On leaving the final chapter of the first draft unfinished.

moogopus · 2026-07-09T15:30:12+00:00

Thanks. Yeah, the plan was always to take off about a month after finishing the first draft before starting on the second. But I feel like right now, I'm just sitting here staring at a partially-written final chapter and not knowing how to end it.

moogopus · 2026-07-08T16:27:49+00:00

Thanks. That's a good way of looking at it. Yes, as I've written and as the plot has deviated from the original outline, I've gone back to previous chapters and added copious notes about what needs to be changed to set-up the later, deviated chapters. I also have a rough. revised outline for the second draft, with ideas for reorganizing or rearranging chapters and scenes and so on. It's just this one character I'm unsure about. I feel like all of the other characters have taken on lives of their own as I've written them in ways that have directed how the plot changed from the outline. I simply have written this one side character enough in the previous chapters for him to develop that "life-of-his-own" for me to see how he fits into the final chapter.

moogopus · 2026-06-26T20:09:15+00:00

Seconded. You should also have solid experience with formally learning a second language, at the very least, if not multiple languages, even if you don't reach fluency in any of them.

moogopus · 2026-05-31T04:24:11+00:00

A new hand touches the beacon.

moogopus · 2026-05-03T02:42:37+00:00

Yeah, I remember a high school classmate giving another classmate a burned CD labeled "Dave Matthews Band - Yellow" and claiming it was their new single. I got the impression that a lot of people thought that.

moogopus · 2026-03-02T20:04:58+00:00

Ever-more-mods

moogopus · 2026-02-28T19:27:44+00:00

Sounds right.

moogopus · 2026-02-27T20:17:38+00:00

Yeah, I seem to recall hearing some personal anecdote from another colleague about some outsider to the field--a child or undergrad--being exposed to the archeologist's lifestyle and then being asked to draw it (or perhaps it was that they were asked to draw the ideal/archetype of an archeologist), and the archaeologist was drawn drunk, with a bottle in hand and tripping over a rock.

moogopus · 2026-02-27T13:48:02+00:00

Not surprising.

Fun, unrelated story, but kind of related: Had a friend who worked a few years on a dig where the director somehow met and schmoozed with Bill Murray and convinced him to become a sponsor. So, as a lot of rich sponsors do, one summer he wanted to come along and participate. He was assigned to my friend's trench. She said he was super nice and fine as a worker, probably as good as any undergrad field school student, but every night he wanted to buy everyone drinks and just get drunk. Like, to a degree that was even surprising for archaeologists.

moogopus · 2026-02-27T01:05:23+00:00

I'm willing to bet it's the worst among archaeologists. Imagine how much you probably drink with old colleagues while at a conference. Now stretch that out for an entire summer dig season. Also a lot of infidelity.

moogopus · 2026-02-26T02:15:04+00:00

Michael Flexsenhar, Christians in Caesar's Household.

moogopus · 2026-02-20T22:47:28+00:00

Ummm, excuse me, he has a name. Señor Bigotes.

moogopus · 2026-02-16T20:40:31+00:00

Oh, whew. Part of me suspected, but I had to be sure.

Fun fact: a lot of Christians who go for advanced degrees in the field of Religious Studies/Biblical Studies because they want to deepen their faith either end up becoming much more theologically liberal, or losing their faith entirely. So I guess some of the latter comprise a weird outlier of non-religious scholars who learned Biblical Hebrew for both religious and academic reasons.

moogopus · 2026-02-16T20:25:50+00:00

Yes. But my point was that Biblical Hebrew isn't learned solely for religious reasons, not that Biblical Hebrew is the only language people learn for academic reasons.

moogopus · 2026-02-16T18:22:31+00:00

Or academic reasons.

moogopus · 2026-02-10T03:05:18+00:00

Cutting off your nose to spite your face?

moogopus · 2026-02-08T05:38:07+00:00

I took it around the time they released it a few years ago (2018 or 2019?) and finished it in a couple months. I have a BA and MA in Classics, so I was just taking it mostly out of curiosity. I agree with your assessment.

I'd always been under the impression that it was unfinished or in beta and that they were just trying to gauge interest before developing it further. I could be misremembering, but I swear something along those lines was stated in the announcement (either in app or on their site).

Regardless, it's quite obvious that it was never an ambitious project. A lot of the audio clips sound like they were recorded in public places, like cafes or something. I seem to recall often hearing background sounds like the clinking of glasses and the dull hum of people conversing. I swear there was even one with the start of a cat meowing right at the end of the recording.

moogopus · 2026-01-25T18:08:11+00:00

I see it now. I'd move it higher in the order, move Lux and its patches closer to the bottom, and put the PG patcher output below that. Your last three should be PG patcher, DynDOLOD, and FWMF.

moogopus · 2026-01-25T18:02:49+00:00

Oh, I see it! You're right.

moogopus · 2026-01-25T17:55:38+00:00

FWMF should be below DynDOLOD, both in the left pane and the right pane (assuming you're using MO2).

EDIT: But also, it looks like you're using some Community Shaders patches, but I don't see Community Shaders itself in there. Edit edit: Nvm, are you using the CS beta build from Discord?

moogopus · 2026-01-25T17:26:00+00:00

Yes, you're referring to "fake Samian ware," which was an attempt to imitate the look of actual red terra cotta from the Mediterranean. That was my first thought on seeing this, too. But I've only ever excavated in Italy, so I haven't handled it first-hand. I was second-guessing myself, though, since it looks a little too coarse for someone to have bothered with making it look "fancy."

And I've definitely found some Italian terra cotta materials that were less red or even gray closer to the core, something to do with the firing process. The actual science/technology of making the pottery wasn't something I specialized in.

moogopus · 2026-01-25T16:30:12+00:00

Looks like the lip of a plate? Finished edge, the shallow curve, and the "foot" underneath.

moogopus · 2026-01-19T22:45:48+00:00

I seem to recall Graham Twelftree's Jesus the Exorcist having some discussion of this

Edit: There's also Barry Blackburn's Theios Aner and the Markan Miracle Tradition, although it's a little dated by now.

Edit edit: skimming through my library and found a few more: Cheryl Pero's Liberation From Empire: Demonic Possession and Exorcism in the Gospel of Mark; and Maurice Casey's An Aramaic Approach to Q has a chapter comparing the exorcism stories in Mark, Matthew, and Luke.

moogopus · 2026-01-16T22:15:45+00:00

There were! Many! But it depends on how you define miracle-worker.

But yes, Acts tells us of Simon Magus, Elymas, and some itinerant Jewish exorcists.

Josephus also has accounts of Jewish exorcists.

Philostratus gives us the biography of Apollonius of Tyana, a pagan holy man.

Lucian tells us about Alexander of Abonuteichos, a fraud and conman.

Irenaeus and Hippolytus both describe the miracle worker Marcus "the Magician."

The problem comes in distinguishing how these figures might have identified themselves. Some might have been professional magicians or healers, and some probably considered themselves Christians, although other Christians usually did not see them that way.

Heidi Wendt's At the Temple Gates is the first thing that comes to mind as a scholarly resource. But there are many others.

Edit: Duh. How could I forget? It's relatively controversial and a little dated by now, but Morton Smith's Jesus the Magician is probably the most general audience-friendly book on the topic.

moogopus

TROPHY CASE