@RogerBW@emacs.ch
@RogerBW@emacs.ch avatar

RogerBW

@RogerBW@emacs.ch

#Emacs, #Perl, #Rustlang, #PostScript, #Linux sysadmin, polyglot programming, #boardgames, #RPGs, too many #podcast s, 3d modelling and #3dprinting.
He/him or they/them.
Here's a nickel, kid. Get yourself a better computer.
If I unfollow you it's probably for my mental health/distraction rather than anything you've done. If you want to follow me, have a profile that looks as if it was written by a human.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

RogerBW, (edited ) to random
@RogerBW@emacs.ch avatar

If the flyer hatch doors are fused shut […]

CAIN estimates that it will take you twenty-five minutes with his expert guidance to repair the damaged circuit of the flyer hatch door. Will you:

Leave Falcon's Wing without the flyer?

Spend time repairing the circuit which is located under the com-console?

RogerBW, (edited )
@RogerBW@emacs.ch avatar

As you skim towards the huge mounds of debris which have obviously been mined out of tunnels you see several large lizards each with six splayed legs like pond-crawling spiders. They tread very carefully, as if trying not to disturb anything lurking below the ground. As you approach the nearest red slag- heap, you catch sight of a gang of the fearsome looking Repnids digging a trench. If you would like to land and try to communicate with them, […]. If you prefer to return to Falcon's Wing and jump to another timehole, […].

RogerBW, (edited )
@RogerBW@emacs.ch avatar

[Score a K]

You dart for the chess table and your move is shadowed by your double, but the table is nearest you and, grabbing it, you hurl it with all your force. Make an Attack Roll.

Your double tries to dodge but is caught in the head by the corner of the plasmarb table and falls to the floor. You have the chance to:

Finish the battle with your blaster?

Use your Psychic Awareness to probe the other's mind?

[but your parallel-world ghost says "no, I recognise that number, don't do it man"]

Remorselessly your finger closes on the trigger and the being that thinks it is you is hurled across the room and destroyed. You take a pep pill and look around the apartment.

Your double is dressed exactly as you are and everything about the apartment is exactly as you left it before you began this mission. A half-eaten pack of Berries of the wood mousse, your favourite food, rests next to the nutrition dispenser and some of your old hovbike racing magazines lie open on the suspensi-bed, as if your double had been passing free time exactly as you would have. Only one detail catches your attention: the random number generator which tells you whether you have won a free trip to one of the holiday worlds shows a new number even though it should not show one until the middle of next month. You shake your head, still hardly able to cope with battling the vision of yourself. Suddenly you hear the siren wail of an Enforcer's jetcopter. Will you:

Call up Jobanque, the Lord of Time who used to be your Section Leader?

Go back to the Eiger Vault to consult with CAIN?

Leave the building and lose yourself in the lowlife area, Old Geneva, to give yourself time to think?

RogerBW,
@RogerBW@emacs.ch avatar

After an hour Falcon's Wing rematerialises inside the Eiger Vault. The digital clock reads 3034, the day after you left for 4000 AD. You cheer and CAIN chimes, 'Congratulations, Falcon, you can still pilot the Time Machine after all.' You are about to step out onto the Access Disc when, to your horror, the ship winks back out into null-space. Minute after minute passes and CAIN reports a Variac Drive malfunction. A chill steals over you at the prospect of spending an eternity in the void with only CAIN to talk to. After a quarter of an hour's panic, however. Falcon's Wing rematerialises and your scanners confirm that you are safe within the Eiger Vault.

You decide to call Jobanque, the Lord of TIME, on the holophone. As you expected he is in his palatial new office, awaiting news. He grins widely at the sight of you and says, 'Back already, Falcon? You must be tired. Go back to your quarters, we can debrief you tomorrow,' and with that he breaks holophone contact. You yawn, relaxing, and then leave Falcon's Wing for your quarters. The guards salute you on the way out and order a hovrail car, but there is no warmth in their expressions. As you get into the car, you are surprised to find the inside covered in luminous green graffiti which glows eerily in the tunnels; 'Death to the Enforcers', 'Join the one in ten' and 'Where are the thousands in the Tau Ceti mines? Ask the question in a loud voice, join the one in ten to rid the Federation of our tyrant oppressors!' You have only seen graffiti in museums before. Someone must have been missed in the last psychic scan. Normally psychos are given new thought patterns before they can get so dangerous, unless a lowlifer somehow got into the car... At last you pull up near the luxury SocWork pyramid where your glossy new apartment awaits you on the 109th floor.

[cont'd]

RogerBW,
@RogerBW@emacs.ch avatar

The eight-eyed Repnids seem to be watching as you settle the flyer down on the red soil, but they make no move towards you, in fact they are motionless as you climb out of the flyer and walk slowly towards them. The ground beneath your feet begins to tremble and then shake, as if in an earthquake and you lose your footing, though the Repnids seem unaffected. The rock beneath you gives way suddenly. Repnids have tunnelled below the surface and you fall into a boiling mass of hundreds of Repnid bodies in a cavern below. The end is swift, as several pairs of fangs inject their deadly venom and the air of Dyskra contaminates your lungs. Nobody will ever know that you were the first human future traveller.

[Oops. Let's land on the slag heaps…]

[Score an H]

You land the flyer nose upward on the side of the slag heap and climb out. The eight-eyed Repnids seem to be watching, but they make no move towards you, in fact they are motionless as you walk slowly towards them. You halt while still on the mound of crumbled rock and soil and speak to them, saying, 'I come in peace, as a friend.' It appears that they cannot hear you, let alone understand, as your Universal Translator picks up no answer. You decide to use your Psychic Awareness to contact them mentally. It is difficult to make sense of their thoughts; they are terrifyingly alien and your mind recoils from the contact. You decide that establishing contact again would be dangerous and return to your flyer, but the experience has cleared your mind which had been befuddled ever since you jumped into the future. Once back in Falcon's Wing you find it quite easy to plot a course for Earth in 3034 AD. Note that you have used up another polybdenum rod as you jump.

[cont'd]

RogerBW,
@RogerBW@emacs.ch avatar

As you probe your double's mind you realise that your own mind is being probed at the same time. You both open up so that each can share the other's experiences. What you find turns you stark staring mad. Your minds are identical apart from small details. You have had exactly the same experiences, both have been responsible for foiling the Hiver Renegade Lord, both have Agidy Yelov as a mortal enemy, both have killed him in an alternative history that never took place due to the changes you wreaked in the history of the world Mechanon. Your double remembers Baal exactly as you do, but you both see the world slightly differently. The other Falcon believes that a mining colony on Tau Ceti V has been wiped out but you know that no such colony exists. The experience is too much for both of you. You have lost your sense of self and you both become catatonic morons, neither wanting to speak or even move.

You are only dimly aware - everybody's voices sound so distant - and it does not occur to you to reply, when Section Leader Skirrow and some medtechs come to take you both away. In the care of the mental abnormality clinic of the main Health Executive hospital in Alpolis you recover slowly. Your double's recovery is quicker, but you are forced finally to appreciate the awful truth - this is not your world. Everything here seems more sinister, as if society is somehow turning bad. Your Time Ship has somehow materialised in a parallel universe in which you have no place. Your double Falcon, has always lived on this Earth, and the people that you count on as friends are this Falcon's friends not yours.

[cont'd]

RogerBW, (edited )
@RogerBW@emacs.ch avatar

Will you:

Land the flyer on the side of one of the large red slag heaps?

Land on the red soil some way from the trench which the Repnids are digging?

RogerBW, (edited )
@RogerBW@emacs.ch avatar

The TIME executive of this parallel world vote that it would be dangerous to allow you to return to your own universe and you are kept under guard. You have nothing to live for, your Time Ship is dismantled and escape impossible. You are an embarrassment to the authorities and when the parallel world Agent Lynx comes to serve the termination order you are glad to die.

[Oops again. Second choice, Power of Will…]

You gather your, thoughts and concentrate your will. As you do so your double is doing exactly the same thing and a titanic clash of wills takes place. If you are wearing a teardrop gem on a bracelet, turn to 9. [Nope.] If not, the battle rages on and on, your head begins to ache and the blood pounds in your temples. Your two minds are equally matched and there can be no winner of this battle of minds. As the warring of wills continues you reserve a small part of your mind to search for a way to break the deadlock. Will you:

RogerBW, (edited )
@RogerBW@emacs.ch avatar

As you enter the lift bay of the SocWork pyramid you almost bump into Special Agent Bloodhound. He has three fingers missing from his left hand. As he spins you round you say, 'Bloodhound, what's happened to your hand?' He gives you a stare that almost freezes your blood and your Psychic Awareness tells you that he holds nothing but hate for you in his heart. He turns and hurries from the building leaving you to take the lift to your rooms. The door slides open at your touch and you step into the bright white lounge, coming face to face with yourself!

The person springing up from the flexiform couch is your exact trouble, it is as if you were looking at a holophone image of yourself, but the shock in your double's eyes gives way to a look of understanding and malice. Will you:

Ask who this person is?

Use your Psychic Awareness to probe the other Falcon's mind?

Use your Power of Will to take control?

Thinkstrike your double?

louis, (edited ) to random
@louis@emacs.ch avatar

What is your regular email reader?

If other, please comment.

#email

RogerBW,
@RogerBW@emacs.ch avatar

@dekkzz76 @lispi314 @louis They're not consuming a share of stupidly expensive office space?

RogerBW,
@RogerBW@emacs.ch avatar

@dekkzz76 @lispi314 @louis If work tried to dictate MUA or editor that would be a big strike against them. Not as bad as compulsory in-office which everyone now knows lowers productivity, but still a sign of "we don't trust you to know how to do your job".

mathowie, to random
@mathowie@xoxo.zone avatar

Once again I’m getting a lot of questions about my tote bag that are already answered by my tote bag

RogerBW,
@RogerBW@emacs.ch avatar

@mathowie Well, it seems that "BAG FULL OF DRUGS" may legitimately be regarded as a reason for the police to search your bag for drugs, so…

DarkestKale, to random
@DarkestKale@mastodon.social avatar

Good morning folks

RogerBW,
@RogerBW@emacs.ch avatar

@DarkestKale I think Genesys has some of the same problems as GURPS:

  • quite a few choices to make before campaign start
  • no single compelling setting (and four out of the five official settings originated in "let's do generic X without paying to licence a specific world" - Android was generic cyberpunk, Terrinoth was generic fantasy, TI was generic space empires, Keyforge was generic throw everything in the blender and see what people like)
  • most settings have just a couple of books rather than giving you an endless supply of adventures
  • encouragement to build your own world so it's hard to write/sell adventures that'll fit in most campaigns

If I were marketing GURPS (which I thank the lord I'm not sir) I'd go hard on modern action, which it does very well and where there isn't a lot of serious competition.

RogerBW,
@RogerBW@emacs.ch avatar

@DarkestKale I think many series these days try to be accessible and not suggest that you should have played/watched/read other thing before buying this thing that's in front of you. General trend away from numbers in many cases.

DarkestKale, to random
@DarkestKale@mastodon.social avatar

Good morning folks

RogerBW,
@RogerBW@emacs.ch avatar

@DarkestKale @BigJackBrass that was my experience with a 3d printer.

RogerBW,
@RogerBW@emacs.ch avatar

@DarkestKale For me that would depend on the pie, and the sauce.

RogerBW,
@RogerBW@emacs.ch avatar

@DarkestKale Very, very shiny. Dunno what it does but it looks gorgeous.

RogerBW,
@RogerBW@emacs.ch avatar

@DarkestKale Neat. I still haven't wired up the "computer room emergency power off" switch (hinged cover and everything) I salvaged from a building redesign some years ago…

Heliograph, to random
@Heliograph@mastodon.au avatar

👀 Monopoly wasn't invented by the Parker Brothers, nor the man they gave it credit for. In 1904, Monopoly was originally called The Landlord's Game, and was invented by a radical woman. Elizabeth Magie's original game had not one, but two sets of rules to choose from.
One was called "Prosperity", where every player won money anytime another gained a property. And the game was won by everyone playing only when the person with the least doubled their resources. A game of collaboration and social good.
The second set of rules was called "Monopoly", where players succeeded by taking properties and rent from those with less luck rolling the dice. The winner was the person who used their power to eliminate everyone else.
Magie's mission was to teach us how different we feel when playing Prosperity vs Monopoly, hoping that it would one day change national policies.
When the Parker Bros adopted the game, they erased the "Prosperity" rules and celebrated "Monopoly".

HT Tumblr.com/soberscientistlife

RogerBW,
@RogerBW@emacs.ch avatar

@albertcardona @Heliograph I think it's also helpful to remember the context of the time - board games were thought of in USA/UK as being basically for children, and were often expected to have an educational side (e.g. snakes and ladders boards showing virtuous and non-virtuous behaviour). As distinct from card or dice games, which were for grown-ups to lose fortunes on. 😀​

DTJackson, to random

We tax payers have just paid £250M for this man's pantomime.

£250M has just been cut from the budget.

Absolutely abhorrent!

RogerBW,
@RogerBW@emacs.ch avatar

@DTJackson One major purpose of the pomp of the coronation is to remind the Prime Minister that they are Not All That, and never will be.
Cutting social care is how this Prime Minister reacts to that. He could have paid for it all out of his personal wealth and never even noticed.

HCBunny, to random
@HCBunny@mstdn.party avatar

You people are fun though, you know it? Not 'buy a ticket' level of fun, but for free you're not bad.

RogerBW,
@RogerBW@emacs.ch avatar

@HCBunny We endeavour to give satisfaction.

Stoned_Deva_, to random
@Stoned_Deva_@mas.to avatar

Why tf didn't I pay more attention in Art History?

RogerBW,
@RogerBW@emacs.ch avatar

@Stoned_Deva_ 1920s archaeologists: "probable ceremonial purpose" [embarrassed cough].

Chronomyst, to random

If there's anything these past few months in the underground lobster fighting scene have taught me it's that this isn't a job, it's a lifestyle.

RogerBW,
@RogerBW@emacs.ch avatar

@Chronomyst Just don't get into lobster modding. Under-carapace lighting, go-faster claws… those guys are weird.

CTD, to random
@CTD@mastodon.social avatar

Today your challenge is to use the word AMORPHOUS in some place in your work, documentation, correspondence or chat. Make this a day of amorphous action.

RogerBW,
@RogerBW@emacs.ch avatar

@CTD For several years Robin Laws and others played a variant of this at GenCon – the challenge was to get someone else, not in the game, to say that year's word, without making it obvious.

Eamon1916, to random

What's feeding all this craziness?

RogerBW,
@RogerBW@emacs.ch avatar

@Eamon1916 The hint is in the top line of text.

BigJackBrass, to random
@BigJackBrass@vivaldi.net avatar

My first spam message on Mastodon has appeared. Blocked and reported (searched for mention of their website and opinions were strongly of the "It's a scam site" type). Not a big deal for me as yet, but it came through Mastodon.social and I believe they're currently being hit with another wave of this crap. Good luck and good wishes to the admins.

RogerBW,
@RogerBW@emacs.ch avatar

@BigJackBrass Yeah, it's them again - my main fear coming here was that bad instances would get too big to block (like gmail), but I'm glad to say the rest of the network is coping well.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • megavids
  • thenastyranch
  • rosin
  • GTA5RPClips
  • osvaldo12
  • love
  • Youngstown
  • slotface
  • khanakhh
  • everett
  • kavyap
  • mdbf
  • DreamBathrooms
  • ngwrru68w68
  • provamag3
  • magazineikmin
  • InstantRegret
  • normalnudes
  • tacticalgear
  • cubers
  • ethstaker
  • modclub
  • cisconetworking
  • Durango
  • anitta
  • Leos
  • tester
  • JUstTest
  • All magazines
    •