Dog Soldier

The World Cup makes the news but nobody really seems to care.  Sure there are some fans but most seem to be fairly recent immigrants.  We have a term "soccer mom" that is derisive of a class of middle-class women whose primary concern in life is getting their crumb-crunchers to practice and games.  I guess soccer is pretty much relegated to the status of a kiddie sport in the US no matter how seriously the rest of the world takes it.  I've watched soccer matches and never understood what was going on that would be worth rioting over.

Robotics,  both humanoid and killer-warmachines type

Robotics!!!   Honda got the Asimo that they intend to start leasing and Sony is coming out with a home entertainment robot.  And then add the possibility of Robot PCs

Quote (Chrysalis @ June 07 2002,22:37)

Quote The potential for gene therapy makes anything Gibsonian cyberware could do look almost primitive. We're talking the possibility to                            make fundamental changes to the entire human genetic structure of a living human, anything from changing physical traits such as                            sex and race, to deactivating the aging process and perhaps even changing species. Imagine if you could turn your pet kitty into a                            walking talking human, what would they say? Superhuman strength and speed? Child's play.   I doubt we will ever stop againg, cancer for instance seems to be caused by the internal chronometer of the cell maflnctioning so that it starts dividing and dividing.   But if you want such a world you do not need to look farther then Heavy Gear, in the history I am rewriting. Humanity knows everything about how the human genetic code works. They can create anything and GRELs were one of the products, this can be followed up by any act of genetic recombination and the knowledge that GRELs were not a creation of several thousand years of trail and erro, but purposefully designed. Also, Terra Nova does have its street sci-fi elements....   -Chrysalis Heavy Gear?? Sweet,  I had a street style HG game running for a while.  Keith, aka Garrett has all my books now though.  I loved that stuff.

A thought on robbery of various types.  There is a grocery store 2 miles from where I live that had been repeatedly burglarized.  This had got so bad the place was sold several times.  The last owner was a biker who fixed up an apartment for himself in the office.  One night he blew away an entire rack of fruit pies and nearly killed a couple of burglars with his shotgun.  There hasn't been an attempted burglary there in 10 year,  even though the biker sold the store to his brother after the brother got out of prison.  A few years back armed robberies of convenience stores got real common.  Oddly enough this was at the same time that Concealed Carry became legal here.  One small stores owner plastered large notices forbidding the carry of weapons on the property,  he has been repeatedly rob and beaten badly several time despite cooperating.   At another store 1 mile away the owners wife shot an armed robber to death with a .40 Glock.  There were never any other robbery attempts though they did sell the place after a tornado blew it flat.

Where I live when the criminal element gets down and out they  attend church and ask for charity.  From my observation that always seems to work.

Quote (wilphe @ June 03 2002,23:58)

Quote I used to work for the SAS back then What colour is the boat house at Hereford? Hot coffee anyone?

Different country with different culture and conditions I suppose.  From what I gather these guys would spend months setting up an attack on someone hundreds of miles away,  swoop in and make the raid then go hide in the Outback.  In the US that would be like a crew from Little Rock going after people in Chicago, Dallas, OK City etc.  That apparently doesn't go on here.

Stand over man is a term that comes from Australia.  They are a particularly brutal variety of armed robber that specializes in stealing from other professional criminals.  Typically they would kidnap a high level drug dealer, bookie or whatever and then torture him into telling them where they have stashes of loot.  Toecutter is a term used for a standover man who tortures his victim by amputating their toes with hatchets, pliers, tomahawks etc.  That's why I made the reference to watching Mad Max.

Country Western and Southern Rock what else?

Well,  if you really like a flame war go to Dana Jorgensons board.

 

http://www.cyberpunkcontraband.com/bbs.asp

 

He likes a heated discussion,  right Mr. Phipps?

About 5 years ago I had a narc who had just come out of deep cover in a game I was running.  He had some really good flashbacks to the biker gang/meth cookers he had infiltrated and sent away.  After one really intense session he wouldn't play again for nearly 6 months.  Of course I never did anything to personally provoke him

My article on Edgerunner

 

http://www.ee.oulu.fi/~exec/edgerunner/issue5-6/article4.html

 

Now,  I'm 45 years old and I can assure you that the US had serious terrorism back in the '60s and early '70s.  It all fell apart for those early militants because they were stupid.  They were every bit as nasty as Red Army Faction or Baader-Meinhoff.

Watch "Mad Max", the character "Toecutter" is a standover man.  Watch the Western  "Unforgiven" and also watch "Heat".

You mean lots of poser-ganger are on here?

Lots of lo-tek stuf in Snow Crash,  glass knives, bamboo spears, redneck katana, small nuclear weapons. I liked the redneck katana, just a piece of steel reinforcing rod with a handle made by wrapping one end with friction tape.

Hi Chrys!  Is one of the women in that picture you?