unclevlad

Hey, the Raiders aren't just tanking, they're running a pump from the outside to drain things faster.  Can any team with a shred of self-respect match that?

https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/26/health/flu-deaths-2017--2018-cdc-bn/index.html

Still think the flu's nothing?  

80,000 deaths.  That is an eye-popping number.

Yeah, in some ways this is likely to be the most messy outcome, and a big negative is that messy is chaotic, and Trump thrives on chaos.  And it's a ways away, but don't be surprised if there's a government shutdown in fall 2019.

I'm just hoping it won't turn out to be Nightmare on Elm Street as the evening progresses.

Plus, high-volatility rolls can dictate extreme tactics.  If you can one-shot an opponent that needs a lot of grinding down otherwise, then it makes sense to go for the constant head shot or whatever...so *your side* doesn't get smacked by one.  
 

Much of this is going to be group-style dependent, too.  And group-tactical.  How much negative impact would a PC death have?  What kinda guidelines are there for attacks and defenses...is the volatility being considered?  That sort of stuff.  Or, if the volatility is high...do PCs go for The Best Defense is a Good Offense, and push for fast drops with just a little luck on their side?  A major risk here can be an arms race, if you will, between the PCs and the GM.  It's generally not good GMing but it can easily happen.....

3 hours ago, Cancer said:

Another reason I didn't go into chemistry

Biology wouldn't be a lot better, as there's still access to plenty of nasty stuff.

But the perp is just one sick SOB.

1 hour ago, Ninja-Bear said:

Doc remember too that you can also fail on the wild die when rolling to soak damage. Now since I like Hero points, I could see them being used as character points/force points in SW. I’ve rolled 3 wild 6’s in a row just to blow the damage roll.

 

Hugh another thing that bothers about your analysis of 3 ones will definitely come up -as it won’t, is that when it does it’s not a guarantee that it will be from a super deadly attack. Unless you play with villains with EVERY ATTACK ALL THE TIME, it’s not statically going to happen. 

Failing to soak is irrelevant;  we're talking about the *potential* damage the attack can do, not the actual.  Soak's part of the defense, not part of the attack.

And yes, you can get a triple explosion...even on 1 die.  What we're talking about is the statistical analysis, what's gonna happen over the long term.  The AVERAGE damage on an exploding d6 is only 20% higher than on a straight d6.  On the flip side, the *variance* is enormous...it's over 10.  So with 3d exploding, it's 30...so the standard deviation is 5.5.  And this is an open-ended distribution;  there's no upper bound.  We're often a little below the mean...but we can go WAY above it from time to time.

Wrote up a quick and dirty Java program that generated 20,000 sets of exploding 3d6 rolls.  Here's a frequency chart:

The x axis is a little off, and I'm not that driven to fix it.  The left-most result is 3, and the 3 most likely rolls are 9, 10, and 11...which is actually what you'd expect.  The probability that the total will exceed 23 is less than 5%.  Contrast that with "crits doing double damage."  When a crit *does* happen, it's 50-50 to be 22 or higher.

Another point.  In exploding dice games, you always know the risk is there, so you change what's considered adequate defenses.  In Hero, if you want to basically bounce 3d6 killing, you go 12-14 resistant and call it good.  Or 8-10 perhaps, if you're bloody hard to hit and don't mind a potentially grittier tone.  If playing with 3d6 exploding using Hero's damage and defense concepts, you probably need about 15...and you're still looking at getting mauled for a lot of Body.  (And both damage negation and reduction become MASSIVELY more valuable.)  In regular-dice Hero with crits, the crits are uncommon...but you're not prepared for them.

On the global warming front...

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/environmental-impact-cryptocurrency-mining,38023.html

Because mining rigs are centered on honkin' big, fast graphics cards...they run the parallel operations better than general-use CPUs.  But they're POWER HUNGRY, and quite often, this is ALL they're doing.  I've never worried about buying a high-end graphics card cuz I don't do games that need them, but I did watch the ads and availability issues.  Prices did SKYROCKET and no one ever kept any in stock.

And now...the concern is the energy consumption just from this may well contribute notably to global warming.  Lest ye scoff...how many people actually *realize* the energy cost from running their systems full-out 24/7?  They see the allure of "free money"...not the actual cost.  And given the sheer number of GITS who scrabble desperately for pocket change.....I can see the problem..........

How bout them Cowboys!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah boy, that Jerry's a genius.

Mind Control is a very bad fit...not completely wrong, but Mental Illusions is a better fit.  Plus, Mental Illusions DOES support doing Stun...even Stun and Body...which Mind Control cannot do.  To be sure, they generally will both work, they're the same cost, and the fundamental level of effort is more or less the same.  I daresay people prefer Mind Control because it's probably the more generally useful power;  not only can you neutralize someone, but you can actually turncoat them.  There may be ways to do this with a mental illusion but it's gonna be MUCH harder.  

Oh, and +20 Illusion can force the victim to think the illusion was real after it dissipates, which is better.  +10 Mind Control, vic doesn't remember actions...kind of meaningless.  +20, vic remembers AND thinks they were natural.  So there's more things you can do to hose the vic...probably including having them debilitated for a while after the illusion's gone.  WIth Mind Control, you can do that with a command like "run all out until you collapse"...but that's rather more obvious and not at all natural.  

Come to think, if you want to induce something that visually looks like a grand mal seizure...which would be a really good idea, because someone just standing there paralyzed is clearly under SOME kind of outside influence...I think that would only be possible with Mental Illusions, and that'd be at the +40, do Stun, level.  AND...do enough Stun and you'll get the poor sucker pulling a Rip van Winkle.

Pariah, you've got my sympathies!  I hear ya!  Pretty sure I've only gotten 2 calls today, but I was actually tempted to post that today should be declared

National Don't Answer the Phone Day

I think it's only been 2 because a)  I switched numbers on my landline about a year ago, and b)  it's now VOIP, so the call blocking is more automated.  But most likely, it's because the new number's not out there.  Neither number was recognizable, tho, so....I'm comfortable assuming they were political spam.

Facebook also deleted Trump's last-minute scare immigration ad because of blatant misleading/false statements.

I think the RPG.net explanation for their decision is crucially important.  Effectively, they're asserting Trump's comments slide near/into hate speech, or support for hate-related groups.

One thing of concern with a SPD 12 villain is how easy it might be for him to escape...which may or may not be a bad thing.  But something to keep in mind.

Grand mal seizures can also cause memory loss.  I quite literally remember almost nothing from when I was a kid, until my seizures reduced.  Even as a teen, I didn't remember.

I wouldn't do this as a Drain, I'd do it as a Transform because the All or Nothing aspect feels more correct.  You either induce the seizure or you don't, because when in a seizure, the effect is severe.  That said, I also like the Mental Illusion approach...NOT Mind Control, as you can't tell him what to do, you're imposing a mental state on him.  BUT, I'd probably argue for EGO+40 required...EGO+30 to reach "victim no longer interacts with environment" and the +10 to take stun damage.

Yeah, the mean value of an exploding die is actually not *that* much higher.  

Say we roll a single d6 36 times.  Then the theoretical result is 6 each of 1-5 (averaging to 3) and 6 6's.  The 6's get re-rolled...one of each.  For the sake of cutting things off, let's just assert that the last case here does NOT roll a 3rd 6.  Call it a 4 instead.

So, 30 of the rolls give a total of 90.  The other 6 give 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 16 (the double explosion).  That's another 61, so the total for all 36 rolls is 151.  Ergo, the average roll is now 4.2...rather than 3.5.

Exploding d6's adds 20% to the mean damage.  What it does do is massively increase the variance...because the distribution now is *sharply* non-normal.  

Actually, Oklahoma is giving up 28 a game on average, as of this week.

And Texas Tech is #9 in scoring offense at over 42 a game.

My favorite pizza is a very thin crust, fennel sausage and mushroom, from a wood-fired oven.  It's not overpowering, which certainly fennel can be.

Then again, I use fresh fennel, when I can harvest some, in my chicken soup.  Stalks and leaves.  I've also made clay oven chicken, with fennel (bulb and stalk, and leaves if they don't trim them), onions, mushrooms, tomatoes, and whatever all else.  Nothing like the intensity of fennel seed.

The scary part of that "hot dog pie" is you really NEED to see the disclaimer that it's a joke.  I've seen some truly hideous concoctions that are apparently real menu items at restaurants, where they throw together 8 or 12 different things...meats, sides, condiments...into a ridiculous, chaotic mess.  

And of course, there's always 60s tuna casserole.  Potato chips, Durkee fried onions, canned tuna (BLEAH) and condensed cream of mushroom soup.  If you never had it inflicted on you?  Count your blessings.  American everyday "family home cooking" in this period...50s, 60s, probably into the 70s to a degree...was disastrous.

Yeah, it took a bit but I worked that out....DOH! 

Oh, this is the 20180806 build.

30 STR

Aura of Power:  resistant defenses (10/10/10 Power).  This is also in a multi with his ranged attack powers, in a variable slot, and the ranged powers are built to allow the aura to be maintained while blasting, albeit much lower.

Now, trying to add Reduced END to STR, 1/2 END.  7 active.  Linked to Aura of Power  only used at full intensity.  HD is saying the cost is -9.

I think it's giving me a cost break on the base STR.

1 hour ago, Iuz the Evil said:

 

Play West Virginia on my birthday. C'mon, now. Really?

Wait...

You think about your BIRTH day????

DH vs. no DH...

As things stand now, I don't think there's a good argument against the DH.  Specialization is fundamentally the rule for all but the top 10% of players, regardless of position.  If we can't teach hitters to go the other way to beat the shift, regardless of the situation, then why should pitchers be compelled to hit?  All we ever want is dingers;  strikeouts are fine, even with the bases loaded and no one out.  The notion that the DH is "not baseball" is fundamentally ludicrous now, with the way the game has moved.  

Yeah, it bites.  The current game is DULL...and that's saying something, as baseball's never been consistently a high-action game.

I also think the direction of the "opener" is gonna take hold more and more *in the American League*....because it's so much easier to implement with a DH.  Not all the time, but at least in spots.  If it works, then there'll be more incentive for the National League to do it, and thus more pressure for them to adopt the DH.  And I do *loathe* that one team has it, and the other doesn't.  That's just asinine, IMO.

5 hours ago, archer said:

Honestly, the reason we have a Constitution is so that crap like that can't happen. It's to our shame that we as a country have allowed violations of the Constitution in the past. But in my opinion, shameful blatantly unconstitutional acts of the past are not a valid argument to allow such violations in the future.

 

2 cents

The point isn't "allow."  The root fact is, major violations have occurred in the past, the internment of the Japanese, which included natural-born US citizens, probably being the most egregious from a pure civil liberties perspective.  Your argument is more theoretical...that it'd be illegal to do so...but that won't matter until AFTER the fact.  The damage can/will be done.

And the point with Lincoln shows that what's allowed is determined in large measure by political will.  It's not enough to scream "you cant' do that!" if you don't have the clout to push back.  The Japanese internment also shows this...and it was actually UPHELD as constitutional.  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hirabayashi_v._United_States)

It is extremely dangerous to say the Constitution is anything more than words, which can be ignored when it's convenient to do so.

3 hours ago, archer said:

The Texas Rangers and the Baltimore Orioles were two of the worst teams in baseball last time around.*

 

Which of those two team do you think are more likely to make the playoffs in 2019 (or barring that, which will have the better record)?

 

 

*Assuming you consider what the American League does to be "baseball".

Orioles don't have a snowball's chance of making the playoffs.  There's no reason why a team loses a near-record number of games...because there's a hundred reasons.  They're top to bottom BAD.  Baseball is a game where no one player can make *that* much of an improvement.  25th in team slugging, LAST in team ERA, 29 in team ERA+ (tweaks for the effects of home park).

It's at least possible the Rangers can pull it off, but it's not at all likely.  No reason to see Astros fade just yet, so they have to go the WC route.  But it's likely Sox and Yanks also stay up there, so there's only one spot left.  A's, Mariners, and Rays were all pretty good.  Now, it's wildly unlikely all 3 will *stay* good...but by the same token, I don't see all 3 of them fading.  

And neither team has a particularly rich minor league talent pool...both are basically middle of the pack, as of forecasts from the end of this year's minor league season.

Between them, well, you gotta figure the Rangers will have more wins, because they're starting from 20 games ahead.  Plus, they don't have to face *2* juggernaut teams in their division...just 1.

3 hours ago, Cancer said:

Crazy enough it just might be true

Nah, I don't think so.  Gruden's ego is too big.  If he could wreck it from the outside?  Possibly.  But he's not gonna sink the ship while he's on it.  The bare fact, far as I can tell, is he's a tyrannical little martinet with a total "my way is the only way" mindset.  

Interesting article over on Yahoo:

https://sports.yahoo.com/nfl-alarmed-raiders-disintegrating-jon-gruden-060137437.html

The new NFL power rankings should come out with the Raiders at 40th.