May 24th, 2013

[chris_goodwin] Security: Subject: When you have a whisk... Time: 07:17 am

...everything looks like an omelet.

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May 20th, 2013

[seawasp] Security: Subject: In today's comic... Time: 06:43 am

They're going mostly "east" and "down", they're heavily armed, and moving (for an atmosphere) quite quickly, and they've taken on a job that their clients think is impossible... So... They're "eastbound and down, loaded up and truckin', we're gonna do what they say can't be done..."

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April 13th, 2013

[seawasp] Security: Subject: Haven't seen anything on this yet... Time: 10:18 am

... so I figure I'll embarrass myself BIG TIME if I'm wrong. RE the Friday strip: ETA: Well, I *did* embarrass myself, but not quite so bad; it was at least a somewhat more subtle error than it might have been. The one character says "Feels like point eight Gee", implying that he feels lighter than standard gravity. The other guy throws a ball and, it's implied, puts it into orbit (today's [Saturday] comic makes it explicit), returning to his hand eleven seconds later, saying "feels like fifteen meters per second". This is wrong any way I look at it. Normal gravity is about 10m/s^2 (9.8 and change, actually), so point 8 g would be a bit less than 8m/s^2. 15m/s^2 would be approaching two gravities. However, to achieve orbital velocity on Earth is more like 11 KILOMETERS per second. An orbital velocity of 15 m/sec would be a MINISCULE gravity, something you'd find on a not-terribly huge asteroid, and people would not be walking as you see, nor would the one guy think they were in a 0.8g gravity field. Also, throwing something at 15 m/sec isn't very fast at all -- that's around 33mph -- but unless that really is orbital velocity, he'd have needed to throw it UP so it would arc, or it would have hit the ground LONG before 11 seconds elapsed. And he'd need to throw it FAR up, because that's 11 seconds of hang time, which means the equivalent of a 5.5 second fall time, or over 150 meters (more than 450 feet!) VERTICAL equivalent in Earth's gravity...  which would require throwing it with a vertical component of 55 meters/sec. I know it's SF, but it's set in a world putatively derived from ours and things like gravity and orbital/projectile mechanics have always seemed to work like ours.

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February 16th, 2013

[world_wanderer] Security: Time: 10:09 pm

The windows on the buildings on top of the structure make them look like pointy heads. Maybe that was deliberate? And is there a reasonably active forum related to the comic?

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January 20th, 2013

[seawasp] Security: Subject: Ulterior motive? Time: 04:13 am

Ok, Petey, let's be honest now: the Toughs have generally followed reasonably moral choices -- given that they are, in fact, mercenaries, they still try to follow more than just the Maxims (though Tagon will often pretend otherwise) and do their jobs in the best way they can. A couple members of the group can probably be described as "sociopaths", but not most of them. It's not their fault that somehow the situations they're involved in end by spiraling up the Doc Smith Hazard Scale. Anyone else in their situations would either have failed, or ended up doing something like the same thing. Unless you're defining mercenaries to be per se sociopaths, in which case you'll want an entire PLANET to retire ALL mercenaries to.

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January 19th, 2013

[seawasp] Security: Subject: RE today's comic... Time: 04:06 am

... they left out "But sir, our doing dangerous, exciting, violent things is the entire reason our readership COMES here!"

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January 18th, 2013

[seawasp] Security: Subject: Well... Time: 04:58 pm

... it's good to see that Petey isn't running the same recommendation algorithms as the WWWA computer.

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December 24th, 2012

[turbobeholder] Current Music: ParaVerse :: Tales From The Vacuum :: Spacequake Awaits Security: Subject: The First Rule. Time: 03:03 pm Current Mood: awake

So, what have we learned here? We have learned that either Para did learn something from the little incident with Lota or... she just let it run free (and screw UNS over) back then. :]

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[seawasp] Security: Subject: Oooh... Time: 08:10 am

Well played, Mr. Tayler. Well played.

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November 15th, 2012

[seawasp] Security: Subject: And again... Time: 06:52 am

That innocent, carefree look of joy again! "The sergeant is naked again. I think we'll be fine."  That line made me actually LOL.

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November 14th, 2012

[seawasp] Security: Subject: I just love... Time: 08:37 am

... the look of pure, unadulterated JOY on Schlock's face. "Cook This Room!" I mean, really. How often do you get ORDERED to fire on your superior officers?

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September 13th, 2012

[seawasp] Security: Subject: Of course... Time: 08:36 am

... Para *also* created the Longshoreman of the Apocalypse. Has anyone thought of THAT?

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August 31st, 2012

[world_wanderer] Security: Time: 10:08 pm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhEYvOYceNs Thought the people here would be interested in this.

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August 23rd, 2012

[testing4l] Security: Time: 01:47 am

Wait a second. This all seems too darn convenient. First off, Para did hack Ennesby forever and ever ago. She also was responsible for fitting it with a giant boot when its motivator was shot off. How does Kevyn not remember that? Secondly, Para created LOTA which acted pretty decisively against UNS interests. Just what kind of an agent is she?

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August 20th, 2012

[world_wanderer] Security: Time: 09:00 pm

It would really be a pity if our dear terror of the robots really is a plant. She's cute.

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July 22nd, 2012

[icedrake] Security: Subject: *how much* data? Time: 10:50 pm

So, at 32 million km2 and a density of 3Gb/cm2, you're looking at 9.6*1017 Gb for the total surface. Or, to cut down on the zeroes, 852.65 yottabytes. For comparison's sake, in 2007 global data storage was estimated at 295 exabytes, or roughly 3 million times less than Osiri (and assuming a remarkable lack of filtering on the creators' part). There is some debate on how much time it takes human knowledge to double nowadays (or how to measure the rate, or what units to use, or... or...), but if we pretend it's measured in sheer data volume and doubles every 15 years (a fairly conservative estimate, it seems), then humanity would use up its 852-yottabyte allotment by 2330.

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May 21st, 2012

[world_wanderer] Security: Time: 01:26 am

I just googled exocehpaloderm. Didn't get anything useful. What exactly does it mean? Context is something in the brain, obviously, but beyond that I'm lost.

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March 27th, 2012

[world_wanderer] Security: Time: 08:37 pm

Poor Schlock, can't go space-diving with the others. Is he finally going to get something to fix his vacuum weakness?

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March 20th, 2012

[seawasp] Security: Subject: "Krum"? Time: 07:28 am

The pose, build, and apparent attitude recall a certain OTHER character to mind for me.

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March 12th, 2012

[world_wanderer] Security: Time: 08:23 pm

So, I've seen mods to various games to turn them into something else. What game would you suggest to build a Schlock Mercenary MMORPG?

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