Zeropoint

Re: More space news! That is seriously awesome news. If, IF it pans out, then the solar system is our oyster, and we can start sending probes to other star systems.

Re: More space news! That article says the value of the old AU was changing as the sun loses mass . . . if it was getting bigger, we can just use a future value, or a historical value if it's getting smaller over time.

Re: More space news! Seems to me they missed a good opportunity to make it a round number . . . 150 gigameters, or 500 light seconds.

Re: Jokes May his rest be long and placid; He added water to the acid. The other boy did what he oughter And added acid to the water.

Re: Freaky Physics prove Parallel Universes exist Wow, terrible journalism. No details, and no links to any place that has them. There's not enough substance there for me to offer any comments.

Re: "Neat" Pictures Jasmine and Pocohontas look good in evil.

Re: Fighting Tricks Note to self: in Davy's game, if someone rips me off at three-card monte or the shell game, don't try to steal the money back.

Re: Cool Guns for your Games I once fired a mere .38 special without hearing protection. It hurt and my ears rang for a while afterward. I'm 100% sold on the use of hearing protection when shooting.

Re: More space news! Aww, man, that has got to be a depressing reason to lose a test vehicle. Good thing it was unmanned! Also, it sounds as though going that fast is turning out to be quite difficult. Best of luck to the researchers, and I hope that cheaper space launches will be a spinoff of this tech.

Re: Cool Guns for your Games I think I've heard that, too, but I wasn't certain enough of it to make a point of it.

Re: Order of the Stick Indeed it is, especially since she knows he can't hear her . . . although I'd have a VERY hard time trusting a succubus who said she loved me, it does seem that Sabine has genuine affection for Nale.

Re: Cool Guns for your Games I'm no expert on shotguns, but as far as I know, there ISN'T any other difference that is inherent to the two configurations. Over-and-under shotguns tend to be the preferred format for the various clay pigeon sports, and for the hunting of birds which are neither turkeys nor waterfowl. Also, I don't think I've ever seen an over-and-under with 18-inch barrels--probably because of the nature of trying to shoot a flying bird or clay target. Side-by-side shotguns are seen as more utilitarian, broadly speaking, while over-and-under shotguns have more of an "upper class" air to them. This leads to different kinds of guns being made in each type, but it's more about marketing than engineering, to my understanding.

Re: More space news! "Touchdown Confirmed! Safe on Mars!"

Re: Cool Guns for your Games I've got a Baikal "coach gun" style side by side shotgun. The fit and finish is a bit below average, and it needed a bit of tuning, but overall it's a great gun for the price. It's very Russian--simple, elegant, very solid mechanisms with no polishing anywhere that it's not absolutely necessary, and strong springs. An evening of modestly skilled hand work was all it took to get it in great shape for cowboy action shooting. Very good value for the money.

Re: Japanese Giant Robot I seriously doubt that humanoid combat vehicles will ever replace tanks, because at ANY given level of technology, even future levels, tanks have a lower profile, and more importantly, have a better volume-to-surface-area ratio and a MUCH simpler drivetrain. Yes, it's possible and even likely that advances in armor, power generation, and actuator/motor technology will make a "giant robot" possible, but those advances will ALSO be available to tank designers. This doesn't mean that mecha will never exist or that they will never have any role on the battlefield, though. The anime series "Gasaraki" depicts an interesting and relatively realistic version of mecha which can't stand up to a tank in direct combat, but can take advantage of their superior mobility in urban environments.

Re: "Neat" Pictures I hear that Flumph make good cushions for falling adventurers.

Re: More space news! Well, I guess we'll find out on August 6.

Re: More space news! Gnaskar, your weight calculation looks right, but all the other math in your post is way off; unit analysis is all wrong and you seem to be using Newtons to refer to energy in many places.

Re: More space news! It just now occurred to me that the flimsy, ultra-light box I've been picturing would probably not survive the medium-speed interaction with the atmosphere; you'd need something sturdier and therefore heavier. It still seems to me that a box or "vehicle bay" could have been made to work, but I don't know enough about this to warrant putting much effort into arguing about it, and there's certainly no sense in getting entrenched into the BOX, DAMMIT! position. At the end of the day, one would assume that the NASA and JPL folks know what they're doing.

Re: More space news! I don't see why a box has to be heavy to be dust proof. Something like a plastic bag with a very light frame of carbon fiber "wires" should be enough to stop dust. Also, to make sense, it doesn't have to be "light", just less heavy than the cable and winch system plus the extra rocket fuel for the hover and fly away operations.

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities I'd like to sign up for this world where being male and having common decency somehow automatically means you have no problem with women.

Re: Summon vs. Follower The simulationist in me does not like the idea that different characters in the game are playing by different rules. I realize that in practical terms, the GM needs to take shortcuts in order to create an adventure in a reasonable amount of time, but at the same time it seems like any mechanism by which one character can acquire a horde of long-lasting skeletons should be be available to any other character as well. I suppose that with a number of tasks equal to the summoner's EGO with the option to attempt to reset the counter, it's not TOO bad, but Summon still doesn't look like a very attractive power to me in most cases. A matter of personal taste, I suppose.

Re: More space news! That's the same approach I thought of a while back, and while I haven't been thinking about it very hard, I don't have an answer . . . the box wouldn't even have to be sturdy, since all it's for is keeping dust off. A tyvek skin over a lightweight carbon fiber skeleton would be enough. Mylar or some other thin plastic film would be even lighter and probably strong enough. I have a hard time picturing such an arrangement being heavier than the cables and winch AND all the extra fuel needed to hover and then fly away.

Re: "Neat" Pictures He's got the mouth for it, which would probably the the point where a lot of would-be Jokers come short.

Re: Summon vs. Follower So if that scene from Clash of the Titans (Jason and the Argonauts? err, it was a Harryhausen film, I know that much) where the sorcery summons up a bunch of skeletons to fight Our Heroes--if that were modeled in the Hero system, the adventuring party wouldn't have to BEAT the skeletons, just block and doge for a turn or so until they all poofed away . . . doesn't seem like good genre modeling to me.