xthetenth

Yeah, probably, although I feel there are considerably more effective delivery methods for tits, so part of the sports illustrated does non-sports things for a month issue's perceived value is that it's The Swimsuit Edition and therefore special. It's like the inverse of the articles in Playboy in that they're a sort of cultural touchstone even if what they offer isn't a huge deal or really relevant these days, or at least the people running the things feel that way. Honestly, Sports Illustrated: now with 50% racier ads would likely do a better job of tits as a value add to sports.

In the context of a world where porn is basically available where and whenever you want it, saying that just putting tits in a magazine instead of what the magazine says it is and is specialized to deliver works to get guys interested is kind of saying it if not as strong in denying agency as the way I phrased it. If I were saying it with regards to making excuses for a rapist I would've said slaves to rather than subordinate to though. And honestly everyone's got shows and stuff to let them feel smug about having the right opinions, it's probably not healthy to dwell too long on what people whose opinions you hold in contempt are thinking.

I never manage to figure out whether to be a bit insulted or just disappointed whenever criticism of this sort is deflected with a deft "Aha! But we men actually are subordinate to our reproductive anatomy!" Sports Illustrated should probably be that. The only real selling point that issue has is more as a cultural artifact these days.

Oh I know that, I just figured may as well dream big while we're staring slackjawed into the future of people and a society that likely aren't even recognizably us anymore.

I have a pretty strong feeling that it's all good and well that they can maneuver well, but they haven't figured out how to make them fight well in a full shooting war scenario. In situations where providing an always on datalink becomes more trouble than it's worth, and by the time you've built a competitive UCAV it's already most of the way to a manned fighter, so gimping it by making it rely on external intelligence or a robotic dog brain isn't going to result in a combat effective unit. It's like the test series of Nike Zeus where it had nine out of thirteen tests against ICBMs result in successes in 1963, and yet we're still working to make acceptable ABM by today's standards. Making a weapon work isn't the same as making a weapon that works within the context of the system it needs to be a part of.

I was more wondering about how well the stealthy contours would hold up to being on the frontline and being the latter day cactus air force than their maintenance needs, to be honest.

Yes, it kind of does. The problem is the talk of using it for the sort of unprepared field operation Harriers got brought up for, where you're now setting up specialized materials to allow 5th gen fighters with their finicky stealth to operate from within artillery range.

Incidentally I do have a test system, there is some pretty fundamental stuff that doesn't necessarily have a right direction to go that I've been idling on but I could get something together pretty quick if needed. It just wouldn't have minor things like progression or a deep skill/talent setup for a while.

I'd honestly be more enthused with the uploading consciousness types just because of the radical paradigm shift it would allow in the concept of self-control. On the other hand, making sure that stays safe could be seriously fun. I really don't think getting gaslit by some script kiddie would be fun.

As long as we get everyone to acknowledge that USMC has always been and will always be the definitive four letter word for the other services' procurement process. That fat bastard lift fan is not a great thing, although the internal fuel carriage probably needed to go somewhere, that sort of layout constraint is never good when you're trying to come up with a mainstay high end jet. Rafale also has a sweet setup for making sure it gets avionics upgrades and keeping a fleet up to date.

A bunch of (man)children getting together and playing pretend.

If it's asynchronous text-based it wouldn't be too much of a deal, if it's roll20 or something it might be, but it's really trying to fit three time zones together that ruins friendships.

I'd like to play, but if you want a hand with GM duty I'm totally fine with alt-GM stuff or whatever. I'd say probably go with an established ruleset for the first time through just to get the bugs out in the text rp process, but if we really want I could do development on some ideas that should be mechanically pretty simple for a first time and can be elaborated on as time progresses.

I wish the alt-hist forum existed as a record of the battles I fought long ago.

Amen to the 111 comparison. The U.S.'s new joint fighter is in trouble. It is overbudget, behind schedule, and is failing to meet critical performance metrics. The Navy is thinking of dropping out and going with a proven manufacturer with a history of producing quality naval fighters...but enough about the F-111, let's talk about the JSF.

Halal food snackbar!

Fixed image link. And yeah, all RAM heat spreaders are for show.

DnD is actually a blight. It's got all the ungainliness of a simulationist system with none of the actual simulation depth.

I'm in. I'm doubly in if I don't have to GM. I've probably played in about a tenth as many sessions as I've run.

I wouldn't necessarily post anything out of something you're trying to get published on the public-facing bits of the web.

Damn, even with the NH-D15? I know the compatibility list on that one is much better than the D14 and a lot of the other huge "so we're basically trying to hang a 240x120mm rad off the socket) coolers. Also, did you catch this on the product page? Mine's actually 4 cm tall, so if you take that fin off, you'd have similar dimensions to mine. Other computer news I got myself something to make my work environment nicer: Replaced two older 1080p screens (and replaced that USB hub actually) and made plugging my laptop into my work environment two cables instead of four. It's gorgeous. I was going to get it as a gift to myself for finishing off the first real project at work, but it was on sale... It's made my life a lot more pleasant at work. I can fit three chunks of code side by side easily, and even have room for two and something wider like a reference doc on the side. It's got a fantastic software thingy that lets me break the monitor up into chunks and maximizes windows into those chunks. Awesomely, when I resize windows the regions automatically adjust, so I can change how the screen's broken up on the fly. And yes I use pencil and paper while programming with a 3440x1440 34" screen.

I think the real multipurpose item in those videos is that phrase. It's handy to have God I hope this works and Holy Shit! represented by the same non blasphemous phrase.

Computer game design and writing is a finicky beast. The goal of an RPG design is at its heart to get the players to make choices as their characters (both in and out of combat and I desperately hate how Combat is combat with combat mechanics and Not-Combat is not, and never the twain shall meet). Good choices to present them with can vary. Difficult choices that really present a hard choice for the player and easy choices that affirm the character for the player (such as acts of self-sacrifice for one example) and the party are both and have their place. In PnP it's really easy to present a section of the adventure such that it poses a dramatic question and the players can to try to solve it. There's no worry if one of the players comes up with something unexpected because the GM can design after the players make their decisions. Often the end result is that they still went from the question to one answer, but they took a different path. That's not a huge deal because you can design with any consequences of that baked into your work. Yes I did just say something functionally similar to what Zine just said, but that's the essence of the difficulty of Computer game scenario design (and actually a role that doesn't have an equal in tabletop game design other than designing premade modules). It's the move from having a conversation to preparing for a debate, where you need to have a prepared response for anything your opposite number brings up. There's two tools you have. The first is anticipating the likely answers. This is obvious, but each answer takes time and effort, and consequences from those choices result in progressively more possibilities. Other than a very few games (such as superlative gem of game responding to player choices Alpha Protocol), that means the choice branches off, and then the paths get necked right back down. A neat way to do that is the Bioware formula where you have a bunch of parallel goals that all need to be accomplished and will be by definition when you finish them, and they don't depend on each other. The other tool isn't as easily noticed by players, but it's vital. It's constraining the likely choices by scenario design. If a good chunk of your players are going to want to do something that you can't let them do that's a badly designed scenario. If a game is a conversation, then computer game design is planning leading questions so you know what sort of answers you might get and preparing responses for them. Also I'd love something late Roman to early Medieval, that'd be awesome (and there's a reason it's one of the periods my recent literary acquisitions has focused on, the other of course being the Early Modern). A fun example of a very different design philosophy to what that article is complaining about would be Expeditions: Conquistador. Simple ruleset, a few very powerful abilities with great synergy potential, and the resulting combat is tight. I don't think we have the skill sets to do much more than Dorf Fort Graphics RPG, unfortunately. However, the nice thing is that complexity for (turn based primarily, and I will fight for turn based as the best for delivering good choices in combat) computer games that can be really well reasoned about and pnp games that can be really well reasoned about is that they have similar complexity limits. Design the ruleset, test it by playing with dice and so on while the game design happens. Also I'm pretty busy at work, so that's a shame, but I do programming for a living (and occasionally playing karoshi chicken). I draft more than draw though. Lastly, my general opinion of DnD is that it's a bad ugly dinosaur that shouldn't be mentioned in polite company. When the entire choice of a whole section of character design (attribute choice) is actually rolling a save on system mastery vs. a bad character, that's not a good sign.

I would tend to think that a good system for pre-gunpowder and modern eras would probably look a bit different (having played decentish systems for each), but other than differences in focus and where the complexity in the rules is, basic stuff like resolution and so on should work decently regardless, and skill checks are pretty constant. My biggest concern would be trying to do computer stuff without significant amounts of assets (or even programmers, stuff is reasonably tricky, and using free libraries brings baggage).

Oh man. I should probably take a look at that blog again, that was a fun one.