From infojunky at ceecom.net  Sat Dec  1 01:25:54 2007
From: infojunky at ceecom.net (Evyn MacDude)
Date: Sat, 1 Dec 2007 00:25:54 -0800
Subject: [TML] We who Travel
In-Reply-To: <5aca9be50711301928o1fa02aaq6bb7139ebded1747@mail.gmail.com>
References: <C374ED13.11290%jursamaj@yahoo.com>
	<20071130090645.S91644@shell.rawbw.com>
	<5aca9be50711301928o1fa02aaq6bb7139ebded1747@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <ABA3158C-7201-4737-ABC1-90B94F02F76A@ceecom.net>


On Nov 30, 2007, at 7:28 PM, Richard Aiken wrote:

> On Nov 30, 2007 12:18 PM, Azalais Aranxta <tiamat at tsoft.com> wrote:
>> I still remember every detail about Julissa,
>> my first character.  (I couldn't tell you the *name* of my first
>> D&D character.)
>
> Ditto.  My first was Sir Alois "The Hammer" Hamner-Brown.  A Marine
> (!) who spent time in a Zhodani prison camp during the 5FW and was
> never quite sane thereafter.  NOTE: I was reading "The Manchurian
> Candidate" the week I rolled him up.

I've lived with that, My Dear Departed Father was a graduate of a
Chinese reeducation camp, parts of what went on there are still
classified to this day. Wow... It will be nine years Christmas day
since he passed, I still think about him everyday, I hear his voice
with the words coming out of my mouth.

Ob Trav; >Lifted glass< "To Absent Friends!"

Evyn MacDude
infojunky at ceecom.net

Then somewhere near Salinas, Lord, I let her slip away,
Lookin' for the home I hope she'll find.
And I'd trade all my tomorrows for a single yesterday,
			Me & Bobby Mcgee,
				Kris Kristofferson




From traveller at dhimaging.com.au  Sat Dec  1 01:29:56 2007
From: traveller at dhimaging.com.au (traveller at dhimaging.com.au)
Date: Sat, 1 Dec 2007 19:29:56 +1100
Subject: [TML] We who Travel
In-Reply-To: <ABA3158C-7201-4737-ABC1-90B94F02F76A@ceecom.net>
References: <C374ED13.11290%jursamaj@yahoo.com>	<20071130090645.S91644@shell.rawbw.com>	<5aca9be50711301928o1fa02aaq6bb7139ebded1747@mail.gmail.com>
	<ABA3158C-7201-4737-ABC1-90B94F02F76A@ceecom.net>
Message-ID: <002c01c833f4$5d60a230$1821e690$@com.au>



-----Original Message-----
From: tml-bounces at travellercentral.com
[mailto:tml-bounces at travellercentral.com] On Behalf Of Evyn MacDude
Sent: Saturday, 1 December 2007 7:26 PM
To: The Traveller Mailing List
Subject: [TML] We who Travel


On Nov 30, 2007, at 7:28 PM, Richard Aiken wrote:

> On Nov 30, 2007 12:18 PM, Azalais Aranxta <tiamat at tsoft.com> wrote:
>> I still remember every detail about Julissa,
>> my first character.  (I couldn't tell you the *name* of my first
>> D&D character.)
>
> Ditto.  My first was Sir Alois "The Hammer" Hamner-Brown.  A Marine
> (!) who spent time in a Zhodani prison camp during the 5FW and was
> never quite sane thereafter.  NOTE: I was reading "The Manchurian
> Candidate" the week I rolled him up.

I've lived with that, My Dear Departed Father was a graduate of a
Chinese reeducation camp, parts of what went on there are still
classified to this day. Wow... It will be nine years Christmas day
since he passed, I still think about him everyday, I hear his voice
with the words coming out of my mouth.

Ob Trav; >Lifted glass< "To Absent Friends!"

Evyn MacDude

===============================================
[joel]

Tomorrow will be the 30th anniversary of the passing of my father.
I was 12 and it happened on the day before my 12th birthday.
It tends to be a day of quiet reflection and some emotion.

I can see still my father, but sadly I have forgotten what he sounds like.
I can almost hear it, but I fear it's been too long.

With the technology that's come out since then, I've made an effort to
photograph and make an audio/video recording of as many loved ones as
possible.

-Joel



From cybergoths at dsl.pipex.com  Sat Dec  1 01:38:36 2007
From: cybergoths at dsl.pipex.com (Dom Mooney)
Date: Sat, 1 Dec 2007 08:38:36 +0000
Subject: [TML] TravCon08 UK details now up at the BITS website
Message-ID: <A22338E8-CC4C-4350-8B68-3139CBB5AF0D@dsl.pipex.com>

<Emerge from Pocket Universe>

BITS UK Limited (British Isles Traveller Support)

I've just posted the TravCon08 UK details up on the BITS website at  
http://www.bits.org.uk/

At the moment, registration is restricted to BITS members, but will  
be opened generally shortly afterwards.

Dom

<Return to Pocket Universe>

------------------cybergoths at dsl.pipex.com---------------
"Everyone needs a volume control. When you shout every day
and make everything a catastrophe, no one will hear you
when you need to say something really important."
                                                         advert for  
'The Guardian', 2007



From cybergoths at dsl.pipex.com  Sat Dec  1 01:41:53 2007
From: cybergoths at dsl.pipex.com (Dom Mooney)
Date: Sat, 1 Dec 2007 08:41:53 +0000
Subject: [TML] Dragonmeet 2007 (London UK) is today
Message-ID: <529622F6-88D2-4EFD-88A8-5172D449A29E@dsl.pipex.com>

<Emerge from Pocket Universe>

BITS UK Limited (British Isles Traveller Support)

The BITS demo team are at Dragonmeet UK today along with our trade  
stall.

Mongoose are doing a seminar on Traveller as well.

You know you want to be there.

Details at: http://www.bits.org.uk/

Dom

<Return to Pocket Universe>

---------cybergoths_at_dsl.pipex.com----------
      http://www.powerprojection.net/
Power Projection: "It's all about going to other people's
planets and making *them* do what *we* want."
CPO Vandenbroucke, IIN Dreadnought 'Cleon the First'.



From magick.crow at gmail.com  Sat Dec  1 02:57:08 2007
From: magick.crow at gmail.com (Knapp)
Date: Sat, 1 Dec 2007 10:57:08 +0100
Subject: [TML] New 3d computer simulation design
In-Reply-To: <20071130225720.GG9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
References: <20071126003453.GZ9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<20071127033105.GI9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<f495db580711270316n5410ec24x4dbb722261b10758@mail.gmail.com>
	<20071127224725.GL9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<f495db580711272339s782b45e4t6849aa2477d3428d@mail.gmail.com>
	<20071129012821.GR9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<f495db580711290119i160f5639r962be52bbd874b12@mail.gmail.com>
	<20071130123319.GE9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<f495db580711300900l1543388cv797febcede5f88fa@mail.gmail.com>
	<20071130225720.GG9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
Message-ID: <f495db580712010157u7a635662mf06a420edfb3cb3b@mail.gmail.com>

On Nov 30, 2007 11:57 PM, Timothy Little <tim at little-possums.net> wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 30, 2007 at 06:00:57PM +0100, Knapp wrote:
> > Again it would depend on what the GM in question is given the rights
> > to do based on the settings of the Linux like permisions in the
> > database.
>
> I'm not talking about the technical back-end.  I'm talking about
> whether you would *expect* GMs to have the means of very strongly
> affecting players' ability to travel.
>
> If they do, then ease of travel will be up to the GM.
>
> If they don't, what do you see them as actually being able to do to
> help create and advance the setting and storyline?  For each type of
> ability, ask yourself how the GM could use it to help or hinder the
> players getting to another system.
>
I think you missed my point. If the GM wants he can add a ship to the
things an NPC owns and then jump in an run the NPC thus he does have
the power.

>
> > If the game universe says that players should not talk much then I
> > think it is ok to write it so that they are inhibited. Yes, they can
> > cheat but that is their thing.
>
> The vast majority of players in online games do not consider talking
> to each other to be cheating, period.  If you try to push the view
> that it is, you will fail.  Remember, you only set the rules for the
> *game*, not the players' lives.  Players talking to each other are
> real life actions, and being players can be expected to like to talk
> about the game.
>
> - Tim
Yes, but if the rules say you pay X amount to talk to someone in a
different star system and then you go and use a free method to do it
then it should be obvious that you are cheating. But no one in the
game would know that this was happening nor would it really off
balance the game play. It would just make one player a bit richer or
maybe let a poor player do what she should not.
Douglas

From traveller at dhimaging.com.au  Sat Dec  1 03:29:16 2007
From: traveller at dhimaging.com.au (traveller at dhimaging.com.au)
Date: Sat, 1 Dec 2007 21:29:16 +1100
Subject: [TML] Adventure Seed - The Travelling Gourmet
In-Reply-To: <f495db580712010157u7a635662mf06a420edfb3cb3b@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20071126003453.GZ9074@soprano.little-possums.net>	<20071127033105.GI9074@soprano.little-possums.net>	<f495db580711270316n5410ec24x4dbb722261b10758@mail.gmail.com>	<20071127224725.GL9074@soprano.little-possums.net>	<f495db580711272339s782b45e4t6849aa2477d3428d@mail.gmail.com>	<20071129012821.GR9074@soprano.little-possums.net>	<f495db580711290119i160f5639r962be52bbd874b12@mail.gmail.com>	<20071130123319.GE9074@soprano.little-possums.net>	<f495db580711300900l1543388cv797febcede5f88fa@mail.gmail.com>	<20071130225720.GG9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<f495db580712010157u7a635662mf06a420edfb3cb3b@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <003001c83405$0751c7a0$15f556e0$@com.au>

The Travelling Gourmet

The Personal Assistant for a locally famous (one of the top chefs on a
particular world) contacts the PC's ship, seeking to hire the entire ship
for a month-long expedition.  There is a rare animal on a world 2 parsecs
from the world the PCs are currently berthed, and it makes a wonderful main
dish.

Depending upon the size of the PC's ship, the P.A. may want to bring some
famous local celebrities onboard as well, and prepare food for them (and the
crew) on the way to and from the planet.

When preparing the food, the Chef will become outraged and violent, throwing
food, plates and cooking gear around.  "You call that food?  That is dog
food!"  <slam!>, but will be very calm and polite when not cooking.

The Chef has a pair of anti-grav CamBots that will be documenting this for
the Chef's cooking show.

Complications:
1) Everything is on the up and up.  The Chef is good, but temperamental.
The food he cooks for the crew, while he proclaims it to be 'not fit for a
Poni', is just about the best food they've ever tasted.
2) The animal that the Chef needs (the entire purpose of his patronage) is a
very rare, elusive animal.  The Chef needs a few dozen of them, as he
intends to mate them to he can have a continuous supply.
3) The animal is so rare that it's protected and not allowed to be exported
without a license.if at all!
4) The animal is (unknown to everyone) psionic and whomever tries to capture
it always ends up with 'missing time'.  The other players find them asleep,
or otherwise incapacitated just as they are closing in on it.
5) The animal is local to this planet and will not survive if taken
off-world.  It needs a particular enzyme in its' diet, or it dies.  One dies
shortly after lift-off (he hadn't eaten in a while) and someone can make a
"savings throw" to see if they make the diet connection.  If so, they have
to go back and figure out which plant is the needed one.
6) The Chef is down on his luck.  His holovision show is about to be
cancelled and this is his last chance.  Pick/Roll for another option besides
"6" and his desperate situation will make him even more hostile and
unbalanced.  On the way back from the planet, an assistant Chef is killed
with a cooking knife to the heart.  The Chef denies any involvement and
blames the Captain and crew of PCs.


From tim at little-possums.net  Sat Dec  1 04:47:07 2007
From: tim at little-possums.net (Timothy Little)
Date: Sat, 1 Dec 2007 22:47:07 +1100
Subject: [TML] New 3d computer simulation design
In-Reply-To: <f495db580712010157u7a635662mf06a420edfb3cb3b@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20071127033105.GI9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<f495db580711270316n5410ec24x4dbb722261b10758@mail.gmail.com>
	<20071127224725.GL9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<f495db580711272339s782b45e4t6849aa2477d3428d@mail.gmail.com>
	<20071129012821.GR9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<f495db580711290119i160f5639r962be52bbd874b12@mail.gmail.com>
	<20071130123319.GE9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<f495db580711300900l1543388cv797febcede5f88fa@mail.gmail.com>
	<20071130225720.GG9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<f495db580712010157u7a635662mf06a420edfb3cb3b@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20071201114706.GJ9074@soprano.little-possums.net>

On Sat, Dec 01, 2007 at 10:57:08AM +0100, Knapp wrote:
> I think you missed my point. If the GM wants he can add a ship to
> the things an NPC owns and then jump in an run the NPC thus he does
> have the power.

Yes, that was my point.  The ease of travel is up to the GM, not set
by how much it costs.


> Yes, but if the rules say you pay X amount to talk to someone in a
> different star system and then you go and use a free method to do it
> then it should be obvious that you are cheating.

*You* might view it as cheating, as the game designer.  The *players*
will simply view it as an unfortunate misfeature to be worked around.
At best you'll have allies in one or two players who harp on about how
everyone else cheats, but nobody will listen to them - or to you.

I'm not talking just from theory here - I've been in a few games where
the developers did design in communication restrictions.  In one case
the players told the developers how stupid it was in beta, and they
were removed before launch.  In the second, they were retained but
hardly noticed except by newbies.  Oddly enough, the developers later
even built an IRC client into the game (allowing anyone to communicate
in-game with anyone else via an external IRC server) but still didn't
remove the restrictions from the usual in-game communication channels.
In the third case it was just one of many misfeatures that the players
had to work around, and the game didn't last long anyway.


- Tim

From domhanai at juno.com  Sat Dec  1 06:36:22 2007
From: domhanai at juno.com (domhanai at juno.com)
Date: Sat, 1 Dec 2007 13:36:22 GMT
Subject: [TML] We who Travel
Message-ID: <20071201.053622.3294.0@webmail07.dca.untd.com>

Evyn MacDude infojunky at ceecom.net, on Saturday, Dec 1, posted:
 
<snipped out of respect>
 
>ObTrav; >Lifted glass< "To absent friends!"
 
So say we all.
 
Cougashika  

_____________________________________________________________
IRS Tax Help - Tax Pros help solve IRS problems. Click Here.
http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2111/fc/Ioyw6iif5XUORLZ5RosiFGKiME1RIEuZRSPgOnW1xMVRU2XqCnnD3u/

From threeeyesmcgurk at hotmail.com  Sat Dec  1 10:27:38 2007
From: threeeyesmcgurk at hotmail.com (alan hume)
Date: Sat, 1 Dec 2007 17:27:38 +0000
Subject: [TML] Adventure Seed - The Travelling Gourmet
In-Reply-To: <003001c83405$0751c7a0$15f556e0$@com.au>
References: <20071126003453.GZ9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<20071127033105.GI9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<f495db580711270316n5410ec24x4dbb722261b10758@mail.gmail.com>
	<20071127224725.GL9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<f495db580711272339s782b45e4t6849aa2477d3428d@mail.gmail.com>
	<20071129012821.GR9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<f495db580711290119i160f5639r962be52bbd874b12@mail.gmail.com>
	<20071130123319.GE9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<f495db580711300900l1543388cv797febcede5f88fa@mail.gmail.com>
	<20071130225720.GG9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<f495db580712010157u7a635662mf06a420edfb3cb3b@mail.gmail.com> 
	<003001c83405$0751c7a0$15f556e0$@com.au>
Message-ID: <BAY101-W35001D784D9C7E4F56F345AE720@phx.gbl>



 The Travelling Gourmet
> 
> The Personal Assistant for a locally famous (one of the top chefs on a
> particular world
> ) contacts the PC's ship, seeking to hire the entire ship
> for a month-long expedition.  There is a rare animal on a world 2 parsecs
> from the world the PCs are currently berthed, and it makes a wonderful main
> dish.
> 

That is too cool, excellent idea and would make for loads of fun I reckon

Cheers


Alan Hume

P.s.  He should have a home brew kit with him too:.)
_________________________________________________________________
Who's friends with who and co-starred in what?
http://www.searchgamesbox.com/celebrityseparation.shtml

From pare at pieni.net  Sat Dec  1 10:49:50 2007
From: pare at pieni.net (Mikko Parviainen)
Date: Sat, 1 Dec 2007 19:49:50 +0200
Subject: [TML] New 3d computer simulation design
In-Reply-To: <20071130225720.GG9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
References: <f495db580711260540w5b3a9c81m5bcc6ca9d312cb72@mail.gmail.com>
	<20071127033105.GI9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<f495db580711270316n5410ec24x4dbb722261b10758@mail.gmail.com>
	<20071127224725.GL9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<f495db580711272339s782b45e4t6849aa2477d3428d@mail.gmail.com>
	<20071129012821.GR9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<f495db580711290119i160f5639r962be52bbd874b12@mail.gmail.com>
	<20071130123319.GE9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<f495db580711300900l1543388cv797febcede5f88fa@mail.gmail.com>
	<20071130225720.GG9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
Message-ID: <20071201174950.GN16122@pieni.net>

On Sat, Dec 01, 2007 at 09:57:20AM +1100, Timothy Little wrote:
> > If the game universe says that players should not talk much then I
> > think it is ok to write it so that they are inhibited. Yes, they can
> > cheat but that is their thing.
> The vast majority of players in online games do not consider talking
> to each other to be cheating, period. 

In some restricted cases, you can get players not talking to some players,
of course. Again I'm using my experience in EVE online: even if the
players are our (OOC and IC) friends, we staunch defenders of the
Republic don't discuss most internal stuff with mercenaries and 0.0
sec pirates...

This of course comes from in-game loyalties. In our own group we
of course do use almost every means possible to communicate - though
if somebody says she's planetside, she probably won't pass on intel
she hears out-of-game, unless she can think of a reason in-game why
she would've heard it. 

Kind of hard to explain, really, though.  

-- 
Mikko Parviainen
http://www.iki.fi/pare/
http://mikkop.livejournal.com/

From johnson at pharmacy.arizona.edu  Sat Dec  1 11:07:30 2007
From: johnson at pharmacy.arizona.edu (Bruce Johnson)
Date: Sat, 1 Dec 2007 11:07:30 -0700
Subject: [TML] Adventure Seed - The Travelling Gourmet
In-Reply-To: <003001c83405$0751c7a0$15f556e0$@com.au>
References: <20071126003453.GZ9074@soprano.little-possums.net>	<20071127033105.GI9074@soprano.little-possums.net>	<f495db580711270316n5410ec24x4dbb722261b10758@mail.gmail.com>	<20071127224725.GL9074@soprano.little-possums.net>	<f495db580711272339s782b45e4t6849aa2477d3428d@mail.gmail.com>	<20071129012821.GR9074@soprano.little-possums.net>	<f495db580711290119i160f5639r962be52bbd874b12@mail.gmail.com>	<20071130123319.GE9074@soprano.little-possums.net>	<f495db580711300900l1543388cv797febcede5f88fa@mail.gmail.com>	<20071130225720.GG9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<f495db580712010157u7a635662mf06a420edfb3cb3b@mail.gmail.com>
	<003001c83405$0751c7a0$15f556e0$@com.au>
Message-ID: <CA743B12-0D70-492D-9B1E-463775E8BD53@pharmacy.arizona.edu>


On Dec 1, 2007, at 3:29 AM, <traveller at dhimaging.com.au> <traveller at dhimaging.com.au 
 > wrote:

> The Travelling Gourmet

You forgot one possible outcome: the Captain and crew space that  
insufferable bastard Ramsay three days into jump, to the applause and  
cheers of the passengers. :-)

--
Bruce Johnson

"No matter where you go, there you are", B. Banzai


From johnson at pharmacy.arizona.edu  Sat Dec  1 11:12:41 2007
From: johnson at pharmacy.arizona.edu (Bruce Johnson)
Date: Sat, 1 Dec 2007 11:12:41 -0700
Subject: [TML] Don't try this at home (was New 3d computer simulation
	design)
In-Reply-To: <f495db580711300844v2cc0ff50m7dc32454b1f7a6b8@mail.gmail.com>
References: <59804ab60711290334r6e6b56d5he09067c92e7be62f@mail.gmail.com>
	<da11fc1c0711290915r35af3aecwae9236472e21a85c@mail.gmail.com>
	<f495db580711290924x3656a3f5s9b6b96f20f915b41@mail.gmail.com>
	<20071130121439.GD9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<f495db580711300844v2cc0ff50m7dc32454b1f7a6b8@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <46B4B2F6-864D-4258-B285-906045B6D094@pharmacy.arizona.edu>


On Nov 30, 2007, at 9:44 AM, Knapp wrote:

> Yes, but surely you would have much more power you could use in the
> sun? It is after all a much bigger fusion power plant.
> Douglas



No.

The Sun is not "a much bigger fusion power plant".

It is a huge, continuous, uncontrolled thermonuclear explosion.

This is like saying, "Well if we can get 12 MW out of Palo Verde  
Nuclear plant we should be able to get MUCH more out of a couple 10  
megaton nuclear bombs."


--
Bruce Johnson

"No matter where you go, there you are", B. Banzai


From johnson at pharmacy.arizona.edu  Sat Dec  1 11:25:59 2007
From: johnson at pharmacy.arizona.edu (Bruce Johnson)
Date: Sat, 1 Dec 2007 11:25:59 -0700
Subject: [TML] What is Traveller?
In-Reply-To: <5aca9be50711301928o1fa02aaq6bb7139ebded1747@mail.gmail.com>
References: <C374ED13.11290%jursamaj@yahoo.com>
	<20071130090645.S91644@shell.rawbw.com>
	<5aca9be50711301928o1fa02aaq6bb7139ebded1747@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <11D34DFD-7708-4E17-9671-C820452D0987@pharmacy.arizona.edu>


On Nov 30, 2007, at 8:28 PM, Richard Aiken wrote:

> On Nov 30, 2007 12:18 PM, Azalais Aranxta <tiamat at tsoft.com> wrote:
>> I still remember every detail about Julissa,
>> my first character.  (I couldn't tell you the *name* of my first
>> D&D character.)
>
> Ditto.  My first was Sir Alois "The Hammer" Hamner-Brown.  A Marine
> (!) who spent time in a Zhodani prison camp during the 5FW and was
> never quite sane thereafter.  NOTE: I was reading "The Manchurian
> Candidate" the week I rolled him up.



I can name both: Nessus, my centaur cleric was my first D&D character  
(well first that lived more than two sessions) who eventually retired  
and became a powerful NPC in that DM's world, and Jethro Tully (yah  
yah I know) a scout who got blown up in his Sulieman fighting a  
delaying  action to protect our main ship's escape from an ambush.

Buggers got a critical on him.


--
Bruce Johnson

"No matter where you go, there you are", B. Banzai


From magick.crow at gmail.com  Sat Dec  1 11:32:15 2007
From: magick.crow at gmail.com (Knapp)
Date: Sat, 1 Dec 2007 19:32:15 +0100
Subject: [TML] New 3d computer simulation design
In-Reply-To: <20071201114706.GJ9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
References: <20071127033105.GI9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<20071127224725.GL9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<f495db580711272339s782b45e4t6849aa2477d3428d@mail.gmail.com>
	<20071129012821.GR9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<f495db580711290119i160f5639r962be52bbd874b12@mail.gmail.com>
	<20071130123319.GE9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<f495db580711300900l1543388cv797febcede5f88fa@mail.gmail.com>
	<20071130225720.GG9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<f495db580712010157u7a635662mf06a420edfb3cb3b@mail.gmail.com>
	<20071201114706.GJ9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
Message-ID: <f495db580712011032i6b5d4189id2dd58073114cfdb@mail.gmail.com>

On Dec 1, 2007 12:47 PM, Timothy Little <tim at little-possums.net> wrote:
> On Sat, Dec 01, 2007 at 10:57:08AM +0100, Knapp wrote:
> > I think you missed my point. If the GM wants he can add a ship to
> > the things an NPC owns and then jump in an run the NPC thus he does
> > have the power.
>
> Yes, that was my point.  The ease of travel is up to the GM, not set
> by how much it costs.

Sorry, I see what you mean now. The other side of my thoughts where
that there might me a NPC run shop that sells tickets on the
interstellar liners that come to most worlds. This could be a very
standard thing on most hight tech worlds. This would be there in most
cases. I mean why would only special people have tickets off a planet?
Even on the Earth for the right price you can get off planet for a
little bit.
>
>
> > Yes, but if the rules say you pay X amount to talk to someone in a
> > different star system and then you go and use a free method to do it
> > then it should be obvious that you are cheating.
>
> *You* might view it as cheating, as the game designer.  The *players*
> will simply view it as an unfortunate misfeature to be worked around.
> At best you'll have allies in one or two players who harp on about how
> everyone else cheats, but nobody will listen to them - or to you.
>
> I'm not talking just from theory here - I've been in a few games where
> the developers did design in communication restrictions.  In one case
> the players told the developers how stupid it was in beta, and they
> were removed before launch.  In the second, they were retained but
> hardly noticed except by newbies.  Oddly enough, the developers later
> even built an IRC client into the game (allowing anyone to communicate
> in-game with anyone else via an external IRC server) but still didn't
> remove the restrictions from the usual in-game communication channels.
> In the third case it was just one of many misfeatures that the players
> had to work around, and the game didn't last long anyway.
>
>
>
> - Tim

You probably are right. I have never done this before but I still
think that it should cost more (in game money not real). Even on the
Earth it cost more to call a long distance. If nothing else this is a
bit of realism. Perhaps if the price is not to crazy then I will work
fine and when they go to some really Podunk place the price will go
sky high. Play testing will tell.
Douglas
Douglas

From shadow at shadowgard.com  Sat Dec  1 13:25:14 2007
From: shadow at shadowgard.com (shadow at shadowgard.com)
Date: Sat, 01 Dec 2007 12:25:14 -0800
Subject: [TML] Does "Operation Reset" Make Sense?
In-Reply-To: <5aca9be50711302035t41206830h36798283464a5dab@mail.gmail.com>
References: <5aca9be50711302035t41206830h36798283464a5dab@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <475152AA.17310.1938E2C4@shadow.shadowgard.com>

On 30 Nov 2007 at 23:35, Richard Aiken wrote:

> Setup: I'm giving the Savage Worlds RPG to a local "needy kid" for
> Christmas.  I've printed off the free adventures Pinnacle has on line
> for this game.  I also wanted to include a photocopy of the Free City
> of Krakow adventure, written for Twilight: 2000.  But in re-reading
> the intro to this adventure (after some 22 years), I stumbled upon a
> possible problem. The default adventure plot for this product involves
> a covert operation to acquire a secret invention: a bread-boarded,
> re-configurable macroscale electronic replacement for the silicon
> microchips that were fried by all that EMP.  Everybody and his cousin
> (DIA, CIA, KGB, Shin Bet, etc, etc) is supposed to be trying to get
> their hands on the plans for this item.
> 
> Does this make sense?  I mean, from what I've picked up reading posts
> here, making one of these isn't that technically difficult.  At least,
> it isn't for anyone with the appropriate degrees in electrical
> engineering and computer science.  It just isn't done because there
> isn't any current, real-world need.

Actually replacing even *one* late 80s IC with something using non-
semiconductor parts is not a trivial undertaking. 

> So - assuming that this plot device doesn't make sense as written -
> what might I recommend that my gift-recipient use to replace it?  A
> device which can somehow "magically" resurrect EMP-fried chips? 

It'd *take* magic. The way EMP kills semiconductor based electronics 
(not just chips, but even individual transistors and diodes) is due 
to large voltages getting induced in the wiring the device is 
attached to. 

A quite modest voltage will "burn thrn" the PN junctions inside the 
part. Causing permanent damage ythat'd have to be repaired by 
shifting atoms inside the substrate.

> A
> huge stash of *unfried* pre-war chips (making the critical information
> the location of the stash)?

Not a bad idea. 

Loose parts aren't likely to get killed.

--
Leonard Erickson (aka shadow)
shadow at shadowgard dot com



From traveller at dhimaging.com.au  Sat Dec  1 14:01:48 2007
From: traveller at dhimaging.com.au (traveller at dhimaging.com.au)
Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2007 08:01:48 +1100
Subject: [TML] Adventure Seed - The Travelling Gourmet
In-Reply-To: <BAY101-W35001D784D9C7E4F56F345AE720@phx.gbl>
References: <20071126003453.GZ9074@soprano.little-possums.net>	<20071127033105.GI9074@soprano.little-possums.net>	<f495db580711270316n5410ec24x4dbb722261b10758@mail.gmail.com>	<20071127224725.GL9074@soprano.little-possums.net>	<f495db580711272339s782b45e4t6849aa2477d3428d@mail.gmail.com>	<20071129012821.GR9074@soprano.little-possums.net>	<f495db580711290119i160f5639r962be52bbd874b12@mail.gmail.com>	<20071130123319.GE9074@soprano.little-possums.net>	<f495db580711300900l1543388cv797febcede5f88fa@mail.gmail.com>	<20071130225720.GG9074@soprano.little-possums.net>	<f495db580712010157u7a635662mf06a420edfb3cb3b@mail.gmail.com>
	<003001c83405$0751c7a0$15f556e0$@com.au>
	<BAY101-W35001D784D9C7E4F56F345AE720@phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <001b01c8345d$666495d0$332dc170$@com.au>



-----Original Message-----
From: tml-bounces at travellercentral.com
[mailto:tml-bounces at travellercentral.com] On Behalf Of alan hume
Sent: Sunday, 2 December 2007 4:28 AM
To: The Traveller Mailing List
Subject: Re: [TML] Adventure Seed - The Travelling Gourmet



 The Travelling Gourmet
> 
> The Personal Assistant for a locally famous (one of the top chefs on a
> particular world
> ) contacts the PC's ship, seeking to hire the entire ship
> for a month-long expedition.  There is a rare animal on a world 2 parsecs
> from the world the PCs are currently berthed, and it makes a wonderful
main
> dish.
> 

That is too cool, excellent idea and would make for loads of fun I reckon

Cheers


Alan Hume

P.s.  He should have a home brew kit with him too:.)
===============================================
[joel]
Thanks Alan.  

I was sitting on the couch and dozed off.  When I woke up, there was a
cooking show on t.v.
I started to turn it, but then I saw it went from the kitchen to a vineyard
in the North of Scotland!
The Chef was sampling many, many, many different styles of whiskey, trying
to find one that would go best with the raspberries he was preparing for an
upcoming event.
Then he's off to a pig farm in the Scottish mountains, hand-picking pigs for
the sweetest pork he could get.
"When does he have time to cook, if he's always off on these adventures...."
:)
The rest wrote itself.




From traveller at dhimaging.com.au  Sat Dec  1 14:07:28 2007
From: traveller at dhimaging.com.au (traveller at dhimaging.com.au)
Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2007 08:07:28 +1100
Subject: [TML] Adventure Seed - The Travelling Gourmet
In-Reply-To: <CA743B12-0D70-492D-9B1E-463775E8BD53@pharmacy.arizona.edu>
References: <20071126003453.GZ9074@soprano.little-possums.net>	<20071127033105.GI9074@soprano.little-possums.net>	<f495db580711270316n5410ec24x4dbb722261b10758@mail.gmail.com>	<20071127224725.GL9074@soprano.little-possums.net>	<f495db580711272339s782b45e4t6849aa2477d3428d@mail.gmail.com>	<20071129012821.GR9074@soprano.little-possums.net>	<f495db580711290119i160f5639r962be52bbd874b12@mail.gmail.com>	<20071130123319.GE9074@soprano.little-possums.net>	<f495db580711300900l1543388cv797febcede5f88fa@mail.gmail.com>	<20071130225720.GG9074@soprano.little-possums.net>	<f495db580712010157u7a635662mf06a420edfb3cb3b@mail.gmail.com>	<003001c83405$0751c7a0$15f556e0$@com.au>
	<CA743B12-0D70-492D-9B1E-463775E8BD53@pharmacy.arizona.edu>
Message-ID: <001c01c8345e$2f80a7b0$8e81f710$@com.au>



-----Original Message-----
From: tml-bounces at travellercentral.com
[mailto:tml-bounces at travellercentral.com] On Behalf Of Bruce Johnson
Sent: Sunday, 2 December 2007 5:08 AM
To: The Traveller Mailing List
Subject: Re: [TML] Adventure Seed - The Travelling Gourmet


On Dec 1, 2007, at 3:29 AM, <traveller at dhimaging.com.au>
<traveller at dhimaging.com.au 
 > wrote:

> The Travelling Gourmet

You forgot one possible outcome: the Captain and crew space that  
insufferable bastard Ramsay three days into jump, to the applause and  
cheers of the passengers. :-)

--
Bruce Johnson

===============================================
[joel]

There is always that possibility.  Hehehe

But what if it's Nigella?  The buxom girl upon whom the camera does
soft-focuses on her breasts more than the chicken breasts.
http://www.nigella.com/

"I like to make sure the strawberries are firm and plump and full of
life..."
[close-up of camera following her hand to a bowl of strawberries.  Camera
pauses when it reaches her breasts.  Pause.  Pause. Cut to Nigella's mouth.]
[she bites.  Bright red juice squirts out.  She giggles.]
[close-up of her lips]
"Perfect"


From mcrobertson at cix.compulink.co.uk  Sat Dec  1 16:01:00 2007
From: mcrobertson at cix.compulink.co.uk (Megan Robertson)
Date: Sat, 1 Dec 2007 23:01 +0000 (GMT)
Subject: [TML] What is Traveller?
Message-ID: <memo.219434@cix.compulink.co.uk>

In-Reply-To: <11D34DFD-7708-4E17-9671-C820452D0987 at pharmacy.arizona.edu>
> I can name both: Nessus, my centaur cleric was my first D&D 
> character  (well first that lived more than two sessions) who 
> eventually retired  and became a powerful NPC in that DM's world, 
> and Jethro Tully (yah  yah I know) a scout who got blown up in his 
> Sulieman fighting a  delaying  action to protect our main ship's 
> escape from an ambush.

Likewise.

First D&D character - October 1977 - Trewavas, a female barbarian with a 
big axe.

First Traveller character - February 1981 - Frances D. Kane, engineer.

Mexal.


From tim at little-possums.net  Sat Dec  1 16:40:32 2007
From: tim at little-possums.net (Timothy Little)
Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2007 10:40:32 +1100
Subject: [TML] New 3d computer simulation design
In-Reply-To: <f495db580712011032i6b5d4189id2dd58073114cfdb@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20071127224725.GL9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<f495db580711272339s782b45e4t6849aa2477d3428d@mail.gmail.com>
	<20071129012821.GR9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<f495db580711290119i160f5639r962be52bbd874b12@mail.gmail.com>
	<20071130123319.GE9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<f495db580711300900l1543388cv797febcede5f88fa@mail.gmail.com>
	<20071130225720.GG9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<f495db580712010157u7a635662mf06a420edfb3cb3b@mail.gmail.com>
	<20071201114706.GJ9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<f495db580712011032i6b5d4189id2dd58073114cfdb@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20071201234028.GK9074@soprano.little-possums.net>

On Sat, Dec 01, 2007 at 07:32:15PM +0100, Knapp wrote:
> Even on the Earth it cost more to call a long distance. If nothing
> else this is a bit of realism.

Never used any form of VoIP? ;^)

If you want realism and expensive communication, you'll probably want
to make real-time video communication practically impossible.  Voice
should be prohibitive to all but the richest.  That enables text
communication to be merely expensive - 1000 written words typically
requires fewer bits than 2 seconds of voice-optimised compressed
audio.


- Tim

From tim at little-possums.net  Sat Dec  1 17:28:02 2007
From: tim at little-possums.net (Timothy Little)
Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2007 11:28:02 +1100
Subject: [TML] Don't try this at home (was New 3d computer simulation
	design)
In-Reply-To: <46B4B2F6-864D-4258-B285-906045B6D094@pharmacy.arizona.edu>
References: <59804ab60711290334r6e6b56d5he09067c92e7be62f@mail.gmail.com>
	<da11fc1c0711290915r35af3aecwae9236472e21a85c@mail.gmail.com>
	<f495db580711290924x3656a3f5s9b6b96f20f915b41@mail.gmail.com>
	<20071130121439.GD9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<f495db580711300844v2cc0ff50m7dc32454b1f7a6b8@mail.gmail.com>
	<46B4B2F6-864D-4258-B285-906045B6D094@pharmacy.arizona.edu>
Message-ID: <20071202002802.GL9074@soprano.little-possums.net>

On Sat, Dec 01, 2007 at 11:12:41AM -0700, Bruce Johnson wrote:
> This is like saying, "Well if we can get 12 MW out of Palo Verde
> Nuclear plant we should be able to get MUCH more out of a couple 10
> megaton nuclear bombs."

That statement is very probably true.  There were some moderately
serious proposals to detonate bombs in an underground chamber and
harness the pressures that resulted.

If all other fusion reactors fail, this one would most likely work
even if inefficiently, expensively, and messily :-)


- Tim

From tim at little-possums.net  Sat Dec  1 17:46:52 2007
From: tim at little-possums.net (Timothy Little)
Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2007 11:46:52 +1100
Subject: [TML] What is Traveller?
In-Reply-To: <11D34DFD-7708-4E17-9671-C820452D0987@pharmacy.arizona.edu>
References: <C374ED13.11290%jursamaj@yahoo.com>
	<20071130090645.S91644@shell.rawbw.com>
	<5aca9be50711301928o1fa02aaq6bb7139ebded1747@mail.gmail.com>
	<11D34DFD-7708-4E17-9671-C820452D0987@pharmacy.arizona.edu>
Message-ID: <20071202004652.GM9074@soprano.little-possums.net>

On Nov 30, 2007 12:18 PM, Azalais Aranxta <tiamat at tsoft.com> wrote:
> I still remember every detail about Julissa, my first character.  (I
> couldn't tell you the *name* of my first D&D character.)

I can remember both: Darrien, a cleric who eventually became a lesser
god (I *told* you we were a munchkin lot to begin with!); and Ker
Mella, a scientist who died as a result of accidentally releasing a
planet full of thoroughly evil robots from ancient imprisonment.


- Tim

From carlino at cox.net  Sat Dec  1 19:56:31 2007
From: carlino at cox.net (Terry Carlino)
Date: Sat, 01 Dec 2007 21:56:31 -0500
Subject: [TML] What is Traveller?
In-Reply-To: <C374ED13.11290%jursamaj@yahoo.com>
References: <C374ED13.11290%jursamaj@yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <47521EDF.9060904@cox.net>


> Well, as multiple people have answered, what Traveller is depends on who you
> ask.  Many of the answers are mutually incompatible.
>
> Perhaps a better question, in light of these differences, is why Traveller
> has remained so popular for 30 years?  What are the important things to
> capture in an SF RPG to make it popular, whether Traveller or not?  Are
> there lots of contradictory answers, depending who you ask, or can it be
> boiled down to some sort of Truth?
Maybe Traveller is so popular because many of the answers are mutually 
incompatible?

One person likes the rule system from the LBB and never plays in the 
Imperium at all. Another could care less about the CT rules systems and 
plays Traveller using the Hero system, or GURPS or FUDGE.  Another plays 
mostly Imperium and Fifth Frontier War, Another is most interested  in 
Striker and has a closet full of painted lead.

All these people play Traveller and support the game.

I don't think that there is a boiled down Truth, rather each person 
finds their own truth in Traveller.

-- 
TerryC
All that is Gold does not glitter
Not all who travel are lost


From carlino at cox.net  Sat Dec  1 20:25:22 2007
From: carlino at cox.net (Terry Carlino)
Date: Sat, 01 Dec 2007 22:25:22 -0500
Subject: [TML] Gunboat in GT
In-Reply-To: <474F01F5.7070102@iii.com>
References: <474CB0D4.5010506@cox.net>	<20071128005921.GO9074@soprano.little-possums.net>	<474E40EA.4080002@cox.net>	<474DF675.25910.C0BA3CD@shadow.shadowgard.com>	<da11fc1c0711290827p1102f1acia9904a5c4e2dbe17@mail.gmail.com>	<474EFB14.50908@cox.net>
	<474F01F5.7070102@iii.com>
Message-ID: <475225A2.30304@cox.net>


> The other trick is to just stack enough armor on the gunboat that total 
> weight is 15-16 tons per dton.
> _______________________________________________
>   
Which reduces acceleration to 4 Gs from 6 Gs. I see the obvious benefits 
though. Now depth can be controlled using CG instead f RX thrusters 
which takes much less power. I won't use it for this design, but it 
would make a very nice opposition craft. Reduce the TL to GTL11, which 
will reduce the top acceleration even more, but not by too much, I 
think, and in return get a SDB which can hide under water for hours 
using energy banks.

-- 
TerryC
All that is Gold does not glitter
Not all who travel are lost


From traveller at dhimaging.com.au  Sat Dec  1 20:29:16 2007
From: traveller at dhimaging.com.au (traveller at dhimaging.com.au)
Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2007 14:29:16 +1100
Subject: [TML] What is Traveller?
In-Reply-To: <47521EDF.9060904@cox.net>
References: <C374ED13.11290%jursamaj@yahoo.com> <47521EDF.9060904@cox.net>
Message-ID: <003101c83493$85d89660$9189c320$@com.au>



-----Original Message-----
From: tml-bounces at travellercentral.com
[mailto:tml-bounces at travellercentral.com] On Behalf Of Terry Carlino
Sent: Sunday, 2 December 2007 1:57 PM
To: The Traveller Mailing List
Subject: Re: [TML] What is Traveller?


> Well, as multiple people have answered, what Traveller is depends on who
you
> ask.  Many of the answers are mutually incompatible.
>
> Perhaps a better question, in light of these differences, is why Traveller
> has remained so popular for 30 years?  What are the important things to
> capture in an SF RPG to make it popular, whether Traveller or not?  Are
> there lots of contradictory answers, depending who you ask, or can it be
> boiled down to some sort of Truth?
Maybe Traveller is so popular because many of the answers are mutually 
incompatible?

One person likes the rule system from the LBB and never plays in the 
Imperium at all. Another could care less about the CT rules systems and 
plays Traveller using the Hero system, or GURPS or FUDGE.  Another plays 
mostly Imperium and Fifth Frontier War, Another is most interested  in 
Striker and has a closet full of painted lead.

All these people play Traveller and support the game.

I don't think that there is a boiled down Truth, rather each person 
finds their own truth in Traveller.

-- 
TerryC
===============================================
[joel]

To borrow a line from a religion:
"If you see Buddha walking down the street, kill him.  Because the real
Buddha is in each of us."
I think the real Traveller is in each of us, and how we choose to listen to
him or her is how we play the game.

-Joel







From glenn.goffin at yahoo.com  Sat Dec  1 21:37:43 2007
From: glenn.goffin at yahoo.com (Glenn M. Goffin)
Date: Sat, 1 Dec 2007 20:37:43 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [TML] Don't try this at home
Message-ID: <266043.91815.qm@web45513.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>

>From: Knapp <magick.crow at gmail.com>

>Can you explain that? I have no idea what TNE or CG is
>and how it works.

A little new to Traveller, are we?

--Glenn


      ____________________________________________________________________________________
Never miss a thing.  Make Yahoo your home page. 
http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs


From glenn.goffin at yahoo.com  Sat Dec  1 21:50:17 2007
From: glenn.goffin at yahoo.com (Glenn M. Goffin)
Date: Sat, 1 Dec 2007 20:50:17 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [TML] Carousing techniques.
Message-ID: <678841.2245.qm@web45506.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>

>From: "John Kwon" <jtkwon at jtkgroup.com>

>The real question is, what is the hilarity level on
>success?

I think you may have to make a saving throw against End to
avoid busting your own ribs while laughing.

--Glenn


      ____________________________________________________________________________________
Get easy, one-click access to your favorites. 
Make Yahoo! your homepage.
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From glenn.goffin at yahoo.com  Sat Dec  1 21:53:21 2007
From: glenn.goffin at yahoo.com (Glenn M. Goffin)
Date: Sat, 1 Dec 2007 20:53:21 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [TML] What is Traveller?
Message-ID: <848292.1510.qm@web45511.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>

>From: Tom Naro <tomnaro at yahoo.com>

>I am not going to presume to offer a "Truth" just a few
>observations as a long time referee (started with LBBs).

Those were some excellent observations.

--Glenn



      ____________________________________________________________________________________
Get easy, one-click access to your favorites. 
Make Yahoo! your homepage.
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From traveller at dhimaging.com.au  Sat Dec  1 22:45:16 2007
From: traveller at dhimaging.com.au (traveller at dhimaging.com.au)
Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2007 16:45:16 +1100
Subject: [TML] Don't try this at home
In-Reply-To: <266043.91815.qm@web45513.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
References: <266043.91815.qm@web45513.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <003301c834a6$85a1d450$90e57cf0$@com.au>



-----Original Message-----

>From: Knapp <magick.crow at gmail.com>

>Can you explain that? I have no idea what TNE or CG is
>and how it works.

TNE is The New Era and CG is ContraGrav.

:)

Welcome aboard.

-Joel


From ajackson at iii.com  Sun Dec  2 00:12:34 2007
From: ajackson at iii.com (Anthony Jackson)
Date: Sat, 01 Dec 2007 23:12:34 -0800
Subject: [TML] Gunboat in GT
In-Reply-To: <475225A2.30304@cox.net>
References: <474CB0D4.5010506@cox.net>	<20071128005921.GO9074@soprano.little-possums.net>	<474E40EA.4080002@cox.net>	<474DF675.25910.C0BA3CD@shadow.shadowgard.com>	<da11fc1c0711290827p1102f1acia9904a5c4e2dbe17@mail.gmail.com>	<474EFB14.50908@cox.net>	<474F01F5.7070102@iii.com>
	<475225A2.30304@cox.net>
Message-ID: <47525AE2.3010306@iii.com>

Terry Carlino wrote:

> would make a very nice opposition craft. Reduce the TL to GTL11, which 
> will reduce the top acceleration even more, but not by too much, I 
> think, and in return get a SDB which can hide under water for hours 
> using energy banks.

More like a few days to weeks. As long as the sea floor isn't too far 
down, you can just drop down and rest there, using no power other than 
life support and electronics.

From traveller at dhimaging.com.au  Sun Dec  2 01:22:45 2007
From: traveller at dhimaging.com.au (traveller at dhimaging.com.au)
Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2007 19:22:45 +1100
Subject: [TML] Unified Field Theory
In-Reply-To: <47525AE2.3010306@iii.com>
References: <474CB0D4.5010506@cox.net>	<20071128005921.GO9074@soprano.little-possums.net>	<474E40EA.4080002@cox.net>	<474DF675.25910.C0BA3CD@shadow.shadowgard.com>	<da11fc1c0711290827p1102f1acia9904a5c4e2dbe17@mail.gmail.com>	<474EFB14.50908@cox.net>	<474F01F5.7070102@iii.com>	<475225A2.30304@cox.net>
	<47525AE2.3010306@iii.com>
Message-ID: <004601c834bc$85653e80$902fbb80$@com.au>

Science Question:

Do you think there will ever be a solved Unified Field Theory?

If so, what do you feel will be a result of it?
Anti-Grav?
Ultra-high Gauss Magnetic Fields (what IS the speed of light in a Million+
gauss field?)
Do you think Traveller Technology will be unlocked when/if this happens?

Thanking you...

-Joel



From magick.crow at gmail.com  Sun Dec  2 02:11:19 2007
From: magick.crow at gmail.com (Knapp)
Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2007 10:11:19 +0100
Subject: [TML] Don't try this at home
In-Reply-To: <003301c834a6$85a1d450$90e57cf0$@com.au>
References: <266043.91815.qm@web45513.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
	<003301c834a6$85a1d450$90e57cf0$@com.au>
Message-ID: <f495db580712020111l33e3436ch5e52e0b5936a1479@mail.gmail.com>

> >From: Knapp <magick.crow at gmail.com>
>
> >Can you explain that? I have no idea what TNE or CG is
> >and how it works.
>
> TNE is The New Era and CG is ContraGrav.
>
> :)
>
> Welcome aboard.
>
> -Joel
Thanks, but I don't think I would say new. I started in the 80's with
classic and have almost all of it save for the journals and some of
the later adventures and stuff. I have never looked at anything newer
than that. Also all my Travellers stuff is back in the states. :-(
Douglas

From tim at little-possums.net  Sun Dec  2 02:18:38 2007
From: tim at little-possums.net (Timothy Little)
Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2007 20:18:38 +1100
Subject: [TML] Unified Field Theory
In-Reply-To: <004601c834bc$85653e80$902fbb80$@com.au>
References: <474CB0D4.5010506@cox.net>
	<20071128005921.GO9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<474E40EA.4080002@cox.net>
	<474DF675.25910.C0BA3CD@shadow.shadowgard.com>
	<da11fc1c0711290827p1102f1acia9904a5c4e2dbe17@mail.gmail.com>
	<474EFB14.50908@cox.net> <474F01F5.7070102@iii.com>
	<475225A2.30304@cox.net> <47525AE2.3010306@iii.com>
	<004601c834bc$85653e80$902fbb80$@com.au>
Message-ID: <20071202091838.GN9074@soprano.little-possums.net>

traveller at dhimaging.com.au wrote:
> Do you think there will ever be a solved Unified Field Theory?

Yes.  That is, in the sense that we will find a theory that fairly
elegantly encompasses our observations to date.  We will reconcile
gravity with the other forces.

However, I also expect that we will make observations that aren't
properly explained by that theory.  Either before such a theory is
developed, or afterward.


> If so, what do you feel will be a result of it?  Anti-Grav?

I suspect that almost all of the new physics brought to light by such
a theory would require engineering that we can't build.  I expect that
most of the new technology in the foreseeable future will come from
applied physics based on principles we already understand.


> Ultra-high Gauss Magnetic Fields (what IS the speed of light in a
> Million+ gauss field?)

Given that a million gauss is 100 Tesla, and that we have already
created fields that (temporarily) exceed that, I can pretty safely say
that it's just the same.  If you count observations of astronomical
objects, we've observed magnetic fields on the order of 10^15 gauss.


> Do you think Traveller Technology will be unlocked when/if this
> happens?

Almost certainly not.  I expect the technology that does occur
(regardless of whether this theory is developed) to be far more
unexpected.


- Tim

From magick.crow at gmail.com  Sun Dec  2 02:20:43 2007
From: magick.crow at gmail.com (Knapp)
Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2007 10:20:43 +0100
Subject: [TML] New 3d computer simulation design
In-Reply-To: <20071201234028.GK9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
References: <20071127224725.GL9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<20071129012821.GR9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<f495db580711290119i160f5639r962be52bbd874b12@mail.gmail.com>
	<20071130123319.GE9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<f495db580711300900l1543388cv797febcede5f88fa@mail.gmail.com>
	<20071130225720.GG9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<f495db580712010157u7a635662mf06a420edfb3cb3b@mail.gmail.com>
	<20071201114706.GJ9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<f495db580712011032i6b5d4189id2dd58073114cfdb@mail.gmail.com>
	<20071201234028.GK9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
Message-ID: <f495db580712020120m57dae4cdjfe2e13846381e0dd@mail.gmail.com>

We are talking, about talking :-}, between planets and I was just
assuming that it would take a lot of power to do it thus have high
cost but getting cheaper with higher tech planets.
Even with VoIP you must pay for your internet.
Cost more for more bandwidth makes sense to me.
Douglas

On Dec 2, 2007 12:40 AM, Timothy Little <tim at little-possums.net> wrote:
> On Sat, Dec 01, 2007 at 07:32:15PM +0100, Knapp wrote:
> > Even on the Earth it cost more to call a long distance. If nothing
> > else this is a bit of realism.
>
> Never used any form of VoIP? ;^)
>
> If you want realism and expensive communication, you'll probably want
> to make real-time video communication practically impossible.  Voice
> should be prohibitive to all but the richest.  That enables text
> communication to be merely expensive - 1000 written words typically
> requires fewer bits than 2 seconds of voice-optimised compressed
> audio.
>
>
> - Tim
>
> _______________________________________________
> TML mailing list
> TML at travellercentral.com
> http://lists.travellercentral.com/mailman/listinfo/tml
>



-- 
Ein Leben ohne Mops ist m?glich,
doch v?llig sinnlos.
-Loriot

From magick.crow at gmail.com  Sun Dec  2 02:26:46 2007
From: magick.crow at gmail.com (Knapp)
Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2007 10:26:46 +0100
Subject: [TML] Unified Field Theory
In-Reply-To: <20071202091838.GN9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
References: <474CB0D4.5010506@cox.net> <474E40EA.4080002@cox.net>
	<474DF675.25910.C0BA3CD@shadow.shadowgard.com>
	<da11fc1c0711290827p1102f1acia9904a5c4e2dbe17@mail.gmail.com>
	<474EFB14.50908@cox.net> <474F01F5.7070102@iii.com>
	<475225A2.30304@cox.net> <47525AE2.3010306@iii.com>
	<004601c834bc$85653e80$902fbb80$@com.au>
	<20071202091838.GN9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
Message-ID: <f495db580712020126g6f8b25ak98a27538ebf93ae2@mail.gmail.com>

> > Do you think there will ever be a solved Unified Field Theory?
>
> Yes.  That is, in the sense that we will find a theory that fairly
> elegantly encompasses our observations to date.  We will reconcile
> gravity with the other forces.
>
> However, I also expect that we will make observations that aren't
> properly explained by that theory.  Either before such a theory is
> developed, or afterward.
>
>
> > If so, what do you feel will be a result of it?  Anti-Grav?
>
> I suspect that almost all of the new physics brought to light by such
> a theory would require engineering that we can't build.  I expect that
> most of the new technology in the foreseeable future will come from
> applied physics based on principles we already understand.
>
>
> > Ultra-high Gauss Magnetic Fields (what IS the speed of light in a
> > Million+ gauss field?)
>
> Given that a million gauss is 100 Tesla, and that we have already
> created fields that (temporarily) exceed that, I can pretty safely say
> that it's just the same.  If you count observations of astronomical
> objects, we've observed magnetic fields on the order of 10^15 gauss.
>
>
> > Do you think Traveller Technology will be unlocked when/if this
> > happens?

I don't know what will happen but I think that it will be huge! Here
is something that always guides my way of thinking about the future.
This is just one persons views of it but the underlying change will
happen unless disaster strikes us.
Douglas

The Law of Accelerating Returns
by   	Ray Kurzweil

An analysis of the history of technology shows that technological
change is exponential, contrary to the common-sense "intuitive linear"
view. So we won't experience 100 years of progress in the 21st century
-- it will be more like 20,000 years of progress (at today's rate).
The "returns," such as chip speed and cost-effectiveness, also
increase exponentially. There's even exponential growth in the rate of
exponential growth. Within a few decades, machine intelligence will
surpass human intelligence, leading to The Singularity --
technological change so rapid and profound it represents a rupture in
the fabric of human history. The implications include the merger of
biological and nonbiological intelligence, immortal software-based
humans, and ultra-high levels of intelligence that expand outward in
the universe at the speed of light.

From jursamaj at yahoo.com  Sun Dec  2 02:58:30 2007
From: jursamaj at yahoo.com (Jerry W Barrington)
Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2007 04:58:30 -0500
Subject: [TML] What is Traveller?
In-Reply-To: <mailman.334.1196540625.1583.tml@travellercentral.com>
Message-ID: <C377EBF6.112BF%jursamaj@yahoo.com>

On 12/1/07 3:23 PM, Timothy Little wrote:

> On Thu, Nov 29, 2007 at 11:26:00AM -0500, John Kwon wrote:
>> I always believed that "Traveller" was a simpler idea.
>> 
>> You are "travelers" (ok, not just "travelers" but members or friends
>> of members of the Traveller's Aid Society) in the far future (an
>> alternative future, if you will).
> 
> I don't think I've ever had a game involving the Traveller's Aid
> Society, or more than a trivial few PCs who were members.  Looking
> back, that seems so odd ...

Given the expense, most "travellers" would *not* be TAS members...


From jursamaj at yahoo.com  Sun Dec  2 03:36:14 2007
From: jursamaj at yahoo.com (Jerry W Barrington)
Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2007 05:36:14 -0500
Subject: [TML] New 3d computer simulation design
In-Reply-To: <mailman.334.1196540625.1583.tml@travellercentral.com>
Message-ID: <C377F4CE.112C4%jursamaj@yahoo.com>

On 12/1/07 3:23 PM, Douglas Knapp wrote:

> You probably are right. I have never done this before but I still
> think that it should cost more (in game money not real). Even on the
> Earth it cost more to call a long distance. If nothing else this is a
> bit of realism. Perhaps if the price is not to crazy then I will work
> fine and when they go to some really Podunk place the price will go
> sky high. Play testing will tell.

Even if in-game comm is free and instant, people will likely use their own
outside comm.  If it has *any* restriction or cost in-game, they definitely
will.  Many prefer a voice-chat system like Ventrilo.  Especially if the
combat is "real-time".  Nobody wants to try to type messages while fighting
the Bug-Eyed Monsters(tm).


From jursamaj at yahoo.com  Sun Dec  2 03:36:33 2007
From: jursamaj at yahoo.com (Jerry W Barrington)
Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2007 05:36:33 -0500
Subject: [TML] What is Traveller?
In-Reply-To: <mailman.334.1196540625.1583.tml@travellercentral.com>
Message-ID: <C377F4E1.112C4%jursamaj@yahoo.com>

On 12/1/07 3:23 PM, Richard Aiken wrote:

> Same here.  I avoided buying it for some time, figuring it couldn't be
> better than his original "Path Of The Fury" that I read many, many
> moons ago.  I was wrong.  IFB greatly details the backstory of the
> hero, making her and her actions a lot more believable.  FYI, POTF
> opens with the "pirate" raid on her family's farm.

Yes, I read POTF a few years back.  IFB was so  much larger, I figured it
was worth it.  I only waited for it to come out in paperback.  :)

The man can definitely write good military SF.



On 12/1/07 3:23 PM, Tom Naro wrote:

> Traveller has done a reasonable job at satisfying these elements.  But
> honestly, Traveller is still alive because we want it to stay alive.

That segues to the question of who "we" are.  I've noticed that Traveller
seems to attract a large percentage of veterans.  Perhaps this is why the
military careers were highlighted.  May also indicate less attraction to the
teen group of players.

Are there many new players, or are we dominated by long-time players?
"Should" we be trying to pull in the young ones, or will that change
Traveller the way D&D went to all the "punk" illustrations?


From jursamaj at yahoo.com  Sun Dec  2 03:38:46 2007
From: jursamaj at yahoo.com (Jerry W Barrington)
Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2007 05:38:46 -0500
Subject: [TML] New 3d computer simulation design
In-Reply-To: <mailman.334.1196540625.1583.tml@travellercentral.com>
Message-ID: <C377F566.112C4%jursamaj@yahoo.com>

On 12/1/07 3:23 PM, Timothy Little wrote:

> On Thu, Nov 29, 2007 at 10:17:07PM -0500, Jerry W Barrington wrote:
>> I think the big issue though is, if it's so easy to get to the edge
>> of explored space, why *is* it the edge.  How can we have almost no
>> info on systems right next door to major inhabited worlds?
> 
> Purely out-of-game reasons, nothing more.  It takes time to create
> worlds, and there isn't enough time to do it for many of them.  Even
> more so if you want to publish the results.

It takes almost no time to generate bare systems, especially if your random
generator just does the physical stuff.

> Another reason (out of game) is to provide frontiers so that the
> players can feel like their characters are heading into the unknown,
> boldly going where no man has gone before.  ("Man" in the sense of
> Humaniti, that is.  Obviously the inhabitants of these worlds were
> there already)

There will always a be a frontier.  There will be an edge of surveyed but
not settled systems, then the unsurveyed stuff beyond that.  But having the
unsurveyed right next to the settled worlds doesn't make sense to me.

I'm not real fond of these out of game reasons.  That's why I want something
like the Great Game to flesh that stuff out.

> The TNE setting did at least provide a decent in-game reason: the
> knowledge was lost, and much of what was retained had become obsolete.
> 
> 
> My Traveller universe goes some way toward explaining the frontiers.
> In every jump "hex" there are typically hundreds of stars, with
> usually at most one worth settling - and sometimes pretty marginally
> just to have a jump stopover at that.  Completely surveying whole new
> hexes is very expensive, and keeping them updated even more so.  In
> this Traveller universe, someone could settle a system and quite
> likely nobody would notice for some time.  Such a settlement wouldn't
> last without substantial support, though.  A failing and desperate
> settlement might even resort to piracy.

If you have hundreds of stars per hex:
    A. Your hex size is probably way too big.  Your hex is equivalent to 5 +
Traveller subsectors.  You've effectively multiplied Traveller's jump range
by 20+ (but with weird issues where 2 stars just across the hex-line, and 2
at opposite sides of adjacent hexes, are each J1 apart).
    B. There should never be an empty hex: *somewhere* in there should be a
place to refuel (water world, gas giant, etc.).  And it would be worth a
little investment to find one and shorten 3 J1's to go around to 2 J1's to
go straight.

Besides, you have to survey to find the useful planet anyway.  On average,
you'll have to survey over half of those stars to do so.  All of them, if
there's *no* useful planet.

And why would the empire ignore all those stars?  That's just asking for
somebody to set up their own empire intermingled with yours.  Some sort of
patrol to at least pop in and see if anybody has set up shop seems
appropriate.  It's not much of an empire if it doesn't know what's going on
in 99+% of it's territory!


From jursamaj at yahoo.com  Sun Dec  2 03:46:38 2007
From: jursamaj at yahoo.com (Jerry W Barrington)
Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2007 05:46:38 -0500
Subject: [TML] Space 1999 (was Orbital mechanics question, trash
In-Reply-To: <mailman.334.1196540625.1583.tml@travellercentral.com>
Message-ID: <C377F73E.112C4%jursamaj@yahoo.com>

On 12/1/07 3:23 PM, Douglas Knapp wrote:

> Have you seen this?
> http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-11/yu-3sf112107.php
> This being true, a hight oxygen world might end up with smart big bugs.
> Also I thought that anthropoids did not use this spiracle thing. Am I
> wrong here?

I said arthropods, not anthropoids.  Totally different.  Arthropods include
insects, arachnids, crustaceans, and some others.  Anthropoids are "near
humans": monkeys, apes, and humans.  Some use spiracles, some gills, some a
thing called a "book lung" (not related to the lung).
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthropod>

Note that they don't have a fossil of the creature in that article, only of
it's *claw*.  The size of the rest of the body is pure speculation.  Also it
lived in water, and oxygen transfer is very different there.  I expect it
used some sort of gill (like crabs do), which fossils wouldn't preserve
anyway.



> the largest insect ever to be found with a full
> wingspan of 30 inches and a body length of 18 inches

But look how thin the dragonfly is.  While 18 inches long, it's only a
couple inches wide.  Fairly easy for oxygen to diffuse in over that
distance.

> So I think that in a  hight oxygen planet you could still evolve giant
> intelligent bugs.

Atmospheric oxygen is self-limiting.  Too much and it burns off with
whatever fuel it can find.  :)


From tim.rattray at gmail.com  Sun Dec  2 04:19:22 2007
From: tim.rattray at gmail.com (Tim Rattray)
Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2007 22:19:22 +1100
Subject: [TML] Don't try this at home (was New 3d computer simulation
	design)
In-Reply-To: <20071202002802.GL9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
References: <59804ab60711290334r6e6b56d5he09067c92e7be62f@mail.gmail.com>
	<da11fc1c0711290915r35af3aecwae9236472e21a85c@mail.gmail.com>
	<f495db580711290924x3656a3f5s9b6b96f20f915b41@mail.gmail.com>
	<20071130121439.GD9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<f495db580711300844v2cc0ff50m7dc32454b1f7a6b8@mail.gmail.com>
	<46B4B2F6-864D-4258-B285-906045B6D094@pharmacy.arizona.edu>
	<20071202002802.GL9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
Message-ID: <483f95360712020319n3e3bf208ra44acf0c516add11@mail.gmail.com>

Umm, the surface temperatures of stars is a mere 6,000K - 20,000K.  The real
problem lies in the sun's "atmosphere":- the Chromashpere, the Transition
Region, and the Corona.  Temperatures of 1-2 million K, but the gas is
pretty thin, so the temperature isn't really the issue - what is heating the
gases is the issue.

Dr Tanya Hill, Astronomy Curator, Melbourne Planetarium, has told me that
this is caused by extreme magnetism, which cooks up the ionised gasses to
millions of degrees.  (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun#Atmosphere)

So you can just forget about going anywhere near the sun in anything made of
metal.  Maybe you could get close in a nice teacup, or similar ceramic.  Of
course, the effects of such magnetism on a human brain would be interesting
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcranial_magnetic_stimulation) so maybe a
robot?  A mechanical ceramic robot?

Gee, rusty hydrogen at the bottom of a simple gravity well is looking nice
and refreshing....


Tim.

From magick.crow at gmail.com  Sun Dec  2 04:23:12 2007
From: magick.crow at gmail.com (Knapp)
Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2007 12:23:12 +0100
Subject: [TML] New 3d computer simulation design
In-Reply-To: <C377F566.112C4%jursamaj@yahoo.com>
References: <mailman.334.1196540625.1583.tml@travellercentral.com>
	<C377F566.112C4%jursamaj@yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <f495db580712020323s6745e52l4bc4df319f439e1e@mail.gmail.com>

> And why would the empire ignore all those stars?  That's just asking for
> somebody to set up their own empire intermingled with yours.  Some sort of
> patrol to at least pop in and see if anybody has set up shop seems
> appropriate.  It's not much of an empire if it doesn't know what's going on
> in 99+% of it's territory!
If there are aliens then it would be my bet that they don't want the
same stars (planets) that humans do, So it would seem normal to me
that there are intermixed empires and that they might trade with each
other and perhaps share jump points and gas giants.
Douglas

From magick.crow at gmail.com  Sun Dec  2 04:28:06 2007
From: magick.crow at gmail.com (Knapp)
Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2007 12:28:06 +0100
Subject: [TML] Don't try this at home (was New 3d computer simulation
	design)
In-Reply-To: <483f95360712020319n3e3bf208ra44acf0c516add11@mail.gmail.com>
References: <59804ab60711290334r6e6b56d5he09067c92e7be62f@mail.gmail.com>
	<da11fc1c0711290915r35af3aecwae9236472e21a85c@mail.gmail.com>
	<f495db580711290924x3656a3f5s9b6b96f20f915b41@mail.gmail.com>
	<20071130121439.GD9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<f495db580711300844v2cc0ff50m7dc32454b1f7a6b8@mail.gmail.com>
	<46B4B2F6-864D-4258-B285-906045B6D094@pharmacy.arizona.edu>
	<20071202002802.GL9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<483f95360712020319n3e3bf208ra44acf0c516add11@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <f495db580712020328r4066e4e2md72c849481f9327e@mail.gmail.com>

> Dr Tanya Hill, Astronomy Curator, Melbourne Planetarium, has told me that
> this is caused by extreme magnetism, which cooks up the ionised gasses to
> millions of degrees.  (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun#Atmosphere)
>
> So you can just forget about going anywhere near the sun in anything made of
> metal.  Maybe you could get close in a nice teacup, or similar ceramic.  Of
> course, the effects of such magnetism on a human brain would be interesting
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcranial_magnetic_stimulation) so maybe a
> robot?  A mechanical ceramic robot?
>
> Tim.
So then are we also talking about a sort of EMP also or something related?
Douglas

From andrew.long at yahoo.com  Sun Dec  2 06:17:05 2007
From: andrew.long at yahoo.com (Andrew Long)
Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2007 17:17:05 +0400
Subject: [TML] Don't try this at home (was New 3d computer simulation
	design)
In-Reply-To: <f495db580712020328r4066e4e2md72c849481f9327e@mail.gmail.com>
References: <59804ab60711290334r6e6b56d5he09067c92e7be62f@mail.gmail.com>
	<da11fc1c0711290915r35af3aecwae9236472e21a85c@mail.gmail.com>
	<f495db580711290924x3656a3f5s9b6b96f20f915b41@mail.gmail.com>
	<20071130121439.GD9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<f495db580711300844v2cc0ff50m7dc32454b1f7a6b8@mail.gmail.com>
	<46B4B2F6-864D-4258-B285-906045B6D094@pharmacy.arizona.edu>
	<20071202002802.GL9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<483f95360712020319n3e3bf208ra44acf0c516add11@mail.gmail.com>
	<f495db580712020328r4066e4e2md72c849481f9327e@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <FD6ECB62-2A18-4FBD-A77D-3BAC1F5B56DA@yahoo.com>


On 2 Dec 2007, at 15:28, Knapp wrote:

>> Dr Tanya Hill, Astronomy Curator, Melbourne Planetarium, has told  
>> me that
>> this is caused by extreme magnetism, which cooks up the ionised  
>> gasses to
>> millions of degrees.  (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ 
>> Sun#Atmosphere)
>>
I remember, way back when, in a short article by Arthur C. Clarke (or  
maybe it was Dr. Asimov; they both seemed to sugar each others' tea  
in the old days), where he was demolishing some un-learned press  
article that tried to explain how we'd never have have space flight,  
and in fact shouldn't even try.

The basis of this was that the Van Allen belts (or some other region  
of the outer atmosphere) was Very Hot (millions of degrees?) and so  
any probe that we sent up would just melt. And punching holes in the  
layer separating us from all this hot gas might just bring it all  
down on us.  This was explained as being not really a problem due to  
the extremely low density of the gasses at that height, and that the  
temperatures were just an expression of the mean free path for atoms.

Does this relate to these huge temperatures in the Corona?


>> So you can just forget about going anywhere near the sun in  
>> anything made of
>> metal.  Maybe you could get close in a nice teacup, or similar  
>> ceramic.  Of
>> course, the effects of such magnetism on a human brain would be  
>> interesting
>> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcranial_magnetic_stimulation)  
>> so maybe a
>> robot?  A mechanical ceramic robot?

I was so sad to read about this kind of thing... I was really looking  
forward to riding Bussard ramscoops after reading Larry Niven's known  
space books.

  I was roughing out some fanfic about having someone trying to  
'herd' some starseeds from one system to another. The protagonist had  
been hired because he had been on that slowboat (the Lazy eight- 
something?) that had gone astray and was thus experienced at STL  
travel (unlike Bey Schaeffer, who was also along on the trip). The  
expedition had been funded by Gregory Pelton (Bey's frind 'Elephant')  
after the adventure of the evaporating starship.

Sadly, when I found that ramscoops were deadly it just took the heart  
out of my plot.

Ah, those were the days.

Andy (BOF)

-- 
Andrew Long
andrew dot long at yahoo dot com




From sburchett at gmail.com  Sun Dec  2 07:23:20 2007
From: sburchett at gmail.com (Steve Burchett)
Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2007 08:23:20 -0600
Subject: [TML] Don't try this at home
In-Reply-To: <f495db580712020111l33e3436ch5e52e0b5936a1479@mail.gmail.com>
References: <266043.91815.qm@web45513.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
	<003301c834a6$85a1d450$90e57cf0$@com.au>
	<f495db580712020111l33e3436ch5e52e0b5936a1479@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <3cf5ea650712020623hd642463scb6b0814b859e348@mail.gmail.com>

On Dec 2, 2007 3:11 AM, Knapp <magick.crow at gmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks, but I don't think I would say new. I started in the 80's with
> classic and have almost all of it save for the journals and some of
> the later adventures and stuff. I have never looked at anything newer
> than that. Also all my Travellers stuff is back in the states. :-(
> Douglas


I am in the same situation. I started when the LBBs first came out (the late
Seventies) and have scrupulously avoided all the later incarnations.

Steve

From magick.crow at gmail.com  Sun Dec  2 07:30:58 2007
From: magick.crow at gmail.com (Knapp)
Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2007 15:30:58 +0100
Subject: [TML] Don't try this at home
In-Reply-To: <3cf5ea650712020623hd642463scb6b0814b859e348@mail.gmail.com>
References: <266043.91815.qm@web45513.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
	<003301c834a6$85a1d450$90e57cf0$@com.au>
	<f495db580712020111l33e3436ch5e52e0b5936a1479@mail.gmail.com>
	<3cf5ea650712020623hd642463scb6b0814b859e348@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <f495db580712020630q5af13873v1728a65a91496810@mail.gmail.com>

Why change perfection? :--)
Douglas

From sburchett at gmail.com  Sun Dec  2 07:35:45 2007
From: sburchett at gmail.com (Steve Burchett)
Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2007 08:35:45 -0600
Subject: [TML] Don't try this at home
In-Reply-To: <f495db580712020630q5af13873v1728a65a91496810@mail.gmail.com>
References: <266043.91815.qm@web45513.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
	<003301c834a6$85a1d450$90e57cf0$@com.au>
	<f495db580712020111l33e3436ch5e52e0b5936a1479@mail.gmail.com>
	<3cf5ea650712020623hd642463scb6b0814b859e348@mail.gmail.com>
	<f495db580712020630q5af13873v1728a65a91496810@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <3cf5ea650712020635v739b42d1yeb8b53834e59d568@mail.gmail.com>

On Dec 2, 2007 8:30 AM, Knapp <magick.crow at gmail.com> wrote:

> Why change perfection? :--)
> Douglas
>

Indeed; a man after me own heart. :D

Steve

From magick.crow at gmail.com  Sun Dec  2 07:37:55 2007
From: magick.crow at gmail.com (Knapp)
Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2007 15:37:55 +0100
Subject: [TML] The Perfect Character Design
Message-ID: <f495db580712020637m2b94b094m8487815116b3314c@mail.gmail.com>

So, I am at the point that I need to design a character generation system.
What do you feel are the most important points?
What stats could you not live without?
Remember that this could be an alien too!
What do you need to know of the description?
What is the best system for making it?
What do you love and hate about the current systems? What system is
best for you?

I was thinking about those pick your own path stories that came out in
the late 80s. Maybe you could start with picking your parents and then
choose an adventure that made what your character becomes.
It seems to me that the worst way is random and the best is with the
player taking what he needs but given a budget to work from. Also a
story and an attachment should develop between the player and his
character.

Douglas

From shadow at shadowgard.com  Sun Dec  2 10:09:57 2007
From: shadow at shadowgard.com (shadow at shadowgard.com)
Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2007 09:09:57 -0800
Subject: [TML] Don't try this at home (was New 3d computer simulation
	design)
In-Reply-To: <f495db580712020328r4066e4e2md72c849481f9327e@mail.gmail.com>
References: <59804ab60711290334r6e6b56d5he09067c92e7be62f@mail.gmail.com>,
	<483f95360712020319n3e3bf208ra44acf0c516add11@mail.gmail.com>,
	<f495db580712020328r4066e4e2md72c849481f9327e@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <47527665.3472.330D540@shadow.shadowgard.com>

On 2 Dec 2007 at 12:28, Knapp wrote:

> > Dr Tanya Hill, Astronomy Curator, Melbourne Planetarium, has told me that
> > this is caused by extreme magnetism, which cooks up the ionised gasses to
> > millions of degrees.  (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun#Atmosphere)
> >
> > So you can just forget about going anywhere near the sun in anything made of
> > metal.  Maybe you could get close in a nice teacup, or similar ceramic.  Of
> > course, the effects of such magnetism on a human brain would be interesting
> > (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcranial_magnetic_stimulation) so maybe a
> > robot?  A mechanical ceramic robot?
> >
> > Tim.
> So then are we also talking about a sort of EMP also or something related?

No, more like an induction furnace. As in "heat metal white hot in 
minutes"...

--
Leonard Erickson (aka shadow)
shadow at shadowgard dot com



From threeeyesmcgurk at hotmail.com  Sun Dec  2 11:00:25 2007
From: threeeyesmcgurk at hotmail.com (alan hume)
Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2007 18:00:25 +0000
Subject: [TML] Welcom to our Universe sticker was(Don't try this at home)
In-Reply-To: <003301c834a6$85a1d450$90e57cf0$@com.au>
References: <266043.91815.qm@web45513.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
	<003301c834a6$85a1d450$90e57cf0$@com.au>
Message-ID: <BAY101-W394B589C0947CC48BF8AB9AE730@phx.gbl>




I was just wondering if anyone had any of the old (way old)
GDW promo stickers that said "Welcome to our Universe" or some such, kind of looked the same as the old ad that appeared in The Space Gamer and elsewhere

I collect stickers you see (I have them plastered all over a large filing cabinet that holds my wargames minis), Star Wars insignia, Trek stuff, I even have one of Linus from Peanuts
(don't ask, let's just say that when I was a kid I worried about everything so much that everyone started calling me Linus!!)

Anyway, I saw someone selling 4!! of them on ebay once but the auction had already ended:.(

they appear to be rarer than a Zhodani with a sense of humour:.)

So, if anyone has one they could sell me or know where I could buy one they would be doing me a huge favour

Cheers


Alan Hume


----------------------------------
> From: traveller at dhimaging.com.au
> To: tml at travellercentral.com
> Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2007 16:45:16 +1100
> Subject: Re: [TML] Don't try this at home
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> 
> >From: Knapp <magick.crow at gmail.com>
> 
> >Can you explain that? I have no idea what TNE or CG is
> >and how it works.
> 
> TNE is The New Era and CG is ContraGrav.
> 
> :)
> 
> Welcome aboard.
> 
> -Joel
> 
> _______________________________________________
> TML mailing list
> TML at travellercentral.com
> http://lists.travellercentral.com/mailman/listinfo/tml

_________________________________________________________________
Who's friends with who and co-starred in what?
http://www.searchgamesbox.com/celebrityseparation.shtml

From raikenclw at gmail.com  Sun Dec  2 12:05:07 2007
From: raikenclw at gmail.com (Richard Aiken)
Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2007 14:05:07 -0500
Subject: [TML] Does "Operation Reset" Make Sense?
In-Reply-To: <20071201054930.GI9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
References: <5aca9be50711302035t41206830h36798283464a5dab@mail.gmail.com>
	<20071201054930.GI9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
Message-ID: <5aca9be50712021105v3fcb5973s288d92f804e245d@mail.gmail.com>

On Dec 1, 2007 12:49 AM, Timothy Little <tim at little-possums.net> wrote:
> OK, so maybe someone
> was stupid enough to deliberately cripple both sides - that can
> happen.

I'm suggesting he update the timeline to "Twilight: 2017."  Maybe not
a nuclear war, but a "natural" disaster.  Such as what happens in "Ill
Wind" by Kevin J. Anderson and Doug Beason; an oil company releases an
oil-eating microbe on a massive oil spill which propogates by air and
within days all oil-based materials either evaporate or dissolve.
Civilization basically ends.  But before it does, paranoid Russia
tries to nuke everybody else.

> Disconnected semiconductors are vastly more resistant to EMP. [snip]
> It is also not unlikely for some large stocks of semiconductors to be
> in locations with substantial shielding from such long wavelengths -
> warehouses with metal walls and roof would do an excellent job.  The
> gaps (indeed, warehouses as a whole) are vastly smaller than the
> wavelength.

So the location of the huge stash becomes the critical info.

> So there is really only one possibility that makes sense with the plot
> and setting: the inventor came up with some fundamentally new way of
> engineering such a processor.  This would indeed be worth capturing
> and analysing!

Or then again . . . using something like the (GURPS) Science! skill?
This would certainly fit the "Fast! Furious! Fun!" mantra of Savage
Worlds.  Remember those old Asimov stories where the robot brains were
allowed to grow there own "positronic circuits" after manufature?
Maybe this invention does that, allowing the manufacture of new chips
without the usual infrastructure?

-- 
Richard Aiken

"Never insult anyone by accident."  Robert A. Heinlein

From raikenclw at gmail.com  Sun Dec  2 12:10:33 2007
From: raikenclw at gmail.com (Richard Aiken)
Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2007 14:10:33 -0500
Subject: [TML] Does "Operation Reset" Make Sense?
In-Reply-To: <475152AA.17310.1938E2C4@shadow.shadowgard.com>
References: <5aca9be50711302035t41206830h36798283464a5dab@mail.gmail.com>
	<475152AA.17310.1938E2C4@shadow.shadowgard.com>
Message-ID: <5aca9be50712021110y5122f1d9v814a27929ece8fc0@mail.gmail.com>

On Dec 1, 2007 3:25 PM,  <shadow at shadowgard.com> wrote:
> Actually replacing even *one* late 80s IC with something using non-
> semiconductor parts is not a trivial undertaking.

Oh, I didn't mean that it would be easy to do.  Just that it wouldn't
take any secret knowledge or a "new" invention to do it.

> A quite modest voltage will "burn thrn" the PN junctions inside the
> part. Causing permanent damage ythat'd have to be repaired by
> shifting atoms inside the substrate.

Okay.  The fixing burned chips is out, unless we invoke the Science! skill.

> Not a bad idea.
> Loose parts aren't likely to get killed.

Thanks.  As per my reply to Tim, I'll give my gift recipient the
option between the real-world and game-only possibilities, then let
him choose which fits his and his friends style best.

-- 
Richard Aiken

"Never insult anyone by accident."  Robert A. Heinlein

From raikenclw at gmail.com  Sun Dec  2 12:21:13 2007
From: raikenclw at gmail.com (Richard Aiken)
Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2007 14:21:13 -0500
Subject: [TML] We who Travel
In-Reply-To: <20071201.053622.3294.0@webmail07.dca.untd.com>
References: <20071201.053622.3294.0@webmail07.dca.untd.com>
Message-ID: <5aca9be50712021121o68151675ue44400025bcd5601@mail.gmail.com>

On Dec 1, 2007 8:36 AM, domhanai at juno.com <domhanai at juno.com> wrote:
> Evyn MacDude infojunky at ceecom.net, on Saturday, Dec 1, posted:
>
> <snipped out of respect>
>
> >ObTrav; >Lifted glass< "To absent friends!"
>
> So say we all.
>
> Cougashika

Hear.  Hear.

(My Dad passed August 26, 2000, at 75 years and two months old.  He
was a Navy veteran of WWII and Korea.  He never saw combat, but helped
repair many destroyers ravaged in the Solomon Islands, with
accompanying nightmares of what he found in emergency-flooded
compartments.)

-- 
Richard Aiken

"Never insult anyone by accident."  Robert A. Heinlein

From tim at little-possums.net  Sun Dec  2 16:01:17 2007
From: tim at little-possums.net (Timothy Little)
Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 10:01:17 +1100
Subject: [TML] New 3d computer simulation design
In-Reply-To: <f495db580712020120m57dae4cdjfe2e13846381e0dd@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20071129012821.GR9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<f495db580711290119i160f5639r962be52bbd874b12@mail.gmail.com>
	<20071130123319.GE9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<f495db580711300900l1543388cv797febcede5f88fa@mail.gmail.com>
	<20071130225720.GG9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<f495db580712010157u7a635662mf06a420edfb3cb3b@mail.gmail.com>
	<20071201114706.GJ9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<f495db580712011032i6b5d4189id2dd58073114cfdb@mail.gmail.com>
	<20071201234028.GK9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<f495db580712020120m57dae4cdjfe2e13846381e0dd@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20071202230116.GO9074@soprano.little-possums.net>

On Sun, Dec 02, 2007 at 10:20:43AM +0100, Knapp wrote:
> We are talking, about talking :-}, between planets and I was just
> assuming that it would take a lot of power to do it thus have high
> cost but getting cheaper with higher tech planets.  Even with VoIP
> you must pay for your internet.  Cost more for more bandwidth makes
> sense to me.

The flip side is "costs less for less bandwidth".  Voice communication
requires *hundreds* of times the bitrate of text.  Basing the
difficulty of character-to-character communication on the cost of
voice calls and ignoring text is just silly in a game that will likely
be based almost entirely on text communication anyway.

And yes, I agree you must pay for your bandwidth even with VoIP.  For
me, that's about 0.000000005 cents per bit.  Your cost is probably
lower.  If it were 0.01 cents per bit, then VoIP would cost about
$36/minute.  At the same bandwidth cost, the contents of this email
would be at most 90 cents - but probably quite a bit less, since then
it would be worth encoding more efficiently.


Not that any of this matters since the players won't accept any
nontrivial cost (or even free with restrictions), regardless of how
realistic it might be or how much you want it.


- Tim

From tim at little-possums.net  Sun Dec  2 16:44:10 2007
From: tim at little-possums.net (Timothy Little)
Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 10:44:10 +1100
Subject: [TML] New 3d computer simulation design
In-Reply-To: <C377F566.112C4%jursamaj@yahoo.com>
References: <mailman.334.1196540625.1583.tml@travellercentral.com>
	<C377F566.112C4%jursamaj@yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <20071202234410.GP9074@soprano.little-possums.net>

On Sun, Dec 02, 2007 at 05:38:46AM -0500, Jerry W Barrington wrote:
> It takes almost no time to generate bare systems, especially if your
> random generator just does the physical stuff.

Bare systems aren't interesting for gameplay.  Even so, it takes time
and some skills to write the programs to generate and effectively
present even bare systems on a map for your players.

It takes vastly more time (and not negligible expense) to arrange for
those tens of thousands of systems to be published as a canonical work
for Traveller players as a whole.


> I'm not real fond of these out of game reasons.  That's why I want
> something like the Great Game to flesh that stuff out.

Well you did ask why.  The reasons why are out of game reasons.

There's certainly nothing preventing you from generating as much
detail as you like for as many of Traveller's tens of thousands of
worlds as you like and for sectors around.


> If you have hundreds of stars per hex:
>     A. Your hex size is probably way too big.

They're standard Traveller 1-parsec hexes in cross-section.  It's just
that they're on the order of a few thousand parsecs long.  Remember
the storyline I mentioned about the Ancients shattering jumpspace?
That's the structure they were breaking.


>     B. There should never be an empty hex: *somewhere* in there
> should be a place to refuel (water world, gas giant, etc.).

That's right, there are no empty hexes in that sense IMTU.  There is
always somewhere to refuel, if you have the appropriate wilderness
refuelling equipment.

I also doubt that there are any truly empty hexes even without stars.
Interstellar space probably contains at least hundreds of billions of
ejected bodies larger than a kilometre across per cubic parsec, mostly
composed of hydrogen compounds.  Finding them would be a little
trickier, but they're there.


> Besides, you have to survey to find the useful planet anyway.  On
> average, you'll have to survey over half of those stars to do so.
> All of them, if there's *no* useful planet.

Absolutely.  That's a very expensive process, which is why you don't
have to go very far from settled worlds to find systems that haven't
been surveyed in detail.


> And why would the empire ignore all those stars?  That's just asking
> for somebody to set up their own empire intermingled with yours.

They're not completely ignored, just irrelevant for the most part.
Yes, the ones in and near inhabited hexes are resurveyed infrequently.
That's a large part of what the Scout Service does.  Just because
their existence is known doesn't mean that they're important enough to
appear on every map.

They certainly aren't important enough to publish on maps you give to
the players.


- Tim

From tim at little-possums.net  Sun Dec  2 17:17:07 2007
From: tim at little-possums.net (Timothy Little)
Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 11:17:07 +1100
Subject: [TML] Don't try this at home (was New 3d computer simulation
	design)
In-Reply-To: <483f95360712020319n3e3bf208ra44acf0c516add11@mail.gmail.com>
References: <59804ab60711290334r6e6b56d5he09067c92e7be62f@mail.gmail.com>
	<da11fc1c0711290915r35af3aecwae9236472e21a85c@mail.gmail.com>
	<f495db580711290924x3656a3f5s9b6b96f20f915b41@mail.gmail.com>
	<20071130121439.GD9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<f495db580711300844v2cc0ff50m7dc32454b1f7a6b8@mail.gmail.com>
	<46B4B2F6-864D-4258-B285-906045B6D094@pharmacy.arizona.edu>
	<20071202002802.GL9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<483f95360712020319n3e3bf208ra44acf0c516add11@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20071203001707.GQ9074@soprano.little-possums.net>

On Sun, Dec 02, 2007 at 10:19:22PM +1100, Tim Rattray wrote:
> Dr Tanya Hill, Astronomy Curator, Melbourne Planetarium, has told me that
> this is caused by extreme magnetism, which cooks up the ionised gasses to
> millions of degrees.  (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun#Atmosphere)

The magnetic field is actually pretty weak.  The typical field
strengths are on the order of 0.0001 Tesla, only about twice Earth's
average field.  It's also very steady on human distance and time
scales, though it is much more intense near sunspots (up to 0.1 Tesla).

The power of the field is due to the fact that it operates over *huge*
distances.  The energy density of a typical volume of field is only on
the order of 0.004 J/m^3 - but over the volume of the Sun that adds up
to more than 10^26 J.  It also changes rapidly - but again, only
compared with the distances across which it operates.


> So you can just forget about going anywhere near the sun in anything
> made of metal.  Maybe you could get close in a nice teacup, or
> similar ceramic.  Of course, the effects of such magnetism on a
> human brain would be interesting

MRI scanners operate with fields of up to 20 Tesla, without having
adverse effects on human brains.  TMS is based on rapidly pulsed
changes in magnetic field with very specific focussed fields.  The
Sun's field is far too weak, too slow changing, and too diffuse in
gradient to have any such effects.


- Tim

From tim at little-possums.net  Sun Dec  2 18:36:09 2007
From: tim at little-possums.net (Timothy Little)
Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 12:36:09 +1100
Subject: [TML] The Perfect Character Design
In-Reply-To: <f495db580712020637m2b94b094m8487815116b3314c@mail.gmail.com>
References: <f495db580712020637m2b94b094m8487815116b3314c@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20071203013609.GR9074@soprano.little-possums.net>

On Sun, Dec 02, 2007 at 03:37:55PM +0100, Knapp wrote:
> So, I am at the point that I need to design a character generation
> system.  What do you feel are the most important points?

For me, by far the most important point is the ability to design a
pre-existing character concept.  It's not character generation, but a
description or expression of those aspects of a character that the
game system requires.


> What stats could you not live without?

That's entirely up to the rest of the game system: there is no point
in having stats that the system never uses.

It sounds like you intend wealth to be a substantial variable, so that
should certainly go in.  You mentioned asking about skills for running
a spacecraft, so something for those should go in too.  If it's going
to be a game in a visual medium, you'll probably also want to be able
to have characters with different appearances.

What other game mechanics do you expect to have that will vary by
aspects of the character?


> Also a story and an attachment should develop between the player and
> his character.

I don't think any system will do that.  At best a system can suggest
character traits and stories, but an attachment will only develop to
the degree that the player accepts a character and story as being
*theirs*.

Even completely random generation will suffice sometimes.  Other times
players already have an idea of who they want to play, and attachment
drops in relation to how far from that concept they are forced to go.

And sometimes the character is an unattached game token, simulated
personality, or a story part - regardless of how it was created or how
well it is played.


- Tim

From shadow at shadowgard.com  Sun Dec  2 20:16:25 2007
From: shadow at shadowgard.com (shadow at shadowgard.com)
Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2007 19:16:25 -0800
Subject: [TML] New 3d computer simulation design
In-Reply-To: <20071202230116.GO9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
References: <20071129012821.GR9074@soprano.little-possums.net>,
	<f495db580712020120m57dae4cdjfe2e13846381e0dd@mail.gmail.com>,
	<20071202230116.GO9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
Message-ID: <47530489.28073.55E2697@shadow.shadowgard.com>

On 3 Dec 2007 at 10:01, Timothy Little wrote:

> On Sun, Dec 02, 2007 at 10:20:43AM +0100, Knapp wrote:
> > We are talking, about talking :-}, between planets and I was just
> > assuming that it would take a lot of power to do it thus have high
> > cost but getting cheaper with higher tech planets.  Even with VoIP
> > you must pay for your internet.  Cost more for more bandwidth makes
> > sense to me.
> 
> The flip side is "costs less for less bandwidth".  Voice communication
> requires *hundreds* of times the bitrate of text.  Basing the
> difficulty of character-to-character communication on the cost of
> voice calls and ignoring text is just silly in a game that will likely
> be based almost entirely on text communication anyway.

Yep. I'm old enough to remember when telegrams were still used. 
Though by then they were actually sent by teletype.

For that matter, 15 years ago businesses with international customers 
still used telex systems to send messages. One of my jobs was keeping 
an eye on one (a proprietary computer, that used quad density 5.25" 
floppies as well as a hard disk)

> And yes, I agree you must pay for your bandwidth even with VoIP.  For
> me, that's about 0.000000005 cents per bit.  Your cost is probably
> lower.  If it were 0.01 cents per bit, then VoIP would cost about
> $36/minute.  At the same bandwidth cost, the contents of this email
> would be at most 90 cents - but probably quite a bit less, since then
> it would be worth encoding more efficiently.

It's instructive comparing transmission technologies. For example, 
the fax machine was invented (and in *use*) before the telephone.

Somewhere in the archives is a discussion of formats and cost for X-
boat messages. At a guess, 10 years back.

We had it broken down using then current stuff and a bit of guessing 
as to future tech.

For example, based on per bit or byte charges, it's noticeably 
cheaper to use a limited character set (Baudot or ASCII) than to use 
something like unicode.

Images cost more, depending on resolution, colors and compression. 
Some things, like logos can be encoded for as a code number or 
something, saving a lot. And for some things, vector formats are a 
big win.

Sound? Again you can save a lot by reducing the frequency range and 
digitization rate. It's instructive to compare stuff digitization at 
different rates and with different parameters.

Video gets interesting. 2 hours of high quality video (DVD) uses a 
bit over 4 gig. But you can get quite acceptable results in 1 gig. 
Below that you start getting *serious* digitization artifacts. 

3d moving images will only be worse...


--
Leonard Erickson (aka shadow)
shadow at shadowgard dot com



From patrik.holmstrom at gmail.com  Sun Dec  2 21:01:58 2007
From: patrik.holmstrom at gmail.com (Patrik Holmstrom)
Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 05:01:58 +0100
Subject: [TML] New 3d computer simulation design
In-Reply-To: <47530489.28073.55E2697@shadow.shadowgard.com>
References: <20071129012821.GR9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<f495db580712020120m57dae4cdjfe2e13846381e0dd@mail.gmail.com>
	<20071202230116.GO9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<47530489.28073.55E2697@shadow.shadowgard.com>
Message-ID: <6c4d915b0712022001n277e7ae3h2d7bacc6fd3d6a12@mail.gmail.com>

On Dec 3, 2007 4:16 AM,  <shadow at shadowgard.com> wrote:
> Somewhere in the archives is a discussion of formats and cost for X-
> boat messages. At a guess, 10 years back.
>
> We had it broken down using then current stuff and a bit of guessing
> as to future tech.
>
> For example, based on per bit or byte charges, it's noticeably
> cheaper to use a limited character set (Baudot or ASCII) than to use
> something like unicode.

Yeah, but the Shannon entropy of the data is still the same so if you
compress it you end up with identical (theoretical case) or near
identical (real world case) sizes. For instance Mary Shelly's
Frankenstein goes from (ascii/unicode) 439kB/877kB to 140kB/142kB
using the 7z compression algorithm. Since you'd like to compress the
message anyway you don't save anything useful from using a more
compact character set.

/Patrik

From tim at little-possums.net  Sun Dec  2 21:48:57 2007
From: tim at little-possums.net (Timothy Little)
Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 15:48:57 +1100
Subject: [TML] New 3d computer simulation design
In-Reply-To: <47530489.28073.55E2697@shadow.shadowgard.com>
References: <20071202230116.GO9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<47530489.28073.55E2697@shadow.shadowgard.com>
Message-ID: <20071203044857.GS9074@soprano.little-possums.net>

On Sun, Dec 02, 2007 at 07:16:25PM -0800, shadow at shadowgard.com wrote:
> For example, based on per bit or byte charges, it's noticeably
> cheaper to use a limited character set (Baudot or ASCII) than to use
> something like unicode.

Not really, since they losslessly compress to identical sizes in cases
where the extended range is not used.  A restricted character set is a
form of lossy compression.

Of course, text itself is a form of lossy compression.  It's just one
that is applied by humans instead of computers, and it takes years to
be taught how to apply it effectively.


> Video gets interesting. 2 hours of high quality video (DVD) uses a
> bit over 4 gig. But you can get quite acceptable results in 1 gig.
> Below that you start getting *serious* digitization artifacts.

You can get picture quality better than many analog TV receptions in
about 150 MB per hour for typical TV content.  Certainly nowhere near
DVD quality, but better than most people watched 20 years ago.

But yes, quality does decrease pretty drastically with bitrate.


> 3d moving images will only be worse...

Probably not as much worse as it might seem at first.

You can nearly always only see the surfaces of objects, and so most of
the time you only need to add a bit more data for the sides/rear of
objects and add depth information.  Better yet, depth should compress
even better than surface appearance, and would drastically improve
motion estimation algorithms.  It would likely even greatly *reduce*
data used by video formats, since failure to distinguish and re-use
data from moving objects is by far the biggest cost in bandwidth.


- Tim

From bjmurray.halfjack at gmail.com  Sun Dec  2 22:06:35 2007
From: bjmurray.halfjack at gmail.com (Brad Murray)
Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2007 21:06:35 -0800
Subject: [TML] New 3d computer simulation design
In-Reply-To: <20071203044857.GS9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
References: <20071202230116.GO9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<47530489.28073.55E2697@shadow.shadowgard.com>
	<20071203044857.GS9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
Message-ID: <889263490712022106j3023bc5pf8efc9c83dfc11f1@mail.gmail.com>

On Dec 2, 2007 8:48 PM, Timothy Little <tim at little-possums.net> wrote:

> Not really, since they losslessly compress to identical sizes in cases
> where the extended range is not used.  A restricted character set is a
> form of lossy compression.


Even where the extended range is used, texts usually only need one small
piece of that range (say, all of Arabic) and therefore half the bytes in the
message will be identical (marking the range in use), and compress to
practically zero.

-- 
Brad Murray (halfjack)

From shadow at shadowgard.com  Sun Dec  2 22:54:46 2007
From: shadow at shadowgard.com (shadow at shadowgard.com)
Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2007 21:54:46 -0800
Subject: [TML] New 3d computer simulation design
In-Reply-To: <6c4d915b0712022001n277e7ae3h2d7bacc6fd3d6a12@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20071129012821.GR9074@soprano.little-possums.net>,
	<47530489.28073.55E2697@shadow.shadowgard.com>,
	<6c4d915b0712022001n277e7ae3h2d7bacc6fd3d6a12@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <475329A6.14128.5EFAF6D@shadow.shadowgard.com>

On 3 Dec 2007 at 5:01, Patrik Holmstrom wrote:

> On Dec 3, 2007 4:16 AM,  <shadow at shadowgard.com> wrote:
> > Somewhere in the archives is a discussion of formats and cost for X-
> > boat messages. At a guess, 10 years back.
> >
> > We had it broken down using then current stuff and a bit of guessing
> > as to future tech.
> >
> > For example, based on per bit or byte charges, it's noticeably
> > cheaper to use a limited character set (Baudot or ASCII) than to use
> > something like unicode.
> 
> Yeah, but the Shannon entropy of the data is still the same so if you
> compress it you end up with identical (theoretical case) or near
> identical (real world case) sizes. For instance Mary Shelly's
> Frankenstein goes from (ascii/unicode) 439kB/877kB to 140kB/142kB
> using the 7z compression algorithm. Since you'd like to compress the
> message anyway you don't save anything useful from using a more
> compact character set.

On the other hand, compressing the data makes it more vulnerable to 
errors in transmission.

BTW, have you tried seeing what size Frankenstein would be in Baudot?


--
Leonard Erickson (aka shadow)
shadow at shadowgard dot com



From shadow at shadowgard.com  Sun Dec  2 22:54:46 2007
From: shadow at shadowgard.com (shadow at shadowgard.com)
Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2007 21:54:46 -0800
Subject: [TML] New 3d computer simulation design
In-Reply-To: <20071203044857.GS9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
References: <20071202230116.GO9074@soprano.little-possums.net>,
	<47530489.28073.55E2697@shadow.shadowgard.com>,
	<20071203044857.GS9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
Message-ID: <475329A6.59.5EFB0E4@shadow.shadowgard.com>

On 3 Dec 2007 at 15:48, Timothy Little wrote:

> On Sun, Dec 02, 2007 at 07:16:25PM -0800, shadow at shadowgard.com wrote:

> > Video gets interesting. 2 hours of high quality video (DVD) uses a
> > bit over 4 gig. But you can get quite acceptable results in 1 gig.
> > Below that you start getting *serious* digitization artifacts.
> 
> You can get picture quality better than many analog TV receptions in
> about 150 MB per hour for typical TV content.  Certainly nowhere near
> DVD quality, but better than most people watched 20 years ago.
> 
> But yes, quality does decrease pretty drastically with bitrate.

I find anything below 350/hr is more messed up than I prefer to 
watch. At least in part because the losses aren't simple "fuzziness" 
but image artifacts that get really annoying.

> > 3d moving images will only be worse...
> 
> Probably not as much worse as it might seem at first.
> 
> You can nearly always only see the surfaces of objects, and so most of
> the time you only need to add a bit more data for the sides/rear of
> objects and add depth information.  Better yet, depth should compress
> even better than surface appearance, and would drastically improve
> motion estimation algorithms.  It would likely even greatly *reduce*
> data used by video formats, since failure to distinguish and re-use
> data from moving objects is by far the biggest cost in bandwidth.

By three-d, I *don't* mean "stereo imagery" like three-d movies. I 
mean the sort of image you can project into space and walk around to 
view from all sides.


--
Leonard Erickson (aka shadow)
shadow at shadowgard dot com



From healyzh at aracnet.com  Sun Dec  2 23:39:51 2007
From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy)
Date: Sun, 2 Dec 2007 22:39:51 -0800
Subject: [TML] Does "Operation Reset" Make Sense?
In-Reply-To: <5aca9be50712021110y5122f1d9v814a27929ece8fc0@mail.gmail.com>
References: <5aca9be50711302035t41206830h36798283464a5dab@mail.gmail.com>
	<475152AA.17310.1938E2C4@shadow.shadowgard.com>
	<5aca9be50712021110y5122f1d9v814a27929ece8fc0@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <p06240836c379088e7a2e@[192.168.1.199]>

At 2:10 PM -0500 12/2/07, Richard Aiken wrote:
>On Dec 1, 2007 3:25 PM,  <shadow at shadowgard.com> wrote:

>  > A quite modest voltage will "burn thrn" the PN junctions inside the
>>  part. Causing permanent damage ythat'd have to be repaired by
>>  shifting atoms inside the substrate.
>
>Okay.  The fixing burned chips is out, unless we invoke the Science! skill.

Fixing burned out chips is just plain out.

Even manufacturing replacements wouldn't be practical, it would take 
years to rebuild the necessary infrastructure if it gets fried. 
However, small scale fabs exist all over the place, it is likely that 
some sort of manufacturing facilities would survive.  I've a bad 
feeling the major manufacturing centers would be considered strategic 
military targets in this day and age, and likely to be targeted in 
the event of a nuclear war.  There is also the question of the design 
files needed to fabricate modern electronic devices.  Schematics 
haven't been available since the 80's for most devices, and even then 
the chips were largely black boxes.  Just tracing out a circuit can 
be "fun".  The software used in the various steps is quite 
specialized, often very expensive, and often requiring specific 
license keys.  All in all

In the event of a global collapse brought upon by nuclear war, 
pandemic, biological attacks, global warming, etc., one of the key 
problems will be that the manufacturing of any high-tech devices are 
so spread out that without transportation links, the manufacture will 
become impractical.  In fact if such an event occurs, China might be 
the only country left capable of producing high-tech equipment, which 
would give them a serious military advantage in the aftermath.

Realistically you'd probably be looking at scavenged modern tech, 
with any new manufacturing being at closer to 1910 through 1950's 
tech levels.  This exhibits why it is important to preserve 
information on how to build and maintain that old of equipment. 
Having this information digitized and online doesn't cut it, the 
information needs to be retained in a paper format.

BTW, you'd originally said:
>possible problem. The default adventure plot for this product involves
>a covert operation to acquire a secret invention: a bread-boarded,
>re-configurable macroscale electronic replacement for the silicon
>microchips that were fried by all that EMP.  Everybody and his cousin
>(DIA, CIA, KGB, Shin Bet, etc, etc) is supposed to be trying to get
>their hands on the plans for this item.

Personally this sounds like an EMP hardened FPGA development board. 
No idea if such a thing exists, but I doubt it.  In any case, it 
doesn't really make a whole lot of sense as to why everyone would be 
after one.  Why are they after it?  A good reason for that and it 
might make a lot more sense.

Something to consider is when the plot was written, at that time, 
electronics were a *LOT* simpler.  In the mid-80's tech was such that 
you could still work on it fairly easily with stuff you'd find at 
Radio Shack, now you need special micro-miniature repair tools.

Here is an idea, how about a fully functional 3D printer.  Right now 
they're only able to make fairly basic objects I believe, but in a 
few years, especially using nanotechnology, who knows what they might 
be capable of.

		Zane


-- 
| Zane H. Healy                    | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com (primary)    | OpenVMS Enthusiast         |
| MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet)           | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
|     Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing,    |
|          PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum.         |
|                http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/               |

From shadow at shadowgard.com  Mon Dec  3 00:54:00 2007
From: shadow at shadowgard.com (shadow at shadowgard.com)
Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2007 23:54:00 -0800
Subject: [TML] Does "Operation Reset" Make Sense?
In-Reply-To: <p06240836c379088e7a2e@[192.168.1.199]>
References: <5aca9be50711302035t41206830h36798283464a5dab@mail.gmail.com>,
	<5aca9be50712021110y5122f1d9v814a27929ece8fc0@mail.gmail.com>,
	<p06240836c379088e7a2e@[192.168.1.199]>
Message-ID: <47534598.7973.65D44F4@shadow.shadowgard.com>

On 2 Dec 2007 at 22:39, Zane H. Healy wrote:

> Even manufacturing replacements wouldn't be practical, it would take 
> years to rebuild the necessary infrastructure if it gets fried. 
> However, small scale fabs exist all over the place, it is likely that 
> some sort of manufacturing facilities would survive.  I've a bad 
> feeling the major manufacturing centers would be considered strategic 
> military targets in this day and age, and likely to be targeted in 
> the event of a nuclear war.  There is also the question of the design 
> files needed to fabricate modern electronic devices.  Schematics 
> haven't been available since the 80's for most devices, and even then 
> the chips were largely black boxes.  Just tracing out a circuit can 
> be "fun".  The software used in the various steps is quite 
> specialized, often very expensive, and often requiring specific 
> license keys.  All in all

"All in all" what?

> Here is an idea, how about a fully functional 3D printer.  Right now 
> they're only able to make fairly basic objects I believe, but in a 
> few years, especially using nanotechnology, who knows what they might 
> be capable of.

Yeah, I like that sort of "fabber" (in more advanced models) as a 
standard gizmo at higher TLs that gives a lot of the advantages of 
"anything box" type manufacture without the mahjor headaches that 
"free living" nanos cause.


--
Leonard Erickson (aka shadow)
shadow at shadowgard dot com



From patrik.holmstrom at gmail.com  Mon Dec  3 02:30:27 2007
From: patrik.holmstrom at gmail.com (Patrik Holmstrom)
Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 10:30:27 +0100
Subject: [TML] New 3d computer simulation design
In-Reply-To: <475329A6.14128.5EFAF6D@shadow.shadowgard.com>
References: <20071129012821.GR9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<47530489.28073.55E2697@shadow.shadowgard.com>
	<6c4d915b0712022001n277e7ae3h2d7bacc6fd3d6a12@mail.gmail.com>
	<475329A6.14128.5EFAF6D@shadow.shadowgard.com>
Message-ID: <6c4d915b0712030130i64eb5a6apdab9686d7ef0e219@mail.gmail.com>

On Dec 3, 2007 6:54 AM,  <shadow at shadowgard.com> wrote:
>
> On 3 Dec 2007 at 5:01, Patrik Holmstrom wrote:
>
> > On Dec 3, 2007 4:16 AM,  <shadow at shadowgard.com> wrote:
> > > Somewhere in the archives is a discussion of formats and cost for X-
> > > boat messages. At a guess, 10 years back.
> > >
> > > We had it broken down using then current stuff and a bit of guessing
> > > as to future tech.
> > >
> > > For example, based on per bit or byte charges, it's noticeably
> > > cheaper to use a limited character set (Baudot or ASCII) than to use
> > > something like unicode.
> >
> > Yeah, but the Shannon entropy of the data is still the same so if you
> > compress it you end up with identical (theoretical case) or near
> > identical (real world case) sizes. For instance Mary Shelly's
> > Frankenstein goes from (ascii/unicode) 439kB/877kB to 140kB/142kB
> > using the 7z compression algorithm. Since you'd like to compress the
> > message anyway you don't save anything useful from using a more
> > compact character set.
>
> On the other hand, compressing the data makes it more vulnerable to
> errors in transmission.

If the channel is error prone it's going to have some sort of error
correction. Compressed data (and that would also include images,
sound, 2D/3D video) is not the most vulnerable data, consider source
code/compiled code, finacial data, encrypted files, et.c.

> BTW, have you tried seeing what size Frankenstein would be in Baudot?

A quick look around couldn't find any converters (although I found a
lot of software teletype emulators) but uncompressed it should be
5/8th the size of ASCII and compressed it would be the same size as
compressed ASCII or a hair smaller. The original encoding is of little
significance since compression replaces it by (in theory) the typical
set or (in practice) Huffman/Lempel-Ziv/etc encoding. A good
compression algorithm is really a pretty accurate estimate of the
amount of information in a piece of data. Try for instance to compress
something like PI in binary form (a patternless sequence of binary
digits with no wasted encoding).

/Patrik

From healyzh at aracnet.com  Mon Dec  3 02:44:26 2007
From: healyzh at aracnet.com (Zane H. Healy)
Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 01:44:26 -0800
Subject: [TML] Does "Operation Reset" Make Sense?
In-Reply-To: <47534598.7973.65D44F4@shadow.shadowgard.com>
References: <5aca9be50711302035t41206830h36798283464a5dab@mail.gmail.com>,
	<5aca9be50712021110y5122f1d9v814a27929ece8fc0@mail.gmail.com>,
	<p06240836c379088e7a2e@[192.168.1.199]>
	<47534598.7973.65D44F4@shadow.shadowgard.com>
Message-ID: <p06240839c3797fc16875@[192.168.1.199]>

At 11:54 PM -0800 12/2/07, shadow at shadowgard.com wrote:
>On 2 Dec 2007 at 22:39, Zane H. Healy wrote:
>  > be "fun".  The software used in the various steps is quite
>>  specialized, often very expensive, and often requiring specific
>>  license keys.  All in all
>
>"All in all" what?

Heh...  Excellent question, I seem to have gotten distracted when I 
went back to add that bit, and am not sure what my point was.

Probably something about how getting all the pieces of software, and 
all the pieces of hardware needed to setup shop wouldn't be very 
easy.  In such a situation you could quite conceivably have entire 
scenario's built around nothing more than obtaining specific pieces 
of software, and it would be a near impossible task.

Zane


-- 
| Zane H. Healy                    | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com (primary)    | OpenVMS Enthusiast         |
| MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet)           | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
|     Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing,    |
|          PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum.         |
|                http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/               |

From ewan at quibell.org.uk  Mon Dec  3 04:18:44 2007
From: ewan at quibell.org.uk (Ewan Quibell)
Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2007 11:18:44 +0000
Subject: [TML] The Sky at Night?
In-Reply-To: <p06240839c3797fc16875@[192.168.1.199]>
References: <5aca9be50711302035t41206830h36798283464a5dab@mail.gmail.com>,
	<5aca9be50712021110y5122f1d9v814a27929ece8fc0@mail.gmail.com>,
	<p06240836c379088e7a2e@[192.168.1.199]>	<47534598.7973.65D44F4@shadow.shadowgard.com>
	<p06240839c3797fc16875@[192.168.1.199]>
Message-ID: <4753E614.8030300@quibell.org.uk>

Hi Guys,

Just a quick question. If I have a system with a G2 V as the primary and 
an F7 V in a far (1000AU) orbit, what would the sky at night look like?

Would the F7 V just look like a bright star or would it produce 
something like moon light?

Also if I had a standard atmosphere with lots of water, would the 
companion show up in the day time?

Best Regards

Ewan
-- 
  ewan at quibell.org.uk

  They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
  Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
  At the going down of the sun and in the morning
  We will remember them.
			Laurence Binyon

  My spelling is entirerly due to dyslexia, typos, and poetic license


From garry.e.ward at worldnet.att.net  Mon Dec  3 05:03:34 2007
From: garry.e.ward at worldnet.att.net (Garry Ward)
Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 07:03:34 -0500
Subject: [TML] The Sky at Night?
References: <5aca9be50711302035t41206830h36798283464a5dab@mail.gmail.com>,
	<5aca9be50712021110y5122f1d9v814a27929ece8fc0@mail.gmail.com>,
	<p06240836c379088e7a2e@[192.168.1.199]>	<47534598.7973.65D44F4@shadow.shadowgard.com><p06240839c3797fc16875@[192.168.1.199]>
	<4753E614.8030300@quibell.org.uk>
Message-ID: <000301c835a4$909d0f60$642d4b0c@YOURFEDDA97C02>


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ewan Quibell" <ewan at quibell.org.uk>
To: "The Traveller Mailing List" <tml at travellercentral.com>
Sent: Monday, December 03, 2007 6:18 AM
Subject: [TML] The Sky at Night?


> Hi Guys,
>
> Just a quick question. If I have a system with a G2 V as the primary and
> an F7 V in a far (1000AU) orbit, what would the sky at night look like?
>
according to my notes, a V luminosity star can be anywhere from 1/10,000th 
to 1,000 times the brightness of the Sun, so first thing you need to decide 
is where the companion lines on that scale. It can be barely visible at the 
low end or as bright as the sun at the high end.

One reason that for my generation of stars I now set a magnitude and then 
derive the luminosity from that so I have a specific number rather than the 
very, very broad and overlapping catagories that luminosity provides.

Garry
> Would the F7 V just look like a bright star or would it produce
> something like moon light?
>
> Also if I had a standard atmosphere with lots of water, would the
> companion show up in the day time?
>
> Best Regards
>
> Ewan
> -- 
>  ewan at quibell.org.uk
>
>  They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
>  Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
>  At the going down of the sun and in the morning
>  We will remember them.
> Laurence Binyon
>
>  My spelling is entirerly due to dyslexia, typos, and poetic license
>
> _______________________________________________
> TML mailing list
> TML at travellercentral.com
> http://lists.travellercentral.com/mailman/listinfo/tml
> 



From tim at little-possums.net  Mon Dec  3 05:07:32 2007
From: tim at little-possums.net (Timothy Little)
Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 23:07:32 +1100
Subject: [TML] The Sky at Night?
In-Reply-To: <4753E614.8030300@quibell.org.uk>
References: <p06240836c379088e7a2e@[192.168.1.199]>
	<47534598.7973.65D44F4@shadow.shadowgard.com>
	<p06240839c3797fc16875@[192.168.1.199]>
	<4753E614.8030300@quibell.org.uk>
Message-ID: <20071203120732.GT9074@soprano.little-possums.net>

On Mon, Dec 03, 2007 at 11:18:44AM +0000, Ewan Quibell wrote:
> Would the F7 V just look like a bright star or would it produce
> something like moon light?

It would illuminate about the same as a bright full moon, yes.  It
would be a very dazzling star, apparent magnitude probably about -13.
I don't think it would actually be dangerous to look at: despite the
pointlike focus on the retina, the light passing through the pupil
would be less than a microwatt.


> Also if I had a standard atmosphere with lots of water, would the
> companion show up in the day time?

It would be a very obvious brilliant point in the day time sky, yes.
More than a thousand times brighter than Venus at its brightest.


- Tim

From tim at little-possums.net  Mon Dec  3 05:14:30 2007
From: tim at little-possums.net (Timothy Little)
Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 23:14:30 +1100
Subject: [TML] New 3d computer simulation design
In-Reply-To: <475329A6.14128.5EFAF6D@shadow.shadowgard.com>
References: <6c4d915b0712022001n277e7ae3h2d7bacc6fd3d6a12@mail.gmail.com>
	<475329A6.14128.5EFAF6D@shadow.shadowgard.com>
Message-ID: <20071203121430.GU9074@soprano.little-possums.net>

On Sun, Dec 02, 2007 at 09:54:46PM -0800, shadow at shadowgard.com wrote:
> On the other hand, compressing the data makes it more vulnerable to
> errors in transmission.

Not really.  Not compressing it is a form of redundancy, but one that
is not tunable to the channel and makes very poor use of the redundant
data.  Even Baudot 5-bit encoding is about 3-4 bits more than
required.  If that bandwidth were instead dedicated to a well designed
error correction scheme, the message would perfectly survive errors
that would leave the raw text completely unrecognisable.


> BTW, have you tried seeing what size Frankenstein would be in Baudot?

That depends upon how you choose to mangle the characters that do not
exist in the Baudot character set.


- Tim

From patrik.holmstrom at gmail.com  Mon Dec  3 05:56:45 2007
From: patrik.holmstrom at gmail.com (Patrik Holmstrom)
Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 13:56:45 +0100
Subject: [TML] The Sky at Night?
In-Reply-To: <20071203120732.GT9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
References: <p06240836c379088e7a2e@192.168.1.199>
	<47534598.7973.65D44F4@shadow.shadowgard.com>
	<p06240839c3797fc16875@192.168.1.199>
	<4753E614.8030300@quibell.org.uk>
	<20071203120732.GT9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
Message-ID: <6c4d915b0712030456i72c37ce6i46bdd15eec63cea0@mail.gmail.com>

On Dec 3, 2007 1:07 PM, Timothy Little <tim at little-possums.net> wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 03, 2007 at 11:18:44AM +0000, Ewan Quibell wrote:
> > Would the F7 V just look like a bright star or would it produce
> > something like moon light?
>
> It would illuminate about the same as a bright full moon, yes.  It
> would be a very dazzling star, apparent magnitude probably about -13.
> I don't think it would actually be dangerous to look at: despite the
> pointlike focus on the retina, the light passing through the pupil
> would be less than a microwatt.

That looks like it is in the ballpark. Assuming a luminosity of 2.1
sol I get an apparant magnitude of -14.5 or 6 times brighter than mean
full moon luminosity (-12.6).

/Patrik

From jtkwon at jtkgroup.com  Mon Dec  3 06:50:52 2007
From: jtkwon at jtkgroup.com (John Kwon)
Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 08:50:52 -0500
Subject: [TML] The Sky at Night?
In-Reply-To: <6c4d915b0712030456i72c37ce6i46bdd15eec63cea0@mail.gmail.com>
References: <p06240836c379088e7a2e@192.168.1.199>
	<47534598.7973.65D44F4@shadow.shadowgard.com>
	<p06240839c3797fc16875@192.168.1.199>
	<4753E614.8030300@quibell.org.uk>
	<20071203120732.GT9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<6c4d915b0712030456i72c37ce6i46bdd15eec63cea0@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <da11fc1c0712030550k109e90c2q243a79062f3f30a7@mail.gmail.com>

On 12/3/07, Patrik Holmstrom <patrik.holmstrom at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Dec 3, 2007 1:07 PM, Timothy Little <tim at little-possums.net> wrote:
> > On Mon, Dec 03, 2007 at 11:18:44AM +0000, Ewan Quibell wrote:
> > > Would the F7 V just look like a bright star or would it produce
> > > something like moon light?
> >
> > It would illuminate about the same as a bright full moon, yes.  It
> > would be a very dazzling star, apparent magnitude probably about -13.
> > I don't think it would actually be dangerous to look at: despite the
> > pointlike focus on the retina, the light passing through the pupil
> > would be less than a microwatt.
>
> That looks like it is in the ballpark. Assuming a luminosity of 2.1
> sol I get an apparant magnitude of -14.5 or 6 times brighter than mean
> full moon luminosity (-12.6).
>
>
So we wouldn't need night vision devices, and we could read our comp-pads
without using the backlight.

From jtkwon at jtkgroup.com  Mon Dec  3 06:58:04 2007
From: jtkwon at jtkgroup.com (John Kwon)
Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 08:58:04 -0500
Subject: [TML] Does "Operation Reset" Make Sense?
In-Reply-To: <5aca9be50712021105v3fcb5973s288d92f804e245d@mail.gmail.com>
References: <5aca9be50711302035t41206830h36798283464a5dab@mail.gmail.com>
	<20071201054930.GI9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<5aca9be50712021105v3fcb5973s288d92f804e245d@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <da11fc1c0712030558p3ecc59a7q2e2ec70ee3c688e6@mail.gmail.com>

On 12/2/07, Richard Aiken <raikenclw at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Dec 1, 2007 12:49 AM, Timothy Little <tim at little-possums.net> wrote:
> > OK, so maybe someone
> > was stupid enough to deliberately cripple both sides - that can
> > happen.
>
> I'm suggesting he update the timeline to "Twilight: 2017."  Maybe not
> a nuclear war, but a "natural" disaster.  Such as what happens in "Ill
> Wind" by Kevin J. Anderson and Doug Beason; an oil company releases an
> oil-eating microbe on a massive oil spill which propogates by air and
> within days all oil-based materials either evaporate or dissolve.
> Civilization basically ends.  But before it does, paranoid Russia
> tries to nuke everybody else.
>

Or you could update it to Road Warrior.

Let's see - the oil peaks at this year in the timeline, and oil production
begins to drop.  Economic shocks begin to accumulate rapidly (the first one
being that the OPEC nations are found to have vastly overstated their
reserves, and have borrowed heavily against those predicted reserves),
culminating in the worldwide collapse of banking, followed by world war (see
the first 10 minutes of the movie "The Road Warrior"), followed by rampant
civil war, then anarchy.

At that point, going on a mission to recover some fuel and a working
generator would be something worth dying for.

Oddly, I still see this as a real possibility.

From patrik.holmstrom at gmail.com  Mon Dec  3 07:42:26 2007
From: patrik.holmstrom at gmail.com (Patrik Holmstrom)
Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 15:42:26 +0100
Subject: [TML] The Sky at Night?
In-Reply-To: <da11fc1c0712030550k109e90c2q243a79062f3f30a7@mail.gmail.com>
References: <p06240836c379088e7a2e@192.168.1.199>
	<47534598.7973.65D44F4@shadow.shadowgard.com>
	<p06240839c3797fc16875@192.168.1.199>
	<4753E614.8030300@quibell.org.uk>
	<20071203120732.GT9074@soprano.little-possums.net>
	<6c4d915b0712030456i72c37ce6i46bdd15eec63cea0@mail.gmail.com>
	<da11fc1c0712030550k109e90c2q243a79062f3f30a7@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <6c4d915b0712030642wb389c54h1770644d56d2c249@mail.gmail.com>

On Dec 3, 2007 2:50 PM, John Kwon <jtkwon at jtkgroup.com> wrote:
>
> On 12/3/07, Patrik Holmstrom <patrik.holmstrom at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On Dec 3, 2007 1:07 PM, Timothy Little <tim at little-possums.net> wrote:
> > > On Mon, Dec 03, 2007 at 11:18:44AM +0000, Ewan Quibell wrote:
> > > > Would the F7 V just look like a bright star or would it produce
> > > > something like moon light?
> > >
> > > It would illuminate about the same as a bright full moon, yes.  It
> > > would be a very dazzling star, apparent magnitude probably about -13.
> > > I don't think it would actually be dangerous to look at: despite the
> > > pointlike focus on the retina, the light passing through the pupil
> > > would be less than a microwatt.
> >
> > That looks like it is in the ballpark. Assuming a luminosity of 2.1
> > sol I get an apparant magnitude of -14.5 or 6 times brighter than mean
> > full moon luminosity (-12.6).
> >
> >
> So we wouldn't need night vision devices, and we could read our comp-pads
> without using the backlight.

I have skied a couple of kilometers under a full moon (lights went off
one hour ahead of the posted time) and that was interesting but
doable. If the second star is above the horizon on a clear night you'd
probably be just fine if you're taking a walk but if you suspect that
a Vargr with an Gauss rifle might interrupt that walk you'd definitely
want the NV goggles.

Also the frequency of those clear nights are another matter. Bitter?
Me? Got myself a new telescope a while back and the only clear night
in the last 4 weeks had hurricane strength wind gusts...

/Patrik

From ewan at quibell.org.uk  Mon Dec  3 08:53:59 2007
From: ewan at quibell.org.uk (Ewan Quibell)
Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2007 15:53:59 +0000
Subject: [TML] The Sky at Night?
In-Reply-To: <6c4d915b0712030642wb389c54h1770644d56d2c249@mail.gmail.com>
References: <p06240836c379088e7a2e@192.168.1.199>	<47534598.7973.65D44F4@shadow.shadowgard.com>	<p06240839c3797fc16875@192.168.1.199>	<4753E614.8030300@quibell.org.uk>	<20071203120732.GT9074@soprano.little-possums.net>	<6c4d915b0712030456i72c37ce6i46bdd15eec63cea0@mail.gmail.com>	<da11fc1c0712030550k109e90c2q243a79062f3f30a7@mail.gmail.com>
	<6c4d915b0712030642wb389c54h1770644d56d2c249@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <47542697.7020703@quibell.org.uk>

Patrik Holmstrom wrote:
> On Dec 3, 2007 2:50 PM, John Kwon <jtkwon at jtkgroup.com> wrote:
>> On 12/3/07, Patrik Holmstrom <patrik.holmstrom at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On Dec 3, 2007 1:07 PM, Timothy Little <tim at little-possums.net> wrote:
>>>> On Mon, Dec 03, 2007 at 11:18:44AM +0000, Ewan Quibell wrote:

>>>>> Would the F7 V just look like a bright star or would it produce
>>>>> something like moon light?

>>>> It would illuminate about the same as a bright full moon, yes.  It
>>>> would be a very dazzling star, apparent magnitude probably about -13.
>>>> I don't think it would actually be dangerous to look at: despite the
>>>> pointlike focus on the retina, the light passing through the pupil
>>>> would be less than a microwatt.

>>> That looks like it is in the ballpark. Assuming a luminosity of 2.1
>>> sol I get an apparant magnitude of -14.5 or 6 times brighter than mean
>>> full moon luminosity (-12.6).

>> So we wouldn't need night vision devices, and we could read our comp-pads
>> without using the backlight.

snip

> Also the frequency of those clear nights are another matter. Bitter?
> Me? Got myself a new telescope a while back and the only clear night
> in the last 4 weeks had hurricane strength wind gusts...

But at 6x Moonlight on a clear night would you still get the equivalent 
of Moonlight on an overcast night?

And what about the other way around? Say if the primary was the F7 V and 
the companion was the G2 V at 1000AU, what would the apparent luminosity be?

Best Regards

Ewan
-- 
  ewan at quibell.org.uk

  They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
  Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
  At the going down of the sun and in the morning
  We will remember them.
			Laurence Binyon

  My spelling is entirerly due to dyslexia, typos, and poetic license


From michaeltaylor1329 at hotmail.com  Mon Dec  3 09:10:03 2007
From: michaeltaylor1329 at hotmail.com (Michael Taylor)
Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 16:10:03 +0000
Subject: [TML] What is Traveller?
In-Reply-To: <mailman.334.1196540625.1583.tml@travellercentral.com>
References: <mailman.334.1196540625.1583.tml@travellercentral.com>
Message-ID: <BAY120-W2007C389D11326A6E63193BC6C0@phx.gbl>


> I think it's about time the Imperium canon was retired, and a new setting> invented.
 
I like the 'Proto-Traveller' idea. Make the universe a lot smaller an detail the Spinward Marches and leave the rest of it alone to the players. 
 
 
_________________________________________________________________
You keep typing, we keep giving. Download Messenger and join the i?m Initiative now.
http://im.live.com/messenger/im/home/?source=TAGLM

From ross.winn at gmail.com  Mon Dec  3 09:21:37 2007
From: ross.winn at gmail.com (Ross Winn)
Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 11:21:37 -0500
Subject: [TML] What is Traveller?
In-Reply-To: <BAY120-W2007C389D11326A6E63193BC6C0@phx.gbl>
References: <mailman.334.1196540625.1583.tml@travellercentral.com>
	<BAY120-W2007C389D11326A6E63193BC6C0@phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <5b0a00340712030821w7576f590l732710d82c4e5154@mail.gmail.com>

> "I think it's about time the Imperium canon was retired..."

Traveller is the Imperium in very real and measurable ways. There will
be ample opportunities to create new canon for new SF campaigns, and
there have been hundreds since Traveller was first published. None
have lasted, and none have had even temporary comparable success. The
only exception is Star Wars, and that has fuck all to do with RPGs.
Hell, Mongoose alone will publish 3-5 settings.

-Ross

From bjmurray.halfjack at gmail.com  Mon Dec  3 09:37:59 2007
From: bjmurray.halfjack at gmail.com (Brad Murray)
Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 08:37:59 -0800
Subject: [TML] Wha