In a recent issue of New Scientist (of which I've been reading off and on, for years) I came across an advertisement for an intriguing competition. The gist is think up a new and interesting myth for the Mythbusters to test and gain geek points by getting mentioned on the show for coming up with it. You also get a 3 year subscription to New Scientist thrown in if your the winner.

As the topic says I'm currently stumped on an idea for 'em, the wise mustached one reckons they've got enough ideas to pull from their files/fansite for the next eight years. Oh and the link http://mythbusters.newscientist.com/ might not work in non .au countries. The way my mind will work, I'll end up with suggesting something that would put them on to international intelligence watch lists, like say just what really happens when a 1/2 critical mass amount of U235 meets another half mass of U235 at various velocities.

--Rod.H (who's newish keyboard has a sticky 'i')
"And it glows in the dark too....."

As in, who in the Fenspace collective?  Because I have a request for one.  The real Nina Avins has become a big Sailor Moon fan over the past year or so, and it seems likely that her fictional counterpart would, as well...  and you can probably see where I'm going with this.  I'd like to give real!Nina a treat, and make her fictional counterpart a Named Sailor.  Is Sailor Grover's Corners too unwieldy?  And what can I have her do to justify it?  (Because while I could see it as possibly being a political thing -- "they'll remember that we made their little girl happy and come if we need them" -- I think it'd be more satisfying if it were earned.)
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

Okay, I've let my stuff languish on the Wiki long enough.  I've GOT to do something about it.  So here's a list of things I'd like to fix.  If I'm missing something, would someone kindly let me know?

• Roughriders Portal - need to make one
  
• Roughriders (General) - needs a massive update... possibly become the portal page
  
• Pages for new branches of Roughriders: Roughnecks (Construction Batallion), HARDES (R&D, Science, Exlporation), Angels of Mercy (Medical, Search and Rescue, Disaster Relief).
  
• Updates on all ships
  
• Updates on all characters
  
• New pages for new ships and new characters
  
• Come up with rate and rank system for Roughriders
  
• Map out 36 Atalante
  
• Linking.  Lots and lots of linking.
  
• Edit old stories
  
• Write new ones

(Spotted on the SJGames forums.)

http://www.empireonline.com/news/feed.asp?NID=28653]Karl Urban Confirmed For Judge Dredd - And he will NOT remove his helmet

A little early for details, but one can hope they'll do a good job with it.

[size=smaller](One thing's odd - that article is phrased in such a way that the people involved think there was a previous "Judge Dredd" movie. Or maybe just http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113492/]a horrible, horrible movie that took some names from "Judge Dredd" that I really want to forget...)[/size]
--
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

So I noticed Dartz story post over on spacebattles and followed the included link to the wiki. Which led me here I've since been working on afew ideas. This is one of them, it is sort of rambling becouse I started with just the base vehicle and worked my way from there. I'd like to thank KaiserDrgn for helping me on the IRC with spelling as well as the other folks for leting me bounce some ideas off of.
I need to rewrite it down to the final product of the 'wavium treatment and use the building steps in the story. Still working on the character that goes with this craft I'll post that later.

The Shooting Star started life as a Modern Chris Craft 28' Cabin Cruiser. It
retains it's single forward cabin as the living place and the front
docking port based on the original bow deck hatch that's located above
the bed. A door at the rear comes out between the captains chair and
passenger chair. The chairs are raised with their own built in foot
rest/step. Behind them the stern seats have been removed for cargo space
while the whole area has been turned into a enclosed cabin using
paneling from a trailer. Former car windows have been added to the front
of the new cabin next to the chairs for added visibility.
A pair of pontoons from a old pontoon boat have been added to the sides
as outriggers to counter the added weight on the upper works. These
pontoons had their middle section removed to shorten them down. The
pylons holding the pontoons are a pair of 14' aluminum john boats turned
upside down with the stern section cut off. This ends up giving them
what looks almost like a bulky wing shape with the pontoons looking like
drop tanks when in flight. The stern sections from the john boats were
themselves cut up and used to serve as reinforcements on different parts
of the boat.
The Ship is fitted out with a old CB radio hooked up to a salvaged whip
antenna that is mounted on the upper most top of the ship. An old
desktop has also been taped to one wall below the Captain's chair with a
flat screen monitor mounted between the seats just above the cabin door
to the living area. The old stereo speaks that use to go to a sound system that was
long gone where wired into the computer. The whole thing is held together
by 'wavium imbued duct tape and all the paint based 'wavium Dakota could make.
The everything, inside and out, has been painted white using 'wavium paint,
with the name "Shooting Star" painted in black on the bow and stern.
With a shark tooth grin painted on the lower part of the bow. The
changes wrought by the 'wavium have made the whole ship look sleeker,
and the outriggers are retractable for hard surface landing by acting as
the landing skids when retracted. The engine having been coated in
'wavium has turned into a hydrogen powered anti-gravity drive. This
drive also creates the gravity field for the boat, including the bow
deck space, letting someone walk around normally inside and topside of
the boat.

The computer is now a fixed part of the ship while it's expanded beyond a normal
computer. It hasn't shown any signs of a AI thou people swear that the running lights
have winked at them when refueling or doing other maintence on the ship.
The monitor has expanded across the front of the Captain's console and
displys info on the ship status and works as a touch screen.
The Old CB has turn into a full coms unit intergrated into the computer
and sound system that also formed from the stereo speaks on the boat.
The ship does have a directional shield system that doubles as a heat shield.
This system throws up a semi-domed field of energy in the path of a attack to intercept it.
It can only have one up at a time and attacks from different directions can overload it.
This also means the ship is open to attack while it's being used as a heat shield.
The pontoons are now the main storage tanks for the water and oxygen systems.

quirks:

"Safety first!": There always has to be a life vest for everyone on board the ship or the ship will refuse to move when in port. Theres two on board in one of the under seat storage in the living area cabin.

"The gentle sea": The boat rocks gentle like it's on the water when at a stop and not on a solid surface. This doesn't seem to effect any airlock connections to the boat.

"We're gonna need a bigger boat": ... somehow there's never enough storage space on board for everything needed. It always ends up in the way or tripped over.

"Don't show the shark" Playing the jaws theme while inside the boat causes the boat to become somehow harder to spot. When the music stops the boat appears to be a badly made out of focus boat model at a distence for three minutes.
_______________________________________________________________
Characters
Sabre Fang
Dakota

"MAYONAKAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" came Benjamin's voice ringing from his office.  "YOUR PET HAMSTER GOT INTO THE HANDWAVIUM!!!"

And thus, Harvey the Wonder Hamster was born. 
EDIT: Image didn't turn up right - made me wonder why this post didn't garner more attention.

Well, the Dell Streak is live, I received my pre-sale code at about 1am this morning.
If anyone wants it (It allows a $40 Plantronics bluetooth headset for $1), let me know.
'cause I won't be buying it.
$299 for the damn thing, requiring a 2 year AT&T contract. The cheapest one can possibly get is $299, plus $54.99/month (400 minutes, 600mb of data), which comes to $1319.76, or $1618.76 including hardware. A more reasonable plan, with 2gb (still a paltry, miniscule amount of transfer), comes to $64.99/month (400 minutes, 2gb of data), or $1559.76, or $1858.76 including hardware.
None of these are options. I'd have the damn thing shipping right now if I could get a $9.99 100 or even 50 minute voice plan to go with that disgustingly small 2gb, or if I could up the data cost to $40 or even $50/month for unlimited transfer, but AT&T doesn't play that.

And the insult added to the injury. The $549 version, which does not require one to sign up for an unwanted and very limited AT&T contract..   is still locked to AT&T. That's right, the full retail price does not get you hardware, you are still required to go to a specific vendor for a generic service.
So I cannot at this time take out my wallet. Dell took a good thing and pooped on it with AT&T. Instead, I will be spending approximately $75 to order in a fresh screen protector, case, and charger for my Axim X51v, which while not being nearly as shiny as a Streak, at least does not require me to kowtow to the Death Star.
And again, if anyone wants my pre-sale code, drop me a reply or a line.
"No can brain today. Want cheezeburger."
From NGE: Nobody Dies, by Gregg Landsman
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5579457/1/NGE_Nobody_Dies

I just noticed that Darths & Droids recently posted another strip with an evenly-divisible-by-50 number. And that means a new alternate strip!

http://www.darthsanddroids.net/trenchcoats/0050.html]Direct link to Trenchcoats & Turncoats

This one obviously started with "You all meet in a bar"...

Edit: My bad - that didn't happen until strip #5, according to the strip's http://www.darthsanddroids.net/trenchcoats/archive.html]fake archive list.
--
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

I just came across this.
http://www.jbox.com/PRODUCT/SKYY002
I'm... not sure what to think.
-----
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.

I've lurked for a while now, and done some (hopefully helpful) kibitzing and wikifying, but I've never posted anything of my own – until now!
From Disturbing Implications of Land Rising Into the Sky:

Quote:Mal muted the phone and looked over at Elena. "What is it?"
"We've got a launch indication coming up on our track."
Mal looked a bit puzzled. "So? Launching things into orbit is the new taste sensation sweeping the country."

Quote:My first ship, which I built and 'waved whilst listening to Steve Savitzky's "Bound for Hackers' Heaven" almost constantly, did exactly what I designed and the song asked it to do: (a) get me Up and to L3, and (b) become the core of a space habitat. This and a few earlier experiments having firmly entrenched the notion of directing handwavium with music into my mind, I then proceeded to do something *extremely stupid*.

Still drunk with the success of my launch, I started listening to "Icarus (Borne on Wings of Steel)" by Kansas on repeat ("Here I'll live and die/With my wings in the sky,/And I, I won't come down no more!"). At the same time, I started work on my next ship, and had no intent of directing its mod with "Icarus".

So, of course, there I was, doing the 'wave with nothing on the stereo and scraps of "Icarus" still running through my head, occasionally springing unbidden from my lips. By the time I started work on the cockpit, I'd been awake for far too many consecutive hours, and had stopped following my own Handwavium Safety Protocols some time earlier. The moment I finished up the cockpit, I fell asleep. The last thing I remember is the line "Without my wings, you know I'd surely die" running through my mind.

Given how careless I had been, it should be no surprise that I managed to mod not just my ship, but also myself.

• Reinventing the wheel for the 452nd time: Hackers' Heaven used a grid of lasers as an acceleration drive. (Or maybe not; I wanted my launch to be unremarkable, which a photon-remass drive is definitely not.)
• Where's the manual?: Can work with pretty much any computer technology (and a wide variety of tech in other categories) comfortably, so long as he has the manual or API docs or similar. Tends to become useless once deprived of it/them.

• An extension of the self: intimately knows the current state of his Wings of Steel. This includes state of repair, fluid and battery levels, and hatches and ports open and shut. If he closes his eyes and concentrates, he can call up images from any camera or sensor of his Wings capable of producing them.

• My Wings, not yours!: will consider unsolicited suggestions for upgrades or additions to his Wings of Steel, but dismisses them unless they are obviously insanely good or something non-fatally disastrous happens to drive the point home. Is outright hostile to any suggestion that someone else pilot his Wings of Steel.
• Without my Wings, you know I'd surely die: refuses to travel without his Wings of Steel. This usually means travelling in his Wings of Steel, since ships large enough to routinely carry or tow it are generally either extrasolar exploratory craft or roving residences. The distance he is willing to have between himself and his Wings is directly proportionate to his familiarity with the station or surrounding area.