andrewrgross

joined 1 year ago
MODERATOR OF
[–] andrewrgross 77 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (7 children)

This is so exciting. I worked in a lab where we were trying to do this, and so I was very aware what a gold rush we were in. I'm so glad to see that it's actually happening.

This is truly a watershed moment in science. This is going to mark a major turning point in cellular medicine from theory to commonplace care. Eventually, this will end the pharma industry's insulin cash cow.

But it's even bigger than that. Because once we can engineer cells that produce a natural product, the next step is to engineer cells that produce synthetic medicines. Antidepressants, birth control, hormones, weight loss drugs, boner pills... The frontier is huge, lucrative, financially disruptive for pharma companies and life changing for patients. This is a big moment in history, and we all need to be fighting harder than ever to end for-profit healthcare. Otherwise we're going to end up with subscription licenses to our own bodies.

[–] andrewrgross 4 points 1 month ago

Oh! I was very much confusing those! Thanks for the disambiguation.

I do not know anything about the summit. If anyone goes, please report back.

[–] andrewrgross 9 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I think they posted a lot of their presentations on YouTube.

I have not. I thought about it, but I'm generally disinterested in fully remote conventions, so I haven't attended. But I like the idea.

[–] andrewrgross 1 points 1 month ago

I'm sorry, but this narrative so completely exonerates Biden and Harris for their direct responsibility for risking the election over this.

The notion that Harris is in a bind is an absolute fiction. The overwhelming majority of Americans want an arms embargo with Israel. It has broad bipartisan support, including with an overwhelming majority of Democrats. And in top of that, she chose to not even let a popular Palestinian American lawmaker from Georgia give a vetted speech endorsing her at the DNC.

She is risking this election. That is a personal choice. I hope she wins, but if she loses because she didn't have votes she made clear she doesn't want, that is not on Jill Stein, that's a Harris decision.

[–] andrewrgross 4 points 1 month ago

Finally! As an Angelino I can tell you that this took a lot of organizing and was a long time coming.

[–] andrewrgross 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The first thing you need to know is that if Trump gets elected, there is no discernible point between whether he "goes dictator" or not. People just use power and whether they're a dictator is a subjective exercise for historians.

Second: if Trump gets elected, everyone should actually be doing the same things they do if Harris gets elected, which are also the same things we should all have been doing under Biden, Trump, Obama, etc: which is building a base of local power to stand up for the most threatened among us and push back against authoritarian state power.

In practice, this means getting to know your neighbors. Knowing who serves as your mayor and city council and county council, and police chief, and local prosecutor. Then you need to organize with your local community to build political power to support democracy and oppose authoritarian power. And if you and the folks in the next town do this, you form a bloc of political will to do the same thing at the state level, and eventually the federal level.

This work still needs done if Harris wins. She is a better person than Trump, but the larger system both would command is a loaded gun. We cannot simply keep trying to keep the gun in the hands of the lesser of two evils, we need to remove the bullets. That means things like public financing of elections and ranked choice voting. It's not as dramatic as shooting politicians you don't like, but unfortunately, in the real world this is how dismantling fascism actually works.

[–] andrewrgross 3 points 2 months ago

I agree with all of that. Except for the part about possibly appealing to the anti-war voter if it would help them win. There are some -- Biden for instance -- who clearly would rather lose than do that. I don't know Harris well enough to judge.

I think it's sad that people complain when someone says that they won't vote for the lesser of two evils. It's sad because it shows a profound misunderstanding about how democracy is supposed to work, and what they're entitled to demand from their fellow citizens.

The largest voting block in every election is the depressed voter. And the reason is that our system is constructed to favor a broken two-party system even at the expense of civil participation that can solve our problems. Millions of people don't vote because they see no benefit in doing so. The problem to be solved is that the political system has failed these people, not that they aren't showing sufficient enthusiasm to do paperwork to satisfy the demands of people who feel invested in the outcome of elections.

The media falsely claims that each candidate has 47% support when really they each have about 30% support, and a larger number of people have not felt any interest in supporting either candidate. That's a massive failing in reporting and political process.

[–] andrewrgross 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I honestly disagree.

He's like Trump. There are certainly no shortage of knock-offs who are eager to try and replace him if he falls, but what we saw during the Republican primary is that none so far can quite achieve what he does. They're all lesser copies.

Netanyahu is an extraordinary politician. Not a lot of his peers have what it takes to be as effective, dangerous, and destructive as he is.

[–] andrewrgross 6 points 2 months ago

I wanna push back on that.

Israel has a population of 5.2 million people, and 2 million of them are Arab Muslims.

The representation of Israel that we see in their media and culture is a reflection of Apartheid. It erases the presence and will of literally millions of people who are the target of the brutality that we're talking about.

[–] andrewrgross 3 points 2 months ago (3 children)

A world where Trump gets elected and then assassinated is a world where JD Vance is president of an America that elected Trump and then saw him assassinated. That's how you get Gilead by 2025. That is NOT something to fantasize about. That's a hell scenario. And it's why people who think that there's any solutions to our problem that come out of a gun are -- and I mean this with all due respect -- very, very dumb.

And to put a fine point on this: it's not that this wouldn't be a bad idea if not for JD Vance. It's illustrative of how political violence in real life almost universally makes whatever problem might've motivated the violence suddenly far worse rather than better.

[–] andrewrgross 44 points 2 months ago (39 children)

You know what would to be really, REALLY uncomfortable?

If Harris loses, there's a strong chance that it might be over this terrible war. What a stupid, stupid reason to have to live through another Trump presidency.

 

Windrush is an aguamodo: a human with aquatic augmentations. She's a ship and port inspector, a proud member of the ILWU 122 (the International Longshore & Warehouse Union), and a mom. She has skills in inspection and healing. She also coaches underwater hockey at her kid's school.

Full character sheet: link

Bio:

Gillian Phong was born to Linda Phong and Melody Beridze in 2191. Linda was an aguamodo conservationist and documentarian, and Melody was a ferry pilot.

From an early age, Gillian wanted to be an aguamodo. She took swim lessons, got her scuba certification, and began breath and heart-rate training as an adolescent. In her teens, a friend of her mother Melody began taking her along on offshore windmill inspections. Soon, she added to her love of the ocean a fascination with the industries that took place within it. She went on to get her bachelor's degrees in Oceanography and in Supply Chain Infrastructure. It was during this time she met Sogobe, who she’d marry three years later in 2112.

Before she’d even graduated she’d started apprenticing with the longshoreman, and by 2114 she was a proud journeyman. She then applied for the union’s Martian cultural and tech exchange program and was accepted. She and Sogobe spent 27 months sailing out, working in Utopia Basin, and sailing back. This was where they met and fell in love with Amir. It was also during this trip that she trained as an emergency medic with the Mami Wata Medical Network.

In 2118 she gave birth to Aquemini, and in 2020 Sogobe gave birth to their second child, Hueiwoo.

814
Bring em back (slrpnk.net)
 
 

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/7878389

I’m not sure why but I’ve always found the Civil Defense to be really cool, and I often try to work it into my stories in one form or another (though none of those have been published yet). When I was helping with reorganizing FA!’s box text on the military, I thought it’d be a good addition.

It fulfills the role of being an organized, primarily civilian, primarily voluntary disaster relief organization. It has a long history in dozens of countries, in one form or another, all around the world. Its provided training, search and rescue, preventative measures, emergency response, and recovery, in everything from wars, to natural disasters, and even the Chernobyl disaster. And the different formats used in all those countries give us a historical precident for almost any organizational structure we choose. Want to make it an auxiliary of a military branch? The US did that at some points. Directly part of the military? Some Soviet countries ran it that way. A purely civilian volunteer charity? Britain has recently revived theirs and is running it like that. They can even function as a volunteer militia, like the British home guard, or the American Civil Air Patrol who Wikipedia claims once dropped bombs on axis submarines.

And they have history. People like that kind of lineage, the sense of being part of something that dug people out of rubble in the blitz, that cleared radioactive debris in Chernobyl. There's a long history of sacrifice and service to draw on. And one with comparatively few atrocities on the record.

They're even pretty cool visually. They have the iconic blue triangle motif common in most countries, and a blue and white color scheme not really associated with combat.

Whether you need someone to respond to wildfires, to assist paramedics, to build levees in a flood, or to distribute and build tornado shelters, it's not a far leap from what they've already done. Like Noir said on the discord, given the scale of the Global Climate Wars in the game’s backstory, it seems pretty likely that every government on the planet would start handing out shovels and white helmets again.

And I think it fits the anarchist influences in solarpunk. Putting some of the responsibilities and capabilities for disaster relief back in the hands of the community. It's also a decent role for a varied cast of characters in a RPG. People with regular lives and skills who can be tasked with a quest and be granted some degree of official legitimacy.

When I wrote up the Civil Defense section for the game manual, I tried to provide enough flexibility to allow players and GMs the option to adjust the local Civil Defense chapter to fit their campaign. I like the idea of modern chapters tracing their lineage to different local groups, a postwar militia here, a wildland fire fighter unit there. Like the Defense served as a way to bring various factions (especially armed ones) into the fold, providing them with improved legitimacy in trade for increasing oversight and standardization. So while they’re supplied and trained by the same organization, at the unit level they have some leeway in how they operate and what they specialize in, which can conveniently fit any campaign that wants to use them.

 
5
submitted 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by andrewrgross to c/fullyautomatedrpg
 

Mayhem is a super-tough MMA fighter anarchist. He's very into Anarchy. If you have a friend who is really into anarchy (and/or MMA), we've got the premade character for them!

Link to full character sheet

Joaquin Krikorian was born to Melissa Krikorian and Alexandar Keith in Slab City in 2093. Melissa was a programmer and musician, and Alexandar was a busker, traditional story-teller, mime, and philosophy professor at Reed College.

Joaquin’s family split their time between Portland and Tijuana for most of his childhood. In 2108, when he was 15, Melissa’s band was eager to see and perform on Mars, and at the same time the Reed Philosophy Department was looking for professor to visit and attend a philosophy conference. They invited Joaquin, but he preferred to stay with family friends in Los Angeles. He spent this time dating, and getting to know himself and the land of Southern California. He delighted in sports from a young age (a passion that would be hard to satisfy during a trip to Mars) and began to get increasingly active in martial arts, along with meditation and psionic mental discipline training.

In 2111 Joaquin got his endurance upgrade mod, and a year later got a brain trauma resistance mod. Joaquin reunified with his mother when she returned that year, though she returned without Alexandar, who stayed on Mars for another Martian year. By 2113 Joaquin was 20 and starting to compete seriously in mixed martial arts when he wasn’t doing Ayahuasca with his girlfriend Nahr. Mayhem (as he’d come to be known in the ring and out) and Nahr then accompanied Melissa on a musical tour of Patagonia, continuing to fight and love and expand his mind, both with books and also with drugs.

Alexandar returned to Earth in 2114. The family made Portland their home base for the next few years. Over this time, Mayhem got his short-duration athletics boost mod and his armored skin mod. Mayhem got more active in social organizing with the Oregon Anarchist Party. In 2117 Mayhem and Nahr adopted a young Canaan dog named Poodle.

In 2119 Mayhem followed Nahr back to Los Angeles for her to join a prestigious documentary film production collective. Mayhem decided to try serving their community as a protector, but after a few months with the LA Protector League there was a mutual agreement that it wasn't a great fit. Now he serves as a protector with the more ideologically aligned Free Protector Network.

 

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/7767375

@sarenaulibarri@wandering.shop is teaching a seminar that looks very cool. I'm excited to hear what she's saying. Ticket start at $25, but are on a generous sliding scale.

I'm teaching a seminar for Clarion West on April 4th! Drawing on my experience as an anthology editor for World Weaver Press and a story reviewer for Imagine 2200, I'll go over some of the most common issues that I see in climate fiction slush piles.

#solarpunk #lunarpunk #ClimateFiction #ClimateWriters #ScienceFiction #SciFiWriters #ClarionWest #WritingClass #Imagine2200

https://clarionwest.app.neoncrm.com/np/clients/clarionwest/eventList.jsp

 

@sarenaulibarri@wandering.shop is teaching a seminar that looks very cool. I'm excited to hear what she's saying. Ticket start at $25, but are on a generous sliding scale.

I'm teaching a seminar for Clarion West on April 4th! Drawing on my experience as an anthology editor for World Weaver Press and a story reviewer for Imagine 2200, I'll go over some of the most common issues that I see in climate fiction slush piles.

#solarpunk #lunarpunk #ClimateFiction #ClimateWriters #ScienceFiction #SciFiWriters #ClarionWest #WritingClass #Imagine2200

https://clarionwest.app.neoncrm.com/np/clients/clarionwest/eventList.jsp

 

This company is proposing a design in which magnets are used to repel the train car away from standard iron railroad tracks, and small side-wheels keep the skids aligned. It doesn't use electromagnetic alternation to drive the car, it's just essentially an ultra-low friction alternative to wheels.

Interesting idea. I'm naturally skeptical, but I find the idea neat. I have no idea how you use passive magnets to create a repulsion force, but as the poets say, "Magnets: how the fuck do they work?"

 
6
Developer meeting updates! (self.fullyautomatedrpg)
submitted 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by andrewrgross to c/fullyautomatedrpg
 

Recap from our developer meeting this morning:

I) The core manual:

  • We're going to try to cut down the editors note to one page
  • We're all going to go through and copy edit each section for final release. When you're satisfied, Comment that you're signing off on the section.
  • Once everyone's signed off on each section, we'll make separate documents for the major sections. That means a PDF of a quickstart; rule book; world guide; and player/GM resources, plus character sheets
  • Then post it on Itch.io and DriveThurRPG!

II) Campaign book:

  • Set it aside until the manual is done, then basically do the same thing for it. Try to finish by mid April.

III) Promotion

  • Until the manual and campaign release, keep doing what we're doing: talk about it on social media and such.
  • After the game releases, directly contact a large list of writers, podcasters, game critics, etc. and make sure we've told anyone who is interested.
  • Target timeframe: April and May

IV) After that

  • We'll see. I'd like to get a bit of distance. Take a break and see what I feel like doing.
  • Future steps are obvious: more playable adventures and the space expansion.
  • If anyone else wants to be lead dev, I'll eagerly support a change in dev group leadership.

Share your thoughts!

7
submitted 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by andrewrgross to c/fullyautomatedrpg
 

One of the devs has been filling in a table of random NPCs. They've made a few dozen, and they're already really incredible in their variety and fit into the setting. You can see a handful of them below.

I thought I'd share some and solicit and try to crowdsource some more. More NPC suggestions would be highly appreciated!

...

Chorus of Wires, a synth who cares for the Vivarium at Lincoln Heights. They are fans of unusual semi-edible fruits.

Jumping Colour, often found with one of her long haired dogs at the Paws Salon on Clifford Street. She does animal work sessions at Preschools all over the city.

Port Fraxinius, runs the haberdashery on the corner of Gateway Boulevard. He’s a good listener, although sometimes secrets bubble up at his Poet’s corner performances

Garter Buffman. Involved in several camping and outdoor clubs in Azusa. Unusually suntanned for a non-humanoid synth.

Rhussel Olean. Spends three days a week on his Bike Kitchen drifting up and down Adobe Avenue. Is also Building resident union rep for the ‘Production artists and designers bikeshop’

Skates von Spikes. Knowledgeable manager of Clean Sheets Drug Space at Del Ray. Off duty she can be found at her building resident union, or the Baha’i temple.

Questionable Skunk. Operates out of a room opposite the Sculpture Garden, Cosmo Street. He doesn’t ask many questions. He doesn't welcome them either.

Cactus Bronzefinger. Performance set builder at the FabboWoodo workshop, West LA. He has a couple of lemur themed augmentations, that he claims are helpful backstage.

Punchcard Stipa. A synth that uses ‘his’ pronouns. He helps out at the Thermophile Spa, Hollywood hills, and has been adapting his chassis to act as a safety officer. That’s an ambition currently unfufilled.

Diskrhust. They split their time between the animal shelter, teaching self defence at the local recreation hall, and monitoring orbital shifts at the Union of Skylands on Norwalk Boulevard.

Coyote Ace. A name they might yet grow out of, Coyote is at highschool, but has their eye on a empty space on Holt Avenue that they dream of running their own wired haberdashery from

TurbineThyme is a synth who lives in the basement below New Theater on New Avenue. She’s still exploring what her body can do, and where that might lead her.

Bolt Chitalpa. A coder by arrangement on Hilliard Avenue. He also writes periodically for the Circle of Nations.

Chappie Arral. Purveyor of soap and other homegood chemicals off Whittier. He attends a church of latter-day saints group that meet early mornings in the park.

5 Steps, as he is known, is a wandering preacher, tracing a route between the Hindu Temple, Baha’i church and Protestant Chapel in Culver City.

Ohm Tatsoi is a practicing doctor and muslim. They are currently feuding with the Vivarium staff over alleged class snobbery.

Friendly Marguerita is a synth and coach at a boxing gym at Culver City. They are studied at projecting an authoritative calm amongst angry teenagers.

EriDuct is a surprisingly old synth usually found holding court at Poet’s corner, Torrance. On a good day, she’ll tell you about her old lives.

Hoof Rust is a kite dancer synth, usually found high above Altadena. His broadcasts on high altitude biochemistry are well respected, although his body is far too large to allow access to a regular lecture theater.

Slick Basil. Street seller of whatever needs selling, they sometimes can be found with a flower tray outside the Hindu temple in Agoura Hills, although just as often selling chits at the Union of Skylands, or mouthwash at Granry16.

... and so on.

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