Apropos of Nothing

Working with the Freepublicans

You might have noticed that I've been absent lately. Regretfully, it left an inconsistent drunkard with aspirations of counteracting centuries of female objectification by objectifying as many men as possible in charge of things around here. The upside is that I got a few extra dollars on the side working on a project of some importance. It started as a poorly-focused Libertarian project built around promoting the work of a single individual, but became something much worse. Naming any of the players involved would be unprofessional, but for the sake of simplicity, I call the entire fiasco "The Freepublican Job."

The story behind that name is funny; there's this nice country club and I'm having lunch with our benefactor, his right-hand lady, two middle management types, and another applicant. Despite the other applicant and myself not knowing much about economics or China (two subjects Libertarians like talking about), when the time came for our benefactor to point out our short comings, I--a uselessly handsome aryanish-looking man--watched as this smaller, Hispanic woman bore up under a lot of criticism we both should have shared (or been equally spared). 

Denver 5: Character Designs

A while back, a friend and I did some preliminary work for a gag-a-day comic based on a stable of characters we and some other friends came up with. I recently found some of that work and thought I'd share it. This week's offerings are basic character design notes on the central characters.

Tyler "Hellfire" Foss: Late teens/early twenties. Medium length brown hair. White. Male. No facial hair, jewelry, or glasses. No unusual appearance based on his metahuman abilities...yet. Tyler's usual style of dress includes blue jeans, a white t-shirt, and his dead friend's leather jacket (Ken).

Cyberparanoid: Your call. Though I believe the original character description I received included a trench coat. He's a typical twenty-something white nerd who isn't attractive, but isn't quite unattractive. 

It's the Magic: Dervishes

Yeah, yeah. I've played Gatecrash and it's pretty cool, but both of my Orzhov decks are awful, so fuck it; today I'm talking about custom card creation. Specifically a concept that I'm deeply in love with:

The idea with Twin-Knife Dervish (TKD) is that it can split up the damage dealt by a group of blocking creatures by giving them first strike. Then, it can simply shrug off that damage if the total isn't enough to kill it. Essentially, it uses first strike and double strike to fight two different battles, like a master swordsman cutting through waves of enemies.

Bloggers vs Neutrons

I've been working on a piece that's a general introduction to nuclear physics. I remember most of what I learned in Power School and they're very simple topics, but I'm still having problems.

Me: "'Protons are positively charged and neutrons are neutrally charged and they stick together in the nucleus of an atom because of the nuclear force.' Bravo. Good job, me. Simple concept that I assume most people know, but good job. You're a writer. Now, let's read it back while imagining I'm a newb to nuclear physics."

*Reads*

Newb Me: "So...you can have, say, helium atoms without neutrons?"
Me: "No, not really. Sort of. There are alpha particles--which have neutrons, but--"
Newb Me:  "So if neutrons and protons only interact because of the nuclear force, then a hydrogen nucleus with only one proton could be as large as a uranium neutron with 92 protons and 143 neutrons?"
Me: "What?"
Newb Me: "You just keep adding neutrons."
Me: "No...because...no."
Newb Me: "Why would you need protons at all? Can you just have an element zero on the periodic table that's just an infinitely large glob of neutrons?"
Me: "Shut your whore mouth while I internet."

Why There Should Have Been a Black Dwarf

There should have been a black dwarf in The Hobbit.

This came to me when I noticed the dwarves' noses. Not that it was the first thing about them I noticed; that was their rude assholishness. Their ridiculous noses were the second thing to jump out at me. "Why the fuck did Tolkien make them like that?" I wondered. Certainly, some of them would have a strange nose or hair-beard-braids: that's fair, but jesus-fuck! At least six of them have obvious prosthetics that place me in the theater, wondering why dwarves are the holders of The Seven Rings and the keepers of Middle Earth's greatest diversity of nasal genetic material.

Minecraft Language Settings

 

Via twidling.tumblr. (link plays music)

As per a negotiated settlement with NO ONE AT ALL, regular blogs resume Wednesday.