unclevlad

But the switch won't be easy. --If you live in an apartment, where are you going to recharge? --Charging stations need to be MUCH!!! more common. --How long does it take to recharge if I'm on the road? I drove from here to Denver several times...it's about 650 miles going straight up I-25. How many stops will I need, and how long will each have to be? Found this: https://www.nrdc.org/experts/patricia-valderrama/electric-vehicle-charging-101 I'll ignore the cost for the Level 3 charging for now, in that economies of scale may help reduce those. But even at level 3, over an hour. That's a long time for me, and for the charging station. When I'm using it, no one else can. It would've added a good 2 hours onto the trip. And here's another thought. The car's sitting on the charger for 90 minutes. It's not going anywhere...for a substantial period of time. The turnaround is low because every car at every station is that way. This isn't like a normal gas station. So, this *darn* sure feels like a pretty good place for smash-n-grab operations. The article also points out that the connectors aren't consistent. When you start talking millions of these, that'll be a much bigger problem.

And is this a character power, or a piece of equipment, a la the 1E/2E girdles of giant strength, that gave fixed Strength values? That actually feels like the easiest build.

It should never happen with a naked modifier because you can't have a naked limitation by the rules, only a naked advantage. I use them a lot, especially for movement because you can't turn *off* an advantage by the rules. So if you want Teleport, MegaScale...you do 2 slots in a framework, or you do a base teleport and a naked advantage. You can add limitations to the naked advantage...but the baseline for the limitations is the cost of the naked advantage. Differing Modifiers...I think the point is to show the extra cost or reduced cost to use the particular power in the mode specified. The example says, here is the power from the standpoint of the recipient. The differing modifiers apply only to the grantor. The -6 is the savings, but remember: it is a power unto itself, like a naked advantage is. If HD listed it as 3...remember that the Differing Modifier is a power unto itself, so it would *increase* the cost of the UOO, not decrease it, from HD's perspective. The problem is that what you'd prefer is to combine that differing advantage with the rest of the power details, to get a neat, final cost. That would be a MESS. And I seriously doubt it's worth it...how often do people take Differing Modifiers?

It's a 3 way race with the Diamondbacks! 14-43...fractionally better than Colorado, but it's neck and neck going down the stretch! Fans of each team are clamoring; we here at Hero Central would love to call this race, but it's too close!!! But the Rockies win at home; the others don't. Which got me thinking...how bizarre are the Rockies? .644 at home; .245 on the road. 400 point difference (!!!) Found this: https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/comments/crrb4w/the_biggest_homeroad_splits_in_history_or_just/ Houston was worse last year, but the only thing to remember from last year was they got something like a competitive season in. Give props to whomever won; managing to play well under the burdens of last year is something to be proud of. Otherwise...................

On bringing your own horse to the modern pentathlon...the cost to the teams is nothing. As noted, the regular equestrian squads are bringing probably multiple horses in some cases, for the different events. In tennis, the twin WTA/ATP events in Canada have started. Men in Toronto, women in Montreal. Montreal is actually under a heat warning due to a combination of heat and humidity...and 2 matches had withdrawals due to heat-related problems. (I wouldn't be surprised that *some* of this reflects the difficulty to stay in full match condition given the ongoing pandemic restrictions. Taylor Fritz is having a bear of a time...some of it is knee, but he's also complaining about issues that sound heat-related. And the broadcast is saying Fognini had to take a medical timeout and had his BP and heart rate checked. This'd be expected in Cincinnati, coming up soon, but not Toronto or Montreal.

The new climate report gives the sternest, most urgent warnings to date. https://www.npr.org/2021/08/09/1025898341/major-report-warns-climate-change-is-accelerating-and-humans-must-cut-emissions- Among other stories. It's already too late to roll back effects in less than a couple of decades. Even if everyone embraced moving to electric vehicles, and heavy development in the complementary solar, wind, and perhaps tidal power generation, it will take years to transition. And let's be realistic; a VERY large segment is utterly addicted to their muscle cars, and won't switch. They'll defend their right to gas guzzle with near-holy intensity; the pushback against mask mandates will look like a murmur of protest by comparison. In addition, a very large segment of the population can't afford a new car, and there's no used market to speak of at this point.

Before or after Disney wrecks Marvel? I also don't think this will happen any time soon. Disney hasn't returned to anything close to normal yet, and it's not at all clear when they will.

I think the strongest point is that cellular is becoming a competitive-market service option. DSL...no competition. Satellite...no competition. Cable...no competition. Cellular has the potential to let you pick among any of the three, which will increase price pressure on the others. Plus: everyone gives better deals with bundles. Cable can provide TV and internet; DSL offers bundles with DirecTV. (Let's ignore phone service. My phone is VoIP and it's < $15 a month...with better call blocking.) Wellll...if you're *principally* into streaming services, you may not need normal TV at all...whereas, who doesn't live on their cell phones? I am pretty sure it's not right for me, but I haven't looked into it in depth. (Southern New Mexico isn't exactly a cellular hotbed.) And I think it'd take a fair bit of research to see what would, or wouldn't, work, and the overall price. We all know the quoted prices are utter rubbish...pure come-ons. To get a decent package, you'll get hammered by This fee and That charge, and oh, let's not forget These service charges and Those taxes and fees. So who knows, maybe it's possible. I wouldn't be surprised, tho, if the phone companies and cable are very worried; the cell network infrastructure cost is covered in large part by the phone-based demand, so tagging on home internet should add only incrementally to system costs. The phone and cable issues are more severe. Satellite is very likely in the most trouble. DirecTV is down to only 15M subscribers at this point. Honestly...that's too small a market share to be a serious rival to cable. Satellite is horribly expensive; one thing I *loathed* was that you had to rent the receivers. At, IIRC, $30 a month for the main receiver. And each TV needed its own box. I *detest* paying for equipment; if that receiver was worth more than $300-400 if the market was open on them, I'd be shocked. So I've fully paid for the damn thing in a year, and I *still* get charged. DirecTV alone was huge; adding internet would've been worse. I had DSL at that point, until I completely swapped to cable...and bought my modem, with 1750 MHz wireless, for maybe $120. The cable service has also been more reliable. Satellite goes out in any thunderstorm, and we get a fair number of those. Went out for a couple days when we got a shockingly seerious snowstorm. DSL was mostly good...but also failed for several hours at a time on occasion. Bringing it back to the content providers...yeah, I don't see any anti-trust actions for them. What I fear is a greater transition from network TV to pay-TV or streaming (for sports) and that network TV itself will be complete, utter dreck...anything good, will run on the streaming service. Going back to Marvel...I think What If...? might be cool, but I'll be damned if I support Disney's moves here. Did the same with Picard...never touched it, and won't. There is no doubt in my mind that virtually anything *good* will be locked away behind their paywalls.

Antitrust laws allow, currently, 3 cell network providers. While there may be diverse cable providers, I believe each has a monopoly in their service areas. Yeah, they broke up monolithic AT&T but the baby bells have no direct competition; it's indirect at best. My phone service is VoIP with a cable-based network connection. Microsoft can't be forced to separate their OS and office products sectors; that's a move that's been pushed because combining them makes competition nearly impossible. I don't think your position is well-established here.

A feel-good story. I don't remember Roy Halladay all that well...he was East Coast, and not Yankees, Braves, or Red Sox so...mostly ignored. But that he was one of the best pitchers of his period can't be argued. Regular season perfect game and playoff no-hitter. 203 wins, only 105 losses. 67 complete games...he retired as the active leader. (The current leaders are Verlandier and Wainwright...with 26 each.) Won 2 Cy Youngs, finished 2nd twice, 3rd once, and 5th twice. Entered the HOF early after dying in a plane crash. So today, the Phillies retired his number; his no-hitter in the playoffs was as a Phillie. So, the pitcher for them was Zack Wheeler. All he did was throw a 2-hit complete game shutout with 11 strikeouts, including retiring 22 in a row. Now that's paying honor to the occasion for ya. And completing the sweep, and opening the lead over the Mets to 2 1/2...and dropping them to 3rd behind Atlanta.

Please tell me Brad Paisley was nowhere near.... oh no....... I just realized....... they're going to start up again Real Soon Now...if they haven't already. And before we know it, they'll be swarming like army ants...every channel, every show, every network...IT'S THE MANNPOCALYPSE!!!!!!!! (There is, IMO, a group more deserving of slow, lingering, painful deaths than even lawyers. Ad writers and producers.)

True. The sports market is fragmenting in much the same way, as local broadcasts get splintered among a huge number of regional networks, AND what any one provider carries gets squeezed by more and more streaming. But of course that doesn't affect blackout rules. Grrrr.......

The writing was on the wall when his son Terry left fall practices to head home, so it's no surprise at all, but Bobby Bowden died today.

Ahh... So the losers are the theaters. I'm also hearing that the bar to entry might be getting rather high. Production studio AND streaming service? That's a lot to build.

Wow. That's pretty ugly. On the one hand, I can see prosecutors wanting to push forward when the victim is so assertive that the defendant was the attacker. OTOH, tho, how can "here's video showing I'm at home when this happened!" NOT create reasonable doubt? It reads as if the police were desperate to hang this on SOMEONE, which is grossly wrong...but is it fixable? And where/when were the breakdowns? The system should always strive for perfection, but also realize it will never reach it.

There probably won't be anti-trust because there are plenty of independent or semi-independent venues...Apple TV, HBO, Netflix, Prime Video off the top of my head...to go with CBS, NBC, Disney, and Paramount. The losers in this game may be: a) the theaters, where ticket sales will be sharply reduced. You're looking at maybe 2 weeks for a big picture, instead of 4 at blitz level (our 10-plex dedicated 5 to End Game, I think, at the start) and 2-3 more at reduced levels. b) Studios that don't have streaming tie-ins...MGM and Lionsgate are probably the 2 biggest. There's also DreamWorks.

And Harry Anderson died 3 years ago, at 65. Also relatively early. We're getting old.....

The Diamondbacks' elimination number for winning the division is down to 16. There is a good chance they will be eliminated before the 2nd week of the NFL preseason. From the playoffs altogether, it's 23. That'll probably be before the 3rd week of preseason. Still better than the Cubs; they eliminated themselves in late July. Mets are in a world of hurt. Pitching is down considerably; they've lost their division lead. They have the 4th toughest remaining schedule, while Philly has the easiest. Worse, the Braves are now only 1 back of the Mets in the loss column, and they have the 5th easiest schedule.

Happened to just find this story about the Disney-SJ situation. It provides the context for what's happening: https://www.theverge.com/22611516/scarlett-johansson-disney-lawsuit-streaming-services-transparency

It's got to be tricky to compete in this, when it's illegal to follow through on your strikes. Sometimes it feels like this can be like some unnecessary roughness penalties in football, where the hit was going to be legal until the last moment, when, say, the runner's body position shifts. Two things I see. #1 is the animal abuse clearly can't be allowed. And a coach that pushes for it, deserves the same punishment as a rider. I have no problem there. The other side, tho, is that the practice of drawing some random, unknown horse for an event of *this much* prestige, in the horse world and even more generally, is utterly absurd. OK, the story suggests this isn't a change; it was standard practice in the event, and the men's event is over a century old. It seems completely incredible to think it hasn't happened before; perhaps not as bad as the story indicates, but happened. I would be curious to know why the rule was adopted in the first place. How much call for change has there been? If it's substantial, how much of the resistance is the common intransigence to ANY change, in practically ANY sport?

Sharing a stadium with baseball always had serious issues for both sports. It's hard to recognize that most sports weren't that popular until relatively recently. Baseball was...but that was, I think, because all the games took place during the day, and most when school was out. Baseball was very much a game for kids and families, and that's why it was so successful. It also had the advantage of easy access...more games, more days, more seats overall than football. Football started to grow because of television. Baseball is a *great* radio game; every great, classic baseball play-by-play announcer had his roots in radio. Football is a much better visual game; yeah, I remember we'd sometimes listen to Bob Martin's radio call of the Broncos, but preferably....that'd be in conjunction with the TV pictures and the sound off. The NBA...you can probably identify the turning point as actually the national championship game with Illinois State vs. Michigan State...Bird vs. Magic. Then getting them to the 2 most historically important franchises, and culminating in their combined domination, and 3 head-to-head matchups in the Finals. I remember, vaguely, NBA playoff games on tape delay...looking it up, the last one was as late as 1986. Network TV generally passed on live sports even longer...with the exception of football, because football was Saturday and Sunday during the day. If not sports, then it'd be filler material. And for playoff games that would have a broader draw. Local OTA broadcasts were almost always non-affiliated OTA stations until cable transformed the landscape. I didn't get cable until around 2001, when I finally broke down...to start watching sports in HD. Might specifically even have been the Super Bowl. Sharing a stadium between football and baseball now is almost inconceivable, barring the isolated game like the Pinstripe Bowl in Yankee Stadium (which is also long after the football season closes) because the geometries needed for the two massively conflict with the desire to maximize luxury boxes and other forms of elite seating.

In golf...Cameron Smith can't be suffering too much from jet lag... He competed in Tokyo; he's playing in the St. Jude Invitational in Memphis this week. Shot a 62 to take the lead today. More extraordinary: he needed only 18 putts for the whole round. Chipped in twice from off the green. Ties the record held by 8 others, which I found a tad surprising. First time was '79; last was 2010. I do not think it coincidental that it's the third time it's happened *at this event*. The downside? History is not on his side. Best finishes after doing this is 4th once, 5th once. No one else has made the top 10. He's currently tied for 2nd; as you can kinda imagine, if the putting surfaces are that pure, the scores will run low.

I've always liked the visual of dual-wielding tonfas.

The problem is that the system doesn't define 3-level differentiation very often. So, if a full die is 3, is a half die 1 or 2? An alternative is to define a custom adder, which HD allows. For Aid, for example, you can build a "-1 pip" to create the equivalent of 2d6-1. It won't be reflected in what the standard effect indicates, but it's recorded and priced properly. A custom adder is allowed to have a negative cost. That said: I think the system is wrong in the first place. It's rounding you down twice...first, making standard effect 3 instead of 3.5, then rounding 3 down to 1. But standard effect was never written to be average...2d6 standard effect is 6, when the average is 7. Realistically, defining the 1/2 die standard effect as +2 is much more fair. I'd also, I think, be OK with eliminating many of the intermediate steps, at least on the lower-cost-per-die powers...basic Blast, cosmetic/minor Transform, Aid, etc. Higher cost...Mental Blast, most AVADs, major/severe Transform, Drain, etc...the half die level feels like it's plenty. It might be that my use of the system is for supers ONLY...but a problem with it is trying to cover everything under the sun.

Might be interesting to see how this goes. It wouldn't surprise me, tho, if Jungle Cruise was never slated for a huge theatrical gate. This one *screams* Stream Me On Disney, since it's practically an infomercial promoting the parks.