unclevlad
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Posts posted by unclevlad
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19 minutes ago, Starlord said:
Umm...Elle de la Cruz stole 2nd, 3rd and home in the same inning tonight.
Nuff said.
In *2 pitches* no less. On June 4th, the Reds were 26-33; they've gone 24-7 since (!!!!). They've gone from afterthought to one of the hottest watches in the game.
Detroit Tigers used 3 pitchers...starter went 6 2/3, bridge guy got 4 outs, closer for the 9th...for a 2-0 no-hitter. And this was vs. Toronto, not Oakland.
So which one wins Feat of the Day? CLOSE call in my book. Complete game no hitter, I'd have to give priority, simply given the rarity of complete games these days. But 3 steals in 2 pitches is pure insanity.
It also brings up: I've seen QUITE a few steals of home this year. I have baseball on the TV quite often, as a distraction. I think there were entire seasons I didn't see any attempted steals of home, but this year? I think I can remember...4? In the last month or so? Some of this has to be the limited disengagement/throw over rules, but I think another factor is, this has brought up just how BAD many pitchers are at holding runners on. Playing Launch Angle Long Ball was likely a *serious* factor in making teams HIGHLY risk-averse, in stealing bases at all, much less home. There are still teams that do that, but several teams have adjusted and are willing to play Small Ball. -
3 hours ago, Cancer said:
EDIT: Hm, found one. The Cranberries had a single titled Zombie in 1994, later (2000) covered by Miley Cyrus.
Jumping back to this, there's a possibly less known but more significant cover by Bad Wolves...look at the intro, at least...it's most poignant....
Yeah, I'd forgotten this song. VERY powerful song. This is the Cranberries original.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ejga4kJUts -
This combines aspects of both the VPP and MP.
1. It's primarily defined by pool size and control size. Pool size is in real points; control size is in active points. This part is identical to a VPP.
2. The control cost is 1/2 the pool size.
3. Framework powers are organized by slots like an MP. They can be fixed or variable, like an MP.
4. The slot costs are FREE, up to the amount of the control cost. After that, they're paid for just like MP slots.
5. Common limitations that apply to the entire pool reduces the control cost and the "slot costs"...but also reduce the amount of free slot points. It's still a net savings, tho.
5. There's no skill roll and no time, because these are fixed slots.
Why suggest this? Mostly it's for more complex MPs...but ones where Limited Powers in a VPP won't make up for the VPP's penalties. The issue is that the size of an MP is ambiguous. Is it active or real points? If the MP has a common limitation, while some slots have limitations and others don't...what's the math to determine which powers can be used together? Separating pool size and control size is the VPP solution, and it's a good one. Every slot now has a clean active cost AND real cost, so determining which slots can be used together is easy.
This is the framework that got me thinking this way, using the hybrid form:
"Multipower", 80 base + 87 control cost, (124 Active Points); all slots Unified Power (-1/4)
-- Clairsentience (Sight Group And Normal Hearing), Mobile Perception Point (can move up to 12m per Phase), Costs Endurance Only To Activate (+1/4), NRM (+1/2), MegaScale (1m = 1 km; +1) (82 Active Points, 66 Real)
-- TK (40 STR), Fine Manipulation, Reduced Endurance (1/2 END; +1/4) (87 Active Points, 70 real)
-- TK (36 STR), Reduced Endurance (1/2 END; +1/4) (67 Active Points); Limited Range (-1/4) (45 real)
-- TK Blast: (Total: 85 Active Cost, 57 Real Cost) Blast 4d6 (vs. PD), PLUS Blast 8d6 (vs. PD), Reduced Endurance (1/2 END; +1/4); Half Range Modifier (+1/4), Limited Range (-1/4) (25 + 60 Active Points per part)
-- Flight 18m, x4 Noncombat, Reduced Endurance (1/2 END; +1/4) (29 Active Points, 23 Real)
While flying, he can't use the Fine Manip TK or clairsentience; he can use the coarser TK, or the blast. Working out the pool size is trivial to get things to fit in. This framework would allow 35 points in "slots" for free (44, reduced by the -1/4 limitation); it's got 26 right now.
This wouldn't replace the RAW MP in all cases...like when you have a few 10d6 Blasts and Flashes, where the total slot costs are quite low. Or it might just need some limitations specifically on the control size to reduce it...and thus, the "free slots" you'd get in this framework.
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57 minutes ago, Old Man said:
Story says it's not a rare edition of that work but...published 2 years after Maxwell's death? And in good condition???
I wouldn't be terribly surprised if the book's not worth more than the total fine. Understand: James Clerk Maxwell is probably the most important physicist of the 19th century. His work is the foundation of electromagnetics.
https://www.rootenbergbooks.com/pages/books/15414/j-c-maxwell/a-treatise-on-electricity-and-magnetismThis is only 1 of the 2 volumes, so I think it'd be worth less than half...but still....
Abe Books has 2 listings for the 1873, first edition...at $17K and $25K for both volumes. -
Yeah, sad for Cav.
Jasper Philipsen is cleaning up on the green jersey competition. 3 stage wins already; 2nd today. He's already opened up a 100+ point gap over the rest of the field. A sprint stage win is worth 50, but the high finishes also give substantial points.
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A new category?
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On 7/4/2023 at 7:29 AM, Cancer said:
Huh. MLB All-Star Game is here in Seattle next week. Shows how much attention I've been paying.
It's baseball. How much attention SHOULD you pay, before September anyway?
FREAKISH piece of trivia from tonight's D'backs game. 4 different times, they've had pitchers with 10+ wins by the All Star break.All 4 are named Zac(k). Zack Greinke had 10, twice; Zack Godley had 11 once. Zac Gallen has 10...and is up 7-1 after pitching 7 solid innings.
EDIT: second piece of trivia...yeah, it's a 7-1 game in the 8th. D'backs bring in a 21 year old kid to pitch, making his first big league appearance. Throws 100+, but somewhat wild, so gotta love the cushion of a 6 run lead. Anyway, turns out...he's the 23,004th different player to play in the majors...so they just missed. #23,000 was a pitcher for Baltimore, on July 3rd.
That's a lotta ballplayers.....
Kid walks first batter...strikes out the 2nd. Save that ball! -
According to Wikipedia, NOT a cover. Jeff Lynne wrote it for the movie; ONL was the lead actress so she sang it, and Lynne and ELO provided instrumentals and backup vocals.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xanadu_(Olivia_Newton-John_and_Electric_Light_Orchestra_song)
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For the first one...
Naked Advantage: Penetrating (+1/2) for up to 30 Active Points of RKAs, AOE (4m Radius; +1/4), UBO (+1/4), Constant (+1/2)
Naked advantages have 2 sections. The naked part...that's what applies to the other powers. Here, it's just Penetrating, applying to RKAs. A naked advantage is itself a power and it has a base cost, so the rest...the AoE, the UBO, and the Constant are just standard modifiers on a power. Per 6E1 314, a naked advantage has a duration of Instant, so you need the Constant.
For the spell booster...the only difference is that Penetrating would go to Variable Advantage, mechanically anyway. Maybe tweak to the AoE. The bigger concern is whether it's balanced...which is enough of a problem on the first one. These are slapping a LOT of extra punch to a potentially significant number of attacks.
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What TAKES so freaking long????
Just under 4 years ago, a self-described white nationalist and hatemonger drove 10 hours to open fire at the Wal Mart in El Paso, ultimately killing 23 people.
Today, after only a 3 day trial where he pled guilty to 90 (!) counts including murder and hate crime charges, he was sentenced to 90 consecutive life terms.
He was caught. He flat out said "I'm the shooter." But it still took just under 4 years.
He showed little or no remorse. These were federal charges. Texas is going to prosecute on state charges...and they will seek the death penalty. Generally I think that's a bit pointless, myself, but...it's been some time since I've heard of someone who deserves it more, so I'm ok with it.
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Stephanos Tsitsipas has had plausibly the hardest opening 2 rounds in Wimbledon history, particularly for a high seed...he's the 5 seed.
First round? Thiem...former #3, but ranking crashed and burned from a wrist injury. Thiem hasn't had great results this year but it's hard to come back.
2nd round? Andy Murray. Former #1, and 2-time winner...AND a national hero in England.
Pair of HARD!!! 5 set matches, exacerbated by rain issues, which has been a big problem. Some of the commentators have criticized the tournament because many 2nd round matches were started before held-over 1st round matches.
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If you want a bit of a shock?
Google "mortar on head."
It's happened 2 other times!!!!! in 8 years.
Darwin Award winners, indeed...
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The range is a small factor; disarming doesn't send the blade a long distance away. The visibility...no, that's not relevant, IMO. The key point is that it's largely recoverable as a zero phase action..."get back here!" And that will be possible in MOST circumstances.
Push comes to shove, how different is "I can call it back from 10 meters away" than "I create it with my power"? In game mechanics, the biggest factor is that the created blade is utterly indetectable...it doesn't exist...until you create it. The recoverable blade does exist, it has to be on your person. It can be detected, should that matter. The chance that it gets disarmed, then kicked 10 meters away? Ehhh, that feels rather rich, doesn't it?
So you can probably get away with Physical Manifestation; in fact, it's one of the optional uses, since HA or HKA is in that weird mixed class of Ongoing Instants.
Note that OIF disallows Grab. The teleport negates Grab *and* Disarm.
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14 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:
Hi (Fire) from the villain group Yoshoo has a sword defined as OIF because though you can disarm it. It teleports back into the villains hand. Then range was 10” if I remember correctly.
That is not a focus at all. We've had that discussion before...with SFX almost exactly like this. The return to hand invalidates the notion of being disarmed/removed. At best, it might count as Physical Manifestation.
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Was curious about the odds. DraftKings makes Vingegaard a *slight* favorite at -110 (bet $110 to win $100), Pogacar is even money. Hindley is 3rd at 35-1, Carlos Rodriguez is 65-1, Adam Yates is 100-1, and no one else is better than 200-1. To a point, that's because if circumstances conspire so that part of the field *does* produce a winner, exactly who it'll be is something of a crapshoot.
But mostly, it's because the entire field is given almost no chance...maybe 1 in 15...as long as one of the top two survives the entire route.
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The true yellow jersey battle came into focus in the Tour today. Vingegaard blew the field away with an insane pace on the biggest climb of the day...except for Pogacar. They went up the last climb largely alone...until with about 3 km to go, Pogacar makes a massive burst that catches Vingegaard off guard.
Pogacar wins the stage. Vingegaard takes over yellow, but Pogacar cuts about 20-odd seconds from his gap. And makes a major statement that Vingegaard won't have it all his way.
EDIT: Yeah, it's pretty much already down to a 2 man race. Hindley had the yellow yesterday, and did pretty well...but still dropped to 3rd overall. Vingegaard has only 25 seconds on Pogacar now, Hindley is over a minute behind Pogacar...and Simon Yates is another minute and a half back.
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You can also put common limitations on the pool itself, which help reduce the pool size...that's in Real Points...and also apply to the control cost. For example:
Variable Power Pool, 41 base + 62 control cost, Powers Can Be Changed As A Half-Phase Action (+1/2) (87 Active Points); Blast, Flash, RKA (-1/2); all slots Limited Range (-1/4)
slot: Blast 10d6 (vs. ED), Reduced Endurance (1/2 END; +1/4) (62 Active Points); No Knockback (-1/4)
slot: Blast 10d6 (vs. ED), (50 Active Points)
67 character points. Total sum of powers is 41 Real Points...in this case, generally, it'll be just one power, but that doesn't have to be the case. The control size sets the maximum Active Points. The base cost for it is 1/2 the size...so 31 points. WIth a 1/2 advantage for half phase to switch, 31 -> 46. 46 points for control. The Blast,Flash,RKA limitation says only these powers can be included. This gives a -1/2 limitation on the control size. Last: ALL the powers must take Limited Range, it's a Common Modifier. Thus, it'll be applied to all the slots. This also reduces the control cost. 46 points with -1/2 limitation would be 31....but with the additional -1/4, drops to 26 points. That's how you get the final cost for this VPP, 67 points. Note that this does NOT include the cost of the Power skill that is implicit in this definition.
On the slots, note that I can build a 62 active point slot...but I have to apply another -1/4 limitation to get the cost down to 41. OR, I can skip any additional limitations, in which case, the power can have only 51 active points. Note that this differs from doing it as a Multipower. If I want an MP that supports 62 point slots, it's 62 points. I can apply the common limitation Limited Range, that'll drop it to 50. BUT, applying No KB, or Reduced Pen, or whatever, onto specific slots only reduces the *slot* costs. It doesn't reduce the overall cost of the MP.
IF the -1 1/2 in limitations can be Common Limitations on all the Multiforms, then we get:
Variable Power Pool, 40 base + 100 control cost, (90 Active Points); all slots multiple limits totalling... (-1 1/2)
Multiform (500 Character Points in the most expensive form) (100 Active Points)
And the whole thing costs 60 points. I didn't put a Limited Powers limitation onto the pool itself, because of the inherent flexibility of Multiform...but also note that when there's -1 1/2 in common limitations, it won't matter that much. The control cost started at 50, it's already dropped to 20, and the diminishing returns is kicking in heavily...especially since it's only on 50 points.
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Plus, wasn't this guy's goal to make theatrical movies the priority? Granted, these were rather far along, IIRC, before he took over, but what this mostly suggests is he may have little or no leash. He'll need to have a hit *soon*.
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5 minutes ago, FenrisUlf said:
I apologize if this doesn't belong here or not, but has anyone heard or read about the 15-year-old in NYC who dressed up as Spider-man and got lured off to a beating by several older kids, which they cheerily taped and uploaded, complete with their faces? Spidey-fan got a broken nose out of it.
Not really here. Political thread if you think it has political overtones; this doesn't appear to have those. Extra! Extra! for general stories like this...like the man who stole the forklift and deliberately ran over a woman in the process. This thread's for cases when we can say "how can someone be so STUPID as to do THAT?" or the like. This case, from what I've read...simple google search brought it up...appears to be bullying...nothing more, altho that in no way is intended to be dismissive. The girl who struck the kid has been ID'd, arrested, and charged with FELONY assault...so it's no joke.
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I was reminded of something. Wasn't this date, sorry, it was June 30th...but on that day in 2013, the Yarnell Hill wildfire, ignited by dry lightning a few days earlier, in difficult, rugged terrain in Arizona, and complicated by "an extreme and sudden shift in weather patterns," 19 members of the Granite Hill Hotshots crew were killed fighting the blaze. One article I saw that I can't find now, indicated that was the 3rd worst death toll among firefighters, in US history...the 2 that were worse, date back to, IIRC, 1910 and 1933. The only survivor of the team was a lookout who was separate from the rest. It was a devastating blow to the community.
So even if it's a couple days late, it is worth remembering.
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And bringing on a cost slasher does not bode well in any case, for one's future endeavors. Especially for action movies.
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1 hour ago, Cygnia said:
He keeps diggin' that hole!
Smiling tourist who defaced Rome’s ancient Colleseum claims he didn’t know the structure was so old
IIRC they did say that was a newer wall, but...yeah.
He also apologized, but I suspect he's gonna be REAL sorry here soon enough:
QuoteIf convicted, he faces a fine of between €2,500 and €15,000 and a prison sentence of two to five years.
A hypothetical hybrid framework.
in HERO System Discussion
Posted
To explain a bit, perhaps clarify...
One of the nice improvements in 6E was separating a VPP's pool size and control size/cost. Very nice, very flexible.
So that's what this suggestion is based on. Pool size is pool size. When you say control size is separate, the ability to have large powers needs to be expressed as its own cost function. My first cut is to just put it at 1/2. These are still MP-style slots, tho...the slot list is fixed, the powers are fixed. So, let the control cost give that many points to be used on the slots.
It's not for a powers list with extensive flexibility, like, say, Blasts that can use 2-3 different SFX, where you want to cover normal blasts, AoEs, and even Autofires for *each*. And maybe a Flash and an NND targeting Flash Def. That's a whole lotta slots.
VPPs also have a notable issue with pricing limited powers available...in this framework, it's simply not an issue.