I've spent the last few hours in the wrong world.
Another example, I run a Star Wars campaign and one time I had the party find 6 crates with electronics and stuff in it. They had to figure out what the assembled machine did and started to draw out the pieces and how they fit together. The party really had a great time with this and came up with exactly the functional purpose of the machine, but their drawing was way different from mine. Nothing was wrong with theirs, every bit was there, just different. It was a really cool moment for me as a GM, to see how different they viewed some things despite it being the same.
We tend to play our games with a shed load of house rules either pulled from various sources or designed by us to usually either smooth things over or to increase the immersion.
I think its important to try and match the feel of the event you are trying to emulate while keeping the rules easy enough that someone could play through with minimal note taking.
A prime example was our recent WFRP session, we were at a tourney and one of our players, a bretonnian knight, entered the joust. We quicky realised that the WFRP joust rules were not very good and so in case it came up in future I rewrote them on the spot to make it feel more like a joust while keeping it simple to roll. We didn't switch over mid event because that would have caused a large immediate disconnect but should we need it in future we have some ammended rules which our GM is happy with.
These articles, which I stumbled upon by pure chance, are part of what led me to seek out a role-playing group. There were some equal-minded people in my class and we started our Call of Cthulhu campaign no more than three weeks ago. We schedule our sessions to suit most players' schedules (A fairly simple task when we share most lectures) and so far we haven't had any issues with players not being able to attend. The group consists of our GM and 4 players. It has been even more fun than I initially anticipated. There arose a possibility for errors in consistency regarding the loss of sanity points, a seemingly vital thing in CoC D20. Two of the characters witnessed seemingly identical grotesque scenes at different times, the former was greatly affected and needed to do a sanity check, where as the other managed to get by relatively unharmed. Before anyone had a chance to bring it up (me for one) our GM took the time to reference the backgrounds which we had prepared and how some of the characters were far more likely to have been exposed to trauma of this degree than others. My character being the first one, a College Professor turned Archaeologist and the second being a Doctor who had served as a field medic in his early youth. While I have little experience in this field, it seemed like an example of a possible argument being settled neatly before any noticeable tension arose.
So far "Check for Traps" has grown to become my favourite article on The Escapist. As I hope to continue enjoying myself with my friends every week, I hope to continue enjoying the view of one who is much more well-versed in this field than me or any I know. Please keep up the good work and thank you for all so far.
Thank you for the kind words!
First, let me say, for what it's worth, my understanding is that "English" common law as we know it from the Norman decision to honor the law of the commons - the now-occupied Anglo-Saxons - who used a traditional and often oral law system - the idea being the " common " people could continue to use the laws they knew for such matters...
Did he just say Gamma World? ..sigh.. :)
but the point about Arneson and Chainmail I think echoes nicely what I was getting at.
I'm afraid I have to agree - the appeal of "rules light" games is that we may think of the rules as akin to the "wires" in a play - we want the rules to help it happen but not be intrusive - but it's been my experience ( you remember Toon? wow ) that no matter what system, if it's an RPG where you can decide to do something not already a given tactical option, these precise issues come up because of the freedom involved.
I think it's also worth adding that it continues to come up that many abstractions that are fine on one level of play, fall apart when scrutinized in the scale RPG's bring - alot of the degree of rules come down to the degree of abstraction one wants in the game ( it was pointed out on another forum that most rpg's combat was so abstract in their "rounds" that combat was unrewarding in the eyes of the poster for the fighter classes... this makes me think how much more graphic combat is in modern fantasy fiction - compare fight scenes of say, Martin, to Tolkien or even Howard ).
If I may, an experience from playing "advanced squad leader", one of the rule-heaviest games of all times.
Seriously. This devolved into an argument into an argument over whether machine-guns are effective at point-defense, and ended with me laughing in his face and giving up on that game.
Rather like laws in that respect, too.


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First Posted: 2/3/2013
I just learned that Dr. Peter Corey died this month. I did not know Pete Corey as long as some in the Wyoming Valley, but we were partners for a decade and I later cared for him during an acute illness. There are some who may remember the slim, dark-haired boy who transferred to GAR High School from Tunkhannock. I am told that the principal of GAR saw Pete's potential and knew of his interest in medicine even then, and he guided Pete to Wilkes College. Parenthetically, many years later Pete repaid this kindness by caring for this man through a number of operations and an ultimately fatal illness.
Pete was one of the first Wilkes-Hahnemann students, graduating from their medical school in 1955. After some Navy time, he entered surgery residency at Lankenau Hospital and, despite opportunities in California and Hawaii, Pete decided to return to Wilkes-Barre to practice.
In practice, Pete did everything. In an era we will not see again he was general surgeon, vascular surgeon, thoracic surgeon, head and neck surgeon, colon and rectal surgeon, angiographer and gynecologist. He was director of the Wilkes-Barre General Hospital Department of Surgery and president of the medical staff.
To be Pete's friend, and especially to be his patient, was a safe, comforting feeling because you knew that he would go to any length for your benefit. Pity the nurse, administrator or even other doctor who did something to hurt one of Pete's patients (in fact, hospital files document some of the things Pete said under such circumstances). He was more than a good technical surgeon; he was a compassionate one.
A final story will allow me to summarize. A number of years ago Pete decided to buy a new Lincoln Continental because he liked big cars and this model was to be the last of the big ones. In many ways, I believe that Pete Corey was the last of the big ones --- and I am not referring to physical size. The Valley will not see again the type of larger-than-life surgeon who can do it all, who is a presence wherever he is in the hospital. He was big in technical skills and unafraid to learn new ones (he learned laparoscopic cholecystectomy six months before his already-planned retirement). He was big in spirit, big in generosity, big in compassion. Within the Valley's excellent medical community he was the last of the big ones.
Is it just me, or are our country's leaders idiots? We send a country aircraft and weapons so they will use them against Israel and our soldiers later.
We do not want an unstable person having a gun, but we will gift them away to unstable nations. Can you tell me why Egypt needs them? The baton has been passed to Mr. Kerry, so he says if Mr Morsi says he is sorry everything will be alright. We will give them more! Saying sorry does not change the way he feels. Do you realize no matter how much land Israel gives up it will not bring peace. It is its very existence that is hated.
I am afraid to think what this country will look like at the end of four years under this current puppet show. And a puppet show it is. We have a man made king. People think he is a Messiah. He is not. The real Messiah will come and this nation will pay the price for what it has allowed.
I pray that God will postpone his judgement on our nation as a whole, but I am afraid we are too long spent.
Last week marked the 40th annual March For Life in Washington, D.C. This is an important event in America. Abortion was legalized on Jan. 22, 1973. Thousands marched to protect future generations.
The news media as a whole pretend that this injustice for future Americans is non-existent. Ultrasound has now eliminated the personhood dilemma that existed when Roe vs. Wade was passed. Even a young child can see the growth of a human being when looking at an ultrasound. It is no longer a glob of tissue as stated back in 1973.
Abortion is a big money maker. Planned Parenthood and other abortion facilities rush the women to make a quick decision and don't ever see their ultrasound.
Pregnancy is a very emotional time in a woman's life. Women need a compassionate person to confer with who will listen and explain all their options in a calm manner. There are now free counseling services at pregnancy centers in most areas. Many women are pressured into having an abortion. In many cases, however, these people don't have to live with the guilt that usually follows an abortion. Some women feel a hole in their heart that nothing can fill. An organization is now available called Rachel's Vineyard where women and men can receive free counseling to help them deal with depression and other feelings following an abortion. God forgives all people. Always give a kind, understanding shoulder and listen to any woman dealing with the effects of an abortion.
What has happened to the motto of our nation, One nation under God; or to the freedom of speech, where in a public place we are not to mention the name of our creator? Either the Lord is Lord of all or not Lord at all.
All the murders and the killings that are going on are of our own doing, the consequences of a lifestyle without God.
Let's once again, put our nation one nation under God and he will truly bless he nation.
Dr. Mark Katlic Baltimore, Md. Maure Devers Dorrance Township Maria Landue McAdoo Sam Jones Nanticoke


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by John Melesky
We'll step through a simple library case, wrapping an Ocaml library and calling it from Ruby. Then we'll discuss ways to approach this problem for other target slow and fast languages.
by Joe Williams
Lets get together and share stories about our experiences with functional programming languages like Erlang, Haskell, Scala, OCaml, Clojure and others.
United States United States, Portland
17th–19th June 2009