malek77

Maybe putting 'punk' on the end of things is just a cooler way of saying "nuts" or "crazy"...make sense? No complicated semantics there...

And DieselPunk - whatta cool term...I gotta make use of that!

Cyberpunk - the Original branding experiment - etched on our mind via some desire, but never expanded on with a 'product'? Perhaps a memetic worm, invading and replicating with no particular payload...

I like Hi-tech Lo-life as a definition. Anyone got an example that'd break that?

Oh yes it does! Its called IA - Intelligence Amplification.

Sit down 2 average people at a range of tests covering topics from Maths through Literature and Art. Give one access to the net, and the other only his history and memory.

The one with net access can leverage the pre-written understanding of the entire of Western Culture, and a fair whack of everything else as well. The one with no access will be rather more limited...

Even cooler, our guy with 'access' need not actually understand his subjects fully, but with the basic interface of being able to read and understand, he can become aware of whats necessary and apply it.

The multiplication of communication mediums is creating a hive like consciousness in humanity - bureacracy and individualism are slipping into ad-hocracy. You're down at the shop, you half remember someone wanted something - you SMS them a question, they return it saying they want a pack of 'XYZ' - you note it in your PDA and get it on your way out.

Rather than depending on verbal communication and 'wet' memory, we're talking about on-demand communication using artificial symbols, and utilising alternative forms of 'memory' to ensure the accuracy of the message...again in machine symbols.

All this is training your brain that it need not remember everything - only that it need refer to an external storage device to make a decision. We are percieving our minds as modular, composed of distinct mechanisms (storage, retrieval, communication), and replacing them with hardware. We are replacing ourselves in some circumstances with machinery - why go to work if you can just teleconference on demand and get on with it at home?

Yes, humanities psychology is changing, it is becoming dependant on machines, and the result in a few years time will be roughly equivalent to telepathy.

Think about G4 phones some time...

Hee hee...

Halloween? Ha, yeah right...the only people who 'celebrate' Halloween around here are Mormons. And they say its not an American religion. (Despite its alarming resemblance to Hinduism.) I'm now wondering what Boosters would do to look scary on Halloween. Or what presents they'd get at Xmas. And if they thought it meant an eXtreme form of mas...whatever that meant...Mall Assault Syndrome? The lemming like behaviour of the Corp' burbanites could lead you to that conclusion...that and they'd have lots of disposable money on them, thus attracting said boosters...

Um. Wow. I hardly understood a word of that, but it sounds like you'd have to at least mount it on a tank...

Going on from Bookwyrm's idea - a cheapish dumbed down EMP 'rifle'. (Can you really call energy weapons rifles? Like, they have no rifling...)

Faraday cages are conductive shapes. Imagine a test tube shaped type of barrel, and you put something like an EMP grenade down in it. When you set it off, the EMP is only scattering out of the mouth of the tube, and is absorbed by the Faraday cage-ish sides.

It'd be as directional as a flashlight, and waste a huge amount of power - BUT - the good thing is that real EMP grenade type weapons are kinda directional like a claymore...

The ones I'm aware of are an electrified copper a coil around an explosive core. When the explosive goes off (burning from one end to the other) it creates some kind of EM pressure wave. Odd.

I'd be thinking in terms of using the shotgun rules for any such weapon...

Haha - yeah, my copy is on order (along with Wildside) and its taking months and months and months for any word to come through about it... :S

I just want it for the mecha stuff really

The music video shows...sorta. Rage is good and wierd, playing all the obscure alternate stuff. Video hits gets it right on occaision...but mostly dredges up horrifying memories. Like the Spice Girls 'Spice Up Your Life' which is an unfairly cool CP looking clip drowned in neo-Latin pop...

...then again, anything where they all wear black latex gets my attention. Like that LibertyX clip.

Spooks ended the other month. (MI-5 to the Yanks). It was good, intense and bl**dy scary...following the exploits of an MI-5 officer and his workmates as their demented (but realistically portrayed) otherworld of spies and counter-terrorism consumes and destroys them in a maelstrom of suspicion and lies...and it never really pushes disbelief.

It also had a habit of whacking main characters - which meant you were actually scared when they were in danger - unlike American movies.

Farscape was murdered by stupid time slots, I cant stand 'Enterprise', and Space:Above and Beyond just doesn't exist any more...leaving SBS, the 'foreign, ethnic, and just plain depraved' station as my only real viewing.

TV just doesn't cut it. My Parents are convinced they are the last generation of TV addicts...an observation made as they channel surf while I chat to 4 different people, surf 3 sites and have a Flash movie underway...

Haha - yes, they do. Minus the bias (exercise your counter-meme's) this site is actually quite interesting, and I do ascribe to many of the idea's held within.

Its interesting to think that much of the terminology associated with Virus'/Firewalls can also be transcribed to memetic 'warfare' - an idea I'm forever trying to use in my stories.

Memetic Warfare - my ideal job description...it's agro Advertising. Trying to get your message into the meme-space of the appropriate host consumer, to influence their behaviour by hacking past their barriers regarding personal image, financial stability and hyping desire...all while shoving out other meme's (Coke VS Pepsi, or Ford VS Holden...)

I love it...

No, of course not, Aga was not here, there IS no Aga...

Time. Hmm. For someone as underpaid and underappreciated by the business community as myself, I find myself excessively busy. I seem to have 4 jobs, numerous things to remain current with online, computer games to finish and a 5th, REAL job to find. Time is flying...things must be good!

That and I realised the other day that if I live to be 80, I've lived a quarter of my life.

Its bizarre the sense of hope that gives me...

I've only heard of this mythical thread and I want a transcript...anything that compares to NOD in wierdness must be good...

http://www1.chinadaily.com.cn

Quotable Quotes from China's First Manned Space Expedition

This is SO cool. China a space power...and it looks like India wants to be next - even though they're going to have a hard time beating Japan.

I can't wait to see what happens...and its so pleasant to see something positive like this amongst all the angst in the world today.

A Great Leap Skyward? I think so...

C 0

C Zero! The future of big bangs...

C4 and all that is good, but C zero uses rings of carbon, and is potentially hundreds (even thousands) of times more powerful...but its kinda unstable, and still under development at the moment...like Nitroglycerine, explodes from sharp impacts.

Pistol Mines

Imagine a little plastic disk, with a pistol mechanism on a simple arm - it can rotate, point up and down.

It has a motion sensor - you set its fire angle, scan a 'dead' area (ie: when nothing interesting is in it) and if it detects any changes in future, it rapidly and accurately starts shooting at the intruding object.

Put a few around covering each other, and ruin your pursuers day. Even though the mine will run out of shots after a while, and isn't all that tough, it slows them up!

Obviously - you could upgrade to bigger things - assault rifle sized, or grenade launchers, but just a 9mm pistol will liven up unarmoured attackers!

Also an excellent force multiplier in static defence positions...

Ah yes, the 'Heartbeat detector'. They were using this in some Tom Clancy game - covert ops or rainbow shield or something...anyway, the military say yes, they're working on it, but its the size of a fridge and can only see a few metres.

(but yes - through walls!)

I think the best way would be milliwaves. There was an article in New Scientist ages ago - the idea was that higher density objects lit up more than thinner ones.

You would cycle through the power of the wave, and your 'range' would increase, but it would be harder to detect low density objects at greater range.

The way I describe its use in game is your goggles show a b&w image of the world, and a 'pulse' cycles through it, like an expanding sphere - and the world turns glass. As the pulse goes, the structurals in the walls turn white then vanish as the power of the signal goes straight through to light what's beyond...people appear as muddled frosting patches of thin glass, trembling fluid filled cavities and empty sinusal passages like holes in the sheet...

Back to the Alien thing though - I think it was a sophisticated passive sonar - at least I know the thing in the first one, that detected the aliens breathing because it disturbed the air...I suppose you could kinda see through walls soundwise. It'd be hell tricky to calculate all the refraction and reflections though...

Something I like doing - make your NPC's more interesting than mysterious employers.

Have the NPC's as people the players are constantly in contact with. Either they live or work together, or for some reason are just always around...

The forces the Player to get involved in the NPC's soap operas. One might be going on a date and come back drunk and grumpy about how they got treated. They've got a new toy they need someone to help 'test'. They've got a new 'job', and they want the Player's help. They fall in love with the player with the Attr:9 character. They're being chased by ex-employers or enemies. They want to go and get a coffee, but they don't want to go alone.

I also have a habit of letting the NPC's talk amongst themselves, and over the head of the Players. (Helps to have a split personality for this bit... )

If the Player acts like a cold fish, the NPC's will treat them like one, whispering around them so as not to disturb the meditating gun-zombie (thus making said zombie paranoid!)

Paranoia is your friend. Its the quickest way to get your players mobile. They expect threats - hint at them and they'll follow them up!

True. I used to have this idea that Corporations might take over the world. Blame the books I read.

I have since discovered that they couldn't keep control of a lawnmower and business continues to operate through sheer inertia and staff desperation, NOT planning.

And you know what's even scarier?

At least business is under some pressure to survive. A government agency is guaranteed survival through the endless rape and pillage of the populations paycheck...

What kinda RPG would you be 'demonstrating'?

First thing I'd suggest is ditch anything AD&Dish, and use Cyberpunk. It has no magic. Instantly all the whinging about demons or whatever goes away.

Next trick. Give 'em a handful of D10's. No-one can resist pretty baubles. Just get them playing with the dice while you rave on about how you add the statistic to the skill versus the difficulty of doing something...like a library search. CP is full of innocuous skill tests. Human perception, Tech/Repair skills etc.

The only other point I'd make, is that you should really only go to the extreme of demonstration if it looks like the school officials are taking it seriously, else it should just blow away...

Hm.

Crazy. I'd love to know how he thinks he can predict the number they're going to choose...

(And does this come with the endorsement of the handgun's manufacturer? What an interesting advertising statement...)

Phipps was BORN!?

...can you just imagine the obstetrician copping a mouthful of armoured boot for smacking him...

Hehehe...Happy Birthday Phipps, at least things can only get better if your day is that terrible!

Cheers!

You should see the recruiting ad's for the Aussie army...they're such a torment for a flatfoot with food allergies such as myself...

On TV, they have these 'split' ads, showing these soldiers boarding an unidentified boat in Australian waters (full kit! guns at the ready! It wasn't some happy-happy ad!) and interrogating the captain...then the officer calls in a report and some local Aussie ships are in bound to check out what's going on.

...just when a guy downstairs calls in that its a minelayer.

What do you do?

The next ad has our officer radioing in for all ships to stop, get minesweepers in...its all way cool...

Then there're the newspaper ads "Like engines? How would you like to work on one the size of your house?" for the Navy.

There's plenty of film of our SAS raiding boats, sneaking around in Iraq and Afghanistan, or infantry rebuilding things in Timor and no doubt the Solomons next...

Only problem is all this action is highlighting some serious equipment problems and apparently morale hasn't been too good, so I suppose they're making it look better than it is!

Propaganda

What images does it conjure in your mind? Gov't lies? Conspiracy? The evils of a media state?

...Or B&W movies with an elaborately coiffed girl from the 40's waiting for her boyfriend to come home, awesome music, inspiring endings and some of the best graphic design the world has ever seen.

Having been fed on a diet of British WWII propaganda films all my life, I LOVE propaganda, and I've been wondering how propaganda works these days...

...So imagine my delight on finding AMERICA'S ARMY on a demo DVD.

HOOAH!...now how does a foreign national go about joining the marines...

Any other examples you've seen of late?

...condolences re: the loss of your laptop...

Oh good. I have no power in any of those places, so I have a chance...

(and hey, what's wrong with modem signals? Its just cos you can't understand them: you have machine envy... )

Its a Pavlov's dog type situation. You associate a noise with a good thing, you like the noise.

So far as I can tell, the past wasn't that great. Diseased, racist, child abusing, blood lusting, ignorant, superstitious and just plain dumb. Some good stuff did happen, but not a whole lot...Jazz was a good thing but it has terrible origins!

(Verve//Remixed2 for anyone who likes Jazz...)

I don't mind you not liking electronica (well, just a bit) but if you don't hate it and don't think its 'wrong'...

...I'll let on I like a bit of David Bowie...

Dude, that's painful...

Just a note with the keyboard. Dunno if a Vaio keyboard works this way - but is it like the ones with the plastic sheets with the conductor nodes that get pressed together?...if its like that :

Dad once spilt tea in my ergonomic keyboard, and decided to resolve the situation by drying it with a hair dryer.

When I next began typing, all sortsa wierd characters would appear - the enter key was making "../" appear.

Anyway - we broke it all open and had to carefully clean off the contact sheets with slightly soapy water and a handtowel. Only the NumLock key acts up now, but its otherwise fine...

Whenever these topics come up I'm reminded of my hope that one day rock WILL die...and then people start reinventing the guitar and I realise it never will...it'll just drag on eternally...oh the endless torment of being stuck with 'real' music VS stuff that actually sounds good...

Whinge aside.

I think notes might be on the way out. Imagine rather than music being composed of notes from various instruments, or samples of other things in a structured manner - its composed purely of interesting noises...imagine reverse engineering that part of the brain which 'enjoys' music through a synthesisor.

Remove the context of instruments and scales.

Far future, but eventually feasible...

I expect sampling to expand, 'Fusion' to be the rule rather than exception, but the only really major change I predict in music in the near future is IDM going mainstream. We'll let go of regularity...

(I wonder if we'll ever see the end of people accusing techno of not being real music?)

So far as I can tell - the pace and message of music is always a direct reaction to the society that created it.

A Cyberpunk society would create escapist music (imagine super fast happy hardcore IDM with trance elements) as much as relevant music - no doubt bemoaning capitalism to the backing of a badly tuned guitar. I also have this idea that Japanese Country and Western might be a thing...but thats just a gimmick to scare my players...

Overall, fast music is the future.

I can't wait.

I think the collarbone would be a neat place for ports - not too obvious, and it'd be just as handy for guns (have the other socket in the rifle butt) as for any other hardware.

I was looking for 'Punk Fashion!'

Honest!

It was completely legitimate game related research!

...The fact that people seem to think of me when they see cute, plastic dolls is just coincidental...

(Something to do with me not having a GF and liking robots so much gives some people ideas, )