Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai


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A Gentle Philosophy

A Gentle Philosophy (or A Kind Philosophy, or A Soft Philosophy, depending on the translation) is the title of a song I like a lot (maybe I’ll put the video below), and is something I thought about after my last post in which I mentioned the philosopher talking of “an alleged emergency” and basically treating the current state of affairs of our species as just another thought experiment.

Through a series of different connections, thinking about philosophy, I came to the usual – my own philosophical gurus, and their teachings. Because we are creatures of science and philosophy, and there’s always something to learn from the classics.

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Rationing

The news is that various areas in Italy are reaching the peak diffusion of the virus, and therefore the lockdown will be further restricted. Yesterday a wild story was circulated about army checkpoints and anti-contamination kits being distributed, one per family, and a lot of other rubbish. Easy to debunk, but a lot easier to spread, given the current psychological state of the citizens.
People fabricating such stories should be sent to clean the bedpans of the sick in the hospitals.

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Fantasy AGE for free

I mentioned Chris Pramas’ Fantasy AGE roleplaying game in a post a few days back – and now you can get a copy of the Basic Rulebook in PDF for free from the Green Ronin website, as a special offer in these days of quarantine.
The Basic Rulebook is all you need to play one of the best fantasy roleplaying systems I’ve seen in recent times.
Check it out.


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A tiny snippet of my WIP

That goes to show that I always write about the same things, in the end…

After crossing the Kin Tang bridge, and going east, the Chintang Strasse becomes Corso Vittorio Emanuele, and then turns into Petrograd Prospekt once you have passed Corso Trento. In less than two kilometers, a person who walks along this route will be subject to four different legal systems – Chinese, Austro-Hungarian, Italian and Russian, each administered by its own court. And yet, thanks to extraterritoriality, a citizen of one of the Eight Nations who breaks the law, anywhere in the Tianjin area, will be extradited to his sector. In a surreal variant of the classic joke, if there are an Italian, an Englishman and a Japanese who rob a bank together, if caught, each will be tried by a different court, and will suffer a different sentence. But it’s actually a lot more complicated than that.


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Dreams

No, not the Fleetwood Mac song.
Ever since I was a kid, during highly stressful times I either get insomnia, or I have the strangest, most distracting dreams. As I think I have mentioned in the past, a lot of these dreams take place in the same locale, a white city that is sometimes completely deserted.
Two nights ago it was not.

And yes, I also hate those people that go and tell you about their dreams, so I think it OK should you decide to stop reading here.

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All I needed to know I learned… somewhere

There’s a lot of articles being posted on blogs and things about how to work from home. In Italy, a country that was criminally behind in terms of telecommuting jobs, the possibility of working via the net is causing a small quake, but it looks like all over the world we are seeing a sudden “discovery” of remote working.

Another very popular topic on blogs and socials is what to read/watch/do while the country is in lockdown – huge to-read lists, playlists and what else. A lot of publishers and authors are giving away some of their books – I am doing it myself, because it’s nice to try and show some solidarity and manage to pass for human.
And then there’s the vast population of nerds and geeks and anoraks that keep patting each other on the back, because they were prepared all along, because they learned how to handle this situation watching Dawn of the Dead or playing Resident Evil.

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One day means ten

Today I ordered two books I need for research purposes (and for entertainment), and do not exist in ebook – there, the last bit is essential.
Ebooks are not just cheap, they are instantaneous – the moment the payment is processed, you have them on your reader. Paperbacks you have to wait for – and there is where the lockdown makes itself felt once again.

I used to joke about the fact, because I have a Amazon Prime account, I get my books mailed for free, and with the one-day delivery formula, which means I get them in three to five days. Because one-day delivery in Italy works if you live in a big city or in the immediate vicinities. Move to the hills, and one day means at least three.

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