薔薇語

BBC article discussing the issue of police deaths and deaths by police in the US. Part of it was even surprising to me.
 
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-36826297
 
Soar.

The costume looks good, so we will complain because it mixes the same colours as other costumes.
 
I'll be happy if it simply turns out that Wally is not the Season 3 "Speedster who infiltrates the team as a friend but turns out to be the Big Bad Guy for the season". Why couldn't Jay Garrick actually BE Jay Garrick?

Simon: I think I understand you better but perhaps not to the extent desired. 

I think the Director over stated the rules for prosecution in security cases. That was the bigger point surrounding my linked article. I believe it was also the case in the Young Turks' video (assuming it is the one I think it is). In general, security breaches don't require intent to do harm. Nor is the "I didn't know any better" (ignorance of the law) defense generally acceptable. Lastly, clear and provable harm has rarely been a standard. Thus, when two folks talk opening about classified data at Starbucks, we are not concerned if they intended to give classified data to spies, didn't realize that discussing classified data in public was not okay, nor whether or not any spies or such were actually present at that particular starbucks at that particular time. It is rather that there is a reckless breach of security. Harm, knowledge, and intent are largely non-issues in ascertaining guilt. 

However, it would seem that in this case the Director is applying those standards here. The Secretary did not provably harm national security nor seem to have had intent to harm national security. Although the ignorance of the law bit she seems to have clearly have been a slip up even by the FBI directors statements about how anyone in her or a similar position should have known better. And while these are certainly good standards to have in a lot of cases (robbery, fraud, violent crime, etc), they are not the standard nor reasonably should be the standard in the realm of national security. 

I think the folks crying foul on this one (myself included) are upset most by a perceived double standard in government. 

Soar. 
 

Put slightly differently: Clinton was authorized to have the classified information that she placed in her emails.  She was authorized to send that information to the individuals she was communicating with. Finally, she was authorized to send that information via the communication channels that were utilized (i.e. unsecured email).  
 
She was (in Comey's words) extremely careless in her decision to use a personal server as the origin point of those communications, but the communications themselves were not an issue.

OK...I think I see where the confusion is: lack of understanding of the nature of the communications channel itself and the impact that has on the ability/likelihood of prosecution.  I alluded to this previously in my data at rest statement.
 
If you have a system that is a secured system meant to store classified information, there are controls around that system to both limit access to that information only to those qualified to access it, limit the ability of individuals to modify that information, and the limit the ability of individuals to move that information to a non-secured environment.  Take Snowden as an example -- he took classified information from controlled systems and transferred it onto USB drives (and other devices) with the clear and demonstrated intent of providing it to non-qualified individuals.  Regardless of your opinions of his actions as a whistleblower, this meets all definitions for prosecution.
 
With email, you're dealing with something else entirely -- it's not data at rest.  Clinton did not take files from a controlled/air-gapped system, move them to her personal server, and then send them out.  She communicated (wrote emails containing) classified information.  Even this is not a problem - it's the nature of her job at the time.  That she used a personal server to do this means that one end of the email chain was not under direct control of the government -- everything after the sending server is exactly as it would have been at any other time.  The concern this raises is that her personal server _may_ not have been as well-protected as the State Department systems (though they found no evidence of a compromise to the servers, while the State Department systems were compromised during the same timeframe). The main issue this raises is one of an audit trail or accountability -- it is more difficult for the government to maintain a full audit trail of the communications.  Not impossible -- and this is the nature of what the FBI did (which was pretty impressive)...they reconstructed the audit trail for her email traffic.  In more detail than you would likely get from the State Department systems.
 
The best non-technical example I can give is similar to the one used above:  you have someone making a phone call to an individual outside of the US. The person knows classified information and is authorized to discuss it with the person she is calling. While they have apparently taken precautions to ensure that their own phone is not compromised or monitored, they are not calling from a functionally identical phone within the State Department.  This means that there is some concern that the originating phone may not be as secure as it could be.  Everything after the originating phone is still exactly as it would be in any other case:  the lines of communication between the two individuals could still be monitored in either case, the receiving phone could be compromised and/or monitored in either case, or the receiving individual could be compromised and/or monitored in either case.

Alton Sterling. Dammit. I'm done. Change the whole damn system.

If by epic bad idea you actually mean "Epicly awesome idea that has yielded one of the best shows on TV now", then I would agree with you. If not, then you are wrong. ^^
 
 
Yeah, but that was just stealing from Goku and Journey to the West. Why mix in ancient Chinese tales into your Greek ones? Besides Zeus did like to get around. ^^ 
 
 
No, no we don't. One Cinematic Universe has  nearly a dozen films while the other has one. It would be extremely premature to indicate anything about which style is or isn't better - heck, just defining "success" here is a tough nut to crack. So, your comment was more premature than a 16 year old boy. 
 
Soar. 

In the back of a Volkswagen?

I dont know what directors are expecting. Its pretty obvious that they are playing in a shared universe that must play well with all the other properties and crossovers being directed by others in the franchise. You simply cannot do what you want with these characters and the same is going to apply to the DC characters if they do things right.
 
So no, directors of Marvel movies arent going to have creative control of the picture they are directing. What they will have is a giant paycheck and worldwide acclaim that they can use to get into any other project they want in the future. If they want only to do ART, they need to stay far away from the corporate film machine.

No, I think you missed Fry's point by a mile. It isn't about giving license to poets and the like but to everyone. Language is ever evolving. It doesn't need approval in order to evolve and snotty arrogance in the face of its evolution is no more enlightened or centered than creationist denials of biological evolution. 

I would hope that speakers of the ever interesting English language - even more so US speakers - would have an inherent appreciation for that fact but alas we are just as prone to biased and misplaced angst towards our fellows. It is the wonders of language change that brought us this language we call English from its Germatic roots and its Prot-Indo-European roots before that. It is language change that has allowed us to have a language that is lush with foreign snippets that we hold so dear. Be it the elegance in the tongue curling flow of the world 'ballet', the emotionally evocation of such words as scar, the clicking clutter that is the word tatami, and many more. Thank goodness for the Saxons and their disdain of the irritating enormity of English irregular plurals in opt for the mass adoption of the noun final s. Sure, the elitist of the day probably clamored against the ludicrous masses that thought going from Book to Books made more sense than book to beek*. But while their victories numerous grammarians of the worst kind - the prescriptive kind, have manage to martial up a moot defense of mice to mouses, and octopi to octopuses despite the erroneous flaw inherent in that defense. 

Language is a construct of man like no other by being simultaneously hyper personal and yet wholly social. The feelings and thoughts that spring from our inner core and are tied together with the bodily and animalistic grunts, howls and hisses we let slip our lips are truly unique to us. Their full impact can only really be know by the one who uttered them yet seemingly convey coherent communication to those who would give it an ear. For them we hope they grasp our feelings and thoughts but know that ultimately we know they only grasp the feelings and thoughts they already had associate with those rhythmic vibrations spewing from our mouths. While we have touched our listeners in the most personal of ways we still do not know the nature of that intercourse. 

The interplay of speaker and listener is the crucial component of human civilization. Few things contribute so much to the culture, nay, the survival of us as a species as our ability to converse. Thus the need to assign meaning to the arbitrary utterance we let loose. Yet to deny the person nature of language is to deny ourselves. We grow and change with every breathe and with every generation. To lock our language in an unchanging box is to enslave ourselves to the mantras and dogma of the past - but not just ourselves, our children and their children. No loving parent has ever looked down upon the fruit of their loins and desired anything less than the freedoms and joys they've enjoyed being passed on to that ever growing beautiful bundle of joy. So why here, why now, why for language do we seek to shackle them?

Some argue that they are protecting language, but as Stepher Fry uttered in his reading of so-in-so, they are not guardians and there is no degradation occurring. It is merely moralistic nonsense that should be discarded like a used Kleenex. To explain why once more but in the terms of the modern world: because language, biatch. ^^

All that said, if anyone ever texts me "cu l8r" I will defreind your ignorant ass in a New York minute. ^^
 
*it has been a long time since I needed to know any of the irregular conjugations that were standardized following the Saxon incorporation into the English speaking world so I just reach for one that I hoped would make sense even if not actually accurate. 
 
Soar. 

What you did there, I see it.

What an astonishing bit of melliflous gobbledygook.  

^^
 
Soar. 

It just occurred to me that "Thor Ragnarok" aka "Thor 3 guest starring Hulk" will have both Hulk & Loki in the same film since Avengers. Can only hope for a "puny god" rematch!
 
And having Hulk guest star is a sensible business move as it strengthens the Thor series--which while successful in itself--is less successful when compared to Captain America & Iron Man series. Secondly Hulk as a fan favourite character but IIRC Paramount still has rights to any solo Hulk film so Marvel would need to coordinate with them for any Hulk sequel & a Thor film bypasses this headache. So win-win for Marvel. And anyway, a Hulk-Loki rematch would be enough to sell the movie to fans.

Good point, maybe it'd go something like this:
 
Wells: "Aha! I refused to help you! If you harm my daughter, you've lost your only bargaining chip!"
 
Zoom: "Ssso, you won't help me?"
 
Wells: "You'd be a fool to kill my daughter, she's your only bargaining chip!"
 
Zoom: "Well, thiss reality has something called the Hero Games Forum, and I have learned a thing or two!"
 
<Zoom tortures Jesse a bit.>
 
Zoom: "The torture will stop when you start helping advance my plan!"
 
Wells: "Woe is me! If only I had thought that he might start torturing my daughter, I'd have cooperated sooner and saved her the pain!"
 
Oh, wait. Maybe he did think of torture, and wants to cooperate before it gets to that stage. Given Zoom's penchant for being cruel (you know, by doing stuff like breaking Barry's spine and then running all over town waving him around like a rag doll), it's just possible that Wells has been afraid of what may be happening to his daughter all this time, and having seen her unharmed (relatively), he's desperate to keep her that way.

Zoom's not being inexplicably merciful with Wells. He's using him. You can't use a tool if you break it. Pretty simple explanation.

If you're looking at Hero-based Shadowrun-alike, have you seen Kazei 5?

I actually didn't expect the name of Joe's son.
 
And I thought the evil Santa was a darned devious plot.

How did you come up with your 'handle' (forum name)? "Susano" was my first email address (susano@digex.com) and I've used Susano ever since. Susano was selected since I was a huge fan of the manga Orion, and my friend who created the account used the name of one of the main characters for my handle. I've used "Susano" for my net handle ever since.
What was the first tabletop RPG you played? Basic Dungeons and Dragons (i.e. the original blue book)
What was the first tabletop RPG you GMed? Advanced Dungeons and Dragons
What are you currently playing/GMing? Friday Group - Dungeons and Dragons 5E 
Saturday Group - Shadows Angelus (HERO System 6E)
Sunday Group - The Well of the Worlds (HERO System 6E)
 
I am playing in Friday and Saturday and am GMing Sunday.

I really enjoyed the last episode of The Flash. I thought that episode, more than any other, captured the flavor of comics - over the top characters, impossible to fathom setup, and general "good guys win in the end" with a stupid gimmick all capped off with a "but next time!!!" ending. For people who love comic book versions more than the normal TV versions, how was this episode not exactly what you wanted? 
 
I personally enjoyed the episode for what it was - a bit of a lighthearted break from the standard formula with a strong emotional undercurrent regarding acceptance of one's lot in life: Nothing will change that RF killed Barry's mom, nor Spivot's father, nor the time lost with Wally; what matters is how those characters cope with the cards they've been given. And so far all of them are making the 'heroic' choice by overcoming their baser emotions. I also really liked that they brought in Wally as a character at the same time they clarified the motives for Zoom. It would seem to foreshadow a link between the two. Perhaps Wally will gain the Speed Force powers and team up with Barry to finish this plot line? I have my own hopeful idea of what could happen from this but it seems to wild to actually publicly speculate on with. 

Soar. 

It's not just Strange's origin story. It is, in a sense, the origin story of "magic" in the MCU beyond what little we've seen in the Thor films. Maybe not so much the origin of magic per se, but Strange's journey from rationalist to sorceror becomes our journey as we learn the nature of magic in the MCU right along with him. I am weary of origin stories too, but I kind of feel this an important one, and an important one to get right for the future of multi-dimensional "magic" in the MCU.

Finnish Bluegrass AC/DC Cover.

It really hasnt. Everyone has gotten way over sensitive. Thats not the fault of technology.
 
When we have serious discussion on whether the new droid BB-8 is male or female, thats how I know PC sensitivity has officially jumped the shark.