Zeropoint

Re: Science: Particles seen moving at FTL speeds (CERN) (non-climate change thread) Darn it. You win this time, Einstein!

Re: Order of the Stick I've also heard it referred to as the "Polish mine detector", although that has unfortunate racist overtones.

Re: "Neat" Pictures Malaria is a terrible disease. Mosquitoes can bite me. Wait, that doesn't sound right . . .

Re: "Neat" Pictures Let's see . . . The Shadow, The Spirit, The Sandman (?), The Question, The Question II, Rorshach, and Carmen SanDiego. Did I get all those right?

Re: Cool Guns for your Games Ooh, they duct-taped a hand grenade to an RC plane! I'll admit that the roll-up wings are pretty cool, but overall, I don't see much there that couldn't be done with off-the-shelf hardware and software. I guess I'm just underestimating the time involved in doing things for the government, but it surprises me that this kind of thing has taken so long to show up.

Re: "Neat" Pictures You know, naked girls are fine, but that's TOO naked!

Re: Star Fleet Battles Starships Well, if you watch the shows, you'll see that the Trek verse has absolutely abysmal targeting systems, capable of routinely missing a starship-sized target at ranges of only a couple kilometers. Based on the on-screen evidence, shooting at something a whole light-second away would be pointless.

Re: Star Fleet Battles Starships So you scan your crewmen, then use some random matter you've got sitting around for the sending process, instead of THEM. Yeah, you need some mass to move around, but nothing says it has to be the same mass that got scanned. Also, (not that if affects this discussion much) the transporter, according to the technical manuals, breaks the transported object down into subatomic particles, but doesn't convert it to energy. Obviously, the show doesn't pay much attention to this. It's also worth noting that a Star Trek transporter kills anyone who uses it, then creates a new person on the other end who THINKS they're the original. No wonder Bones didn't like them. Don't think this is true? Well, there's absolutely nothing, according to the description of their operation, that prevents the operator from waiting until the duplicate has been confirmed to have arrived safely before disintegrating the original. How do you think Riker would react to getting fizzled out of existence after hearing his duplicate call up from the surface to say he made it safely?

Re: Sci-Fi Melee Weapons: Bat'leth, Lirpas, Lightsabres, Rykk Blades, Koltari, Denn'B I think it's mainly explained by the fact that a non-Jedi running around with a melee weapon in a universe full of blasters is likely to get shot. A Jedi can "bring a knife to a gunfight" because they can parry bullets. No one else can.

Re: More space news! The asteroid belt should be one of our first stops--there are millions of tons of structural and precious metals sitting around out there for the taking. The value of just ONE typical metallic asteroid would pay for the development and production of a mission to get it and then some, although putting all that stuff on the market would probably depress the prices something fierce.

Re: More space news! That's the problem; none of our politicians are looking at this from the 4X perspective.

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular? The way I see it, Speed 2 is typical for your average "unblooded" character--someone who hasn't seen much, if any, real life-or-death combat. Such a person is quite capable of acting quickly and decisively in areas they're familiar with, such as sports or video games, but when non-virtual bullets start flying, they're going to hesitate. Speed 3 (again, in my personal view) would represent a veteran soldier, cop, or such who has seen real action and come to terms with it (probably also has specific combat training). I don't think it's much of a stretch to say that someone who's USED to combat could be 50% more effective than someone who's still struggling with the idea that "this is really happening." I would consider Speed 3 to be the minimum value for a superhero, unless slowness or being new to combat is part of the character concept. I see Speed 4 as being notably fast. It's worth pointing out that Speed 4 is Normal Characteristic Maximum for Speed. I wouldn't expect to see Speed 4 in a realistic campaign outside of special forces and elite SWAT teams (and player characters!). I'd say that Speed 4 is the appropriate speed for most supers. Speed 5 is past the Normal Maximum, so very few people should have this speed. In a realistic campaign, such a person would be the fastest person a special forces type knows about. If they enter the public eye, they'll become legendary in the discussion of quickness. People like Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan belong here, and of course, many superheroes will also be this fast, especially if speed/grace/dexterity is part of their schtick. Speed 6 is, if I recall correctly, the hard limit for "normal" humans: it is literally as fast as a non-superpowered human can get. Bruce Lee's and Jackie Chan's CHARACTERS have Speed at this level. If I were running a "realistic" or fantasy game, I'd like to see Speeds ranging from 2 to 4 with maybe a 5 for the fastest player. If I were running a supers game, I'd expect to see speeds from 3 to 6, and I'd question a speed over 6 unless the character was a speedster or such. Realistically, I can't imagine a player being happy with a Speed of 2. The PCs are supposed to be above average, after all.

Re: Summoning a set of Magical Armor It sounds like the only limitation you'd need is "visible" for the resistant protection part of the armor. When you activate the power, it's visible. When you deactivate it, it goes away. You certainly don't need any powers, adders, or advantages to accomplish this.

Re: All ghosts evil? If you go with the "ghosts as pyschic imprints" theory, then it make sense that people who die in healthy mental states tend not to be agitated enough to leave said imprints. Hence, most ghosts are rather messed up, because they're basically just a copy of the "top layer" of someone who's REALLY UPSET at the moment.

Re: "Neat" Pictures NOOOOooooooo, not the cute bikini babe! Go eat, ah, someone with more meat on them, shark!

Re: Cool Guns for your Games An interesting looking piece, but I'm having a hard time figuring out how it's supposed to work. "Art Major Engineering" strikes again!

Re: Cool Guns for your Games Last time I was at a gun store, they had a 10mm Auto revolver . . . that's kind of cool, but I have a hard time imagining a practical reason to own one. Revolvers chambered for .45 ACP are also not very rare, but again, the only real reason I can see to own one is if you already have other .45s and don't want to bother with with another caliber of ammo.

Re: Dwarves with No Spirits I imagine that Dwarves with no spirits would be pretty unhappy until they manage to find a distillery.

Re: More space news! Entirely correct--the nuclear forces don't even reach all the way across a large nucleus. That's why elements with larger atomic numbers are unstable: protons can only be attracted by so many other particles (the ones that fit in the strong nuclear force radius), but there's no limit to how many other protons can repel it electrically.

Re: Your evil army That was good, Lucius. I'd rep you if I could.

Re: Religion in Science-Fiction? I didn't make it through the whole video, but I, too, found the basic premise to be eye-roll-worthy and mildly offensive.

Re: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic HERO That's some good stuff! It would not have occurred to me to elevate the whole cast to divine status, but it works. I like the way you included the non-main ponies in important roles for the pantheon--after all, love for the background ponies seems to be an important part of the fandom. Maybe Lyra and Bon-Bon are the patrons of loving couples?

Re: Piercing Invisibilty Detect: Things I Can't Detect.

Re: something from nothing As I understand it, the energy contained in the emitted photons is drained from the mirror, so there's no violation of conservation of energy. Even if it's more efficient than a laser, you'd still need fantastically huge amounts of power to get any meaningful thrust.

Re: Religion in Science-Fiction? If you're going to argue about quantum physics, you'd sound more credible if you knew what the word "quantum" meant. Also, you've thrown angry rhetoric around, but what you HAVEN'T done is . . . Cite a source. You're presenting your opinion as fact, you seem to be getting angry that people are suggesting the opposite viewpoint, but you're not doing anything to support your position except to restate it in stronger terms. I'm sure that if you step back and take a dispassionate look at the situation, you can see that this is no way to persuade anyone, even if your position IS correct. Mainstream science didn't cheerfully abandon the idea of the deterministic universe because they didn't like it and had just been waiting for an excuse (see Einstein). Scientists reluctantly moved to the idea of a probabilistic universe only after experiments showed it to be the case. If you're going to argue a point that disagrees with mainstream science, the burden of proof is on you. We're all friends here and there's nothing at stake. Relax, take time to collect your evidence, and enjoy the debate!