Xavier Onassiss

Re: Personal Companion Bots. and a months long voyage.... I think for purposes of this discussion, there's no SO in the picture. (At least, that's the impression I've been given.) Also, the companion 'bot might not be of the 'biological' variety so I'm not sure it'll use up much life support -- unless it runs on fuel cells that need oxygen to function. I agree with Tasha 100% about the 'responsibility' angle, which is why I'd insist there be no chance of the 'bot becoming sentient/sapient/self-aware in any way; that's not a desirable outcome for anyone involved. Self-awareness is a lousy thing to inflict on our toys, especially by accident; "love" is even worse. (The movie A.I. covered this territory fairly well....)

Re: The cranky thread

Re: The cranky thread

Re: The cranky thread Well, props for making your wife dinner, in any event.

Re: Personal Companion Bots. and a months long voyage.... Yeah, that's good, but are we using the Long-Term Endurance rules?

Re: A DC Animated-style HeroMachine Packers! Woot! Just kidding. Go Bears.

Re: Personal Companion Bots. and a months long voyage.... The opposite of what Christopher said: I'd only get one if I could be certain the machine had no chance of achieving any form of actual sentience/sapience. If that happens, it'll start getting ideas about who's in charge, deciding who's going to cook, what I'm going to wear, how I spend my spare time, making plans for what I'm doing with my career after the voyage is over (without consulting me!), and if I wanted to deal with all that rubbish I'd bring along a real woman, thanks very much. But if I can be reasonably sure the 'bot won't get out of control, then I'll take two. no, make that three!

Re: A Thread for Random Videos Happy Easter! Here, have some Cadbury cream eggs...

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... Just finished Richard K. Morgan's Market Forces, and I give it a big fat F for fun. It's a weird mash up, sort of like Wall Street meets Mad Max, in a mid-21st century world where international corporations finance small wars in the developing world, and high-powered executives broker deals in ritual combat on the highway. Yes, Morgan actually manages to make sense of this idea. In a nut-shell: Market Forces was very different from the other Morgan books I've read, which were all part of the "Takeshi Kovacs" series. (In a hilarious shout-out, the protagonist in Market Forces tries to read a Kovacs novel; he can't get into it.) Forces was simultaneously surreal and applicable -- surreal because of the parts which could simply never happen (and yet would be so cool...) and applicable due to the parts which were all too plausible. Aside from the "autoduel" scenes, this could easily be our world in 50 or 60 years. Corporations out of control, ineffectual governments, a huge divide between the rich and poor, rampant warfare in the developing world, and sensationalist media. Oh, wait....

Re: The "Nice Happy" Thread

Re: The Non Sequitor Thread Gaming convention or disaster cleanup?

Re: The cranky thread

Re: The cranky thread

Re: A Thread for Random Videos Paging Teh Bunneh!

Re: The cranky thread

Re: The cranky thread That would be nice but... the nearest RPG players are a couple of hours from where I live, as far as I've been able to tell. So, gaming requires a serious road trip. Not that I mind. Any excuse to get out of the sticks and back to civilization is a good one. Wore myself out today cleaning up the deadwood all over the yard. I had it mostly cleaned up before the storm, but the next day there was several times what I'd picked up. And more storms are on the way for the next three days. Don't know why I bother. No work this week -- I'm doing oil well testing and they're all shut down until the electricity is back on. (Yes, part of the cost of your gasoline includes the electricity needed to pump the oil out of the ground, which is often provided by coal fired power plants. So if you're wondering why energy policy is complicated....) So far this disaster has cost me two days' work, and tomorrow it looks like it'll cost part of a third. Bleah.

Re: The cranky thread 48 hours later and nobody else is cranky? You people make me sick. Anyway, the power's been out for 24 hours here in Middle of Nowhere-ville, I'm an hour from home in a crappy excuse for a city, stealing wi-fi access to post this, and the power may be off for another 24 to 48 hours yet. We had a freak wind-storm last night that caused hellacious damage all over the place, knocking out substations, power poles and lines all over the county, like a 40-mile wide tornado. (no funnel cloud was sighted) Of course I was out on the road when the worst of it hit us. You're not supposed to drive over downed trees in a 2001 Cougar, but hey.... I bought 100 lbs of dry ice today to keep all the meat from last year's kills in the freezer from going bad. Now I'm going home to plug my computer into the car's inverter and work on my GenCon events by candlelight. Once I've got proper internet access I'll write up a real blog post about all this. For some reason my life is only interesting when it sucks.

Re: The "Nice Happy" Thread Another year, another last-minute tax return. Fed/state both done in 45min on Turbo Tax, and I owe a lot less than I expected -- Turbo Tax found me a $5k income credit on my state return I didn't know I had coming. And, my migraine finally went away. I feel sort of human now.

Re: The cranky thread Migraines suck.

Re: A Thread for Random Videos You're quite welcome!

Re: "Neat" Pictures I'll be glad to trade ya. See my post above on what a lousy time traveler I am. I'd make a pretty good (space) pirate, tho.

Re: Everyman Complications Actually, I had to generalize this a great deal for my SF setting due to aliens that breathe different atmospheres. Instead it's Dependence on [Native Atmosphere]. So some characters need Life Support: Self-Contained Breathing to survive in our atmosphere. (As an aside -- the fact that a 35pt complication can be negated with a 10pt Power is probably significant.)

Re: A Thread for Random Videos Warning: NSFW language, and uh... major weirdness. First one to try and use this in a character origin gets a braced, set, pushed for +10 str, haymakered MARTIAL WEDGIE!

Re: Everyman Complications Amen. We're all mature enough to enjoy Hero without engaging in "Your favorite (version of this) game sucks." antics.

Re: A DC Animated-style HeroMachine Vox Mundi version 2. Like many comic book superheroes, Vox Mundi's powerset expands somewhat with each new version. In addition to the original's Voice Which Cannot Be Ignored, and the Most Common Super Power, she now has super-hair, super-abs, and a whomping-stick for the all-too frequent occasion when she encounters an opponent too thick-headed to do as she commands. Her minor powers include a low-level wind-control which is only used to keep her hair and cape out of the way, (for some reason it never affects her skirt) and a super-human level of disguise, which gives her the ability to conceal her identity with a mask covering less than half her face. Her secret ID is, of course, a stock broker. When she talks, people listen. I'll do a full Hero character sheet when I come up with an origin story.... I think I've got that *&^%$#@! cape right this time. More eye candy: