Duckman

I dunno that there is anything to do to improve it concerning the problems I had with it... Everyone must be historically accurate but 8 of you being the current reincarnation of Cleopatra is fine. Your references all have to be historically accurate but pronunciation doesn't count so feel free to butcher the high German with a Creole accent. Science must be accurate and timely but alchemy fine. Oh, and we're not going to limit time period so feel free to go with anything from 500 AD to 1600 AD. (Combat was more and less limited in similarly incongruous ways.) As long as you were down with the *Creative* in SCA it worked but if you wanted people to do *accurate* research, good luck.

Would you prefer it if I said "they could not logic their way out of a paper bag"? They were not capable of being internally self-consistent which drove me nuts.

I knew a guy in college who got a whole bunch of titanium wire and used it to create chainmail. He made the loops and "wove" the chainmail himself. I think he got the wire through a lab so he didn't even have to pay for the wire himself. Had a lot of respect for that guy. He fought Florentine and generally fought 3-4 guys at ren-fests (he'd go in with a bunch of scrubs in a 4v4 and be the only one to survive). Personally I never got into actual SCA as I found (back in 1990) a lot of their rules to be anachronistic and idiosyncratic.

I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe, Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die. So many iconic roles to remember him by and yet that monologue has been most memorable for me and is apt today.

Honestly, I felt that the static maps (three of them) were the biggest letdown of Satisfactory. Really killed the replay value for me.

Pastwatch is one such title, "we know the current reality will cease to exist and that is not such a bad thing." It's a proactive attempt to change the present, not just suicide.

That's one option but I have seen other examples of time travel which are not so noble. Things where people expect to survive in the new reality or such.

Note that this was not the stated goal of either Heaven's Gate or Jonestown, hence my statement. It's also why I called out the Branch Davidians separately... The first two had no intention of changing anything going on in the world. The third *might* have depending on your interpretation and the time travellers certainly do have an intent to change the world if possible. You are comparing the organized act of swallowing a gun to trying to make proactive change in the world. If you want to understand the difference, much as I hate to recommend anything from him, consider reading "Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus" by Orson Scott Card.

The difference is that a suicide pact does not have any intent to change the present or the past. The time-travel trope is about making a proactive change which involves sacrifice where you could not say the same about Heaven's Gate or Jonestown. The Branch Davidians are arguable in that maybe you could argue that they are trying to bring attention to specific grievances against the government (although I am not sure that this is really the case, just one possible interpretation).

So they rebuilt you in 2005 and left protruding pins in all that time? Or were the externalized pins part of a more recent reconstruction to remove the pins that had been left in?

As is typical with Wikipedia links, that one is horrible. Check their sources. There's nothing that points to "Status Nominal". In fact the sentence that makes that claim is a link to something that actually references "Situation Normal". That said, I don't have anything more authoritative to say that situation normal is the original phrase either. It's just the one I am familiar with. It's possible that one of the later references (most likely the Rick Atkinson title) includes that history but then it should be the footnote for that line, not the reference to Private Snafu...

It doesn't still? I don't know if this was originally military jargon or not but it became commonplace during world war II if not before. I always heard it as "Situation Normal" (not "Status Nominal"). I'm curious what your reference for that is.

I have a copy of TableTop Simulator but the entry curve for it is steep. I have looked for GW pieces and been unimpressed with what I have found to boot.

Mr. Robot (season 2) - 2/5 - This one drags a whole lot by comparison to season 1. There are a couple of places where they try to introduce twists but they are not really surprising and they lack the impact or gravitas of season 1. Instead the series just becomes about detestable characters who are essentially ruled by incompetence and while for some of them it is in character others are written out of character to create dramatic tension in places where it becomes unbelievable. Mr. Robot (season 3) - 3/5 - The writing improves and characters tend to be more consistent which improves the series. There are some decent twists but none that compare to season 1. The set up for season 4 (not out yet) is decent but leaves me wondering what they think they can do with it that will not trivialize everything they have done so far. Where I had high hopes after season 1 this one has dropped to the middle of my list for follow-up. Battlestar Galactica (season 1) - 2/5 - I've heard so many good things about this and I am trying to slog through it but this is really poorly written. Half the named characters are so poorly written that they would be better off being un-named so that there was no question of motivation or consistency. Another show that revolves around the inability of characters to communicate clearly in any way. This can be fine if it is consistent or used sparingly but when it is the key trope for 75% of your characters in every one of your episodes it is overdone. I'd like it to press my nostalgia buttons but it can't even do that.

Or a long, boring, wandering speech... Oh, wait...

Definitely true for dogs in both the language and the animal-cue sense. Cues are taken from the pack and the packs are disparate so the cues are also different. And of course if you talk to you animals regularly they learn words (at least the smarter ones do). Most know important words like "dinner" or "food" and some pick up other words. Our retrievers know names for different toys. I'm not a cat person but I expect that they work much the same way.

Then you have never head the most common last words in the South... "Here, hold my beer and watch this!" Alcohol lowers inhibitions. It's where the phrase beer goggles comes from. It's why drunks say "nah, I am all right to drive." It impairs judgement. And gunpowder is capable of large-scale destruction instead of just local mayhem. Lack of respect for other people and their property gets worse and the ability of people to do large amounts of damage goes up as well. And as you point out, the seasonal aspect does not help either. But of course we outlaw fireworks year round including new years, etc. as well...

And that would be why fireworks are illegal in more and more places. If people didn't insist that gunpowder (of almost all kinds) required alcohol and if possible a lobotomy then I would have more patience for it. The problem is that no matter how many people are sensible as long as there are people burning down *other* people's houses it's an issue.

Warcraft forums remind me that even dumpster fires have more redeeming qualities since they are at least warm. As few posts as blue makes I am not sure that the Warcraft forums really provide any worth at all other than to entertain the portions of the community that I am happy are not actually in game instead.

I figure there are a lot of people who played once upon a time and might be interested again so this is just a public service announcement. There is a (toxic) forum on the Warcraft forums that you do not need a current subscription to post in. They are running beta and stress tests. Must have current sub time to be selected for those. They will allow name reservation (again, with active sub) as early as the 13th in theory. Officially this is version 1.12 with a staggered content release. Details available on the forums.

I don't have a clear picture what kinds of remnants you have left but I really like socks as dusting mitts (if you have furniture that needs dusting). All the other stuff that I normally come up with is crafting or hobby ideas... WestRider's point about what kind of cloth is also relevant as you'll get different behavior and use from cotton vs. artificials.

Well, it would have to include the windows or it would not be a true Faraday cage. The wings you would need part of unless you were entirely fly-by-wire because you would need actuators for the flaps (and on a plane that size I expect they are not fly-by-wire just due to size and weight). Your engines, instruments and all cabin controls would all need to be protected.

Encasing a whole plane is impractical but they may have done it. I know the plane-borne telescopes only enclose the instruments themselves but I would expect for something with this particular purpose they would also have protected all the electronics.

So, I have been binging shows lately... Westworld (Season 2) - 3/5 - It's not bad but it lacks the punch of the first season. Season 1 managed to find a unique way to tell its story and include twists. Season 2 had a theme that was present and introduced us to a complex subplot but it failed to have the spark as the first season, reusing some of the same tropes and trying to layer new twists on twists from the first season which made them seem old-hat. Warrior (Season 1) - 2/5 - This one is nudity and violence for sensationalism with what could be a serious and gripping storyline that is ignored for the sensationalism. The fighting has some decent choreography but it is sparse with most of the violence simply being attacks on untrained victims. Season 2 has been picked up so maybe they'll do something with the foundation they have built but this one is not high on my list. Mr. Robot (Season 1) - 4.5/5 - It's not perfect but I really enjoy the writing. Rami manages to stay totally in character and still break the fourth wall routinely. The twists are well done and the show manages to have a sense of humor and still cover a dark subject.

It's not about the engineering... It's about reproducing it. Remember... The only guy that knew how to make them was the mechanic/engineer shown and hie went missing shortly after that filming and nobody has been able to build another one since.