D100 Dungeon

D100 Dungeon is a great, free (1) solo dungeon crawl game.  After you download it from Board Game Geek (not the easiest thing to do), all you need to play is some paper, a pencil, two dice to make a d100, and a d6.  This game is unreasonably fun, and an obvious labor of love by its creator, Martin Knight.

For your ease of enjoyment, here are the current versions of the essential files.
D100 Dungeon Files  These are the old versions and some alternate rules.
D100 Dungeon Rules  These are the old and newly (May 2018) updated rules.

I highly recommend this game.

That being said, I can't help but tinker with game rules.  Here are my recommended alterations and additions.

• Use the alternate investments found in the Files.  The rues as written (RAW) are incoherent.  Remember that the roll for for the pip alteration to each whole share owned.  (One share is five pips.)  My addition:  Instead of allowing only one investment of up to ten shares per investment type, allow characters to diversify their portfolios as follows, still limiting investment to ten shares each.
• Up to 4 separate investments in Trade.
• Up to 3 separate investment in Finance.
• Up to 2 separate investments in Holdings.
• Only 1 investment in Wars.
  
• Use, if you wish, the perpetual dungeon found in the Files.  It makes the quests a bit longer and more costly in resources, but makes more sense and provides some continuity.  I change the "running" rule of moving through already explored rooms to this:
• You can move through up to 3 previously explored rooms, as long as all known monsters are dead and the rooms have been searched already.  When moving more than one room per hour, roll a d10.  If the result is less than or equal to the number of rooms moved, a wandering monster is encountered in the room indicated by the die roll, and travel stops there.  For example, if you try to move three rooms, and roll a 2, you encounter a wandering monster in the second room you entered.
• I don't recommend using the included Shop rules.  They make buying new equipment very expensive, in exchange for establishing a known fixed base of goods available.  It's basically a very expensive pawn shop for your stuff.  And "parts pie" is gross, but also funny and makes sense in a horrible sort of way.
  
• Speaking of prices, the sell and purchase prices of everything are identical.  Of course, adventures find their loot damaged, so there is an actual price difference there.  My proposed alteration:  Whenever purchasing a weapon or piece of armor, roll a d10.  If the result is lower than your reputation, purchase the item at list price.  Otherwise, pay an extra fee equal to one pip of repair cost for the item.  Hey, life is hard on the new guy with no reputation to speak of.
  
• There is only an 8% chance of finding a shield, the most common defensive tool in history.  I have created a new random armor table to make shields more prevalent.  Roll a d10 for armor type, then another d10 for specific piece:
• 1-3:  Shield - used to actively block damage.  Blocks amount listed for each pip shaded.  Less than half damage blocked results in only a half pip shaded.
• 1:  Buckler (1)
• 2-3:  Targe (2)
• 4-7:  Heater (3)
• 8-9:  Kite (4)
• 10:  Pavise (5)
• 4-5:  Leather Armor (1 DEF)
• 6:  Studded Leather Armor (2 DEF)
• 7-8:  Chain Mail Armor (3 DEF)
• 9:  Scale Mail Armor (4 DEF)
• 10:  Plate Mail Armor (5 DEF)
• For all Armors:  Armor passively reduces damage.  It may also be used to actively reduce damage, at the cost of 2 points of damage per pip shaded.
• 1-3:  Helmet
• 4-5:  Torso (covers both chest and back)
• 6:  Sleeves
• 7:  Gloves
• 8:  Waist
• 9:  Leggings
• 10:  Boots
  
• Random equipment damage:  Rather than list a specific amount of wear and tear for each item, roll on the following table with a d10.
• 1-3:  1 pip
• 4-6:  2 pips
• 7-10:  3 pips
  

Just a thought on photon energy and proper time

Had a minor revelation this morning.  About fundamental physics.  Yes, I'm weird this way.  Thanks for noticing.

Photon energy (best known as wavelength or frequency) times proper time (local flow of time) is a constant.  As gravity increases, proper time decreases, and photons gain a proportional amount of energy.  We call this blue shift.

As gravity decreases, proper time increases, and photons lose a proportional amount of energy.  We call this red shift.

Interesting.  It's almost as if gravity has no influence on photon energy - just our perception of it. 

Relative velocity still does alter photon energy.  A photon emitted in the direction of travel still has more energy than a photon emitted in the opposite direction, from the standpoint a stationary particle used as a target.  Of course, that's probably because of the energy differential caused by the velocity deformation around the emitting particle.

So, the only way to tell the actual energy of a photon, is to intercept one emitted at exactly 90 degrees to the path of travel of the emitting particle, along an equal gravitational gradient, by a stationary particle, or one traveling at ninety degrees to the angle of interception.  In that (and only that) circumstance, the energy delivered by the photon will be exactly equal to the energy it was emitted with.

A new job for the EPA and FDA

From a comment by Frank Luke at John Wright's Journal:

"A is for Alar." I remember the 60 Minutes story about Alar like that used on apple trees caused cancer in lab animals. While we were in high school, a friend of mine in FFA gave a speech about his research into pesticides and scare tactics. Alar was his golden example. To get the results it did, the lab gave the mice so much Alar that a human being would need to eat 14 tons of apples a day for 70* years. In that dosage, 5% of the mice developed tumors. In the group having a half dosage (meaning the equivalent of 7 tons of apples a day for 70 years), none developed cancer.

At that statement, the audience went into shock. Half were trying not to interrupt him by laughing at the dosage required. The other half just gasped.

*This is 20+ years ago. My memory may be off on the exact numbers, but "tons per day" and "years" was definitely in the speech.

I propose a new executive order for various government organizations such as the EPA and FDA.  They are to propose no new regulation, ruling, finding or guideline until they have completed an open, replicable, scientific evaluation of all previous rulings, regulations, findings and guidelines.  Study summaries are to be written in plain English, at no more than a 10th grade level, and made freely and easily available to the public.  Each study is to be reviewed by a panel of thirty randomly selected citizens, who are neither government employees nor receiving welfare benefits, with SAT (combined math & verbal) scores of not less than 1000, or ACT overall scores of not less than 20.

Review: .224 Valkyrie

.224 Valkyrie is essentially a .223 redesigned to better handle long for caliber bullets.  It produces similar velocities for the same weight of bullet as a .223, but .223 cartridges can't really handle 95 grain bullets.

If you're really into long range, precision shooting using the AR-15 platform, this caliber will be a good investment.  Unlike most of the other new .22 center fire cartridges, the Valkyrie doesn't come with additional recoil or overall length.

Otherwise?  It doesn't really bring much new to the table.  It might make a decent military round, but increasing the caliber (to at least 6mm, preferably 6.5) would be a better solution.