Well, it's the cosmic problem.

Subject: Well, it's the cosmic problem.
Author: Huinesoron
Posted on: 2017-07-07 11:21:00 UTC

GL, Martian Manhunter, and especially Superman turned out to be very difficult to fit into Beleriand/Middle-earth. The wood connection (Alan Scott's GL ring didn't work on wood) makes me like the idea of a Beorian sneaking around, slipping absolutely silently between the trees and striking from afar with unearthly accuracy. The alternative, I guess, is to drop the 'green' and go with 'ring' - get Celebrimbor to make an early prototype magic ring. He could definitely have one for invisibility, and I don't think mild telekinesis is out of the question. Something like that.

J'onn led me down the rather strange path of invoking a Bombadil/Goldberry-esque spirit of the landscape. While not quite a Maia, they may well be able to change their forms, which is the Manhunter's defining characteristic. By making him from a distant region of Arda - maybe even Almaren, the lost island of the Valar - it's possible to also draw on the last-of-his-kind stuff.

But Superman? I haven't a single idea. All his key characteristics are too 'magical' - flight, heat vision, super strength. I could find someone who has a single one - for instance Hurin with his troll-slaying axework, though again the timeline doesn't work - but not a significant combination. And Beleriand doesn't really provide many candidates for the 'essential goodness' side of Kal-El, either.

So yeah, this is part of why I abandoned it. ^_^

I am really looking forward to Thor: Ragnarok. I didn't much like the other Thor films (they were waaaaay too dark visually, it was impossible to see what was going on), but this one looks like a heap of fun. "I know him! He's a friend from work!"

hS

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Friday Forum: "Well, I have not brought the Sun." by Huinesoron on 2017-07-07 10:28:00 UTC Reply

"Well, I have not brought the Sun."

"She is walking in the blue fields of the South and a little wreath of snow on this Redhorn hillock troubles her not at all." ~Legolas Thranduillion of Mirkwood

I'm back.

Please remember that, when it comes to the state of the world, not everyone will agree with you. You're free to state, discuss, and defend your viewpoint (provided it does not violate the Constitution), but please don't use that fact to attack others.

Fandom News

(Link)

Spider-Man:Homecoming is out - and I've even seen it! I needed to start work late yesterday, so Kaitlyn and I snuck off to the cinema. ^^

It's a good film - funny and charming, but serious when it needs to be. It's very much a high-school movie, except that one of the students is also a costumed superhero. ^^

Tom Holland remains very fun to watch, and his interactions with Tony Stark - while fairly new to the Spidey mythos - work very well. The new characters are both well-cast and diverse (all four of the significant students-who-aren't-Spidey are non-white, and two are female), and - oh yeah - Jennifer 'Sarah from Labyrinth' Connelly has a voice role. :D It's the little things, folks...

"Patience."

Silly News

(Link)

Lewis and Quark: Letting Neural Networks Be Weird is my new favourite thing (Kaitlyn keeps saying I'm going to leave her for the blog - not the writer, just the blog!). Over a series of gloriously surreal posts, Janelle Shane trains her neural networks on all manner of databases - from knock-knock jokes to guniea pig names. In proper neural network fashion, the network then outputs new items it thinks fit with the list... from paint colours named "sudden pine", to the story title "Swords and Batman: Summer Party?".

And now... she trained it on the Harry Potter section of AO3. And had it produce titles and summaries for its own creative works:

The Garden by perverseidyll for lexigilite
Ron and Hermione move after a man party. What did her best things go and has to deal with people she loves? How many imperfect love really belonges them and needs to be a person? Or will they learn and more than the war?

[...]

And the neural network occasionally uses content warnings, although it seems to have a rather fuzzy idea about what to warn its readers about:

Better With The Broom Complicate by MargynBlack
Tonks gets more than the best girl of creation. (Rated Maturisle, mark, a violence, contract) (slash] part of themes) ferret.

Art for the Sun a Scary by disillusionist9
A collection of warnings: characters and situations of silence.

Kaitlyn may yet be proven right. ^^

Serious News

(Link)

A terrorist plot to assassinate French President Macron has been thwarted - after the terrorist posted to a video game forum asking where he could buy a gun. So the forum users tipped off the police. ^^ Well done them!

Not News

A project I started and probably won't finish: what if the Justice League was from Beleriand? Other ideas include Armour, the steel-clad dwarf of Khazad-Dum (who might be Durin himself), the Rider who can turn any horse into a speed demon (probably Maglor), and the Friend of the Green, a Mortal whose closeness to the natural world gives him some very eerie abilities (who would be Beren except that the timelines don't match up).

(Cyborg, Flash, and Green Lantern, respectively.)

Plort will be incoming... next week, probably.

hS

Tiny Fandom News: N. Sane Trilogy is out! by Scapegrace on 2017-07-10 05:14:00 UTC Reply

This is a PS4 HD remastering of the original Crash Bandicoot trilogy.

Yes.

Yes I will take one.

I will take one to play it.

And then I will take another one to cuddle it gently and sing me to sleep with the music from Hang Eight in Cortex Strikes Back.
Fill the Plothole: Neural Network edition by Tomash on 2017-07-08 22:58:00 UTC Reply

(( I was looking at the neural-net generated fanfic summaries, and this idea jumped into my head, so let's go. ))

The Perfect Cow by ~~alafaye~~ Tomash
Severus and Hermione start a horcruxes

There was a knock on Severus Snape's office door.

"Come in," he said, setting down the essay he was grading.

The door opened, and a bushy-haired sixth year Gryffindor stepped in somewhat hesitantly.

"Ah. Miss… Granger. What do you want?" Professor Snape said coldly.

"I was doing some research, Professor—"

Of course you were.

"—and I had a rather theoretical question. About Horcruxes."

A moment of shock crossed the Professor's face before he composed himself. "And where did you hear of those, Miss Granger?"

"The Restricted Section, Professor."

Snape glared at her. "Do not lie to me. There are no works on Horcruxes in the Restricted Section." Because I personally made sure there were none once the Headmaster said he had removed them.

Hermione blushed slightly. "Well, Dumbledore told Harry that Voldemort had made Horcruxes, and he asked me to do some research. I couldn't really find anything—"

"Good."

"—but I do know that the idea is that, by doing something terrible, you split your soul, and then somehow put one of the pieces into an object, which makes you immortal unless the extra piece is destroyed."

"Yes, and?"

"I was wondering if you have to be human to make a Horcrux. Could a house-elf split their soul? Or a cow?"

"A cow, Miss Granger?"

"It was an example..." Hermione trailed off.

"I see," said Snape, somewhat dubious. "Why did you think to ask me this?"

"Well, sir," Hermione said, "you are the Defense Professor."

"So I am. But such questions are more a matter for the Department of Mysteries."

Hermione nodded.

"Now, do you have any other inane questions with which to waste my time? Whether ants can make wards, perhaps?"

"No, Professor. Thank you." Hermione quickly left the office.

Hermione made her way back to the Common Room, somewhat disappointed that she couldn't get the answer she was looking for. On the way there, however, she remembered that she did, after all, know someone from the Department of Mysteries. Well, "know" wasn't quite right. The man had come to talk to her last summer about keeping what she'd seen in the Department quiet. He'd been rather creative with the threats, and he had asked her to keep an ear out for anything the Department might be interested in.

It was a long shot, Hermione knew, but, as she settled down in front of the fire, she thought she'd try anyway. She pulled out a piece of parchment and a quill and began writing:

Dear Mr. Brown,

I've got a theoretical question about Horcruxes…

(( - Tomash ))

:D I like it. by Huinesoron on 2017-07-10 14:11:00 UTC Reply

I don't have enough of a Potterverse 'feel' to know if Hermione is quite that, uh... I don't even know what the word is. But it definitely feels like something someone with her basic character would do.

hS
Also, thank you to Iximaz for beta reading this (nm) by Tomash on 2017-07-10 05:08:00 UTC Reply
*snrk* You read my mind. Also made me giggle. (nm) by KittyEden on 2017-07-09 05:46:00 UTC Reply

Thank you! by Tomash on 2017-07-09 07:05:00 UTC Reply

If you happen to remember, what was giggle-inducing bit?

- Tomash

All of it. (nm) by The Triumvirate on 2017-07-09 16:12:00 UTC Reply

Who brought the sun, then? by twistedwindowpane on 2017-07-07 17:22:00 UTC Reply

You're back! :D

Reaction to the Fandom News:
That's good to hear that it's a good movie with a diverse cast! I personally really hate it when a canon work focuses so much on having a diverse/minority cast that it ruins the plot. (Which is Steven Universe, in my opinion. Even some members of the team that works on it are radfem jerks. But anyway.)

Reaction to the Silly News:
Those story summaries are just the best... I love it when an AI has its derpy moments.

Reaction to the Serious News:
That's a pretty interesting story, haha! A video game forum saved the day! Well done, gamers!

Reaction to the Not News:
That's actually an interesting AU-crossover-thingy! I wonder who the other folks would be? (By the way, I can't see the photos. I think Photobucket has a new policy and that's why, because the things that are in place of your photos say stuff about 3rd-party hosting and have Photobucket links in them.)

-Twistey
hS! *glomp* by Alleb on 2017-07-07 16:06:00 UTC Reply

You're back! I'm glad. ^_^

Oh, yay, the Spider-Man movie isn't terrible! I'll have to go see it soon.

-Alleb
Bad news about Photobucket by Phobos on 2017-07-07 14:47:00 UTC Reply

Photobucket made some changes. They are now charging $400/year for the ability to post your photos to other websites.

This is, perhaps, the worst business decision I have seen in a while.

-Phobos

Oh, bugger. by Neshomeh on 2017-07-07 15:24:00 UTC Reply

I think that breaks a bit of my website, too. Nothing important, IIRC, but I guess I don't get to have character image galleries as part of their profiles anymore. Siiigh. This was, like, the whole point of Photobucket. If they were having revenue issues, they might have started with fixing their ads so they don't slow the site to a crawl and make it utterly impossible to do anything in a timely fashion. *grumblemutter*

~Neshomeh

You mean you don't like... by Huinesoron on 2017-07-07 15:31:00 UTC Reply

... having to click past six or seven different adverts just to see your bucket?

For shame, Neshomeh, for shame.

hS is actually really annoyed by this, SIGH

They're tired of business... by Hardric on 2017-07-07 15:12:00 UTC Reply

And they want an easy way out. I mean, suddenly charge a kidney for a service like that? They cannot not tank afterr that,that's impossible.
... oh, hellfire. by Huinesoron on 2017-07-07 14:57:00 UTC Reply

Right. Well. That's... the entirety of my website utterly destroyed for anyone who isn't me.

Good. Right. Fine. Does anyone know of an alternative?

hS

Maybe? by Feeni3 on 2017-07-07 15:06:00 UTC Reply

The best I know off the top of my head is Imgur. It's free, as far as I know?

Seconding Imgur. by Iximaz on 2017-07-07 15:08:00 UTC Reply

That's what I've been using to post images on the Board and it's not given me any problems... yet.

Let's try this, then: by Huinesoron on 2017-07-07 15:11:00 UTC Reply

Working?

hS

*thumbs up* (nm) by Iximaz on 2017-07-07 15:12:00 UTC Reply

Help me, coders of the PPC, you're my only hope. by Huinesoron on 2017-07-07 16:09:00 UTC Reply

I have 300-400 images across Photobucket which I need to shift somewhere less obnoxious - but Imgur doesn't use human-readable filenames. Is there any way to set things up to automatically convert the Photobucket names to Imgur ones in my HTML documents? When I write it out like that I have to assume no - unless there's some way to compare image files on the computer to ones hosted on Imgur?

Hmm... actually, at a pinch I could upload to Imgur and then re-download (does it have a bulk download function? I can't find one. :( ). But I'd still need something that could compare the images under the filenames and find the ones that matched.

And I don't know how to do that. :(

hS

Rambly thoughts on the problem by Tomash on 2017-07-07 16:40:00 UTC Reply

Well, the actual name change is multiple search-replaces over a lot of files, which generally involves hammering at your website with sed or perl.

What I'd do is somehow put together a list of photobucket imgur mappings, and then just programatically apply all of them, which I don't think is too hard, but I can elaborate on that if you'd like.

Now, as to the files thing, apparently imgur lets (or used to let, not sure) you download albums as a .zip. Don't know if that generalizes. There's also a program I stumbled into of unknown usefulness. (Come to think of it, getting all the imgur URLs and/or the images hosted therein might be the trickiest part of the operation).

Now, for the comparison stuff, there's a good many programs that offer duplicate file detection, and, failing that, run through both sets and compute hashes (sha1sum [filenames] is your friend here) to find duplicates. This won't work if imgur doesn't faithfully preserve the things you uploaded, so let's hope they don't.

I suspect this might assume access to tools or knowledge you don't have on hand (given that the answer is roughly "how I would do it"), so please feel free to ask lots of questions. It also might not make too much sense, since I'm trying to get in a reply before I head off to work.

- Tomash
- Tomash

Spiderman! by Feeni3 on 2017-07-07 14:04:00 UTC Reply

I need to see it, it looks really good!
Spooderman! by Iximaz on 2017-07-07 12:41:00 UTC Reply

My family's off to see it later today and we're all very excited.

Photobucket's broken for me, unfortunately, so I can't see the Justice League project.

In other fandom news, the long-awaited addition of Doomfist to the Overwatch roster has finally happened, and he's now available to play on the PTR! And can you say fun? I say fun. He's fun.

[Shakes fist] Photobuckeeeeeet! -- er, here's another copy. by Huinesoron on 2017-07-07 12:48:00 UTC Reply

Link to the Justice League of Beleriand images. (Other pictures in the post were: Spidey, the pic from the blog post, and President Macron. Nothing exciting.)

hS

Oh daaaaaang! That's pretty cool! O.O (nm) by twistedwindowpane on 2017-07-07 17:25:00 UTC Reply
Okay, that's pretty cool. by Iximaz on 2017-07-07 12:57:00 UTC Reply

It's good to have you back, hS.

'bout that last one... by Matt Cipher on 2017-07-07 10:56:00 UTC Reply

Friend of the Green sounds more like Swamp Thing for me :P

And I kinda want to see Homecoming when it comes out in Poland, but I more want to see Thor: Ragnarok, because of Doctor Strange's cameo...

Well, it's the cosmic problem. by Huinesoron on 2017-07-07 11:21:00 UTC Reply

GL, Martian Manhunter, and especially Superman turned out to be very difficult to fit into Beleriand/Middle-earth. The wood connection (Alan Scott's GL ring didn't work on wood) makes me like the idea of a Beorian sneaking around, slipping absolutely silently between the trees and striking from afar with unearthly accuracy. The alternative, I guess, is to drop the 'green' and go with 'ring' - get Celebrimbor to make an early prototype magic ring. He could definitely have one for invisibility, and I don't think mild telekinesis is out of the question. Something like that.

J'onn led me down the rather strange path of invoking a Bombadil/Goldberry-esque spirit of the landscape. While not quite a Maia, they may well be able to change their forms, which is the Manhunter's defining characteristic. By making him from a distant region of Arda - maybe even Almaren, the lost island of the Valar - it's possible to also draw on the last-of-his-kind stuff.

But Superman? I haven't a single idea. All his key characteristics are too 'magical' - flight, heat vision, super strength. I could find someone who has a single one - for instance Hurin with his troll-slaying axework, though again the timeline doesn't work - but not a significant combination. And Beleriand doesn't really provide many candidates for the 'essential goodness' side of Kal-El, either.

So yeah, this is part of why I abandoned it. ^_^

I am really looking forward to Thor: Ragnarok. I didn't much like the other Thor films (they were waaaaay too dark visually, it was impossible to see what was going on), but this one looks like a heap of fun. "I know him! He's a friend from work!"

hS
Breaking News! by Matt Cipher on 2017-07-07 11:08:00 UTC Reply

Joan Lee, Wife of Marvel Comics Legend Stan Lee, Dies at 93. Maysherestinpeace