unclevlad

But doesn't that seem *extremely* contrived, even in the context of the MCU? Traveling to an alternate dimension is non-trivial. "Oh, I want to retire so let's embark on a cross dimensional Bill and Ted so we can find more." It might well work if there was time to develop it. No one would criticize a dimension-travelling storyline to find more, as a reasonable precaution. But I'd still want the torch-passing to develop separately. OR, combine the notions of Panther going off on a quest for more herb, as the best equipped to do it. (One would LIKE to include Doc Strange, say, but....) And it so happens that Weird Things Happen and it takes a while longer than anyone expected...boom! Introduce the new actor. Not ideal but I think the fans would understand.

oh noooo................... ESPN schedules a few HS football games that are basically constructed exhibition games, matching high-ranked schools from different states. I have a big issue with doing this generally, but right now obviously it's that much worse. Happened to surf onto one. Fans were in the stands. Lots of them. NOT distanced at all, overall; some sections were sparse, but more were packed. The cameras weren't very good; this isn't like a Power 5 game. Mask use was a little hard to tell overall, but it looked like most were. STILL...2, 3 hours in close proximity is a TERRIBLE idea. And there's no reason to believe a normal HS football game would be any different.... I'm now terrified the numbers are going to explode, especially in the sections of the country that treat football as a second religion.

AP is for non-attack powers, and it's still a fairly good guideline. If nothing else, something exceeding that number should be treated as a warning-sign power. But, yeah, DCs are the measure for attack, and by implication defense. For stunning, I use 4 STUN per die; that'd be 48 STUN on 12 dice. I also use 1.25 BODY...so 15. Those are high rolls, but 48 STUN or higher will happen about 1 time in 6, so I want to be under that. Another major issue in the discussion of defenses is the prevalence of killing attacks, because they are wildly erratic. The STUN total is dominated by a single die, so an average BODY roll, with a 5 or 6 on the stun multiplier, yields a massive amount of STUN. 4d6 killing delivers 54 STUN or more, 25% of the time. And it forces players to take serious resistant defenses; that same attack will deliver 16 BODY or more, with only resistant defenses applying, 25% of the time. By the same token, they'll also do basically no STUN a lot...altho you still need to worry about the BODY.

Not only that, but passing the mantle generally is a process that takes considerable time. The mantle being passed is the endgame, if I may use that; the story leading up to it is crucial. Take Thor's fall. The roots are all the way back to the first movie, with the major impetus being in Ragnarok. Steve Rogers' issues stretch through several films. Passing the torch is a Very Big Deal. I doubt Marvel has a clue yet on how to move forward. I suspect they'll first try to find an actor who can step in...hard as that will be to accomplish, they have pulled off at least 2 examples of basically perfect casting, with Downey and Cumberbatch. And 3 if you count Boseman; I don't only due to lesser familiarity with the character. Yeah, but the overall tenor was, anyone positive enough to fill his shoes, wouldn't have argued with his return. Would have to be a usurper. That's not gonna go over well...in Wakanda, or with the audience.

Well, not unique to them, but in Dante's arrangement they'd probably get the Bolgia 10, which is the deepest part of the 8th Circle of Hell. From the Wikipedia article: That work for you?

What are the point levels of those builds? The rule of thumb is that power active point cap is about 20% of the character total points. There are occasional exceptions; Desolid, 0 END, Selective Desolid...120. But if you want a Desolid type to have a viable attack, Affects Physical World is uber-expensive too. Also, that's for individual powers. For a Multipower, it's the active in the multipower...the slots don't count For a VPP, it's mostly for the Control Size; you might build a VPP that's 100 points with a 60 point control size. The notion is you've got more than one power up at a time, like an attack, a defense, and a movement power all through the VPP. The GM needs to look at that, tho. One straightforward, perfectly legal approach with a VPP is that you can use the Power skill, which you often buy (No Skill Roll Required is a +1) and apply Requires a Skill Roll to *all* the slots. That gives you a -1/2 limitation, and the skill cost itself is already covered. It actually doesn't reduce the total control cost by much...but the pool size is Real points. And yes, it sounds mostly like multipowers, or do it as a VPP. You can use the Lockout limitation to control some of the combinatorial explosion, or just be careful with the point costs and pool sizes. I have a pretty high-power teleporter build with a VPP. The use cases I pre-built: 1. Long-range teleport + long-range clairsentience (uses Megascale) 2. Long-range teleport + mid-range clairsentience (x64 Range, IIRC, but the perception point is mobile) 3. Combat teleport + NND HA + Stretching (to do damage only) If I was feeling nasty with what you're talking about...I'd argue that you pay for several Multiforms; I'd allow you to make a common definition for all of them, with the only difference being, let's say, a VPP or multipower that'd be tied to the trinkets. BUT...this sounds even more like Only in Alternate ID, not Multiforms at all. And a gadget pool for the trinkets.

Ahh...I see. CC is somewhat streamlined. 6E v1 includes guidelines for a number of things, such as attack ranges, max points in a power, defenses, etc. For a 400 point game, max active points in a single power is suggested to be 80. Even in a cosmically powerful, the implication is 150 for a 750 game. The CC writeup does NOT allow, as I read it, buying an alternate form on more points than the campaign rules support. That's in the full 6E rules, which is also where the rules about buying off Complications are. It does allow you to spend XP poorly; I'd change that, personally. For every 5 XP you add to the alternates, you also have to spend a 6th to raise the base form's Multiform cost. That rule makes far more sense, and it's a lot better balanced, than RAW, seems to me.

No sane GM is going to let youl build like that. Ever. Stop worrying about it. The GM is the last word on what's allowed, and you'd have to offer up And even just looking at the base form...first, 300 points for ANY POWER is far, far beyond the recommended limits. (Even for a cosmic heroes, 750 point campaign. See 6e volume 1, pages 34-5.) Then, #2...it'd be broken out probably as 190 points to get a 950 point character, and another 110 to buy off 550 points of complication. Geeeeeee, nothing to suggest clear, unadulterated rules abuse there, huh??? And a 950 point character when the rest is 400? ??? ??? Don't worry about such gross distortions. Just Say No. The GM *always* has the last word on what's allowed.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/covid-college-cases-tracker.html That was overall, but there's a key point lower: And several other stories of schools forced to stop in-person classes. There's no larger-scale story yet, but it's also relatively early. EDIT: as for how fast...remember that summer camp in, what, Georgia? Where the aftermath was something like a 50% positive test rate?

Actually, I wouldn't be the least surprised if the athletic departments did NOT want to play. But given who has the final decision here...they will.

I believe I've had that once or twice. I have wi-fi connected sockets and light bulbs...but not appliances. I like the convenience of those, but never saw a reason to hook up to my fridge from the store. I have considered a wi-fi thermostat, especially in summer. We've pushed record highs quite a bit; the forecast high for today is 101, it's already 97. Record high is 103; average high is 91. And that's been very consistent all summer. The nighttime temps haven't cooled either, so I've often needed to run the AC for a while in the middle part of the evening...but that necessitates shutting it off later. I tend to forget to do that, at least before I'm comfortably ensconced in bed with a book. But I think suggesting an IoT attack is going to cause most people to go "huh???" Because how many people have connected appliances, if nothing else. I'll freely admit they might just go in one ear and out the other, but I don't recall seeing ads for smart appliances in a while. Used to, yes, but not recently. (Of course, I had the TV off for 3 months there too....)

archer: I've done similar things too, but it really isn't a good idea. It does no good; I seriously doubt it even nudges their radar. They've heard it before. Can they take advantage of your staying on the line? I can't think of a way they could; once you answered at all, they confirmed a legit phone number. But just because I don't know of a way they can, doesn't mean they can't. And there is zero value in doing so...so any risk at all means an infinite risk/reward ratio.

https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/how-to-block-robotexts-and-spam-messages The first thing to try might be your carrier's services. I actually don't have call blocking set up on my phone, even tho I could; it was being too much of a pain. Then again I didn't try very hard to get it to work well.

No, I very strongly suspect they stopped calling you because they got caught...or for reasons of their own, such as "ok we have a bunch of new phone numbers we can use to spoof, let's start calling a different state!" My calls were "Windows support." Yeah, right. You can connect an IP address to a phone number. NOT! They're nowhere near the level of problem, but I don't care if I miss a call any more. Simple as that. If practical, I'll try to get to it to see the number, then decide. If I miss it? They'll leave a message. VOIP has an answering machine, cell does too. If they don't, then I'll see if I recognize the number, perhaps going so far as to look it up, and call back if warranted. I realize it doesn't work for most, who have more contacts in their lives. For that...see about setting up call filtering. If that's not practical...be disciplined, and teach your kids to be disciplined, about the calls you respect. And generally...yeah, I get the natural reaction. They bug me, I bug them back. But don't. Hang up. It really is the safest approach.

We will almost certainly pass 25,000,000 total cases tomorrow.

Rule #1: NO MAJOR PLAYER WILL ACT LIKE THIS. Rule #2: NO MAJOR PLAYER WILL ACT LIKE THIS. Rule #3: NO MAJOR PLAYER WILL ACT LIKE THIS. NEVER. My near-universal assumption is that any call saying "I'm from...." a bank, Amazon, etc. is a scam. PERIOD. Unless I *know* in advance there's an issue...and I can't recall the last time that happened. Credit card companies will send out fraud alerts about charges...but they'll ask you to contact them. The first piece of CLEARLY fraudulent intent was the failure to say "we want you to contact us." Go to the KNOWN SAFE contact point. Then...absolutely, positively, NO ONE WILL EVER LEGITIMATELY ASK FOR REMOTE ACCESS TO YOUR COMPUTER. NOT EVER. They have absolutely no reason to do that. And these schemes are *insanely* common. The stories change, but the scam remains the same. I dropped my voice phone line and went to just a DSL data line (and VOIP for calling) a few years ago, specifically because I was getting 2-3 scam calls every week. VOIP has FAR better spam filtering than the telephone company land lines. The point is, tho...every major seller, bank, card issuer, etc. KNOWS that fraud is rampant. Therefore they know they must take steps to guarantee their contacts are legit...so that's why it's "we think there's a problem, please contact us." But...thing is, people's brains get rattled, and they panic. That's how these scams work. And they do work enough of the time; they don't need a very high success rate. They play on peoples' fear/panic that "oh my there's a problem!" and any offer to fix doesn't, at that point, go through the thinking brain, it goes through the stupid lizard brain. It bites to say this...but assume they're lying. Assume they're fake. Assume anything they're saying as "authentication" is totally fake. Because 99% of the time...it is.

Edgy shirts... But I wish they'd picked a better case. This one's had big question marks from the get-go, and obviously 7 shots to the back at point blank range is extremely problematic.

How? What can the police do to extend even an olive branch, that would be trusted? You know the old aphorism...1000 attaboys == promotion, raise. 999 attaboys, one Aw ****....you're fired. That's the situation we're in. Good police work for weeks, gets blown away by one bad one...and it doesn't matter now *where* that bad action takes place. And the police have legitimate work to do. I totally agree that it has to be done better, that George Floyd and Breonna Taylor are scathing indictments of police abuse...but there is a lot of Very Bad Stuff going on out there too. The police need to be redirected, not declawed, defanged, and neutered. At this point, our society is hyper-allergic...we don't get a red spot from a bee sting, we enter anaphylactic shock on a *light* sting. It isn't the black community; it's a broader impact of the hyper-polarization that's developed over the last 20-odd years. And let's face it, there are plenty of demagogues who'll capitalize on any opportunity to turn the screws that they want to turn. And they don't care about the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. QUITE the opposite; they only want those portions that serve their purpose. Also, right now...trying to start that process is, IMO, impossible. As long as Trump rules, no steps forward can happen. He is fundamentally divisive. Blacks are not, by and large, His People. And they know it. He empowers racism. How can a national dialogue be held under those conditions? And a local dialogue isn't enough...because any progress there gets blown away by actions elsewhere.

And 1984 is right behind it.

I feel for Brazil. Arguably the one world leader whose handling of this situation has been worse than Trump's. Their per capita death rate is now tied with ours, is rising faster, and there has been basically no mitigation of their infection rate, ergo no reason to expect a decrease in the death rate any time soon. Their per capita infection rate is also going to pass ours within a week to 10 days...and even Spain's in around 2 weeks. Fuzzy math, man. Hot topic in math circles.

Nah. He'll just require that it only counts as Covid-19 if the person had to be hospitalized.

Countries with highest per capita infection rates: Qatar French Guiana Bahrain Chile San Marino Panama Kuwait Peru USA Brazil Aruba Oman Armenia Andorra Maldives What country there does not fit? The worst rate in a major European country is Spain's, and it's half ours. In terms of per capita deaths, we will pass Sweden and Chile in about a week; Italy, UK, and Spain 2-3 weeks after that. It might take longer if the death rates start to drop, following the reduced new-case rates by a few weeks...but the new-case numbers started climbing in late June, and they're still at those levels. The death rates started showing the similar rise in mid-July. There's no reason to expect the death rates will drop that much in the next 10 days. So, we're very likely to pass Spain, Italy, and the UK by the end of September.

Back to the point about good jobs for secret IDs...the flip side is things to avoid. --obviously, required shift work becomes a major pain --VERY public ID, eg. guitar god. Too much attention getting paid. Might not be shift work but tends to have extensive time commitments (appearances, interviews, etc.) included, and major attention on your public face simply makes isolating your hero face that much more difficult. --anything requiring notable security and background checks. I was looking at stock broker as a background aspect for a high-class spy-type hero. Broker in itself sounds pretty good, but the license requirements include FBI security checks, and that's something to avoid IMO.

Might that assumption on your part represent a core distrust as well? ALL of us should double check our first reactions in light of our biases. I saw the second video just now, or at least the version on CNN. I don't think it changes anything for me; both sides grossly mishandled the situation. MUCH of it might also go to the shooting cop. SEVEN shots???? At point blank range? Obviously, when we watch the video, we know the outcome. That said...I kinda feel, putting the 2 videos together in my head, once Mr. Blake started moving past the front of his car, my gut would've said the train wreck was coming. Like the girl shouting for her mother to get away from there...this was about to go pull a full-throttle power dive into concrete. But STILL...SEVEN shots????

Not if they have guns drawn. Which seems to be a mistake on its surface on their part, but it's also a clear statement to STOP MOVING. I might be wrong about when the first gun exits a holster, and we don't know...but as fast as guns DO come out, it feels reasonable to say the cops are ordering him to STOP. My overall impression is that both sides made major mistakes. And *no one* is going to get a satisfactory result out of this one...which means, of course, the partisans will have a field day spinnng this out of any recognition.