Ok I found this site called 'just facts'
justfacts.com/index.asp
it seems interesting but all its info is dated. Anyone know of a similiar but up to date site? Perferably without a far right or
far left slant?
Thanks in advance

Cory Doctrow sings the praises of the humble fanficcer:

Quote:

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Walk the streets of Florence and you'll find a copy of the David on practically every corner. For centuries, the way to become a Florentine sculptor has been to copy Michelangelo, to learn from the master. Not just the great Florentine sculptors, either great or terrible, they all start with the master; it can be the start of a lifelong passion, or a mere fling. The copy can be art, or it can be crap the best way to find out which kind you've got inside you is to try.
Science fiction has the incredible good fortune to have attracted huge, social groups of fan-fiction writers. Many pros got their start with fanfic (and many of them still work at it in secret), and many fan-fic writers are happy to scratch their itch by working only with others' universes, for the sheer joy of it. Some fanfic is great there's plenty of Buffy fanfic that trumps the official, licensed tie-in novels and some is purely dreadful.
Two things are sure about all fanfic, though: first, that people who write and read fanfic are already avid readers of writers whose work they're paying homage to; and second, that the people who write and read fanfic derive fantastic satisfaction from their labors. This is great news for writers.

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Eve Online explains the game-mechanic of player-death not being permanent by saying the right before their ejection pod is breached, it transmits their mind-print to the nearest cloning facility.
They have developed a lot of background-fiction to support this, heres an example:
www.eve-online.com/backgr...-07-05.asp
It is really surprising how some people get squicked at the notion that every time their ship blows up, thousands of imaginary people died permanently, while they get to wake up in a new body.

We often recomed new fics to each other but what about fics that where written years ago. We should have a recomendation thread for them too.
I'll begin with www.angelfire.com/sd/dark...index.html
which contains several fics worth reading even if the color choice of the site is terrible.
The only one on that site that I wouldn't recomend is Quantum Destenies, which is too long, and not that great.
The Snow Raven is the only one of those I haven't read more than once and it's on my current reading list, and what I have read so far warants a reomendation.
Doe sanyone know what happened to KaosQu? I'm still waiting on chapter 6 of Sound Hearts, and his email is dead.
E: "Did they... did they just endorse the combination of the JSDF and US Army by showing them as two lesbian lolicons moving in together and holding hands and talking about how 'intimate' they were?"
B: "Have you forgotten so soon? They're phasing out Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

Ok here is my little future fic, I wrote it a while ago but since I havan't hear back from my prereader I'm assuming it's ok. I have no plans to extend it, this is just a small glimpses of a futre where nothing really has changed from the days of before handwavium.
---------------------------------------------------
I nervously straightened my lab-coat as I entered the turbolift. This was it, the interview that would make or break his chance to become the president. All the other candidates so far had been rejected, and to make it even worse the interim president was on of the three. With a whoosh the doors closed, and there was a slight tug of acceleration before the doors opened again, nearly a thousand kilometers away, in front of the presidents office. I feel like I'm a kid again knocking on the big wooden doors of the principals office. Of course my high school didn't have giant doors donated by the British Museum when they modernized.
"Come in." rang out the voice of interim president as the giant doors swung open. The office was incredibly over sized, as was the giant marble desk, a holdover from the second president, who had been over three meters tall and had an ego even larger than he was. Behind the ten meter wide desk the president looked tiny, even though she was the tallest of the three.
"Miss Asakura, it is a pleasure to finally meet you." I blurted out as I approached the desk. At least I didn't stammer. It's not every day you meet a legend.
"The pleasure is all mine professor Bernstein. Please call me Ryoko," she smiled warmly, "Would you like some coffee?"
"Yes, of course, I mean please, if it's no trouble." I babble, blushing in embarrassment.
"Oh it's no trouble, please have a seat and make yourself comfortable." She said, as she started busying herself with the coffee machine on the side of the desk.
I took the opportunity to examine the desk in more detail, it was neatly organized, but almost completely filled with odds and ends. Along the front of the desk was a line of models depicting the Academy through it's 75 year growth from it's humble beginnings as an outgrowth of Hades station through it's current size as a collection of asteroids, domes and rings surrounded by the currently largest particle accelerator in known space at a diameter of 2000km up the the planned expansion to add more space for the new departments and a 4000 km diameter particle accelerator which would be used for really high energy physics. And to add a few more 2000km rings to use for student projects. The title for the largest university in known space was definitely secure for a while longer.
Other noteworthy models included the one with the first breaker gate, and the one from just after the activation of the breaker gate, when the entire department of limit break research as involuntarily relocated deep into the local limit. Ever since then various dangerous projects have been moved to other satellites in system, making some claim that the Academy stretches over the entire system. The President of the Academy was recognized as the system authority for Procyon by the Federation, lending additional weight to that claim. And here I was trying to get the job, I must be mad to think I even stand a chance.
Some of the other items on the desk where clearly the personal belongings of Ryoko, such as the pictures of the legendary Professor, in whose name the Academy was founded, together with the three and the schools founder and first headmaster Indy when he was still a kid. Measuring up to the Professors Apprentice, who also was the first president, was going to be a though job. A job so though that no-one has managed it yet.
"Are you alright?" asked Ryoko, while handing over a freshly brewed cup of coffee. "You look a little preoccupied."
Taking a deep breath to steady myself I take the steaming mug and reply; "I was just thinking about the responsibilities and duties as the president of the Academy."
"To business then, what makes you think that you are the best person for the job." She asked with a smile that set my heart aflutter.
Rallying my wits I responded with one of my prepared statements; "As the chair for the journalism department I have a great deal of experience in leading a section of the Academy, and I am already familiar with most of the day to day operations necessary to keep the university running."
"But following that argument wouldn't Dean Harzaref even better suited to the job? He has lived at the Academy for his entire life, and many departments would be happier with a proper scientist in the lead." Prodded Ryoko, her smile suddenly reminding me more of a shark's.
I successfully held in my shudder at the sudden change in the offices mood, the argument was expected after all. Indeed it was almost as if she was following my script. "With all due respect to the Limit Break Physics Department, Dean Harzaref is a brilliant scientist but his skills as an administrator are severely lacking. He also doesn't have the breath of experience necessary to lead the Academy in interfactional affairs, he is almost embracingly provincial. I hover have extensive experience in this field, I even helped settle some of the disputes during the Mars Rebellions."
"That leads me to another point raised against you, you have made enemies in the Federation with your involvement on mars, there have even been rumors that the federation would free the Citizens of Procyon from the 'tyranny' of the Academy President, who is after all a dictator that is not democratically elected. Many feel that appointing someone like you to this sensitive post would be an unnecessary affront." Ryoko said, you could almost hear the quotes around the key word of that sound byte bandied around by the Federation politicians. Though her inscrutable smile gave no hint of her position on that issue.
"Those rumors are always circling, the Federation is not like the old style USA, nothing will come of it. Besides there are only a few thousand Citizens of Procyon, as it is a honorary title bestowed on a few scientists. Secondly the rest of the population are either transients, most of whom are students, or they are employed by the Academy, and few universities hold elections amongst the staff for leadership." I retorted, becoming more comfortable, so far all the objections had been things I had expected and had prepared a response for. I might still make it. Her next question however hit me out of the blue.
"Well you know the correct platitudes to say, lets move on to something else. So I heard that you had an affair with Ms. Alexander, who was later convicted as a Boskoninan in the aftermath of the Mars Rebellions. Tell me is she really like a wildcat in bed?"
I barely kept my jaw from dropping, how did she know about that? I hated the guilty expression that I knew was on my face. Still after a second to gather my composure I started to respond. "I broke of my affair with Ms. Alexander when she joined the MRA, since I disagreed with her decision. I never though the MRA would go as far as the Stingray Incident, otherwise I would have informed the Martian authorities of course. I simply felt there was no point in advertising my former relationship with one of the ring leaders after the fact."
Ryoko just nodded, "As I said you know the things to say, but that wasn't what I asked."
Thinking franticly to recall what she asked when she dropped that little bombshell on me. Finally I responded "I don't see what business it is of yours, but yes, she was."
"If it is none of my business why did you even respond to it in the first place?"
I couldn't decide whether her smile was cherubic or that of a shark about to go into a feeding frenzy. Still I pressed on as well as I was able. "If I get the Presidency I will have to maintain the standards of openness and transparency set up by previous presidents, so I will have to get used to having very little privacy. And you are the Interim President, and on the board of directors. If you felt it was your business to know something about me then I have an obligation to tell you or withdraw my application."
"Not quite the answer I was hoping for but good enough. Congratulations Mr. President."
It took a few moments for what she said to penetrate, it was all I could do to stammer out, "Thank you, but the board of directors still have to vote."
She waved it off, "a formality, you already have seven out of nine votes between me Miyu and Catty. By the way you are wrong about the Federation, they are about to make a move against the Drakensis Combine."
Of course that made sense, the three each held two out of the nine votes, and the current president also had a vote, so the overwhelming majority was no surprise. The what she said about the Federation penetrated and I shuddered. I thought they would have learned after what happened to the USA, or if not, then at least from Mars.
E: "Did they... did they just endorse the combination of the JSDF and US Army by showing them as two lesbian lolicons moving in together and holding hands and talking about how 'intimate' they were?"
B: "Have you forgotten so soon? They're phasing out Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

www.computerandvideogames...0&site=pcgWire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979

Been catching up with Air Gear over the past few days, and this has been stuck in my head and just begging to get out and wreak havoc upon fanfic readers. Beware.
Summary: Combat is not a 'fine' art. AT combat even less so.
Screw-ups aren't uncommon. 'Controlled' injury? What a fucking oxymoron. Emphasis on _moron_.
Borderline darkfic warning.

---
***
Tell me what the rain knows
an Air Gear AU shortfic
by Griever
***
Put them on.
"Ya sure about this, ki ... nah. Ya sure about this, Crow?"
Lace them up. Make sure it holds. AT. The source of it all. What started it all.
"No. Fuck, Sora, how'm I supposed to be _sure_ about something like this?"
Stomp, well and hard, and hear the squeal of tearing floor.
"Yer set on doin' this. Enough to make people think yer sure."
Yeah, the knee still hurts, but to hell with it.
Too angry to give a damn. Too angry to care. Too angry to notice the pain.
All it took was a single phone-call to his cell, and the photo sent along with it.
Kazu ... should he hate him for that? He sounded all kinds of messed up, and Ikki doubted it was because of what he'd seen. But he wasn't talking.
Not.
His.
Problem.
Kazu'd always been too tough to break. He'd work through it, and come out stronger after, whatever the hell he's going through.
Ikki ... with Ikki, it was always less a matter of working through a problem, and more one of coming at it head on, and then soaring away straight over its head.
That ...
... that wouldn't work this time.
"Why the hell ain't you stopping me, ossan?"
Takeuchi Sora frowned, then shook his head. "Yeah, I could ... but, ya gotta do what ya gotta do, I'm thinkin'. What, I'm s'posed to stop you from tryin' ta follow yer Road?" The wheelchair-bound onetime Wind King sighed. "Wind's a fickle thing, Crow. Ya know that. I know that. It can be the gentlest thing in the world. But there's times ... there's times it's the most unforgiving sonuvabitch out there as well. And yer the Wind, bird-boy. That's just the way it is."
***
The flames shot upwards with unholy glee, staining the night sky crimson.
That was the first thing she saw.
And when she realized just _where_ those flames were coming from, she didn't even stop to consider before she was running, vaulting, sprinting over and past whatever got in her way.
When she laid eyes on the scene, she felt relief. They were out.
Huddled together, shaken, and in their sleepwear, but they were out.
"Mikan, Ringo, Shiraume!" She shouted. Her sisters, the only true family she'd ever had ... she didn't know what she'd have done had something happened to them.
But that still left ...
"Ikki! Where's Ikki?!"
Mikan shook her head slightly, and Noyamano Riku's heart stopped ...
"Broken kneecap."
... until the voice came. Harsh. So very, very harsh and unforgiving was the tone, that she didn't recognize it until she looked up.
"Fractured hip, multiple fractures to the pelvis," Ikki. Minamo Itsuki. Crow. Her 'little brother' that she wouldn't have exchanged for anything in the world. Not that she was demonstrative about that.
"Fucking _nerve damage_, an' they're sayin' she'll likely have to learn how to _walk_ again. That she'll never _run_ again, much less anything else. Hell, they don't even know if she'll _wake up_ at all!"
That look on his face, as he stood there, scowling, staring down from a perch on top of a streetlight, straight at ...
"You know, you should have just fucking killed her. Instead, you were so fucking _magnanimous_ about it, so fucking _arrogant_ ... I don't know you at all, do I? And what I'm seeing? It disgusts me."
... her sisters?
"You took her sky."
He reached into his jacket, drawing something out from beneath. Scattering metallic bits and pieces that hit the ground ... very familiar bits and pieces.
Bits and pieces that, when they'd still been together, Riku had worn and used.
"So I'm takin' yours."
The Thorn Regalia ATs. Mark of the leader of Sleeping Forest, the Queen of Thorns.
"And your precious Sleeping Forest?"
He flicked his free hand, that she realized wasn't free at all ... but holding a lighter.
"I'll fucking _burn it_ to the ground."
Just like that, he was gone. A shadow in the darkness, on silent crow wings.
And Riku, though she knew she wouldn't like the answer, still had to ask. "Ringo ... what have you _done_?"
The only things that broke the silence of night were the roaring flames, and Ringo's sobbing.
***
END tell me what the rain knows
***
---
That's right. What if Ringo messed up and Simca really _was_ in as bad a way as the chapters where she'd brought to the hospital indicate at first.
And what if Kazu had caught the whole thing on camera?
I'm thinking, Ikki'd be going apeshit.
And yeah, I'm channeling my own feelings here, because this more recent Sleeping Forest? It makes me sick.
-Griever
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm

Dennou Coil is Hayao Miyazaki does Serial Experiments Lain.
It's cute yet has that "lurking horror" tone that you expect for a Lovecraft tale - all in a well-animated bundle.
Project Blue is over a year old and I still wonder why no one's picked up more than one episode to fansub. It's pretty much Johnny Quest mixed with everyone of Gerry Anderson's shows: Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet and UFO. Human super-science goes up against alien invaders while two plucky kids, Billy Kimura, a Richie Rich type science detective, and his rival, Penny Carter, who is Johnny Quest with a dog named Washington, go around investigating mysterious disappearances of G-reactor powered vehicles. Lotta Brest, the requisite scientist's daughter, tags along, while a masked guy flying an advanced fighter named Sky Knight armed with Tesla cannons kicks UFO butt.
It's so retro-60's it even has the soundtrack:
youtube.com/watch?v=vyjUdYYBdPc
ureshii fansubbed the first episode and there's an episode 2 raw floating around but I can't find the last 4 episodes.
But the two I watched were satisfying in themselves. I'll have to hunt around for a DVD, even if I have to pay out of my nose for it.

Feel free to contribute, critiscize, or simply lol. This is an exorcism of a bunny that's been sitting in my head for a couple months now - what if vampires invaded, modern day Alaska, via dimensional portals?

Kenneth Elm opened his eyes and blinked the sleep out of them. He didn't move anything else, and lay in bed silently, feeling the alarm roll across his nerves. The darkness of his bedroom resolved, the small lights of various pieces of electronics providing a night-light level glow.
His bedroom door was open a few inches, thanks to the cat, and the shimmering light from his father's old and much-repaired plasma globe filtered in through the gap.
Ken blinked again, preperatory to going back to sleep, and saw a shadow cross the light from the globe. Focussing on his ears, the best way to determine who was moving about the house in the night, Ken couldn't hear his father's slightly clumsy, heavy steps, or his mother's more pointed tapping, or even his sister's whisking shuffle.
Ken tensed slightly, readying himself to sit up and go investigate, and his door started to open. Abandoning movement, he shuttered his eyes and peered through the lashes at the door. The light from his stereo and computer monitor's power lights and whatnot was sufficient to reveal a tall, oddly built figure, with no definition to his sides.
The figure opened the door fully, and the light was just barely sufficient for Ken to see a face directly out of a bad vampire movie. Ken rolled off the bed and fell to the floor, screaming. As Ken rolled under the bed, the bed rocked as the intruder grabbed the mattress and flung it aside, repeating the act with the box spring to reveal young Ken.
When the box spring came out, Ken shot his hand to the shelves of junk that every young boy has, his was at the head of the bed, and his hand closed around something. Relying on tactile memory and blind luck, Ken stabbed at the figure, and was rewarded with a squawk of surprise as a spare whip for his amateur radio antenna poked the dark figure in the mouth.
The figure reached up and flew backwards, as Eric Elm, Ken's father, grabbed it by the back of the neck and threw it down the hall. The figure crashed into the shelves that the globe sat on, and the globe wobbled, tipped, and fell down into Eric's hand, as he stepped forward and kicked the figure in the ass, rescuing his plasma globe on the way.
The globe was tossed to Ken, who set it aside, and Eric turned the light on. The figure on the floor, struggling to pull it's head out of the tangle of steel that had resulted from its initial flight into the shelves, screamed. The scream was quite loud and quite high pitched, and must have been trapped and reverbrated fairly effectively by the steel panels of the shelf unit, as the scream immediately stopped, replaced by a hiccuping groan. The figure was revealed to be a slender man in a rather tattered suit, all in black, with a flowing black cape, now crumpled about it's shoulders.
Eric kicked the figure again, then turned to his son and made a pistol gesture with his hand. Returning his attention to the prone figure, Eric stomped down, his oil-field toughened foot landing in the small of the figure's back, just as it attempted to push off the floor and pull it's head out again. Ken showed back up out of Eric's bedroom, his hand full of big black pistol.
"Got it, dad"
Eric removed his foot from the figure, and reached down again. grabbing one scrawny wrist in each hand, he pulled backwards, one of his legs between the legs of the prone figure, one outside. The figure was jerked out of the shelf unit and slammed into Eric's ankle with a sensitive spot, and howled again. The horrible sound made both men grimace, and Ken took a step back into the doorway of his bedroom, but ceased when Eric thoughtfully bounced the face of his captive off the floor.
"OK, loser, this is what's going to happen" Eric pronounced, his voice steady, but hot with anger. "I'm going to let go of one of your hands and set you up against the wall, you're going to behave, or my son's going to shoot you."
Eric paused in his speech, and Ken racked the slide on the pistol, making his own audible punctuation. The figure hissed, and Eric bounced it off the floor a few more times before releasing it's left hand. That hand immediately swept around to grasp Eric's right wrist, and squeezed hard enough that Eric grunted. He forced the figure into a sitting position against the wall, kneeled in front of it, and recoiled in shock. The face confronting him was a realization of the 1970's cliche movie vampire, red glaring eyes lit from behind, white leathery skin, enlarged batlike ears, sharp fangs bared in a hissing snarl of rage.
Eric pushed his recoil further, surging back to his feet and taking the vampire with him. The vampire cooperated, lunging forward and leading with the fangs, but Eric slipped sideways and slammed the vampire into the wall behind them, jarring it momentarily, allowing Eric to smash one beefy pipeworker's fist into it's leprous face. A look of shock remained when the fist retracted, and Eric changed his grip to the vampire's neck.
"You got one fucking chance to explain yourself, asshole!" Eric shouted into the vampire's face. The vampire lunged forward again, fangs snapping at Eric's face, and Ken pushed the barrel of the pistol into the thing's ear and squeezed the trigger.
The explosive crack of the pistol round slapped into the ears of both men, nearly deafening them to the scream of the vampire as the powder burns, instead of being mere scorches, caught and burned, burning the vampire like a cannon fuse.
When the burning was done, nothing remained but a pile of ashes, scorched paint, a disgusting stench and a pile of dust. Ken safed the pistol, looking at it like he'd never seen it before, then looked up at his father, confusion on his face. Eric returned his look with equal puzzlement, then shook his head like a dog coming out of water.
"What the fuck was that, dad?"
"Damned if I know, son. If I didn't know better, I'd have said it was a vampire."
Ken opened his mouth to reply, and the phone rang.Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979

Reusing the extra-creepy head from Number A, here's Doctor Whiteface.

--Sam
"I reasoned that if a normal-sized clown was funny, a giant clown would be even funnier."