Techwright

Yes, no politics, but I'm of the opinion that it will be years if not decades before self-driving vehicles (SDVs) are truly safe. Your stated experience (besides giving Final Destination vibes) gives a whole new perspective as well. The SDVs are being designed with all considerations to the direction they're heading. What happens if an attached trailer develops problems such as a tire blow-out on the interstate/motorway? Can the SDV sense and adapt to it as safely as possible? That is precisely what will need to be considered by those developing SDVs in the freight trucking industry, not to mention any 4-wheeler pulling a mobile home or smaller trailer. Oh, and back to the video, I'm not convinced that the team, in anticipation, didn't pre-cut the styrofoam wall into the jagged pattern of a cartoon explosion through a wall. The pattern of the aftermath feel more like Looney Toons than real world.

I'm surprised he acted like no one knew what Space Mountain and the Haunted Mansion looked like under the "magic". Last time I rode Space Mountain, 30 years back admittedly, they had some non-ride maintenance reason for keeping the work lights on, and we rode the ride in the light, seeing everything. I was given to believe this was an occasional happening. I remember thinking it reminded me of an upscaled Wild Mouse roller coaster. If there's a secret to the Haunted Mansion's first room, the "stretching" room, it is a terribly kept secret, as is the fact that the ride actually takes place in a camouflaged building. I don't remember where I first learned this (I was a Disney Store employee at my home mall back in 1994, so perhaps then) but there've been videos on the subject for a while. As to the camera vs. Lidar bit, regardless of the company names involved (and the politics that go along with them), I set out to get a listing of crashes and fatalities regarding the self-driving vehicle business, and quickly gave up as there are too many variables in play to make a quick work of it: at least 28 companies, using a variety of "seeing" technology, over years (which means technology that caused a crash in 2019 might have been greatly improved in 2024), etc. What I will say is that having a single technology to view the surroundings does not seem to be wise. Even multiple technologies appear to fail occasionally. One company I read about, for example, is said to have been using a combination of Lidar, cameras, and radar, yet still had hundreds of crashes, including at least one fatality. In their defense, they point out that their developing technology has already been demonstrated to be nine times safer than the humans that live in the testing city. Still, we appear to be a long way from a truly safe marketable concept, and one of those things that we'll need to address is terroristic Looney Toons fan boys who set camouflaged brick walls across roads for kicks and giggles.

The problem is, that setup is bugged. If you take the teleport power and activate it, you don't cross the zone or even the city. You end up across the universe in the Battalion's homeworld, somehow miraculously surviving without being teleported into a solid object.

The same thing I get at the local Greek diner: The Spartan Omelette - Eggs, gyros meat, roasted red peppers, imported Greek feta cheese and baby spinach. Maybe add a bit of garlic. or The Athenian Combination Platter - sauteed chicken and beef with Greek spices over hummus. Served with greek salad and pita.

So essentially it's that state of being demanded of the 12th Doctor by the emoji-bots in the episode "Smile".

🧄 🧄 🧄 I can't think of a single archetype I'd not team with, not even a power set, though some I consider currently inferior to others. The only two types I don't like to team with are: characters whose players used far too "loud" a set of colors on their bubbles, auras, clouds, or whatever and it's blinding or at least reducing visibility. Characters whose players have decided the team wants to watch all their targets be knocked back as often as possible, as far as possible, in every direction, and with no real thought put into aiming the shot nor how it affects the team. EDIT: I suppose I'll add a third and say players that like to fill team chat with the most uncomfortable and inappropriate things, but it's been quite a while since that last happened to on any team I've been on. I actually like teaming with Kheldians because we get quantum gunners, even if said NPCs are only a shadow of their former strength. While I suppose I could complain about MMs, especially running with a team of 8 of them on Mastermind nights (insanity) I'm having too much fun.

Hey, it could be worse. It could be a mobile app for both Android and iPhone. I'd never read e-books at lunch again if that happened.

I agree for more skin color choices. So if I want to create a member of Jim Varney's Beigefoot Indians, I can: That said, what I really want is a unified pallet across anything that is colorable.

Clever.

This is one of the few things that I think DC Universe Online did better. Superspeed there incorporated the Flash-based idea that the electrical charge created by speedsters allowed them to stick to vertical surfaces, so racing up the side of a cliff or building was a standard tactic. I've often wished for CoH to follow suit. 45 to 50 sounds right, with perhaps some parts of it designated for Incarnate levels. The former would give an alternative to Peregrine Island. The latter would give something new for the 50+ crowd, and it makes sense in lore anyway, as the whole reason we're doing Incarnate growth is to take on the Coming Storm. Might as well cut our Incarnate teeth on the Battalion's scouts and advanced guard.

These are all good. Of them, I suspect the chicken (roasted?) might be the easiest, by just reskinning the fried chicken items already in the game.

As I added a small kitchenette adjacent to my base's new gym, I'd assumed I would be laying out an assortment of juice bottles and enzyme and supplement pouches and cans. I was surprised to find that we don't even have a juice box or a bowl of fruit. Instead I found donuts, pizza, soda, popcorn, candy, hot dogs, hamburgers, fried chicken (and fried chicken nuggets), slushies, and what appears to be day-old Chinese food. Wow. Are we training our characters to be The Blob or something? Okay, to be fair, there's water, coffee, milk, and Enriche, though a couple of those I question the healthfulness of. There are green grocer bins of fruit, but that's on a huge, store scale. I'm looking for what's displayed in a base kitchen or cafeteria. Might I suggest at least a tint-able juice bottle be added to base building, so we can at least pretend that our characters are trying to improve their diet? I'd love to see some supplement canisters, bowls of fruit and or veggies, blenders and juicers and a Mylar pouch of enzymes: the kinds of thing one might expect if their character were going to be taking their workout seriously. Perhaps a tea tin as well to go along with that RP tea bag-dunking emote. All of them colorable. A few wall posters for coffee shops, juice bars, and gym motivation would be great, too. I could hang them next to my large, curiously overstocked collection of nautical photography.

Sorry that happen JJ. I've recently noticed some odd names in my own army-of-one SG. They've probably been there a while and are likely the creations of a life-long buddy of mine, a former player, but the names don't seem like the kind he'd invent. Weird. I actually wondered for a few moments if my SG had somehow been hacked. At least I have all my stuff, and nothing in that base was purple at the time. I am curious though: how low did you set the bar for salvage access? On mine, I promote all my characters to second rank and set the salvage access to only the top two ranks. That way, if hypothetically there were an accidental invite, I'd have to agree to and physically raise the other player's rank to second-to-top tier before they could steal...er, acquire my goods. Having just reviewed my SG roster again, I'm impressed with the need for the roster to also display or link to the global for each character. That way, you'll know who is stealing in a case as you describe, or can check with the global account to settle any other awkwardness, such as "who are you?" in my case.

Did someone mention "shield" in connection to Batman's utility belt?

Thanks for responding. I've tried all of that. EDIT: I just wiped out a longer answer because I found the answer to the problem, and it's weird. The problem was there actually was a 4th object in the room, embedded in one of the walls, and despite my dropping doors in all over to search for a possible embedded piece it did not show up. It was not until I removed all doors from the entrance room AND rotated the view to a very specific direction that I spotted the piece, a Supergroup Glass Logo 1. Trying to view it from any other angle didn't show it. Returning to the specific view, I was able to remove the item, and the entrance room then moved freely. Weird, but at least I'm back in action.

I'm deep into in the process of rebuilding a base. I have the largest plot, and most of my work is in the Huge Room. That leaves me with a long strip 3 squares deep, sufficient for the 2x2 Entrance Room with a door. I actually had 2 smaller rooms on that strip as well. When I realized the Entrance Room was not where I'd ultimately want it to be, I tried shuffling the three smaller rooms around to find the best fit. All moved fine, until, after multiple moves, the Entrance Room froze in an unwanted position. Nothing I've tried since has gotten it to move, though it keeps displaying the move button as if the option were available. I did key word searching in this forum and asked in the base builder chat, but have yet to discover the answer. One of those who chatted with me asked if I'd had items in the entrance room. I had 3: two standalones not touching the walls, and one wall banner. These moved fine each attempt before the freeze. I have removed all 3 from the room without any changes. I should also note that I'd moved the secret entrance portal days ago to the main room. Other efforts made to shake the entrance room loose include deleting the other two small rooms, exiting base build mode, exiting the base, changing characters and back, and exiting the game altogether. So far no attempts I've tried have gotten the entrance room to budge. Can anyone guide me to a solution to this?

Though not Steve's actions, I would add to that list that, with the Thunderbolts* trailer included, we've now seen both Bucky and Captain Carter (in What If...?) each roll a 4-wheeled vehicle over their heads. Steve, on the other hand, flipped a motorcycle over his head, embedding it deep into a jeep (Avengers: Age of Ultron). MCU is either playing fast and loose with "peak human" for all super soldiers, or has a very different bar height in mind for what constitutes "peak human".

This thing has a Bond-like sound to it. Not the bold brassy sound like Goldfinger, Goldeneye or Dr. No, but more like Tomorrow Never Dies.

Thanks for making this point. In The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, they take the time to show Sam training, learning how the shield can be ricocheted and returned, which I appreciated. Unfortunately, there's a big hand wave in regards to the power behind the cast. Steve or Bucky, as super soldiers, have the power needed for a strong cast. Even though vibranium is considered lightweight, Sam, as a fit but regular human, just doesn't have the power for a weapon-effect cast. Consider what a standard human might achieve as far as power and distance with an ordinary metal trash can lid. While it lacks the aerodynamics of the shield, it's a light metal of similar size, so it's probably a good analog.

Dual pistols actually has several possible looks for a Star Fleet phaser: Praetorian Resistance Blaster - might be the strongest analog Celestial Pistol - another fairly close analog Crey Pistol Sidereal Sidearm Quartermass Pistol (2 variations) Plan 9 Pistol (2 variations) One problem with dual pistols in this context is that the audio is of a bullet being fired, rather than an energy beam. @Solarverse created a mod for a "Star Wars"-type energy effect substitution, which was quite good, though I'm not aware of whether it is still available or not, nor whether it is tied into the City Mod. Even so, the sound would be on your side only. Your teammates would hear a bullet sound, unless they too have installed the energy sound mod.

As we crossed that point this past weekend, it suddenly occurred to me that Doc Brown, or any time traveler, would have to get regional details like this correct, or miss whatever event they're shooting for.

Doing some light-hearted reading at the moment. I'm re-reading the Lady Hardcastle mystery series by T.E. Kinsey, in preparation for the release of the next book in the series. While technically it is a cozy mystery series, it turns the genre on its ear by having two very witty women who do not fit the mold of Edwardian society (whose collective snob nose they love to tweak), seeing each other more like snarky sisters rather than their roles of aristocrat and servant. This is due to their tragic and often very dangerous backstory where they had to depend on each other for survival years before in foreign countries. The books gradually reveal that backstory, which in turn reveals why they have some remarkable skills that "proper ladies" shouldn't have. (Hint: MI6 might like to recruit them.) Despite the tragedies, the books are very funny and have the usual array of bewildered constables and very quirky village folk. I'll probably also re-read the two books in the successor series which takes place at the start of the Roaring Twenties, and showcases secondary characters from the primary book series: a ragtime & jazz band that are caught up in a pair of murder mysteries.

Actually, there is one thing you can do there: Badges. You can still collect exploration badges and history marker badges, and the latter are essential for completing some of the badges for the active world. I realize that's not the full kit, but it is something. I'm a little surprised they don't still have Back Alley Brawler there as trainer, like they do Ms Liberty in Echo Atlas Park. Question: would they even have access to the original missions and such? If I recall correctly, Homecoming was seeded from original code from after the fall of Galaxy, meaning the missions were already pulled out, or was it turned off/unchecked? Not sure. (EDIT: and at least one of those missions sent you to The Hollows, so I'm not certain how that would work.) I would be happy to be able to street sweep there again, though, and for those who PvP, maybe open up the arena.

What would you see as its course? Orbiting the character's head? body? seemingly random pattern? other? While at it, let's get them to add a shoulder pet like the kitty crowd uses.