archer

1 hour ago, Doc Democracy said:

 

It is possible.  My son tested positive in November and we isolated him in his bedroom, aired the house, wiped surfaces, upped our hand-wash routines, and wiped down everything coming out of his room.  His meals were delivered on a tray, he left them outside his door in the evening, we picked them up in the morning (to minimise exposure to air from his room when the door opened).

 

We might have been lucky but we stacked the odds in our favour.

 

Good luck.

 

 

Doc

We did the same at two different points in time for two family members.

3 minutes ago, BoloOfEarth said:

 

Part of me (okay, mainly the contrarian part) would really like to see the Democrats nominate and vote for her, if for no other reason than to watch all the MAGAT heads explode.  Think they could get 6 Republicans to vote for her?

Like I said, it'd depend on whether there was a governmental crisis which only Congress could address (something more traumatic than none of them being paid until after they'd been sworn in by a new Speaker).

So with enough time passing and enough unsuccessful votes for Speaker...I think there's a lot of scenarios which become more likely. Like Trump getting indicted by Georgia and again by the DOJ would likely make a number of House Republicans think they'd made a mistake of following McCarthy's lead in forcing Cheney out of her leadership post.

I don't think it's something that'd happen in the next couple of weeks. It'd be more of consequence of a months-long train wreck like they had with the Speaker vote in 1856 (if I recall  the date correctly). 

2 hours ago, Ternaugh said:

The Speaker doesn't have to come from the House, and there have been several suggestions of going outside for a candidate that could appeal to moderate Republicans and the Democrats, though this is also highly unlikely right now. 

Going out on a limb for a couple of potential candidates:

1) Paul Ryan - used to be a darling of the Freedom Caucus back before they were only a circus sideshow yet he also managed to appeal to the more moderate members of the House Republican caucus as well. I've always thought his leaving the House had a lot more to do with Trump dragging the party into the gutter and Ryan wanting no part of THAT than any other possible motive.

If they reach 30-40 rounds of voting with no significant changes, I wouldn't be shocked to start hearing rumors of a "Draft Ryan" movement. 

2) On the other hand, if the Democrats wanted to eventually stop the Republican sideshow for some reason (like raising the debt ceiling this summer to save the government from default), it'd be interesting for them to do a "Draft Liz Cheney" thing.

As speaker, she wouldn't be onboard with endless meaningless investigations of pretend "crimes" nor would she be onboard with any "Impeach Biden" movement for no crime at all.

She'd be spending all her time trying to keep the Republican crazies in line and likely not have any time left over to promote a real Republican agenda of any sort (whether Trumpism or a more conventional Republicanism). And at worst, if she did manage to reign in their crazies and prevent them from recruiting more crazies to run for office in the 2024 election cycle, that'd only be good for the country in the long run. 

If the Democrats block voted for Cheney, they'd only need a couple of disgruntled Republicans to cross over and vote with them. 

It'd tie the Republican caucus in knots for the next two years while providing, perhaps, the chance for a couple of pieces of bipartisan legislation to pass like raising the debt ceiling (or getting rid of the whole concept of "a debt ceiling" altogether).

13 hours ago, Logan.1179 said:

That's not bad, but I'll stick. I will go listen to some Slade now, though. 

I just can't imagine him trying to sing in that Deathstroke helmet....

Dancing with the Czars

On 4/19/2022 at 6:39 PM, SCUBA Hero said:

It seems likely that firearms and ammunition would be used as de facto currency.

 

According to one article found in a quick search, the top 5 US sales are:

 

1.  9mm

2.  5.56mm NATO

3.  .45 ACP

4.  12 Gauge

5.  .22 LR

 

At some point you'd also start getting black power muzzle-loading long arms (either rifled or smoothbore).  According to Wikipedia, "The spirally grooved gun barrel is considered German in origin, invented by Augustus Kotter of Nuremberg circa 1520."

 

Firearms and ammo are good as currency in theory. But once a person sells someone firearms and ammo, they can use that to take everything else that the seller owns unless the seller has an army to back him up. Or has easy access to law enforcement.

Yeah, everyone is going to want to purchase guns and ammo. 

But are sellers going to be stupid enough to sell guns and ammo to people they don't know? Or even to people they do know unless the person is very trustworthy?

I've talked to self-described survivalists and preppers who've claimed to have 30,000-50,000 rounds of ammunition stored up for their various guns. None of them thought they had nearly enough if the world as we know it were to end. And all of them would laugh at the idea of using guns and ammo as currency (and have laughed at the idea during conversations on internet forums).

I mean, sure we're talking about "for game purposes" rather than for real life. But if you're wanting to model the game on something that's realistic, the people who have guns and ammo when other people don't either were 1) paranoid enough to store it up before the apocalypse or 2) were ruthless enough to go in and seize guns and ammo from all the other people who were looting Wal-Mart, pawn shops, and gun shops.

Because the first thing in conversations with most people about what they'd do at the end of the world is that they'd tell you, "I'm going to get...."

And by that they mean that they're going to go "shopping", with or without money, along with the tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands, or millions of other people who have exactly the same idea. And they're going to be fighting hoards of other people over the limited amount of food, guns, ammo, medicine, valuables, and everything else that's in the stores. Or looting their way through occupied and unoccupied homes as "the excrement hits the air redistribution device".

I wouldn't be shocked if most of the ammo supplies are used up while people who grabbed it are trying to make their way out of the store. And that only the most ruthless, heartless, uncaring, and organized people will make their way out of the store with a significant amount of gums plus ammo. 

Those people won't be particularly inclined to provide arms and ammo to potential enemies. 

They'd be more likely to gun down someone who brought something valuable enough to try to trade for guns and ammo.

(Sorry for the bleak estimation of the human condition as the apocalypse happens but I think that's likely how it'd play out unless the bombs land everywhere at once without anyone having any clue that it's happening until the bombs actually go off.)

1 hour ago, Old Man said:

So, serious post time. 

 

Over the weekend I got an email from the school saying that there had been a social media threat against the school and that the necessary precautions were being taken.  I hadn't seen the threat but I asked my son (whose native habitat is social media) and he said that it was your run of the mill gonna-shoot-up-the-school online threat.  He didn't seem too bothered by it and, having grown up in an era of school prank bomb threats, neither was I.  So on Monday he set off for school as usual.

 

Then we got a text message from the parents of one of his friends letting us know that they were keeping their son home from school that day.  And it turns out they were in the majority--2/3 of the students stayed home from school on Monday.  If my son wasn't bothered at first, he sure as hell was when his classes were largely empty and there were a dozen cops roaming the campus.

 

Now it is Wednesday and half the students still aren't going to school.  We are getting emails from the teachers begging parents to send their kids back to class.  (And bravo to the teachers for being there, I certainly don't get death threats at my place of employment.)  The place is still teeming with cops.  No one has any information about the threat that they can tell us, because there is an ongoing investigation.

 

So I guess this bothers me on two levels.

 

First of all--seriously wtf kind of worst timeline is this, where people can literally threaten to kill kids, and we have to take those threats this seriously?

 

Second, as a parent, what do I do?  I try to impress the importance of education, I have literally shown my kids how schoolkids in Afghanistan risk their lives to go to school.  But is it negligent to send him to school?  Is it making a mountain out of a molehill to keep him home?  What's the solution here?

 

(Note that I am posting here rather than the Political Thread because I just don't have the energy to fight that particular battle, again, right now.  This is just somewhere between a vent and a plea.  Because this has all become very real, even if nothing has actually happened yet.)

The chance that an event will happen at a school with more than half the students absent and with cops everywhere isn't very high at all. I'd be sending my kids to school.

Gunmen who are serious about killing students aren't going to show up while the (desired) targeted students wouldn't be there and there's enough police presence to stop them from achieving anything.

I'm reminded of bomb scares at the airline's HQ and reservations center in the 1990's. At the first one, they evacuated everyone and told them to go home with pay because it'd take hours to go through the buildings.

Then a few days later, there was another bomb scare just at the reservation center. And again they sent everyone home with pay.

Next bomb scare, sent everyone at the reservation center home with pay.

Next bomb scare, they made all the employees at the reservation center stand around in the parking lot for their entire shift. And the bomb scares stopped.

9 minutes ago, unclevlad said:

Interesting piece of news, watching Giants-Mets (Mets broadcasters).

 

They've implemented a pitch clock in AAA.  14 seconds with no one on base;  18 seconds with runners on.  The batter must be ready to hit by 9 seconds.  

 

Average time of game went from 2:56 to 2:36.  

In your opinion, is cutting 20 minutes off the length of a game worth having a pitch clock to put time pressure on the pitcher/catcher?

9 hours ago, Logan.1179 said:

It's called a Florida Power Plant. 

 

What went through my mind, "Why would you run the entire US electrical grid off of one generator?"

1) Whip up anti-alien paranoia on the internet.

2) Fully invisible AOE Transform which turns a person's blood green.

3) Fully invisible 1d6 RKA AOE Penetrating with the special effect of causing people to visibly bleed.

4) Do an event for people "to see aliens revealed". Done as a flash mob if the paranoia is small. As a scheduled media event through a sympathetic news network and event planner if the paranoia has taken a life of its own.

5) Hit some part of the mob with the Transform then the RKA. Stream it happening with the "aliens" revealed. If the villain has done their paranoia prep sufficiently, some part of the crowd will violently go after the "revealed aliens". (If its a media event, some enterprising person will be selling "Alien-popping baseball bats".)

6) When the heroes show up to quell the riot and protect the "aliens", hit them with the Transform then the RKA. So the heroes are revealed to be aliens themselves and only there to oppress the humans and rescue their alien co-conspirators.

It should be almost impossible to repair the reputation of the heroes because any delay about "coming clean" or "independent third-party testing" would be spun as them having had time to do a coverup.

That's a somewhat classical way to neutralize heroes because they wouldn't be able to operate openly and whatever people or police who they attempt to save will be as scared of them as of whatever else is menacing them.

Bonus points if the conspirator uses the Transform on whoever steps forward to do a testimonial praising the heroes. There's always going to be some bozo who challenges "Prove you aren't a green-blooded alien yourself!" And of course the person will agree to a blood test because the heroes have already done that and proved they're a red-blooded American.

Hilarity ensues.

(Note that you could likely only do this if the players have agreed to a major shakeup to their team status.)

A federal court overturned the mask mandate on airlines in the US.

30 minutes ago, steriaca said:

I'm not quite fond of paying someone to contribute to things, considering I'm a poor Utility Clerk and my poor Utility Clerk salary. I have to really make a deep think about things before I decide to put a $5 per month contribution. 

 

I haven't been able to work in the last 15 years. So I've been surviving on a fraction of the income I used to make as a poor paper-pusher. 

Spider-Man: Home Alone

Guardians of the Ford Galaxy

Broken the 800 "tanks destroyed" barrier.

Some estimates before the war were that Russia had as few as 2000 operational tanks (and thousands that might eventually be refurbished someday if they put enough money, effort, and imported resources into it).

On 4/17/2022 at 4:34 PM, SCUBA Hero said:

My goal is to get P: CoC published under the Patreon model, mentioned in the 2Q22 thread.

 

 

Anyone who is interested in participating, please PM me.

I'm not sure how you are picturing this project working.

Are we going to quit discussing it here in the forums and move all discussion elsewhere into a pay-to-contribute-to-the-discussion model?

I'm perfectly willing to contribute to the discussion once we get out of "the layout of Pittsburg" stage (which I know nothing about) and move on to NPC's, storyline, editing, etc.

But honestly, a $5/month Patreon fee is a major financial barrier-of-entry for me.

====

Also, are we entertaining NPC ideas and storyline yet?

I've been mulling over directions to take "The Dark Albuquerque Saga".

You have a lot more patience than I do. I'd rather watch a good or middling movie over again than to watch a bad movie that I've never seen before.

16 minutes ago, Logan.1179 said:

Quote from Neil Postman's "The Disappearance of Childhood"

 

 

 

Shouldn't that be a quote from "The Appearance of Childhood"?

My earliest memory is of my mother plopping me down in a strawberry patch as she picked strawberries by hand, along with dozens of other people, for pay. 

As soon as I was old enough to identify a fruit or vegetable, pull it off the vine, and put it into a container rather than in my mouth, I was expected to help.

When we got home, we worked in our own garden because we depended on what we were growing in order to have something to eat. When it got too dark to work outside, we were inside doing stuff like shelling beans and washing produce in preparation for canning or freezing.

After gardening season, we were busy outside cutting and loading firewood, either for sale or to keep ourselves from freezing during winter.

School was leisure. We had air conditioning most of the time inside and recess (with no work) outside. In elementary school, I worked in the school cafeteria before school started (mostly mopping floors) in order to pay for my school lunch. But other than that, school was childhood and leisure.

34 minutes ago, Logan.1179 said:

Cats?

19 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

Thor is like 2000 years old, this idea that he has to keep doing deep soul searching and reacting despondently to challenges is... absurd.

Well, he screwed up and half the living beings of the universe disappeared for five years because he didn't cut off Thanos's arm. His dad, brother, and sister died. Asgard was destroyed with his assistance. Most of the Asgardians who survived the destruction of Asgard died on the rescue boat that he was captaining.

For all we know, a 5000 year old being goes through the stages of grief very slowly. In any case, even though he's 2000 years old, what he's gone through is still unprecedented in his lifetime.

I mean, look at an adult human who's gone through 40% of his lifespan: he participates in the annihilation of the Earth, has his family die, tries to rescue a few people from Earth but they mostly all die on the rescue boat he's captaining. So how many years would he be going to therapy to get over that?  

That's not how I would have written Thor but it's an understandable(though not entertaining) reaction on the "My-Life-Is-Crap-O-Meter". 

1 minute ago, Starlord said:

Have you ever seen the sucky skill tree for a social justice mage???

Artificial intelligence does not trump natural stupidity.

Oh, and if you're close enough timewise to the nuclear event, potassium iodide pills (to block some of the radiation) and water purification tablets (because people won't have had time to set up their own charcoal, sand, and gravel filtration systems).

41 minutes ago, Pariah said:

 

My eight-year-old would freak out if he saw this.

 

(I'm printing it now.  )

Be sure to point out to him how many river systems which Texas absolutely dominates.

Then tell him how that changed the course of the Civil War (which wasn't very civil in absolute terms).