An "open alternative" to Facebook, called http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11108891]Diaspora, is about two weeks away from launch.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

Not for the Faint of Heart...
Shall we see what we get...?

Quote:She appears to be a normal marine biologist except she dresses like a
punk rock commando soldier, her eyes reflects your soul when you look
into them and her hair is bright orange and she wears it just like
sailor moon, but secretly she is actually a half-ghost.
She is a
misunderstood genius megalomaniac and she will fight her enemies with
the power to re-animate the dead as her slaves or to take the shape of
anyone she eats.
Her friends and enemies call her Soulcaller Unicornriver!
Her constant companion is a sparkling murderous xenomorph who is also her bondage slave.
Her favored weapon is a magical poisoned staff which can be made invisible at her will.

Quote:She appears to be a normal model except she dresses like a bloody nurse
gestapo officer, her eyes can see the goodness in any creature's heart
and her hair is crimson red and can extend and retract at her will, but
secretly she is actually a half-dwarf.
She is the living key to open
up hell cursed by God and she will fight her enemies with the power to
corrupt mortals or to rip up trees and hit people with them.
Her friends and enemies call her Awesomegirl Skywing!
Her constant companion is a mysterious befriended fox who is also her lover.
Her favored weapon is a silver shining rapier which can be transformed into a motorcycle.

Quote:She appears to be a normal raver except she dresses like a mad
scientist catgirl, her eyes glows with arcane power and her hair is
jade green and flows like silk but is stronger then diamond, but
secretly she is actually a half-angel.
She is the daughter of the
president born from a scientific experiment gone wrong and she will
fight her enemies with the power to extend her tongue and use it as a
razor-sharp whip or to punch her opponent into another dimension.
Her friends and enemies call her Cancerclaw Souldancer!
Her constant companion is a friendly special needs dragon who is also her personal trainer.
Her favored weapon is a dragonbone huge knuckle dusters which shines bright like the sun.

...http://www.cbc.ca/canada/ottawa/story/2 ... ttack.html]be like this guy and have it beside a CPR recertification course.

(I wonder whether this counts as an automatic pass of the course?)
--
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

And it's not Atlas Park during a Costume contest!
Pics from the Children's Hospital at Dartmouth Hero Half Marathon! (YouTube link)
''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

RIP: Charles Roberts, founder of Avalon Hill Games, publishers of all kinds of really neat boardgames.
This man's company was what got me into gaming. When I was all of ten years old. I owe some of the most fun parts of my life to them.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/obitua ... full.story
(ETA: Fixed link.)
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

At lvl 40-ish, i'm becoming increasingly dissatisfied with SR4's survivability.  Of course the problem is that I am a squishy blapper.  Pure energy, so to speak.  What I'm thinking is that since I have 2 respecs at the moment I should think about respecing both builds:  One for ranged damage spamming for TF's and one more blapperage with every bit of defense a poor 'kill em before they can get me' blapper can scrape up.
Suggestions, Hints/tips/tricks?
Hear that thunder rolling till it seems to split the sky?
That's every ship in Grayson's Navy taking up the cry-
NO QUARTER!!!
-- "No Quarter", by Echo's Children

I was just on Amazon to get info on my publishing history for an opportunity that could blend both my programming and my writing when I discovered http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/ ... dition=new pristine copies of I.S.T. are going for over $100 at some dealers.  Wow.  I still have a few comp copies left, too... just in case I need a little more money.
ETA:  And Robin Hood is going for or more... Camelot is $30, although a "collectible" copy is going for $70...
And for some freaking reason a copy of the D&D module I wrote for Dragon magazine in 1985 is going for $40...  Wow.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

Alrighty, I've been mucking with something for my own Author Avatar... well, it started as a bit of a self deprecating joke, (I have that sense of humour. I know, I suck at it) but sort of inverted when that didn't work out and I found that there was some really interesting concepts in there. One was the idea of a person being able to fly through space without a 'spacesuit', to look on the world with my own eyes unfiltered by glass or video feed. The other was a comment on biomods that I found interesting and worth actually looking at.

There's still some mild self deprecation... mostly from my use of a particular plot device twice elsewhere, and because the Handwavium would be likely to pick up upon that streak inside me anyway and serve up some nice irony, because it knows I find such things funny in a way.

I like some of the ideas, especially the whole being my own spacecraft thing. Most everything else is to make that work, and keep sanity above a certain level.

Anyway, I hacked out a bit of a something on Google Docs: http://docs.google.com/d...5CvZGg&authkey=CPDrnZwM#

The first part's more for my own benefit, to get a mindset and some idea's straight in my own head. It's sort of a long and barely coherent ramble through the 'my' fen-life, with hints rather than facts. I made a point of not naming specific fen characters, or events. It's unsubtle who some people are meant to be, or what events 'I'm' talking about, but at the same time they could be different events or people entirely. That was deliberate, so there can be some flexibility rather than trying to muscle in on things and other people. I also tried to give Jet an interesting range of things to have done, some of which I might be able to make an actual story out of, without actually doing anything that'd draw outright fame.

The back end of the document is a draft wiki profile. Some of the Quirks need new names, but they'll do until I can think of something better.
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

A thread for this so I don't derail other threads.
Anyway, I need school support staff and heroic student resistance during the
Wolkenritter attack. One chap filler characters, mainly. All I really
need are names. Next chap will be Mahora-centric. Current things on my checklist include at least:

• Signum VS Setsuna
• Kotaro or Chamo VS Zafira
• Asuna VS Vita.
• Negi VS Anyone

This has been bouncing around my head for most of the summer now, since a bit after the El Hazard/ Nanoha discussion, and I've finally got around to writing it up.  It's probably been done before, but I haven't seen it, so...

Quote:It’s said that a butterfly
flapping it’s wings can cause a storm on the far side of the world.  But butterflies are capricious beings, and
sometimes do not flap their wings on cue.

“It’s such a nice day out.  Would you like to get some fresh air?”

 

The doctor turns to the young girl in the wheelchair, who
smiles and nods.

 

            “Yes,
Ishida-sensei”

 

Dr. Ishida walks around behind the wheelchair, and gently
begins to push.

 

What care does a butterfly have
if a girl, trapped within a failing body, can go outside, instead of being
locked within a dreary hospital, after all? 
It simply flaps its wings when it chooses, with no thought to the
effects.

The doctor guides the wheelchair, and the girl it bears
along the tree lined path behind the hospital, stopping when she began to
motion at something by the foot of a tree.

 

            “Ishida-sensei,
what’s that?  It’s so pretty…”

But just because an insect, half
a world away, does not care about the effects, those effects are still present.  So now, thanks to the timely lack of
interference, Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A’s will now begin…

The girl reaches up from her wheelchair’s seat, and places
the blue gem she found earlier on her bookshelf, next to an old book, which she has
been taking care of for as long as she can remember.  That task complete, she climbs into her bed,
and begins to drift off into sleep.  As
her consciousness fades, a flash of blue light goes unseen, and a single word
goes unheard.

…Just a little bit early.

Sammlung