[not]

Pretty big disclaimer; I do not live in the US, and I am not fluent in their emergency management procedures.

However, this:

1. There's an earthquake/tornado/whatever and a large neighborhood in the city is destroyed. Citizen groups form up in an ad hoc manner to search the area and make sure that their neighbors are safe. Emergency services thanks the citizenry for their efforts.

rings very false for me. I live in New Zealand, and as most of you may or may not know we had a pretty serious earthquake (two big ones and uncounted aftershocks) a while back.

Authorities were very big on not letting random members of the public get involved in search and rescue efforts. The phrases "leave it to the experts" and "too dangerous for the public" were bandied around a lot.

After the initial shocks, members of the public certainly helped out with random cleanup (there was a lot of liquefaction occurring) but that was well after the danger had passed.

Now the U.S may work quite differently, but I can't see why; in a natural disaster, it would be preferable from a law enforcement/emergency team perspective to have as little of the public involved as possible, IMO.

Your points about the Police/MilOps operations being largely ineffective and the public and 911 call being more effective are well received, but I understand and somewhat empathise with the decisions that were made in the effort of public safety.

Something lighthearted for those who don't need to punch things all the time. Golden Sky Stories

That looks... interesting. I'm aware there are some fairly substantial cultural differences at play here, but I'm passingly familiar with Japanese culture, so I get the setting and genre as a storytelling device... what I don't understand is how you can make a game of it - how do you play a game without conflict? I guess the write-up pretty specifically says non-violent rather than non-conflict. It just seems a bit... bland to me (although I didn't watch the demo video)

What happens when you wring out a sodden cloth -- in space?

That was roughly 7 times more awesome than expected.

Yeah I just reposted this on my Facebook feed describing it as "completely interesting"

Very VERY cool find, thanks Mr A!

Blue overalls (coveralls if you prefer) also work wonders

[inflicting 1/2 his base XP value in lethal damage (rounded down)]

Every blast attack has a base area of effect — a blast increment — that’s measured in 5-ft. squares, and a center square called Ground Zero. Everything and everyone at Ground Zero suffers the blast’s full damage. This damage drops by 1/2 (rounded down) within each blast increment out from Ground Zero, until the damage drops below 1 point, at which point it tapers off entirely.

Death Throes (+5 XP or +7 XP for a damage type other than lethal): The NPC thrashes about viciously, explodes, or otherwise inflicts damage when killed. His body is destroyed, inflicting 1/2 his base XP value in lethal damage (rounded down) with a blast increment of 1 square.

Emphasis added by me

in case of that monster, the base xp is 94 xp.
This means that on ground zero (=its occupied space) it would deal 94 damage (!).
Having a blast increment of 1 square, the explosion would deal 47 damage (!!!) to anyone standing next to it, 23 damage to anyone in a 2 square radius, and so on.
It's still more than enough to destroy everyone's that next to it...

I think you forgot the initial halving - it's 47 at Ground Zero, and 23 damage one square away, then 11 two squares away. At least that's how I'm reading it.

did basically everything on Edge of Midnight, which he later released on his own through Studio 2.

You had my curiosity. Now you have my attention!

Edge of Midnight is a great great game 

[really]

I must have missed something about District 9 - I loathed that movie. I found the overstated preachyness of the thing insufferable - the SUPER obvious racism/apartheid tones in it offended me to the point that I couldn't enjoy any of the rest of it.

Eventually I was all like "if you wanted to make a movie that says "racism is bad m'kay" why did you bother making it about aliens? Why not just make a movie about racism?"

Most of the people I know really enjoyed it, and I'd like to ask why - for me it was simply way too "nudge nudge wink wink this is really about how man treats his fellow man, do you get  it, do you?! DO YOU?! HERE HAVE SOME MORE HATE"

Did I miss something about it?

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Minimum number of posts for posters in this thread (not counting me): 429

Don't think this is having the intended purpose 

Former British PM Margaret Thatcher.

Indeed Link: http://edition.cnn.com/2013/04/08/world/europe/uk-margaret-thatcher-dead/?hpt=hp_t1

And http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/margaret-thatcher/9978831/Margaret-Thatcher-dies-of-stroke-aged-87.html

(DS9 notwithstanding - remarkably, it's still the best conceived and realized of the whole Star Trek universe IMO).

YES. I knew I liked you Pat

I don't know what it is about Mr Cumberbatch but I constantly find him underwhelming and not at all threatening, pretty much in a "oh look at the cute angry face" way.... IMO he doesn't have the physical presence to be able to pull off menace.

I realise I'm probably in the minority here 

 

Viperion, I listed that one a few posts above

oops, sorry about that It just popped up on one of my feeds today so thought it was current. M'bad 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/07/us/allan-calhamer-inventor-diplomacy-board-game-dies-at-81.html?pagewanted=1&_r=4&ref=obituaries&