JetBlue Flight Attendant Incident
Seriously, the fact that I missed this is a sign that I've been working too hard.  (And considering the subject matter here, ain't that ironic?)

Lately when I've come on the forum Firefox displays a banner across the top saying it's blocked a cross-site XSS(?) script and to check the console for more info.

Anyone else have this happen to 'em and is it anything to worry about?

--Rod.H

I've been twiddling on and off with bits and pieces of equipment using the GURPS rules, mainly to build things I can use in fics. But I figured other people may like to have a look-see and offer comment. This isn't my complete list, but given that I'm constantly fiddling anyway I figured I'd show some of the possibly useful objects.

Please note I've tried to make all prices and LC levels equivilent to 'Danelaw, but I'm probably off in a few things.

And I could use some opinions on this one before it finds a home elsewhere.  It's based on the Grateful Dead's "Tons of Steel", and heavily inspired by UF and some crap that I haven't gotten around to finishing, or posting anywhere.  Let me know what you think.

So here I am, falling into the world at
fourteen hundred knots, yet again. One more world, on one more
campaign, just one more paycheck in the bag.

I know these rails we're on like I know
my lady's smile
We see a dozen dreams in every passing
mile
Can't begin to count the trips that she
and I have made
But I wish I had a dollar for each time
we've both been down this grade

Twenty-eight degrees of positive pitch,
and now the ionization shell is beginning to form as we hit the upper
layers of atmosphere. The ride gets rocky, and the heat shield drops
over the canopy. We're currently passing through a hundred and
eighty thousand feet, and dropping like a rock. This part of the
flight is never controlled, but completely at the whims of
aerodynamics and atmosphere.



Nine hundred thousand tons of steel,
made to roll
Her brakes don't work and this grade's
so steep
 
Her engine's sure to blow


Nine hundred thousand tons of steel,
out of control
She's more a roller coaster than the
plane I used to know

The heat shield has retracted now at a
hundred thousand feet, and the flak has started. It's like I'm
dropping through a perpetual cloud of black smoke. We're just
fortunate that they don't use fusion lasers for aerial defense,
otherwise we'd have been ranged, bracketed, and targeted before we
even broke out of the ionic shell. I truly do hate spacebourne
bombing runs, but sometimes you just don't have a choice. I see
fireballs breaking out on the ground, and I know that the Pandemonium
is providing what fire support she can, but a two-ton tungsten rod
falling from orbit isn't the most accurate thing ever made.

It's one hell of an understatement to
say she can get mean
She is temperamental, more a bitch than
a machine
She was built to travel at the speed a
rumor flies
These wings are bound to jump their
tracks before they burn up high

I look at the anti-air defenses
currently shooting at me, and I decide to kick the throttle up
another notch, consequences be damned. I hear the airframe creak as
I stress it beyond what it is really supposed to take, and I mentally
shrug. Either it'll hold, or it'll fail. Either way I'm gonna meet
the ground, and after four hundred years, death doesn't frighten me,
even less than it did when I was still properly alive.

Nine hundred thousand tons of steel,
made to roll
Her brakes don't work and her grade's
so steep
Her engine's sure to blow



Nine hundred thousand tons of steel,
out of control
She's more a roller coaster than the
plane I used to know

I'm at thirty five thousand feet and
still dropping. I'll pull out at five thousand, and level off at
eight hundred feet. I've got thirty seven tons of bombs that need to
be on target, and the three aircraft behind me have the same. We
will kill this war machine, no matter what the cost. That's what we
do, and that's what we get paid for. Only once in our history have
we allowed a mission kill, and that day I lost two pilots. There's
only so much you can do against fifteen-to-one odds in the air, and
dumping your air-to-ground stores is the least of your worries. Two
of my people weren't equal to the challenge, and we buried empty
caskets. That betrayal was paid for in nuclear fire. That's behind
us now, but we will always remember. We are the premier aerospace
force in the galaxy, and us losing two craft and their pilots is
equivalent to any other mercenary airforce losing three wings of
fighters. It suddenly occurs to me that, with the density of AAA,
this may be my final flight. I'm jinking and dodging for all I'm
worth, and yet the explosions keep coming closer. I suddenly relax,
and I smile, as I realize that, if I have to go down, I've always
wanted to go down in my Valkyrie, over a hotly contested target, and
I've wanted to go down making a difference. That's what's driven
every single mission the Talons have taken. We support the underdog,
we fight for the little people, we've always taken on the Evil Empire
for the sake of the few. This is what I am doing today, and if it
costs me everything, then Sisu. I will do what I have to do, and I
will count the cost later, if ever.

Murphy's sure outdone himself, to pick
this stretch of sky
I can only guess my luck is keeping me
in flight.
Well I have prayed to the gods that
this ain't the death of me
I've done bout everything 'cept try
flappin my feet

I'm falling faster now, a couple dozen
holes shot in my wings. Luckily, my engineers designed the Valk to
keep flying, even with catastrophic damage. I'm close to that level
now. Two more hits, and I'll have to dump stores and burn hard for
altitude.

Nine hundred thousand tons of steel,
made to roll
Her brakes don't work and this grade's
so steep
Her engine's sure to blow

Nine hundred thousand tons of steel,
out of control
She's more a roller coaster than the
plane I used to know

Another hit, and it's time to level
this beast out. My best lady and I are right on the ragged edge.
Bah. Fuck it. I came here to bomb a target, and by the gods, I'm
going to bomb that target, one way or the other. I drop down to five
hundred feet, taking refuge in the lessened horizon that I have to
fly across. I kick the throttle up another couple notches, until I'm
burning across the sky at just below a thousand knots IAS. Target's
ahead, we're thirty seconds out. I switch my ordinance controls, and
lob a couple of anti-radiation missiles ahead of me. They'll drop on
anything that tries to target me. The other planes in the formation
kick out, giving forty-five degrees of separation between attack
vectors, giving us the best odds of at least one of us making it
through this mission. Twenty seconds now, and I pop up to a thousand
feet, roll inverted, and finally get my eyes on target. There it is,
the factory that we came so far and suffered so much to reach. I
roll back level, put the dot on the building, and mash down the
pickle button as hard as I can. The airframe shudders as fifty four
bombs fall of the racks, shortly followed by the racks themselves. I
cut back ninety degrees to the left, stand my bird on her tail, and
slam the throttle forward, left, and forward to the final stop. I
hang there in the sky for a long instant, before the added thrust
shoots me back toward orbit at a truly insane velocity. I'm moving
fast enough now that the guns can't track me, and inside a minute
I've broken a hundred eighty thousand feet again, leaving the flack
far behind. I glance over my shoulder, and see all three of my
wingmates in close formation. We've won through again, and the
after-action review of the Pandemonium's cameras will show that we
put all one hundred forty eight tons of ordinance on target, and got
away without pilot injury. Granted, our fighters will spend the next
month being rebuilt, but that's why we have spares. Once more, we've
danced with the devil in the pale moonlight, and we taught that
bastard how to tango.

Oooh oooh, I wanna go down slow
Oooooooooh oooh oooh oooh

Nine hundred thousand tons of steel,
out of control
She's more a roller coaster than the
plane I used to know.


-W
Falling out of aeroplanes and hiding out in holes

Waiting for the sunset to come, people going home

Jump out from behind them and shoot them in the head

Now everybody dancing the dance of the dead

Vid about 2 brothers and what they did. http://www.wimp.com/restoremotorbike/

What...
What?
I mean... what?!?!
WHAT. THE. FLYING FURRY FUCK!?!?
I... I don't even know what to SAY that could possibly convey my loathing for this...
I guess... politics is the place to put this. I think? I mean - I guess I'm curious to see if I'm unusual in my reaction to this. But I don't want people browsing general to stumble into it accidentally and need brain bleach without a healthy warning.
Did this advertisement even air? If so, what the HELL were they thinking? This appears to be British, so anybody from over there see it?
Maybe there's another ad campaign that was more stupid, self-defeating and utterly tasteless before this. But for the life of me, if there ever was one, the gore and the stupidity of this one has driven it utterly from my mind.

Now THAT...
http://www.egscomics.com/?date=2010-10-01
...is what we in the old Champions Pen and Paper game refer to as a PRESENCE ATTACK! ^_^
Yowza...!

The producer of so many TV shows we love to steal ideas and quotes from, Stephen J. Cannell, has died at age 69.

Time for a so-bad-it's-good TV marathon...
--
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

Last night the desktop started having issues.  After a couple hours of troubleshooting, I've come to the conclusion that I've got a bad sector on the hard drive -- a Western Digital 1.5TB disk.  Windows 7 can still boot, most things appear to be running fine, it's one (large) app in particular that seems to be sitting on the bad spot.
However, it's a *really* bad spot.  CHKDSK hangs when it reaches it, as does the Western Digital official drive-testing software that I obtained from their website.  I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to replace the disk and reinstall, because any imaging software I use is going to puke as soon as it hits that sector as well, and I can't find a utility able to mark it as such without falling into the tarpit.  Very frustrating.
So... has anyone had any experience with getting a WD hard drive replaced under warranty?  This was bought new (OEM packaging) back in February of this year.  It's still under the 1-year manufacturer warranty period.  But I've never had to deal with replacing a WD drive.  Maxtor, Seagate, Quantum, yes.  But never WD.
Am I going to have an uphill fight in front of me?
(Also, if you can recommend any drive utilities that stand a chance of marking that bad sector so I can maneuver around it, that'd be appreciated too)

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

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