The seiyuus performing the theme song
Is that Inoue Kikou dressed as Lobelia?
__________________
Into terror!,  Into valour!
Charge ahead! No! Never turn
Yes, it's into the fire we fly
And the devil will burn!
- Scarlett Pimpernell

I don't know why I'm posting this -- everyone will have gotten the email by now, just like I did. But I'm posting it anyway.
PlayNC has just acquired 100% ownership of COH/COV (it was previously split between them and Cryptic). The COH dev team (or a goodly portion of it) has moved over to PlayNC to continue updating/revising/etc. the game. Press release here.
Hopefully this won't mean much to us on the playing level, though there is always the chance a game will get horribly borked when the suits above it change.
Anyway, more interesting, I think, is the other news the email held. To wit, the following are coming at or about the same time as Issue 11:
1. Full access to both sides for everyone. No more having to buy each game separately.
2. Debt wipe. Sometime after the release of Issue 11, all debt will be "forgiven", allowing everyone to start with a blank slate.
3. Supergroups will get 20,000 prestige for each member they have -- yes, that's 3 million prestige for a full group.
Okay, discuss. -- Bob
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One of the primary differences between the Left and the Right is their attitude toward the Future. The Radical wants the Future to have gotten here yesterday. The Reactionary wants the Future quietly shot and the corpse buried where no one can find it.
-- Bob
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Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

I'm at the point where I'm only picking up a few anime series on DVD: Zipang (one disc left), Hare & Guu Deluxe (one disc left), Ah My Goddess (two discs left), and Zegapain (just started). Lucky Star doesn't start its R1 DVD release until next year. but that'll go on the list when it does.
I'm also only downloading three series: Denno Coil (six eps left), Oh! Edo Rocket (six eps left, but appears to be stalled), and You're Under Arrest Full Throttle (just starting). Yes, I intend to buy them all on R1 DVD when or if they become available; I wouldn't be downloading them otherwise. (I've already bought the Oh! Edo Rocket soundtrack CD.)
That's a pretty sparse list for a maniacu...
Given that, my posting history here, and my current 20 favourite anime list, what do people think I might like that I might not have seen? They don't need to be new shows; I know I haven't seen all the good anime that's out there, despite how much I have seen.

-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

While watching the latest ep of Gundam 00, I had a sudden cunning plan jump out and assault my brain.
It went thus: The biggest problem with operating at the deep underwater level is that the pressure difference can get insane if you want to try and build something a human can survive in. If you don't, though, and your machinery can survive getting wet, then there is, theoretically, no reason why the design problems can't be solved reasonably.
Wherever there is a continental boundary, particularly a spreading one, there is energy being released into the environment. Most such boundaries are underwater, thereby providing not only heat but working fluid.
The gadget I'm seeing in my mind's eye shouldn't really take any new technology even in a modern-day setting - you have a house-ish-sized 'generator' of maybe a couple MW capacity with a neutral bouyancy that gets ferried down by a remote-control rover and glued or anchored in place over a lava vent. Cable is run to a collector box on the seafloor nearby, which is, in turn connected to other collector boxes that eventually plug into a seafloor line leading to the mainland. Installing enough of the things to run a nation's full energy needs would be a massive undertaking, of course, but still far less than Gundam 00's Solar Power System... and would start paying off far sooner, too.
Thoughts?

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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."

This is a game done by a Polish group based on a somewhat famous Slavic author's works. It basically tells the story of a monster hunter (called a Witcher - an amusing direct translation of the Polish word) and his adventures.
1) Graphics/Sound: The graphics and sound are *beautiful*. It uses the NWN2 engine, so be warned it eats CPU/GPU like candy.
2) Gameplay: Simple, but fun. Combat is done via timed mouseclicks, and it can often be a challenge since you have multiple weapons and combat styles to play with. There's some crafting and a frankly daunting level of character customization to be done.
3) Story: I've only played a few hours in, but it's fairly fun. They touch on some interesting elements of reality, including racism, religious intolerance, persecution, etc. There's also a fairly hilarious minigame in which you collect cards - one for every woman you sleep with. The Witcher, he is a player.

I highly recommend this game. My only gripe is that load times can be a bit brutal, but other than that, it's really fun and remarkably well done.
(Also, the Canadian Bilingual edition is missing a reg code needed to get extras off the site, but that's a regional-limited thing, and Atari addressed the problem in a day.)--
Christopher Angel, aka JPublic
The Works of Christopher Angel
"Camaraderie, adventure, and steel on steel. The stuff of legend! Right, Boo?"

This one's something of an oddball - it affects Doug indirectly, and the effect can last for hours.
Good Luck Charm
(Sung by Elvis Presley, words & music by Aaron Schroeder & Wally Gold)

Don't want a four leaf clover
Don't want an old horse shoe
Want your kiss cause I just can't miss
With a good luck charm like you
Come on and be my little good luck charm
Uh-huh huh, you sweet delight
I want a good luck charm
A-hanging on my arm
To have, to have, to hold, to hold tonight
Don't want a silver dollar
Rabbit's foot on a string
The happiness in your warm caress
No rabbit's foot can bring
Come on and be my little good luck charm
Uh-huh huh, you sweet delight
I want a good luck charm
A-hanging on my arm
To have, to have, to hold, to hold tonight
If I found a lucky penny
I'd toss it across the bay
Your love is worth all the gold on earth
No wonder that I say
Come on and be my little good luck charm
Uh-huh huh, you sweet delight
I want a good luck charm
A-hanging on my arm
To have, to have, to hold, to hold tonight

When the song is played completely, it targets itself on the closest female sophont. It has no effect on her; rather, as long as she's physically close enough to Doug to touch him, he gets a noticeable "good luck" bonus. (In GURPS, he'd get Luck or Serendipity; in In Nomine, whichever die comes up the highest in any given roll is the CD; and so on.)
The effects last until the female moves more than arm's-length away from Doug, or until sunrise.
(The female doesn't have to be Maggie, or even human - just an intelligent being who considers herself to be female. However, Maggie would probably be the best choice for Doug's "good luck charm;" besides the obvious reason, she's better able than most women to keep up with him in combat... )

-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

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.

===============================================
"Reseeestunce ees fiutil. Yoo weeel bee Useemooletud. Borg Borg Borg."
===========

===============================================
"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