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Klytus

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Posts posted by Klytus

  1. Quote of the Week From My Life.

    in Non-Gaming Discussion

    Posted

    [h=5]So there I was, eating my breakfast, while the love-of-my-life was on her laptop...

     

    Her: ::watching the Google-doodle:: Oh, look! It must be Henry Ford's birthday.

    Me: ::blinking in disbelief, trying to figure out if she's trolling me or something:: Huh?

    Her: I mean, they've got an assembly line going, and he pioneered that.

    Me: Well, I'm gonna go out on a limb, here, and assume that the doodle might have something to do with it being Mother's Day today!

    Her: Oooohhh![/h]

  4. The cranky thread

    in Non-Gaming Discussion

    Posted

    Re: The cranky thread

     

    I am about as close as I have ever been to completely imploding. Not only are we staring down the abyss of our own fiscal cliff, but I just learned that my ex-wife never took my name off of the mortgage the way she was legally obligated to have done 5 years ago according to the terms of our settlement. Even better, there was also a period of time where that mortgage was in foreclosure, which put a nice big black mark on my credit history. The final insult to this injury is that I only learned about this when trying to secure a new line of credit with a new credit union to help us find some short-term-relief in avoiding the aforementioned fiscal cliff, and was very perplexed when the credit officer was asking me about my history with mortgage payments.

     

    Yes, I have pinged a lawyer about what legal action I can take to address the later situation.

     

    As for the former...

     

    ...I'm just an absolute wreck.

  8. The cranky thread

    in Non-Gaming Discussion

    Posted

    Re: The cranky thread

     

    "Do you want to know my secret?" Bruce Banner asks the assembled Avengers. "I'm always angry." I've never really been a huge fan of the Hulk' date=' but in that moment, I knew him. I knew him like I know myself, because he is me. Sure, I'd like to be Tony Stark -- suave, sophisticated, smart, a lady's man and a man's man. Or Steve Rogers, sure of myself, certain of my mission, with a goal and a calling much bigger than myself, admired and loved by everyone around him. But I'm Banner, alone and filled with an anger that I don't really understand and can't safely express.[/quote']

     

    You have my empathy. Been there. Done that. Never going back there again.

  11. Musings on Random Musings

    in Non-Gaming Discussion

    Posted

    Re: Musings on Random Musings

     

    My first memories of growing up were with my mother living with her parents right after she divorced my dad. They (the grandparents) were very Catholic, so they were always going to Church, and usually taking us (me and mom) with them. My mom was not very religious, though, so once she re-married and we moved out, that was the last I saw of Church. Then I was sent to a Catholic High School. True, mom sent me there mainly because it was a college prep school, but religion was still pretty unavoidable.

     

    For most of my life, I considered myself Christian and spiritual, but never religious. Then, in late 2008, early 2009, I had a pretty severe case of cognitive dissonance with certain important elements of Christianity, which (to me) made it impossible for me to keep calling myself Christian. I was spiritually adrift for a while, and found my way into Paganism. There is really no "label" for my Path, though I once heard someone describe me as a "solitary shamanic eclectic practitioner". In other words, I'm not part of a group or coven, and most strongly resonate with shamanism, but will still draw elements from other traditions which also resonate with me.

     

    In fact, today my wife and I are marking the Solstice by driving to the Luray Caverns to pursue personal spiritual guidance.

  13. Quote of the Week From My Life.

    in Non-Gaming Discussion

    Posted

    Re: Quote of the Week From My Life.

     

    Friend 1: My mother and I were talking about Christmas and how she got the Fluxx Cthulhu game for my fiance for Christmas.

    Me: Hee!

    Friend 1: Instead of calling it Cthulhu she called it chalupa.

    Me: Oh.My.God.

    Friend 1: So now I am picturing a chiuaua with tentacles.

    Me: Whereas I have an image of a giant chalupa rising from the sea...

    Friend 2: Mmm tasty eldergods... with nacho sauce!

    Friend 3: May I have a baja Cthulhu with pico de gallo?

  15. Quote of the Week From My Life.

    in Non-Gaming Discussion

    Posted

    Re: Quote of the Week From My Life.

     

    Was listening to a Dr Karl podcast, where he was discussing a Cold War plan to Nuke The Moon.

    Dr Karl
    : "Even if we used all the nukes we had at the height of the Civil War... I mean, Cold war..."

    Purrdence
    : Somebody is writing up a very alternate RPG setting as we speak

    Me
    : It'd make a pretty alternate
    Gone With The Wind
    , too "As God is my witness, I will never be radioactive again!"

     

    Oh, dear gods. If the North and South had nukes, we'd still be cleaning up the radioactive mess left behind...

  16. Musings on Random Musings

    in Non-Gaming Discussion

    Posted

    Re: Musings on Random Musings

     

    Oh, it does, but that's not the issue here.

     

    The lab in question is a moon observation lab; it takes no more than half an hour to collect the observations, and they get all quarter to do it. And I don't tell them this, but they are NOT graded on how close to the right answer they get. They have to watch the moon disappear behind a straightedge (like a building edge or sign), draw the moon as it appeared, indicate the first and last contact points, time how long the disappearance takes from first to last contact.

     

    I give them an average value for the angular diameter of the moon. The quantity they are supposed to be measuring is the lunar day (that is, the time between successive times when the moon crosses the meridian). I give them a trivial algebra formula on how to do that from those timings, and then simple ruler measurements of their drawings.

     

    So when their faked observations, even if they correctly describe the moon on the purported observation date (and the two clear fakes don't ... the terminator is on the wrong edge of the moon for the phase at that date) ... if they get spang on the right day length ... well, only if they observed when the moon crossed the meridian (because only then is the full lunar diurnal motion perpendicular to the vertical straightedge; otherwise a substantial component of the motion is parallel to the occulting edge and therefore they must get a too-long occultation) ... and only if the moon is at one of two particular points in its eccentric orbit when it is at the average earth-moon distance ... could they arrive at the correct value. Also, of course, the actual rate of motion of the moon varies over the month because of Kepler's 2nd law. But, of course, they don't know enough to check such things (I don't think it ever occurs to them that the angular diameter of the moon might be variable, or that the motion isn't a constant rate, even though they know that the orbit is, in fact, elliptical and they have duly memorized Kepler's Laws).

     

    In short, it's a multiple-layer trap for people who try to fake astronomical observations. The fakers assume they have to get close to the right answer, and forget/neglect all those things discussed in the orbital mechanics section about variable speeds and variable distances, and hoke stuff up based on simple circles and constant motions and perfect parallel or perpendicular vectors and so on. But as couched, it is very nearly impossible to get the right answer with the methods they've been given ... and while in principle they know enough to realize that, the fact that they've decided to fake it more or less rules out the possibility they'll bother to do the faking with adequate thought.

     

    Major kudos on crafting such a well-layered trap for catching cheats red-handed :)

  23. Quote of the Week From My Life.

    in Non-Gaming Discussion

    Posted

    Re: Quote of the Week From My Life.

     

    Wife: I have an odd craving for ginger ale and cranberry juice: it's the closest thing to a real drink.

    Me: That is a drink! Or did you mean "drink" as in booze?

    Wife: Exactly! It's kind of like a vodka and cranberry juice, except with ginger ale instead of vodka. In fact, it's pretty much exactly that!

    Me: This is so getting posted...

  24. Answers & Questions

    in Non-Gaming Discussion

    Posted

    Re: Answers & Questions

     

    A: If that's what we manufacture here' date=' no wonder we import everything else.[/quote']

     

    Q: Its the most addictive drug... err... greatest medicine ever created to help stave off "the plague". Why do you ask?

     

    A: As close as two things that are really close together.

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