Bi-location - 09/Jun/2012
Eastercon[1], 2008, UK.
Sitting in a bar.  Even at a science fiction convention.  In a wheelchair that made you socially invisible.  Yes, Brains was willing to admit.  It was pretty lonely.
Things'd gone reasonably well.  He'd had to hire a disabled-adapted van, as he usually did for cons; his old Bedford hadn't worked for years now, and he'd never got around to getting it fixed.  Brainless clamped-down in the back as he'd driven down.  No police cars stopped them for having an invisible driver, as he'd joked with Uran before they left, but he certainly wasn't letting Brainless drive.
He hoped leaving Uran to poke around the village, and surrounding area, invisible, wasn't going to have any long-term consequences.
Brainless'd seemed almost cheerful when they arrived.  He'd picked up their con package from the desk, and pinned-on the badge, giving Brains a quick look as he did.  Brains nearly protested, then realised Brainless would be the one people looked at.
Getting the dioramas set up in the Dealers Room went smoothly.  No one seemed to notice that there were two, identical, heavily-built red-haired men in wheelchairs; they just walked around Brains, as usual.  Though, Roger came in after they'd set-up, gave the pair of them a funny look, before turning to a customer.
Brains hung around a while.  Brainless actually smiled, talking to someone, explaining the background to one of the SF dioramas.  After a while he couldn't stand it any more, and wheeled-off to the bar.
Thinking about things, maybe Brainless was so unhappy, around him, because the two of them being there meant he couldn't be 'Brian'?  That made some sense - his main reason for existence was to be a stand-in.  For a moment Brains had the nasty notion that he just pretended to be non-sentient to wind him up...
"Brains?"  A woman he half-recognised called across the bar to him, then swiftly strode in his direction.  "I know you're pretty fast in that wheelchair, but we've just come straight from the Dealers Room.  Wait here."
Brains heart sunk, as he watched her stride out of the room, then back in a minute later.  "There's two of you!  How'd you manage that?"  And she stood there, tapping her foot on the carpet.
Maureen, as he saw her name badge said, obviously wasn't just going to go away. While waiting she looked over at a stocky man coming out of the loo.  "Dave!  Come over here and talk to Brains."
Dave looked around the bar, then ambled towards them.  "Brains?  Didn't we just see him in the Dealers Room?"  And his gaze slid across Brains.
Brains remembered Dave, one of his better on-line friends.  He'd a partner called 'Maureen'.  Best as he remembered they worked together at a small biomedical research company.  One of the few people he passed handwavium on to.  Hadn't Dave said Maureen was unwell and not coming to the con?
"Here!"  Maureen slapped the back of Brains wheelchair; definitely a social no-no.  Dave blinked, then looked straight at Brains for the first time.  "How did you get here so quickly, Brian?"
"That's just what I was asking him!"  And Maureen raised her hands into the air in exasperation.  Other fans in the bar were polite enough to do no more than glance over.
"I'm invisible.  That's why I brought a visible version of myself as well."  Maybe the truth would get him out of this?  Dave went white.  "You waved a copy of yourself?  And it worked?"  He slumped into a chair, put his hands over his face, and shook.  Brains could tell he was resisting crying.
Maureen moved over, put one hand on Dave's shoulder, then started rubbing his back.  She gave Brains one or two annoyed glances, but most of her attention was on Dave.
Brains sighed.  Then stood up, his wheelchair folding to support his lower body, and stumped over to the bar.  On the way one or two fans gave him admiring glances, and he caught at least one flash of a quick snap.  Good job he was going to go live on the Moon.
Their story slowly came out as Dave and Maureen sipped their drinks.  Brains was waiting for his toasted sandwich to arrive.  Dave had taken the handwavium and fed it until he could wave-up all the medical instruments and testing tools he could imagine.  A bio lab provided good enough containment facilities that waving involved little risk.
His prize piece was a replica of the human brain, that showed all the same readings as an unconscious adult one would, and responded to drugs in the same way.  Obvious ethical issues prevented him going any further.  Unfortunately his employers, while impressed by his enterprise, didn't think that they could sell instruments that you had to literally coax into working.  The idea of needing to sing to, admittedly a fully comprehensive hand-portable, brain scanner wasn't on.
Then Maureen had her fatal accident.  Dave's instruments showed she was totally dead, with only some residual brain activity, so he didn't think he had anything to loose.  He kludged the brain scanner to transfer as much of her as was left into the synthetic brain.  Then concealed her death while he built a steadily more functional body around it, organ by organ, part by part.
"I don't know how I did it", he admitted to Brains.  "But I'm not doing it again.  The nightmares have mostly stopped now, and I'm only going to do enough to keep Maureen healthy."  "Probably still sell the instruments, but I've always fancied taking up farming.  What do you think?"
Maureen gave Dave a 'we will be discussing this further' look.
"We're going, soon", and Maureen pointed up.  "Will we see you?"
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

Vengeance is as vengeance does,
Sweet the taste when eaten cold,
Sweeter still to send thy ill
Back into thy face three-fold!
Earth and Water, Air and Fire,
Mold thy power to my desire,
Earth and Water, Air and Fire,
Mold thy power to my desire!
Shape the shield, above, below,
Shape it hard and shape it strong,
Power bending to my will,
Power to contain thy wrong!
Earth and Water, Air and Fire,
Mold thy power to my desire,
Earth and Water, Air and Fire,
Mold thy power to my desire!
Now within it, mirror-bright,
All thy surface facing thee,
What thou sense, reflect until
Trapped within, ‘tis three times three!
Earth and Water, Air and Fire,
Mold thy power to my desire,
Earth and Water, Air and Fire,
Mold thy power to my desire!
And within conceit sublime,
Make it clear as diamond air,
Let all wrongs to curse or kill
Return to be trapped also there!
Earth and Water, Air and Fire,
Mold thy power to my desire,
Earth and Water, Air and Fire,
Mold thy power to my desire!
(Bridge)
Earth and Water, Air and Fire,
Mold thy power to my desire,
Earth and Water, Air and Fire,
Mold thy power to my desire!
Be thou trapped in thine own curse!
Be thou caught in thine own wrong!
Be thou burned by thine own flame!
Be thou shattered by thy song!
Earth and Water, Air and Fire,
Mold thy power to my desire,
Earth and Water, Air and Fire,
Mold thy power to my desire!
Mold thy power to my desire...

-- Heather Alexander, "Mirror Spell"
(lyrics by Mercedes Lackey, music by Leslie Fish)
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

After several years of struggling with my computer I final got talked into getting a new one. Yes this is the computer with the Btx case. So I've wiped it back to bare metal and given it a friend as thier first computer.

It was running Windows 7 Professional 32bit. As it was the OEM version it didn't include the 64bit version, but it did come with Office 2007.... which is now in my friend's hands.

The new computer is as follows:
AMD Oct-8 core
ASUS/GIGABYTE
16GB Hyper X 1600 Ram
2000 SATA HDD
2GB (Hyper) ATI 6670
Precision Gaming case
Certified 600W PSU
Supet Multi DVDRW
Windows Home 64bit

So now I have to pay the Microsoft tax at least once maybe twice.
I need office as certain parties only accept Word Docs.
And do I just upgrade to Ultimate 64, or go buy the full version and have both flavours available? Or do I just leave it as is?

Don't you just love the Microsoft tax?

..and as part of the celebration, Peg and I are at the James Taylor concert at PNC Arts Center. It's intermission right now, and I just have to ask -- has James Taylor always been a huge goofball?
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

Folks at Google have notices that the WWW error code 403, "Forbidden", has started to be used in cases where it isn't user permissions on a system that forbid the serving of a resource. To remove the ambiguity of why something is forbidden, they've proposed an extension to the 400-series codes: "Unavailable For Legal Reasons"

The number they've suggested? Three digits, starts with a 4, brings to mind government control of ideas... (Yes, they acknowledge where they got the number from.)

http://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-t ... ude_text=1]Here's the current draft of the proposed error code, with the number listed for those who haven't figured it out yet.
--
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

by Cole Porter:

Times have changed

And we've often rewound the clock

Since the Puritans got a shock

When they landed on Plymouth Rock.

If today

Any shock they should try to stem

'Stead of landing on Plymouth Rock,

Plymouth Rock would land on them.

In olden days, a glimpse of stocking

Was looked on as something shocking.

But now, God knows,

Anything goes.

Good authors too who once knew better words

Now only use four-letter words

Writing prose.

Anything goes.

If driving fast cars you like,

If low bars you like,

If old hymns you like,

If bare limbs you like,

If Mae West you like,

Or me undressed you like,

Why, nobody will oppose.

When ev'ry night the set that's smart is in-

Truding in nudist parties in

Studios.

Anything goes.

When Missus Ned McLean (God bless her)

Can get Russian reds to "yes" her,

Then I suppose

Anything goes.

When Rockefeller still can hoard en-

Ough money to let Max Gordon

Produce his shows,

Anything goes.

The world has gone mad today

And good's bad today,

And black's white today,

And day's night today,

And that gent today

You gave a cent today

Once had several chateaux.

When folks who still can ride in jitneys

Find out Vanderbilts and Whitneys

Lack baby clo'es,

Anything goes.

If Sam Goldwyn can with great conviction

Instruct Anna Sten in diction,

Then Anna shows

Anything goes.

When you hear that Lady Mendl standing up

Now turns a handspring landing up-

On her toes,

Anything goes.

Just think of those shocks you've got

And those knocks you've got

And those blues you've got

From that news you've got

And those pains you've got

(If any brains you've got)

From those little radios.

So Missus R., with all her trimmin's,

Can broadcast a bed from Simmons

'Cause Franklin knows

Anything goes.

--

power: any social behaviour, as long as sincere, will be accepted for the duration of the song. So while it plays it is ok to walk up to the Japanese emperor in nothing but shorts and greet him with "Hi dude". It would be rude to stay around after it finishes, though. ... could be useful if one doesn't know the social conventions of a group one gets to interact with.

Edit: line breaks.

A series of Handwavium Androids created by Whovians, each one is based on specific incarnations of the title character from the TV show Doctor Who. So far, there are only eleven of them, though there are plans to eventually add the 12th Doctor to their ranks. To the (mild) dissapointment of the Whovians, they aren't very good at figuring out how Time Lord technology works, much less how to build it in Fenspace. They insist they'd need an actual TARDIS to have any chance of that working. For now, they frequently do contract work for Great Justice and Space Patrol as Science Advisors.
Quirks:
I'm not an animatronic - Handwavium AI Androids.
Actor Allusion - Each version typically goes by the first name of their respective actor when they're all together to limit confusion (1. Bill, 2. Patrick, 3. John, 4. Tom, 5. Peter, 6. Colin, 7. Sylvester, 8. Paul, 9. Christopher, 10. David, 11. Matt).
Body Doubling - Each one looks and acts like a specific version of a fictional character, allowing people to predict their reactions if they are familiar with the source material.
What is this fashion sense you speak of? - Some of the Doctors have odd fashion choices lifted wholesale from the show (such as Tom's scarf, Peter's stick of celery, Colin's rainbow coat, or Sylvester's question mark-covered sweater vest).
Macguyver wishes he was as good as me - All of the Doctors are quite adept at jury-rigging solutions to problems.

Longevity - 23/Jun/2012
"It's not easy talking about it."  The reporter waited.  The man was obviously overwrought.  "Go on.  If you like, we can do the interview later."
"Sorry.  I'd like to get it over with.  My dad was getting on.  He'd been in the home for ten years.  And, his mind was starting to wander.  We'd never been rich, and, he was needing more medical treatment.  Just to keep going."
"Our insurance ran out years ago.  We'd had to re-mortgage the house.  If I could afford it I'd have quite liked to 'go up', myself.  But, like a lot of people, I've got responsibilities."
The man paused.  And the interviewer let him gather himself.
"I scrapped together every penny I could.  Asked around.  Studied the web.  The only firm that I could find, that guaranteed they could help him, that we could afford..."
He gulped.
"'Prometheus Industries'.  'We can rebuild you', was their slogan.  I looked up 'Prometheus', they'd got a really good reputation.  Turned out later, totally different company."
"We got Dad back.  Eventually.  Remembers everything.  Fit as a horse.  But..."
The man looked across the room.  The third person there looked up.
"Dad?"
"Yes?  Has the nice lady some questions, nyo?"
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

FULL FORCE!
Coming soon (No joke!) - http://gunhil.com/filmandtv/space-stallions/
And for those not quite familiar with the Space Stallions:

So.. I'm getting ready to write my own timeline for my pbp game set in 2012.
While I've got several ideas, and I've read through the various posts here about possibilities (Especially useful are Bob's views on the what/why of 9/11), I thought I would ask if anyone would like to share what they have done for their own timeline post-1999.
What was the cause of "The Wall"? Where did you go from there?
Even if I don't use what you did, I'd like to see for the sake of enjoyment.
Of course, if Bob has a semi-official list in the back of his head....