Hey yall, yes, i'm a raving redneck, whats worse is somehow due to fenspace i have managed to work my way over here from the shadowrun writers forum which is also hosted by yuku, so i already had an account.
as you can guess i'm a SR player, and have done some fan fiction in that universe, and i am starting to pester mal and the others over in fenspace now. I also enjoy battle tech, pathfinder and the gutter, so you guys make some room down there.
 

My niece's 6 year old boy spent the last night of 2012 staying all night with my family before his parent picked him up to head out on a 12 hour trip to their home in Texas.
Last night I told my ?grand Nephew? that I'd hacked Santa's Naughty and Nice list along with the "PERMANENT NAUGHTY LIST" and switched our names from "Naughty" for the boy's current position on the "NICE LIST". I had to do the switching of names because Santa counts both list twice and any change in the numbers would be noticed and get everything checked and changed back.
His mother must have been telling stories about me from the days I'd baby set her for my brother, because he never questioned for even an instant me being a life time member on the "NAUGHTY LIST".
He also knows I'm the one everyone calls when they have computer problems.(Last year I rebuilt a computer for him.)
I had a ready reply/solution to every objection the poor boy could come up with for me not actually having access.
Most of what I said went over his head, but it all sounded so real that it had him very worried.
(I must say I was rather impressed with his rambling statements and reasons for not being able to access Santa's computers.  I'll make a Engineer and Programmer out of him yet.)
Santa's  computer pass word for 2012 was "CrissS CRINGLE IIXMM" that spelling and form.
The codes needed to take my nephew off the nice list is "Rain deer Oats" and "5 chocolate chip cookies".
(What he left for Santa and he didn't know his mother called laughing because his dad had all but told him he was Santa by telling him Santa wanted chocolate chip cookies and make it at least 5.)
Santa's computer face recognition was no problem after all I've had several good pictures of Santa's face taken back before he gave up on leaving me coal and stopped coming. Here look at this.
(I'm known for taking pictures at all reunions and visits as well as being very good with any sort of gadget and the one to ask about game cameras.)
I know Santa never checks his List between Christmas and January 2. Why should he? the seasons over and he won't start until next year. In fact I've had NORAD hacked for years and this year  Santa and his Elves headed for Hawaii. I watched "dozens" of Sleighs fly out from a place near the North Pole most heading for Hawaii. They left early the day after Christmas.
I happen to know that Santa's computer access log for both the Naughty list and the Nice list are cleared for the new year on January one at 1201 AM and that the general computer access log is always archived and reset on a Sunday of a new week and for the past few years no elves returned until late monday.
My Niece hasn't decide if she wants to kill me or die laughing.( Our family has never been big on Santa and they are already giving hints about the myth. The boy only ever gets one gift from "Santa" with all other gifts being clearly marked and claimed by his parents or the other family members.)
I've only put my replies/solutions because the poor boys objections weren't clearly worded and by the time I was finished shooting down any objections he was getting to be quite rambling and hard to understand.
Early today when his parents picked him up he sleepily mentioned to his mom he wanted to learn all about computers.
Thankfully my Niece was in such a hurry she didn't have time to chase me down and kick me when I explained her son's sudden interest in computers, especially Santa's.
I also managed to keep a straight face until they were gone, but just barely.
One thing I couldn't help thinking was that I wished our government, companies and business actually had half the security a nearly 6 year old boy could dream up to protect Santa's Naughty and Nice Lists.

Have a happy new year and if you don't hear anymore this year from me you'll know that Santa's Elves finally caught me.
hmelton
God Bless

Well. it looks like the House Republicans have decided to let sequestration come into effect.
Here's what happens to me personally:
1.  I come in the morning, get my matching orders, drop everything I have into the office that I signed for. And then we lock the office down.
2. Get the last paycheck due to me next Friday.
3. Hopefully we go back to work by the 7th and Congress decided to pay us for the lost time.
It's depressing but at the same time not surprising. Democracy is truly a terrible form of government. Except there's nothing else better.
Oh, and Happy New Year. Ugh!
__________________
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'm starting to get the hang of Daz Studio... at this rate, someday I'll be a 3-D artist. (hands up, whoever gets the reference) In the meantime, practice, practice, practice... and just play with the software.

Here's some playing with the software - a scene from somewhere in Stellvia's Old Ring, some time between 2013 and 2017:


--
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

That email I sent you on July 29... I just sent it to you again.

Should I post to the wiki as-is, edit, or scrap?
--
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

It is now possible to reconstruct youtube videos (as very low quality versions) from fMRI data. 
This is immensely cool.

-----
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.

VanBlume
Currently Van Loan/Dr. Drakken & Wandblume/Shego are nominal, dues-paying members of Crystal Millennium owing to the funny fact that Disney tropes match up enough with their wilder Japanese counterparts to make them part of the same big, nutty extended animated family. Within this kith and kin cum coalition, they’ve been rapidly becoming less than enthralled with their official state-sponsored pseudo-villain role. Things such as contractual Perdurable Defeat clauses and smug senshi and cheerleaders are driving the blue ram & green ewe further and further away from the fold.
Ramona Wandblume aka Shego
The Rolling Stones declared sonorously that, ‘You don’t always get what you want, you get what you need!’ : in Ramona Wandblume’s case she got both, although it took her a while to see it that way. A elementary school teacher within the German education system, Wandblume was let go for the officially curt cipher,  Unorthodox.
Wandblume  possesses a character trait that falls well within that French oxymoronic lack of definition definition, je ne sais quoi.   Within a range of three feet of Wandblume adults suddenly become antsy ; children become awed.
Neither possessing the social guile of adults nor their ability to over-think things, children tend to respond to the field distortion effect with wonder and primitive reverence. Wandblume’s thirty senior kindergartners  developed a  textbook case of pantheism that they managed, like the early Christians, to largely conceal from the Imperial eyes of the staff & administration. The apocalypse came when the acolytes of Wandblume became arrogant enough to begin scrawling defamatory graffiti accusing the principal and the bulk of the staff, who all had the typical adult reaction to Wandblume, of being Meephisto and his devilish cronies .
The final reverential act of her High Priest, Pieter Wolfe was to introduce a dollop of his father’s Rheingold ‘Wavium--an inveterate Fen-Fan who was about to ‘Space-Out’ on his family--into Wandblume’s final scholastic mug of institutional der rohkaffee (green coffee). Already feeling lousy, what having lost her job and all, Wandblume ascribed the mild post-coffee nausea to nerves and caffeine. It wasn’t until she woke up the very next morning that she knew that something else had happened to her.
She was gorgeously greenish! There would have been very different reaction had the ‘Wavium not bonded to, and modified Wandblume’s native quoi trait. Power-Word : Anxiety shifted to Power-Word : Awesome! The resultant emotive transmissive  & resultant feedback affects turned a wallflower into a wild green rose.
Casting off the ashes of her  previous life, Wandblume searched for something befitting the new her ; in quick order she used her savings to purchase and ‘wave-up a lovingly restored 1972  metal-flake-green AMC Gremlin that she rode to Fen where she operated as the independent trouble-shooter, Friday Baldwin. Her track record was rather Dirty Pair-ish but because of her electromagnetism things always turned out so awesomely that she was never without work. However, cleaning up other people’s messes began to quickly get old.
 Then, on her final mission, she went to work for someone called Van Loan and she has been with her blue, eccentric, passionate and eccentric beau ever since. It was with him that she adopted the nom de guerre and costuming of Dr. Drakken’s nominal Lieutenant & Alpha-Squeeze, Shego.
Van Loan aka Dr. Drakken
If Van Loan is eccentric it is because his ‘Wavium enhanced consciousness may involve a symbiotic synthesis of two quantum-aligned parallel identities. Either that or he’s nuttier than a can of cashews.
Van Loan had meant for Fenspace to be a mere hobby & vacation space. He meant to merely LARP as various fictional Victorian literary characters along the lines of Professor Cavor, Challenger & Moreau, et al. Then he had his near-fatal  accident with his ‘waved-up Alvin sphere cum Cavorite Sphere and his plans changed mightily.  
Besides suddenly being blue, he gained a Muse. A real Muse! A sultry voice only he can hear converses with him within his brain case. Van Loan suspects he isn’t entirely crazy for the amazing fact that the voice’s--he calls her, ???µ? (Mneme)--instructions, admonishments & praises have allowed him to actually operate within Fen-Space as an actual pseudo-mad scientist. Mneme is his greatest secret ; not even Wandblume knows of her existence.
Given his appearance, profession and temperament he adopted the Dr. Drakken persona and  signed up with Venus’ Crystal Millennium   in the weird dual role of senshi armorer & villain.  He supplied the very flashy ‘magical’ items to the very teams that would, time and time again, ‘defeat’ his nefarious plans. It was annoying but it did give him the resources he needed to fund his real projects. It also kept him from being pestered by real threats. Then Wandblume entered his life; things changed again.
 He first met Wandblume when he hired her to retrieve a stolen consignment of Yttrium that he needed to deoxidize a quantity of Vanadium for something or other for Mneme. The mission went completely Galactic-South. That surest of all future relationship markers ensued :  the ‘This guy/gal drives me crazy!’ row.  Afterwards they went their ways, but neither could stop thinking about the other. Van Loan cracked first.
Two weeks after their fiery and frankly exciting tiff, Van Loan reconnected to both apologize and offer a partnership. She had been on the cusp of doing the same thing, but externally she played it all cool and reserved. At that point it was obvious that Wandblume had no choice but to adopt the role of Shego...it really wasn’t a stretch : it really wasn’t!
After one more year of Crystal Millennium service, the couple--there was just too much crazy energy for them to remain professional--renegotiated their contract to nominal and semi-detached  R&D status; they began pursuing their own independent business, Venusian Ventures, out of a slightly rundown smallish orbital convention centre,  CONclave. Since, they have been making something of a splash in Venusian space as a colorfully compelling couple.

This is Leandro's "farewell" video to City of Heroes.

This is the same guy who put together those amazing composite videos of the 3000+ heroes from the Unity Rally back in September. He's also helped other people make their videos. He's a code-slinger par excellance.

So you KNOW this is going to be something special.

This is both heartbreaking and uplifting.

If you think it's getting way too dark near the 2/3 mark - trust me - just wait. It gets MUCH better from there to the end.

Leandro says:

Quote:This video was supposed to be my "farewell to the official servers" video. On early November, I had the first minute and a half done. Then, my harddisk died, and it took 3 weeks to get a replacement.
By the time I got back to work on it, the servers had already shut down, and I had to rethink where I wanted this video to end. It still has some rough edges, but I am reasonably happy with the result.
Songs:
"Remains" by Maurissa Tancharoen & Jed Whedon, from "Dollhouse" (episode "Epitaph One").
"Where do we go from here?" from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (episode "Once More With Feeling").

So I heard this song recently, and it got me thinking...

I know we've had questions about barbershop quartets before (and I believe the response was that there needs to be an instrument in the mix). What about when the a cappella group in question has somebody emulating an instrument with their voice? The first time I listened to this version of the song, I didn't realize that the 'drums' in the beginning weren't instruments, so I sort of have to ask.
... mind you, if the song did trigger Doug's metagift, I could easily see his subconscious smacking him with a backfire for being a wiseass. Or (potentially) worse, giving him an ironic version of whatever effect the original song has.
For that song, I'm thinking the a cappella version lets Doug train people, specifically in a cappella singing, via montage. Not really useful, except as a Noodle Incident for a line about how his gift is really only useful with real instruments.

Yay, had tooth pulled, so gona spend new years on pain killers