The PPC Posting Board - Latest posts

that the tallest guy is standing next to the shortest guy. And it looks like Novastorme isn't even standing fully upright. Whose cruel idea was that? {X D

~Neshomeh

A bit later than normal, but here all the same... let's get Fridaying, as they say. (They do not say that.)

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


(Image)

So it was San Diego Comic-Con at the weekend. And that meant, when I got into work on Monday, I was able to send Kaitlyn not just one, but five trailers I thought were worth a look. And now, I can share them with you too! ^^

-Thor: Ragnarok, AKA 'finally they've stopped taking Thor seriously'
-Star Trek: Discovery, AKA 'BattleStar Wars: Discovery'
-Ready Player One, AKA 'why are they trying to sell this as an action movOOH DELOREAN'
-The Lego Ninjago Movie, AKA 'that sounds kind of rubbish... wow! That's really cool!'
-<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6yBZKj-eo">Justice League, AKA 'Batman is more fun when there's cheerful people around him'

(And if you haven't seen it, there's a Wrinkle in Time trailer out there somewhere...)

Silly News


(Link & Image)

Oh, this is a good one... in an attempt to expose predatory scientific publishing journals, someone submitted a paper to nine journals. So far so boring, but the paper (credited to Dr. Lucas McGeorge and Dr. Annette Kin) is a discussion of the nature of... midichlorians. Mostly copied and Rogeted (which is a link worth reading in and of itself) from Wikipedia's article on mitochondria, it includes choice quotes like... well, I mean, look at this:

Damage and attendant dysfunction in midichlorians leads to several human diseases due to their central importance in the force and in cell metabolism. Midi-chlorians are microscopic life-forms that reside in all living cells - without the midi-chlorians, life couldn‘t exist, and we‘d have no knowledge of the force. Midichlorial disorders often erupt as brain diseases, such as autism.[8] They continually speak to us, telling us the will o‘ the force. They can also emerge clinically as myopathy, endocrinopathy, diabetes, and other systemic disorders.[12] When you learn to quiet your mind, you will hear =em speaking to you. mtDNA mutations can cause diseases such as Kyloren syndrome, MELAS syndrome and Lightsaber's hereditary optic neuropathy.[23] These diseases are usually handed down by a force-sensitive woman to her children, because the zygote‘s midichlorians and hence its mtDNA are derived from the maternal ovum.[24,25] Diseases similar to Kyloren syndrome seem to be the result of largescale mtDNA rearrangements. Point mutations in mtDNRey are responsible for other diseases such as myoclonic epilepsy with ragged red fibres, JARJAR syndrome, Lightsaber‘s hereditary optic neuropathy, and others.[23]

It also contains the entire text of Palpatine's 'Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise'. And the references include the likes of 'Solo, H.; Bacca, C. (2015). "Endosymbiotic theories for eukaryote origin"'. The point is, it's not something even a cursory review would let through.

Of the nine journals which received it, three rejected it out of hand. One tried to charge to publish it. Two requested that it be revised and resubmitted, though for one of them the peer reviewers noted that "The authors have neglected to add the following references: Lucas et al., 1977, Palpatine et al., 1980, and Calrissian et al., 1983". And three journals actually went ahead and published it.

I've uploaded a copy of the paper here, in case they've come to their senses and taken it down. It is glorious to behold.

Serious News


(Link & Image)

This is Teigan Scott. Until this summer, she went to school in North Ronaldsay Primary School, on the northernmost of the Orkney islands.

Now she's turned 12, and is moving up to secondary school - which means her island's school has just lost its only pupil. (Because, y'know, they only have 50 people on the whole island...)

Shut up, this is too serious news. >:(

Not News


(Image)

Behold, the height of technology. Apparently the transmitter is through that window across the way...

(PS I'm away next week.)

hS

I always knew Kaitlymir had it in for me!!1!

... of the eViL cUrSe that someone eViL put on you!!! It was probably Boromir - everyone knows she's eViL, and who else are you going to blame? The adonkable hobbits? Legolas? Don't make me laugh-like-the-babbling-of-a-brook.

Oh, or it could be Gingly or whatever the ugly short one's name is.

~JayBird, apparently

If I did, it would be long, flowing, and not at all going blonde at the edges because my stylist used a semi-permanent dye that washed out too much on the first night. >.>

It just...might happen on Sunday. I need to cook now, and Sunday is the next time I'm likely to be doing Board related things with some energy and time. I can tell you in advance that I'm interested in singing just about any part (and am happy to pull double duty and be in the agent chorus as well), can sing a sort of untrained soprano range, and know the original versions of about half the songs.

I definitely want to be involved, though! I enjoy singing a lot, and this is exciting :)

~Z

(Link)

I figure the Narrator is one of those mercenary types who keep changing their allegiance when it's convenient. On this particular outing, she's hanging with the villains.

hS

help me, playing one in Blood Raining Night affected me a little bit. Nya~

I call Legolas. Kaitlyn has already put in her claim for Boromir (being brooding, cynical, and possibly evil).

Taking bets now on who ends up as the Suvian.

(Obviously Iximaz's parents are Bills the Ponies.)

hS

And why has nobody else seen it?

o.o

-Kaitlyn, peering into the spectral realm (or just really distractable)

...the guy-to-girl ratio in the original story is fairly skewed in favor of people with higher registers. That being said, I'm pretty sure Loki could be considered a baritone- and possibly Zit too! I don't really know- it's up to you which part you feel like you could go for.

Oh sweet jesus, that's big.

From left to right:

Huinesoron, Kaitlyn, Matt Cipher, Iximaz, foofooman3, Scapegrace, Geeky Gal, CodeCom, The Irish Samurai, and Novastorme. In the background: a petrified tree that we used as our meeting point.

"Do you guys reckon there's another door we could check out on the right-hand staircase?"

"Don't worry, I have a stick," she said, patting her left glove. "Knew that'd come in handy. Hey, I don't supposed you've happened to read everyone else's--ehrm, ahem, I mean, watched what everyone else has been doing? Because I'll freely admit, I have no idea what's been happening." They were nearly to Cal's body by that point, and the Crimson Woman pulled something that looked like a metal pen out of her glove. She grabbed the end of it and pulled; the thing telescoped out, becoming a sizable metal pointer. She held it up straight in front of her, grinning. "Even has a magnetic point," she said. "Never know when you might need that."

(Link)

They've got one of those forbidden hero/villain romances going on.

hS

Put it here and I'll sing it!

Just tell me what role. If need be, I'll try and provide an audio sample.

"It looks like whatever corpse she used was already dead," they said. "Other than that, though, I can't find anything else. I think we really will have to go exploring."

Your voice is lovely btw.

The Musician followed, still not entirely over the feeling of being watched. I mean, it stood to reason that if Calliope wasn't dead that she was somewhere, and if she was somewhere, she'd probably be keeping an eye on the party...

1: Name: Carbide (don't look at me like that, you knew a Robot Wars reference was coming sooner or later)

2: Name: Universitonne
Catchphrase: "By the Ashen Moles of Bodley!"

3: Name: Mountaineer
Catchphrase: "Gotta go in by the door, they told me! Ha!"
Blurb: When you're a big, tough anti-hero, you don't play by the rules. You're loud, you're brash, you've got awesome powers, and collateral damage is a problem for tomorrow and/or somebody else. That's as true for Gamma Man as it is for anyone else in his position. This is not his story.

When you're a scientist who people have the temerity to call mad just because you've won the Nobel Prize for Wave-Motion Brain Annihilation three years on the bounce, you don't play by the rules either. What you want is what you get, what you get is what you can grab, and what you can grab generally blasts a whole bunch of interesting exotic particles out the business end whether it's supposed to or not. That's as true for Doctor Cranitron as it is for other people who got laughed at in the Academy. This is not his story.

When heroes and villains fight, people get caught up in it: bystanders, photographers, hostages, it's a fact of life. So it was when Doctor Cranitron took the SupraCorp tower in downtown Metro City hostage, Gamma Man, that fair metropolis's edgiest hero, took it upon himself (to the quiet despair of the local constabulary) to rescue the hostages and deal with the Doctor once and for all. They fought, the building collapsed, but Gamma Man got everyone out, just about. The Doctor? Well, he was a smear on the ground, but villains come back from a lot worse all the time. Pavement pizza is just another Tuesday.

But what about Eduardo Cabrera, the undocumented Honduran immigrant cleaning the windows on the twenty-seventh floor, where so much of the fighting had taken place? What happened when his body was suffused with every example of Raygun Science (Mad) know to man? What happened as he awoke the next day, phased halfway through the rubble of the collapsed building and suspended thirty feet off the ground? This is the Mountaineer's story.

This is his story.

Let's find out.