The Green Book

Guerrilla Warfare has changed a great deal in the last half century - especially with the advent of facebook and the internet however the basic tenant remains the same.

He must exhaust the enemy by constant harrasment
He must attack constantly, and from all directions
He must stage succesful retreats, return to the attack, and avoid encounters with the enemy that are not of his own making.


Yes. I did just post a Terrorist Training Manual to the forum.

You are alll on a CIA watch list.

In case anyone is interested, there is a bluray release of the BBC Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy tv show.

I've had a look at a discussion thread https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=304425  and its a mixed bag.  Good sound, decent extras but a bad job in upscaling the video seems to be the majority view.

Also for everyone across the pond, to quote the web forum above "The blu-ray is region free but with a 50i picture format rather than 60i meaning if you live outside a PAL region make sure your player and TV support the format".

As for amazon links

UK Special Edition
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hitchhikers-Gui...uraycom-21

UK VHS style pack
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hitchhikers-Gal...uraycom-21

US llnk for special edition (new and used)
https://www.amazon.com/Hitchhikers-Guide...990&sr=1-1

Mark

Here in Ventura, once stood a pair of trees on a hill.  They had stood there since the long, long ago, where the legendary farmers -- men of McGraths, the Donlons, the Borchards, and the Ortegas -- had placed them high above the city of San Buenaventura.  And there they stood and grew across the long decades, keeping silent vigil above a prosperous town, and inspiring us with simple beauty.

The Two Trees were not ordinary trees, but blue gum eucalptus, brought and placed here from lands far to the West.  They were something of an emblem for local businesses, with representations proudly emblazoned in logos and signs.  Through my youth, they were an everpresent feature on the skyline, inspiring dreams and fantasies.  For in one direction stood the earthy hills, and in the other lay the sea and the enchanted isles.

Perhaps they were descendants of the Two Trees of Valinor, Laurelin and Telperion, who shed their light on all of Arda, from Valinor across the western sea to Middle-Earth and beyond.  For just like their ancestors, in recent years, they started to sicken.

In the Years of the Trees, the Trees of Valinor lit the whole world, until Morgoth convinced Ungoliant to inject her poison into them.  As the two trees died, the light of the world slowly faded away, until the Valar took the last living fruit of Laurelin and the last living flower of Telperion and used them to create the Moon and Sun.  But they, too, were corrupted by Ungoliant's poison -- the last remaining pure light of the trees were bound in the Silmarilli of Fëanor, taken and held in Morgoth's terrible crown for a thousand years.

The Two Trees of Ventura too faltered.  First the eastern tree sickened, and grew weak.  Then the great fires came and scorched the very leaves off the branches and extinguished the life out of our sacred trees.  A month later, a windstorm came and snapped the eastern tree's trunk in twain, so what remains of the glory of the Two Trees is a tall stump and a dead, wintry outline of the formerly great branches.

Where once they stood for our prosperity and resilience, now the Two Trees are a tall reminder of what we have lost -- irreplaceable lives, homes of friends sacrificed to the flames, the days we lived in thick smoke, families rent apart as people move away to find a place to live.

As our city is once again wreathed in smoke, mere months after the previous fire, it grows more painful once again.  The inescapable fact is that in this new era, the light of the world is no longer pure; it has been corrupted by the flames that once again consume homes and lives.  Everything has an orangish tint and is covered in a layer of dust and soot -- all of the city's colors have dimmed.

Men's hearts too, have dimmed.  Our President has said that we don't deserve aid in fighting the fires.  People argue in earnest that separating children from their parents is good and just.  Still, we feed the fires ever more, with cars and plants and factories.  The Devil Winds come more and more often as we burn the fuel to light the lamps to blot out the stars.

I can still remember the pure light and star-filled skies, but I can no longer see it here.  With the passing of our Two Trees, a little more of the light of faith is gone from the world.  Yet I can see the smoky light of the flame racing down the hills towards us once again.  And Melkor, in the Void beyond the Walls of the World, is laughing.

I'm sure you've seen this before: Spikyhair Shinysmile, teenaged amnesiac of few words but prodigious fighting skill, sets out to discover his past and along the way gathers a band of oddball companions and uncovers a heinous plot to recover some artifact of the lost golden age and foil it to save the world, possibly bringing a return of the golden age along the way or at least preventing whatever caused it to fall from happening again.

Of course you have. It's the story of at least 80% of every RPG video game ever made.

My question is how to put together a plot line to not merely avoid this tried and true and horribly overdone formula, but subvert and perhaps mock it a bit as well, without descending into twee or complete sociopathy.

My initial idea is to have the protagonist begin as the local Super-Emperor of Everything but everyone else has lost their memory, and therefore everything is falling apart, let alone anyone recognizing your authoritah. I'm divided over whether there should be a semi-standard system of character upgrades framed as brushing the rust off your personal skills now that there aren't legions of soldiers to obey your every whim, or if character generation should end with abilities and skills and super final attack sure-kill secret moves mostly in the state they'll be throughout, aside from equipment upgrades and so on. Probably a blend would be best there, but the right balance point would be critical.

Finding and dealing with the cause of the problem is the end of tutorial mode, or at most the first chapter, but there is no reset button involved; the rest of the game is... I dunno. Getting people's skills and purpose restored to keep the infrastructure lashed together enough that the world doesn't go completely post-apocalypse-grimderp? Build your armies anew and reconquer the setting with the help of various super-weapons only the MC remembers how to use? Something less widespread, basically becoming the bandit-king of a city state to maintain your own standard of living (and incidentally that of your immediate followers) and watch the world beyond the reach of your hands burn?

Is it actually necessary to send the player out to do hero stuff in order to have gameplay value? I'm not seeing a whole lot of options that actually sound engaging, and cliches become cliches because they resonate with people over and over; Tropes Are Not Bad and so on.

Partial transcript of an interview (with a link to the audio of the complete interview): If the midterms were a battle for America's soul, who won?

No tl;dr possible - it's too detailed and far-ranging. (And if anybody replies within a half-hour of seeing this post, I'll know you didn't actually listen to the interview.)

There is this, though:

Quote:If you look at when positive social change happens, it rarely happens through voting for the people we like, who then pass a law. What happens is that you have a great groundswell; you have communities of activists, of parents, of sympathetic people who begin to make changes. A thousand small sanities are usually more effective than one big idea.

Youths sue US government over climate change, government argues they have no legal right to decent environment.

"By contrast, the US Department of Justice argues that “there is no right to ‘a climate system capable of sustaining human life’”

Just... fuck right off. 80s cartoon villains are better human beings than you assnuggets.

Sadly, it's not a set you can buy.



Several more pictures here:
https://hiconsumption.com/2018/05/lego-sr-71-blackbird/

And with this post I open the new video thread. (And for anyone who missed it, the old thread is here.)

Don't bother with guns, don't bother to hide
You'd better just run, don't shelter inside
Godzilla is coming to town

He's making a mess, stomping it twice
Gonna put out those bright city lights
Godzilla is coming to town

He sees you with his tonsils
Your screams won't change your fate
Human weapons are useless
so you'd better flee fast for goodness sake

Try not to get et, and try not to die
You can't hope to win, be glad you survive
When Godzilla is coming to town



Come on, everybody join in!

A few lists, from what data we have in the wiki. (If there's canon data of this type for characters that aren't listed here, please add it to the wiki.)

Birthdays (canon and non-canon):
January 3: Fujitaka Kinomoto
January 6: Hotaru Tomoe
January 13: Mimi Hanyu
January 15: Mio Akiyama
January 27: Haruka Ten'oh
January 30: Akari Mizunashi
January 31: Sawako Yamanaka
February 2: Aika Granzchesta
February 3: Tohsaka Rin
February 9: Tomo Takino
February 18: Hikari Horaki
February 22: Homura Akemi, Ui Hirasawa, Kazari Uiharu
February 29: Touya Kinomoto
March 2: Matou Sakura
March 6: Michiru Kaioh
April 1: Sakura Kinomoto
April 8: Jun Suzuki
April 9: Artoria Pendragon
April 15: Emiya Shirou, Emiya Shirou (Servant)
April 17: Rei Hino
April 24: Keiichi Morisato, Sakaki
May 2: Kokono Misaka, Mikoto Misaka, Misaka Misaka, Nana Misaka, Niiko Misaka, Rei Misaka
May 10: Chiyo Mihama
May 20: Nadeshiko Kinomoto
June 4: Hayate Yagami
June 6: Shinji Ikari
June 17: Kaji Ryogi
June 26: Osaka
June 30: Usagi Chiba, Usagi Tsukino
July 2: Tsumugi Kotobuki
July 11: Maya Ibuki
July 13: Shaoran Li
July 29: Akira E. Ferrari
August 3: Mamoru Chiba
August 9: Kagura
August 16: Kaorin
August 21: Ritsu Tainaka
September 1: Alice Carroll
September 3: Tomoyo Daidouji
September 10: Ami Mizuno
September 12: Kensuke Aida
September 19: Koyomi Mizuhara
October 3: Madoka Kaname
October 22: Minako Aino
October 29: Setsuna Meioh
October 30: Alicia Florence
October 31: Ruby Rose
November 11: Azuza Nakano
November 21: Ritsuko Akagi
November 27: Yui Hirasawa
December 4: Asuka Soryu
December 5: Makoto Kino
December 8: Misato Katsuragi
December 21: Hyoga Kazakiri
December 22: Athena Glory
December 24: Kaname Chidori
December 25: Yukito Tsukishiro
December 26: Nodoka Manabe, Toji Suzuhara

Heights:
114 cm: Usagi Chiba
135 cm: Chiyo Mihama
145 cm: Alice Carroll
148 cm: Hotaru Tomoe
150 cm: Azuza Nakano
152 cm: Kuroko Shirai, Madoka Kaname
154 cm: Artoria Pendragon, Kaorin, Ritsu Tainaka, Tomo Takino, Ui Hirasawa
155 cm: Akari Mizunashi, Nora Valkyrie
156 cm: Kagura, Osaka, Yui Hirasawa
157 cm: Homura Akemi, Kyoko Sakura, Ruby Rose, Tsumugi Kotobuki
158 cm: Mami Tomoe, Nodoka Manabe, Usagi Tsukino
159 cm: Sayaka Miki, Tohsaka Rin
160 cm: Aika Granzchesta, Keiichi Morisato, Mio Akiyama, Ruiko Saten, Weiss Schnee
162 cm: Minako Aino
163 cm: Koyomi Mizuhara
164 cm: Ami Mizuno
165 cm: Alicia Florence, Misato Katsuragi, Sawako Yamanaka
166 cm: Kaname Chidori, Rei Hino
167 cm: Emiya Shirou
168 cm: Akira E. Ferrari, Blake Belladonna, Velvet Scarletina (not including her ears)
170 cm: Athena Glory
173 cm: Michiru Kaioh, Yang Xiao Long
174 cm: Makoto Kino, Sakaki
175 cm: Lie Ren
181 cm: Setsuna Meioh
183 cm: Coco Adele, Pyrra Nikos (in heels)
185 cm: Cú Chulainn, Jaune Arc
186 cm: Haruka Ten'oh
187 cm: Emiya Shirou (Servant)
188 cm: Fox Alistair
191 cm: Mamoru Chiba
213 cm: Yatsuhashi Daichi

Ages (biological, not "she's a clone so she's only a few months old"):
6: Diana, Misaka Misaka, Usagi Chiba
8: Alicia Testarossa, Sasami Masaki
9: Fate Testarossa, Hayate Yagami, Nanoha Takamachi
12: Kazari Uiharu, Kuroko Shirai, Ruiko Saten, Sakura Kinomoto, Shaoran Li, Tomoyo Daidouji
13: Chiyo Mihama, Hikari Horaki, Hotaru Tomoe, Kokono Misaka, Mikoto Misaka, Nana Misaka, Niiko Misaka, Rei Misaka
14: Asuka Soryu, Kensuke Aida, Rei Ayanami, Shinji Ikari, Toji Suzuhara
15: Ami Mizuno, Makoto Kino, Minako Aino, Rei Hino, Ruby Rose, Tenchi Masaki, Usagi Tsukino
16: Alice Carroll, Kaname Chidori, Mii Konori
17: Azuza Nakano, Blake Belladonna, Haruka Ten'oh, Hyoga Kazakiri, Jaune Arc, Jun Suzuki, Lie Ren, Michiru Kaioh, Nora Valkyrie, Pyrra Nikos, Ui Hirasawa, Weiss Schnee, Yang Xiao Long
18: Aika Granzchesta, Akari Mizunashi, Kagura, Kaorin, Koyomi Mizuhara, Mio Akiyama, Nodoka Manabe, Osaka, Ritsu Tainaka, Sakaki, Tomo Takino, Touya Kinomoto, Tsumugi Kotobuki, Yui Hirasawa, Yukito Tsukishiro
19: Mamoru Chiba, Mimi Hanyu, Setsuna Meioh, Signum
20: Noike Kamiki-Jyurai
21: Alicia Florence
22: Akira E. Ferrari
23: Athena Glory, Mihoshi Kuramitsu
24: Maya Ibuki, Sawako Yamanaka
"25": Washuu Hakubi
"27": Nadeshiko Kinomoto
29: Misato Katsuragi
30: Kaji Ryogi, Ritsuko Akagi