Actor Richard Griffiths, best known to American audiences as Vernon Dursley in the Harry Potter movies, has passed away due to complications after heart surgery.  Folks in the UK will also know him as the star of the dective show Pie in the Sky and Uncle Monty in Withnail and I.   BBC obit http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21973505]here.
-- Bob
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Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

Seeking some input here. I've spent my two hours of creative this night troubleshooting why I could no longer use the Poser Pro 2012 Library palette. It appears to come down to Avast's file scan shield not allowing Poser's AIR extension to work correctly. It's not "window blank", it's "the applet crashes, just crashes". I turn off the file scanner or fiddle with the settings, it's fine, turn on scanner, reboot Poser, not working again until I fiddle some more.
This has already progressed into a dealbreaker for me in terms of Avast. Poser Pro's library was working fine until the last Avast update, and as noted, I've lost an entire evening I planned on doing something with Poser instead fighting for reasons why it wouldn't work. And yes, I updated Flash and AIR to no effect.
My two big requirements is that 1) the software be free and 2) it not get in the way of an evening of creation.
--

"You know how parents tell you everything's going to fine, but you know they're lying to make you feel better? Everything's going to be fine." - The Doctor

I was poking around on the HP wiki, and I discovered something rather interesting.  Apparently a few years back, Rowling put a quiz up on her website that existed 'in-universe' as an exam given by the Ministry as a sort of basic aptitude test, that anyone could take. 
There's some interesting little bits of worldbuilding hidden in there, like the defeat of an attempt to outlaw 'House-Elf Slavery' in 1973, and all sorts of commonly believed 'facts', only some of which are true.
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Stand between the Silver Crystal and the Golden Sea.
"Youngsters these days just have no appreciation for the magnificence of the legendary cucumber."  --Krityan Elder, Tales of Vesperia.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/cr ... 18499.html

California Creationist Joseph Mastropaolo has put up a $10,000 bond as the prize for anyone willing to take him on and argue, before a judge, that the Book of Genesis is not literal truth. If they can prove it to the judge's satisfaction they'll walk home with the money.

RevDark, California is Calling You.
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

I just found out that earlier this month NASA hosted a game jam, basically invited a bunch of indie game developers to come and make games following the theme of space exploration.
This article does a good job of hitting the highlights, and describing some of the games that were made over the course of that weekend.  Some of those look really neat.
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Stand between the Silver Crystal and the Golden Sea.
"Youngsters these days just have no appreciation for the magnificence of the legendary cucumber."  --Krityan Elder, Tales of Vesperia.

"It's a recipe for disaster, serves one or more. Let's get cooking!"

Tell me more of this story...
--
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

http://blogs.canoe.ca/projectionist/mov ... america-2/
What can I say - I am a huge fan of Batroc the leaper.

I'm sorry, but I'm not that sorry.

"On Kandor 3's Thursday Movie of the Week: Twilight, the Labradoodle Edition. Watch the movie that started the franchise, with the romantic leads edited out and replaced by labradoodles! Guaranteed to be 100% better and 500% more adorable than the original! Only on Kandor 3: We Make Cinema Better."

("woof woof bark woof" subtitled: "This is the fur of a killer!")

Anybody have any ideas they want to submit to the mad editors at Kandor 3?
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"

copying the notes from the YouTube post:

Showing off the functional landing gear, dive brakes, ailerons, flaps, rudder and elevator, then transforming for a flyaround like the earlier video clips. I really like the intermediate mode, it's like some hunched over mutant shark-beast.

Finally finished modeling this one, with my laptop returned to the world of the living. Due to the very curvy shape of this plane, the polycount is a rather hefty 2544 as shown, just shy of 3000 with the rocket boosters and a pair of heavy missiles outboard of the "christmas trees."

As for the title, I've decided to make my own mecha action RPG to be called "Astro Cross: Flashback 1942" and have therefore removed references to other trademarked media. This is the initial player unit, though due to difficulties with duplicating energy weapons at the beginning of the game the first one only has a single light machinegun on each "ear" with the magazine filling the lower position, and the forehead beam is both weak and single/aimed shot only. You get to power it up after capturing or salvaging some laser-armed enemy craft, though

=========

A (conventional) gunpod is provided to offset the light armament, as well as a melee blade.
--
"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

(Besides the fact that I'm far too busy, that is.)

From a discussion on Usenet about new anime that we are or aren't watching, evidence that Sturgeon's Law still holds:

On rec.arts.anime.misc, in Message-ID: qtkok8pp0n44bb1kpafa101rn1juapem7g@4ax.com , Galen Wrote:Sennyu - the king of the human world send dozens of "heroes" to murder the king of the demon world, who is a 10 year old girl.
Genre(s): Maou Shoujo, Evil People Do Bad Things.
Our Protagonist is The One weak Man Who Tries To Change Things, but completely fails at life.
Moral: Power Corrupts, therefore virtue is powerless.

My Sister is from Osaka -
Japan has re-invented Jeff Foxworthy as a schoolgirl.

Ai Mai Mi -
3 schoolgirls role-play manga sketches.

OreShura -
evil people torture helpless victims for fun and malice.

MaoYuusha -
this fails at storytelling, but hits a few notes that the manga missed.

Atelier Ayesha (PS3): Alchemist of Dusk
While exploring a ruin, a small child fell from a high place and was mortally wounded. The ruin's emergency system activated and rebuilt her ... but won't let her go because the AI doesn't want to return to standby. The victim's sister has a problem with that.
Gameplay: you can get a platinum game without a walkthrough on your first try; Optional Boss Killer Weapons are much harder to make without someone telling you what traits to select for, because the game won't tell you what an item does until after you make it, and there are lots of items with multiple possible effects.
Grinding: Levels come easy; what you grind are "Memories" - character relationship events. The player's goal is to see all of them. The triggers aren't always obvious.
No Japanese language track.

Atelier Totori Plus (PSV) -
a port of Totori to Vita, stealth released in dual language from Tecmo Koei. Rated 18+ in Australia for extreme sexual violence, this was for 10 year olds in Japan.

Looking forward to: Hyperdimension Neptunia, the anime. which should be a cute girls snarking at "cute girls shows" show.

-Galen