Sundog

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Yeah. But actually, it's the difference between Stations and "The Genesis Sound" that I enjoy. It was a last, glorious moment of really progressive work before they went straight commercial - though I also quite like their later work, don't get me wrong on that. Currently: Limelight, off the Alan Parsons Project's Stereotomy.

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Calling All Stations - Genesis

Re: Cool Guns for your Games I disagree completely. As I pointed out, even by one of the definitions stated, it isn't a weapon. This is, however, why I didn't argue definitions in my position statement. Once that happens, you really are just talking semantics without discussing the actual merits of the proposal at all.

Re: Cool Guns for your Games If you're going to go to dictionary definitions, then I'd purport that by at least one of those: An instrument of attack or defense in combat, as a gun, missile, or sword, would exclude this. This is not a combat device, but one rather of murder and spycraft. (To be perfectly honest, I'm just as happy with your Heisenbergian statement of a few posts ago. But Ssgt Baloo gave me a challenge to defend my position, and I couldn't resist.)

Re: Cool Guns for your Games Oh, I quite concur - my claim, my evidence. Though I hope we're only going on a preponderance therof... My claim is based upon the number of features of the item that reduce it's utility as a weapon and increase it's utility as an assassination tool. Of course, anything CAN be used as a weapon - I'm simply seeking to show that such is not it's primary function. First is the device's size, which is very small, reducing it's visibility and increasing it's concealability, but also inevitably reducing it's weight and thus capacity to reduce felt recoil. Second is the tiny capacity, only two rounds, sufficient for a "double tap" to kill a target, but woefully inadequate in a firefight. Third is the extractor system, or rather, the lack of one, requiring spent rounds to be extracted by hand, as an entire clip, before a new clip can be inserted, making reloading slow and potentially difficult - a fatal flaw in a weapon, but aceptable in an assassination tool, as it grants the ability to police your brass with virtually no effort. Adding further to this problem is that the device is designed to be "cocked and locked" - and as a result, the cocking mechanism for the internal hammers is also cumbersome. Finally, the round chosen is low-velocity, granting the assassin quiet due to a lack of supersonic crack, but restricting him to quite short ranges that are not necessarily required by any armed opponents. Some may argue that any firearm is a weapon, but I would disagree, on the basis of two examples. First, certain models of nailgun utilize handgun charges to drive nails. Second, while the vast majority are pneumatic, some of the "stun guns" used in abbatoirs also use a cartridge to fire the bolt - which does, in fact, often kill the animal, making this also a case of a firearm that is a killing tool, rather than a weapon.

Re: Cool Guns for your Games Not a weapon. An assassination tool.

Re: Great russian SF novel... Gonna need to get that. I have the 1980's Gollancz printing somewhere, and loved it (not to mention the film, the compuer game...)

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Strength and Honor, by Hans Zimmer, off the Gladiator soundtrack.

Re: More space news! Who needs a generation ship? A few von neumann machines to build the mining bots, smelters and launchers - resources extracted, no human cost!

Re: Building times Didn't cause, I totally agree. Didn't affect? That's a totally different claim. The Industrial revolution was more than an introduction of new technologies and systems. It was a new way of thinking and considering the world around you. And that could have been lost - conservative opposition (that the changes were bad) and progressive opposition (that the changes weren't enough) could have either or both derailed it had they gained preeminence in the halls of power. The banning of slavery (and there were more slaves than you might think in Britain) advanced the conceptual framework that made the IR possible.

Re: Alternate History Trooper Loadout? Several reasons. First, there's consumer conservatism - with high-price items (such as guns) the general public is more likely to go with what they know, barring a clear advantage. Second, 10mm is a solution in search of a problem - for large-capacity, easy fire guns we already have 9mm, and for heavier hitting we already have .45ACP.

Re: Building times Industrial development required more than just opportunity, though. The industrial revolution occurred through a fairly unique intersection of numerous factors...one of which, almost certainly, was the 1833 prohibition of slavery by the British Empire, which removed one possible source of labour from the rising industrialists of the day. But without the damage to organized religion wrought by the schismatic wars of the previous few centuries and the enlightenment, the drive towards egalitarianism promoted by the American and French revolutions, the reorganization of Europe post-Napoleon, and a dozen other factors, our industrial revolution would likely also have been stillborn.

Re: Like Cold Fusion... Except It Works? In the original set, yes. The Escalation set added the MX, but that split the warhead in to 10Mt groups, and the Proliferation set gave you a bomber that could carry the 100Mt.

Re: Vincent (Collateral) Brilliant. Thanks, Susano - one of my favourite villains. I think you got him spot on.

Re: Alternate History Trooper Loadout? Nice catch, didn't know about that one.

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Voyager/What Goes Up/The Eagle Will Rise Again (Instrumental Version) from the Alan Parson's Project's Pyramid album (remastered).

Re: Alternate History Trooper Loadout? The only stand out Flechette firing weapon I know of is the Steyr ACR (Advanced Combat Rifle). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steyr_ACR

Re: Cybernetics and Bioengineering: what are YOUR limits?

Re: Like Cold Fusion... Except It Works? Tsar Bomba was built to be a 100 Megaton Bomb, but the testing ground (Novaya Zemlya island, off the North Coast of Russia) was deemed too close to important stuff, so they staged it down to 50 Mt. No one else has done larger than 20 Mt to my knowledge.

Re: Take a Teammate to a Movie Beautiful music, truly lovely photography, first class acting from the cast. Pretty cruddy storyline, really.

Re: Like Cold Fusion... Except It Works? Water isn't really a limited fuel. Besides the gigalitres of water on Earth, there are petalitres (or possibly even more absurd numbers) of easily accessible water in the outer solar system. By the time water use for this purpose (which does not require our limited stocks of potable water) becomes a concern on earth, quantities of ridiculous level will be available to us.

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Don't Leave Me this Way - Communards.

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Money Talks - The Alan Parsons Project

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now? Hungry Like the Wolf - Duran Duran

Re: History of Space Opera, aka Finally an io9 article that doesn't suck. Dead on. Personally, I wasn't a fan of any of the Traveller sets, but the way the first ed fans nurse a grudge is crazy. And the MT and NE crowds are just as bad.