unclevlad

Having 2 sais has only a few, very narrow, rules implications...disarming one doesn't leave him weaponless, and if he's bought it, Off Hand Defense and Two Weapon Fighting.  Otherwise, it's nothing but justification for Multiple Attack, or for "I feint with one to attack with the other."  

WIthout even trying to get seriously abusive, tho, why can't I define a pair of rings giving, say, 5/5 rDEF, and get a total of 10/10?  The rules are *silent* on this.  And even if they're IIFs, something this small would still save 7 points.  Or get more complex.  The thing that makes Hugh's obviously abusive is extending the doubling ad absurdem to drive the point home, but hey, how about 2 PD, 2 ED Negation, IIF (16 points)....x4.  Arm bands.  26 points for 80 points of negation, and it's...semi-plausible.

The doubling rule isn't the issue per se;  it's the failure to explain it properly.

The avalanche has begun.

Vegas gets 2 in the first;  Panthers get one bac early 2nd.

But Vegas gets another around the midpoint, then Panthers get stuck in their own zone, with one player who lost a stick...Vegas holds it in the zone for over 2 minutes, then score again.

4-1, just inside 7 minutes left in the 2nd.  Panthers haven't scored 4 in a game in this series.  It's far more likely this is gonna be game 2 all over again...Panthers have to push, which leaves openings, and Vegas is likely to pounce.  The live puck line is now at Vegas -3.5...at -140.  So the oddsmakers are favoring a 4 goal margin.  I'm thinking it may well be more.

EDIT...and 4 minutes later, another goal.  5-1.  Florida's gassed and flat.  DraftKings is giving you 22-1 if you want to bet the Panthers to win.  No thanks....

EDIT 2...and to close the coffin and lower it down into the grave, a goal with 1.2 seconds left in the period.  6-1. 

This may be Vegas, and there's plenty of Elvis impersonators...but the Stanley Cup is not leaving the building....

EDIT 3...9-3 final.  

Yeah.  9 goals.  One was empty net with about 5 minutes to go to make it 8-3, and at that point Florida called off the dogs and put the goalie back in until the clock ran out...the game was over.  And Vegas pushed one more in anyway.  

The illusion that an expansion team can't succeed has been utterly shattered.  Thanos wasted a finger snap on it, I'd say.  Vegas outscores Florida 26-12 in the 5 games.

8 hours ago, Pariah said:

The Rocky Horror Pitching Show made it to the World Series in 2007, only to be swept by the accursed Red Sox. They've rarely sniffed the postseason since.

 

This will likely remain the case until ownership changes. 

3 times in the postseason...but 2-7 in those games.  Mind, they're not the worst.  The data here's from 2018 but it's largely pertinent:

https://chartedinterests.wordpress.com/2018/07/11/every-mlb-teams-playoff-record-since-the-2000-season/

It's HARD to get out of the rut of mediocrity in baseball.  Draft picks bomb out regularly, even those commonly accepted as sound.  Pitching is such a nightmare...Strasburg, the entire Mets staff a few years ago.  SERIOUS arm injuries are epidemic...but no one's willing to entertain that Max Effort All the Time might be a Bad Idea, it seems.  So many teams end up being AAAA style...because too many of the players they develop get poached at the trade deadline, when it's trade em and get *something* or hold on and see them walk.

I think my favorite Iron Chef period was the first few years of Iron Chef America.  Mychal Simon was still pretty fun.  The later ones...not so much, and when they went, shall we say, populist, with some of the non-foodie judges...bleah.  I hadn't seen this, but this is apparently part of the reason Batali left...the scandal came a few years later:

Quote

However, in a May 2012 interview with The Atlantic, Batali later explained that he resented the decision to move away from serious food critics to "skinny little actresses" and other personalities he felt weren't credible enough to judge his cuisine.[4]

This is also the period where Food Network debuted Chopped...and around the time where, more generally, they where shifting heavily away from serious food to cooking as entertainment only.  Some shows that were...semi-ok, like Restaurant: Impossible, became transparently fake with some of the "oh you're doing too well, time for a crisis."  

3 hours ago, Pattern Ghost said:

 

I've always found that to be sound writing advice, but I'd caution against applying it too broadly. For example, I've never given that advice to a surgeon about to operate on me. 😉

Why not?  "Good" in that context is still a high standard.  And, are you willing to foot the surcharge that would be involved to get to something like "perfect?"

There is no context, IMO, where "the perfect is the enemy of the good" does not apply, so long as you recognize "good" isn't a fixed level.  

1 hour ago, Logan D. Hurricanes said:

I watched Iron Chef this morning doing battle swallow's nest. It did not look or sound appetizing at all. Even the commentators didn't sound impressed by the ingredient itself, but they were very impressed by the expense. $24,000 worth of swallows nest was purchased for this one battle. All they could talk about was the price. 

There were only a few of those that went THAT far into the woods, altho quite a few had fairly pricy ones.  Shark fin was used 3 times.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Iron_Chef_episodes

What blew me away more often wasn't the main ingredient, but the frequent, profligate use of things like truffle and sea urchin roe which are SERIOUSLY expensive.  Not swallow's nest expensive, but crazy high.  IIRC, on a Christmas battle, the chef made a lobster broth out of some crazy number of lobsters...and only wanted the broth.  Then again, there were those flip sides, where the main ingredient was so incredibly common and banal...milk, yam.

I'd kinda forgotten *how many* episodes there were.  They were running out a new episode every week, all year long.  And I doubt they could batch together a bunch of episodes;  the setup for each Iron Chef would seem to be rather extensive, and I wouldn't be surprised that the production days were pretty long.

And on that note...Denver joins a reasonably short list of cities with teams that've won the title in 3 of the 4 major sports.  

Oh my oh my oh my!!!  

CRAZY, CRAZY ending, Texas vs. Stanford.  Deciding game of the super regional, winner to Omaha for the CWS.  Tied in the bottom of the 9th at 6.  

With 2 outs, the hitter laces a line drive he thinks is gonna go out, but I think it's got some topspin.  It hits off the Pac-12 shield on the wall, which is red and white.  EVERYONE on the Stanford bench thinks it's gone, ergo game over.  Nope.  The runner even throws off his batting helmet, but hustles enough to make it to 2nd.  Next batter walks;  he's irrelevant, and it does set up forces at all bases.  

Next batter pops a Texas Leaguer.  But it's 8"45 Pacific time, in Palo Alto...decently far north.  It's twilight.  3/4 dark.  TERRIBLE contrast.

Yep.  Every Texas defender loses the ball.

It falls in...and of course, with 2 outs, the runner on 2nd has been running the whole time.

Game over.  On a ball lost in the twilight.  GOT to feel bad for the Texas boys.

Wait a sec...no...no, I don't.  It's Texas.

It's one thing to be adversarial;  gods know, I played enough Living City, and *many* of the modules were built that way, especially in the last year or so, when there was a hardcore, LARGE group that collected a boxcar load of mid to high end magical items.  This was back in the day when gaming conventions, at least in the midwest and back east, were within driving distance almost every weekend...and the players would play every LC module.  

Closest I can recall to a TPK in Hero, was largely because the GM for that *liked* to be in competition with the players.  This wasn't adversarial in the sense of tough, this was "I'm cleverer than you and I'm going to steal any good ideas you have and make them MORE abusive."  I will also add:  ILLEGALLY abusive, almost certainly.  The fight I can remember included an execution of a PC.  I'm not kidding here;  I think it was absolutely planned.  The PC had a great DCV;  he was an extremely agile flyer.  NO resistant defenses, tho.  One of the other PCs was built on being a literal D&D-type immortal, with powers like that.  So the bad guy was too.  The GM's "Magic Missile" was, IIRC, RKA, OMCV vs. DMCV, Autofire.  Almost certainly ignoring any number of convenient facts in the process, to be able to crow about how few points the villain was built on.  Yeah, he knocked the flyer down into serious negative BODY.

There were a couple fights with that GM, with his villains, that at least came very close.  The fight noted above was pretty late in the semester, so the game was gonna at least go on hiatus anyway, but I *think* that might've been the last session.  Long time ago, tho.  

Nuggets play a horrible first half...can't throw it in the ocean, a boatload of turnovers, serious foul trouble...but the Heat can't take advantage.  They've got a lead, but...not what it should've been.  Nuggets still play tight, but so do the Heat in the 2nd half, so the 4th in particular is extremely tight.  Around 30 seconds left, Nuggets up 1, the Heat have a ragged possession;  they're forced into a poor situation with really only one pass...and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope reads it, for an easy steal that results in making 2 FTs (NOT a given, as they'd mostly shot only about 50% from the line), and a 3 point lead.  Butler throws up a challenged, rushed, off-balance (read:  bad) 3 pointer that doesn't go;  Nuggets get the board, make 2 more FTs.  Heat misses a desperation 3 with about 10 seconds left;  when it misses, they let Denver run out the clock.  The air was pretty much all out of their balloon.

IT'S OVER!

IT'S OVER!

NUGGETS 94-89  to win the title!

Even if there are those on the left who espouse hate to the degree those on the right do...they're a comparative thimbleful, compared to those on the right, who are a bucketful, AND who have far more actual power and visibility to enact change...not merely call for it.

The left has their inflammatory demagogues, that's true.  No argument there.  But they largely argue FOR things for which they feel passionate, FOR the groups they assert they represent.  

On 6/11/2023 at 7:33 AM, Cygnia said:

https://chicago.suntimes.com/2023/6/9/23752106/catalytic-converter-thefts-platinum-palladium-rhodium-cutters-buyers-scrap-metal-decanning

Quote

Platinum recently has sold for about $1,037 an ounce; palladium $1,429 an ounce; and rhodium $6,300 an ounce.

There's your incentive right there.

More generally,

https://www.nada.org/legislative/fight-rising-catalytic-converter-theft

Quote

 and the National Insurance Crime Bureau estimates that these thefts increased by 1,215% between 2019 and 2022. 

3 hours ago, Cygnia said:

Is ESPN giving the Nuggets ANY credit/notice?  Right now, their focus is only "how the Heat can bounce back!"

Of course not.  First, there's no story in talking about the Nuggets, until after they win.  That's when you can start comparing them.  There's no way to generate buzz, either.  The first mission for these particular talking heads is to drive up ratings, and therefore, they have to try to sell the Heat.  Actually...no.  For the morning talking heads, on the day of the game?  It's not their first mission, it's their only mission.

They *have* said...the Nuggets are better, deeper, taller.  The heavy expectation is the Nuggets will win the series, and they've said that...occasionally.  To be sure, there's a Heat bias there, but some of it's trying to elevate the David vs. Goliath aspect, #8 seed making the NBA Finals for the first time, all that.  Some of it is, I think, East Coast bias...particularly SAS, who's got a major bias towards the East generally, with the Heat being...oh, what, #3?  After the Knicks and Sixers.

I very rarely watch the morning shows on ESPN.  And not because I'm a night owl and retired, so I often Don't Do Mornings...but because silence is preferable.  CERTAINLY, it's preferable to any SAS rant.  AND they've incorporated Mad Dog Russo, who ranks just behind Cowherd on the condescension scale.  I can tolerate some of the others;  JJ Redick does a good job sometimes of puncturing SAS' bloviations.  But generally, it's simply not worth it.

1 minute ago, Iuz the Evil said:

Fair enough. It appears to me that side feels similarly about the actions of their opposition, so we can just keep on the same way we have the past decade or two then. 

Probably true.  But that side has never wavered in their opposition.  As Dean pointed it, it's rooted in some very core notions.  They haven't changed...retreated, regrouped, accepted temporary setbacks, ok, but they have not changed.  This isn't dating back just a couple decades;  it's been ongoing for a very long time.  

The difference today is the demagogues have learned to play on fear better.  They started sowing that seed broadly in the 80s;  the Moral Majority was founded in 1979.  What we're seeing is the result of multiple decades of divisive, hate-based rhetoric.  They also know how to play the long game better...in several ways.  Concentrate and isolate the liberals...in Texas, it's in the cities.  Nationally, it's NY and Cali and some others.  How much of this was planned, and how much was simply recognized and used...good question.  Disrupt when the Democrats have power;  exploit when the Republicans do.  That's how we have the Supreme Court we have now, and IIRC, a heavy concentration of Republican-appointed federal judges, particularly Trump appointees.

The hard-core Republicans have absolutely no reason to compromise.  They're WINNING, hands down.

But think of the pregame tailgating potential......

And hey, with a few Really Big Screens, turn it into the world's largest drive-in.

Could be interesting to see how they'd rig up replay cameras...

ESPN Bottom Line note:  The Phoenix Mercury are making "unspecified" changes to their travel arrangements in the aftermath of the altercation Cygnia noted.

I don't follow horse racing, so I missed that the Preakness *also* saw a death during an undercard race on Preakness day.

Until today.

Because another horse had a catastrophic accident, injuring his foot and had to be euthanized.  (My understanding is, a horse's legs are actually a vital part of their circulatory system, so injuries that leave them unable to move will be fatal.)  Oh...but...yesterday, another horse...same trainer, *same track* at Belmont...ALSO had to be euthanized after an injury.  

So the most visible period of the year for the industry has been flooded with awful news throughout.  This has to have the entire industry in a serious panic, one would think...if this isn't a massive statistical aberration, then the first assumption is, there's something SERIOUSLY wrong with how horses are being trained.  If it is an aberration, that just suggests no one has identified the underlying factors...but they DARN!!!! sure need to.

Make it time consuming.  Perhaps 4d6, Decreased Re-use (5 minutes)...that's long enough that it's once per combat.  Now...Extra Time (1 turn);  Gradual (1d6 per turn) (-1/4), Concentration throughout.  Side effect:  healer takes 2 points  Drain STUN and END (CP...since they're both defensive, the half effect rule applies), for every d6 healed, and the points don't start returning until the healing is over.  So 4d6 healing means 8 total CP, so 8 STUN and 20 END.  It'll take a couple extra turns to recover. 

Optionally, with conditions like this, you can blow off Decreased Re-use altogether.  The healer can't use this power quickly.

Another...4d6 Healing, Concentration, character can take no other actions.  Gradual Extra Turn...roll the effect, divide into as equal-sized chunks as possible, and the target gets that many per healer's phase, with the total healing acheved at the 1 turn mark.  So it's not totally wasted if it gets interrupted.  Same side effect both ways.

The points here...

--the healer can't just go bopping around healing everyone quickly

--the person healed is NOT at 100% instantly...not even close.  He can come back and help...after a turn...but hopefully he'll have to be careful about it.  

Remember, 4d6 is only 7 BODY.  With the time and effort issues here, the healer can certainly fix people up between fights, but not twice during a fight.  So, why bother with decreased re-use? 

Heck, if you want to keep it simple, Extra Time, (extra turn) and Concentration throughout are nasty, from the standpoint of the action economy.  The currency of combat is actions...what can each side do?  The root of this in Hero is, of course, SPD.  If a BBEG needs to take on 5 characters with SPD 4, well, he'd better be a LOT faster.  Or in D&D, where this was also recognized, the BBEG must have multiple attack options, or he pretty much get sliced and diced fairly quickly unless he's just insanely more powerful.  Here, the healer and the recipient are taken out for a full turn, EACH, and will be feeling aftereffects.  The underlying argument for Decreased Re-use largely vanishes. 

EDIT:  another simple house rule:  limit healing to, let's say, once per hour rather than once per day.  Then Decreased Re-use starts from that.  Another point...the time chart shifts are not even close to equivalent, one to the next.  There's really very little difference between 5 minutes and 20 minutes, and not much between 5 minutes and 1 hour.  On the flip side, there's a MASSIVE difference between 1 turn and 1 phase for combat powers...but next to none for out-of-combat powers.  So perhaps the standard (house)  rule for healing is re-use is, let's say, 5 minutes...that's too long for combat re-use.  +1/2 to drop to 1 minute;  +1 to drop to 1 Turn, +2 to drop to 1 phase, which basically eliminates it.  This would let you build 1d6 Healing, usable at will, for a base 30 points.  If that's too cheap for you, then adopt another house rule that to apply certain advantages, there's a minimum base point level you have to buy.  This isn't just for healing, it's for any power where massive advantages might get applied to minimal base costs.  For me...Teleport.  3", Megascale to 10,000 km...teleport anywhere on the planet.  Add any advantages you want on top of that, it won't matter.  +5 total advantage is still only 18 points.  

Fortunately, the guy inside the costume was sent home with just pain meds.  But, yeah, someone in the Heat's promotions department should be shown the door.

The whole notion of autopilot has been inherently dangerous from day 1.  Trying to model the complexities of a real-world situation is, IMO, implicitly impossible, and even in situations where one would expect the software to cope...obviously, the code has to be absolutely ROCK SOLID, as well as highly responsive and adaptive.  Responsive and adaptive means acquiring and processing data frequently, and quickly.  The more processing that has to be done...the more chance something will slip.  Or that the code will have a hiccup.

I'm not necessarily against the idea;  the issue is that the 'experts' think their code is better than it is.  That's not a Musk problem per se, it's pretty much endemic among any class of 'experts.'  "We've tested everything we can think of, this code is good!"  Fine...but what did you NOT think of?

Well, Cygnia, look at it this way.

It's another step towards everyone bailing from Twitter, leading to its ultimate demise, replacement, or fire sale to someone with a clue.  As long as Musk is at the helm, it's clear that Twitter is in total freefall.

Well, that was amusing....

Vegas sprints out to a 3-0 lead in the 2nd.  Florida gets one back before the period ends, then claws back to 3-2 about 5 minutes into the 3rd.

This makes the last 15 minutes VERY tense...Vegas does NOT want to blow this lead.  

Winds down, winds down...with less than 20 seconds, with Florida going with the empty net, a Vegas player gets called for delay of game...intentionally shooting the puck out of play.  So there's *just a few* seconds left for one last, desperate push.

Goalie's stick gets broken.

MIRACLE leg save...then another....as the clock runs out!

3-2 Vegas.

And the tension bursts out as multiple fights break out before the sound of the horn even fades away.  Cuz this was huge.  If Florida can tie, they can still win.  If they win this one, it's back to 2-2...despite being outplayed massively overall.  Then it's a best of 3 and anyone's game.  NOW, tho, it's 3-1, with Vegas going back home.  Last 2 games in Vegas were 12-4 combined.  Another game 2 seems very likely...lots of pressing by the Panthers leading to many opportunities, and therefore goals, for Vegas.

From what I read earlier, this is pretty much like paparazzi and movie stars...there are people who think they have a right to intrude, so they can profit from it.  Given the rise of social media, and the potentially lucrative monetization...yeah, it's not surprising.  Griner's an easy target, unfortunately.

Some of this is likely related to the WNBA being cheap.  The teams DON'T fly charter without specific exceptions to do so.  Griner has one...but not the team.  That's awkward, to say the least.  Fly charter, and most of this should be avoided.

But based on their treatment...women's team sports don't rate even 2nd class status.  Wasn't long ago when there were comparisons between men's Final Four rooms, facilities, and swag, and the women's Final Four.  Or the fact that WNBA players *frequently* feel a need to play overseas to make decent money.  The USWNT's pay, versus the USMNT...despite being one of the most dominant teams in their sport, on the planet, versus a total non-entity, in the MNT.

My take would be, don't mess with LTE outside the very narrow confines in 6E2.  Lowering LTE is basically Drain END with a return rate at 5 points per hour...not exactly, but close enough, and that's a clear, concise expression.

The mechanism of wound transferal healing is straightforward, but that means the healer can't heal himself.  It can also be offset with Regen, which'd be an essential purchase for a wound transferal healer.

The healer is taking the LTE hit, right?  Well, 5 points per hour is +1 3/4.  1d6+1 Drain, 5 points per hour, is 36 points...I suggest d6+1 because Standard Effect would then be 4.  If you're adhering to standard adjustment powers, that gets cut in half...2 points, so 10 END.  Pretty clean at the table, which is nice.  You'd get -1/2, probably, since you're only applying this to the Decreased Re-use advantage, which is pretty expensive, but not that bad.

But I'd have to ask, what's the goal?  What is the problem you're trying to solve, and how does this accomplish the solution?  What do you *want* Healing to be able to achieve?  

One of my favorite superhero worlds is Drew Hayes' Super Powereds.  Healers are fairly common and extremely highly valued.  Extensive healing generally has a side effect a lot like an LTE reduction...on the person healed.  His explanation is that the body does have major physiological reactions to severe pain and broken bones, and OK, healing fixes the injuries, but not necessarily the indirect effects from those reactions.  It's an approach I like, so I hear where you're coming from...it gives characters a reason to avoid *needing* a lot of healing because of those lingering effects.  It promotes caution while leaving healing as a sweet, powerful adjunct.  Now...what is it replacing?  Probably max effect.  Note that decreased re-use time is mostly of importance because we're dealing with game mechanics, and the points tracking of character sheets.  Because it's a set of books, so the purpose of any power set is completely different.  Points, schmoints.  Balance?  Get serious.  Building characters for a game is itself a massively contrived exercise because of the constraints of the at-table environment, where balance is often a central consideration.  That simply doesn't exist in the comics, movies, or UF or superhero fiction...unless the writers invoke a deus ex machina to give the wimps a chance.  Think FF vs. Galactus and the Ultimate Nullifier.  Or a ridiculous, contrived weakness like firing the missile down the vent tube to blow up the Death Star.  It goes straight for 90 bleeping MILES, not encountering any obstacle, and staying on track????  YMMV but I *loathe* these.