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.”

I just discovered this looking at one of the fanfic recs pages on ATT, where a bot has recently been checking all the outbound links and flagging broken ones.

For those who don't know, ftp.gweep.ca was the home of perhaps the single largest fanfiction archive on the Net outside of the Pit of Voles.  It had stuff dating back to the dawn of Net fanfic, in the early- to mid-1990s.  Does anyone know what happened to it, and when?

Trump rejects globalism, touts 'doctrine of patriotism' at UN General Assembly

Quote:Trump arrived late, forcing a last-minute scheduling switch, then received polite applause but also blank stares as he took his blustery brand of policies to the annual General Assembly.

Speaking in triumphal terms, Trump approached the address as an annual report to the world on his country's progress since his inauguration. He touted economic figures, declared that the U.S. military is "more powerful than it has ever been before," and crowed that in "less than two years, my administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country."

Five sentences into the president's remarks, the audience began to chuckle and some leaders broke into outright laughter, suggesting the one-time reality television star's puffery is as familiar abroad as it is at home.

Quote:The laughter in the first moments of the address evoked a campaign line Trump frequently deployed against his predecessor Barack Obama — who embraced international engagement — suggesting that due to weak American leadership, "the world is laughing at us."

https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/24/17896...ion-device

Popular press explanation

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1803588

The actual paper

  This comes out of the translational side of my department (I work at the lab rat/mouse level).  But it's a continuation of successful work that they've been doing for 10 years now.  They implant an off-the-shelf pain implant (designed to block nerve pain in the spinal cord by firing various electrical shocks to disrupt nerve impulses) and repurpose it by having it fire in particular patterns while giving the patient intense physical training.  All of them recover at least some voluntary motor control while the stimulator is running (and cardiac function and a bunch of other benefits), and some can walk while the stimulator is going with a walker.

RMH

New animated show by the head writer of Avatar: The last Airbender. Got me hooked from the first episode. The animation frame rate looks choppy in places but the story more than makes up for it. Also, don’t miss the drawings during the credits as they reference things mentioned in the episode.

Recommended.

This thought was spawned for reading some of the Garrick-verse posts while a repeat of Return of the Jedi was on the TV and wondering how the Masaki household would react to watching the film (the battle on Endor, specifically the AT-ST assault on the Ewoks and its results  ).

Then I thought a bit more widely, how many fics do a movie/TV night scene in them to show the 'non-natives' how the mere Earthlings see things in Sci-Fi and Fantasy?

Examples and links welcome.

https://supergtworld.wordpress.com/2018/...ama-tests/

And it's at Okayama, which means she's going to meet Tenchi and crew...

My car need new tires. (Not winter tires, the other sort.) I'm leaning toward all-weather tires - their stopping distance appears to be shorter than that of all-season tires. However, I don't know which brands are particularly good or bad nowadays... can anyone recommend for or against any in particular?

In case it makes a difference, the car takes 205/55R16 tires inflated to 35psi.

President Windrip has recommended that the Spanish solve Europe's migration crisis by building a wall ... across the Sahara Desert.  Apparently the Mediterranean Sea and Straits of Gibraltar aren't barrier enough.  Of course, the terms of his suggestion would mean the Europeans were building on the territory of African nations.  Well, anyway, they're "shitholes" in his mind (can anyone truthfully say Windrip has a mind?).

Quote:[Spain's Foreign Minister] said that ... according to [the Minister]’s recollection, [Trump said] that “the Sahara border can’t be bigger than our border with Mexico."
...
Though estimates vary, U.S. Customs and Border Protection says that the border between the United States and Mexico is roughly 1,900 miles long. Most estimates for the Sahara put it at about 3,000 miles long from east to west.

Quote:America's standing in the world is in free-fall.
No, the rest of the world is not laughing at us.  They're backing away, their faces twisted in a rictus of horrified incredulity.  This is waaaaay past the point of it being humorous.