Table of Contents
1.  Intro to Latin (This Post)
2.  Pactio (Negima) Post #1
3.  Project Listing Post #2
4.  Rough cut at at Negima style pactio for members of the Azumanga Daioh cast post #11
Latin is a dead, dead language,
as dead as it can be.
It killed off all the Romans,
and now its killing me.
I'm keeping this short and simple for now.  I may revise this to be more comprehensive later, but that isn't needed at this time.  
Latin is written with the Latin alphabet.  However, it was originally a more primitive form, with cases of single letters where we use two.  (Iulius or Julius, for one.  Either works, they are said the same.)  Also, this was before capitalization, so that matters less.  The language can also be used without such things as spaces and punctuation.
I was told to say c hard, like k, and say v like w.  Hadrian is Ha dri an.  (I do not remember all of the rules exactly, I'm writing this off the top of my head for now.)
English codes some of the meaning by word order.  'That cat ate my dog' has a different meaning from 'my cat ate that dog' or 'that dog ate my cat'.  Latin codes these things by modifying the word itself.  The word order can be changed entirely, in most cases, and retain the same meaning.
Google translate, as far as I can tell, has major issues with this and should be avoided.
Just the coding for three genders, singular and plural, and IIRC, six or seven cases, works out to something like 36-42 different variations for each word.  Throw in voice, person and tense, and it starts to look impossible.  Thankfully, there are patterns that most words follow.  Even more thankfully, for those that just want to get their toes wet, there are tools that can do most of the heavy lifting.
Nouns are declined and verbs are conjugated.  Nouns and adjectives are classified in different declensions, depending on how they vary.  Likewise verbs and conjugations.  Agricola (singular, nominative) is first declension, but oddly male instead of female.
I use two tools, which have so far been enough for all my translation work.  These should be enough for most fanfic applications.
The first is Wheelock's, the famous Latin text.  Basically, there are some tables in back and front that are very useful.  They may not be needed for everything, but they are useful for things like 'which case is the indirect object' and 'what ending do I need for the right plural of this third declension word?'
The second is William Whitaker's Words.  This is an electronic dictionary with a pretty good collection of words.  (~E sets it to english to latin, ~L sets it back to latin to english.)  I use it to check my spelling, to expand my vocabulary, and to help keep track of all the crazy variations in Latin words.  I've just found that he'd died some years back, when I went to check his website, and found it gone.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Whitaker's_Words
http://archives.nd.edu/whitaker/words.htm
Quick tutorial part two: Type in sanctum, and it will display ADJ in part of the entry.  Type in sanctorum, and in the same part of one of the entries, it will display N.  This is how you recognize nouns and adjectives in this program.
Cases
Nominative, direct object of a sentence.  The dog in the dog at my homework.  (In Latin, I might write 'the homework of me', if I can find a word I like for homework.)
Genitive.  Shows ownership, almost always translated to English with of.  Of men in the master of men would be translated as the plural genitive of man.
Personal note:  I wrote a lot of tables when I was studying Latin more formally.  This has left me a bit OCD about Latin Grammar.  
I also only took the basic stuff.  Formal written English is the form of English that has the firmest rules.  It is possible that they teach people to be less OCD in the more advanced courses, with reading Caesar and the poets and all that.  Thus, some of what bothers me about what I see as incorrect grammar may be due to my limited education.

I just obtained for myself a Google Nexus 7 Tablet, running Android 4.2, a "Jelly Bean" iteration.
What are some "why don't you have this already, you fool" apps?
I'm particularly looking for e-reader and media player apps that aren't hideously annoying, etc etc.
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

A serial killer is targeting the LAPD and their families. The kicker. They trained him. He knows their modus operandi. He used to be one of them. I would had thought it was plot straight out of Hollywood if it wasn't real.
__________________
Into terror!,  Into valour!
Charge ahead! No! Never turn
Yes, it's into the fire we fly
And the devil will burn!
- Scarlett Pimpernell

Does Doug have any songs that generally duplicate abilities? I was thinking something like "Wanna Be Like You" from Disney's "The Jungle Book," which implies that Doug duplicates the abilities, and possibly the appearance, of a target. (Though the references to being an "ape like me" might be a joke between Doug and his teammates.)
Ebony the Black Dragon
http://ebony14.livejournal.com

"Good night, and may the Good Lord take a Viking to you."

Spotted this tonight:http://mcahogarth.org/?p=10593 Author MC. Hogarth, who has an ebook called Spots the Space Marine, that was on Amazon, had it taken down because Games Workshop voiced a trademark complaint, as the blog post says, believing that their entry into ebooks gives them the common law trademark rights to the term Space Marine in all its forms. Amazon complies rather than investigate, as, judging from what I do know, this is pretty thin legal standing on their part(Saw a comment where someone mentioned them trying something similar against Blizzard for the marines in Starcraft, but I do not know if truth or rumor)

Other info:

http://boingboing.net/2013/02/06/games- ... bully.html
"This hand of mine glows with an awesome power. Its burning grip tells me to defeat you....
Shining FINGER!" -Domon Kashuu, Mobile Fighter G Gundam

I'm trying to find a copy of the "book cover" someone created for it.  If you have it, could you please send me a copy?  Thanks!
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

Remember that last year someone posted a comic by french artist Boulet ("Dark"), that he had done in 24 hours for the Angouleme festival.
This seems to be a regular event for him, because this year's one is now up and translated. Its at http://english.bouletcorp.com/2013/02/04/paola-4/ . Don't forget to click on "REACT" at the bottom to see a little omake.

Does anyone know if there is a sailor-fuku collar option available for female characters anywhere in the game? 
Thanks.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/02/05 ... ckstarter/ on http:////www.kickstarter.com/projects/46.../card.html.  You, too, can be part of the Evil Empire!
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

Hey everyone, I'm not sure how many of you have heard about this from other sources, but I'm posting this in the hopes that it'll prevent a few problems for some of you.

Short Story: turn of UPNP, now. *seriously*

Long Story:
UPNP (aka universal plug and play) is a communication protocol designed to make it easier for all the devices on the local network (your xbox/ps3/computer/whatever) to negotiate with the router about what ports they need open so things just work (meaning you don't have to worry that your favorite FPS wants ports 27000 - 27015 open, and that minecraft wants 25565).

This is generally seen as an improvement by users, and a security nightmare by network administrators. But because this was only supposed to be functional from in a private network (aka only devices located locally), no one raised that large of a fuss and life moved on.

But last week several security researchers found out some very worrying news. A significant percentage of routers were responding to UPNP requests from the public internet. Meaning that malicious entities can just tell your router to let them in.
What is a significant percentage you ask, try 81 Million (2.2% of the internet).

What is worse is that 20% (~16 million) of these can be exploited by one (1) udp packet.
Given the fact that there are 8 vulnerabilities discovered in how these routers deal with UPNP, I strongly believe that the percentage will only rise.

So what can you do?
Log into your router, and turn off UPNP.

If you want to make sure that UPNP is turned off Steve Gibson has added UPNP detection to his Shields Up tool (link).
Cisco has also released a document specifying what models of Cisco/Linksys routers are vulnerable (link)
If you want the to read all the gritty details, the can be found here (pdf)
This was also covered on Security Now, if you want to listen to a 1.5 hour discussion about all of this (youtu.be/wEa43qM4JjQ, you can skip ahead to the 9:45 mark)

Edit: and now I can't figure out how to post just a link to youtube *grumble*
-Terry
-----
"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy