non-embedded

I think it would be just like the more puckish aspects of Doug's power to take the entire effect of this song from the very last line

Namely, if he has ingredients and a heat source at hand, he can prepare any form of fried food from start to finish within the 4:20 duration of the song, and if he's specifically making fried poultry and takes the full duration can produce up to 100x the servings that the available materials would normally yield. This is admittedly a very situational ability and one that you would probably shortly become glad only works once per day if the circumstances did become regular, but very handy when it does apply, to quickly get a meal together on a busy day or when there's a hungry (or just unsettled, people are calmer with food in their belly after all -- and just imagine the sedative power of chicken fried turkey) crowd to handle.

While working he never exactly seems to be moving faster than normal, nor does any one step in the process seem to take an unusually short amount of time, but between one breath and the next he'll have moved on to another stage without a perceptible transition until it's complete and being dished up, with utensils and dishware being summoned as needed and fading away in a similar fashion when no longer needed for the purpose. Trying to cheese the power to get a supply of metal/ceramic/etc. from dishes and cutlery for some other purpose fails as they will vanish as soon as they're no longer needed for serving or consuming the meal, leaving behind a pile of wasted food if the purpose was not to actually feed anyone with it. Even with the honest intent of eating it later, dishware that still has food waiting on it will vanish when his internal uses-per-day clock resets, though the actual food is as real and permanent as normal and will keep or spoil at normal rates, etc. The effect does comply with HPverse rules for transfiguring or conjuring vs. expanding the quantity of edible food, BTW.

Two days after Twitter applied Fact Check links to his insane ranting about mail-in election fraud, Trump has signed an executive order intended to strip online media companies of their liability protections for daring to apply evidence. The man has his priorities.

Because the Great White North can fuck things up, too.

Military report reveals 'horrific' conditions at Ontario long-term care homes

tl;dr: Military medics and related specialists were called out to help out in five nursing homes in Ontario during the pandemic. They provided a report about what they saw to the Premier of Ontario.

Spoilered to protect the squeamish:

Spoiler

Quote:Cockroaches, rotten food, patients with ulcers left bed-bound, staff moving from unit to unit wearing contaminated gear.

Those are just some of the disturbing conditions detailed in a Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) report made public Tuesday and based on the observations of its members at five Ontario long-term care homes deemed by the province to have required the most support.

non-embedded

i. Paradoxe de la Lumière Noire

ii. Live, Die, Kill
Consider this question 
Look deep inside
Deliver a true confession
What are you willing to live for

Consider this question
Open your eyes
Examine your own reflection
What are you willing to die for

When your backs’ against the wall
And the times uncertain
Consider this question
No standing by

When flesh and blood are threatened
What are you willing to kill for

We seek
To understand
We cry
With hand in hand

The bridges we build to connect
The distance that makes us forget
Hate dividing us
Love reminding us of our shared humanity
Hope can be a shadow fleeting
I would rather die believing
Capture it all in a final act of faith

We seek
To understand
We cry
With hand in hand

A story that needs to be told
An answer that begs to be found
The beauty we wish to behold Is never too far away

iii. The Embracing Circle

iv. The Pursuit of Truth

Mothers for their children
Husbands for their wives
Martyrs for the kingdom
Fighting for your life

A soldier for his country
A junkie for the high
Teachers for their students
Vengeance for a crime

Rebels for their freedom
A tyrant for the praise
Cowards for salvation
Money, love, and fame

Noble embrace
We lay down our lives for the cause
Death over shame
Grace before glory

v. Surrender, Trust & Passion

To really feel the joy in life
You must suffer through the pain
When you surrender to the light
You can face the darkest days

If you open up your eyes
And you put your trust in love
On those cold and endless nights
You will never be alone

Passion glows within your heart
Like a furnace burning bright
Until you struggle through the dark
You'll never know that you're alive


Now, my first thought was either something to induce meditation on self-knowledge, or perhaps a mild compulsion to think about what things truly matter and what does not, such as might be useful during a negotiation perhaps (especially given how super-long the whole track is, at over twenty minutes) but then it occurred to me that this might be the song to call an Usagi Tsukino simulacrum, as both the "look inside for what really matters" and "put your trust in love" messages do fit the over-arching themes of her series, and the extreme length would give his power time to build up to pull off some pale imitation of the silly bullshit she can do by the end, if it starts with her on her rookie outing form at first and progresses as she did while Doug knew her through the duration rather than being a snapshot or composite impression of her most recent abilities. Still not up to the level of the actual Silver Crystal, but even just calling on his own capacity and whatever environmental resources might be available Doug's power should be able to do quite a bit with 20min of charge time.

He's got an actual imprint of Usagi in princess-form keeping watch over the memory packet holding his time with them IIRC, so the simulacrum might be more than just his impressions of her - or might even manifest from listening to the song to see what it does, while those memories are still locked away. That might be a new one even for him, to create a sim of a person he doesn't know he knows.

Hey guys!

I would have posted this in the usual videos thread, buuuuuuut given that there's so much to cover here, I figured it might be best off in its own thread.  In this way, the videos shouldn't get buried too quickly, giving you a chance to bookmark the thread for later perusal, and it will cut down on posts I'd otherwise be making to the regular video thread.

Some of ya'll might remember that wonderfully explanatory video I posted some time back about how the manual transmission in an automobile works.  Well, in this thread, we're gonna see that video again, along with more videos that will show you:

• How does an automatic transmission work?
  
• How does a torque convertor work?
  
• Automatic Transmissions Vs. Manual Transmissions - The Pros and Cons of Both
  
• The Best of Both Worlds: The Dual Clutch Transmission
  

I woke up as a dungeon (post GM  Taylor Hebert wakes up as the mind of a dungeon)
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/...t-67463368

non-embedded (also part of a playlist of the Queen Official channel)

Another one that's old enough that it's probasbly been on Doug's list for a while, IC if not used in game or in story. While the title suggests a healing song, the lyrics are more along the lines of the things you need to live rather than just survive, with the repeated theme being "keep on trying, a little better, a little stronger every day," which to me suggests acting to let Doug and possibly anyone working with him within his AoE to use it like the theme to a training montage, getting a complete workout or lesson or whatever to make an optimal day's progress in the chosen subject without over-stressing body or mind. Of course, that's so obviously useful that it would be sort fo a wonder that it hadn't come up IC, but it could easily be part of just the unremarked downtime "stay fit and keep advancing" work of an RPG (based) character.

non-embedded

Superhero stories especially love giving a character important information and then putting them in a coma or leaving them too traumatized to talk about it, to build up the melodrama - so this is sure to be one of the more useful, if situational, songs in Doug's lineup. I don't remember if Faith is still conked out at the time he's in Buffyverse, but if so she would be a prime candidate to use it on, and that kind of thing is common enough across lots of media to have plenty of other opportunities if not.

As an aside, this video is kind of ridiculous but in a way that looks like it was just super-fun to make. Like, the A&R man said "We're going to make a video for Breakthrough, any ideas for what you want to do?" and one of the guys said "I like trains. Can we have the band playing on a stage pulled by a train? And maybe smash through a wall or something, you know, to tie it in to the song." And the record company guy was like "Yes we can totally do that, sounds awesome, the kids'll love it. This will definitely sell records!" because he'd snorted approximately five kilograms of cocaine already that morning, and didn't come down at least until the contract to charter the train was signed and by then the only way forward was (puts on sunglasses) to see it through.

While I'm talking about Queen songs, though, how about Invisible Man? Any effects beyond the obvious, and possibly bringing a second person into the effect as well given the lyrics also mention "I can see right through you?"

It's 23/5, or 5/23 in the States. And we all know what the Law of Fives says about those numbers. (If you don't know, see here and here.)

Enjoy the day! (Or what's left of it.)

Pac-Man is available as a free download on the official website.

Oh, and the game is 40 years old today.