Keep in mind Perth only has one daily newspaper, and it’s pretty much of the same calibre as the Herald Sun.
Pin yourself to the cross in the Herald Sun…
The state of journalistic play
Author: Purple Wyrm
Watching the Bones
I’ve got the blues Jen!
Man I love Bones. Not an episode goes by where they don’t use technology in a way that it simply doesn’t work.
For instance, in a recent episode they found a negative cast of a skeleton inside a block of concrete. They filled the cast with metal, and CAT scanned it to get a 3D model of the skeleton, which they then printed out on a rapid prototyping machine to get a skeleton they could study. They then solved the murder via a bunch of microscopic scratches on said skeleton. Brilliant!
Except I somehow doubt that,
a) The resolution (for want of a better word) of concrete would be good enough to retain microscopic scratches.
b) A CAT scan would be detailed enough to pick up any microscopic scratches the concrete did manage to preserve.
c) The rapid prototyping machine would have a high enough resolution to print out any microscopic scratches the CAT scan did pick up.
Add to that the scene of the rapid prototyping machine at work – playing a bunch of bright red, clearly visible laser beams all over a tank of goop – well it’s just sheer genius.
(And that’s not to mention the 3D holographic display they regularly use – a technology that just plain doesn’t exist)
Funnily enough, I don’t enjoy Bones for the reason that so many nerd guys do. Emily Deschanel is unquestionably very pretty, but I find Brennan’s characterisation rather annoying. Also, I guess I find it hard to be attracted to a supposed scientist who makes so many basic scientific errors 🙂
On a personal level I’ve got the blues Jen! I’m feeling tired, run down and ineffective. I spend all week hanging out for the weekend when I can actually get things done – then get nothing done on the weekend because I feel so vague, tired and unfocussed. My apartment is in an appalling state because I haven’t got around to tidying it for weeks, and all I want to do is either prowl mindlessly around the net, or crawl into bed and sleep. Hmmm, I probably need more exercise, more vegetables, or a good slap upside the head or something 🙂
All Hail President President
Jimmy Goose was by far the best.
For a history nerd such as myself, this is hilarious…
For normal people probably not so much 🙂
Although it kind of ruins the joke, I compiled a list of the ‘Presidents’ for my own satisfaction, and repeat it here…
1. George Washington
2. John Aaronson
3. Terry Montrose
4. Hudson McLavoie
5. Jim Stand
6. Bruce K. Tedesco
7. Jimmy Goose
8. Lucas Brokus
9. Plugman M. Tucks
10. Alan Diamond
11. Tex O’Keef
12. Nolan Shack
13. Angus W. Crowe
14. Gepetto Corrigan
15. Liam F. Stitches
16. Jackson Graft
17. Houston van Austin
18. Doug Wobble
19. Geoffrey Risenburg
20. Geoffrey Savinkus
21. Geoffrey Dolby
22/24. Geoffrey Stuckmeyer
23. Geoffrey Simms
25. Governor Mark Whitford
26. Buddy Knox
27. William Jefferson Clinton
28. Joe Montanac
29. Unknown
30. Daniel Flintstone (Boo!)
31. Bernard H. Stuckey
32. Christopher Tigus
33. Limpton Quick
34. Jonathan T. President
35. Leo Smoot
36. Steven W. Spooner Junior
37. Roy Wizzle
38. Charlie Angel
39. Arck Ack
40. Neill K. Sputterman
41. Oliver Paltrow
42. Sweeney Patch
43. Gary Question
44. Mark Ruth
(Later – It seems that my list has become the standard one being copied around the blogosphere. Unfortunately I’ve made some updates to it since it was originally copied. Fascinating…)
Foolish 40k Ideas Number One – Servo Skulls
Skeletons. And Fire. And skeletons on fire.
If your Imperial Guard force includes an Techpriest Enginseer you may take up to three Servo Skulls at a cost of 30 points each.
| WS | BS | S | T | W | I | A | Ld | Sv | |
| Servo Skull | 4 | – | 3 | 4 | 1 | 5 | 1 | – | – |
A Servo Skull moves as an independent model with a movement of 12″, following the skimmer rules. It may move in and out of cover without penalty and has the Scouts special rule. Servo Skulls count as HQ units and may not claim objectives. They may not join up with other units.
A Servo Skull carries no weapons and cannot fire or assault. It never has to take leadership checks, and in any circumstance where a leadership check would be required is assumed to have automatically passed.
If attacked in an assault a Servo Skull fights as normal, but any wounds it inflicts are ignored apart from for purposes of combat resolution. If victorious in a combat it may disengage and move up to 6″ in any direction at the end of the assault phase.
A Servo Skull is so delicate that it has no Armour Save, and can never receive one. However its small size and high speed grant it a permanent 5+ Cover Save, even when completely in the open.
Destroying a Servo Skull scores no victory points, however if all Techpriests in the force are removed as a casualties, all Servo Skulls are also removed. If all Techpriests are in reserve, all Servo Skulls must also be in reserve.
If a scattering weapon is targeted at a point within 6″ of a friendly Servo Skull, it rolls one less die for scatter. Being in range of multiple Servo Skulls has no additional effect.
So, that will either add some interesting strategic choices to the game, or break it entirely. Have fun kids! 🙂
Save the Wombats Lord, Kumbaya
What would we do baby, without us?
In an attempt to fill up the vast, rolling plains of airtime that have recently opened up with the onslaught of newly launched digital channels, the various TV networks have been pulling anything they can grab out of their archives, dusting it off, and throwing it on air willy nilly. As a result shows that haven’t seen the light of day in decades are now turning up randomly all over the TV schedule, often in back-to-back double episodes or in odd timeslots such as 5:00pm Monday to Wednesday, followed by 12:20pm Thursday, then 6:30am Saturday for the early risers. It’s historic TV madness!
One of these shows that has been dragged kicking and screaming off the shelf is that old standby Family Ties, the show that launched Michael J. Fox to stard0m and ensured that we’d never get to see Eric Stoltz drive a Delorean. Ah, the memories! The maddeningly catchy sha-la-la-la theme song! The curiously craggy face of Michael Gross! Ubu the dog with his frisbee! Good times…
But the thing that struck me most forcibly during a recent viewing was a scene that showed just how right L.P.Hartley was with his lunatic ramblings about shadowy umbrellas, hooded eyes and the past as a foreign country where they do things differently (and how!).
So, the titular family are sitting around in the kitchen when Alex (played by Marty McFly) gets a phone call from a girl. From the half of the conversation we hear it’s clear that this girl has managed to obtain tickets for some event. Once off the phone one of the parents (honestly I forget who, they’re pretty interchangeable) asks if said tickets are for Barry Manilow.
A joke of course – clueless parents totally out of touch with the music young people are into, assuming that Barry Manilow is somehow cool enough that their son would be clamouring for tickets. But no. No canned laughter rings out. The Manilow comment is passed over without comment, the actual joke is that the tickets Alex is so excited about are to a lecture by a famous economist.
The only logical conclusion is that in the early 80’s cool kids went to Barry Manilow concerts! Or at the very least TV scriptwriters thought that cool kids went to Barry Manilow concerts. Madness!!
Ancient TV aside, the old black dog has been stalking me quite efficiently recently, to the point that I’d very much like to spend my days curled up in a fetal position, weeping quietly under my bedsheets. Unfortunately it’s been too hot for that, so I’ve had to pull myself together and come into work instead. I’ve been doing my best to deal with it by subverting my angst into fantasies of extreme violence against everyone who has ever crossed me. This is startlingly effective but hardly qualifies as a long term treatment plan. I did manage to get my bike fixed however so I’ll try some needlessly aggressive bike riding instead and see how it goes.
That’s all for now folks!
Hellish
Satan Built My Website
Deville’s Pad may be a fantastically cool venue, but their website is hellish.
Graphics optimised for a white background on black, horribly compressed maps and menus (to the point of near illegibility) and completely built in Flash so you can’t select/copy any of the text or open anything in a new tab.
It’s horrible. I don’t know what they paid for it but whatever it was they got badly ripped off.
(By the way, the design is great – it’s the implementation that’s jaw-droppingly bad).
A Reading from the Book of Truth
All are the three and of the three
The document now known as The Book of Truth was discovered in southern Namibia in 2004, apparently having been deposited by a temporal wormhole of the kind now known to spontaneously occur in that region. Although the date of authorship is unknown, temporal studies have suggested that it originates from at least 4oo years in the future, and (based on isotope readings of the ink) was probably produced in east Asia.
The document is in the form of a slim booklet, hand written on coarse paper, bound with a leather cover fastened with clasps of poor quality steel. Carbon dating of the paper suggests that the document is between 100 and 150 years old. It is written in a language barely recognisable as English, displaying a heavy influence from a south Slavic language – most likely a dialect of Croatian. Translation of the text has been hindered by the fact that the metal components of the work are highly radioactive, whether this is an effect of the time-travel process, or due to environmental factors at the point of origin is currently unknown.
What translation has been possible suggests that the work is religious and philosophical in nature. Extracts from the first two chapters (which are divided into numbered verses) are presented below.
Chapter 1
1: All in creation is composed of the three, and the three are that which is Good, that which is Evil and that which is neither, and the names of the three are potos, ekos and notos.
2: In the moment of creation was made hadaz, the water of the heavens. And hadaz was formed both good and evil.
3: And hadaz did beget the stars, and the stars did beget all. The metal and stones, the air and waters, all that is living and non-living.
4: And all are the three and of the three.
5: Potos and notos shall gather together as a fly in the temple of the wise. And ekos shall weave around them a veil.
6: And the veil shall be many layered and the outmost veil shall be most highly regarded when complete.
7: And the ekos within the veil shall be where it is not, and none that knows where it is shall know where it will be, for there it is not, though it is.
8: And all that is real shall ascend.
Chapter 2
1: That which is light is strong, but that which is heavy is weak and its weakness will be shown when struck.
2: That which is the heaviest is the weakest and in its breaking is poison, but the poison may be harnessed by the wise for acts of power.
3: But the poison of the breaking shall last for a thousand years and corrupt the earth and vex the wise.
4: For it is not the power of the stars, and the power of the stars and the blending of the hadaz shall evade the very wisest.
Odd
Life After the Apocalypse with Power Armour and Demons and Tube Stations and Things
7 Mate (as Network 7 is insisting on calling it’s third channel) is promoting the series Life After People with that picture from Hellgate London.
You know, the one that curiously distorts the layout of the city to get the maximum number of devestated landmarks in?
With the game shut down and all I don’t know what the copyright status of the image is, but it seems like a strange choice. I mean the series is Life After People, not Life After the Apocalypse with Power Armour and Demons and Tube Stations and Things.
Odd.
Packages
Goodies
Two of my eBay orders arrived yesterday (well, actually they arrived earlier in the week and I was only able to pick them up yesterday) which means I now actually have some models for my force of Valhallans. Not a huge number, but it’s a start.
Let’s see, I have a Valhallan Commander (who needs assembling and painting), two Iron Legion lascannon teams (the posting on eBay said they were Valhallan, but hey, I can convert them), a Techpriest Enginseer (who needs some repairs and a decent re-paint) and two partly constructed Sentinels that I’m going to modify the crud out of.
I’ve got some other bits and pieces on order including parts for the Sentinel project, a Commisar and an Valhallan Officer. And a whole load of flock for the game table that Fabes and I constructed over the weekend. I’m also wondering if I have the patience (and money) to build some bear cavalry… mmm…. bear cavalry…..
In other news it’s 9:30 in the morning, and already 37 degrees. The temperature is not expected to drop below 20 until Thursday next week. That’s the minimum temperature I’m talking about. Oh joy.
Later…
Ah! They’ve revised the forecast! Now we’re going to be hit by Tropical Cyclone (Hurricane, Typhoon, whatever you want to call it) Bianca instead.
That sounds catastrophic, but by the time cyclones get as far south as Perth they tend to lose their puff. It’s due to hit on Sunday and will just be a slightly larger than normal storm. The good news is it’ll drag temperatures down to the much more reasonable low 30s with slightly cooler nights. Hooray!
1045 and All That
The other history of England
There are times that I really struggle to hold my tongue.
On the train this morning I had to endure an emo guy informing one of his friends about English history. Highlights of his lecture included…
- ‘One of’ the King Georges went mad from Syphillus.
- The Saxons were French. They moved to England and thus became Anglo-Saxons.
- King Henry VIII got divorced and married seven times as none of his wives could give him children.
- William the Conqueror invaded in 1045.
- Brittany, Scotland and Ireland all have exactly the same music.
- The Irish and ‘Scotch’ hate the English, while the Welsh love them (because ‘they’re on the same island’).
I was severely tempted to leap out of my seat and beat him around the head with a copy of Macaulay, but instead contented myself with the thought that a single kick would snap both of his skinny-jean clad legs like twigs.
