Flavour Text I:

Character Classes, Fiction, Games!

“Nard was born with golden horns on her head. Mocked because of this throughout her childhood, she retreated into herself. Later in life, she credited this ability to focus for her success as a summoner.”

“Sven’s indomitable will was only challenged once, when he heard of the untimely passing of Boo, while saving his partner Minsc.”

“Elim has always been a shadowy character, especially since his pact with the Daedra caused his eyes to glow red at night.”

https://archive.org/details/msdos_Fantasy_Empires_1993 (CharGen)

Dinorama

Idle Speculation, Puns

“It is well known that ‘Diorama’ is a portmanteau of ‘Dinosaur’ and ‘Rama’, from a story about a model made to describe an unusual visit to places near lake Couchiching.”
“‘Portmanteau’ being a French portmanteau of ‘Door’ and ‘Coat’, similar to ‘Dovecoat’ (or ‘Dovecote’ as it is sometimes written).”

BoF III: Keybeards and Bagpopes:

Idle Speculation, Internet Culture, Music, Puns

S Writes:
“But see, if they play the pipes near other people, they’ll be arrested.”
“Arrested? By whom?”
“… by the Scottish bagpipe police?”
“Piffle! No such thing! In fact, there is a Scottish bagpipe brigade whose job it is to ensure that the pipes are played often and loudly. They must conform to the exacting standards set forth by the…”
(at this point, B blows up my pantleg, and I pause.)
“… Bagpope.”

“The Bag Pope?”

“Imagine the mass! Every parishioner plays the pipes, and the church has to be burned to the ground after every service.”
“Wait, why? Does it seep into the stones?”
“IT IS RUINED.”

BoF II: Some one-liners from 2014

Character Classes, Idle Speculation, Internet Culture, Puns, Thoughts on Thoughts

(Along with some selected* comments.)

“Chaotic Justified. That’s my alignment. -S”
J: “Do you tab indent every third line?”
Me: “It’s more that I tab indent a number of spaces equal to the strange attractor?”

“Church bells: A peal to authority.”
Me: “Perhaps more specifically: ‘Church Bell Arguments’.”
Me: “http://mzonline.com/bin/view/Python/ChurchBellsSketch/”

Almost a Koan:
“Is Evening Performance when you balance something on top of an evening?”
M: “or light the evening on fire and spin it around”
K: “Every response merely encourages him!”

“New idea: Name one of the rooms in your home ‘Metonymy’.”
S: “That’s where we’ll store the literary theory!”
K: “Based on the amount of my mortgage that I’ve paid off, I figure that I own whichever room of my house that I am currently occupying.”
K: “I get metonymy and synechdoche mixed up.”
L: “The only example I can remember from highschool english re: metonymy is breadwinner. Does the aforementioned room provide earnings and sustenance for the rest of the domicile?”

“Sometimes unceasing horrible noise is its own reward.”
J: “That would explain your presence in bands in high school. Har har.”

*Generally from those who were playing along. If you have issues with my editing, tell me! 😀

BoF I: “The Zero-Body Problem”

Science!, Space!

The zero-body problem:
29 October 2010 at 18:58

“It might be noted here, for the benefit of those interested in exact solutions, that there is an alternative formulation of the many-body problem, i.e., how many bodies are required before we have a problem? G.E. Brown points out that this can be answered by a look at history. In eighteenth-century Newtonian mechanics, the three-body problem was insoluble. With the birth of general relativity around 1910 and quantum electrodynamics in 1930, the two- and one-body problems became insoluble. And within modern quantum field theory, the problem of zero bodies (vacuum) is insoluble. So, if we are out after exact solutions, no bodies at all is already too many!” — Richard D. Mattuck, A Guide to Feynman Diagrams in the Many-Body Problem

http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1845884&cid=34068552

Life Along the Terminator

Fiction, Games!, Space!

A world half molten, half colder than ice. A thin strip of land between, where humans can barely survive, where a mining company has sent you to extract minerals and gemstones, where your only sustainable source of food, your tiny hydroponic farm, is giving anomalous readings…

The orbital insertion was not easy, as the dropship had to fly most of the way in the shadow of the planet, then quickly nip around and avoid melting while landing on the small habitable section. Living and working in a mining base on the terminator of a tidally locked hot Mercury is fun to talk about, but the G-forces of the abrupt turn before landing were almost like launching from a standard-G world.

It was really beautiful, though, seeing just a sliver of the molten red hot side, and the false blue colour from the sensors looking at the cold side, to zoom in at the tiny green dot which would hopefully sustain you while you complete your tour here, hoping to make a name for yourself (and get rich at the same time).

It’s too bad you couldn’t share that beauty with anyone, though. It’s hard enough finding people who would want to be alone for the years required, never mind the expense of a capsule big enough to sustain a person for that long. Far simpler to send an automated task force (and quicker, what with G-forces not sending electrons to the feet of robots).

As you land, you think again about the message sent: “Anomalous readings from plant matter. Plant matter showing periodic and changing visual anomalies. Plant matter showing unknown and changing composition. Safety tests show no adverse effects on bacteria. Analysis suggests plant matter still consistent with and edible by human biochemistry.” Not that there was anything you could do about it, as you were already decelerating when you received it, but here’s hoping the computer was right this time, or it’s going to be a long trip home on emergency power…