Holidays: The Decembering (2019 Edition)

First of all, I want to thank everyone that contributed, watched, and bullshitted with us for the Team Sensible Shoes Extra Life campaign, playing Shadows of Brimstone for a bit over 26 hours spread over two days. It was fun, still challenging to our increasingly old bodies, and we hit our fundraising goal. Again, thank …

DEFCON 2018 After Action Report

[looks at calendar] Well, this is only four months late. Been too busy having other adventures. Sorry about that. TL;DR version: I enjoyed the hell out of smart people sharing problems and solutions that I am not directly responsible for doing something about. Somebody else’s problems are the best problems. So, as I mentioned previously, …

Extra Life and The Decembering 2018 Update

First off, as my final shill before the big event and then I’ll hush about it, tomorrow I will be using the last part of my Birthdaytide Fortnight to participate in the Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals EXTRA LIFE 24 hour gaming marathon. Starting at 8am tomorrow and ending at 8am on Armistice Day, I will …

Meet Herr Direktor: DEFCON & National Atomic Testing Museum

First, the business matters. Because DEFCON makes things tricky, production of this window is now closed and the production slots for the window ending August 18th are now up for order on the website. At DEFCON proper, the BBotE Ambassador of Flagstaff (Dan Nowak) and the former ambassador of Chicago (Bill Weiss) will be there …

The Lost Cybernetics Safety Chapter

If you weren’t already aware, one of my many roles in life is as the science/history/weirdness consultant for the comic Atomic Robo. My reward for this is that my alter-ego, known as Action Phil, appears in the comic as Atomic Robo’s “heart” specialist, radiation safety officer, and government liaison. (really, my reward is that I get …

Twitter Invisibility – A Customer Service Tale

I will start with the dispassionate assessment: for a period of no less than 8 days, my @funranium twitter account was functioning in a very limited visibility status and then it returned to full functionality. I have no idea why it happened or why it stopped. To roll it back to the larger picture, this …