...at least, not oficially, for credit, in a classroom, or with faculty present. Every university "offers" it in the campus bar, after all.

The Inquirer: http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/new ... -to-seduce]German university teaches nerds to seduce
--
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

The annual usenet tradition continues...

This year, I chose two teams: the usual Team Lovely But Dangerous (Yomiko Readman, Sakura Kinomoto, and Chisame Hasegawa, from ROD the TV, Card Captor Sakura, and Negima, respectively) for the Medium and Hard Challenges, and Team Dangerous But Lovely (Nancy Makuhari, Meilin Li, and Nodoka Miyazaki, from the same three stories) for the Easy Challenge.

I posted the story in two parts - I've passed the Easy Challenge, but haven't heard back yet for the other two.

Without further ado, here's the Challenges, followed by my entry.

Quote:Easy Challenge - Two Requests:

This year's New Year Con seems to be going off just fine, however the founder of New Year Con is in the hospital. He's been diagnosed with a rather dreadful illness (not immediately life threatening, but still bad), and being the Japanese culture enthusiast he is, he's gotten hold of you for a special request. He knows that giving someone 1,000 paper cranes is the ultimate get-well gift, but he wants something extra... a picture of each crane with a different Col. Sanders look-a-like. He's going to be in the hospital for a month and a half (45 days), so your deadline is the day of his check-out, since a get-well gift is in poor taste once he gets out of the hospital...

-----

Medium Challenge - Three Impossible Tasks Before Dinner:

With all the depressing news going on in the world, you and your team are being treated to a meal with the Challenge Issuer, Bill, at a restaurant recommended to him by a gentle-alien from Betelgeuse. You will meet Bill at a pre-arranged place, hop into the nearby time-capsule, and have dinner at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Milliways. However, Bill knows of Milliway's reputation, and asks for proof of 3 impossible taks, since Milliway's says "If you've done three impossible things today, top if off with dinner at Milliway's."

The following are options that Bill will consider impossible enough for consideration:

1) Either obtain a block of 20 seats on the front row at the 50-yard line for the Super Bowl or buy a complete nation-wide commercial time block during the Super Bowl to air an AMV of Bill's choosing.

2) To alleviate the "credit crunch" and get the U.S. economy back on track, pay off EVERY outstanding, within-90-days-of-foreclosure mortgage.

3) Successfully bring a dinosaur to life from fossil remains.

4) Successfully raise the Titanic's pieces and make it seaworthy again.

5) Find and capture Osama Bin Laden and his Taliban buddies, and hand them all over to the proper authorities, live or dead.

If you can do at least 2 of the above, and can prove to Bill that you can do another, just-as-impossible feat, then do so, this list is not all the possibilities available to an imaginative otaku.

-----

Hard Challenge - State of Fear:

Environmental activists are getting fed up with the United States government not doing enough in their opinion, to help protect the environment. Certain activists decided eco-terrorism would be a good idea and might force the uninterested consumers into action by instilling a sense of immediate dread. Over a year ago, they started in motion a series of events to be combined within a one-week period to coincide with an environmental conference they planned to see the final attack, up close and personal-like. You and your team happened to come across the information about the attacks by accident, and the nature of the information was that it required some action.

The first attack is centered at Mt. Terror, Antarctica where the eco-terrorists have planted a series of cavitation devices (devices which use sonic waves to make cavities in solid matter) to cleave off the largest glacial piece in history, to force the issue of man-made global warming.

The second attack is scheduled for a day or two later, but the location is much more flexible. Through the use of metallic filament lines and miniature rockets, they will amplify the number of lightning strikes which amplifies a storm and they hope to cause a flash flood somewhere in the southern hemisphere, hopefully during a group outing which they hope will even cause a few deaths.

The third attack is another flexible location one, and scheduled a few days after the second attack. They experimented on the seeding of certain chemicals to help steer a hurricane, and since they successfully steered Gustav towards New Orleans, successfully steered Hanna away from the Gulf region, and drove Ike straight into Houston. While a hurricane in the southern hemisphere would not be newsworthy on its own, when coupled with the other events, it would show a pattern of extreme weather.

The fourth and final attack is the most complicated. Centered in the Solomon Islands around a cove where they are using the cavitation devices and a private submarine to line the cove's floor to force cavities to amplify an earthquake. They've also brought in several gigantic vibration devices (approximately as big as a box truck) which are normally only sold to governments, and if something falls onto the plate on top of the device (by the time you get there would be at ground level as the device will be buried), it would be vibrated into its individual molecules within a few seconds. With the vibration and cavities, they hope to create an underwater earthquake which will cause a tsunami which based on the cove's topography will hit somewhere in southern California. The local tribes have been brought in for the protection of the Solomon Islands operation, and they're confirmed cannibals, and some sociologists with very-high-powered lenses have seen that these cannibals sometimes eat their meal while it's still breathing and bleeding.

Partial wins awarded to those who can stop at least 2 of the attacks.
Complete wins awarded to those who stop all 4 attacks.
Extra credit awarded to those who can gather enough evidence while stopping all 4 attacks to bring the masterminds to justice in a court of law.

--------------

Okay, now onto comments, for the medium challenge, if you wish to substitute your own "impossible" task, please run it by me before you write the fic to see if it is acceptable.

For the Hard challenge, people with bibliophiles on their teams (summoned members or fic writers) should recognize Michael Crichton's "State of Fear" as the source of these attacks.

Official deadline for submissions is Jan. 8, unofficial deadline is Jan. 11, since I know some people are busy and only have the weekends to do it, so 2nd weekend's end should do. If you need an extension beyond this, let me know, I understand things can happen.

And Rob, don't you wish you hadn't taken Yomiko away from the easy challenge? A paper-master could do the 1,000 cranes in what, 5 minutes?

Okay, seriously, good luck to everyone, you WILL need it!

The Really Big Button
That Doesn't Do Anything has been cited in the 21st annual edition of Uncle John's Bathroom Reader, aka
Uncle John's Unsinkable Bathroom Reader. (Page 257.)
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

I can't imagine anyone stupid enough to actually advocate this with a
straight face
---
"Oh, silver blade, forged in the depths of the beyond. Heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way. Lay
waste."

Well, not yet, but the tech for such a service is coming along nicely.

The Register: http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2009/01/10 ... shapeways/]Boffins offer plastic printing service
--
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

File-sharing sites

Printing Press and Gutenberg Bible

Antagonists: OMG! If you read books published by the printing press, you'll throw the Engraver's Guild out of work!

Eventually: The local library now has requestable copies of books.

Cassettes

Antagonists: OMG! if you buy recordable cassettes, you'll throw all those songwriters and live musicians out of work!Songwriter's Association of
America.

Eventually: cassette/radio clocks allowing you to record as many songs as you wanted from the radio.

File-sharing websites.

Antagonists: OMG! If you download files, you'll throw all those authors and artists out of work!

Eventually: ??? Who knows. Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

The fix for record companies is pretty simple. Throw in souvenirs that can't be downloaded. For example, movies giving out imprinted 3D glasses for 3D
movies or a shirt with my favorite band's picture on it. Have a different picture for each CD one releases. Plus it's free advertising for the record
companies when worn.

So, everyone knows there's a lot of exterior material outside the Nanoha anime series expanding on the universe. However, two such sources that
don't require knowledge of the Japanese language are available if you know where to look, namely two manga series
that bridge the gaps between Season 1 and A's, and A's and StrikerS, respectively.

A's Prologue

StrikerS Prologue
---
"Oh, silver blade, forged in the depths of the beyond. Heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way. Lay
waste."

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

blackaeronaut Wrote:

Quote:It appears that it is possible for a modded person and an unmodded person to have children together, at least if it's a minor biomod. I was approached by the expectant mother (who is in her early second trimester) last week for medical advice. It's still too early to tell whether the child will inherit the mother's biomod, but both parents have agreed to let this pregnancy be written up for the medical journals so look there for more information over the next seven months.

Gina's going to be keeping *very* close tabs on this, to the point of having an RSS feed in her field of vision.

Some folks on the Legendary Channel were interested in what little's actually known about the latest Evangelion AU, a series of light novels named
"Evangelion Anima".

So I'm posting my source for anyone curious.
---
"Oh, silver blade, forged in the depths of the beyond. Heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way. Lay
waste."