Following in the steps of other games, RF Online, a *very* Anime-themed MMO, has switched to a Free-to-Download-and-Play mode.
www.rf-onlinegame.com/fre...step-2.php
If nothing else, it's *pretty*.

Note that RFO is exceedingly PVP-heavy, and is somewhat inaccessible to the average player. I'm going to tough it out for a day or two, but really, if you're going for a PVP-heavy game you're far better off with Guild Wars.--
Christopher Angel, aka JPublic
The Works of Christopher Angel
"Camaraderie, adventure, and steel on steel. The stuff of legend! Right, Boo?"

Armor piercing koi and blood-swimming guppies are, no doubt, very effective...
...but hitting somebody with half a ton of live, angry tuna? That has authority.

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"Reseeestunce ees fiutil. Yoo weeel bee Useemooletud. Borg Borg Borg."
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"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."

I keep having to substract one hour mentally to get the right time.

I was going to post this under the Mad Science Quirks thread then realized that the thread had really mutated to talking about toys, prototypes and ideas instead of just quirks. Therefore, I'm starting a new thread to make things easier to find.
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The Jason would've started work on these shortly after meeting WireGeek for the first time. I eventually hope to post why in a new Leaves entry. They also take into account some of the interesting notions people have been putting forth, about the use of handwavium as an emergency medical procedure. Also note - the Jason would've started this back in 2009, and is only now releasing the first variety in 2013. The Sharon variety probably won't come out until at least a year later, in 2014. As explained below, they're a tribute to family, and a gift from the Jason, who used to be a blood donor until his health and the medicines he needed to take forced him to stop. He would give these out for free to any medical facility that asks, and would try to make sure they were spread widely.
Blood Oranges
These were created as a tribute to the Jason's mother and sister, both of whom are registered nurses. There are two varieties: the Sharon strain, and the Beth strain. There are characteristics common to both - they are dwarf orange trees, with very sturdy trunks and branches, usually growing no more than four or five feet tall, and can be grown in tubs. The branches have to be heavy/sturdy, because the oranges themselves are large when compared to normal citrus. Unlike normal citrus, the fruit are filled with fluid, not pulp - approximately one pint in a single orange. And yes, the oranges do contain human blood as one would gather from the name. A single tree can produce any of the normal human bloodtypes, and black markings on the orange rind tell what each fruit contains. If left on the tree, the blood will remain fresh and usable until the fruit falls from the tree. If picked, the fruit will need to be treated as a regular blood donation, kept refrigerated, and when the blood is unusable due to age, the markings fade to reflect this. Fallen fruit or picked fruit will eventually shrink and harden as the blood coagulates within until a large nut-like pod remains. This can be planted to start a new tree. The trees grow rapidly, most starting to bear fruit as soon as two or three years, though only a couple of fruit at a time until they mature. The trees are ever-bearing, with blossoms, developing fruit, and mature fruit all present on a tree at the same time. Only mature, usable fruit will show the bloodtype labels.
The differences between the two varieties has to do with the presence of handwavium. The Beth strain was developed first, and contains enough handwavium within the blood to initiate an emergency biomod. As a warning, the rind of the fruit is a bright, safety-cone orange. One useful property of this type is that blood-typing does not need to be performed if the person receiving the blood does not have a biomod yet (though it's safest to do so unless it's an extreme emergency, since it's possible that exposure to handwavium might have created a minor biomod that has not been noticed). This will have the effect of shifting the person's blood type to the type used, unless the rest of the biomod is so extreme that the blood type changes to something exotic. The Beth variety will also occasionally produce an orange marked with an infinity sign instead of a normal blood type. These are rare - usually only one on a tree at any given time. The fluid contains handwavium, but is not normal blood; instead, the fruit is filled with a bright white liquid. Usage-wise, these are reserved for emergency biomodded patients, because when administered to a patient with an exotic bloodtype, the handwavium present doesn't act on the patient. It actually acts on the fluid, biomodding it to match the patient's bloodtype. It's still best for exotic types to store their own blood for emergencies due to the rarity of the infinite bloodtype fruits, of course.
The Sharon strain, named for the Jason's mother, took longer to develop. This is actually a filtered variety - while handwavium is present in the tree proper, the blood does not contain any, and can be given to unmodded humans without triggering a biomod. To reflect this, the oranges are actually colored as normal blood oranges - citrus-fruit orange with a red mottling/blush over the rind. The blood is perfectly normal, and will need to be treated as any regular blood donation would be when administered to a regular patient. It can be given to any unmodded patient, and any biomodded patient as long as the biomod has not altered the patient's blood to an exotic.
The trees do have several quirks/needs. The most obvious need is a requirement for an iron-rich soil, which will need to be supplemented with mineral/iron-rich fertilizer during the tree's lifetime. If this is not met, the number of fruit decreases, and any fruit produced will actually be anemic. Beth trees will actually need fertilizer that is rich in other metals as well, such as copper, in order to produce the infinity-variety fruit. The varieties share one quirk in common: both are afraid of needles. The sight of hypodermic needles will actually cause a tree to shrink back from the needle in fear, similar to the reaction of a sensitive plant though somewhat slower. Once the needle is removed, the tree will gradually relax, and return to its normal position. Due to the additional work needed on the Sharon strain to filter the handwavium from the fruit, that variety has a separate quirk; it needs at least one medical thriller or vampire story read to it a week to thrive. If a tree doesn't get its stories, it will stop blooming until the stories resume. Fortunately, books on tape or even computer-read stories are perfectly acceptable; there does not need to be an actual human reading the stories.
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Hope you find this interesting.
-Feinan

I was reading something a while back (and I have a crap memory so please bear with me) on wikipedia a little while back. It was on a fiction book or series and how an alien species is unable to eat earth biological stuff because of some incompability. It then took me to a link to a science article on how molecules or cells or something took one direction on Earth but it doesn't neccessarily have to have taken that direction elsewhere.
Anyone know what I'm talking about?
-murmur
bothering me, man. niggling at the mind.

Or might as well have. Technically we can refuse to speak to police officers, they can also refuse to take no for an answer.
I urge everyone to write their local member of parliament about this.
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Epsilon

LINKIN PARK LYRICS
"Bleed It Out"
Yeah here we go for the hundredth time
Hand grenade pins in every line
Throw 'em up and let something shine
Going out of my fucking mind
Filthy mouth, no excuse
Find a new place to hang this noose
String me up from atop these roofs
Knot it tight so i won't get loose
Truth is you can stop and stare
Bled myself out and no one cares
Dug the trench out laid down there
With a shovel up out of reach somewhere
Yeah, someone pour it in
Make it a dirt dance floor again
Say your prayers and stomp it out
When they bring that chorus in
[Chorus]
I bleed it out digging deeper
Just to throw it away
I bleed it out digging deeper
Just to throw it away
I bleed it out digging deeper
Just to throw it away
Just to throw it away
Just to throw it away
I bleed it out
[End Chorus]
Go stop the show
Choppy words and a sloppy flow
Shotgun opera lock and load
Cock it back and then watch it go
Mama help me I've been cursed
Death is rolling in every verse
Candy paint on his brand new hearse
Can't contain him he knows he works
Fuck this hurts I won't lie
Doesn't matter how hard I try
Half the words don't mean a thing
And I know that I wont be satisfied
So why try ignoring him
Make it a dirt dance floor again
Say your prayers and stomp it out
When they bring that chorus in
[Chorus]
I bleed it out digging deeper
Just to throw it away
I bleed it out digging deeper
Just to throw it away
I bleed it out digging deeper
Just to throw it away
Just to throw it away
Just to throw it away
I bleed it out
I've opened up these scars
I'll make you face this
I've pulled myself so far
I'll make you, face, this, now!!!!
[Chorus]
I bleed it out digging deeper
Just to throw it away
I bleed it out digging deeper
Just to throw it away
I bleed it out digging deeper
Just to throw it away
Just to throw it away
Just to throw it away
I bleed it out digging deeper
Just to throw it away
I bleed it out digging deeper
Just to throw it away
I bleed it out digging deeper
Just to throw it away
Just to throw it away
Just to throw it away
I bleed it out
I bleed it out
I bleed it out

This song looks like it would either kill Doug or provide some sort of cathartic experience which allows him to squeeze the results of months worth of intensive psychotherapy into a few minutes."Anyone can be a winner if their definition of victory is flexible enough." - The DM ofthe Rings XXXV
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"Anyone can be a winner if their definition of victory is flexible enough." - The DM of the Rings XXXV

Okay. I just have to add a plug for the OTHER fun game in the Orange box that isn't Half-Life 2.
Team Fortress 2.
This game is hellaciously fun, incredibly well balanced and sometimes very -very- funny.
Art style makes the world look like you're in the world of The Incredibles. All I can think of when trying to describe the concept and reason for the two groups fighting is that you have two supervillain minion teams going at it hammer and tongs. ^_^
Especially when they give you cool intros to the characters like the following -
Team Fortress 2 Teaser trailer
Watch this gameplay trailer for an overall idea of the various character types weaknesses and strengths.
In addition to which, there are 4 (so far) individual character intros that I have found that are laugh out loud funny!
The Heavy - Big Heavy Russian (Austrian?) Dude. "People think they can outsmart me. Maybe. Maybe. Yet to see one can outsmart BULLET. HAHAHA!! Cry some more!"
The Soldier Doing his best Patton impersonation.
The Demoman One-eyed Black Scotsman - "Och laddie they'll have to glue you back together noo! IN HELL!!"
And my personal FAVORITE of the ones that have come out so far -
The Engineer Soft spoken Texan with a penchant for low key humor.
"I solve practical problems."
"The answer: Use a gun. And if that don't work, use more gun." (pause)(smile)...(BOOM) "AAAH!! My arm!"
Extra special credit goes to that last one for LIBERAL use of "The Wilhelm Scream" (or something that sounds VERY much like it. ^_^)
-Logan
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"Wake up! Time for SCIENCE!"
-Adam Savage
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Last time I was on, (thursday?) there was some chatter about doing the Shadow Shard TF. Given that:
A) I've heard it's really long (and FUN in all the ways that Posi isn't)
B) I want to avoid a repeat of the last TF/SF attempt I had.
I vote we set aside a block of time well ahead of time that people can agree to.
So what time next weekend will work for people? (and if not next weekend what times are open?)-Terry
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"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." - Antoine de Saint Exupery
The problem with America is stupidity. I'm not saying there should be a capital punishment for stupidity, but why don't we just take the safety labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself?
-Terry
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"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy

On rec.arts.anime.misc, at least...
Bill Martin's put together three new posters - the first for the guys, the secondfor the gals, and finally one for the cosplayers.
May be NSFW, depending on how conservative work is...

-Rob Kelk
"Read Or Die: not so much a title as a way of life." - Justin Palmer, 6 June 2007
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012