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  [OOC][PLOT] The Seventh Thread of Planning for Arc 1 - Arrivals
Posted by: robkelk - 02-25-2021, 09:34 PM - Forum: The Attic - Replies (257)

EDIT: Most of the image posts that used to be here have been moved to the first Images thread. Some replies to those posts are still here.



Previous planning for Arc 1:
Other planning threads:



Starting off the new thread with a teaser. Subject to change, but this is probably what it'll look like in the story. Context: Ruiko Saten and Mitsuko Kongo have just been told about the dark underbelly of Academy City.



Niiko sat down at the same table as Ruiko and Mitsuko. "Let me tell you about the Level 6 Shift Project, Misaka 10032 states using her serial number for subtle emphasis. I have memories of meeting Accelerator for the first time in the project's headquarters. We were set against each other. I shot him using a pistol provided to me by the project. His ability reflected the bullet back to me, and I died. Or, rather, Misaka 2 died, Misaka 10032 explains quickly."

"You have memories of dying?"

"You have memories of being killed?"

"That is correct, Misaka 10032 replies to both questions simultaneously. I also have memories of cleaning up my dead bodies before going out to be killed myself, Misaka 10032 adds in order to make her earlier situation more clear."

"How long did this go on?" Ruiko asked, unable to hide the horror in her voice.

"The time blurred into a perpetual 'now' for the first 9980 deaths, Misaka 10032 replies. Perhaps it took a few years, Misaka 10032 guesses."

"Is death painful?" asked Mitsuko.

"That depends on the method of dying, Misaka 10032 answers. Misaka 9982 was crushed to death, after having her leg torn off by Accelerator. Misaka 10032 thinks that that was one of the less physically painful deaths, but we will always remember it because Misaka 9982 was the first clone to meet our Original. The worst death that Misaka 10032 remembers is that of Misaka 10031, whose blood flow was instantly reversed by Accelerator's power, causing my heart to explode. No, causing Misaka 10031's heart to explode, Misaka 10032 corrects herself."

"From what you've been saying, surely that was one of the less painful deaths of one of your clones."

"Less painful, perhaps, Misaka 10032 answers Mitsuko. But Misaka 10031 was the Misaka clone who first met Touma Kamijo, Misaka 10032 explains. Her death hurt his soul, Misaka 10032 adds for clarification."

Nobody said anything for a long moment. Finally, Misaka turned to Rob. "The energy accumulator devices that Washuu-chan installed last night are functioning correctly, Niiko Misaka reports. We were able to discharge our accumulated electricity into the receptor grids without any issues, Niiko continues."

"How can you be so calm about remembering having died so many times!?"

She turned back to Ruiko. "Our emotional growth was deliberately stunted, Niiko replies. Last Order - Mimi Misaka - is the only clone with a full set of emotions, Niiko adds."

"Rob-oji..."

"Yes, Rui-chan?"

"Can I live with you even after the megami send everyone else home, please? I never want to go back to Academy City again. Ever."

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  Reinterpreting DW as a Jumpchain?
Posted by: kestrel404 - 02-24-2021, 12:08 PM - Forum: General DW Chatter - Replies (7)

Has it occurred to anyone else that DW is, in essence, the Ur-Jumpchain?

With new powers coming only in the form of new songs for Doug, I suppose, but it still fits pretty well.

(EDIT by Bob to clean up font formatting that made it unreadable under San Felix.)

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Question What am I looking for?
Posted by: robkelk - 02-23-2021, 06:58 PM - Forum: General Chatter - Replies (12)

Hoping somebody here can give me some help. Since I'm seeing completely different devices called the same thing in searches, no matter which search phrase I use that I think is appropriate, I'll describe what I have and what I want.

I have an antenna. I don't have cable.
I have a Blu-ray player.
I have a monitor. (I can get a much better 4K monitor relatively inexpensively.)
I have a good (if relatively old) stereo system for audio.

I want a single device to plug all of these into so that I can watch Blu-rays or North American broadcast TV.

What is this thing called? And does anybody have any recommendations for or against one?

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  If You're UNABLE to Work ... It's Not Your Bosses' Problem
Posted by: DHBirr - 02-23-2021, 03:53 PM - Forum: Politics and Other Fun - Replies (7)

"Adding insult to injury" barely begins to touch this item from the hellish place euphemistically known as Texas.

Big corporations there – and the City of Dallas – are demanding that their employees who could neither get in to work nor work remotely due to the recent weather should either count that as vacation time or forfeit the pay.

Quote:“Employees who are unable to fully dedicate their time and attention to company business due to current conditions should use available PTO, vacation, or holiday flex time if they wish to be paid for today. Otherwise, employees who do not have any remaining PTO, vacation, or holiday flex time or do not wish to use their unused PTO, vacation, or holiday flex time will not be paid for today,” read an email sent last week from Bell executive management.

The worker told The Daily Beast that Bell facilities were closed the entire week, but that at one point they were unable to access the VPN–a “virtual private network” that allows them to access company systems—meaning many employees at Bell couldn’t work from home even when they had electricity.

Not every company has been an unrepentant Scrooge.

Quote:...it’s been entirely up to employers to decide how to handle the fallout. Some, like Cisco, not only paid their employees for the lost days, but also offered offices as a shelter and sent resources for mental-health support.

But it appears they are in the minority.

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  Big Hero 6 characters coming to the MCU
Posted by: Bob Schroeck - 02-22-2021, 11:34 PM - Forum: General Chatter - Replies (3)

The details are still a bit unclear, but here is one of the articles about it I came across.

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  And the old forums are now gone.
Posted by: Bob Schroeck - 02-21-2021, 03:35 PM - Forum: Forums - Replies (1)

I finally got off my butt and deleted the old forums over on Crapatalk.  I'd originally intended to delete them in early 2018, and didn't.  I've also locked it and made it private so nothing can get into it. 

I figure three years' worth of extra ad revenue and people getting redirected there by search engines is enough.

   

EDIT: And that image is now outdated; I finally found the place to rename the boards and change the various messages -- of course it's in a completely separate control panel from everything else -- so now it's the Nameless Forums at Crapatalk, and has up-to-date descriptions of what's up.

And amusingly, something that's different from three years ago: It's now possible for the user to delete the group completely. That used to be impossible short of petitioning the Crapatalk support team. I won't do that, though... I want the message and the url to remain for as long as possible.

One really odd thing... the "analytics" panel still insists there are 19 messages on the board; but I can't figure out where the hell they might be.

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  Welcome to the Family...
Posted by: itsune9tl - 02-21-2021, 01:43 PM - Forum: The Game Everyone Loves To Play - No Replies

Some times, you need a little bit of Country just to get the point across.

For when the big bad has taken one of Doug's "Little Sisters", and he can't do anything about it right then.




Delayed action with Trigger.
This one tags the "Little Sister" and, the "Big Bad", then informs a Number of Heavy hitters that consider Doug Family, to watch over "Little Sister".
As long as the "Little Sister" remains unharmed, nothing happens to the Big Bad.

Once she is harmed by The Abductor, Family Steps in to Assess the situation, and Take necessary actions.

This may cause collateral Damage.

As the song only Establishes Connections, the 'Family' is usually capable of arriving Under their own power.

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  Political what-if: A second Constitutional Convention
Posted by: robkelk - 02-21-2021, 09:59 AM - Forum: Politics and Other Fun - Replies (17)

This board's rules are "Have Fun, and Play Nice". It's time to have fun in this sub-forum.

If there was to be a second Constitutional Convention (Yes, you had one before -- almost nobody remembers the Articles of Confederation) called today, what would you like to see included in its results?

Here's my wish-list - implement all of these and you'll drag the political system in the USA kicking and screaming into the 20th century. (Yes, I know this is the 21st century. I'm not expecting a miracle to happen here.)

  • Dissolve the Electoral College and have Presidential and Vice-Presidential elections by direct vote.
  • Get rid of the time lag between the election and the taking of office, which leads to "lame duck" office-holders. Once the votes are counted, the winner takes office immediately. (FedEx and UPS can get packages anywhere in the USA overnight, and this internet posting was available to you as soon as I posted it; there's no need for a delay any more.) And "immediately" means immediately -- the Chief Justice is standing beside the person who announces the Presidential and Vice-Presidential vote totals, bound copy of the Constitution or religious book of the elected candidate's choice in hand, ready for the winners to take their oaths then and there.
  • Each electoral district must be contiguous in and of itself. (This won't eliminate gerrymandering, but it'll reduce it.)
  • In order to remove the appearance of conflict of interest, anybody who is responsible for drawing the boundaries of electoral districts must surrender the right to vote. (This won't eliminate gerrymandering, either, but it'll reduce it.)
  • One from the Canadian model: Electoral district boundaries are to be drawn and elections are to be overseen by a civil service body made up solely of civil servants who have the power to spend whatever is necessary in order to ensure all elections are free and fair.
  • One does not lose the right to vote simply because one is in jail. Anyone serving a term in a federal prison (owned by either the government or the private sector) is deemed to be resident at the person's last address of record before being arrested, or if the person had no address of record is deemed to be resident in the district where the arrest took place.
  • Cap the total amount of money that any individual can contribute to all candidates and PACs put together, and forbid corporations and governments from contributing to candidates or PACs altogether.
  • All Justices of the Supreme Court must retire from the Supreme Court at age 85.
  • Separate the powers of the Head of Government and the Head of State. Let the Head of State handle all the ceremonial stuff (meeting with other Heads of State, pardoning the Thanksgiving Turkey, holding parties in the Rose Garden, staging photo ops, etc.) and defend the Constitution from a Head of Government who's gone too far, and let the Head of Government concentrate of governing (meeting with other Heads of Government, working with the House and Senate Majority leaders to turn bills into law, issuing executive orders, etc.).
  • The total hourly remuneration (salary and benefits added together) of a Congressperson may not exceed five times the legislated hourly minimum wage in that Congressperson's congressional district. Any benefit available at no charge to everyone in a Congressperson's congressional district does not count toward this salary and benefit cap. (It's taxpayer money that funds their salaries and benefits - no fair asking those taxpayers to fund putting a Congresscritter into The 1%.)

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  House Republicans introduce legislation for outright ban on municipal broadband in US
Posted by: robkelk - 02-20-2021, 11:08 AM - Forum: Politics and Other Fun - Replies (2)

Never let it be said that the GOP doesn't have a sense of humour - their bill that if passed would force people in 28 states to disconnect is called the CONNECT Act.

Never let it be said that the GOP understand economics, either - their bill is intended to increase competition but targets areas where the private sector does not want to compete.

Story here.

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  Ted ... Good Lord, Ted "Tone Deaf" Cruz....
Posted by: DHBirr - 02-18-2021, 01:46 PM - Forum: Politics and Other Fun - Replies (7)

Australia, move over for Texas when it comes to politicos skying out in a crisis.  The first sentence of the article says it all, the details are just gravy:

Quote:As Texas was battered by an icy storm and widespread power losses that left millions of residents freezing and fearing for their safety, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas left the state on Wednesday and traveled to Mexico for a previously planned family vacation, according to a person with direct knowledge of the trip.
...
Mr. Cruz himself had posted updates throughout Wednesday on Twitter about the intensity of the winter storm from the National Weather Service. “Stay safe and please continue to follow the warnings and updates provided by state and local officials,” he wrote on Wednesday morning.
...
Mr. Cruz’s decision to leave his state in the middle of a crisis was an especially confounding one for a politician who has already run for president once, in 2016, and widely seen as wanting to run again in 2024 or beyond.
-----

A bas les aristos! Vive la République!

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