Just one more from me for the moment:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o74GsmbSDpI

Effect: When at least half the duration of the song is played within range, it turns one recognizably intact corpse into a cyber-zombie constructed with the best tech and magical base Doug understands. The result will have partial memories of the deceased but does not have their original soul, and is invariably hostile to Doug and any allies present. He has no control over it, and the reanimation is permanent, though if he keeps playing the song (or someone else keeps playing it without access to his tuneplug or a similar jamming sound source) the zombie regenerates and can operate on what would normally be overload power for the remaining duration as the damage accrued recovers immediately.

Because despite all the helpful effects he discovers, sometimes Doug's power is just a dick, and there's no real way to tell the specific downsides of the "return of a friend you thought was dead" effect without trying it once, aside from knowing that there's always a cost to be paid for magic and usually threefold for things that mess around with the natural order. (In this case, the subject being implacably hostile, being as strong normally as he could make with unlimited time and budget, and being further empowered for the remaining duration.) Doug would certainly kick himself and swear he knew better all along after the fact, but hope is the cruelest emotion after all.

It might be better used as an object lesson in the cost of magic for him to talk about in the Buffy step, since Willow is teetering on the line of dark and light for the Glory season. Doug having been an accredited magical teacher for the HP step before would probably make him the best qualified in that area to try to curb those tendencies, since Tara is a little too nice even when she's being strict, Giles was on the darker side in his younger days and mostly stays away form it as a result, and Willow is entirely self taught otherwise in the "knows enough to get in trouble, only maybe to get out afterwards" sort of way. And I think Amy was still a rat at this point? I don't remember when that got fixed, just that she was briefly a problem again in S6 or 7.

According to the Sailor Moon Wikia:

Quote:Did you know?
The first fourteen seconds of Sailor Venus's theme in the Sailor Moon video game for the Super Famicom sound exactly like the first fourteen seconds of Bananarama's version of the song "Venus", which was originally by Shocking Blue.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaLHu8UIwGE

I'm not sure about the effect really, but the music is too good to have none. It's not that strong as mental influence powers go, using it during active combat might get you some hesitation at best and seriously provoke the target if their "moment of weakness" is taken advantage of... but if you use it on the right person, at the right time, and in combination with actually following through on the promise it offers, you might just turn an enemy into an ally. Notably, it's effective even on targets that Doug could not normally communicate with as long as they're within his range and capable of understanding the concept of a friend/ally/partner/packmate/etc..

Diplomancing? Doug? Clearly the universe has not yet revealed the true depths of its perversity

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9PxOanFjxQ

Effect: The reverse of Steely Dan's Godwhacker that makes deathless beings killable for the duration, for as long as it plays Immortals removes the fatal weaknesses of beings that can normally only be killed by specific methods other than age. Within Doug's area of effect, werewolves won't be poisoned by silver, vampires won't burn up in the sun, jellyfish will regenerate physical damage, etc.. There is no effect if the being could die of old age so its utility is about as sharply limited as Godwhacker, but when you do want access to one of these effects you really want it, and being able to pull out these highly situational "no, fuck you" powers at just the right moment is something of a trademark for Doug, as with any proper wizard.

If Doug happened to visit the Highlander universe, it might also activate pre-Immortals, with the deciding factor probably being whether or not it worked for teh story.

Since the last thread has more than 300 posts, have a new thread.

After four decades of touring (and creating The Elephant Show between tours), Sharon and Bram are finally on their last tour. This tour includes the first major theatre that Sharon, Lois, and Bram played at.

They won't stop recording, though, so children still have some good music to look forward to.

CBC News Analysis: Brett Kavanaugh exposed his political grudges — now faith in a neutral Supreme Court may be lost for decades

How can this person be expected to be impartial when judging the Constitutionality of laws? He's shown himself to have a bias against a particular political party - that can be held against him if he is asked to judge any bills that were written or moved by that particular party. (And it doesn't matter which political party that is.)

That should have been enough to remove him from consideration then and there.

While doing research for another project, I stumbled across this British folktale character and noticed the similarity in names with a particular Harry Potter character.

I suspect that Hogwarts' headmaster would not appreciate being called by that character's name. Being compared to a villain would be bad enough, but being compared to a cardboard-cutout villain... oh, I say, sir.

"What, no - Bumblebore is a giant among men," Doug protested. Then he muttered, "A cannibalistic, evil giant. I need to find a Jack."

I did a bit of 3d modeling again, after having a transformation mechanism occur to me while playing Disgaea 4. I'm particularly happy about the cute little wings, though there are obviously a few notdoneyets here - the head (which I have only a vague idea about,) hands (as always,) feet, and a couple of internal widgets. Care to guess how she transforms?

Alt mode

Nothing too revolutionary about turning into a space-blaster gun, of course, but the way the torso opens up and bits spin around to get into place without needing reassembly is the trick, and it's a much sleeker version than any of the official toys I can think of, or even my obviously-ripping-off-Megatron from ... man, about a decade ago? I don't think I even still have that file ... Atom Smasher. It does still make the body a little bit long for the arms and legs and the bustline a bit top heavy, but eh, give her die-cast lower legs and that won't be a problem. She'll have big metal boots for stomping Decepti-trash! :lol:

I'm waffling between Triggerguard and Ironsights for a name, and also about making the pelvis part (not the "belt" but the block under it) the polished steel color instead of blued, because it looks better as a gun but could be seen as a bit suggestive in humanoid mode, like she's got a naked crotch instead of the leotard effect as it is now. I mean, yes, all-metal robot here with no squishy biological bits involved, but still, this is a family show!

At the beginning of April 2016, we had a thread here about "There may be ruins of a second Viking settlement in North America."  It mentioned that Professor Sarah Parcak had been referred to as a "space archaeologist" because she used satellite imagery to find the possible ruins.

An article yesterday describes laser imaging being used to map the Guatemalan jungle and discover new detail about Mayan ruins.  Though not involved in that project, Professor Parcak did offer a comment:

Quote:“Hey all: you realize that researchers just used lasers to find *60,000* new sites in Guatemala?!? This is HOLY [expletive] territory.”