unclevlad

Which begs the question of whether the Titans can actually play Sunday, with no practice time, no way to work on a game plan, at least on the field. Vikes are shut down for today; not sure what their plans are. They had no positives, so they might return to normal prep soon enough. How delicious...I was seeing if Vegas' odds had changed yet. Not that I could see, but this is still pretty recent news. The delicious part is, the Titans had intended to allow fans. Only 10% of the capacity, but still.... Now? We'll see. I love irony.

Cub fans seemed to me to adore wallowing in their self-martyrdom a little too much, so...you don't wanna go there...Besides, all they had was a good stretch, that just happened to be at the start of the season. As Brian Kenny, likes to say...Small Sample Size Theater. Short runs say little overall. ONLY the first rounds are being played at "local parks"...and even at that, all 3 games are at the higher seed's park. NO in-series travel at all. Division series are being played in LA and San Diego, Arlington and Houston. All of which should be dry and reasonably warm sites. But the entire postseason is being run in a fairly compact bubble, as much as can be done. Tomorrow (Wed) is gonna be insane, as all 8 series will be in play. Same as the Regional round of the College World Series...8 series, 2 out of 3, one ballpark, staggered starts.

The link is to an old (archived, I presume now) web page. It contains links. BitDefender is bitching about the links...which is only a little overly cautious. It lets me load the page, but I have to confirm. I suspect your AV might be just saying No. Compatibility is a double-edged sword. Yes, it helps existing players transition, but it can also impede the ability to fix issues by forcing the system to carry over poor/awkward features.

Two other things. It can *easily* be cheaper to buy Selective Desolid in the long run, if the spirit can actually do something in our world, particularly if it makes sense to apply Always On. It doesn't make much sense for something like a minor poltergeist, but with, say, 20 STR Telekinesis even...APW is hugely expensive as it's also skyrocketing the END cost. Selective Desolid is APG but it's also incorporated into HD. Second...again this is APG, but it's not in HD. Desolid is a huge, indivisible cost, and APG offers a "diffuse body" option which is pretty much a Density Decrease in essence. The rules are similar, but you don't get the massive, near-complete damage immunity at the lower levels. That also means there's no need to for APW/Selective Desolid.

I wouldn't buy the book...the PDF is cheap, tho. I'd suggest you review the document Lord Liaden linked. TL;DR -- 5th is conceptually cleaner, but has some (relatively isolated) issues of its own. But I also agree that there's no perfect edition. 6E APG, for example, has one of the nicest limitations I've seen...damage-based END cost. It's not so much that you're knocked out but beaten down. It's adaptable to any edition. For 4E on, I have a house rule I call High Scale...acts like MegaScale but at lower levels. Teleport needs MegaScale; but running and flight with MegaScale either get INSANELY!!! fast, or just scream for the abuse of buying next to nothing in the base power. (Recognize, 4" flight, with a 3 SPD, and 1" = 1 km means you're moving 1 kilometer per second...roughly Mach 3.) And maybe you just want to adapt some things...like the stats decoupling in 6E, but mostly use 5E. Makes sense; 6E can be a mess.

One thing that has struck me for a while now...if you're not in the US, you wouldn't probably be aware of this, but ever since late August, there's been an absolutely enormous push to vote. Make sure you register. Make sure you vote. By networks, by sports leagues, on social media. National outlets and local messages. It's been ubiquitous and unceasing. Not objecting, just noting. I've never seen anything close to this level of effort, especially SO far in advance of the actual election.

No one will deny there's that side; what we believe is simply that the pushback will be far, far stronger than you think. We still have outright deniers that Covid-19 is nothing, that the whole thing is a hoax. No matter what Trump does, his approval rating barely wavers. QAnon's conspiracy theories are slowly infiltrating more mainstream outlets. Trump has obliterated the integrity of the CDC and FDA...and down the line, this will still resonate, as even when we get, say, a "climate change is a major issue" report, it'll be blasted as a political document supporting the Socialist Green agenda. (Conflating the inflammatory rhetoric I'm hearing every day from the Republican candidates here.) Truth has already lost, and I see no path to bring it back. There's no dividing line any more; there's a dividing Grand Canyon.

He would've died from sheer exhaustion under the current administration.

By WorldOMeter's numbers... some time tomorrow, the acknowledged death toll worldwide will pass 1,000,000. Those of you who have one, might consider lighting a candle in memoriam. I wish I'd thought of this earlier; I was actually at Bed Bath and Beyond just the other day but didn't think of it.

Yah, the story never says masks are LESS effective; in fact, the CLEAR implication is that if it IS more infectious, then masks are MORE important. The headline is the type endorsed by the Sales Manager.

Perhaps, but the fact that the Bills, Raiders, and Cardinals are all 2-0 suggest there's a definite nip in the air down there...

archer, no question. But we're probably hitting the political side a bit much as Old Man noted, so...I'll leave it there.

Having so many TOP commanders speak out against Trump may not sway the general public, but it might resonate with active duty military, veterans, and families. More likely, tho, it'll mean more to historians than anyone else. Nothing shifts the needle on Trump's approval ratings very much or very long.

Of course. The political appointees have pulled this BS repeatedly. It's the same song and dance with the school reopenings, and probably, if we wasted some time trying to remember, any number of other incidents.

Looking at the drive chart and box score, the Jags shot themselves as they came out of the locker room. Especially the Jags' defense. 12 plays, 84 yards, 7 minutes; 6 plays, 60 yards, 3 minutes; 11 plays, 70 yards, 7 minutes. 3 TDs. Dolphins gain 70 yards the rest of the game; the other 10 points came from a turnover by the Jags on their own goal line, and another on downs on their own 20. Looks like it was another TNF Special...

Season 1 had its rough spots, but hey, most series take a while to really hit stride. Season 2 was a little rocky cuz of the Sinclair-Sheridan hand-off. And I can't say I've ever been a big Boxleitner fan. But...overall...seasons 2-4 is IMO the best, most interesting sci fi ever on TV; this despite the fact that, in particular, the 2nd half of season 4 was force-advanced far too quickly. (It was to be season 5.) But it was still very good on its own, if it felt like it was rushing the storyline forward *at the time.* Had it run through the full 5 year story arc....man, it would've been a total classic. Favorite episodes...hard to limit. I'll pick 2. --Deathwalker, for the seriously chilling ending...both Jha'dur's "you will become us" and Kosh's "you are not ready for immortality." --Comes the Inquisitor. The raw existential exploration of motivation and self is chilling.

We know... But not for this. 😁

The fraud assertion is largely a given. The threat to collude, to have the states reject the results...that's beyond terrifying.

Sure. I use the skill enhancers regularly. I get where you're coming from...but there's no reason to buy a 3 point level with, let's say, PS: guitar, PS: singing, and KS: rock music. Simply buy +1 to each skill for the same cost. OK, yes, you can buy a 3 point skill level for, say, SS: Medicine, Paramedic, and Forensic Medicine; you'd get a slight price break on that group rather than buying them separately. With these, tho, it's usually straightforward to recognize which skill is in use...and if one is being used as a complementary skill for the other, the rules make it straightforward...apply the skill level to the primary skill. OK, when you're buying the big levels (all skills, overall)...then where the level is allocated may well matter. But this usually isn't an issue with the smaller-group skill levels.

We actually hit another record high today, according to my favorite local-weather site. But we're also seeing much sharper cooling...altho I think there was a mild shift, because the high was recorded at 2:10, rather than 4:10. And I went out to grab the mail shortly after 6; it'd cooled quite a bit, and didn't feel warm. Comfortable, absolutely, but not warm, at least for me. Then again, my cold tolerance is significantly lower than it was 15 years ago. Not overly looking forward to the weekend, tho; Fri-Sun, 3 more potential record highs...near triple digits each day. The good news? NM Health Department's redone their county-level graphics. They're showing average cases per day, per 100,000 people, over the last 2 weeks, and positive test results rate for the same period. We're at 5 cases per 100,000, and 3.4% positive test rate.

Ya think the NFLPA is going to jump ALL OVER this? Shooting up at game time for sore ribs seems risky. THEN botching the shot so badly that a punctured lung is the result? That in itself should be sufficient grounds to boot that doctor off the Chargers' staff; granted if his record is otherwise very good, it might be reasonable to retain him, but let's get real. A substantial number of the players won't trust that doctor, and you can't blame them for that. If removing him, when you've absolutely got de facto malpractice here. There were past incidents; I think the (relatively) recent one was WRT Philip Rivers and whether he had undiagnosed concussions.

I try to limit my house rulings to specific cases where I can explain the reasoning in detail, and preferably where there's a large gap in those rules. Basically, tho, I largely agree. Some things can sound really good, but have bigger issues in practice. These can go unnoticed without some experience. Plus, I think it's better to generally start with tighter rulings and relax things as everyone gains a better understanding.

No, but Drain absolutely calls out that they ARE different for Drain purposes. SFX should not trump explicit rules without good reason. If the SFX are such that they only work against some forms of rPD, AND there is little or no limitation asserted...then I might allow the complementary expansion. If there's a big limitation? No. You got the price break, you don't get to expand it. Conversely, if you want to buy Expanded Effect, sure, I'd allow that.

This is overplaying the SFX, IMO, especially given that it's explicitly stated to NOT do that. See p. 196 under PD, ED. It also runs afoul on the Resistant Def side, because it partitions something that can't be partitioned...the rPD versus the rED (and whatever else was bought that way). If you buy Variable Special Effects, I could see allowing suppressing one or the other *except* that you're still breaking the Resistant Protection into chunks that aren't normally allowed. The rules are clearly intended to be VERY narrow when it comes to adjustment powers.

Note that PS, SS, and Knowledge skills are only 1 point for +1 anyway. There's no advantage to buying the 2, 3, or 4 point levels, where a background skill isincluded in the group.