austenandrews

Re: Jokes "No dis-integration!"

Re: "Neat" Pictures I got about 35 at first glance. Not sure about the rest.

Re: "Neat" Pictures I've pegged all but two, the rightmost of the second row and the middle of the bottom row.

Re: "Neat" Pictures I once found an orange behind a shelf that looked like that.

Re: "Neat" Pictures

Re: Would you marry a near-human alien? I don't see any reason why not. Besides the fact that I'm already married, that is.

Re: "Neat" Pictures With his eyes closed, no less. What do you feed people in Florida? Grizzly testosterone?

Re: "Neat" Pictures Dang, that guy is actually catching it and not spilling his beer?

Re: Star Trek: How dangerous are phasers? I remember playing the Star Trek RPG back in the early 80's. It was one of the few systems I ran where if someone held you at gunpoint, you dang well better put your hands up and surrender. Rushing a dude with a phaser pointed at you was a death sentence. Made for a lot of convincingly TOS-like adventures, where the PCs got captured and had to escape. That was surprisingly hard to do in most systems.

Re: 2 Planets found in same orbit They had to build a shell around it first, duh.

Re: "Neat" Pictures Some were more challenging than others. Not as challenging at Ragistu's historical figures pic, though.

Re: "Neat" Pictures Spoilered for size:

Re: "Neat" Pictures That's a terrific shot.

Re: 2 Planets found in same orbit What does this do to the "clears its orbit" component of the definition of "planet?"

Re: "Neat" Pictures Superman is a gadgeteer?

Re: Tyche Right, something that big in the Kuiper Belt would surely have been detected ages ago. But the existence of the Oort Cloud itself is only theoretical, right?

Recently the press touched on the idea again that a hidden gas giant, nicknamed Tyche, may exist in the Oort cloud. My impression is that this is a pretty farfetched concept. My questions are (a) how farfetched is it, and why? and ( if such a planet did exist, what would it be like and how would it differ from known gas giants?

Re: Space fightercraft in RPGs. True enough. Would there be circumstances where a decentralized weapons platform would be more desirable than a giant block of armor? Say, against an enemy that has some very large nukes?

Re: Space fightercraft in RPGs. Personally I'm not convinced a good deal of space combat won't be mutually assured destruction. If the enemy can shoot at you, you're effectively already dead. As an analogy, think of modern warfare if tactical nukes were commonplace. From that perspective, a large human-bearing target (like a battleship) sounds a lot like the proverbial "one neck." I wonder if you couldn't make the argument that dividing personnel into many smaller vessels, remotely controlling big, lightly-manned weapons platforms, could have advantages over sticking everybody's eggs into one basket. And if, from there, it would make sense to build these smaller vessels with weapons, armor and high maneuverability, not unlike what we think of as "space fighters." In function they'd almost be the opposite - the point would be to avoid getting blown up, as opposed to hurtling into the thick of combat - but such an arrangement might serve up smaller engagements of the sort we see in space opera, while maintaining some semblance of plausibility.

Re: "Neat" Pictures Heh, cute kid.

Re: "Neat" Pictures Who's the kid?

Re: "Neat" Pictures Why? I'm not seeing it.

Re: "Neat" Pictures Because stormtrooper armor offers such amazing protection.

Re: Exoplanet detection news Are there any prominent theories as to what these things might look like up close?

Re: Space fightercraft in RPGs. Somewhere in the Pentagon is a detailed plan for how to nuke the UK. If someone has the ability to obliterate you, the chance of it happening must always be considered.