The Minna no Evangelion Fan blog posted images of the 18.5-meter (61-foot) long figure of the Neon Genesis Evangelion character Rei Ayanami on Wednesday.
...
I got nothin...

-Logan
--------------------
Mmmm... Tang...
--------------------

There are a number of games NWN2 and Mass effect that create folders in the "My Documents" area.
I REALLLY REALLLY hate this. It messes up my file arangement.
Is there any way to get them to stop or create folders somewhere else?

http://blogs.ocweekly.com...il-a_anti-gay_stance.php

At last. One place I can point to, rather than having to dig up donation tracking links, to indicate to others WHY I won't eat there.

(Only posted in Politics because I would be surprised if we weren't 100% on the gay rights side here.)
--

"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've put "Arthur's Caught" on the Fen wiki:
http://www.fenspace.net/index.php5?title=Arthurs_Caught
This constitutes the first 'Chapter' (five stories).
Now with added references! [grin]
And, Fenspace dates on all the stories.
It's not accessable by the Season 0 Stories, yet, and has lots of dangling references, but I thought I'd better see if people thought it looked OK.
Thanks.
((OK, because I can't leave well alone, 'Rule', the second chapter is up as well.  And the're both in the 'Season 0' index.  And...))
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

Randall Munroe is answering hypothetical questions - a different one every Tuesday.

So far, he's told us:

• A careful reading of official Major League Baseball Rule 6.08(b) suggests that in this situation, the batter would be considered "hit by pitch", and would be eligible to advance to first base. (Compiler's note: Not "able," but "eligible.")
  
• ... the odds ... are worse than the odds of every living ex-President and every member of the main cast of Firefly all being independently struck by lightning … on the same day.
  
• ... it would take a hundred million Yodas to meet our demands.
  

Hey Bob, twice now on two different machines I've been redirected to the FFML webring homepage when clicking on a link on your site -- an internal link, I mean, not one of their links.  I can't seem to reproduce it on command, but both times it's been when I first clicked on the Miscellanea menu link at the top.

Not sure if I'm just lucky or what, but thought you should know.

If it matters: both machines run Chrome as the browser, but everything else, including OS, is different.  

--sofaspud
--"Listening to your kid is the audio equivalent of a Salvador Dali painting, Spud." --OpMegs

When a rockstar brain surgeon gains plant powers, he takes on the identity of ...
Buckaroo Bonsai
___________________________
"I've always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific." - George Carlin

Warranty Void - 17/Jul/2012
Mystery solved.  Owner traced.  Australia.  The batch of robots, that included Alice, and the two unnamed, unwaved, others were easily traced.  "Melbourne Universal Robotics".
Arthur made the call himself, with the canned 'this call may be recorded for quality assurance purposes' at the start.  Their lawyers didn't want to take any risks.  He'd miscalculated the time difference, so he got an engineer, come in to do some early tests, at 8am their time.
Explaining that he was ringing from the manufacturer of "Wright Frames", he was interrupted by the engineer.  Was this about the break-in and theft?  Arthur explained that no, this was the first they'd heard of it, and he was trying to track-down some robot frames, by serial number.
The engineer said rather more than his employers were likely to appreciate. Arthur got a full run-down on their research program, and, ways they planned to modify the robots which would quite clearly break the warranty.  He was able to make some suggestions that the engineer found very interesting, and Arthur could hear he was taking notes.  All hard tech, of course.
After half an hour on the phone, the engineer said his manager had come in. Arthur was transferred, and there was a rather more cautious discussion.  A tentative agreement was made that, once insurance was sorted out, Arthur would regain full ownership rights over the stolen robots, in return for supplying replacements, at only 20% of the standard price.  Arthur strongly recommended 'lo-jacking' the new ones.
"OK, Alice.  Looks like we can fix your immediate ownership issues.  And, those of the two robots you rescued."  Alice didn't seem too happy about being owned by anyone, but agreed the situation was an improvement.  Janet gave her a hug, which seemed to surprise her.
Next day, it took quite a while, but eventually Alice agreed to being examined by Janet.  Janet revealing she herself as an AI was probably the clincher.  Letting Alice look inside Janet's AI core settled things.
Alice remained conscious throughout.  Arthur ended up acting as Janet's assistant, handing her tools and instruments.  The waving process was remarkably restrained.  The skin had become more realistic-looking, and there was a metal and plastic 'brain' inside her head, where Janet kept her transceiver.
Images taken from multiple angles didn't seem to help much.  Janet ran some image distortions and analysis algorithms.  Alice was fascinated as the results were displayed on a prototype holo stage, on a workbench.
It looked like three old mobile phones, innards exposed, without SIM cards. Grown, merged and distorted to look like a human brain.  Arthur pointed out a connector, on the newest of the three, which he said might be usable to allow Alice to back-up her mind, externally.  Or allow her to connect to external devices, and control them.
Alice shivered a little, as Arthur and Janet discussed what might be possible, and Janet broke-off to give her another hug.  Alice insisted she wanted, had to, know now, rather than later.  A careful design gave them a cable, fully under Alice's control, routed to one of her standard external connectors.
Arthur couldn't follow what came next, even though Janet kept a display in the loop.  Afterwards, Alice thanked Janet for the new security algorithms, and they played back a sound clip, that had somehow been recorded.
"You idiot!  Why did you use all three mobile phones?"  Another voice replied, "You said stick the phones in the robots, and pour in the handwavium.  There was enough room for three phones, so I stuck them in.  Do you want to do this yourself?".
The first voice "I'm not going anywhere near that stuff!  The phones were all from the recycling bin, so, I guess no problem.  I'll get some more for the other robots, tomorrow.  We can test this one, tonight, when Mr 'Big Boss' gets back.  Now.  Robot, Can you hear me?  Your name is 'Alice', and you will do everything I say.  Everything".
While Janet distracted Alice with the prospect of fitting one or more SIM cards, and acquiring a mobile phone capability, Arthur entertained black thoughts.  He knew people, who knew people, who broke legs, and other body parts, for money. Such people very likely existed in Australia.
It was awfully tempting to use his new found wealth in... bad ways.
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

Scaling Issues - 17/Jul/2012
It was getting a bit much.  Arthur and Janet were effectively the manufacturing arm of a multi-million dollar industry.  Plus two human secretaries.  Kevin Wright and, he guessed, Nurse Blake.  Five people who did packing and shipping.  Eleven people.
He'd modified the original Body Builder so it could be directly controlled by Janet's AI core, then built two duplicate copies.  Same friendly quirks as the original, so, no problems.  Eventually they'd understood Kelly's crab-bot well enough to add a remote control interface, and it was now Janet's second remote, confined to the workshop.  It helped.
"Quantity has a quality all it own", a quote attributed to Stalin.  That was one good reason to mistrust it, but when you started to multiply things a thousand-fold life certainly started getting more interesting.  The "Wright Frame" was now so popular he'd backed-up orders for over two hundred; he'd only sold about a hundred, so far.  Projected sales of over two thousand for the year.
Interesting, it didn't seem to be something Fenspace had picked-up on.  Here in Mundania (one of his science fiction friends called it), it was going really well.  It was only months later that he found 'not licensed for off-planet use' in the terms and conditions.  Kevin Wright claimed that made it 'more sexy', would increase sales on Earth, and, anyhow, people who wanted one would just ignore it.
He'd reasonably complete plans for a fully automated factory when Miss Lidzt ('Dana'), his secretary, came to him.  She still used a gym to hang-on to as much of her good looks, as The Machine had given her, as possible.  While there she got to know another recently joined member, and things were going quite well.  Then she noticed the way discussions always drifted to her work, and began to wonder about industrial espionage.  The suggestion that her exercise partner knew where to get loans at really good rates also troubled her.
Arthur sat her down, and talked to Dana about her finances.  Then wrote her a large personal cheque that'd take a lot of immediate pressure off.  A call to Kevin Wright and they had contact numbers for a reputable investigations agency, that dealt with industrial problems.  They agreed to take the case, and strongly recommended getting the police involved.
"If I had an Angel to spare, she'd be going undercover at the gym, about now", thought Arthur.
What worried Arthur was that either he'd need a new AI to run an automated factory, Jenny certainly wouldn't do it (and he wouldn't let her).  Or, he'd need a lot of humans on a workforce, and any industrial secrets he had would disappear.  It wasn't that he distrusted people, in general, but with the wages he could pay and the bribery levels likely someone would sooner or later crack.  Also, if he went for the AI factory, the 'taking jobs from humans' people would be all over him.
Then there was Alice.  She'd arrived last week.  Her waved appearance wasn't quite as slick as the Hollywood Machine managed, but it was quite good enough to pass as human.  Unfortunately, the first thing she did was raise the back of her shirt to show him her serial number.  And, it was one of his.
He'd paid to have her stay in a local hotel, and a small stipend to keep her going.  Janet had gone out clothes shopping with her.  The only other thing she needed was a Nokia phone charger - better than relying on bare wires and guesswork.
Her story was she'd been waved up into consciousness, and effectively told she was an exotic sex slave.  Somewhere in Australia.  They seemed to think she'd be barely sentient, but she'd been smart enough to escape, stealing the other two, as yet unwaved, robots.  So, $150k worth?  How on Earth, or off it, had they planned to make their money back?
She made her way with a friendly group of Aussie students, who were returning to Dublin.  The unwaved robots were cached in Australia, and she could tell him their serial numbers.  Yes, they were his.
It'd taken him a while, but Arthur'd worked-out how to contact Sarah.  A proposed contract for collaborative work, with some carefully placed misspellings scattered through the text.  A covert message soon appeared, and he memorised it's content before it self-erased, as he thought it might.
Let's see how they could upset the slavers...
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

And now we get to the GOOD STUFF!!!


Most of the last part of 2199
episode #3, and we get to see the girl in action. Main guns, auxiliary,
anti-aircraft, Wave Motion Gun, new music - what's not to like?
There are
no subtitles, but the explosions are in English, so don't worry. ^_^
(And as of 6:05 in the video, Jupiter gets a BRAND NEW Great Red Spot! HOLY... O_O )

EDIT: MORE New clips coming in - this time from the Battle of Pluto. Just direct links this time
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oq9QpEk1 ... r_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... Euyhe_97ag

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... lnrBBDsGwg(love the Final Yamato reference!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... 7p0fqgaSwI

Yamamoto-chan is a badass! And the Yamato - I'm actually feeling sorry for the Gamilas! Go now!