Spotted on the Astronomy Picture Of the Day website: Dr. Robert Nemiroff of Michigan Tech is offering a college-level course on introductory astronomy on the Internet. No textbook is required.

You don't get course credit unless you enroll at MT and pay for the course, but just auditing the course is completely free to anyone with access to APOD, Wikipedia, and learnoutloud.com .

Details http://bb.nightskylive.net/asterisk/vie ... hp?t=14459]here.
--
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

about my Babylon .5 station (and if my muse dosen't wander off again, maybe I'll get some actually writing in too).

I've decided that the station will be partially self sufficient foodwise, at the 'top' of the station will be an agriculture deck(s?) growing
various vegetables, some young fruit trees and one of The Jason's Blood Orange trees for the medical facility's use.

At the 'bottom' of the station will be a aquacultural deck, raising rice, various waterloving plants and a freshwater fish farm.

B.5 will also raise chickens and rabbits

One of the station's researchers made an ill-concieved attempt to raise hogs, but that experiment ended when the test subject, 'Porky', developed
the ability to stand on his hind legs and talk with a stutter. Just because pigs can eat a wide variety of organic materials doesn't mean you don't
need to screen the stuff for Wavium first.

Eventually, I'm planning on the development of chibi-starfuries for station defence. Low grade drone AIs in starfury shape (but at about 1/4 scale). I
was thinking that one of their quirks would be that they are territorial, meaning they don't like travelling more than say, 5mi from the station. If in
hot pursuit or intercepting a definate threat, they're willing to go out to about 15mi before breaking off.

oh, and because of how they flew in canon, the chibi-starfuries will be accelleration drives, though the Wavium helps reduce fuel requirements.
___________________________
"I've always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific." - George Carlin

Meat George Jetson... klick.... confirmed... Whirrr!

Many thanks to Uni, whose PUGing credentials and contacts have alerted us to the perfect Redside farm. The final mission of the "Defeat Stheno" arc
spawns not several, but HUNDREDS of boss level Snakes to slaughter for fun and profit.

As an example, both Purrfect Nemesis and Inferno Scimitar shot from level 6 to level 12 in a grand total of two runs(albeit the second at Ruthless with 8 ).

It's a bit twitchy(you can't aggro the AV, at all, or you have to reset), but the snakes come to you, which is a definite improvement, I think. Only
downside is you can't kill Stheno, so whoever gets the farm needs to be willing not to complete that arc.
---
"Oh, silver blade, forged in the depths of the beyond. Heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way. Lay
waste."

According to the IST sourcebook, the AMA went after any healers who weren't licensed doctors and many who were until
public outcry caused them to change their policies. I'm thinking of running a campaign centered around a group of super emergency responders who are among
those trying to change things and was wondering when the policy change took place. Did you actually have a time frame in mind, or should I just go ahead and
create my own time line in that area.

City of Heroes and SIRadio.fm are hosting a contest where they will be giving away the (apparently much coveted) PPD Hardsuit Costume codes.
(full details)
The contest is simple. Just send an email to jules@siradio.fm with a rant/essay/poem/lecture/etc. (it mentions using character bios in addition) on why you should get one of the codes. Only restriction is to have "No crude language or situations" in said writing. Everything must be in by Thursday, September 18th at 6pm EST.  The winners will be announced (Presumably on their stream) at 'Unmasked' on Friday, September 19th, at 10pm EST.
Good luck if you all intend on going for this.
---

The Master said: "It is all in vain! I have never yet seen a man who can perceive his own faults and bring the charge home against himself."

>Analects: Book V, Chaper XXVI

...Because dessert is always best saved for last.

We almost always stop in this room to get a group screenshot before the main battle. Here's one from the most recent TF and one from a few weeks ago.
(I'm slightly amused that in both shots, I managed to have the exact same schematic of the giant robot flashing up on the console behind us. )

So, like anyone on the Legendary channel at the time knows, I've yet to actually *complete* an LGTF. I got in one! Once. And then I dropped TF. Yeah.
Someone should put up a sign on the base portal.

Anyway! Putting out a call for a grand, Rikti stomping, Merit earning, Revelations of the Apocalypse referencing good time.

Anyone at or over level 35 qualifies, blue or redside. We love our redsiders, really, we do. They encourage multilingual understanding. Which is to say about
half the time, half the team has no idea what the other half is saying. But it's exotic!

Kinetics boosts, snark, and end drain will be provided by the staff.

Start time is flexible, but we'll try to start around 8PM EST. Past this point, when we have enough warm bodies( 8 ) to start off.
---
"Oh, silver blade, forged in the depths of the beyond. Heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way. Lay
waste."

For a while now I've been thinking about how I'm going to be staffing such a large installation as The Roughrider base on 36 Atalante. Intitially, I
had been inspired by Dee, one of the AIs of the VVS. While the idea had merit, I didn't want to look like I was carbon-copying the idea. Then, I thought,
"What if it was a biomod?" After all, with handwavium, nearly anything is possible...

• Teamwork among a group of clones is best achieved when they're wearing a uniform of any sort, but for absolute top performance a
  'plug suit' or a Japanese school uniform is best suited.
  
• Intense physical and emotional reactions can disrupt her multitasking capabilities. Needless to say that certain nocturnal activities have
  caused some remarkable disruptions on the job.
  

• Capable of AI-like processing capabilities by using all the available processing power of her 'clones.'
  
• In order to keep medical records of the clones, they're all numbered from zero to one-hundred.
  
• Serves as The Roughriders' Honor Guard with coordination that rivals the US Marine Corp's Silent Drill Platoon.