WoW: Return to the Deadmines

I recently took another trip to the Deadmines while playing Escovar on the Feathermoon server. This time I had the presence of mind to take some screenshots at critical points in the trip. I started my trip by talking to the innkeeper in Sentinel Hill, who placed me in the queue to join a group for the dungeon. I eventually ended up with two warriors, a druid, and a priest, which makes for a pretty good dungeon group.

Once on the list, I needed to get to Moonbrook, which lies south of Sentinel Hill. You can work a series of quests to find out where the entrance to the Deadmines lies, or you can just ask someone, or you can look for the very visible spire shown in the image below.


Once in Moonbrook, you need to go to the southwest corner of the village to look for a large building (shown below).


There's a meeting stone just southwest of the building that's a bit of a giveaway, too.

Once you get into the mines themselves, you'll need to work your way west, taking turns as needed until you find the Instance, seen in the image to the right. Once you go through the shiny circle, monsters stay dead when you kill them, and you'll stop seeing adventurers who aren't members of your party.

On your way to the entrance, you'll pass a "fork" in the tunnels where you can turn right or go across a bridge into an area that looks blue or purple on your mini-map. I unfortunately forgot to grab a screencap of this point; I'll update this article if I remember it on a future pass through the dungeon. This off-color area is where you'll find the Miners' Cards you need to complete the Collecting Memories quest. You'll also find undead monsters in fairly dense clusters that can be hard to fight. Best have a full group just to work this area, since crowd-control spells like Polymorph don't work on undead.

The Deadmines are a fairly straightforward dungeon. Side paths generally lead to dead ends pretty quickly, so you won't have much trouble finding your way to the key encounters. The first Boss you'll encounter will be Rhahk'Zor the Foreman, a large ogre. I saw stunning effects from the warriors work on him, but I remember he was immune to something I tried as a hunter; maybe it's poison that doesn't work. Anyway, with two fighters and a druid in bear form holding his attention, a priest keeping them health, and a steady stream of Arcane Missiles from me, he went down without much difficulty. There are a couple of Overseers in the same room where he waits, but if you pull him when he's close to the entrance, you shouldn't have to fight them at the same time.

Important safety tip: Defeating Rhahk'Zor apparently releases a patrol, consisting of an Overseer and a spellcaster (I forget what they're called). I'm not entirely sure whether they're triggered or simply pop up on a regular schedule, but their arrival time is pretty suspicious. It's a good idea to go back and kill them, since they'll generally arrive just in time to hit you in the back about the time you're fighting the next boss if you don't.

Past Rhahk'Zor, you'll soon find yourself in the Lumber Room, where Lumbermaster Sneed lurks in his giant Shredder machine. Sneed and the Shredder are the objects of a quest that you can get in the Dwarven District of Stormwind. Make sure your group shares all of their quests before you get to this point in the dungeon.


This guy can be pretty harsh. The Shredder is heavily armored and does a lot of damage. There are also a lot of other goblins in the room, and you don't want to be fighting them at the same time you're fighting the Shredder, so you should pull them out and kill them first. Beware when you bring the Shredder down; Sneed will fall out and start attacking you in just a moment, and he's not a weakling, either.

Again, lookout for the patrol before you move on.

Past the Lumber Room, you'll follow a tunnel to the Smelter. This room has a long spiral ramp leading down to a lower floor, and you'll find Gilnid the Smelter himself at the bottom.


The monsters here are goblins engineers who either throw firebombs or shoot guns. The gunners will also drop little golems that will run up to attack you. If you pull more than one or two of these guys, you can find yourselves overwhelmed surprisingly fast. There are also rooms hidden under the ramp where more goblins lurk, and they'll come out if you move on to the central platform at the bottom; that's how we pulled too many goblins and got wiped! Stick to the outside wall when you come down the ramp and minimize the number of goblins you have to fight at once.

Again, lookout for the patrol.

Past the smelter, you'll follow the tunnel down to a large door with a cannon pointed at it. Somewhere along the way you have to pick up the charge to prep the cannon for firing. I've never been the one who picked that item up, so I don't know where you get it, but I suspect that it's near impossible to get that far without someone in your party picking it up. Whoever has it needs to fire the cannon.

Beyond the blasted door, is the secret dock of the Defias Pirate Battleship. You can fight your way down the dock, or you can do what we did on this trip: follow the coast around toward the other end of the dock, then swim across to it.


You'll have to fight a few goblins, but you may find that preferable to fighting your way through all the pirates. I think we only tried the end run because we were running out of time (see below).

At the end of the dock, you'll reach the boarding plank to the pirate ship, which is guarded by Mr. Smite.


As you can see, Mr. Smite is a large Tauren warrior. A couple of Defias assassins (I don't remember exactly what they're called) will join him when he starts fighting you. He'll start with a single one-handed weapon, but after taking a certain amount of damage, he'll use an enhanced version of the Tauren "War Stomp" to stun your entire party. This is annoying, because it lasts a fairly long time, and his companions will keep hitting you while he runs off to get a different weapon. He comes back with two weapons after his first stomp.

I recommend detailing one fighter to keep Mr. Smite busy while your party concentrates on taking out his buddies first. We didn't do that, and we got wiped. From previous experience, however, I know that he has at least one more Stomp in him before he goes down; he'll come back with a two-handed weapon for the Final Round.

Alas, my report on this venture to the Deadmines ends here, because Blizzard rebooted the server shortly after Mr. Smite and his cronies wiped us out (that's why we were in a hurry).

Disaster in the Making

Dr. Michael Behe uses his own personal definition of a scientific theory that is broader than the one used by most of the scientific community (like the one used by the American Association for the Advancement of Science). In fact, his definition of a scientific theory is so broad that astrology qualifies. In his own words…

“Under my definition, a scientific theory is a proposed explanation which
focuses or points to physical, observable data and logical inferences. There are
many things throughout the history of science which we now think to be incorrect
which nonetheless would fit that – which would fit that definition. Yes,
astrology is in fact one, and so is the ether theory of the propagation of
light, and many other -- many other theories as well.”

The natural implication of Behe’s definition is that a “theory” doesn’t need to demonstrate any level of accuracy to be scientific, so we should discuss any and all unproven theories in grade school science classes.

“And let me explain under my definition of the word ‘theory,’ it is -- a sense
of the word ‘theory’ does not include the theory being true, it means a
proposition based on physical evidence to explain some facts by logical
inferences. There have been many theories throughout the history of science
which looked good at the time which further progress has shown to be incorrect.
Nonetheless, we can’t go back and say that because they were incorrect they were
not theories. So many many things that we now realized to be incorrect,
incorrect theories, are nonetheless theories.”

What Behe neglects to mention is that we don’t teach incorrect theories to grade school students! We don’t teach alchemy alongside chemistry; we don’t teach astrology alongside astronomy, and we don’t teach the “Flat Earth Theory” alongside modern geography! The AAAS definition of a scientific theory requires “a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world, based on a body of facts that have been repeatedly confirmed through observation and experiment”, but Behe’s definition does not.

Consider the consequences. On the odd chance that the Dover School Board were to actually win their case, Behe’s definition of a scientific theory would be enshrined in legal precedent. That would bring a horde of astrologers, phrenologists, and homeopathic “doctors” into the court system to sue for equal time in classrooms, claiming that their “theories” are every bit as scientific as ID, so they also deserve equal time in science classrooms. Science education in America could be deluged with unproven and unprovable nonsense. Kids could graduate from high school without a clue how the world actually works, making them even more vulnerable than they already are to baseless quackery of every sort. America would be jumping right out of her leading place in scientific advancement and achievement.

China would love it.

SCA: Wine List Equestrian Activities

This weekend was Wine List, an SCA event put on by the Shire of Glynn Rhe. This event had no fencing and no dancing, so you might be wondering what would get me to it. The answer is that the event had equestrian activities, and the marshals from our shire were running them. One of those marshals just happens to be my good Lady Fjoleif. I was actually planning to do some riding at this event, but I ended up spending all my time taking pictures. Lady Lora and Lady Fjorleif were the only authorized equestrians to bring horses to the event, but we managed to authorize six people at the beginner level for future events.

Safety class is the first step in the authorization process. Most people who have their own horses know the basics, but there are additional hazards when you start handing long poles with sharp points on the ends to people on horseback. Whether you're a rider or just ground crew, you need to know the rules for handling lances, javelins, and wooden swords in the riding area.


The basic requirement to receive a beginner authorization for equestrian competition is shockingly simple, to my mind. You need only be able to ride the "heads" course at a walk. This means weaving your horse through a series of poles with targets perched on top. Lora's targets are wig stands with features painted on them and silly hats. Below, you can see Reinmar on his authorization run.

After we finished authorizations, we moved on to the more entertaining portion of the day's events. Jousting at a quintain is one of the standard SCA equestrian competitions. A quintain is a pole with a rotating crossbar mounted on top. The crossbar has a target on one end and a counterweight on the other. The counterweight is generally a sandbag. If you've seen the move A Knight's Tale, you saw the hero practicing with a quintain. The idea in the SCA game is to strike the target with a lance and make the crossbar spin as many times as you can.

We didn't bother with a crossbar at Wine List, though.

That's right, we used pumpkins as targets. While the pumpkins we had were surprisingly resilient to lance blows, we still ended up with a substantial heap of smashed pumpkins at the end of the day. We also set some pumpkins on the tops of the poles in the heads course to see how that would go. I think Lora and Fjorleif are hoping to make smashing pumpkins an annual equestrian challenge in the future.

WoW: Druidic Milestone

Gullveig completed the Bear Quest series this evening. This required quite a bit of travelling. First she had to travel to Moonglade to locate and commune with the Great Bear Spirit.


Fortunately, the quest giver provided a spell with which to quickly reach Moonglade. After communing with the bear, getting back to Darnassus was a simple matter of activating my Hearthstone.

Of course, communing with the Bear Spirit wasn't the end of the quest. She had to demonstrate that she had "learned the strength of the bear" by defeating Lunaclaw, a creature that was sort of a cross between an owl and a bear (D&D players will get the idea immediately). That required a trip over the seas to Auberdine.


After defeating Lunaclaw, Gullveig returned to Darnassus to complete the quest, where she acquired the ability to transform into a bear. I have yet to test this new form in battle...

Evolution Scientists Beat ID Scientists 20-to-1

In his ill-conceived attempt to convince me that Incompetent Design is a scientific theory that is not supported exclusively by religious individuals, pro-ID blogger "mike" cited the Intelligent Design and Evolution Awareness Club’s list of "Scientists and other Intellectuals that Doubt Darwinism and other Naturalistic Theories of Origins". Some of the names on the list are openly pro-ID, but many are not. The list includes anyone the IDEA club could find who has ever "publicly expressed serious doubts about Darwinism".

The terms of the IDEA list are pretty vague, especially since "Darwinism" is actually an early variant of the Theory of Evolution, which has changed since Charles Darwin first proposed it in the 19th century. The "Darwinism" variant of the hypothesis states that all evolution takes place gradually and is driven purely by natural selection. The theory of Punctuated Equilibrium corrects the Theory of Evolution with regard to pure gradualism, and the modern Theory of Evolution accepts other factors (like sexual selection) that affect the success and development of species.

"mike" also tried to claim that the signatories on the IDEA list are not religious. There’s actually nothing on that list to indicate their religious affiliation (or lack thereof), so his claim is baseless, but many of them are known to be Christians who believe the “intelligent designer” to be God. Michael Behe, for example is Catholic, and recently admitted in the Dover, PA, court case over ID that he believes God is the "designer". We can therefore conclude that "mike" was being deliberately deceptive.

The IDEA list has no more than 479 names at the time of this posting (it’s numbered up to 481, but I saw at least two blank lines – 48 and 49 – in it).

The Discovery Institute also has a list of scientists who "are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life". Their list of scientists who agree to this vague statement has a little over 400 names on it, and I haven’t read through it to see how much it overlaps the IDEA list.

More recently, Shovel Bums LLC, a resource for archaeology and CRM professionals, ran their own petition to collect signatures from scientists who "do not consider Intelligent Design to be a fact-based science appropriate for teaching in public schools because it is theistic in nature, not empirical, and therefore does not pass the rigors of scientific hypothesis testing and theory development."

In four days, Shovel Bums collected 7,733 signatures. Additional signatures after the four-day recruiting drive brought the total up to 11,622 before it was closed. That’s 24 times the number of signatures that the pro-ID crowd has been able to accumulate in four years. Unlike the IDEA and DI lists, the Shovel Bums petition is very specific about the statement to which the signatories agree. Furthermore, many signatories to the Shovel Bums list also indicated their religious affiliation on the petition, and they are clearly a diverse group (unlike ID-ers).

ID-ers should be wary of entering a name-dropping contest with the real scientific community; it’s a battle they’re doomed to lose.

WoW: It's Halloween!

The guys at Blizzard Entertainment love their holidays, and Halloween is no exception. The town squares and inns throughout the World of Warcraft are decorated for the holiday.


As if mere decoration weren't enough fun, you can also go trick-or-treating at the inns. You can only try trick-or-treating the innkeeper once per hour, and sometimes you're the one who get's tricked. For instance, I once received candy, once received a wand that turns friends into ghosts, and once got turned into a toad (I got better!).


And at least one of the traditional Halloween party games has been implemented in the World of Warcraft: Bobbing for Apples!


The developers at Blizzard are obviously having entirely too much fun with this stuff.

Upcoming Dance Activities

Lady Lora and I talked to the pastor at her church (St. Phillip's Episcopal), where our shire has already started holding our business meetings twice a month. He approved our request to also meet there twice a month for A&S-types of activities, so we are now planning to have a Bardic Circle night on the third Thursday of each month and... drumroll... Dance Practice on the first Thursday night of each month.

Also, coming up in November, I will be making the journey up to St. Louis for my first trip to Crystal Ball, a Midrealm or Calontir event (I'm not exactly sure which claims the Barony of Shattered Crystal) which I understand has a huge dance turnout (as witnessed by Lady Francesca dei Rossi, who made the journey last year).

Dr. Ego Takes the Stand

According to a Yahoo News article, Dr. Michael Behe is testifying for the defense in the Dover, PA school curriculum case today.

Behe is the author of Darwin's Black Box, a book in which he tries to sell readers on the idea that some biological structures are so "irreducibly complex" that they couldn't have evolved by chance alone, so there must have been a designer guiding the process. ID advocates always trot him out when their attempts to push pseudoscience into high school science classrooms go to trial.

So why do I call him Dr. Ego? Because he assumes that if he can't personally envision a reduced version a particular biological structure, then it's impossible for such a reduced structure to exist. In other words, nature is limited to what Michael Behe's imagination will allow it to do.

A simple example is one of his favorite "irreducibly complex" structures, the bacterial flagellum, because it would no longer function if you removed one of the proteins that makes it work. The problem, of course, is that just because a given modern bacteria requires a particular protein in order to swim doesn't mean that its ancestors required that protein.

Dr. Behe can't (or won't) see how the bacterial flagellum could have evolved, but plenty of other scientists have published articles on just that subject. In a nutshell, there's nothing "irreducibly complex" about bacterial flagella in general, although it would be easy enough to break a particular modern example.

Dr. Behe's "irreducible complexity" argument fails on two points of logic...

First, it's just a standard "argument from incredulity", in which he attributes a phenomenon that he can't understand to an "intelligent designer" who must be smarter than he is. What he lacks is evidence of any kind. Saying "this looks too complicated to me" does not constitute evidence, and a theory needs evidence in order to have credibility.

Second, it's also a "false dilemma" argument, in which any problem or weakness in Theory A (in this case, the Theory of Evolution) is taken to be a confirmation of Theory B (in this case, Incompetent Design). The problem, of course, is that finding a weakness in the evidence for Theory A does not actually constitute evidence for Theory B. In other words, even if the Theory of Evolution doesn't (yet) fully explain the development of a particular biological structure, there is no reason to jump to the conclusion that it was designed by aliens, God, or pan-dimensional beings disguised as mice.

I find his choice of t-shirts for this photo particularly amusing, since the ID explanation of the complexity of life is basically "a wizard did it".

Bigfoot Center Beats ID at Research

According to Yahoo News, there was a Bigfoot conference recently.

You might be surprised by this, but I actually have more respect for Bigfoot enthusiasts than I do for Incompetent Design advocates. The Bigfoot enthusiasts are at least out in the field actively looking for evidence to prove that their hypothetical creature exists. They go out into the woods with cameras and bags of plaster, and they come back with plaster casts of footprints and dubious photographs. Granted, decades of effort have yet to produce anything convincing, but at least they're making a good faith effort to find evidence to support their theory instead of sitting in an ivory tower trying to poke holes in somebody else's or force public schools to include Bigfoot in biology textbooks.

Granted, they're not being entirely scientific about it. According to their own website, the Texas Bigfoot Research Center is starting from a premise ("Bigfoot exists") and looking for supporting evidence:

The Texas Bigfoot Research Center exists to validate what we believe to be an undocumented species of bipedal primate, an animal commonly referred to as the Sasquatch or Bigfoot.

They're arguably doing their science backwards (working from conclusion-to-evidence instead of from evidence-to-conclusion), which means they have something in common with Creationists and IDers, but at least they're looking for legitimate evidence that other researchers will be able to study. Their methods are questionable (you can read an account of one of their field expeditions), but at least they document their work for all to see. That puts them miles ahead of the ID community in my book.

New Skeptics' Circle Is Up

The latest edition of the Skeptics' Circle is up over at Time to Lean. Go read biting commentary from someone other than me.

Talk About Credulous

Apparently someone in the military budgeting department has "sucker" tattoed on his forehead. Look at this story running on Trektoday.com:

The United States military is studying the feasibility of teleportation, "beaming up" people such as Osama Bin Laden or sending defense teams to difficult-to-reach locales.

The Scripps Howard News Service has picked up a story which quotes Ranney Adams, a spokesperson for the Air Force Research Laboratory at Edwards Air Force Base, as saying it would be ideal if the military could send soldiers to remote spots via teleportation. "But we're not there [yet]," he added.

The Air Force spent $25,000 last year on a study of teleportation physics to consider means of transporting people and cargo through space, though physicists said that the obstacles in terms of energy expenditure and data transfer are enormous.

"I would say that something is wrong with the way the Air Force allocates its research money, at least on this topic," said Phil Schewe, the chief science writer at the American Institute of Physics. He noted that experts can foresee using teleportation for encrypted data, but transporting large objects, let alone living beings, is a long way off.

But Center for Strategic and International Studies fellow Pierre Chao said that scientific advances required risks in funding. "The devil's bargain that you're going to take if you're going to exist in that cutting-edge [scientific] world and use taxpayer dollars is that you're going to be investigating some pretty goofy things," he said.

The encoding of the contents of a human body would require 10 to the 28th kilobytes of computer storage capacity, or 100 quintillion commercially available hard drives. Moreover, to dematerialize one human being the way Star Trek does it "would require...the energy equivalent of 330 one-megaton thermonuclear bombs."

Yeah, I bet Osama is quaking in his turban.

Teleportation using anything like modern technology is absolutely not feasible. I know that some particle experiments have been conducted in which scientists have managed to transfer the properties of one particle to another, but that's not even close to macroscopic teleportation. Twenty-five thousand dollars may not be much in the grand scale of the US military budget, but it's still twenty-five thousand dollars of complete waste. It's about as bad as when the military was investing in "remote viewing" research.

Research on the "entanglement" principles involved in particle "teleportation" will continue, and I dare say it will consume more than $25,000. I dare also say that the money being squandered by the Air Force is most likely going into some kind of scam. Maybe it's just another appropriation for the UFO study program out in Roswell, New Mexico, or funding for undercover agencies so secret that not even the President knows about them.

Government waste is another problem that a healthy dose of skepticism and scientific literacy in the population might alleviate.

WoW: I Told You It Was Coming

Not long ago, I warned that I wouldn't be able to resist making a Warlock. Well, I went and did it this morning.

Meet Dagran, a human warlock still operating around the beginner area of Northshire Abbey. He's now level five, and he's already learned to summon imps. He's got one or two quests left to go before he heads south to the Goldshire area. The current plan is for him to become my Alliance-side Tailor/Enchanter on the Earthen Ring server.

So far, he's had a pretty simple approach to combat. Set it on fire, corrupt it, curse it, and cut it. The fire spell and corruption spell apply pretty solid time-released damage to the target, the curse keeps it from being able to do much damage to me, and I revert to dagger attacks because that way I'll usually have close to full mana by the time the target falls.

The imp just adds extra damage; I start him attacking about the time the first fire spell hits.

Laccio d’Amore

Laccio d’Amore is a dance for one Lord and one Lady that appears in Il Ballarino, Fabritio Caroso's 1581 dance manual. It is notable for its frequent use of the cadenza throughout the dance. Caroso describes Laccio as a cascarda, which is a dance to fast-paced music that has a simple verse-chorus structure that repeats several times. Il Ballarino includes an arrangement of the music for lute.

This reconstruction is based on the 1967 Broude Brothers facsimile of Il Ballarino. Facsimiles from Il Ballarino are available from Gregory Blount’s website.

What follows is the original text of the dance – translated into English by Talan ap Gryffyd.

This Cascarda is primarily an encounter and begins with a Riuerenza Minima; then they form a wheel and do four Seguiti spezzati, and four Trabuchetti, with three more Seguiti spezzati, that is, two flank from behind, and a face to the left, and the Cadence to the right.

The second time, the man will make just two Passi Presti forward, and two Trabuchetti, and a Seguiti spezzati to the left, and the Cadence, the same again. Do the same thing again to the opposite; then the man performs the Fe to the right to the lady, and does two Seguiti spezzati, and two Passi presti, and the Cadence, changing place: do the same again performing the Fe to the left, beginning with the right foot, everyone returning to their place.

In the third section, the ladies will do the same that the men did: first perform the Fe in its entirety to the right and then the left, and they will make all the aforesaid steps in the second section.

The fourth and last time they will make two Fioretti a pie pari, with two Passi presti flanking behind them, and Seguita semidoppio to the left, beginning with the left foot: Do the same beginning with the right foot: after that they will do one forward, then they will make two Passi presti, and they will make two strokes with the left foot behind, they will make two Seguiti spezzati flanking to them, then at the end they will do two reprises, and two Trabuchetti, with one Seguito spezzato to the left, and the Cadence with encounter to the right, and making the Riuerenza in counter time, finally the Cascarda.

Converted into a common SCA tabulation format, the dance goes like this...

Section	Count	Description
Verse 1	1-4 5-12 13-16	Riuerenza Minima Four Spezzati in a wheel, turning clockwise Facing partner, four Trabuchetti
Chorus 1	1-4 5-8 9-12 13-16	Flank backward with two Spezzati, left foot first Turn left in one Spezzato and Cadenza Flank backward with two Spezzati, right foot first Turn right in one Spezzato and Cadenza
Verse 2 Lord’s Solo	* 1-2 3-4 5-8 9-10 11-12 13-16	(The Lord dances this part alone) Two Passi toward partner (left foot first) Two Trabuchetti (left then right) Turn left in one Spezzato and Cadenza Two Passi toward partner (right foot first) Two Trabuchetti (right then left) Turn right in one Spezzato and Cadenza
Chorus 2	1-4 5-8 9-12 13-16	Take right hands and wheel a half turn clockwise in two Spezzati Release hands and take two Passi presti turning back ccw and Cadenza Take left hands and wheel a half turn ccw in two Spezzati Release hands and two Passi presti back cw and Cadenza
Verse 3 Lady’s Solo	1-16	Same as Verse 2, except the Lady dances instead of the Lord
Chorus 3	1-16	Same as Chorus 2
Verse 4	1-2 3-4 5-8 9-10 11-12 13-16	Two Fioretti a pie pari (left side first) Flank backward with two Passi presti (left foot first) Turn left with Seguiti Semmiodoppio (left foot first) Two Fioretti a pie pari (right side first) Flank backward with two Passi presti (right foot first) Turn right with Seguiti Semmiodoppio (right foot first)
Chorus 4	1-2 3-4 5-8 9-10 11-12 13-16 *	Two Passi presti (going forward) Stomp twice with the left foot, striking behind the right foot Flank backwards with two Spezzati Two Ripresa to the left Two Trabuchetti, left then right Turn left in one Spezzato and Cadenza Riuerenza (as last chord fades)

Naturally, you'll need to know what some of those 16th-century Italian terms mean if you want to be able to perform the dance.

Term	Definition
Passi	Single steps
Spezzati	A spezzato is similar to a modern step-ball-change. To perform a left spezzato, step forward with your left foot, bring your right toe up to (or even under) your left heel, and then step out again with your left foot.
Trabuchetti	Weight shifts from the left foot to the right.
Riuerenza Minima	A riuerenza is a bow. To perform a 16th century Italian bow, place your left foot behind your right and bend your knees, keeping your back straight. A riuerenza minima is a four-count riuerenza.
Cadenza	A cadenza is basically a small, vertical hop, switching which foot is in the lead while you're in the air. The direction in the instruction (e.g. “Cadenza right”) indicates which foot should be in the lead when you finish.
Seguiti Semmiodoppio	Two passi immediately followed by one spezzato.
Fioretti a pie pari	Often called "bells", this step is basically a swinging motion of the feet. If starting to the left, swing your left leg out and back, then swing your right leg out and back.

I dance Laccio to Warwick Consort’s arrangement of the music from Ansteorra Kingdom Dance and Music 2004.

SCA: Gloat, Gloat, Gloat!

Yes, you are now reading the weblog of the Queen's Dance Champion of Meridies (for the duration of Boru and Deidre's reign, at least). I share the title with Lady Francesca, of course, but that's perfectly alright with me.

Speaking of which Lady Francesca dei Rossi received her Award of Arms at Crown List. There is much rejoicing.

And while the King and Queen were blowing us away with the Dance Champion award and Francesca's AoA, they decided to cap it off by ambushing me with an Order of the Argent Slipper award, as well.

So you might say that I had a darn good time at Crown List, and I daresay that Francesca's cheeks will be sore for a week from smiling so much.

Dance Championship

I’ll be entering the Queen’s Dance Championship to be held at Crown List this weekend. Her Majesty announced the competition at her Coronation a few weeks ago, and Lord Iohann notified me of it almost immediately. Details on the proceedings, however, were extraordinarily difficult to obtain. Just this week I managed to find out from Mistress Sindokht that the contest will be handled pretty much as any other A&S performing arts competition; documentation isn’t required, but it is recommended.

That being the case, Francesca and I will be entering with Laccio d’Amore, which is the only dance for two people that I’ve personally documented. I suppose I should actually get around posting the tabulation for Laccio here on the Saga sometime.

I Have Seen Serenity

I have seen Serenity, and it is good. I mean really good. A couple of people, I won't say who in the non-spoiler portion of this review, seem a little out of character at first if you're familiar with Firefly, but that fairly quickly resolves itself, and everyone settles into the roles we know so well.

If you're not a Firefly fan, I'm really not sure how approachable you'll find this story. I daresay that you would find the "character immersion" in the early part of the film to be rather like learning to swim by being dumped into the Arctic Ocean. I have to wonder if you can generate enough sympathy for the characters to really respond to later events in the movie the way long-time fans will.

I think Joss Whedon is trying to say something about the nature of fanaticism in this film, but I don't want to go into details, yet.

In my opinion, though, this is definitely a film worth watching whether you're a Firefly fan or not. I was surprised that it was only on in one theater at the (Sh)Opry Mills multiplex, and with only four showings per day. If that's a typical schedule, then the fact that it made second place in theatre earnings against movies showing on multiple screens per theatre says a lot.

Spoilers will abound if you start reading the comments...

WoW: Dabbling Again

I never can resist the lure of creating characters of classes I haven't played yet. I haven't done a Warlock yet, but I doubt it will hurt you much if you try to hold your breath until I do.

This weekend, however, I created an Orc Rogue and a Night Elf Druid. Both of them are on Earthen Ring, so I can use my existing characters there to "twink" them without reservations. Gullveig, the Druid, isn't anywhere near a mailbox yet, as she's still working the beginner area quests, but Haokan sent Rakthogg, the Rogue, a bunch of bags and some improved armor.

I actually created Rakthogg first. He completed the quests in the orc starting area pretty quickly and moved on toward Razor Hill, as that's the closest settlement with an inn. There's a Troll community on the coast before you get to Razor Hill, and that's where he's doing most of his questing right now, but I always like to quit in an inn to accumulate "rest points" for my next time online. Anyway, he's sixth level, and he has already adopted the Herbalism and Alchemy professions.

I started Gullveig in the wee hours this morning, and she's already level five. I think there's just one beginner quest left before she moves on to the village of Dolanaar.

As soon as Gullveig reaches Dolanaar, I should be able to find an inn (in fact, I have a quest to deliver a package to the inn there). An inn always has a mailbox, so Grimbor will be able to send her some bags and any other useful stuff he happens to have available. She'll probably take up Skinning and Leatherworking, since Grimbor needs a surprising amount of leather for Engineering projects.

Incompetent Design and Specified Complexity

In the course of my correspondence with “mike” (the ID apologist), he pointed me at a couple of links to ID information sites. I guess he hoped they would convince me that ID really is scientific and non-religious. Of course, the sites he directed me to do nothing of the sort. They’ve yet to show me a non-religious person who thinks ID is good science, and they repeat all of the usual false claims about the so-called “theory” of Intelligent Design (as well as the usual false claims about the Theory of Evolution).

One thing that I did learn, though, is that the ID community has backed away from the “irreducible complexity” argument (since it’s been shot to pieces so many times, I guess) and brought forth its red-headed step child: “specified complexity”.

“Specified complexity” is the notion that if a structure is both unlikely and fits a recognizable pattern, something more than natural forces must be at work. A common example is Mount Rushmore. Every mountain is unique, so any given mountain feature is unlikely, and all mountains are therefore complex. Mount Rushmore, however, also fits a recognizable pattern of four specific human faces. It therefore has “specified complexity” that indicates intelligent design.

For simpler examples, they’ll use a string of letters. In the example on one of mike’s reference sites, you draw Scrabble tiles from a bag at random and line them up. To keep the math simple, we’ll assume that the bag has one of each letter and that you replace each tile you draw with another just like it. Suppose you draw this string of twenty-eight letters…

WETHEPEOPLEOFTHEUNITEDSTATES

What are the odds of drawing that particular string of letters in that order? Something like 1 in 4*10^39 (four followed by thirty-nine zeroes). It’s extraordinarily unlikely that you would randomly draw that particular string of letters. Now let’s draw another one.

OMECIHUATLACEUCUCYOTICIHUATI

What are the odds of drawing that string at random? Exactly the same. You might be fooled into thinking that the second string is more likely, though, because it looks more random. It doesn’t fit a recognizable pattern (English words that form a phrase that most Americans know). In fact, it resembles a sequence we would expect to see when drawing letters randomly from a bag or banging randomly at a keyboard; a string of letters with no recognizable meaning.

The problem with identifying “specified complexity” is that you have to have a context in which to recognize it. We recognize Mount Rushmore as “specifically complex” because we’ve seen many mountains, and we have expectations of what mountains shaped by the natural forces of continental drift and erosion will look like. We also have expectations of what man-made sculptures look like. On Mount Rushmore, we see shapes which are inconsistent with our expecations about natural mountains and consistent with our expectations about man-made sculptures, so we recognize a deliberate design.

But how do you recognize “specified complexity” without a context? If you were not familiar with mountains and sculptures and human faces, would you have any reason to think Mount Rushmore was the result of design instead of natural forces? It may not be as clear then.

Let’s use the simpler example of our letter strings. Suppose you were from a very obscure community in the remotest part of China. You don’t speak English, and you haven’t even seen the English alphabet. Under those circumstances, would the first string of letters look any more “specific” to you than the second? If you answered yes, ask yourself if the second string looks any more specific if you know that Omecihuatl and Acuecucyoticihuati are the names of goddesses from Aztec mythology.

This is the problem when ID advocates claim that they recognize the signs of design in something like the structure of the human eye or the bacterial flagellum: they have no basis for comparison. They don’t have a context in which to differentiate a designed structure from a natural structure. They can’t say, “We recognize that this bacterial flagellum is designed, because we’ve seen numerous examples of natural flagella and artificial flagella, and this one is consistent with the artificial ones.”

“Specific complexity” is a smoke screen, because there is no way to tell a designed biological structure from a natural biological structure. Consequently, there is no way to test a biological structure to determine if it is the product of design or natural forces. A claim that is not testable is not scientific.

I have to throw out a big credit to Jason Rosenhouse, the author of Evolutionblog, who wrote an excellent article that addresses the same subject for CSICOP.

Darwin's Chainsaw

This was apparently linked all over the place the first time Aeire posted it. I think it's time for history to repeat itself. Yes, it's a silly comic strip, but it's still funny.

Queen of Wands

30-Second Movie Re-enactments

Just for fun, visit Angry Alien for some hysterical film shorts. Of course, they're much funnier if you've seen the movies in question...

Response to an ID Apologist

A fellow posting as "mike" responded to an article at Evolutionblog with some of the typical claims about Intelligent Design "Theory": it's not religious, it's based on science, etc. I posted a response on his weblog, but I thought I'd repeat it here.

Evolutionblog said...

Introducing ID into science classes is purely a device for using the public schools to promote religious propaganda

And mike responded with...

That's a subjective statement. I can also argue that promoting evolution promotes a religion as it is filled with inexplainable holes regarding the origins of life. Are you to believe in evolution in spite of these holes? You may if you have enough "faith" in evolution. And if you do then you can certainly construe it as being just another religious movement.

The claim that ID is just a device for promoting religious ideas in public schools isn't a subjective statement; it's an observation of the facts. Please, mike, name some ID promoters who are not doing it for religious reasons. The Discovery Institute has made their religious motivations plain, as have the pro-ID members of the Dover school board (when they think there aren't any reporters listening).

ID is no way religious. It may be liked by those religous, but that's hardly the same as it promoting a religious view. ID simply proposes that some "intelligent creator" created life. Whether that intelligent creator be something that religious institutions use to their benefit or not is not the fault of the theory of ID itself, but rather of the subjective religious believer.

ID is inherently religious. If you don't agree, please name some people who take it seriously who are not religious; name someone who seriously thinks that life was intelligently designed by someone other than God. ID is just Creationism repackaged to slip past the Establishment Clause of the Constitution, and "Intelligent Designer" is just a nudge-nudge, wink-wink reference to God.

The legal issue being adjudicated here is whether the crazy people have managed
to be sufficiently dishonest about their religious motivations. That is all.

If the movement by the school board were truely religiously motivated then it would NOT be ID they'd be promoting here but rather Creationism.

The same people now promoting ID are the people who were trying to push Creationism just a few decades ago. Creationism got shot down by the courts because it was obviously an effort to push religion in the classroom, so they're now trying to disguise the religion enough to get it through by saying "Intelligent Designer" instead of "God".

The only mystery I see is this: How did a school district that managed to elect an anti-science majority to their school board manage to attract such a stellar group of science teachers?

The reason why you have such a "stellar" group of science teachers is because ID makes sense; especially when you compare it to the flawed macroevolutionary theory. The only "anti-science majority" is from those that believe macroevolution occurred by "chance"!

Mike completely missed the point; I'll chalk that up to a simple mis-reading of the statement in Evolutionblog. The science teachers are consistently resisting efforts to make them teach ID as if it were science. It's the school board that's promoting the idea. If ID is science based, then its backers should be making predictions and testing them to build evidence that other scientists will accept instead of trying to peddle the idea to school kids who haven't got enough experience to see through an Appeal to Ignorance fallacy.

SCA: Instructing at Fighters' Collegium

The Shire of An Dun Theine is hosting the Kingdom Fighters' Collegium this year, and Seneschal Ricarte Berenguer Halcon de Catalonia (known as "Hawk") has asked me to teach a class on fencing in the style of Joseph Swetnam.

I've mentioned Swetnam before. He's the author of Schoole of the Noble and Worthy Science of Defence, a manual on rapier fencing published in 1617. Unlike his contemporary, George Silver, Swetnam was a great fan of the long-bladed rapier, especially with a long dagger to accompany it.

For the most part, Swetnam's style is what fencers in the modern SCA would call a "range game". He prefers to stand well back from his opponent, using distance and the threat of a counterthrust as primary defenses. An attacker will have to cover a lot of ground to land a thrust and even more for a cut, giving the defender plenty of time to parry and counterthrust. Of course, this could lead to long, tedious duels, but Swetnam (who was a prize fighter in England) was much more concerned with staying alive than he was with finishing a duel quickly.

I'll be discussing Swetnam's stances for the single rapier and for rapier and dagger. Basic parries, basic attacks, and feints will all be up for discussion. I can also bring up a couple of the "tricks" that I've discovered in the course of my Swetnam research.

The Kingdom Fighters' Collegium is schedule for the weekend of November 12th at the Woodsmen of the World camp in Royal, Alabama.

WoW: Sunday with the Shaman

A while back, I visited Ragefire Chasm with Gondul, but I forgot to take snapshots of some of the creatures I fought. Well, I've been playing Haokan recently, and I tried taking him into the Chasm with just a Hunter in support. We didn't die or anything, but it became pretty clear when we started pulling three Ragefire Troggs at a time and just barely surviving that we would soon be in over our heads. We therefore chose wisdom over insane valor and retreated. Nonetheless, I did manage to get a couple more images during the expedition.

In addition to the Troggs, I managed to capture a better image of the Earthborers that you encounter as you first enter the dungeon. Paying more careful attention to the messages on my screen during this trip, I determined that Earthborers are not poisonous; they're acidic. The acid reduces your armor values for a fairly long time after exposure. This means you take more damage if you're under attack, but it's harmless between fights and you can just wait for it to wear off if you want.


Haokan achieved Level 20 during the expedition into Ragefire Chasm, and that allowed me to purchase the Ghost Wolf spell. This enables him to transform into a ghostly wolf that can run considerably faster than our happy little Tauren. Having Ghost Wolf is almost as good as having a proper mount.

WoW: Back to Earthen Ring

I got up early this morning and wasted some time playing World of Warcraft, since the SCA business meeting is tonight and I therefore won't want to leave work early. I went back to Earthen Ring to play Haokan for a while, and I worked on some quests near the neutral town of Ratchet. On the way, I decided to build up my unarmed combat skill by boxing raptors to death.


Building up unarmed skill turned out to be a good thing, as the Freebooters and Marines that you encounter on the Merchant Coast south of Ratchet are pretty good with disarming techniques.

Ratchet, as I said, is a neutral town. That's why I was able to calmly share a table with an Alliance character at the Broken Keel tavern, as shown below.


Of course, I have to wonder how Magilia would have reacted if she weren't "Away From Keyboard" at the time.

What the Psychics Said About 2005 Hurricanes

These are predictions regarding the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season that I found by Googling “psychic hurricane prediction 2005”. As far as I can tell, these were posted on the dates specified on the web page and not altered since, although some editorial updates have been added to some of them. Quotes were take from the pages on September 21, 2005.

On February 11, 2005, the Mystic Tarot said that “This 2005 Hurricane season will bring a needed change to Florida residents, and rest from the storms of last year. We predict a relatively quite hurricane season with little activity, and no major hurricanes striking Florida. We anticipate that Florida will be spared more damages like the ones caused by the hurricanes of 2004.” Emphasis theirs.

Of course, hurricane Dennis hit Florida in July, and hurricane Katrina cut a swath across Florida before going on to do even more damage in Mississippi and Louisiana in August.

On Thursday December 16, 2004, the Psychic School predicted “6 major hurricanes for Caribbean, Mexico and East Coast – two affecting Florida and Georgia.”

Hmmm… no mention of Louisiana or Mississippi.

Five-Star Psychic Advice had no hurricane predictions, but watch out for Mt. Saint Helens to erupt between October 13th and 19th. Also, Bob Barker (of the The Price is Right fame) supposedly died in January, June, or July.

Dr. Louis Turi predicted an “Increase in destructive weather patterns leading to volcanic eruptions, larger quakes and hurricanes. Costal cities to suffer severely from nature's forces during the night hours.”

First, volcanoes and earthquakes have nothing to do with the weather. Second, Hurricane Katrina made landfall in Mississippi at 6:10 am CDT and did most of its damage during the day, not "during the night hours". Finally and least significantly, the spelling of "coastal" came with the cut-and-paste.

The Aquarius Metaphysical Newspaper published 2005 predictions from several psychics, including…
“Elizabeth”, who apparently had no premonitions about hurricanes;
Tricia McCannon, who didn’t see it coming, either;
*Name removed*, who was just as oblivious;
Cathy H. Burroughs, who was also blind;
Dr. Kate Brooks, who said “The currents of the oceans and the winds are changing” but also said “It will be three years before the full effect of these changes are felt”; and
“Queen Mother”, who saw nothing about hurricanes, but did foresee that “Michael Jackson will be convicted and will serve time.”

Update: I received a request to remove the name of one of the "psychics" from Aquarius because he was creating confusion with someone else of the same name, which was apparently generating some undeserved negative feedback. The link to the original article is still valid.

Six clueless “psychics” in one convenient package.

“World Reknowned Clairvoyant Psychic” Rose Ann Schwab saw nothing about hurricanes in 2005.

Naturally none of them made any predictions that might tell us what Hurricane Rita is going to do, either. I’m simply stunned (or not) by the accuracy of these psychics. It’s almost like they were just guessing what might happen.

First Pewter Casting

Yes, at last, I managed to get all of the necessary equipment together and find time to try to cast some simple pewter medallions using an open-top mold that I carved from plaster quite a long time ago. Come see my first effort, and prepare to be duly unimpressed.

In the following picture, you see the basic requirements for casting pewter. These include a full-face protective mask, welding gloves, a pot, a ladel, a mold, some pliers, the metal itself, and a source of heat (not just the lighter, you'll see the propane burner later).


Step one of the process is to melt the pewter. For this I have a small pot which will never serve any other purpose. My bar of pewter had to be brutally downsized with a hacksaw to fit into the pot. In the image below, you can see the pewter starting to melt (I only used about two-thirds of the original bar).


It didn't take terribly long for all of the pewter in the pot to melt. I then put the ladel in the pot to warm up, so it it wouldn't be excessively cooling the pewter on the way to the mold.


Shortly thereafter I was ready to cast my first piece. My first attempt to ladel pewter smoothly onto the mold was less than stellar.


Not that I was particularly worried about getting a clean pour on my first try. I managed to get pewter in just the "target area" in future attempts. It's what the cast piece looks like that matters, anyway. Well, that didn't turn out too well either.


The important side of the finished piece looks pretty dreadful. Much of the design doesn't show up at all, and what is there doesn't have much definition. It looks like I'll need to carve a deeper, clearer design if I want to get a good piece. I cast a few more just to see if the mold needed to warm up, and they all came out about the same. Sometimes the metal bubbled mysteriously while cooling on the mold; I'm not sure what that was about, although Fjorleif and I have a hypothesis about water in the mold vaporizing and bubbling up through the pewter.

I also got a lot of debris of some sort, shown in the picture below. I got lots of it in the ladel and on the surface of the metal in the pot. I'm wondering if this is some sort of tin oxide forming on the surface of the hot metal or something else entirely. I'll have to ask around (feel free to post a comment if you know what's happening here).


That's it for my first try at casting pewter. I'll try deepening this mold and carving another one, as well, and I'll try to remember to take pictures of that part of the process, too.

EDIT: I've made a somewhat-more-successful second effort.

Not Much to Report

My article on the Scooby Doo incident in Orlando will be in the Skeptics' Circle at decorabilia tomorrow. You've probably already read it, but you can go there to check out the other good stuff.

I managed to get in a little bit of World of Warcraft over the past couple of days, which was harder than you think since my firewall suddenly decided to start blocking WoW's communication after I installed the 1.7 patch. Nonetheless, I managed to get it working, and Beufle has now reached Level 10 while Gondul has reached Level 15. Grimbor and Haokan continue to languish, as the Earthen Ring server continues to be so busy that I get a "waiting in queue" message when I try to connect to it.

I don't expect to make it to Tavern Brawl this weekend, but I may finally make it up to Murray on Sunday to teach a dance class to the Shire of Redewolfe.

In closing, here's a totally gratuitous picture of Gondul in the Barrens.

Spooky Scam: Call in the Meddling Kids

Apparently would-be restaurateur Christopher Chung has decided that he can’t move into an Orlando building he leased because it’s haunted. He has refused to pay the rent he owes, so the owner of the building is suing him. This sounds perfectly sensible to me: if you sign a lease and then refuse to pay the rent, you owe the landlord.

Apparently the Mr. Chung doesn’t see it that way. It seems that he’s a Jehovah’s Witness, and his beliefs “require him to avoid encountering or having any association with spirits or demons.” Fair enough, I say. All he needs to do is show reasonable evidence that there are, in fact, spirits or demons inhabiting the premises. Well, maybe not all, since I doubt there was a “void if haunted” clause in the lease he signed, but anyway…

Mr. Chung obviously doesn’t have any real evidence of supernatural activities. Oh, his lawyer says that "There have been several documented reports from subcontractors and others of having seen ghosts or apparitions in the restaurant at night," but people imagine spooks all the time, and I’m sure there hasn’t been a serious investigation by reputable scientists.

Hey, this would be an ideal opportunity for Mr. Chung to sign up for James Randi’s Million Dollar Challenge. If he can show reasonable evidence that the building is haunted, he can potentially win his case and make an extra million dollars in the bargain. Sounds like a win-win situation for him to me.

On the other hand, I think it’s much more likely that Mr. Chung decided after-the-signing that he didn’t really like the terms of his lease, so – in a move worthy of a Scooby-Doo villain – he cooked up this “haunted building” scam to get out of it without paying the landlord.

WoW: First Run Through Ragefire Chasm

I managed to find a party for my first trip through Ragefire Chasm last night. Ragefire Chasm is an instance dungeon in the caves beneath the Horde capital city of Orgrimmar; you reach it through the part of town known as the Cleft of Shadows, where Warlocks go for training. The Chasm is designed for characters of level 13-18; my group had...

• Gondul (me), a level 13 priest
• Sheiza, a level 17 warrior
• Zulazzi, a level 14 priest
• Nobakim, a level 12 warlock
• Ironbroly, a level 11 hunter

The first monsters you encounter in the dungeon are the little serpent things you see at right. Don't be fooled by their size; they're elites, so try to only fight one at a time. They're also poisonous, as you can tell by the green cast of Sheiza (pronounced SHEE-zah, btw) and me. There's a pack of these little beasties waiting for your group just inside the entrance to the dungeon, and you could easily have all of them on you if you're not careful.

A little way past the serpents you'll encounter your first molten elemental. I daresay that fire-based damage isn't going to do them much harm, nor will nature-based damage. I had to work very hard to keep Sheiza healthy if we drew the attention of more than one of these things at a time, so engage them carefully.

Past the first elemental, you'll across a natural bridge through a large chasm and reach a sort of platform at the end. This platform is full of troggs, which are humanoids that anyone who has adventured in Dun Morogh (Dwarf lands) will recognize. Sorry I didn't get a screen capture of them on this trip. Like most dungeon monsters, these are elites, so try not to engage too many at a time. You should be able to draw one or two out of a clump with a ranged attack; any more than that and you could be in trouble. Furthermore, some of them are spellcasters. We got wiped out a couple of times by these guys by drawing too many.

You have a choice of directions after you clear the platform. We went upward toward the Slayer Cavern. This goes up and reverses your course, so you climb parallel to the bridge you crossed earlier. At the end, you'll reverse course again. Along the way, you'll fight a series of molten elementals and some more serpents.

The Slayer Cavern is basically a huge lake of lava with rock platforms connected by bridges. In the center, at the "hub" of the "wheel" of rock, is Taragaman the Hungerer (seen at right). He's a boss monster and the object of a quest. Where each of the "spokes" meets the "rim" of the wheel, there's a platform full of Burning Blade orcs: Warlocks and Cultists. On Sheiza's advice, we worked through most of the orcs first so we wouldn't have them unexpectedly joining the fight after we engaged Taragaman. We had a couple of wipeouts just on them. Taragaman alone seemed like a pushover by comparison.

Lessons learned:

Lecture your group in advance whether you think they need it or not. Ironbroly had apparently never been in an instance dungeon before, and he kept trying to fight like he was going solo against monsters in the wilderness. That just won't work in a dungeon, where any given monster is probably three times tougher than a monster of the same level that you'd find in the wilderness.

The worst incident was in a fight with some of the warlocks and cultists around Taragaman. I could see from the beginning that we'd attracted too many monsters, but I hadn't healed or done anything else to become involved in the fight yet. I therefore told everyone that I was hanging out so I could resurrect the party after the monsters beat them and returned to their stations. Ironbroly either didn't notice or didn't understand, and he ran from the fight hoping to save himself. Stupid idea: dungeon monsters will chase you down and they will catch you. Worse, he led them straight by me, which made them notice me. Consequently, they jumped on me as soon as they finished him, and the entire party was wiped out.

Oh well, we got ourselves back together and killed Taragaman, anyway. Gondul gained a level, some nice gloves, a good cloak, and a knife to disenchant for magical essence out of the experience, too. Things could have been worse.

There's a Scumbag Born Every Minute

I received the following warning from my employer via email today...

There have been several reports of fraudulent Hurricane Katrina websites and emails in the past few days. These websites and emails claim to be part of the Hurricane Katrina disaster relief efforts. Some of these emails and websites contain viruses, and others are phishing attempts to trick users into disclosing personal information.

In response to these fraudulent websites and emails, IT&S Information Security will send an email to all Outlook users later today, alerting them to the risk of these scams.

As if it weren't bad enough to have deranged psychos shooting at rescue workers in the disaster area, there are some greedy pieces of dirt out there trying to take advantage of the carnage by diverting the money you intend to donate for hurricane relief into their own grubby little pockets. It shames me to have to acknowledge such people as members of the same species as me.

That being said, avoid responding to emails soliciting donations for hurricane relief. Go directly to the website of an organization known to do disaster relief (like the Red Cross) or donate through a local church or other charitable organization with good credentials.

An Overdue Picture

If you're a particularly alert reader, you may have noticed that I changed the World of Warcraft section of my sidebar to not show the characters on the Feathermoon server that I haven't played in months and to add my new characters on the Scarlet Crusade server. If you're that observant, you may also have noticed a character named Beufle that you haven't seen a picture of yet. Well, it's time to rectify that deficiency.



That's my Alliance character on Scarlet Crusade, Beufle the gnome rogue. Fear his stabbity death.

Skeptic Time Again

Yesterday was Skeptic's Circle Thursday. I was a slacker with nothing to add for this edition, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't check out what some of the other alert people in the world have to say.

Fighting Comment Spam

Last week was apparently the week of "spambots crawling Blogger". It's not unusual for me to see a dozen or so posts in an hour on a Skeptics' Circle Thursday, but I had a rush last week that seemed unusual. Checking the details on my hit counter showed the symptoms of some kind of automated program crawling through weblogs. Apparently, the spambots were on the move, and they left a half dozen spam comments on the Saga. I cleaned those out, but I wasn't sure what to do to prevent future infestations. I didn't want to go back to requiring readers to register with Blogger before commenting.

But Blogger apparently saw this kind of problem coming, and they've taken action. I'm not sure when they implemented it, but they've made "word verification" an option for comments. I've turned that on, so now when you want to enter a comment, you'll have to type a word that appears as an image on the screen in the comment form. Word verification should keep the blog safe from spambots until some jackass invents an image-recognizing bot that can read words in images and type them in the appropriate field on a form.

Tourney of the Foxes

We had good weather for Tourney of the Foxes over the weekend, and there was some pretty good fencing on Saturday. We ended up with four teams, and mine ended up in second place. Congratulations to Corbin, Ysabel, and Feodor for taking the prize. After the tournament, we fooled around with some additional melee scenarios, but nothing major. Feodor also became a Companion of the Argent Rapier, so double congrats to him.

While there was no scheduled revel, I naturally took my music with me, and Julianna and I improvised a revel shortly after feast. This turned out fairly well, since we had four couples on the floor some of the time. At one point, someone mentioned that it would be amusing to do the Amoroso drunk, which immediately prompted Julianna and I to do an improvised performance of the "Drunken Amoroso". Fjorleif was wishing she hadn't left the camera at the cabin. I foresee that little variant being performed again in the future.

Issues with the Event:

• The site has only one shower house, and it has something like twelve showers. Unfortunately, it doesn't have a divider that you could used to separate a ladies' area from a lords' area. This made getting a shower a logistic nightmare. A simple improvised curtain could have easily taken care of the problem.
• The cabin's were annoyingly filthy. A quick pass through the cabins with a broom would have made the stay much more pleasant.
• There was no air-conditioned place into which one could retreat.
• Feast was extremely unfriendly to anyone on a low-carb diet.

I bring up these issues in the hope that future Tourneys will address them.

The next significant event coming up for us is Unchained Doom. Tavern Brawl and Thing in the Woods are also September events, but we really don't want to try to do more than one event a month; it just makes life too hectic.

WoW: About the Deadmines

I've noticed that a fair number of visitors to the site are following searches for "wow deadmines" and getting my short report that I actually finished that dungeon. I imagine that doesn't help them a great deal if they're looking for advice, so I thought I'd elaborate a little on my experience. There are spoilers in this article, so don't read it if you want to discover these things for yourself.

As most know, the Deadmines run beneath the village of Moonbrook, which lies southwest of Sentinel Hill in the region of Westfall. The village itself is crawling with Defias rogues and mages, although there are usually enough players working in the area to keep them under control. You should be at least level 18 before you attempt the Deadmines, and you should have a well balanced party to assist you.

You enter the Deadmines through what looks like an old tavern in the southwest corner of the village. You'll find a shaft inside that leads down into the mines proper. You have to maneuver through the tunnels for a while before you find the entrance to the "instance dungeon", at which point only your group will be present. While working your way to the instance, be wary of "elite" monsters that wander this area. These can easily defeat a lone player, and they can wipe out your group if you "pull" too many of them into a fight. The rule of elites is to try to fight one and only one of them at a time; use "crowd control" abilities to keep additional monsters at bay while you bring them down one-by-one.

If you have the "Collecting Memories" quest, you don't actually need to go into the instance: the quest items you need are in the "public" part of the mines. Just look for an area with violet-colored stone on your map.

Once you enter the "instance" most of the monsters you kill will stay dead, but there are patrols that occasionally reappear even if you kill them. You don't want these patrols to fall on your party from behind while you're fighting a tough boss, so check for them before starting a hard fight. A Hunter using the "Track Humanoids" ability can be particularly helpful for detecting patrols.

The first major encounter is with a big ogre. He's apparently immune to a Hunter's "concussive shot" effect, so don't waste energy on it. Let a Warrior get his full attention before your mages start unloading on him; you don't want him beating on a fragile character.

In the Lumber Room, you'll find Lumbermaster Sneed riding in his Shredder. There are several other goblins in the room, and it's both easy and recommended to pull them out and take care of them before engaging the Shredder. The machine is tough and it hits hard. Again, make sure a very durable character (Warrior or Paladin) has its full attention before your spell casters unload on it. Don't relax when the Shredder falls; Sneed himself will jump out and immediately start attacking.

Past the Lumber room, you go down a tunnel to the Smelter, which has a spiral ramp downward. The goblins in there have guns, flame grenades, and little mechanical beasties. An oversized goblin named Gilnid is the boss at the bottom. A patrol apparently starts into the Smelter about the time you defeat Gilnid and open the next door; they seem to be timed to reach the bottom of the ramp about the time you're engaging the guys on the other side of the door. Plan for them!

After that, you're off to the secret construction dock for the Defias pirate ship. Your first major obstacle is Mr. Smite, who guards the boarding plank. Someone tough should hold him off while the rest of your group eliminates his assistants, then everyone can wail on him. He'll use a mass stunning effect twice to delay you while he runs to get a better weapon; it's best not to have his buddies beating on you while you're stunned.

There are a couple more mini-bosses as you work your way up the ship, ending with VanCleef himself at the top. VanCleef can supposedly resurrect his fallen assistants, but he won't if you keep him busy enough (I never saw him try it during my run). Better still, you can just use crowd control techniques to keep his aids out of the way while you concentrate your firepower on VanCleef himself.

That's the quick and dirty on the Deadmines. I hope you find it helpful. Hopefully I'll be able to put together something for Ragefire Chasm in the near future.

Could he have said anything stupider?

IDiot television evangelist Pat Robertson recently suggested that the United States Government should assassinate Hugo Chavez, the President of Venezuela (as recorded in an AP article):

On Monday, Robertson said on the Christian Broadcast Network's The 700
Club: "We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that
we exercise that ability."

"We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know,
strong-arm dictator," he continued. "It's a whole lot easier to have some of the
covert operatives do the job and then get it over with."

I'm trying to think of a way he could have been more offensive, but it's just not coming. What does it say about Pat Robertson that he would suggest on live TV that we murder another nation's Head of State? God supposedly issued a decree regarding that kind of behavior in Exodus 20, didn't he? And Pat claims to be one of God's advocates, doesn't he?

I'm drowning in the tidal wave of hypocrisy.

Besides, such an assassination wouldn't be nearly as easy as old Pat thinks. Remember, the US government tried several times to take out Fidel Castro without success, and after that they publicly disavowed the practice. And I'm sure he hasn't considered the political consequences of such an act for our country.

Mystery Guest

I'd love to know who occasionally visits this site from Ogden, Utah. I'd kinda like to hear their opinion on State Senator Buttars.

Those Pictures I Promised

You need a fair amount of equipment to make mead. A five gallon class carboy, plastic tubing, a funnel, honey, yeast, clean water, an airlock, drilled stoppers, and so forth. Fortunately, most of these things are "durable goods" that you can use over and over in your brewing and vinting hobby. You actually need more than one carboy, since you'll need to "rack" periodically, but that's an issue for another post (we'll need to rack this in a month or two).

Stage one of the process is to clean and sterilize all of the equipment that will touch the "must" or unfermented honey-water mix. A contaminated must produces five gallons of extraordinarily expensive vinegar, so be clean. We sterilize with a bleach water solution, then rinse thoroughly.

As you might guess from the picture, we don't particularly like to use the water from our tap. We have a really high chlorine content here, and yeast don't like that. Besides, it just doesn't taste all that good. If we had a really good water filtration system, we might use our local water, but until we get that, we just buy inexpensive "spring water" at the grocery.

We used roughly fifteen pounds of honey for this project. If you've ever tried to pour honey, you know just how slow and tedious a process it can be. Fjorleif's solution is to run a hot bath for the honey containers so it will run relatively easily when you're ready to pour it into the carboy.

Incidentally, that widget you see on the faucet is a bottle washer. It's basically a stem with a valve that jets water up into the bottle when you press the bottle down on to the little lever. This makes washing and rinsing bottles and carboys SO much easier. If you're going to make wine, you definitely want one.

Now that we've got our clean carboy, it's time to pour in the honey. Keep your water supply handy. There will be honey residue in the container; why waste it? Just pour some water into the container, recap it, shake it good to get the honey mixed into the water, and pour it into the carboy with the rest of the honey. No fuss required.

Notice that the honey goes in first, so that when you add the bulk of the water, it will rinse the honey residue out of the funnel. No wasting honey for us.

With all the honey in the carboy, it's time to add the water. Depending on your recipe and mead-guru, you may also want to add gypsum, acid, yeast nutrients, or some other additives. You'll probably be working with wine yeast, which prefers grape juice to diluted honey. Adding yeast nutrients and adjusting the acid balance may increase the speed of your fermentation. A quick fermentation isn't really important to us, so we decided to just let the yeast adapt and figure out how to do without those things in this batch. If we were exceedingly conscientious, we would try to capture some of the yeast dregs from this batch for our next one, so as to breed yeast specifically for mead fermentation. As you might guess, we're not that conscientious; preserving yeast is a rather tedious process which we have not attempted -- dehydrated, packaged yeast being so easy to obtain. Heck, if we were conscientious, we would also have tested and recorded the specific gravity (sugar density) of the batch at this point, but we just plain forgot.

With the carboy filled, it's time to add the yeast. Cote des Blancs is supposedly a pretty robust variety of yeast that can do well for mead-making without stripping out the floral character of the honey. You rehydrate the yeast in water and then add it to the must. As you might know from reading my previous article, the Cote des Blancs actually didn't do so well. In fact, it didn't seem to be doing anything. Therefore, Fjorleif added some Premier Cuvee wine yeast the next morning. Premier Cuvee is a somewhat more vigorous yeast used to restart "stuck" fermentations, among other things.

Adding the Premier Cuvee got a swift reaction. Maybe the Cote des Blancs was just waiting for some "fertilizer" to help it along, and it fed on the incoming Premier Cuvee. Maybe the opposite occurred. Maybe the Cote des Blancs was a bad batch and the Premier Cuvee was good. It matters little why; it's the result that's important. In mere moments the mead must started bubbling vigorously. The image at left shows the state of the mead after it's been fermenting for several hours.

Making wine and mead is a wonderful hobby because it's not labor intensive. Now that this batch of mead is started, we can stick it in the closet and ignore it for a month or more. We can also start a batch of something else in between, staggering the times when we actually need to do something with the fermenting products.

That brings us to the end of the beginning for this batch of mead. Tune back in a few months when we perform the first racking.

This is Honey, which any fool can eat...

Yes, that's about my favorite line from Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.

We started a batch of mead this weekend. Somewhere around fifteen pounds of honey in about five gallons of water, with a little Cote de Blank yeast thrown in to turn sugar into alcohol. Months will pass before our little yeast ranch runs its course, and it may be years more before the finished product is actually drinkable. There will be rackings and other intermediate steps to do, as well. As of this morning, the fermentation hasn't started off as it should; Fjorleif suspects that the yeast was too old and will be rehydrating and adding a new colony today.

We took pictures of the humble beginnings of the mead, and I'll try to post them in the next few days. Maybe a few of you will decide you want to give it a try yourselves...

WoW: Photo Roundup

Since I've provided shots of my other two active characters, I figure I might as well provide one of Haokan, as well.

WoW: Had to Make Another

The Earthen Ring server is pretty busy. In fact, it was full last night, so I created yet another character on the Scarlet Crusade server. Behold Gondul...


Gondul is an undead priestess. If plans to start a couple of Order of the Stick guilds on Scarlet Crusade go as planned, she'll probably be a busy girl.

Skeptics' Circle 15

Yep, the Fifteenth Skeptics' Circle is up, and -- as usual -- I couldn't resist submitting something (not that you haven't already read my contribution if you're one of my few regular visitors).

WoW: Look at Grimbor

OK, I finally got image editing software suitable for converting World of Warcraft screen captures into something suitable for the weblog. So, without further ado, this is what Grimbor and Freki look like.

An Outright Lie

In an August 8th article in USA Today, Utah state senator D. Chris Buttars makes the startling claim that...

There is zero scientific fossil evidence that demonstrates organic evolutionary linkage between primates and man.

That's a pretty amazing claim, since a very brief search turned up a list of at least nineteen fossil finds that support the link between modern humans and earlier primates.

The rest of Buttars' article is basically a rant about how the education system is anti-religion, dragging in questions about school prayer which are irrelevant to the Evolution/ID debate. He's oblivious to the fact that the opposition to ID stems from the fraudulence of teaching a concept (ID doesn't qualify as a theory) with no scientific support as science.

It takes incredible audacity for a politician who presumably has no scientific training to bluntly deny the existence of evidence that the overwhelming majority of the scientific community recognizes. What Senator Buttars is saying is an outright lie, and it constitutes nothing short of a blatant attack on the scientific method. You know, the method that produces real, useful knowledge? Knowledge that produced modern medicine, computers, fertilizers, automobiles, satellite communications, and military equipment?

Does Senator Buttars realize that when he attacks science like this, he attacks the foundation of American prominence in the world? If we dismiss science and its methods, we turn from the path of progress and head straight into the Dark Ages. Maybe that's where Senator Buttars wants us to go, but I don't.

If you're a voter in Utah, you should be deeply concerned about this man's remarks.

Zotob Outbreak

Microsoft announced a new Windows vulnerability this morning.

A programming error in the Plug and Play (PnP) service used by Microsoft Windows machines can present a remote attacker with the opportunity to overflow a fixed length buffer, execute code on the vulnerable system and escalate privileges on the host to the extent that they could take complete control of the affected machine.

In English, some jackass hacker can use bad code in a Windows "feature" to turn your computer into a Spam generator. To fix the problem, open the Start menu on your computer, look for the Windows Update program, and run it. Don't delay either, because an automated internet program to exploit the bug is already at large.

The Sourcefire Vulnerability Research Team (VRT) has received reports of a new worm variant, known as Zotob, that makes use of the Plug-and-Play (PnP) vulnerability (MS05-039) to propagate.

Nectar of the Gods

Yes, Fjorleif and I have been busy doing arts-and-craftsy SCA work this weekend. It is with great delight that I announce the bottling of our 2005 Red Muscadine wine. As usual, we have produced about two cases of bottles, although many of the bottles are odd sizes or shapes (thanks to those Moldovan vintners who ship their products in such interesting glassware). It being on the sweet side, this wine won't really need to be aged to drink, although it is a teensy bit on the green side (yes, I am having a glass right now, thank you).

Hopefully I can get off my duff and cast some pewter for my next trick.