[Non-political] News that makes you Laugh/Cry/Both...

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Wed Jun 01, 2016 6:25 pm

won't somebody please think of the grognards? ;_;

Blade · Post by **Blade** » Thu Jun 02, 2016 9:36 am

Stahlseele wrote:Yeah, Rogue one is supposed to be the Agent that gave Leia the Deathstar Plans.

I used to think that it was Kyle Katarn in the first mission of Dark Forces, but apparently it is a story that has been used so many times in the SW EU that you could probably fill a Star Destroyer with all the people who stole the Deathstar Plans.

maglag · Post by **maglag** » Thu Jun 02, 2016 11:13 am

Blade wrote:
Stahlseele wrote:Yeah, Rogue one is supposed to be the Agent that gave Leia the Deathstar Plans.
I used to think that it was Kyle Katarn in the first mission of Dark Forces, but apparently it is a story that has been used so many times in the SW EU that you could probably fill a Star Destroyer with all the people who stole the Deathstar Plans.

I think you could fill another star destroyer with the amount of jedis that survived the clone troopers betrayal. I would even say that the only ones that died were the 2-3 we saw on the movie.

Thus I really can't blame Disney for going "fuck that noise" and blowing up the EU instead of trying to make sense of all of it.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Thu Jun 02, 2016 11:29 am

THe THrawn stuff is supposedly really good.
Appearantly, he is actually a competent military leader.

Pixels · Post by **Pixels** » Thu Jun 02, 2016 7:08 pm

Stahlseele wrote:THe THrawn stuff is supposedly really good.
Appearantly, he is actually a competent military leader.

The books are old enough to drink, but just in case here's your spoiler warning:

I finally got around to reading the Thrawn trilogy last year, and I would never call him a competent military leader. The books will tell you that he is brilliant over and over, but honestly he's kind of terrible. He's a faux Sherlock Holmes that determines military strategy by contemplating a race's paintings. I'm not talking about understanding the racial zeitgeist to figure out what their society will push for as a whole, but to choose specific tactical maneuvers to use in a specific confrontation. Seriously.

He has access to game-changing technology - cloaking, rapid cloning, and Force-blocking lizards to name a few - and fails to really use them effectively. His entire campaign is a series of setbacks despite overwhelming advantages. Whenever it is <main characters> versus Thrawn or his forces, <main characters> always throw a wrench into his plans. When <main character> is weak or isolated, Thrawn never commits enough force to actually kill or capture them. Eventually he is done in by his own bodyguard. Maybe if he had spent more time looking at Noghri art he would have figured out it was coming!

Zahn tried really, really hard to make Thrawn look smart, but the whole thing comes off as a farce.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Thu Jun 02, 2016 7:14 pm

It is really difficult to write a character smarter than the author.

phlapjackage · Post by **phlapjackage** » Fri Jun 03, 2016 1:28 am

Yeah, I read the Thrawn books when I was much younger and always held them up as an example of good Star Wars books. I guess I was comparing them to Kevin Anderson stuff and all that.

Then I recently re-read them. They are not good. At all.

Wiseman · Post by **Wiseman** » Fri Jun 03, 2016 1:57 am

Hmm... I wonder if I should reread the Darth Bane trilogy. I remember it being pretty decent, if gary stu-ish. Also, I should really finish the Fate of the Jedi series (I started reading, but then got my hands on Magnus Chase and got sidetracked).

phlapjackage · Post by **phlapjackage** » Fri Jun 03, 2016 4:45 am

I tried to read the first Darth Bane book and had to stop midway through. While perhaps better than the Thrawn books, it still wasn't worth it.

At the risk of sounding like an angry old man, I'm not sure there are good SW books out there. The closest I've read was Honor Among Thieves by Daniel Abraham...it was alright, not high praise but compared to the rest...

Darth Rabbitt · Post by **Darth Rabbitt** » Fri Jun 03, 2016 12:14 pm

Most of the Star Wars EU is shit. But I really dig Tales From Jabba's Palace.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Fri Jun 03, 2016 7:04 pm

Ancient Historys Star Wars stuff is nice to read.
Sadly LightSabre Claws Wolverine is not canon.

Occluded Sun · Post by **Occluded Sun** » Fri Jun 03, 2016 8:46 pm

Um... the Thrawn novels really are pretty good. And the criticisms being leveled against them here are misguided at best.

As is repeatedly pointed out in the novels, those "game-changing technologies" had extremely limited military value. Cloaking is extremely energy-intensive and blinds the ships using it, rapid cloning only lets you make poorly-trained cannon fodder, and the Force-blocking sloth creatures are only useful if you're fighting Jedi.

Thrawn is generally cited as one of the best examples of how to write a very intelligent character without making them right about everything all the time.

Hadanelith · Post by **Hadanelith** » Sat Jun 04, 2016 4:43 am

I can say without any equivocation that the X-Wing series (Michael Stackpole and Aaron Allston) is excellent for the first 6 books. After that the quality becomes debatable, but the first 6 are great reads.
Other than that, it is *remarkably* hard to find good Star Wars novels.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sat Jun 04, 2016 11:00 pm

And another one bites the dust:
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/sports/muha ... 74-n584776

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Thu Jun 09, 2016 6:07 pm

18-year-old troll donates $50k to streamers, tries to cancel the donations late enough streamers would be on the hook for any money they spent.

PayPal says no.

And he used his parent's credit cards to do it.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Mon Jun 13, 2016 7:51 pm

Time for E3 News that interest us lot?
Time for E3 News that interest us lot!

they made a timed offer demo of the first doom level O.o
Doom and Fallout4 in VR on HTC Vive *fap fap fap faint*

A Star Trek VR Game. fapping recommences.

Hadanelith · Post by **Hadanelith** » Mon Jun 13, 2016 10:27 pm

That Star Trek VR game is Artemis with a Star Trek coat of paint. And VR. I don't know how to feel about that.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Sat Jul 09, 2016 2:03 am

https://scienceblog.com/485604/breakthr ... ntent=link

So, there's an SIV vaccine that greatly reduced SIV acquisition in Macaques.

With a really agressive vaccination plan, we might be able to completely eliminate SIV in the macaque population.

Of course, that's not why anyone is doing it. No one cares about Macaque AIDS, people care about human AIDS, and this puts us one step closer to an effective vaccine for humans.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sat Jul 09, 2016 10:04 am

Wanna bet religious nutjobs are gonna protest against that?

maglag · Post by **maglag** » Sat Jul 09, 2016 12:36 pm

Or we could eliminate HIV in humans by people using protection during sex/keep attention who they sex with/not share used syringes.

Pretty crazy, I know.

Omegonthesane · Post by **Omegonthesane** » Sat Jul 09, 2016 3:24 pm

Hasn't worked so far - and the Church has tried to stop the first one of those things, as well as cover up the ability for boys to do the second of those things where priests are involved.

The third of those things requires injected drug users to consistently keep enough of their head to follow safety protocols.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Sat Jul 09, 2016 4:48 pm

Omegonthesane wrote:Hasn't worked so far - and the Church has tried to stop the first one of those things, as well as cover up the ability for boys to do the second of those things where priests are involved.

The third of those things requires injected drug users to consistently keep enough of their head to follow safety protocols.

Or you just pass laws requiring that illegal injectable narcotics be pre-packeaged in disposable syringes if they're sold to the public. Much less chance of needle sharing that way.

Omegonthesane · Post by **Omegonthesane** » Sat Jul 09, 2016 5:42 pm

hyzmarca wrote:
Omegonthesane wrote:Hasn't worked so far - and the Church has tried to stop the first one of those things, as well as cover up the ability for boys to do the second of those things where priests are involved.

The third of those things requires injected drug users to consistently keep enough of their head to follow safety protocols.
Or you just pass laws requiring that illegal injectable narcotics be pre-packeaged in disposable syringes if they're sold to the public. Much less chance of needle sharing that way.

Skipping a few steps there...

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sun Jul 10, 2016 12:01 am

vaccination needs to be made free and mandatory worldwide . .

maglag · Post by **maglag** » Sun Jul 10, 2016 1:45 am

Stahlseele wrote:vaccination needs to be made free and mandatory worldwide . .

And that's why even if VIH vacinne was discoveredtoday night it wouldn't help that much.

Who's gonna pay for the cost and distribution? In particular since a significant amount of the infected are poor people in the first place?

After all, plenty of diseases out there that we have vacinnes for, yet keep harming a significant amount of the population because pharmaceutic companies CEOs need to change their fleet of sport cars every week.

Omegonthesane wrote:Hasn't worked so far

Well hasn't failed either. Most humans still aren't infected with HIV since most humans are smart enough to take basic precautions.

At the end of the day HIV is not an airborne disease nor something that's transported by food/water or simple skin touch. Plenty of other diseases make a lot more damage.

HIV only gets bigger headlines because rich people who want as much sex and drugs as they can risk catching it, and then cannot be cured.

Omegonthesane wrote: - and the Church has tried to stop the first one of those things, as well as cover up the ability for boys to do the second of those things where priests are involved.

Planned parenthood managed to push through the church's delusions last time I checked.

It's been a long war, but the church is losing.

Omegonthesane wrote: The third of those things requires injected drug users to consistently keep enough of their head to follow safety protocols.

If they don't care what they're injecting themselves with, what makes you think they'll pause to get a vaccinne? They could use the cure's money for even more drugs!