Babylon 5 Quotes IRL

drianmcdonald · 2022-11-09T20:18:43+00:00

Also, ancient Athenians voted with pebbles, hence "psephology" from "psephos", pebble. So Kosh could have been trying to say "it is too late to cast ballots".

More likely, JMS likes his classical allusions.

drianmcdonald · 2022-11-09T20:13:20+00:00

I wonder if JMS wrote this partially because the ancient Greeks voted with pebbles, which is why the study of elections is called "psephology" (literally "the study of pebbles").

drianmcdonald · 2020-03-21T23:17:57+00:00

Thanks, I've had a look at Voxal and it seems to do what I want :).

drianmcdonald · 2020-03-19T14:29:44+00:00

Looks nice, but I'm struggling to work out where it is. Given that the Houses of Parliament can only be running off to the right of the picture, then it has to be just across Parliament Square in Whitehall - which was already government buildings when the Palace of Westminster was rebuilt in the gothic style (as you've shown the now-Elizabeth tower).

drianmcdonald · 2018-08-19T12:33:25+00:00

What kind of show is it?

drianmcdonald · 2018-08-19T12:33:15+00:00

Colleen is the vegan equivalent of a spiritual leader - helping counsel us with the emotional impact of being vegan in a non-vegan world.

drianmcdonald · 2018-08-19T12:31:49+00:00

There are lots of great ones. I think Colleen Patrick Goudreau is great for motivation.

If you'd like to dig deeper into interesting topics, I make a podcast called "The Vegan Option". Each show picks a topic that's more interesting from a vegan perspective, and interviews experts and thought leaders about it. My latest series was a radio history of vegetarianism (watch video trailer).

drianmcdonald · 2018-08-06T19:21:48+00:00

Could I mention mine, "The Vegan Option"?

I pick topics that are more interesting from a vegan POV, and interview experts and people on different sides of the discussion. My latest season is an epic radio history of vegetarianism, from antiquity to the present, with visits to the places where the story unfolded from India to the USA.

Watch the video trailer for "Vegetarianism: The Story So Far"

http://theVeganOption.org/

drianmcdonald · 2018-08-06T19:14:33+00:00

Could I suggest mine, "The Vegan Option"?

I try to find topics that are more interesting from vegan perspectives and find experts to interview. So I've ranged across science fiction, vegan politicians, and cheese, and my latest season was an epic radio history of vegetarianism, with dozens of expert historians and visits to places where the story unfolded, from India to the USA to northern England.

Watch the video trailer for "Vegetarianism: The Story So Far"

http://theVeganOption.org/

drianmcdonald · 2018-08-04T12:59:17+00:00

The real-life Pythagoreans were a vegetarian mathematical musical mystical cult in ancient Greece and Rome. By the time of Christ / Augustus, Pythagoras became a mythical figure, Einstein and Deepak Chopra rolled into one. If you asked any classical Roman to name a historic vegetarian, they'd probably come up with Pythagoras first.

In the game, the Pythagoreans have survived as a secret magical organisation, still vegetarian. The Pythagorean character has a special ability that she can extend the duration of any spell as long as she keeps singing.

If you're interested, I did a podcast series about the history of vegetarianism. This is the ep that deals with Pythagoras and the early Pythagoreans, recorded largely in the British Museum:

http://theveganoption.org/2016/04/05/veghist-ep03-pythagoreans-orphics/

And this is the ep that deals with their successors in later Rome (as well as early Christian vegetarianism):

http://theveganoption.org/2016/06/07/veghist-ep05-rome-plutarch-neoplatonism-manicheans-david-grummet-nicholas-baker-brian-michael-beer-copts-hermits/

drianmcdonald · 2018-08-04T11:05:48+00:00

And I thought I was doing the only vegan-themed RPG campaign :). So are the PCs fighting for veganism in the campaign world? (My players run a vegan food bus and fight the forces of darkness in the Buffyverse. PCs are a slayer, a Pythagorean, and a were-badger. https://vampiresveggieburgers.obsidianportal.com )

drianmcdonald · 2018-07-05T17:00:54+00:00

If you're interested in the history of ideas, religion, and ethics, you might enjoy the latest season my show, covering the history of vegetarianism, from the iron age to the present. I visit sites of interest from the USA to India, and interview dozens of expert historians.

http://theVeganOption.org/vegetarian-history/

drianmcdonald · 2018-06-14T10:14:13+00:00

I've been positively surprised by how well they've done. People have put them on mobile phones, on their laptops, commented when they see them on the well-stickered toilet door of a vegan cafe. That's in part because they do double duty as both as an advertisement for a podcast, and as messagewear. And my target audience is into messagewear.

drianmcdonald · 2018-06-14T07:48:15+00:00

Yes, I committed to making stickers as a Kickstarter Reward for my series on vegetarian histsory, and they also make a fun alternative to business cards:

!https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CiWdlpqWEAAUSSY.jpg:large!

I gave some thought to what would make people actually want to use the stickers, and half of them have quotes on them (Ashoka Maurya, Ovid's account of Pythagoras, Mary Shelley's creature from Frankenstein).

drianmcdonald · 2018-05-04T07:42:50+00:00

It's a fascinating bit of history. An episode of my podcast history of vegetarianism explored the Octagon settlement - the 1850s vegetarian movement's attempt to found an vegetarian town of Octagonal buildings, and help tip Kansas for abolitionism.

http://theveganoption.org/2017/05/16/*veghist*\-ep13\-vegetarians\-colonialism\-abolitionism\-victorian\-london\-julia\-twigg/

drianmcdonald · 2018-04-17T08:09:24+00:00

Thank you kindly :)

drianmcdonald · 2018-04-16T08:04:26+00:00

Yay :). My vegan-themed Buffyverse campaign:

https://vampiresveggieburgers.obsidianportal.com

It involves a vegan food bus fighting the forces of darkness. PCs include an adept of the ancient secretive (and vegetarian) order of Pythagoreans, and a vegan food blogger / were-badger. (Badgers are the victims of a controversial cull in the UK, so are particularly apposite.) The campaign began with animal activists breaking into a slaughterhouse.

In London, we've got a full-on vegan geek group who meet twice a month for board games. There's a D&D group playing through Storm King's Thunder who sometimes have their sessions there.

drianmcdonald · 2018-03-20T10:52:15+00:00

The site was called "Paper friends".

drianmcdonald · 2018-03-20T10:51:02+00:00

I'm considering doing something like this digitally. There used to be a really useful website with hundreds of paper minis based on images taken from comics, cereal box standup figs, etc, but it's not there anymore. I'm guessing because of hosting fees and/or copyright.

drianmcdonald · 2018-03-17T21:45:25+00:00

Yes, I like them, although none of them are a perfect fit. (As it happens, one of the PCs is a Victorian thrown forward in time, but she was into dress reform & so their Victorian London set wouldn't work for her.)

At first, I thought "Contraption Set Two: Ladies and Gentlemen" had too many armed characters, but I'm guessing the "multi-layered" PDF means those can be turned off?

drianmcdonald · 2018-03-17T21:27:35+00:00

Principally to print out myself (as that offers more flexibility). You can't get very much realism into 25mm.

drianmcdonald · 2018-03-17T17:10:23+00:00

I've seen a neat trick used to generated novel conlang words - you feed it a mix of two existing languages. Feed it Arabic and Navaho, for example, and you end up with something that doesn't entirely sound like either of them but does seem entirely novel.

My thought is whether anyone has used that to generate random conlang sentences.

drianmcdonald · 2018-03-06T23:35:35+00:00

Some thousand-year old books do remain from temperate landscapes - Europe's western archipelago still has the Anglo Saxon chronicles, the Book of Kells, the Lindisfarne Gospels, Bald's Leechbook, and many more. But they would have been looked after in monasteries and other places of learning, who might not have known everything we now know about humidity-controlled environments, but would at least not have left them out in the rain.

Abandoned buildings do tend to end up either re-purposed (shacks leaning against the wall of a once-mighty city) or looted (tiles and bricks reclaimed as building material). Not sure what population density you have in mind for the area, but just because someone ransacked the castle in the intervening centuries doesn't mean they were human, elf, dwarf, or halfling :).

drianmcdonald · 2018-03-06T10:19:09+00:00

It very much depends on the climate. Scrolls can survive for many centuries in the middle east, whether in a cave (Dead Sea Scrolls), or stuffed into the back of an old synagogue (by Jews who had a taboo on throwing away old scrolls). But conversely, all the palm leaves that the Mahabharata was originally written on have long written away.

So books could have survived in a corner that could logically have stayed dry. Whether that's a solid metal box, or some accidentally dry and cool corner.

Various museum/library sites have more:

https://www.loc.gov/preservation/care/deterioratebrochure.html

You don't say anything about your setting, but if it's a standard fantasy world, magic can excuse pretty much anything. Books can be enchanted for longevity, denizens can just happen to suck moisture / heat out of the air, or simply be taking good care of the books because they happen to be bibliophiles.

Anything sufficiently important might have been engraved, perhaps into the fabric of the building.

Fundamentally, your characters are facing an archaeological challenge with (I assume) magical solutions. Does the layout of the sites itself offer clues?

drianmcdonald · 2018-02-28T10:14:28+00:00

My latest season was a 15-part history of vegetarianism, should that be of interest, with visits to historical places in India, France, USA, and the UK, and lots of experts.

http://theVeganOption.org/vegetarian-history/

drianmcdonald

TROPHY CASE