Just finished running what was probably my best session of Star Trek Adventures yet. Definitely learning some interesting lessons about the game, its systems, and perhaps more importantly, the challenges of running a game in the Star Trek setting. Short thread.

Tonight's episode revolved around the ship's Klingon doctor & Trill ensign being recruited to fly a cloaked Bird of Prey deep into Cardassian territory to retrieve a defector. There was deception, cultural conflict, and a moral dilemma that saw the doctor go against his beliefs.

I did two things differently in crafting tonight's episode than I've done previously. First, I made it clear to my players that there was an A-plot (the Klingon story) and a B-plot (involving an away team that got left behind on a planet), & that the A-plot would get more scenes.

I also made it clear that I was going to expect the B-plot players drive a lot of the scene creation and setup, and that they should see the goal of those scenes as fleshing out their Focuses, Values, and character histories.

Second, I crafted the plot using something similar to the new edition of Legend of the 5 Rings' brilliant-but-woefully-under-discussed Discord mechanic, where you create complications that put two players' beliefs in conflict with one another.

https://t.co/8LfEjakFw6

🌟🌟 Celebrities riding bikes: a thread 🌟🌟

Justin Theroux

Sarah Jessica Parker (bonus points for a hire bike!)

Pippa Middleton

Kendall Jenner

Last night I watched a video where boog bois in gun-themed Aloha shirts show off their weapon stash in a late night tv "Top X" list format -- so that you don't have to.

Observations…

#USradicals

1) If shit gets weird & they ditch the loud shirts, they'll be somewhat identifiable by their distinct choice in guns & gear. They like FNs, short AR-style carbines & pistols, & glocks. Everything uses the most common ammo types & clips.

#nsag #vnsa

2) Why those guns? Because these guys are like analytical engineer-type gamers with a serious survivalist bent in their thinking. Everything is optimized for weight & interchangeability with their own & hypothetical enemy weapons.
#inaugurationthreats

3) Basically, they're NERDS applying zombie apocalypse logic to a hypothetical civil war. They even use the word "combos" (gamer slang) when talking about which guns to include in your kit.
#domesticarmedactors #gamer

4) Other crossovers with gamer culture abound. Goofy cartoon unicorn patches, thick glasses, and pop culture tats. They're potentially violent non-state actors, but they also clearly watch Adventure Time or something.
#geek

Figuring out who to listen to and what's right/wrong in the world of social media, podcasters, and experts of everything is difficult.

As a scientist and writer here's1 trick & 6 lessons on figuring out if a writer, podcaster, or expert should be listened to or not. 👇👇👇

First, the quick way:
See what an expert says about something in an area you have expertise in.

For example, I search for where they talk about exercise or athletic performance.

If they are wrong but confident in it. It tells you that something is wrong in their thinking

They overindex on superficial understanding and don't do the deep work.

It doesn't mean they'll be wrong on everything, but it should make you question whenever the person ventures away from an area where they've had 'skin in the game' success in.

A Christmas Eve Confession & Absolution

Holy God, as Christmas Eve dawns
we find little joy in our hearts.
We have lost so many things
and given up so much
in trying to protect the world around us
and the loved ones we hold so dear
but cannot hold.

None of us are at our best.
We are frustrated with ourselves,
with our family, with all our fellow children of God.
Our spirits are faint and fraying.
Yet still, you are on your way.
Just as you came at Christmas,
you will now not leave us
without mercy and comfort.

We cry out:
Come, O come, Immanuel!

Holy God,
Our holiday meals are made with tears
and our gifts wrapped with tired hands.
We are struggling to stay connected
in this time when the safety of all
requires distance from each other.
All around your beloved world, too many tables
will have empty seats at Christmas.

What should be a time of celebration
only feels like mourning.
Yet still, you are on your way.
Just as you were born and laid in a manger,
you will find us not where we think we should be
but right where we are.

It’s thirty years since The KLF’s 3am Eternal hit Number One so I suppose it must also be about thirty years since 13-year-old me met The KLF at Top Of The Pops.

I’d decided they were my favourite band a couple of years earlier and at that point I hadn’t really grasped the fact that most of the music they were making in 1989/1990 was for people either at raves or coming down after raves.

To be frank I made a complete nuisance of myself. Often after school I’d phone their PRs Mick and Pam, or their radio plugger Scott, or their distributor James, and later on Cress and Sallie at their office in Brixton.

I must have been extremely annoying but they’d make time for a chat and sometimes send me photos and white labels and merch. Sometimes they even phoned me. I once came home from school to find my dad on the phone to Bill Drummond.

At one point someone mentioned in passing that on my 13th birthday the band had toyed with the idea of driving their famous but increasingly dilapidated car, Ford Timelord, to my house in East Grinstead and dumping it outside. (?)

1. Is @FoxNews" giving aid and comfort" to insurrectionists? Can the sponsors, hosts, directors, producers, writers, managers, and directors be charged under 18 U.S. Code § 2383 - Rebellion or insurrection?

#jaeyong AU — 𝑪𝑶𝑴𝑷𝑳𝑬𝑻𝑬 ༄
⠀
⠀ ❥ ҉ 𝐶𝑜𝑚𝑝𝑙𝑒𝑡𝑒 — 𝐎𝐍𝐅
0:45 ———⊙————— 3:45
↻ ◁ II ▷ ↺
⠀

↳ wherein jaehyun is the new boy at school and loner taeyong falls head over heels.

𝐃𝐈𝐒𝐂𝐋𝐀𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐑:
this story belongs to me. the characters used obviously are not, and any occurrence in this story that could relate to any real life event is purely coincidental. I also DO NOT own ANY of the photos used in this AU.

now, I'm sure you all know this but:
𝟏. do not comment, just quote.
𝟐. do not copy or steal.
𝟑. ignore the timestamps.
𝟒. ignore any typos I make.
𝟓. I am from Australia so I may use some Aussie slang in my writing.
𝟔. 𝑒𝑛𝑗𝑜𝑦!

𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆!
there will be angst. if the story triggers you in any negative way, do NOT continue. this is not a horror nor thriller, but inside may contain certain elements that may be triggering for some.

I've lately seen folks on here say they've felt guilty for getting books (mine and other authors) from the library, or people insinuating some authors might be against libraries. This is nonsense, and here's a thread on how using your local library supports authors.

It's easy to see why people would think, at first glance, that getting books from the library is depriving a writer of their dues. It's free, after all! You're not paying anything, so how would the author be getting paid anything for your reading? This is a misconception.

While it IS true that, in the US, authors are not directly paid each time someone checks out a book, they DO benefit, in multiple concrete ways.

The first, and most direct, being that libraries and library systems BUY the books for their collection. If a book looks to be popular, they buy in bulk! If a book *becomes* popular (i.e. lots of people checking it out), they will continue to buy more copies of that book.

If the library subscribes to a curation service (like the Junior Library Guild), a book is bought for a library system in large quantities before the book is even released. This is a big deal, especially for new and unknown authors (it's why we get excited when we're JLG picks)

Re-reading this piece,

“After communism fell, the promises of western liberalism to transform central and eastern Europe were never fully realized – and now we are seeing the backlash.”
https://t.co/rnlRNa72fd

“Across central and eastern Europe, many of the democracies that emerged at the end of the cold war have been transformed into conspiracy-minded majoritarian regimes.”

No single factor can explain the simultaneous emergence of authoritarian anti-liberalisms in so many differently situated countries.

Yet resentment at liberal democracy’s canonical status and the politics of imitation in general has played a decisive role.

The very conceit that “there is no other way” provided an independent motive for the wave of populist xenophobia and reactionary nativism that began in central and eastern Europe, and is now washing across much of the world.

The enthusiastic copying of western models, accompanied as it was by the evacuation of Soviet troops from the region, was initially experienced as liberation.

But after two troubled decades, the downsides of this politics of imitation became too obvious to deny.

On this day in 2008, one of our favourite movies, TEETH, was released. This horror movie centres around a young woman who has "vagina dentata" - teeth in her vagina. Vagina dentata myths is common, appearing in South America, India, Japan and Māori mythologies. Here's one myth...

So, you all know and love the movie Moana, right? And you all know and love the demigod Māui? Well, Disney and Lin Manuel Miranda skipped a particular Māui story in the "You're Welcome" song. It involves vagina dentata.

According to Māori legend, Māui tried to secure immortality for humans (you're welcome!) by "reversing" birth via the goddess of death, Hine-nui-te-pō.

Hine-nui-te-pō is described as having "in the place where men enter her she has sharp teeth of obsidian and greenstone." This did not put Māui off (you're welcome!)

His plan was to enter the sleeping goddess via her vagina and exit through her mouth. He found her sleeping with her legs open and, seizing the opportunity, turned himself into a worm (you're welcome!)

Soul ( AThread)
Life's biggest questions | Meaning, purpose, living

(1/n)
Soul is a story about Joe Gardner, a middle school band teacher, whose life hasn't necessarily gone the way he thought it would. He dreams of one day becoming a professional Jazz musician. It is what he always wanted in his whole life.

(2/n)
And just when he gets the break of a life time to finally fulfill his dream, an untimely accident separates his soul from his body.

(3/n)
As he begins to preced to 'The great beyond' Gardner skips to 'The great before' a world where souls develop personalities and traits before being sent off to earth. There, Gardner must work with 'soul 22' a soul with a dim concept of life.

(4/n)
To help '22' find passion, and in the process discover what it means to have a soul. Passion and obsession are two sides of the same spectrum. It is very easy for one to titre from one end to the other. Their ability to take in the beauty is the greatest inspiration.

1/ I enjoy rereading books that provided me a lot of insights and ideas on the first go around.

just reread this, and I highly recommend reading it if you haven't

2/ The author, Paul Kalanithi, was a neurosurgeon and writer who got a stage IV lung cancer diagnosis when only in his mid-30s. He died at age 37 in 2015, but not before writing "When Breath Becomes Air."

It's filled with insights that perhaps only a dying man could see clearly

3/ “There is a moment, a cusp, when the sum of gathered experience is worn down by the details of living. We are never so wise as when we live in this moment.”

And

“If the unexamined life was not worth living, was the unlived life worth examining?”

4/ But, as I remembered from my first reading, it was his last passage that took my breath away. Here it is:

"Everyone succumbs to finitude. I suspect I am not the only one who reaches this pluperfect state. Most ambitions are either achieved or abandoned; either way,

5/ they belong to the past. The future, instead of the ladder toward the goals of life, flattens out into a perpetual present. Money, status, all the vanities the preacher of Ecclesiastes described hold so little interest: a chasing after wind, indeed."

This is a thread I have been wanting to write, but it needed to come from a place of logic and truth and not just words. It is yet another one of my Christianity threads. However, this one will really focus on politicians that use Christianity to attain power.

We have politicians who in one tweet say very divisive words like “radical left” and their next tweet is a Bible quote, think Rubio. I have explained in the past that many Americans call themselves Christians based upon the fact that that they are white and American only. “I am

an American and a proud Christian.” This is Christian nationalism. They don’t actually follow Jesus or what he represents. It’s the same as someone who is born in Iraq, they are Muslim based upon it being the predominant religion of the country. There are those that practice

their religion and others that do not.
But what I want to highlight is the evil that comes from those who only use a religion for power. And it really highlights two things.
1. Evil using religion
2. The literal meaning of the Bible.
Now theologians and Biblical scholars

state that the Bible isn’t literal. It’s what they study. But we have evangelicals who say that it is a literal word of God. But there are issues here. They don’t take the whole Bible literal, they choose parts to take literally. But here’s the issue. If these people say we must