The Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace has a display of Leonardo da Vinci’s drawings, drawn from a folio collection obtained by Charles II in the 17th century and only made publicly available in the early 20th century.

I saw the exhibit while I was in London last week.

I had not previously had my attention focused on his cartography. Seeing them close up and in real life, however, impressed upon me how beautiful and informative these 15th century examples of cartography could be.

Take his map of Imola for example (click for large version):

You could pretty much just plug this directly into a D&D campaign, and I absolutely love the aesthetic of it. Check out this video for how he made it:

You might also check out Random GM Tips: Visualizing City Block Maps.

There’s also this map of Valdichiana:

I strongly encourage you to click-through to appreciate all the detail in this map. (There’s even more when you see it in real life.)

I’m currently very tempted to use this map for the version of Loch Gloomen in my Blackmoor open table.

Gen Con has both consumed about 85% of my waking thoughts for the past few weeks and ALSO snuck up on me. Here’s where you can find me this weekend:

CTHULHU MASTERS TOURNAMENT

I’m designing and running the Cthulhu Masters Tournament this year with a team of crack professionals (Chris Malone, Sarah Holmberg, Heather Burmeister, and Peter Heeringa). The eight sessions of the first round run at 8am/12pm/4pm/8pm on Thursday and Friday, with semi-final rounds on Saturday, and the final on Sunday morning.

(I will not be running all of these sessions. But if you sign up, you’ll have a literally 50% chance of being in a game I run during the first round. Also 66% chance if you advance to the second round and 100% chance in the final round. Although currently sold out, it’s not unusual for people to get in with generic tickets.)

THURSDAY – 2PM: GAME MASTERING 101

Robin D. Laws, Darcy Ross, Jonathan Tweet, and myself will be talking about the fundamentals of being a GM and doing a Q&A session in Crowne Plaza : Pennsylvania Stn A.

(Not to be confusing with GMing 101, which is a completely different panel running Thursday morning.)

FRIDAY – 8PM: ENNIES AWARD CEREMONY

I was nominated for a 2019 ENnie for Best Online Content, and I’ll be attending the awards ceremony in the Grand Hall at Union Station.

SATURDAY – 5PM: OPEN YOUR GAME TABLE

I’ll be introducing people to the concept of open game tables. If you want to ask me a question, this is probably your best opportunity all weekend. We’ll be in Crowne Plaza : Pennsylvania Stn A.

SATURDAY – 6PM: ATLAS GAMES FIRESIDE CHAT

Join the Atlas Games team as they discuss everything from solar panels to the next role playing game on the horizon. John, Michelle, Jeff, Justin, Kyla & more, available for your questions. Still in Crowne Plaza : Pennsylvania Stn A. Little double-header action here.

SUNDAY – 3PM: GEN CON LIVE

Not a panel, but I’ll be appearing with Jonathan Tweet on the Gen Con Live stream. So even if you’re not in Indianapolis this weekend, you’ll still be able to tune in!

ATLAS GAMES BOOTH

I will also be opportunistically dropping in at the Atlas Games booth, running demos and generally hanging out. I won’t be doing as much of that as I would like because the rest of my schedule is packed to the gills, but even if I’m not there, the odds are good you’ll have a chance to meet Jonathan Tweet and have him run an Over the Edge demo for you (as he’ll be there most of the weekend).

According to a Scientific American article, the footprints of an elephant each contain dozens and possibly hundreds of different animals — mites, mayflies, backswimmers, leeches, and gastropods. Given proper conditions, such footprints can endure for weeks, giving them plenty of time to turn into little micro-habitats.

Which is super cool.

Now, scale it up for a fantasy world: A breathtaking colossus that slowly bestrides the world, leaving in its wake footprints a half-kilometer wide. Colossi gnomes scurry in its wake, delving into the exposed depths. Demonic creatures boil out of exposed underworlds. Such footprints could last for years or even decades, perhaps coming to support entire communities.

I was recently linked to this story on Facebook: U.S. Government Bans Native American Tribe From Protesting On Their Own Land – Send In Police To Remove Protesters.

As far as I can tell, the linked story is bullshit. First, it’s unclear which judicial action it’s reporting on. The article was written on September 7th, but the only judicial action on that day was actually a victory for Native American protestors.

Digging a little deeper, however, it appears that this is actually just a spam site that’s repackaging a story that got a lot of clicks on Facebook so that it can harvest some of that proven clickbait. It was most likely posted by an algorithm that noticed an uptick in Native American-related or pipeline-related stories on social media, and decided to copy-paste an earlier story on those topics which was a known success at attracting likes and shares.

The story it was copying, however, was actually just a spammy repackaging of actual reporting that had taken place several days earlier by Telesur.

Telesur’s story, however, wasn’t accurate. And their headline (“Native Americans Banned from Protesting Pipeline on Own Land”) was total bullshit. As Native News Online accurately reported, the judge’s order only prohibited them from physically interfering with construction. It didn’t ban them from protesting. Furthermore, the site covered by the judge’s order wasn’t actually on a Native American reservation, so it never banned them from ANYTHING “on their own land”.

So, to sum up: Inaccurate reporting tied to a completely inaccurate headline caused a bunch of fringe websites to post mock-outrage stories about something that wasn’t actually happening. One of those mock-outrage stories remixed the headline into a mostly fact-free rant masquerading as a news story and paired it to a really great photograph that caused people to click it and share it. Then some trashy sites noticed that the post was popular and duped it in order to harvest the advertising revenue.

The photograph, by the way, is actually of a Brazilian man from 2012: “An indigenous man stands as riot police stand guard during the UN Conference on Sustainable Development, or Rio+20, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Wednesday, June 20, 2012. Brazil’s indigenous are protesting the government’s plan to construct the large Belo Monte hydroelectric dam in the Amazon.”

And that’s how most Americans are getting their news in 2016.

Which is a problem. Because, as we’ve just demonstrated, what the algorithms, systems, and mob psychology of social media select for is not the dissemination of truth. It is the dissemination of outrage. When you unthinkingly allow yourself to take in that outrage, you’re doing a disservice to yourself. And when you unthinkingly allow that outrage to drive your actions — even the simple action of hitting a Like or Share or Retweet or Up Vote button — you’re doing a disservice to everyone around you.