Chocolate Chip Cookies

31 Tuesday Oct 2023

Posted by in Baking, Food, Recipe

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A low carbohydrate (although not necessarily low calorie) cookie. Please note that this recipe depends on a number of ingredients that you may need to mail order. This is a 1-1-1 ratio cookie (1 part sugar, 1 part fat, 1 parts flour), and will therefore spread when baking. This recipe makes about a dozen cookies.

Ingredients

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 350F (or 325F if using convection)
  2. Combine the water, vanilla, baking soda, and flax meal into a small bowl and mix well
  3. Cream the sugar into the Ghee
  4. Blend the flax mixture into the creamed sugar
  5. Blend in the flour until fully incorporated
  6. Add in the chocolate chips
  7. Using two small spoons, separate the dough into roughly a dozen equal sized balls. Then use your hands to turn them into small flat cylinders.
  8. Place the cookies on a cookie sheet, keeping them well separated.
  9. Bake the cookies for ~8-9 minutes. The cookies are done (but will be soft) when the edges are just browned.
  10. Let cool. Or eat immediately. Chocolate chip cookies are like that.

Almond / Raspberry Thumbprint Cookies

22 Sunday Oct 2023

Posted by in Baking, Food, Recipe

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A low carbohydrate (although not necessarily low calorie) cookie. Please note that this recipe depends on a number of ingredients that you may need to mail order. This is a 1-1-2 ratio cookie (1 part sugar, 1 part fat, 2 parts flour), and will therefore be soft but will not spread when baking. This recipe makes about a dozen cookies.

Ingredients

Instructions

  1. Combine the water, vanilla, and almond extract into a small bowl
  2. Cream the sugar into the Ghee
  3. Blend the water and extracts into the creamed sugar
  4. Blend in the flours until fully incorporated
  5. Shape the dough into a small cylinder (the wider you make the cylinder, the larger but fewer cookies you will end up with), and wrap it in plastic wrap or equivalent
  6. Place the dough in the freezer to firm up (~10 minutes)
  7. Preheat the oven to 350F (or 325F if using convection)
  8. Cut the dough into slices (cutting across the long axis, so that you end up with many small discs rather than a few long oblongs).
  9. Placing each slice onto a firm surface (cutting board or plate), gently press down in the center with your thumb, while using your other hand to help the disc hold its shape and not split
  10. Using a spoon, fill the indent with the raspberry jam, and place on a baking sheet
  11. Bake the cookies for ~12-14 minutes. The cookies are done (but will be soft) when the top edges are just browned.
  12. Let cool.

Glass Ball or Rubber Ball

13 Friday Jan 2023

Posted by in Games, RPG

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There are terms for decisions that are often used in business discussions in tech companies in America. Sometimes they are referred to as “one-way door versus two-way door”, other times as “glass ball or rubber ball”. In either case, the meaning is the same. “Is this a decision we can undo later?”

You may see where this is going, if you paid attention to the tags on this post.

First, a few disclaimers. I am not a lawyer, so I am leaning on articles written by those who are. And while I have spent decades around the table top industry, it has never been my livelihood. Nor have I ever published anything under the OGL.

Last week, word leaked of a revision to the OGL from Wizards of the Coast. The most significant part of this was that Wizards intended to revoke (sorry, “deauthorize”) the 1.0a OGL that has been in use for a couple of decades. For an analysis of this by an actual domain expert, look to this article by Kit Walsh

Today, Wizards released a non-apology-apology which, frankly, isn’t that believable on its face. You’ll note that no one is actually taking responsibility for the errors directly, and the spin of “Our plan was always to solicit the input of our community before any update to the OGL” just doesn’t pass the smell test.

I’m going to assume you’ve read the piece by Kit Walsh linked above, because I’m not a lawyer. But, to summarize my understanding, the OGL largely gave publishers rights they already had, and required them to give up some rights they may have had. So, what, precisely, was in it for the publishers using it?

In general, in a lawsuit in America, each side pays their own legal expenses, win or lose. There are exceptions, but they are edge cases. So even if you are within your rights, the cost of establishing that in court can be prohibitive. In effect, the biggest benefit of the OGL was security, the knowledge that this was absolutely authorized and you weren’t going to have to spend far more money than you ever made on a product to defend your right to have printed it in the first place.

The actions Wizards took broke the trust in that security. And that’s a one way door. The glass ball is in shards on the floor, and it looks like the industry will adopt a different license. Who would tie themselves to a business partner they cannot trust, when there are other options?

How badly will this hurt the D&D One (which some angry fans have started referring to as “D and Done”) release is still to be seen. But with the loss of at the very least a significant part of the third party ecosystem support, significant negative brand publicity, and an enormous amount of free publicity for their smaller competitors, they certainly did a lot of damage to themselves.

Santa Claus Considered Harmful

13 Tuesday Dec 2022

Posted by in Personal

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To be more specific, the myth of Santa Claus is harmful. The notion that there is some unbiased third party doling out gifts purely on merit is excruciatingly harmful. Because it is a lie.

For many people, it is a harmless lie. A little shared mythology that you tell to children to try to encourage them to be better.

Those people don’t have to explain to children why Santa likes the rich kids better. Worse, why Santa likes the naughty rich kids better.

The truth is better. Someone cared enough about you to get you a gift, and this was a gift they could afford. Yeah, it sucks that good kids get little while there are entitled little monsters with more presents than they know what to do with. Welcome to the world.

I’ve said it before, the world isn’t fair.

You, the back, stop yelling “Scrooge”. I heard you the first time. Let me finish.

There is a flip to that. It’s on us to make it fair. Or at least, to make it better.

Because while the myth of Santa Claus is harmful, actually being Santa Claus is amazing. And I’m not just saying that because I’m aging into the Santa Claus phenotype.

Right now, if you are in the United States, I guarantee that there are lots of people trying to make sure that we can get presents (and nice presents, good presents, not the regifted chips and salsa bowl that no one has wanted for the last 15 years) to both children and adults who can’t otherwise afford it. There are large organizations running toy drives. There are gift trees in conjunction with local charities, trying to line up wishes with helpers.

Hell, I live on a small rural island, and I’m aware of two different efforts, one which matches specific families with people who can afford to help, and another which is in the process of setting up a “store” (no money required) of gifts so that people in need can come in and pick the right present to give their loved ones.

So if you can (and I stress, if you can afford to, don’t hurt yourself out of guilt here), I’m here to tell you that being Santa is a balm for the soul. Each gift really is doubled. Once for the recipient, who gets something nice in what is, to be fair, a pretty shitty decade. And once for the person who gets to present it to them, and who doesn’t have to dread explaining why there isn’t anything nice for them to give this year.

We can’t fix everything. But everyone can help fix something.

And I fucking love being Santa Claus.