I came across the following on Tumblr this morning:

Quote:myurbandream:

Quote:gotham-mother-of-monsters:

Quote:my problem with the ‘harry becomes lord of 2/3/4/5 ancient noble
houses’ trope is so unbelievably petty because its that fic writers
don’t take it to the potential extreme. like, okay, you wanna make harry
the bossest of bitches i get that, i understand, i have that urge too
from time to time, but c’mon, be a little more creative about it please

so how about a fic where harry goes to gringotts after the fighting
is all over to try to make peace with the goblin nation because this boy
does not need more problems and after much hostility and some
groveling and promises of future payments for damages caused a plucky
goblin lass comes and shuffles harry into her tiny cube office to
discuss the nature of his financial situation

(this is a grave insult among goblins. getting handled by a female,
first of all, because they are supposedly less capable bankers, hello
misogyny among other species, and because they consider anyone who needs
help with his money to be lower than cave scum. harry doesn’t know
about his. and if he did, he wouldn’t care because he does, desperately,
need help)

and plucky goblin lass (who we will call PGL for short) brings out
this MASSIVE tome of parchment and slams it down on her desk. a cloud of
dust rises. harry sneezes and gets a terrible feeling. some of the
parchment is mildewing. the stack is taller than his hand is wide. this can only end badly

PGL tells him that he’ll need to read the entire book to fully comprehend the new scope of his property and harry kind of weakly says “what??”

and it turns out that heyo, when the death eaters swore to follow
voldemort with all their lives and souls and magic in their little
racist hearts they actually swore a modified liege lord oath which also
has the coincidental side effect of ceding all titles (and property
connected to said titles) held to the lord in question too. haha how
funny who knew

and that’s an ongoing thing. so voldemort was the de facto head of
two dozen magical houses at the beginning of the war and he just picked
up more as he gained more followers and he probably could have just
voted himself and his crew into every position of the government and run
the country like that if he cared to do it but voldemort was not about
dat political life. he wanted change and he wanted it now. he wanted to
MAKE AMERICA MAGICAL BRITAIN GREAT AGAIN. so he started
a civil war and just never informed his loyal death eaters of that
little fact because they didn’t need to know.

and you might think that gringotts vaults are tied into bloodlines but they’re really not.
the malfoy family vault belongs to whoever is the current head of the
malfoy family. normally, that’s a malfoy and his malfoy spawn becomes
the next head and so it passes through the family, accumulating
inherited wealth. it was a working system until voldemort got involved
and exploited the ever-living hell out of it.

now this all becomes harry’s problem because it turns out that Right
of Conquest is an actual thing. what was voldemort’s is now his and
voldemort has has the time to accumulate A Metric Fuck Ton of stuff.

also connected to titles are votes in the wizengamot. and whoo boy,
this is where harry’s problem becomes really really really problematic.
because the noble families squabble over those votes like children,
hoarding them and passing them down, occasionally trading them for
advantageous marriages and such, but mostly jealously guarding them like
the politcal gold they are. it’s such a bitterly tight-fisted market
that any one family has ~maybe~ three or  four votes.

and now harry bloody potter has a hundred of the things and a completely unintentional stranglehold on the government. whoops

and then hermione would shotput harry straight into the
wizengamot

against his protests and things would become so hilarious i just

some jerkass attempts to increase his own salary for doing basically nothing

“how about no,” harry and his hundred votes say.

somebody attempts to tighten restrictions on where magical creatures like vampires and werewolves can work

“how about no.” harry crosses his arms. “actually, how about we
repeal those bullshit laws already in place that make it almost
impossible for werewolves to get a job right now, hmmmm? and how about
we put something in place to catch abusive owners of house elves? and
make sure they get paid? and vacation days? and healthcare? actually how
about we get healthcare for EVERYBODY HOW ABOUT T H A T?”

ten generations of purebloods cry out in horror. look upon him ye mighty and despair.

the years after voldemort’s defeat don’t go down in history as The
Golden Era. in fact, thanks to harry bloody potter (and some incessant
nudging by hermione granger), they go down as The Decade of Frankly
Astonishing Strides Toward Equality *cough* enforced by a
semi-plutocracy.

(all thanks to a third tier plot never really explored by a would-be dictator YOU’RE ALL WELCOME)

Omg this is beautiful.

Bless you, plucky goblin lass.

Going over my IST timeline, I noticed that one of the founders of Super Scum's Black Moon Society was a Randall Banks. Now I wonder if Mark Johnson meant him to be a relative of Harvey "Origin looking for a place to happen" Banks, and for Harvey to be a magus himself.

And that, in turn, ties to my notion that, if not for the suppression of the Seeder genes, humanity's superpower would have been magery...

Florida State University: http://news.fsu.edu/Top-Stories/Apollo- ... ted-deaths]Apollo astronauts experiencing higher rates of cardiovascular-related deaths

Apparently (it's difficult to do a proper study with such a small sample), going outside the magnetosphere substantially increases one's risk of developing cardiovascular problems, according to FSU Dean of the College of Human Sciences and Professor Michael Delp.

Let's assume it's accurate. So how does this relate to Fenspace?

Anybody who came Up after proper radiation shielding was available should be fine. Applying handwavium to a ship's or station's hull or a settlement's dome should count as "proper radiation shielding" - but there are probably some First Fen who did a slap-dash job on their handwavium application. Biomods should help, too - but there are a lot of First Fen who never biomodded.

I think it's safe to assume the scientists, engineers, and military veterans would have done a sufficiently thorough job with their handwavium application. That leaves the economists, businessmen, sociologists and humanities majors.

Hmmmmm... I think I now have an in-universe reason why both Tanith Curtis (Serenity I) and Noah Scott withdrew from active SMOFdom after a decade or so in space. They're becoming too ill to remain active.

Thoughts, anyone?
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

A little something to add to the "those aren't synonyms" list...

According to a radio report this morning (the day after Obama's speech at the Democratic National Convention), trending searches on Merriam-Webster include demagogue and demigod.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

As the subject says, I'm looking for editors for the http://poserdazfreebies.miraheze.org/wiki/Main_Page]Poser and Daz Studio Free Resources Wiki. Is anyone interested?

The wiki is an index of free resources for the 3D-artwork programs "Poser" and "Daz Studio". Editing has some distinct steps:

* Find the links to legally-free resources, and add them to the index pages
* Create "description" pages for individual resources, and replace the external link on the index pages with an internal link to the wiki page
* Add categories to the individual pages so that the pages are classified into distinct groups - creator, type of resource, license, and a few catch-all genre or source categories
* Render one or more images of the resource and add it or them to the page for the resource

We have plenty of people who find links - that isn't an issue. It's the other steps that need some help.

Obviously, you can't help with the "render images" part unless you have 3D-art software. The other steps just need some knowledge of how MediaWiki works.

If you want to help, you'll need an account on the wiki - we restricted editing to logged-in users to reduce the chance that somebody would list torrents of copyrighted works (which would really ruin our reputation with the companies that publish Poser and Daz Studio). However, if you have an account on All The Tropes, you already have an account on the freebie wiki.

Pay... well, I can match what you'd get for editing All The Tropes.

If this sounds like fun, I'd love to have your help.

)I could also use some help writing templates ... as soon as I figure out what templates we still need.)
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

Just got back from seeing it. 
My hair is blown back in a straight line, my face is still settling back in to it's normal shape after the G-Forces have almost peeled it off, and my eyes are still streaming tears of unmitigated Star Trek Fan Geek Warp Speed JOYGASM!!! 
GO. SEE. THIS. MOVIE!!!!!!
BTW - the climax is without a doubt - the BEST use of ROCK AND ROLL in ANY Star Trek Movie or show EVER. 
In fact I almost suspect that the creators of this movie were fans of Macross. But it's no Idol Singer - it's BEASTIE BOYS!! 
And Kirk is INTO it. XD
Trust me. It makes sense in context. ^_^

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/ib ... -1.3691187

There's a local-to-me startup that's making bionic eyes out of diamond (well, the casing is diamond) and transmitting visual data to them with lasers instead of cables (which tend to be infection vectors).

Here's hoping they perfect the tech before any of us need it...
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

8,000 have welfare pay slashed over their failure to look for work - Independent.ie

Took all of five minutes for the smarmy gits to show up and start cheering. Probably never even been stuck on the dole.

I've done it. For four years.

For the first few months it's easy. You fire out the job applications, convinced that it'll be over and done with and that soon you'll get some sort of gainful work.

Silence replies.

Maybe the odd one or two dangling strings will come back, rubber stamp rejections and one single interview that ends in a we'll call you.

That never comes.

But you still try.

Tailing off over the months as things start to drag and it gets harder and harder to motivate yourself. The silent treatment cripples. The rejections pile up, eroding your sense of self worth. Constantly being told you're just not good enough to do anything steadily beats you down.

After about 8 months you're starting to wonder if it's worth it, if you're worth it.... You're life's lost it's rhythm - you're sleeping later and staying up longer, making the time pass.

It's harder and harder to bring yourself to bother to even apply. You start second guessing if it's worth the effort, since you know you're just going to get another bloody rejection anyway. Opportunities sail by. Shit piles up. Your sense of ability burns off.

It's harder and harder to keep trying and easier and easier to just burn the day and get it over with, scrabbling for morsels of self worth that comes from actually being sucessful at something.

Even if it is just Counter Strike.

Making it worse are the smarmy fucks who take pride in looking down their noses, like getting lucky makes them some sort of Jesus. I dealt with those fuckers alright. Borrowed a brand new car and wore a suit to a job interview. Got home, signed on, and some oul cow went out of her way to sneer at me. Or how about the time when I finally did get a job? - I drove to the dole office to sign-off in my new car - and another prick took time out of his day to sneer at the taxpayers money paying for such a sports car. I trolled the fuck out of that cunt alright. I hate cunts like that.

Otherwise, you're powerless, helpless. You might just about get an application in once a month or so, just bairly managing to struggle, limping on, but finally, you just run out of steam and drop where you are.

And then some smarmy fuck comes along and decides that because you're unable to try hard enough, they're just going to fuck you over.

That isn't going to motivate anyone. It's just going to make it worse. The spiral deepens further and further. It's just beating them back down into the hole and they're going to get to the point where they're never coming out. It makes the underlying problem worse, rather than helping.

Once someone goes down that hole, beating them over the head about it isn't going to make them come out, it just makes the beater feel better about themselves.

Eventually, I managed to find a job. But 4 years squatting on me hole has has made it very, very hard for me to believe I'll ever suceed at anything. And that's still having a negative effect on my work to this day because I know I'm dropping important tasks because I'm afraid of fucking them up and it's so much easier to just leave them undone. It's not even conscious, it just happens. I'm a ball of nerves afraid to fuck up, say or do the wrong thing and end up right back where I started because I'm terrified I'll never get moving again.
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

Do not confuse RNC twitter account for another RNC twitter account
__________________
Into terror!,  Into valour!
Charge ahead! No! Never turn
Yes, it's into the fire we fly
And the devil will burn!
- Scarlett Pimpernell

I just got back from a matinee showing of the new Ghostbusters movie, and... I enjoyed it.  I think it's worth going to see.  It's different -- it is in no way a line-for-line remake, and it doesn't have the same ratio of comedy to action/horror than the original, being a bit lighter on the comedy.  And the four main characters are different in many ways -- none of them is a Venkman-style con artist, for example.  But it's good film, driven as strongly by character and backstory as by the events they find themselves in.  There are plenty of winks and nods to the original, including a great set of cameos, but is its own thing, unbeholden to the first film.  If it has a fault, I would say that the comic writing is weaker at the beginning than it should be; but by the end every funny bit rang perfectly.
Oh, and is mandatory these days, you have to sit through the credits. There are multiple scenes interspersed among them, plus a final post-credits scene that is either a callback or a sequel hook.

Anyway, I spent just under $10 and didn't feel like I'd wasted it.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.