Recent posts

Black on Red: My 44 Years Inside the Soviet Union (Review)

Robinson after being elected to the Moscow Soviet, book page 103 Robert Robinson was a black machinist who accepted an offer from the Soviets to leave his job at the Ford plant to come to Russia to help train their machinists in the 1930s. Accepting the deal, he pursued his engineering career and invented many productivity improving tools, acquired a mechanical engineering degree, survived the Purges and World War II, and after the war, spent decades trying to leave.

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Availability, Fire Safety, and the IBM 704

The SHARE organization was organized in 1955 to share operational knowledge and computer programs for operators of the IBM 704. “Operational knowledge” included monthly availability reports and, perhaps unexpectedly, safety advice. Each site reported its own availability via a common form. Each installation was given a two-letter identifier (which, as SHARE grew to more installations, became a branding problem for some sites).

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Surviving the Blizzard: An Application of Markov Chains

In the Call of Cthulhu adventure “Chateau of Blood”, the characters are faced between spending the day trapped in an ominous chateau where they will likely be attacked by monsters or attempting to navigate a treacherous mountain trail as a ferocious blizzard blows. Inspired by Hammer films, the characters are encouraged to stay inside the chateau, find clues, and face the monsters rather than go out into almost certain doom. However, as this is a Hammer film, few are expected to survive the supernatural horrors. What are the character’s chance in the storm? We’ll use Markov chains and a short Rust program to work out the odds.

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Slaying Dragon

Slaying the Dragon: A Secret History of Dungeons & Dragons by Ben Riggs

Author’s website

Slaying the Dragon is a business history of TSR, focusing on the Lorraine Williams period (1985-1997). During this period, TSR recovered from the excesses of the Gygax/Blume Brothers period, launched the 2nd edition rules, novels line, and attempted pivots and expansions of their IP. However, the sales declined continued until they were purchased by Wizards of the Coast. Ben Riggs chronicles the company’s history, key products, and their strategic mistakes.

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