Freaking plot bunnies making me write about space rabbis instead of the story that I'm actually trying to write.... 

Notes: Reb. is a common abbreviation of Rabbi. The Sanhedrin was the historical council of Rabbis that debated how to apply the Halakhah (jewish law) during the Diaspora in the absence of the Temple, the Judges, and the Kings. Treif means non-kosher. The Talmud is the collected debates of the Sanhedrin. The Jewish month of Adar I, 5774 was chosen because it starts on Feb 1st, 2014. Any other questions?
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SanhedrinCon 2014/5774 Convention Report, Prepared by Rebbe Rebbeka Buchler. 

SanhedrinCon 2014/5774 (Kandor City Convention Center, Kandor City, Luna) opened on Feb 4/4th Adar I with a Serious Question – who provided the decaf coffee? (1) The culprit was found to be Reb. Yeshuah ben Elizar, who was removed from hospitality staff for providing a treif drink. (2) 

(1)As Reb. J. Alvarez asked, “Is this stuff even kosher?”
(2)As Reb. A. Rosen argued “The primary indicator of coffee, other than its origin, is not its flavor, because otherwise flavored coffees, creamers, sweeteners, and other additives would be treif in the context of coffee. It is the caffeine content that is the primary indicator and use of coffee, meaning that decaf coffee is either treif or a crime against humanity.” (2a)
(2a) The only exception is in cases where the drinker is either allergic or sensitive to caffeine. Our prayers go out to those poor souls. 

The Rabbinical Convention then split into several debate tracks, which were:
Admin – Panels dealing with the administration of the Con.
Hypotheticals – Halakhah in the context of theoretical technologies.
Practicals – Exceptions to and enforcement of the Halakhah in the context of living in space.
Wavium – How does Handwavium interact with the Halakhah?
Old Arguments – Rehashing the Talmud.
Silly – Rabbis! IN! SPAAACE! (3)
Holies – Run only on Shabbos and Erev Shabbos. The services for Shabbos, including mandatory post-lunch naps.
Misc – Everything Else. 

(3) Actual quote from the official program. 

Below are selected debates that passed the Rabbinical Vote with no dissenting arguments (4). 

(4) That actually argued against them. As Reb. K. Dayan argued, “Fnord, while coherent, is not a logical argument”. For this, Reb. Dayan was given the the Badge Ribbon “No Fun Allowed – SRZ BIZNZZ”. 

On 6th Adar I, in the Admin tracks, a debate was the extension of the Convention from its original dates of 4th-10th Adar I. As it was a dead month for the Convention Center, the moving of closing ceremonies to 27th Adar I (5) was granted after a brief Kickstarter campaign. (6) 

(5) To give the Rebbim enough time to get home for Shabbos.
(6) The extra time was determined to be required to allow for debates and votes on the debates. 

On 7th Adar I, a Practicalities debate granted permission to attending Rabbis to lead Shabbos services via the Internet (7), as long as they did so from THE MOON (8). 

(7) As Reb. J. Alvarez said, “We're stuck here until the Con ends, we have modern technology, and we're on THE MOON.” (8)
(8) Full capitalization of THE MOON was determined to be required by the Halakhah of Drama. 

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Additional parts will be posted as I write them.

New Batzulger specific update/discussion thread just in time for the newest story to end.
http://www.tthfanfic.org/Story-31052-18 ... t+Zone.htm
Hot Zone (Buffy/Predator/other, complete)
Very well done. I especially liked the final scene.
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"Anyone can be a winner if their definition of victory is flexible enough." - The DM of the Rings XXXV

Just a specific ability, which I want to make sure isn't breaking the laws of Handwavium.

Quote:???? Ability – Could be mundane, could be her biomod. Nobody knows, but her father shows a slight bit of it, as does her sister.'Ride The Wave': Has a near-instinctual understanding of 'wavium, and is able to get a very low quirk rate, and high success rate, out of her stuff. It's almost like she can communicate with the wave... (Not intelligently, she just has this amazing ability to force an imprint on 'wavium that isn't part of something or was deliberately turned into a strain – e.g. she can make a generic manufacturing strain twist its imprint a bit before it gets applied, but she can't make seibertron do anything except what it's supposed to do.). First showed up during her biomod, allowing her to get more out of it than the others who went through it. Applications of Ride The Wave are-'Memetic Manufacturing Mindset!': Can reliably imprint a batch of wavium and make it not stray from her intent. Also prevents the imprinted batch from growing (Making more is a simple matter of taking part of an imprinted batch and dropping it in a batch that hasn't been imprinted). Name chosen because Added Alliterative Appeal. Can't break Slapstick. Takes about 1 hour for the initial imprint (for a complex device or concept, far less for a simple one) on a small amount (about a soda cans worth), then 1-48 hours for the imprint to spread to the rest of the batch (dependent on size).'My Wave senses are Tingling': Given about 2 minutes handling a 'waved object or bucket of 'wave, can sense and interpret the following -

• Type and Level of the 'wave (level for a bucket of 'wavium is interpreted as “I just hit the ocean floor and am now drowning”), according to the advanced hex scale, but only for the two most dominant strains in an object.
  
• A general sense of the objects quirks – nothing specific, but nothing too vague (“it might respond well to reminiscent love songs” is the general idea, not “it might need music” or “it needs Reba McIntyre's Somebody's Chelsea”). Quirks that are required to be fulfilled for functioning are sensed more clearly than ones that aren't, and quirks that don't impact functioning (the objects, not the users) at all are the fuzziest (“The start-up code is 'FOR GREAT JUSTICE!' yelled over 'Mars, Bringer of War'” is sensed more clearly [“a battlecry over martial music”] than “The fourth equipment locker on the port bulkhead in engineering will always have 13 hentai doujins in it.” is barely even noticed [“Something about sex”])
  
• If not known already, the general purpose of the object (It might not be a gun. It could be a combo laser-pointer/barbeque-lighter/water-bottle shaped like an AK-47...).
  
• The three strongest intents applied to the object during its 'waving (sensed like the quirks are). This can also give her an idea of the base media used, if there was any used.
  
• The order of magnitude of people that worked on it (1, 2-9, 10-99, 100-999, you get the idea). Can be thrown off by people touching it while or after being told what the object was/is supposed to be during the manufacturing.
  

 

Little area that I came up with for my character to live in - it's a pretty open area for people to use.

JUMP STREET
SYSTEM: SOL (Neptune Trojans)
CLASS: Asteroid Cluster (None over 10km)
POPULATION: 165

A cluster of mixed asteroids, Jump Street is defined as a group of 40 asteroids and ice-balls in a 0.5x0.3x0.25AU volume on the trailing-in-above (towards the back, more in-system than the proper orbit, and above the persitent plane of the orbit) end of the Neptunian Trojans. None of the objects are above 10km on the longest dimension.
Jump Street was settled in Feburary 2012 by a group of 54 generalist fen who wanted away from it all. They promptly had to start low-volume trade with the inner system for the equipment they needed, which lead a Boskonian group to take over Jump Street as a backup base. Most of the personal moved to Jump Street were, as one of them put it "low-level wimps with some sort of ethics" - the sort of people who are good at setting up support systems, but not ruthless enough to keep on the front lines of the criminal underworld.
In the interest of making the base at Jump Street self-sufficient, the boss had several people kidnapped from Earth - primarily Amish farmers, believing that they would be unable to break their anti-tehnology restrictions to call for help or leave.
In June 2013, a crew of Boskonians hired as mercenaries for the war discovered all of what was going on - considering that they were part of a Mexican gang that prided themselves on keeping their turf clean of slavers, they were understandably pissed. So they objected to their terms of service, violently. A short raid later, they had a ship, some information, and a few people willing to follow them whereever. They went to Jump Street.
Now, Jump Street is free of Boskonian influence, except for the entire "we're probably wanted criminals, lets lay fairly low" culture of secrecy. Most of the Amish moved back to Earth quietly, except for one who somehow ended up convincing his family and several relatives to move to Jump Street (even he's not sure how that happened).

Notable Areas
22 Jump Street: Community Center, Community Cargo Hold, Docks.
18 Jump Street: Main home for the Amish
27 Jump Street: Main home for the ex-boskonians.

SV Ethereal Kathleen- One of the two ships that Jump Street uses to trade their goods. They get sent on 6 month stints that go no further in-system than the main belt (there are ex-boskonians on the crews - why risk it, is their opinion)

Notable Residents:
David Burke - Best friend of the founder of Jump Street, Jake Owens, who was killed by the Boskonians. Caretaker of the Community Center on 22 Jump Street
Elder Russel Austin - Patriach of the Austin clan of Amish families living in Jump Street. His current project is expanding the community farms more, and keeping Purity away from the un'waved fields.
Purity Austin - 8 year old daughter of Russel Austin, she is a biomodded Mad Botanist. Biomod allows her to survive 30 minutes in vacuum. Her current project is covering a ice/organics mixed asteroid next-door to Jump Street in rose bushes and other plants.

(I know I told Bob that I was working on a story that starts in the Neptunian Trojans, but this plot bunny grabbed me...) apologies for the lack of actualconversational German in this story, I'm on my phone...

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Of particular historical note in the annals of handwavium repression is one simple fact: if you attempted to stop what a person considered awesome, they would do it anyway. The 2015 German sports reporters covered an interesting application of this...
- March 12, 2015 - A farm field somewhere in Germany. 
"Drive me closer! I wish to hit them with my sword!" 
"Jawohl, Commissar!" Came the youthful response from below the hatch.
Commissar Elena thought.

the german sports world was facing a terrible crisis.

the refurbished Sherman was sitting there, drawing a bead on the speeding Panzer IV. 

Thundering machines marked the anarchy of gender-segregated sports.  A most terrible crisis had graced Germany's schools...

*BOOM-CLANG!* the Panzer shook under the impact of a simulated HE round. Microsensors talked back and forth, noting hit location, force, and simulated blast. A decision was reached with the consul of Central Computing. A white flag went up. The Commissar screamed in outrage.
Teenage girls driving tanks.

2 kilometers away, a Hetzer crew chuckled as CC updated their confirmed kills. Two tanks to go and their school would be in the finals.

PANZER VOR!

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Ok, hammered out in... Checks clock... 15 minutes. What do you think? (Yes, this is Girls Und Panzer brought to life in FenSpace) 

-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

And it looks like they're possibly explaining a white Sue Storm and a black Johnny as step-, foster- or adopted siblings.  Given that Papa Storm is also black...
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

Holy cow.  SyFy's doing science fiction again.  (Yeah, I know, cheap shot, but still...)

-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

So, once again I looked to see if there was anything new in the Eyrie thread. And there was a super-flashy icon in front of it... but that turns out to mean there *aren't* any new posts. When there are new posts, the board uses the same "new posts" icon for them as everything else.

So I contemplated making a more distinct "hot topic with no new posts" image, and assigning the two appropriately... but then I started thinking "what's the point"? Do we really need a special icon to say "there's a lot of posts in this thread"?

And I figured I should throw it out for discussion instead of making a unilateral decision. It'd be (extremely) easy to make hot topics use the regular icons. It'd be somewhat more difficult to make a different icon for "hot topic with no unread posts", but not too difficult... although you might suffer from my sense of humor as a result. Or you can pick a third option... as soon as you come up with one.

Thoughts?

-Morgan. However, "why not both" is not valid in this context.

I met a Tothric in a darkened midden
And he said: Two vasty mounds of waste
Stand in the valley.  Near them, half-hidden
In muck, a plaster visage lies, whose face
And pouty gaze, and stare of blank-eyed blue,
Tell that its maker not a whit did care
About its art, nor semblance of lifelike hue,
But only to make the twelfth that day ere
For coffee black and sweet could morning break.
And on its bust in Sharpie ink appear:
"My name is Haughty Mannequin, rack of chic,
Look on haute couture, poor ones, and despair!"
No scrap upon't yet hangs.  Round the chipped feet
Of that gypsum wreck, with putrid air
All trash and discards at last meet.
-- William "Spike" Pratt

Helen's still having problems writing, but we're getting a little more done here and there.  Just wanted to let folks know that this isn't forgotten by any measure, though.

-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.