Author Archives: SeanMcTex

ZombieTown: A Free GURPS Adventure

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For Christmas last year, one of the gifts I gave Liam was the opportunity to have a custom-made GURPS game, with pizza and a sleepover included, for him and a few of his friends. After a brief dalliance with the idea of a ninja setting, he settled a zombie-themed play session. So I got to writing, and he rounded up some of his usual RPG compatriots. When the designated day arrived, we all came together and had a rip-roaring good time, careering through a Colorado town, shooting up zombies, invading secret labs, and curing the zombie outbreak.

Since I invested a fair bit of time in writing the adventure, and there seems to be a dearth of free material out there for GURPS, I decided to go ahead and release it for other people to use. While it’s designed with GURPS in mind, should be able to be adapted for other RPG systems pretty easily. And while it’s fairly fleshed out, I haven’t spent the time to format and polish it up to a professional level. Thus, gamemasters should be sure to spend a bit of time with it before trying to run it to make sure they know how they’re going to handle various situations when they arise.

The adventure is released under a Creative Commons license. You can use it and adapt it, but not make money off of it or fail to credit me if you create derivative works. It also comes with many of the NPCs already fleshed out in the excellent GURPS Character Sheet software, and the documents available in Pages and PDF formats.

Without further ado, here it is:

ZombieTown

 

If you take a look at it, please drop me a note and let me know what you liked or didn’t like about it. I’d sure love the feedback, and would be especially tickled to know how it’s received if someone else runs it with players. Have fun!

Extracts

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One of my graduate school advisers, poet Richard Kenney, describes poetry as “the mongrel art — speech on song,” an art he likens to lichen: that organism which is actually not an organism at all but a cooperation between fungi and algae so common that the cooperation itself seemed a species. When, in 1867, the Swiss botanist Simon Schwendener first proposed the idea that lichen was in fact two organisms, Europe’s leading lichenologists ridiculed him — including Finnish botanist William Nylander, who had taken making allusions to “stultitia Schwendeneriana,” fake botanist-Latin for “Schwendener the simpleton.” Of course, Schwendener happened to be completely right. The lichen is an odd “species” to feel kinship with, but there’s something fitting about it.

What appeals to me about this notion — the mongrel art, the lichen, the monkey and robot holding hands — is that it seems to describe the human condition too. Our very essence is a kind of mongrelism. It strikes me that some of the best and most human emotions come from this lichen state of computer/creature interface, the admixture, the estuary of desire and reason in a system aware enough to apprehend its own limits, and to push at them: curiosity, intrigue, enlightenment, wonder, awe.

– Brian Christian, The Most Human Human, p72

Zombie Attack

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When I left Texas State University to go work for Magnolia, I decided that one last big prank was in order. My usual partners-in-crime and I brainstormed for a while one afternoon and eventually came up with a scheme we liked: we would zombify our bosses’ offices. Plan Z was born!

 

In order to bring this off, my compatriots Jeff and Nick snuck into our department head’s office one night a couple of weeks before my scheduled departure and, while carefully keeping their eyes peeled for building security or other suspicious types, scanned a variety of posters, awards, and family photos that adorned the office with a portable scanner and laptop they had brought with them.

 

We then split those scans up among several different people, at this point bringing in Cheesy Steve from the design department. After looking at several “how to zombify people” videos on YouTube, we tweaked the photos in Photoshop, either transforming people into zombies (in the case of University personnel), or simply adding shambling undead into the scene (in the case of adorable grandchildren).

 

We also scoured the internet for Zombie family portraits or other pictures that might not immediately seem out of place in a collection of family photos. Google image search was immensely helpful as we assembled an arsenal of assets for this mission, as was Charles, our QA guy. (By this point, I had begun to laugh about this being the first prank we had pulled that was elaborate enough to require a Project Manager.)

 

 

Next, we printed out all of the altered images on a high-quality photo printer. The smaller snapshots were no trouble, but those bigger than 8.5″x14″ were a special challenge, as we had to print them in multiple parts and then tape the parts together as inconspicuously as possible to make large-format posters that weren’t obviously printed in pieces.

 

 

Now all of the preparatory work was done. With a thumb drive full of zombie family portraits, we slipped into the office of my immediate boss. He already had a screen saver going with a bunch of his personal family photos, so we were able to slip in the additional images without any trouble, verifying that one of the new ones would come up among the legitimate ones about every fifth time the screen saver showed a photo.

 

 

Next, we snuck back into the department head’s office and replaced the original family portraits and posters on his desk and walls with our doctored images. In order to take the heat off of my coconspirators if things happened to go badly, I also put copies of my business card in the frames between the “zombified” image and the original. (We left the originals in the frames so that our work could be easily undone, as we’re big on not causing permanent damage with our schemes.)

 

 

We carefully rearranged everything, comparing the room to the reference photos we had taken before doing our original scans, to make it look as unmolested as possible, and then went home smirking, fully expecting to be called in to the office the next morning. We weren’t sure whether our department director would appreciate or deplore the prank, so it was a good thing that mine was the only name associated with it and that the following day was to be my last at the University.

 

 

Much to my surprise, 5:00 rolled around without a word from the head office. I hadn’t counted on this. One of the photos we replaced was right next to our department head’s computer keyboard, so we’d figured he would certainly see the zombie that had taken up residence there within minutes. And we had altered posters that were several feet on each side. Surely one of the visitors to his office would notice, even if he didn’t! I left the University that day with a certain amount of sadness: both because I was leaving behind a great team of people with whom I’d worked for many years, but also because our terrific prank hadn’t even been noticed.

 

 

As I began my new job, I asked my friends back at the University every day if our shenanigans had been discovered, but the answer kept coming back “nope.” This went on for two weeks, until finally we got word that the screensaver additions had been discovered and summarily deleted. (This also surprised me — who finds extra photos on their computer and doesn’t make any effort to find out where they came from?) Finally, some of my friends started dropping hints to various people around the head office, and the department director discovered the additions at last.

Fortunately, his reaction was better than we’d even dared to hope. He thought it was hilarious, brought several people into his office immediately to see our work, and decided to leave it all in place. While a few of the family photos have now reverted to their original form, I believe all of the posters are still up.

 

 

This was ultimately a very satisfying scheme to pull off. Lots of people got into it and helped in various ways, it didn’t cause any harm, and even the victims got a good laugh and some lasting pleasure out of it. Additionally, I was delighted to hear today that the team has plans to keep the pranks coming even now that I’m gone. It’s good to have a legacy!

Great big thanks to all the participants. You guys rock at your real jobs, at this sort of thing, and as friends.

 

Free Stanford AI Course

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This October, anyone can take an Introduction to Artificial Intelligence class, taught by professors at Stanford, for free.

This is great. But it gets better. In order to expand the scope of the class from the 200 people they’ve been teaching in person, the instructors will be using AI software to grade homework, aggregate discussion questions, and generally mediate interactions with students. Why bother? Because, to date, over 100,000 people have signed up for this course, and the enrollment is showing no signs of slowing.

The use of the software to scale allows students to get feedback on their individual homework assignments and quizzes, to interact with the instructors, and to get a ranking in the course compared to both other online attendees and the students enrolled at Stanford — feedback that would be utterly impossible to provide to that number of people if the instructors didn’t have the help of AI. It will be fascinating to see how the concepts taught in the class are used to administer it.

I’ve been intrigued by AI ever since reading Gödel, Escher, Bach way back when I was a teenager (and before I was really equipped to follow all of it). More recently, I’ve been increasingly interested in robotics and the applications thereof, which rely pretty heavily on some of the AI concepts that are in the syllabus for this class. And, of course, I have an enduring interest in games, which are probably where AI is used most often in modern computing.

So am I signing up? You betcha. And I hope some of my nerd friends will too, so that we can compare notes along the way.

This is one of the reasons I love living in the future: we have access to information and learning that is unparalleled in human history, opportunities to sit at the feet of experts that we could only have dreamed of even a decade or two ago. And wonderfully, access to an amazing education is increasingly being divorced from access to money, creating remarkable opportunities for people who are ready to work at their own learning, regardless of their backgrounds. I fully expect to be bested in the course rankings by smart 14 year olds in India and China, and will be excited to see it happen.

I’ll post some updates and reflections along the way, and possibly homework assignments too if they turn out to be interesting. This should be a fun ride.

(Thanks to Singularity Hub for the tip-off.)

A Quick Visit to New York City

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Earlier this week, I made a quick trip to New York City to do a work presentation for a potential client there — my first visit in 11 years. After my professional responsibilities were taken care of, I was able to slip away to roam about for an evening and a morning and reacquaint myself with the city that has insomnia.

Tuesday evening, I dropped by the TKTS booth in Times Square to see what I could get admission to at a reasonable rate. I decided upon the play Jerusalem after speaking with the knowledgable and helpful staff member stationed by the signs, who claimed that it “changed [his] life”. The play was wonderful: terrifically funny through the first two acts, concluding with some great human drama in act 3 — an ideal balance. The show was well worth seeing, though probably not one for the younger set, due to an avalanche of blue language. (Though at least it’s English-style cursing, so it might go over the heads of young Yanks.) As a bonus, on the way back to the apartment where I was staying, I got to watch the police clear Times Square due to a “suspicious package” that had been found there. It turned out to be benign. They let everyone back in 10 minutes after I left, though I was wryly amused to notice that they left the people in the Abercrombie store, which appeared to be within the presumed blast radius, right where they were.

Wednesday, I decided to explore Central Park before I had to leave to catch my flight. This turned out to be an excellent decision. In spite of the fact that I spent my four college years only about 30 miles up the road, I’d never really ventured much into the park, aside from the 1990 Paul Simon concert, for which I camped out the night before — a sleepover that, on this trip, I learned was illegal. Oops.

Starting at the southwest corner of the park, I zigzagged my way to the northeast corner, with many a detour along the way (some intentional, others due to my execrable sense of direction). Central Park is fabulous, and within 20 minutes, I was in love with it. Numerous terrific playgrounds, beautiful lakes, boats and bikes for hire, wonderful rambles through the woods, elm trees (which are fairly unusual after Dutch Elm Disease demolished the American population of these lovely behemoths), museums, pine forests, a carousel, castles, running trails, cafes, and theaters all vied for my attention as I passed, munching on an everything bagel with cream cheese and lox, just to get the full New York experience. It made for a delightful morning, though a bit exhausting, as I was lugging all of my traveling supplies on my back with me. (Fortunately, I travel ruthlessly light.)

It was great to get to spend a bit of time in this marvelous city. Crime rates have dropped precipitously over the past 10 years, and, most surprising of all to me, New Yorkers seem to have actually gotten quite friendly since I last visited. I don’t know if 9/11 had a tenderizing effect on gotham’s soul, or if there has been some other seismic cultural shift, but nearly everyone I spoke with was delightful.

So thanks, New York City, for a great time. Let’s not put off our next rendezvous another 11 years.

A New Word Game

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Yesterday while standing in a long line with Maggie, I came up with a word game to pass the time. It turned out to be pretty fun, and I played a few rounds with Kathy later on as well. Here’s how it works:

  • Player one selects a starting word.
  • Play then alternates between player two and player one, each trying to create a new word by adding, subtracting, or changing a single letter.
  • Once a word has been used once, it’s off-limits — you can’t use it again in that session.
  • The player who is unable to come up with a valid move loses the round.
  • Valid moves are limited to words in the dictionary. No proper nouns may be used.
  • Special starting rule: if player two can’t think of a valid move from the starting word, then player one must be able to make a valid move from that word, or she loses the round. (This prevents player one from starting with “antidisestablishmentarianism”, for example.)

Example play session:

  1. P1: CAT
  2. P2: COAT
  3. P1: COATS
  4. P2: COTS
  5. P1: CODS
  6. P2: CODA
  7. P1: CODE
  8. P2: CODED
  9. P1: CODES
  10. P2: MODES
  11. P1: MODEL
  12. P2: MODELS
  13. P1: YODELS
  14. P2: YODEL
  15. P1: can’t think of anything, so P2 wins the round

Try it out, and let me know what you think!

South Padre Family Vacation

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Last week we all took a break from our usual goings-on to head down to South Padre Island, the southernmost beach town in Texas. This was a big deal for me, as Emily is now 19, graduated from High School, and is making plans to move out before long. Thus, this would likely be the last time we would all be under the same roof, doing a trip together as a family, and I wanted it to be a special time.

On our way down, Emily’s boyfriend Andres joined us. The extra vehicle gave us more space for packing, and we all enjoy Andres’ company and were glad to have him along for the first few days of the trip. (Unfortunately, he had to return to San Marcos for work, and wasn’t able to stay longer.)

One thing we did this time that worked out well was to designate an “Entertainment Committee” that was responsible for taking the money that we budgeted for fun on the trip and deciding the best way to spend it. This had a couple of important benefits: 1. Everyone on the Committee got a chance to work together and have a good voice in how our money would be spent. 2. I didn’t have to be on the Committee.

The biggest single expense that the Committee decided was that we would all go parasailing. (This was not something I would have chosen, but the pleasure of not having to be responsible for making the decisions far outweighed any angst I felt about the outcome.) After we signed the terrifying liability waivers and set out to sea, our boat’s crew immediately managed to dunk the parachute into the water, expressing their bafflement as to what was going on in the strongest (and bluest) terms. They eventually got it up in the air properly, and Liam and I mounted up for the first ride.

We soared above the waves, able to see miles in any direction, buffeted about by the gusty wind until I got motion-sick. While I generally have decent sea-legs, and the boat had given me no trouble, the bouncing about we received up in the air was more than my stomach wanted to deal with. Fortunately, it didn’t get to full-on, reverse peristalsis, fish-feeding revolt, but it did diminish my enthusiasm for the time aloft. Abigail and Emily went up next, and both had a grand time. Maggie and Kathy brought up the rear, and were promptly dunked in the water as soon as they were off the boat, nearly submerging Maggie at the same time it pulled her swimsuit askew. Once they were in the air, however, they had a great time as well.

Another highlight of the trip for us was a visit to Sea Turtles, Inc., a rescue center for various sorts of Sea Turtles that nest in the area. Favorite bit of sea turtle lore learned: the leatherback turtle, which weighs up to 1,500 pounds, must eat approximately its own weight in jellyfish each day to survive. As we enjoyed the jellyfish-free beach, we were grateful to these reptiles for their diligent culling of the less-pleasant sea denizens.

The best part about the sea turtle experience, however, was probably getting to see a nest of about 70 Kemp’s-Ridley turtle hatchlings released into the ocean for the first time. Kathy took some great photos and video, which I later edited together to show friends:

(See it here if the embedded video doesn’t work.)

Other highlights:

  • Body surfing with the whole family.
  • A visit from my cousin Tanya.
  • Watching a movie projected on the side of the Port Isabel lighthouse.
  • Gathering shells on the north beaches where the sand dunes are steadily subsuming the roads.
  • Playing “Fortress”, where we build sand castles imprudently close to the waves and then see how long we can keep it from crumbling by building levees and moats around it.
  • Browsing the art galleries and import stalls in Port Isabel.
  • Delighting in the fact that, for the most part, the kids really got along well and even enjoyed each other.
  • Playing lots of games and reading together.
  • Watching “True Grit”, one of my favorite movies of recent vintage, as a family.
  • Playing guitar by the pool with Maggie singing along.
  • Designing, creating, and play-testing a new card game with Liam.

It was a terrific time, and a great start to the summer. Thanks, family, for the splendid vacation!

Now It Can Be Told

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Now that I’ve left Texas State University’s employ, there are a couple other pranks that my partner-in-crime Jeff Snider and I pulled that can be made public.

Prank the First

Texas State University wrestles with something of an institutional inferiority complex. This is caused by the fact that it used to have a reputation as one of the biggest party schools in Texa,s and that it’s just down the road from the similarly named, but even more enormous, University of Texas. Whenever we attended conferences, we had to explain to people that shouting “Hook ‘Em!” at us was actually something of a hostile gesture.

As part of its image rehabilitation, the marketing department began heavily pushing its new “Rising Star of Texas” slogan — verbiage that many of us thought still sent a disappointingly weak message. But they were committed to it, and plastered it on everything they possibly could, including the screen that came up on our conference room projectors while they warmed up.

One day, while sitting in the conference room, I had a thought: “If these projectors can be customized to display the logo and this unfortunate slogan, they can also be customized to display something else.” A bit of quick googling yielded a PDF manual for the projectors, which explained in detail what one needed to do to make the change. Bingo.

So Jeff and I got the University Logo, sucked it into Photoshop, did a little editing, and made a guerilla run to the conference rooms around our floor. Now, when the projectors are powering up, they proudly display the Texas State logo, but with a different caption than usual:

TEXAS STATE UNIVERSITY
A Great Plan B…

It’s pretty subtle, as the projectors get brighter as they warm up, but it’s definitely enough to catch if you’re paying attention. (Which most people apparently aren’t, as this one has been in place for over a year.)

Prank the Second

There is an architectural model that the University commissioned at some point in its history, presumably to show off the planned construction of some building or another. Since the cost of such things is substantial, the University has chosen to keep it on display in the first floor of the library where I worked. It is covered with a plexiglass box that is secured to the base of the model by nothing more than its own weight and gravity.

Since we often had to be in late at night for various maintenance activities, we took advantage of the opportunity to place all sorts of things in the model with the tiny cars and people that normally inhabit it: miniature rubber chickens, a jet fighter, a Millenium Falcon, etc. (The Falcon was especially gratifying, as it remained illegally parked in one of the car lots for several months.)

Our coup de grace, however, was a full-scale dinosaur invasion that took place one night:

This one, alas, only stayed in place for two days. It was, however, widely appreciated. Jeff was particularly pleased when, a day after the dinos has been removed, he saw a student coming down the stairs, looking over expectantly at the model, seeing that it was now dinosaur-free, and letting out a disappointed “Awwwwwww!”

These sorts of things increased my enjoyment of my tenure at the University significantly. But there was one prank that we pulled as a parting gift to my bosses of which I’m especially proud, and which I will write about soon. Stay tuned…

Marvelous Birthday Present

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As all you regular readers of this blog already know, my friend Jason Young and I are rather prone to building things that break other things. For my 40th birthday, we built a potato cannon and used it to shoot down my birthday piñata. For my 41st birthday, Jason used this photo from the 40th:

To commission this original artwork for the 41st:

Utterly freaking awesome, I think you’ll agree.

The best part? As the guy who did the drawing detailed in his blog post, it was not until Jason actually ordered it that he realized the artist, who he had discovered out in the untamed wilds of the Internet, lives two doors down the street from him.

Thanks Jason! (And Ben the artist!) This is now one of my most prized possessions. Great stuff.

My Wife: A Titan of Industry

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I just got back from three weeks in Switzerland as part of my new job with Magnolia. (You can see some photos on Facebook if you’re interested.)

Now, when Kathy travels and I’m in single parent mode, I consider myself as having accomplished quite a lot when I end a day with the same number of live children as I started it with. Actually getting anything done during that day is lagniappe.

Consider, then, then awe with which I walked into our house and saw that, while I was away, Kathy had accomplished a huge list of tasks: painted our bedroom, cleared out a gigantic pile of brush from our backyard, painted our front porch, bought and installed (from Craig’s list) a new bed and mattress in our room, painted all of the shutters on the front of the house, cleaned out our shed, weeded and groomed our decomposed granite paths, bought and planted a big pear tree, went out into the hills and come back with a two loads of limestone for landscaping, cleared a bunch of scrap metal out of our backyard, sold our decrepit Ford Escort, re-stained the back porch, and a host of other things I’m probably forgetting at the moment. (She did get some help from Bobcat Build, though that added “fed 25 college students” to the already impressive list.)

With all of this on top of usual business of keeping a family running while taking college classes, it’s no wonder she finally took the opportunity once I was back to sleep much of the day!

Thanks for all you did and do, sweetheart. You’re a champ.