From todays XKCD:



He's right. It really is an exciting time.

When: To be determined.Where: Paragon City
What: A Pajama Party, silly!
Why: Because we can!  (See: Swimsuit TF; Get Naked, Fight Crime!; Halloween Hijinks; etc)

Who: Everyone!

So we were gabbing in the channel and it occurred to me, we should do a Legendary Pajama Party and Task Force night.  Rhea, or any of my other alts, will bring (virtual) snacks and their best PJs.  Most likely will have to happen on a weekend or a Friday night, given people's schedules, but let's work it out here so we have some idea -- assuming there's interest, of course.

Terr has proposed we do Tin Mage in our PJs.  I like this plan.  I think we should all be part of it.

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

Singularity Club – 19/Jun/2012
"The First Rule of Singularity Club, is that you don't talk about Singularity Club."
"The Second Rule of Singularity Club, is there is no Singularity Club."
There are occasional rumours, on the edge of the Hacker Underspace.  When you ask people who should know, the usual answer is "How could you tell?".
Singularity Club, if it did exist, would be concerned with existential threats to Fenspace, and all known sentient beings.  The headline threat is a runaway Singularity, which if it can occur, almost certainly, sooner or later, will do so.  Singularity Club might be enthusiastic about the 'later' option.
There are some incredibly powerful AIs in Fenspace.  You'd expect them to be more involved in things, seeing as they think orders of magnitude faster than humans.  And humans, they manage to get their fingers in everything, even running "Plains Ape 1.0".  Do AIs ever seem distracted?  Are they just playing an AI-speed MMORPG?  Singularity Club might be one answer.
You might be concerned that everything depends on the benevolence of handwavium. You might be concerned there is no Plan B.  A Singularity would likely suck-in all sentient beings in the Solar System.  For sentience as we know it to have a Plan B, if the Singularity fails in some way, there must be a functional culture outside it's short-term reach.  Somewhere beyond the Solar System.
So, this might be one reason why nanotech is taking so long to arrive in Fenspace.  This might be one reason superintelligent AIs just seem to think like humans, only faster.  This might be one reason...
SfX: *FLASH*
What was I saying?
== The use of neuralizers by representatives of Singularity Club cannot be confirmed or denied. ==

META: Emily[1][2] was one early AI, with at least superhuman intelligence, and potentially access to as much processing power as she wanted, and could find power supply and cooling for (without advancing Global Warming too much).  She was tasked to "fix the world", and a basic part of her nature is to fix things for people which are broken.  She was also tied into the virtual world via "TRON", which is an abbreviation for the command "Trace On", implying an imperative to find out what was wrong there.  Emily hasn't surfaced in the early history of the Hacker Underspace – what might she have been doing with her time?
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

Wind's four quarters, Air and Fire,
Earth and Water, hear my desire!
Grant my plea, who stands alone,
Maiden, Warrior, Mother and Crone.

Eastern Wind, blow clear, blow clean,
Cleanse my body of its pain.
Cleanse my mind of what I've seen,
Cleans my honor of its stain.
Maid whose love has never ceased,
Bring me healing from the East.

Southern Wind, blow hot, blow hard,
Fan my courage to a flame!
Southern Wind, be guide and guard,
Add your bravery to my name.
Let my will and Yours be twinned,
Warrior of the Southern Wind.

Wind's four quarters, Air and Fire,
Earth and Water, hear my desire!
Grant my plea, who stands alone,
Maiden, Warrior, Mother and Crone.

Western Wind, blow stark, blow strong,
Grant me arm and mind of steel!
On a road both hard and long,
Mother, hear me where I kneel.
Let no weakness on my quest
Hinder me, Wind of the West.

Northern Wind, blow cruel, blow cold,
Sheathe my aching heart in ice!
All around my soul enfold,
Crone, I need not call you twice.
To my foes bring cold of death,
Chill me, North Wind's frozen breath.

Wind's four quarters, Air and Fire,
Earth and Water, hear my desire!
Grant my plea, who stands alone,
Maiden, Warrior, Mother and Crone.
Maiden, Warrior, Mother and Crone.

-- Heather Alexander, "Wind's Four Quarters"

(There's also a version performed by Leslie Fish, who co-wrote this song with Mercedes Lackey, which sounds very different.)
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

Awww lordy, here we go again...  Just as when Firewire faced off against USB 2.0...
On one side we have Apple's contribution: Thunderbolt.  On the other: USB 3.0.  Both have their pros and cons.  Both have backwards compatibility.
What I find amusing about everyone's scuffle over which is better... is that Intel played major roles in the development of BOTH!!!  So now I'm just wondering why all the hubub is over.  Both seem remarkably similar (though Thunderbolt is admittedly ultimately intended for a display device).  The only real advantage I see one having over the other is that USB 3.0 inherits 1.1 and 2.0's absurd daisy-chain abilities... while Thunderbolt can only handle six, with the seventh item being a display device.

I thought some of you might be interested in this.
Prometheus Music, a small independent label (I think that is the right term), which specializes in filkmusic, is currently having a sale.  Through Wednesday, if you buy their new cd, you get 25% off any of their other cds.  I'm particularly a fan of their album To Touch The Stars, which is filled with some excellent space filk music.  Julia Ecklar's Divine Intervention cd is also really really good.
All the details are in the link at the start of this post.
Also, if you go to their catalog page, you can then go to each album's page, and listen to the full songs on each album before buying (and download mp3s for a few of the songs).  Its really nice.
Edit:  Changed the thread title slightly.
Also, it's been a while since I last bought a cd from them, but IIRC, when I ordered the cd, I seem to recall being sent an email with a download link for the songs on said cd, so I could start listening right away.  It was quite nice.  I don't know if they still do that, but I expect that they do, unless I am misremembering.
-----
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.

Sooo after Skyreiko got me interested in Fensapce. (which turned out to be pure muse crack for me) I took a shot at making a character.

Still very much a work in progress, so any feedback would be welcomed.

Quote:Name: Joshua Greenway

Gender: Female (born male)

Ethnicity: Australian

Citizenship: Australian

In 2012 after much saving and planing, Joshua had finally got enough Handwavium to create something he had always wanted, a personal suit of power armour. But not wanting to be another Tony Stark wannabe, he started working on a suit of Majolnir Mark 6 battle armour from the halo series.

Once the suit was completed, in a fit of fanboyish stupidity, He climbed in and powered it up. Unfortunately, the suit was every bit as good as the fiction made it up to be. As he went to pick up the helmet, his simple movement effectively turned him into a human bouncy ball, sending him through the remaining wavium and half way down the block before the suit safety cut off power.

Eventually he came to in the Leonard H. McCoy Memorial Medical Center, When he crashed through his remaining handwavuim, he coincidently ingested/inhaled most of it, resulting in an extreme biomod. Josh's body is now on par with that of the Spartans he was trying to mimic, but as expected, the change had several quirks as Josh is now a seven foot tall elfin woman that with some a blond wig, could pass for Powergirl.

Quirks. 
Amazon Brigade: Stands seven foot tall, with a body that’s a mix of super model and pro athlete.
Stormtrooper accuracy: When using pistols, machine guns or stranded rifles, could not hit the broad side of a barn from inside it unless...
AoE FTW!: Any weapon that would cause an area of effect will hit dead on. (this also includes shot guns for some reason)

Armour Quirks.
What the hell is this black stuff?: when the suit is exposed to extreme environments (hard vacuum, extreme heat/cold), it gains a strange layer of black ash/sludge.

At least, I think it's from that plane: some authors work in multiple settings, and Mercedes Lackey might be one of them.Anyway, what do you think Doug's magegift would make of Kerowyn's Ride? (Lyrics by Misty Lackey, Kethry's lines sung by Leslie Fish, and Kerowyn's lines sung by Heather Alexander.)

Quote:Kerowyn, Kerowyn, where are you going?
Dressed in men's clothing, a sword by your side
Your face pale as death, and your eyes full of fury
Kerowyn Kerowyn, where do you ride?

Last night in the darkness black raiders attacked us
Our Hold lays in ruins below
They've stolen our treasure and the bride of my brother
And to her aid now I must go,
To her side now I must go

Kerowyn, Kerowyn, where is your father?
And where is your brother? This task should be theirs
It is not seemly for maids to be warriors
Go back to your valley, and to woman's cares

My father lies dead at the hands of their leader
My brother lies raving in pain
The raiders left no man unwounded to free her
But in their hands she'll not remain,
I vow she'll not with them remain

Kerowyn, Kerowyn, where are your senses?
What can you hope to accomplish alone
You have no knowledge of war or of weapons
Why loose your life, for a girl you scarce known

This is for more than a matter of honor
And more than a matter of pride
She's but a child, all alone and unaided
And someone at least should've tried,
So now to her rescue I ride

[Bridge]

Grandmother, grandmother I need a weapon
I'm one against many, and I am afraid
The raiders have bought them a dark wizard's power
I cannot help Dierna without magic aid

Kerowyn, grand-daughter, into your keeping
I'll give you this sword I once wore
Need us her name now ride fearless to battle
She'll aid as she did me before, her magic is strong as before

Grandmother, grandmother, why turn so willing
Why did you try to persuade me to stay
Whence came this weapon of steel and of magic
And why do you choose now to give it away

Kerowyn, not for the weak or the fearful
Is the path of a warrior maid
You've passed all my tests, now ride out with my blessings
And trust in the spell of the blade, ride now and go unafraid

I know I mentioned this before on the other thread, but I'll mention it again for anyone who is interested.
A guy called Anime Addict is trying to make his own Wikia style TV Tropes like website, located here:
http://tvtropesmirror.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page
His goal is to bend every effort to make the site as much like TV Tropes, within the limits of Wikia code, not to mention he plans to throw up everything TV Tropes is taking down in some form or fashion as long as Wikia doesn't object.
Unfortunately, his biggest problems is that he needs help.
I've spoken with the guy, even gave him a link to the torrent/DDL links because honestly, I want another alternative to TV Tropes to exist (in fact, the more TV Tropes monopoly is reduced, the better in my book), and so far, he's gotten a pretty good head start, he's an extremely reasonable guy who was very supportive of the efforts to archive TV Tropes and what they were censoring, and right now, he needs people willing to donate their time (if possible) to help him out, especially in porting over trope and work pages and formatting them to Wikia format.
The Wikia website was originally owned by Jack Butler (who now is owner of The Trope Wiki), but after he decided he didn't like Wikia formatting and went with a Wikipedia style setup, Anime Addict adopted the domain, and is currently bending every effort to make his site replicate all the essentials of TVT.
He also has decided to roll back the clock somewhat on some policies of TVT that he didn't like, such as nuking some of the more interesting discussion pages, homogenizing witty trope names into something bland and sterile, and generally, he just wants people to have fun because he agrees TV Tropes in its current state is turning into a place riddled with Serious Business types, and he wants to make a more casual alternative.
If you're interested, please check out the site.
NOTE: Despite his name, he is neutral on what works and tropes can be ported, and has told me personally he holds no bias against any media, eastern or western, and believes firmly that if can be troped, it should be troped.

...that might be of interest: Space Command, a series of SF films visually based on the classic space artwork of the 1950s and 1960s, but with a modern sense of story telling. The people involved in the project are a who's-who of fantasy and sf TV over the past 15 years, both on the production side and in the cast. It looks like it might be worth a few bucks:

-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.