Old Man

1 hour ago, Scott Ruggels said:

There is a new Ai bot called Sora. The prompts can now generate up to one minute of full motion video. Take a look:
 

This is under a company lock down, so it's not yet available to the public, but it would be a useful tool for generating B-Roll for YouTube, It as of now cannot generate Porn, celebrity look alikes or graphic violence. How long does one think those restrictions wil stay in place?.

For this specific tool?  Depends on the law and the people who run the company.  But as I explained to a family member who is also in cyber, it is not possible to stop development of AI any more than it would be possible to stop development of, say, video games.  The U.S. government could ban AI tomorrow and AI development would promptly move to India or Mexico.

29 minutes ago, death tribble said:

Vapour Man

 

He turns into vapour

Can he change back?

21 minutes ago, unclevlad said:

 

I got around it, but it was annoying...anyway...thing is, juvies?  In the daytime?  At a massive public gathering?  It's still possible there may have been booze, but it feels unlikely.  

 

TMZ...who else, right?...has some video.  
https://www.tmz.com/2024/02/17/kansas-city-shooting-teens-arguing-video-before-shots-fired-juveniles/

 

If the 2 they highlight ultimately became the spark that set off the shooting?  Looks like they were arguing, but we certainly have no clue why.

I was wondering if a switched Glock was involved, that footage would seem to prove it.

8 hours ago, Bazza said:

Taylor Swift’s first Melbourne concert of the Eras tour was held at the MCG and 96,000 attended, her biggest crowd ever, a record for a Taylor Swift concert. She was crying. 

"I have to be honest with you about something. This is the biggest show we have ever performed on The Eras Tour or any tour ever," she told the crowd.

 

"If I seem a little bit like I'm losing my mind over the 96,000 of you, that's because it's true. I am."

 

https://amp.9news.com.au/article/af05a82b-cde9-4093-bb5c-5f7d5193ee81

 

Obligatory

3 hours ago, Pariah said:

Quesadilla Guy - he throws quesadillas as his foes. But they're actually really good quesadillas, so the bad guys stop to eat, which allows the good guys to capture them without much of a fuss. Unfortunately, the quesadillas tend to distract the heroes as often as the villains, so in the end it's a wash.

Whatever happened to Burrito Boy anyway?

The Tourette's Truther--involuntarily says things that are invariably and uncomfortably true, usually at the most awkward moments

So many strongly held opinions about magic!  Although that is pretty normal--in the fantasy fiction discussion groups I frequent, "hard" vs. "soft" magic systems are always a topic of lively discussion. Naturally that would carry over to RPGs.

My preferences tend to come down on the "soft" side of the spectrum, i.e. mysterious and poorly understood.  I find that more well defined systems, in fiction, are uninteresting--being fully understandable, they become esoteric.  In some cases this also leads to some strange inconsistencies with the setting.

As others have mentioned, mysterious-and-poorly-understood magic is tough to do in any RPG that attempts to be balanced.  Hero manages to at least sort of address the subject with skill rolls, Side Effects, and other disadvantages.  Other systems, like Ars Magica, address it by leaving a certain amount of wiggle room in the effect.  Or in the more lightweight systems, almost not having a system at all.

What really sets Hero apart is that its flexibility allows it to cover multiple magic systems.  You can have the wizards of the Fire College go up against the Wild Pool Magicians with the assistance of the Vancian Amnesiacs.  After four decades of fantasy gaming I have yet to see any other system that can really do this.  Usually the best they can do is have you pick spells from a different list.  But the point is that Hero can really do both hard and soft magic, and I'm frankly astonished that no other game system has really tried.

Clerical magic is a whole other ballgame, as it directly involves the theology of the setting.  It's hard to be an atheist when priests are slinging flame strikes and blade barriers.  At that point, religion becomes less a matter of faith and more one of devotion and adherence.  It's a weird side effect of D&D video game magic, and to me it smacks of football teams granting magic powers to its craziest fans.  I have toyed with the idea of requiring clerical spells (prayers?) to be bought with Invisible Power Effects, just to make it a teeny bit less obvious to onlookers that The Gods Walk Among Them.  That only works for certain effects, but it does maintain a lot of the mystery.  Arcane magic might benefit from the same.

3 hours ago, Pariah said:

Mediocrity is a step up from where the Donkeys have been for the previous four or five years.

Oh yeah, it's been a lot worse. 

Draft order for the first three rounds of the 2024 draft is set.  Strangely, all the NGD teams are huddled together in a clump of mediocrity.  Do we have a Colts fan I'm unaware of?

20 minutes ago, Pattern Ghost said:

 

If my premise were wrong, organizations (military, police, gangs) wouldn't have to train the reluctance to kill out of people. You'd be far harder pressed to find any credible stats indicating that "most people" are inclined to kill each other. The global murder rate (2019) is 6.2/100,000. So is 6.2 "most" or is 99,993.8 "most"?

 

Bold of you to assume our cops get training.

2 minutes ago, unclevlad said:

3.  Wasn't in the military, but...I'll argue they work really hard to beat gun romanticism out of all recruits, before they ever leave boot camp.  That they drive home the point that Guns Are To Kill People When You Use Them.  When you pull that trigger, your goal is to kill. 

Can't speak for other countries but the U.S. services do not kid around when it comes to gun control.  Every bullet must be accounted for, and when guns go missing (which they sometimes do) people go to jail. 

As I had to explain to someone on another board, try to open carry on base and see what happens.

Mister Mediocre

Everything he does turns out exactly average.  Every single time.

2 hours ago, unclevlad said:

Someone will probably sign him as a backup, but...looks like Jimmy G can start singing Glory Days.

 

Benched last season.

Just got a 2 game suspension for PEDs.

Expected to be cut by the Raiders, to save the guarantee from kicking in, in early March.  $18M in dead money but still, saves $11M on the cap.

Hey I hear the Broncos need a QB. 

I play both, but in Hero I tend to play spellslingers simply because I (usually) get to write up the spells.  I love axes, but telekinesis is way more versatile than an axe.

Xeriscaping

Vacuum the house

Fantastic Four has been cast. 

Less, in fact.  Software engineers would be like wizards isolated in their towers, conducting bizarre rituals and never interacting with the real world.  Whereas cloud engineers would be hedge wizards, knowing a hodgepodge of random spells that actually get things done.

Sounds like a job description for a cloud infrastructure admin, not a software engineer.

Just think, this is only the second half.  IMAX.

16 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

Trying to divert attention from their paradoxical flip-flops on the border security bill(s). They're desperate for anything they can sell to their voters as actually doing something.

Those voters are firmly ensconced in the conservabubble, so it'll work.

Make another character

Football (like, actually throw one, not watch other people do it)

Cry

Yellow first down lines