I discovered this from it being mentioned in the blog associated with Dresden Codak:

http://www.portlandmercury.com/Blogtown ... t-be-black]Why Batman Can't Be Black
Posted by Bobby Roberts on Mon, Aug 5, 2013 at 12:54 PM

The article makes some good points about just how ... shall we say "conservative" ... fandom can be in our assumptions. Objections and rebuttals:

• "You can't just change somebody's skin color willy-nilly!" If Batman was a real person, that would have merit - but Batman is fictional. You can re-imagine him with the stroke of a pen, and many writers have re-imagined Batman.
  
• "Bruce Wayne has too much back-story - you can't make him black." DC reboots every decade or so - what back-story?
  
• "Why can’t you just create a new character?" Because most readers know new heroes usually don’t gain much traction - so this is actually saying "just create a completely separate black superhero, and put them in their own book, because that way I can easily ignore them."
  

OK, blame M Fnord and the rest of the Candle crew for getting me off my ass and working on these. I was (as always, slowly. Grrr...) working on some fic ideas involving these when I caught the latest Mk. II Candle chapter and got inspired.

Why can't this happen for my stories?!?

Ahem.

Comment would be very welcome, as per usual.

First up, the Wrist-com update...

The generation who caused the crisis won't have to pay. They never will, they'll have retired to their pensions before long. It's the ones who follow afterwards who have to pay to clean it all up.
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

The current nibbler is a version of class-free skill tree, where you get your stats and seven unlocked skills out of an arbitrarily large number at character creation in a fairly standard way, but the slots to put those skills in are the trick: There are three A-ranked slots, each of which can be divided into two B-rank slots which give only half effect, and each of those divided again into C-rank slots that give 1/4th effect. Unlocked but Unranked skills, which is anything not in one of the above slots, can only be used for 1/10th effect. Your basic sword-and-board (or gun and riot shield) tank type could actually get by with three A-ranks, for Heavy Armor, Heavy Shield, and (weapon type), and leave the other four starter package skills unranked, though I think I'd want to split the weapon type to get Regenerate in as well, myself. (I like the stats and skills I came up with for YAPPIE RPG Engine, but this would probably call for a longer, skill list offhand - YAPPIE is pretty abstract and generic, and four stats with eight skills each does not make for the kind of option tree I'm looking at for this system)

Advancement would be a matter of unlocking more Unranked skills and being able to reconfigure to deal with different types of enemies or non-combat challenges, rather than real power progression, though it could include raising stats or a numerical score for each skill rather than a straight percentage bonus fixed by tier - this system would probably do fairly well for a superheroes game, where powers don't really tend to progress so much as you figure new tricks to do with them/ways to combine them/etc. Honestly, I'm picturing this as more a video game type RPG than tabletop, making lots of fiddly character options to endlessly play with on the back end and argue over in an internet forum a strength rather than a weakness.

Another possibility for advancement would be gaining a Skill Crown, that effectively shifts the attached slot one level higher, even a few of those (with A+1 as a hard maximum), or perhaps various ranks of those that boost the percentage of the slot they're attached to by varying degrees.

Any thoughts on this kind of a configurable skill tree? I know it's kind of hard to say without a skill list to plug into it, but figure that magic is typed by elements and weapons by types, with various spells in an element or special attacks with a weapon type accessible via a single equipped skill (and the actual weapon, obviously, for that) while most defenses are attached to armor or resistance skills. Perhaps it would be better to treat it as ranking the stats you'll use, and have the associated subskills grow with use, rather than basing them on a stat list external to the system.

It would open a path to having one called Sanity that holds all the magic and mental resistance subskills, to bask in the forum posts of spell-monkeys complaining "Sanity OP plz nerf!" but then I'm usually one of those spell-monkeys...
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

Normally I'd say something like Rest in Peace, but no. Not this time. 
Good riddance to bad rubbish. 

I won't hold a party or anything. I wouldn't take the trouble to even piss on his grave. But I will smile. Oh yes I will.

After that, he gets nothing from me. No more thought, no more remembrance. I won't bother to hate, because that would bring me down to his and his insane family's level. 

"The United States is planning to give up its last remaining authority over the technical management of the Internet." 
Because the only thing that matters is looking good to other countries. And they'll like us if we hand it over. Being extra nice to Russia worked, right?

*sigh*

Some say he knows two facts about Ewoks, and that both of them are wrong. 
And that he's Mac compatible. 
All we know is - he's NOT the Stig, but he is the Stig's Mandalorian cousin!
http://imgur.com/gallery/DRrWY
Ben Burtt screen-testing the original Boba Fett costume at George Lucas's home for the filmmaker and "The Empire Strikes Back" crew, circa June 1978

Real science, from a real university: http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/news/2014-05

I don't know how useful this is - it's still at the "pure science" stage - but it's nifty.
--
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

Note, despite the next two paragraphs, there is something to this beyond just stroking i- my dog and gloating over making some cool character designs here.

So, with a w7 computer live again, I've been messing around some more. I've forgotten how to log in to the account that was going to be my "final revision" before (and the email address associated with it, for that matter) but considering I just spent the last two days poking and tweaking new hotness (or coldness, for the one intended as a Glacier AT) in the character editor and the generally unsatisfying rendition of Danzai White the other attempt had produced, I probably would have gone for something new anyway. What I have is actually two variations on the "fully robotic" theme, a pint-sized feminine one that uses the free Art Deco patterned pieces (Armored Half or something like that, and the Armored Inner Scalloped bracers) and matches them as best it can (Tech Arc shoulder pads, Bolted Armor arm & leg acc with the Banded pattern, the Fancy Cowboy Shirt torso pattern with the colors set to match the deco pattern on the chest plate where it's exposed at the waist) and playing with the size sliders (Legs, Lower Leg, Feet all the way down, Upper Leg all the way up) to turn the Armored Mech legs (the free ones, not the Sakura Mecha ones) slim enough to fit in with the general design, given the sharply limited selection of free foot and boot parts. That one I've got a finalized name for - Core Zero, to go with the Glacier ice powers and being a half-scale prototype sloppily built as the heroes were one her maker's trail, who didn't finish the bootstrapping process until they'd busted down the door and taken him away. Since the enforced loyalty programming was part of the heavily glitched stuff she'd had to prune to get a Safe Mode stable enough to work on the rest from and were not replaced, with severely underperforming hardware (AKA being a Lv1 character) due to the rush job in dire need of upgrade and applicable skills limited to super-combat, she signed up with the Champions instead.

The second design, I have much less of a grasp of aside from the visual design and archetype I'll be using (Radiant) - not even a name, since Magenta Avenger is fairly well linked to a different (all-meat human) one in my mind. I might still use her, actually, rather than the second robot. (As an aside, yes, I prefer female game characters despite - actually, because of - being a guy myelf. If I'm going to watch someone's ass for hours as they run around doing things, I prefer it to be a shapely one) Both use the same (or nearly so) color scheme, in fact, but the healbot built with female costume parts isn't as good as the "male" one, due to the preferred chest armor and belt items being male-only. Grr. And the alternate colors I gave the male bot to test out the fire-blaster AT look damn good, too, but don't really suit a Radiant.

That's all well and good, of course, but what I'm actually asking about is, A) are people here still playing CO a lot, given that the subforum doesn't see much activity?

B) I'm not TOTALLY married to the Radiant as a character - The Grimoire has healing at later levels too, and might be a bit tougher (A build like the Glacier but with the Radiant's attacks rather than being an ice blaster would be ideal, but I'm not about to pony up $50 for a free-form slot - if I had money to spend on video games, I wouldn't be playing an MMO) but upper level stuff there seems like it's a lot of field control specialty, the kind of thing that takes the right situation (while in a party) and at least a bit of strategic skill to get the most use out of, like D&D Bards in a way. Though the "circle of auto-revive" is mighty attractive, as I prefer to solo, unless I've gotten them mixed up since I'm not looking at the list right now and that's a Radiant power instead. Self-healing and especially a self-revive is critical if you;re wandering into villainous hideouts solo. CO is one of the most forgiving games I've seen about getting killed, as befits the genre, but it's still a pain in the tuchus, and the ability to function as a party member is important for group quests as well.

C) There's some time before it has to be chosen, but which of the "choose one at Lv17(ish)" powers is better, for the Glacier and Radiant? I'm leaning toward the one that inflicts Incapacitated rather than Paralysis for the Radiant, because it doesn't get weakened by damage inflicted, but have no real idea for the Glacier's options.

D) Any suggestions for names? Please? "Medic-Droid WEG-D6" is the best I have otherwise. I suppose I could reassign "Remedy" - that's another one strongly liked to a different character in my mind, even if I'm not going to use her for sure. Don't want to, though, any more than with Magenta Avenger.

E) Are there Auras available without spending RL money on them, or, worse, on lockbox keys? I'd like a "white mist" with or without snowflakes for Core Zero at some point, though it's not critical. If all else fails I suppose there's always Questionite farming and buying Zen with it at the in-game exchange, though that's a long row to hoe and I'd rather like to get the Legacy Armor costume pack to fill out the Art Deco theme a bit more first - it's a visual style I very much like, plus, you know, glowy lines are cool.
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

Via Hot Air

Quote:Over the last couple of days, Malaysia and outside investigators have begun releasing information that strongly suggests that the fate of Flight 370 was no accident. First, the flight path taken after deliberately turning off the transponders showed awareness of military radar systems in the region, and then came word that subsystems continued signaling for hours after the flight diverted from its path. Now a leading paper in Malaysia reports that the Malaysian Air flight dropped to below 5,000 feet for part of its mysterious journey, the better to avoid commercial radar too:

Quote:As the search for the missing flight MH370 enters its 10th day with few clues as to its whereabouts, the New Straits Times said today the Boeing 777-200ER dropped 5,000 feet (1,500m) to evade commercial radar detection.
In an exclusive story, the government-backed paper said investigators analysing MH370’s flight data revealed that the 200-tonne, fully laden twinjet descended 1,500m or even lower to evade commercial (secondary) radar coverage after it turned back from its flight path en route to Beijing. …
Investigators poring over MH370’s flight data had said the plane had flown low and used “terrain masking” as it flew over the Bay of Bengal and headed north towards land, the NST reported. …
“Terrain masking” refers to an ability to position an aircraft so there is natural earth hiding it from the radio waves sent from the radar system. It is a technique mostly used in aerial combat where military pilots would fly at extremely low elevations upon normally hilly or mountainous terrain to “mask” their approach.

The flight may also  have paralleled normal commercial routes to confuse ground-control trackers:

Quote:Officials, who formed the technical team, were looking into the possibility that whoever was piloting the jet at that time had taken advantage of the busy airways over the Bay of Bengal and stuck to a commercial route to avoid raising the suspicion of those manning primary (military) radars, the paper said.

All of this means that the disappearance didn’t come from a technical malfunction or catastrophic failure. Nor does it mean a hijacking in the two contexts we already know, either for ransom (monetary or political), or for annihilation — at least not at the moment. Whoever took Flight 370 had plenty of highly-populated targets in the region if they wanted to turn the plane into a guided missile, a la 9/11, but instead tried very hard to disappear off the grid. Why?
Investigators still don’t know the answer to why, but they may have a clue about who:

Quote:The Boeing 777's Aircraft and Communications Addressing and Reporting System, or ACARS, last transmitted at 1:07 a.m., about 40 minutes after takeoff. ACARS sends information about the jet’s engines and other data to the airline. The transponder, which identifies the plane to commercial radar systems, was shut down about 15 minutes later.
The final, reassuring words from the cockpit — “All right, good night” — were believed to have been spoken by co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid, according to Malaysia Airlines CEO Ahmad Jauhari Yahya.

The focus had been on the captain of the flight, who had his house searched yesterday after Malaysian officials belatedly acknowledged that something very fishy was going on over the South China Sea. There is no word on whether Malaysia has begun searching the residence of Hamid, although it seems highly likely that a lot of security services around the world have begun to take a big interest in the entire flight crew.
Officials in Kuala Lumpur have taken a lot of heat for their handling of the crisis. China added to the pressure today, demanding that Malaysia “immediately” expand the search area for the flight:

Quote:“Search and rescue efforts have become even harder now, and the area is much bigger,” China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told Reuters on Monday. “We hope that Malaysia can provide more thorough, accurate information to countries participating.”
China’s media have been scathing of Malaysia’s hunt for the missing jet and have criticized conflicting information about the search.
In an op-ed in China’s state-run Global Times newspaper Yao Shujie, the head of the School of Contemporary Chinese Studies at the University of Nottingham, said that Malaysia “has lost authority and credibility” due to its chaotic response.
“The contradictory and piecemeal information Malaysia Airlines and its government have provided has made search efforts difficult and the entire incident even more mysterious,” the China Daily newspaper wrote in an editorial.

Australia has decided to take the lead in searching the southern areas of the Indian Ocean, which is where the limit of the plane’s fuel would have taken the flight — if it was headed out to sea at all. It seems a lot more likely that all of this deliberation was meant for something other than a quiet ocean ditch, though, and more likely that the plane turned toward land. For what reason … no one knows. Yet.