Zeropoint

Get the suppressors to make a "pew!" sound and I'll start buying tracer ammo in bulk.

I'd love to have a Mateba like Togusa uses in Ghost in the Shell

25 minutes ago, gewing said:

I would be more intrigued if they made it in a 45 Colt.

Or a bottom-firing revolver like Vash "The Stampede" uses.

I find it just a little bit frightening that black hole collisions are so frequent.

The way they're leaning forward makes those flamingos look really miserable.

Neolithic serial killer. Calling it now.

Great, before long there's just going to be one big black hole with a monopoly, and then the price gouging starts.

I've got a Ruger target pistol (Mark II Government) and I like it quite a bit. It's very accurate, and easy to shoot accurately. It's also (being a Ruger) very reliable, although its tight tolerances combined with the low-energy and dirty nature of .22 ammo make it sensitive to fouling. Unfortunately, it's a little bit complicated to field strip and reassemble, so cleaning it is more work than I'd like. The Mark IV has fixed that problem, though. I think you'd be quite happy with one.

19 hours ago, Surrealone said:

It's a non-issue for minute-of-badguy shooting at any given distance, but if you want to punch paper quietly (which is what I consider most .22 shooting to be good for), it's something that I'd be prone to considering and worrying over.

It seems to me that if you're using a .22 for target shooting or varmint control or some such task, then you can easily get away with having a full-sized suppressor and not having to worry about wipes degrading. Those super ultra compact suppressors on a small .22 handgun are for assassinations, which most people won't be doing.

I normally make a point of not setting foot outside the house on Black Friday, but this year, I have Friday afternoon gaming with my gaming buddies to attend. I'm not entirely sure whether I like that, but at least I won't be going to any stores.

But, today? Today we feast!

56 minutes ago, Hugh Neilson said:

Sorry to derail, but as a confused Canadian - how does that work?  It's legal under state law but still illegal under Federal law, as I understand it.

I'm not entirely certain, and law is not my field, so don't quote me on this, BUT: I think the way it works is that state (and lower) law enforcement in states that have legalized it will no longer take action against users, but federal law enforcement operating in the state still could. However, as I understand it, federal law enforcement agencies such as the FBI or the US Marshals have their jurisdiction limited by subject matter . . . and there aren't any federal agencies tasked with catching individual drug users? It's a bit murky to me, too.

Huh. "Stunt performer" was NOT one of the jobs I expected to be automated away in the near future.

The apple didn't fall far from the tree . . . despite the fact that it didn't actually grow on the tree.

3 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

Maybe sometimes nature just accidentally stumbles into something. Human-style intelligence could be one of those accidents.

That is exactly how evolution works, to the best of my understanding.

It's also worth noting that, using Earth life as an example, it seems that intelligence is most useful in a social species. The smartest species are those that live in groups, like pods of cetatceans, murders of corvids, or tribes of primates. I don't know which direction causation goes on that, though.

3 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

And to reiterate, we're working from the example of one planet, with one ecosystem that ultimately derived from one form of life out of which everything else arose.

It's frustrating, and I feel like some kind of killjoy for reminding people of this fact, but . . . yeah. We need more information before we can start talking about universal trends.

The best way to make money gambling is to be the house.

There is NO field of human employment which is safe from being automated out of existence. We have little time remaining to make sure that "robots doing all our work for us" is a GOOD thing for society.

Fun fact: those black spots aren't actually black. They're 3000 to 4500 K and a typical sunspot by itself would be brighter than the moon. They only look dark in comparison to the rest of the Sun. They are caused by magnetic flux tubes getting twisted up by the Sun's differential rotation and inhibiting convection in the convection layer.

I guess I could have been more clear; I meant that we've only been to two astronomical bodies in person: Earth and the moon.

10 hours ago, Christopher said:

The only  thing we are uncertain about right now is "how much of a accident was earth"?

That is hugely relevant to the Fermi Paradox.

Because language is a tool, and a skilled craftsman selects the right tool for the job. A well-stocked garage will definitely include dial calipers, straight-edges, fine files, sharp chisels, narrow-cutting Japanese pattern saws and the like . . . but it will also have things like sledgehammers and angle grinders. Sometimes a "bad" word is necessary for the effect that a writer intends. It's true that many people use them far too freely and indiscriminately--Hemingway famously said that "one *** **** is worth a hundred and a hundred are worth nothing"--but to insist that vulgarities must NEVER be used, and to recoil from them in shock, is just as immature as throwing several into every sentence.

The people who own and operate this virtual space, though, have made their rules, and we have the choice of abiding by them or going elsewhere.

My thoughts on the matter are that we just haven't collected enough information yet. Remember that of all the astronomical bodies in the universe, we've been to only TWO. As a wise man once said, "It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts."

Right now I'd say Eclipse Phase. I like the combination of transhumanism and Lovecraft-esque horror, and I also enjoy the fact that the default theme for adventures is stomping down threats to humanity as a whole.

Yeah, that's why I can't get too excited about the Fermi Paradox. Get back to me when we've explored 10% of the galaxy.

On 10/16/2018 at 9:23 PM, Christopher said:

Something I find worth noting regarding input, that the Keyboard has thus far resisted any attempts to be replaced as the default Input method. And I am confident that will continue until we got a working neural interface.

You're not wrong, although I'd say that the mouse is a lot more than a niche item. Mouse and keyboard together, though . . . that's an incredibly powerful and versatile setup that can control just about anything adequately and a surprising variety of things well.

Regarding my quoted statement about motion controls, it's worth noting that while developers were eager to explore motion controls, most of what was tried kind of sucked, and outside of VR, the idea has mostly been quietly dropped. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see the same thing happen to interactive holograms.

Given the huge size of the universe, I bet there's at least one alien out there right now explaining to someone why its own non-humanoid body plan is the only reasonable option for sapient tool-users. "Well, yeah, Gorblax, I'm not saying that you COULDN'T have an alien with only two legs and all the important nervous system bits in a separate body part mounted on top. It's just that our own body plan offers so many advantages that it's reasonable to expect most tool-users to be shaped more or less the same."

An interesting example is the .460 Rowland which is a hopped-up, over-powered .45 Auto. Its bullet diameter and overall cartridge dimensions are identical to the .45 Auto--the only dimensional difference is the case length, which is 1/16" longer. This is only there to prevent the round from chambering in .45 Auto barrels, which are not designed to handle the higher pressure of the .460 Rowland. They could have had two distinct cartridges with entirely identical dimensions, although it should be obvious why that's a bad idea.

He's obviously got Autofire as a Naked Advantage that he can apply to RKA foci.