Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai

Category Archives: Armchair adventuring


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Dravot & Peachy

mankingYesterday afternoon we were discussing favorite adventure movies, with some friends online, and John Huston‘s The Man Who Would be King came up.

I saw the movie in the Colosseo cinema, in Via Madama Cristina, in Turin, in 1976, with my mother and my grandmother.
I wonder if today they’d let a not-yet-ten-years-old kid in the cinema to watch a movie that features (according to the current advisory)

Sex and Nudity, Violence and Gore, Profanity, Alcohol/Drugs/Smoking, and Frightening/Intense Scenes.

Quite a package, and without mentioning British imperialism.
But those were different times, I guess1. Continue reading →


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Gift unboxed: Numenéra

Numenera-Corebook-Cover-2013-06-1826th of December, this strange mid-week weekend is sapping my energies and I am doing littlemore than eating and reading.
I’ve been spending the last 24 hours (give or take a few moments for a nap once in a while) reading and enjoying very much my brother’s gift to me for Christmas – the huge Bundle of Holding for Numenéra.
And what a marvel it is.

Numenéra is an award-winning science-fantasy game by legendary designer Monte Cook – he of the Planewalker’s Handbook for Planescape.
Numenéra was founded through a Kickstarter that hit an incredible 500.000 dollars (the original target was 25.000) and it is gorgeous to behold, a delight to read and I’m very very much eager to play it. Continue reading →


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Christmas Idleness

This is the Christmas week, and Karavansara will slow down a bit – we’ll stick to schedule, with little variations or extras.

All things considered, I’m pretty tired, and I’ll take the opportunity to shut down all unnecessary systems, lay low, and try to recharge my batteries.

So, as for the next ten days, I will… Continue reading →


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Glen A. Larson, R.I.P.

I just learned about the untimely death ofwriter and producer Glen A. Larson.
The creator of the original Battlestar Galactica TV series, of the Buck Rogers in the 25th Century TV series, of Magnum PI and a lot of other works, he was a pillar in the education of a kid growing up on TV in the late ’70s and early ’80s.

Geez, I loved Buck Rogers! (well, ok, the first series)

… even if, admittedly, the song was kinda sucky.

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Banzai Skydiving

3b538906b473c55e425b17acc5b2938fThis is the sort of thing one learns writing pulp fiction…

If you fall from ten thousand feet – say, if somebody threw you out of an airship during a fistfight – you reach the ground in about a minute.

You reach terminal velocity in about fifteen seconds, and at that point you’ve fallen about 1500 feet.
From the moment you reach terminal velocity, it’s 6 seconds per 1000 feet – or 51 seconds for the remaining 8500 feet of your jump.

So – total time for free-falling from 10.000 feet, 66 seconds, or, little more than a minute. Continue reading →


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Free magazine – Timeless Travel

A very quick heads-up.
British magazine Timeless Travels is now free for the digital download.

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The magazine is devoted to travels with an archaeological, artistic or historical theme.
Each issue is 130 pages, with quality images and contents.
From their website you can still buy hard-copy versions of the mag – but the digital download is available for free, for a number of platforms (PC, tablets, smartphones etc.)

Requires registering, but there seems to be no strings attached whatsoever.
It’s worth a look.