So I get up this morning a little earlier than usual, and I realize after I get out of the shower that I can hear helicopters.  That's not all that unusual; occasionally a copter will go over the house (one did so at a low altitude on Wednesday evening, startling Helen, who was visiting).  And I grew up next to Lakehurst Naval Air Station (as it was called at the time), home to hourly helicopter fly-bys, so I hardly even notice the basso-profundo whup-whup-whup-whup of a chopper overhead.

But these helicopters aren't going away.  And when I mention it to Peggy -- who is up and about because her sleep patterns have been messed up for a good ten years now thanks to allnighters she used to pull for B-MS -- she tells me that they've been at it since the very early hours of the morning.  I wondered out loud if they were some kind of patrol and Peggy half-seriously speculates that Trump's in the neighborhood playing golf.  (Never mind that he owns a course 15 miles away that he would actually be at and he wouldn't be golfing before dawn.)

Anyway, an hour after I first notice the sound they're still going, and I head out to the car.  And I see them -- two helicopters hovering over something a few blocks away to the southeast.], holding rock-steady.  They don't seem to have police markings.   Unfortunately I don't go that way to go to work so I head off NW and leave them behind...  and I can't help wondering what the hell is/was going on over there.  I checked the website for the local news, and nothing comes up.  The last time I saw a chopper or two just hovering like that was over a big accident on an interstate, but there's nothing that way that's close to a major road.

So now I'm going to be wracked by curiosity all day... and unless I can find some kind of news article on it I may never find out what was going on.

I came across this story today, about how some people have an internal monologue, and some don't: Today I Learned That Not Everyone Has An Internal Monologue And It Has Ruined My Day.  It turns out that some people just think that the internal monologue is only a trope, not a thing real people do; and of course other real people do it.

Since this is a writer's forum, there are a couple questions I'm curious about: Do you have an internal voice?  Can you have a dialogue with yourself without speaking aloud or writing?  Do you tend to start your stories based around dialogue?

Hypothesis: most of us writers have an internal monologue, because we express ourselves through words.

When you write, remember that everyone really, really perceives the world differently.  It's not just different goals and all, characters' experience of reality can be different.  Some women can see an extra shade of green with a fourth cone -- and given all the color disagreements I've had with my mother, she must be one of them.  Some people really don't have a strong sense of taste.  To the extent that when other people talk about their favorite food, they just assume that everyone else is making a fashion choice, not that they like pizza for its taste quale. Aphantasics think that "the mind's eye" is really just a metaphor, and are surprised to learn that most people really can draw visual images in their mind.

I don't have a particularly strong sense of smell, which I think limits my writing.  I really only became aware of it by reading Jitterbug Perfume, which really beat into me (pun intended) that there's a whole world of scent out there that I really don't experience -- that the women at the perfume counter really are discerning between subtle floral scents.  On the other hand, I'm not so scentless that a job in nursing or waste management sounds appealing to me, either.  It really doesn't bother some people.

Oh, and answering my own questions, I do have internal monologues and dialogues.  I usually "hear" what I'm reading (except computer languages), in my brain it "sounds" normal even though it would be too fast for speech.  I quite often start a scene with snippets of dialogue, and start to grow the description around it.

apparently, CBS all access has learned from the outrage over Discovery, or perhaps I am just.... Slow.

However, episodes of Picard are available a week after their exclusive release on the service (I say this because I have notifications about commentary about week 2 being available while I am still watching week 1).

Discus and or dispute?

Huntresses: (RWBY x Worm)


This isn’t my ceiling, Ruby Rose thought flatly as her eyes finally focused on the ceiling of the room above her. Looking to her left she could see the rest of her team, all of them laid out beside her, covered in blankets on a carpeted floor. Slowly looking around the room she saw all their weapons except Ember Celica against the wall below their feet, and to her right was an older, dark haired man who was asleep upright with a teenage girl with her head in his lap, also asleep. Slowly she sat upright herself, taking in herself and the entirety of the room. It wasn’t a large room, but it was comfy, a couch that was occupied by the man and the teen, a bookshelf full of titles that she couldn’t see from her current position, a standing lamp, an easy chair, and a window. Quietly she got up and went to the window to look outside and stopped, eyes going wide at what she saw. “The moon,” she whispered to herself, “it’s WHOLE!”
**
“Finally,” Armsmaster said as he was winding down his weekly report. “A new independent hero team has started operations in the docks.”
 
“A whole team?” Emily Piggot asked, sitting forward in her chair, attention peeked. “We usually find the odd loner out operating independently, not whole teams. How would you get a whole team together under the radar like that?”
 
“It’s possible that it was a group trigger,” Armsmaster answered stoically. “They all show at least two to three of the same powers, low to mid-level mover/brutes. While observing them however, I also noticed blaster, breaker, master or maybe a shaker ability, as well as indications of either a thinker or tinker.”
 
“Sweet lord,” Dauntless said not quite under his breath before asking, “How many on the team?”
 
“At least five,” the tinker replied. “And of the five that are in the field, one is a brute even above the standard of the rest and maybe a dyna-kinetic to boost it even further, another is a mover/breaker while the third is a shaker/blaster and the fourth either just a shaker or a shaker/master combination depending on how much autonomy her clones have and how long they last.”
 
“What about the fifth?” Miss Militia asked.
 
“A master, maybe a master/thinker combination on top of the brute/mover base,” Armsmaster answered. “And while she only seems to control insects and arachnids, she also seems to have a very fine level of control and extended senses over the range of her control.”
 
“What about the tinker or thinker ability?” Battery asked.
 
“There is a possibility that the mover/breaker is also a tinker, as she seems to spend an inordinate amount of time and energy fussing over her own, and new weaponry,” the tinker answered. “It apparently happens enough that the rest of the team ribs her about it.” The group of heroes nodded at that and he continued. “However, there might be a second tinker that provides the specialized propellant that the team uses as the girl herself seems to be focused on the mecha-shift weaponry that the team uses.”
 
“Mecha-shift weaponry?” Miss Militia asked.
 
“Yes,” Armsmaster answered. “Two-stage, firearm and melee weapons mostly running to blades though one of them is using a cestus and a tinker built synthetic forearm and hand. That said, the dust is what seems to provide the blaster abilities that most of them use and enhance the shaker ability of the third one.”
 
“So, there is a sixth, unknown member that is a tinker,” Piggot summarized. “What do they produce?”
 
“Some sort of elemental-effect crystalline about the size of a salt crystal,” Armsmaster answered producing a quartet of small sample bags, each one a different color. “Otherwise the firearm portion of the girl’s weaponry seems to take standard ammunition, though what they might consider standard might be a little heavy by our comparison.”
 
“How heavy could they be?” Assault asked.
 
“The mover/breaker is short, slight and looks like she might at best weight in at a hundred pounds,” the tinker answered. “Her weapon of choice is what she calls a sniper-scythe, that is twice as long as she is tall and shoots a 12.7 by 99 round. The weapon, which she named Crescent Rose, has both a long rifle and carbine form while also being able to shoot in its fully extended scythe form.”
 
As the tinker had continued to speak, the rest of the room had slowly grown more and more horrified if the looks on their faces were anything to go by. Finally though, Director Emily Piggot shook her head and spoke herself. “Armsmaster, what is the likelihood of this team joining the Protectorate?”
 
“Considering they are all Wards age director, very slim,” Armsmaster answered. “However, they are friendly, conscientious, and fully willing to work with us.”
 
If the thought of full-grown adults using such heavy weaponry had scared the director, the thought of children using them made her pale even more. “Dear God,” she muttered, “who in their right mind hands a teenager a fifty-caliber sniper rifle?”
 
“Sniper-scythe ma’am,” Armsmaster corrected, ignoring the withering glare from his nominal superior. “And if what she said is accurate, she built it herself.” Piggot could only bury her face in her hands as Armsmaster smiled. I love new tinkers work. he thought.

...and her female Doctor, wait until they get a look at the first black female Doctor.

Jo Martin will be playing a "forgotten", interstitial incarnation of the Doctor, much like John Hurt's "War Doctor". Interestingly, neither she nor #13 recognize each other as known incarnations, so it's currently a mystery where she fits in the cycle of regenerations.

https://sharecg.com/v/95123/

It's marked as "fan art", but I don't recognize it. Anybody know where it's from?

Just in case someone thought that San Antonio can't possibly be nerdy enough to suit their tastes...

https://mlquidditch.com/sanantoniosoldados/

Nope, it's not a joke.

realized #42 was several posts past 300, and so here we go.

Gardener of the Grim Darkness (Warhammer 40K, SI as an Exalted Sidereal)
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/...t-64383141

I wasn't a big fan at first, but after playing it a few times it grew on me. Plus the video is funny, especially if you mentally recast the setting into Star Wars to match the artist's name.


non-embedded
This is certainly not Doug's ticket home (even if that hadn't already been decided) but very much fits as something to move on to the next stop on the way.

So... Ads in WordPad.

This is the last straw as far as my father is concerned (never mind that they've been putting ads in Windows for a few years now) - he just asked me what he'd need to run Linux on a desktop or laptop. He's willing to buy a new or gently-used machine to experiment with it.

When it comes to Linux, I can advise him on setting it up on a mainframe... but he isn't about to buy one of those to play with. What is the current state of the rat for end-user Linux - especially for the "don't make me compile apps; I just want to download, install, and use it" demographic? Is there still a performance difference between distros? Does anything not ship with a GUI nowadays? What hardware specs do you need for a decent and usable install?