Cancer

The duff covering the ancient flagstones was barely disturbed by the big paws that trod on them. Rolf the Ranger moved stealthily in the shadow of the massive, crumbling walls. His nose worked hard, trying to catch the tiniest hint of any scent, an arrow on the string of his horn-bow ready to answer any perceived threat. Behind him came Morgan, moving even more quietly with a lead shot in her sling, whiskers twitching in the still air.
 
The big wolf-head halted under a collapsed arc. "I can smell nothing, kitten. Not a fox, not a rabbit ... Not even a vole."
 
The cat-kin's ears swiveled. "What, are you hungry? Anyway, there's not supposed to be anything here, if the priest is right."
 
"Hungry, no. But a little snack could do me good. Come on, let's head back to the others."
 
--
 
Who Built It? Trolls did. Trolls of the kind rarely seen nowadays -- giants and ogres, a whole different deal than the goblin-pests infecting the highland forests today. And then there was the troll wizards, and the Troll King himself, binding the cyclopean blocks together by spells they had learned from their Outsider patrons. These and other spells were bought with blood from the enemies of the trolls, sacrificed to the demonic patrons of troll-kin on the menhir-encircled altars that stood on lonely hills.

I didn't ask for your opinion because I already know you are incapable of expressing approval.

I didn't ask for your opinion because I already know you are incapable of expressing approval.

Ends tomorrow night

I believe only 1st cosines are out of bounds.  2nd or 3rd cosines are totally legal. 

And since I'm about to make the assignment ...
 

* Cancer desperately searches for information about franchises *

Speaking as someone who is a die-hard simulationist himself ... make sure to manage your own expectations.  I experienced this in a sci-fi campaign... following my initial assumptions about how interstellar travel works physically, what that implies about defenses of inhabited star systems, etc. ... left me with a game world which had little room for players to do anything, and I didn't realize it until after we got into it.  You can't really predict where players may decide to go in your world, or why.  I realized too late that I was on my way toward making a novel, not an RPG, because of my determination to stick to my simulationist preferences.  In effect, I've had more success since then not working out full logical consequences of my ideas; instead, when players have important things they want their characters to do, I work out at the table, with their input, how that can happen in the broad framework in my head.  You need cooperative good players for this to work, of course.
 
Since then I have done more explicit appeals to randomness in aspects of games and game-worlds, especially for generating flavor text, and assigning arbitrary but important qualities to big NPCs or NPC entities (corporations, organized crime syndicates, etc.).

Highlight 5: Tripod Arena
 
The largest enclosed space in the arsenal is an oval 5 km long by 3 km wide, with a ceiling height of 100 m at the edge to 400 m over most of the middle region.  This room was built for training in unit tactics for the Martians' "tripod" walking combat vehicles. The floor is divided into four terrain types: open fields, forest, urban ruins, and broken rocky hiils (albeit with suppressed altitude changes).  Space for the spectators/judges/instructors is a wide, multi-tiered gondola suspended from the ceiling, with many separate direct viewing bays, five command and control centers, and hangar bays for small helicopters (none still function; six wrecked ones dot the floor) for ferrying officers to the training floor.  The arena's illumination is under full control from any of the gondola command centers.
 
Twenty tripods populate the ground, all still functional, though the main weapons systems (heat ray and poison vapor) are replaced by mock-ups of an intense searchlight and nontoxic colored smoke.
 
The tripods are a remarkable experience in themselves.  Each tripod has space for six crew, though it is not known if these are "trainer" versions with expanded crew space.  The controls are fairly simple and obvious, though obviously constructed for humanoids of somewhat different sizes and proportions than Terrestrial humans.  Safety straps keep crew members safely in their couches even in the event the tripod topples, which happens especially often in the broken-rock terrain.  Speeds up to 50 km/hr can be sustained on the flat, clear field ground, but in any sort of crowding terrain the top safe speed is rather less.  The manipulator arms (3 in all) can right the tripod from a fallen position, and it seems clear that much of a crew's training goes into mastering this process.
 
From the overhead command centers individual tripods can be deactivated for periods of up to 40 minutes, presumably as part of training manuvers for small units.  Additionally, people in a command center can communicate with all tripods collectively and individually, and can select video feeds from ten separate cameras in and on each tripod.  They can also direct the infantry on the floor via speakers in a many locations.
 
Some two hundred infantry entrances are distributed about the floor, all of them concealed, but none locked.  Underneath the arena floor is a complex of assembly rooms, armories, etc., for the infantry who presumably represent the tripod crews' opponents.  The armories have been depleted somewhat by looters, but since all the weapons are harmless dummies they are not coveted.
 
The tripods clearly were designed strictly for use against infantry, and not against other vehicles.  The tripods cannot be damaged by even live fire versions of the heat ray and gas attacks: the environmental control is robust and internal breathing air cannot be breached by human-strength attacks, and the construction of the tripods uses materials and mechanisms which are impervious to exposure to a heat ray for up to 30 seconds.   Two tripods can flail away at each other with manipulator arms, but only superficial damage can be inflicted that way.  Still, the signs are clear that many intruder teams have entered here and engaged in tripod jousting of various sorts.  
 
It is also clear that infantry with small arms stand no hope against tripods even absent the tripods' main armament: the manipulators can break humans in two, and toss them casually twenty or thirty meters, which no unarmored human can survive.  It also seems clear that tripods were used many times to hunt and kill gangs of human victims in the arena.

I did an irreverent and entirely anonymous (read: paper response forms) survey in my morning class.  The numbers in the parens are the tallies of hits to each response. (22 responses (24 registered for the course); the prompt said "circle as many as apply" so selection of multiple alternatives did happen.)
 
1.    I feel I already know some stuff about astronomy, space science, and physics.
(1)  Oh yeah
(14) Some
(8)  I’ve heard those words
(1)  Don’t hurt me
 
2.    I’m in this class because
(2)  It’s the only way my schedule can work
(2)  I guessed that this is the <core class designation> that might have the least math
(17) I have no idea; I got put here by someone else
(4)  I explicitly wanted this kind of subject
(0)  I’m gonna drop, but I haven’t been able to find a satisfactory alternate to plug in yet
 
3.    Things I have heard about this instructor
(4)  Nothing at all
(17) Just what’s in his “Personal Trivia” on the Canvas page
(1)  He’s hard
(0)  He’s boring
(0)  He’s terrifying
 
4.    Astronomy is different from astrology!
(12) Yup, and I know the difference
(12) Ummmmm…
(1)  Am I in the wrong class?
 
 

Well, to generalize more: each of them are using terms which have more specific meanings in their own fields, and blithely assuming those meanings are forever-and-everywhere-and-for-everyone the meanings.
 
When I got together with my wife -- an attorney -- we rapidly realized that what makes truth, and a standard of proof, in the law is different (and has a different underlying meaning) than what it means in science.  Part of that is because the purpose of each endeavor is different.  The fact that scientists are systematically excluded from juries here indicates how fundamentally different (I will stop short of saying opposed) those purposes are.

Legendary Marvel Comics Artist Joe Sinnott Announces His Retirement
 
Legendary Marvel Comics artist Joe Sinnott announced his retirement from comics with the release of his final Sunday edition of the Amazing Spider-Man comic strip, which Sinnott had been inking since 1992.

Re: What Cancer said
 
"Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sports... the thrill of victory... and the agony of defeat..."

I don't think I've seen that one before, at least in that format.  That's an infrared image, and at first my guess was Jupiter and its rings.
 
Finally found it: a groundbased (!!) image of Uranus, 2.2 micron band, from the Keck on Mauna Kea, taken 2004.

I think the kitten is going to be named Goblin.

Confessions of an old-school gamer:
 
1. I prefer 2nd Edition AD&D to 1st Edition. I enjoy the latter, but 2nd Edition is where my sweet spot lies.
 
2. My favorite setting is the Forgotten Realms. Although I'm aware that Gary Gygax created Greyhawk, I find that setting quite dull.
 
3. I like to play other games besides D&D. I need variety. Playing a single game excluively makes me lose interest in that game.
 
That is all.

I don't think I've seen that one before, at least in that format.  That's an infrared image, and at first my guess was Jupiter and its rings.
 
Finally found it: a groundbased (!!) image of Uranus, 2.2 micron band, from the Keck on Mauna Kea, taken 2004.

I don't want to do either of those!  You think I'm suicidal?  No, I want to set up facilities like that in eastern Washington and northern Idaho!  I will make millions!

Why go?
 
Much of the materials gathered by the Martians as they were investigating and planning the invasion of Earth are present in the arsenal.  This remarkably heterogeneous collection includes some very unexpected unique, irreplaceable things.
Santa Claus.  The real one.  In Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, Santa was brought to Mars to deprogram young Martians.  Santa himself has said he was kidnapped and brought to Mars so they could adopt his manufacturing and delivery methods for their invasion.  Other records indicate he came to Mars to investigate outsourcing of his toy manufacturing and undercut his elf labor costs.  Whatever the real reason, Santa did come to Mars and in fact has never returned to Earth.  He's slimmed down, usually dresses in Hawaiian shirts, cut-off jean shorts, and retread sandals, and looks kind of like a more hung over than usual edition of Jimmy Buffet these days.  He can still do the "ho ho" thing and will give toys and candy to the kids, but very few children cross paths with him now.  At a glance he knows if you're naughty or nice (a trick he steadfastly refuses to explain) and gives immediate gifts appropriate to that status, so televangelists, pro-austerity politicians, stockbrokers, payday loan promulgators, and other self-aggrandizing individuals are advised not to cross his path.  Santa occupies a comfortable complex on Level 32 and is accompanied by a bevy of hot Red Martian babes. The capsule of the cryogenically frozen Philip J Fry.  The how and why of this artifact's presence in the arsenal is entirely unknown, but there is a coin-operated turnstyle allowing entry into a small room with the labeled capsule; Fry's frozen face is plainly visible through the viewing glass.  Its presence adjacent to a long-abandoned pizza counter in a defunct refectory on Level 22B is assumed to be an expression of irony. The rose brought by Gallinger to the Martian high priestess in A Rose for Ecclesiastes, and the hothouse rose garden she and her acolytes grew.  This is in a near-surface dead-end tunnel accessible from Level 19C. In a tiny closet on Level 11C is a still-operating low-power radio transmitter which sends single a very brief coded message every few hours.  The text selection part of the transmitter has long been damaged so its content cannot be changed; it seems to have originally been intended to be a coin-operated "Send Your Note" amusement device.  Translating the glyphs on the mangled display, the now locked-in text seems to be "Mars Needs Women". On Level 6 is a duty free shop for Radegast Distillery, perhaps the oldest still-operating whiskey maker on Mars. Level 38C seems to be a wing of timeshare condos owned by itinerant individuals who reliably but intermittently spend time on Mars, but generally live on other planets.  One apartment has been broken into and plundered (the resident seems to have been J'onn J'onzz).  Others (the names are above the doorbell buttons on the outside) include Dr. Manhattan, Mona the Monkey, Narab, Princess Marcuzan, and Uncle Martin, and a gated suite of several apartments labeled Capricorn One.  (Marvin the Martian's quarters are on a different level, behind a heavily-damaged zone with the sign "Off Limits".)

I have the DVD also.  A friend of mine lived on Oahu at the time that filming was done (he was 12 at the time, his dad was a chaplain in the Air Force).  They had home movies of the planes flying around, which I got to see as well.  There were not very many planes!  It was the first clear demonstration to me of the power of film editing.
 
EDIT: and Pearl Harbor was execrable.  When one of the survivors of the attack made the comment about that film, "There was too much blowin' stuff up," you know it was done wrong.

* Cancer desperately searches for information about franchises *