Humble Bundle

Do you want to support DRM-free cross-platform artistic and intriguing games?

The latest humble bundle looks really good (via Liv) http://www.humblebundle.com/

Pay as little or as much as you want, and choose how much goes to the developers, how much to charity. All games advertised to work on Windows, Linux, Mac and Android.

I've only actually played one or two of the games, but they were both beautiful and worthwhile.

I really should remember to buy humble bundles more often: simply the work of finding attractive indy-ish games that work on my PC without me having to go looking for them is worth an awful lot.

Israel military and Hamas live-tweet fighting in Gaza Strip

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/15/israel-hamas-twitter-media-war

Israel military and Hamas live-tweet new fighting in Gaza Strip.

The future is really scary.

Police and Crime Commissioner

Most people I know are rightly extremely cynical about the PCC elections -- certainly the election seems to have been very weird, with almost no explanation of what they will do, or any publicity about it.

However, I realise I don't know much about what they'll actually do. The idea of having elected civilian oversight of the police seems... reasonable, especially given recent complaints about some police behaviour. What was the situation before? In what ways is the new situation worse (taking as read that electing everyone and his dogcatcher, while laudable in spirit, wouldn't work in practice)?

A cynical theory I've heard is that the government can't afford to fund police forces in their current state, and wants to shuffle off the responsibility for cuts or unpopular outsourcing to PCCs. Is there any truth in that?

Sorting-hat Vorkosigan Saga characters

Recently Liv linked to a discussion about hat-sorting[1] Vorkosigan Saga characters. I was really interested, although also interested to see I often disagreed.

The houses

First, some clarifications on how I see the houses as Rowling seemed to intend them or how they make the most sense, rather than as they come across in the books.

Gryffindor is the "good" house, but if you eschew a moral judgement, you can say they're defined by bravery/impulsiveness and loyalty/dogmatism.

Slytherin is the "evil" house, but if you eschew moral judgement, you could say they're the house of ambition and forming social alliances. I think "in-group-ness" can be very slytherin, but I don't think it has to be racial-based even though that was the primary division represented at the time Harry Potter was at school.

Ravenclaw is easy: good or bad, they're motivated by understanding.

Hufflepuff is often seen as the "other" house, but that's unfair, they seem defined by reliability (seen positively as loyalty or trustworthyness or negatively as ploddingness) and nurturingness. You can have bad-ass hufflepuffs, see below :)

[1] what's the appropriate verb here?

Miles Vorkosigan

Someone said that Miles was Gryffindor and Naismith was Slytherin. I think that's backwards: Naismith is the most charge-in-and-damn-the-consequences part of Miles, if anything, even more devoted to "do the right thing at all costs" than Miles is. Hence Gryffindor.

Whereas Miles is good, but he's ambitious good. He doesn't just want to do something good, he wants to change the world for good. He talks everyone into his way of doing things, and makes friends with everyone[2]. Ambition, networking, and silver-tongue, that is so Slytherin in a good way.

[2] I thought Slughorn was a missed opportunity, because he tries to make friends, but is way too slimy. I think it still counts as Slytherin if you make lots of friends and genuinely like them.

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