You might have already noticed…I'm back!

On adding a hit differential calculator, I think having this additional info in the game would be quite interesting and useful even though I do agree that not all dice luck in the game is equal. Its more information but will sometimes lend itself to a misinterpretation of the actual luck of each player.

I do think though that if there is a way to avoid counting superfluous hits, that would make it more accurate. Some dice luck doesn’t matter to the game  and so shouldn’t be counted. If 6 fighters attack one destroyer the consequences in game terms of a lucky roll of 6 hits is the same as an ‘unlucky’ role of 1 hit or an average roll of 3 hits. It doesn’t actually matter to the outcome of the game but the measure would make it appear significant.

A TUV differential might have other problems, but it would solve this since superfluous hits aren’t going to impact on it.

But I thought another way to do is to take this hit differential counter and modify it when the hits exceed casualties in a combat. That is to say, in combat rounds where the expected number of hits and the actual number of hits both exceed the number of casualties taken, the hit differential of the victor in that combat round doesn’t get counted in the hit differential. This assumes we can break it down by combat round and I’m not sure if that can be done.

If that can’t be done then perhaps in situations where the combat only goes one round, and the expected number of hits exceeds the number of casualties, we could just ignore the hit differential of the winner of that combat. That would at least remove all situations where you send a stack after a lone unit. I think?

@Imperious:

That guy who owns that site is crazy. He is always on Art Bell’s radio show and late Night coast to coast.

He inferred that it was “the death star”…waiting for the right time to head to earth and blow it up. Rediculious

That’s the issue with pseudo-science. Peoples need to make outrageous and never eared announcements to get attention and eventually money.

This guy puts a lot of interesting facts on his site but when it put them together,
he is like Richard Castle telling a murder story to Lt Becket who’s trying to figure the puzzle out of a bunch of facts.
Castle’s story remains false but it provides new hints to get further in the investigation of the case.

In the first video, at 55 minutes and 00 second, Hoagland talk about this Saturn’s moon (Iapetus) and about artificial moon.
http://www.enterprisemission.com/videos.html

This moon was in the book of Arthur C. Clark, as the goal while it was change in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey for a Jupiter’s moon:

In the background to the story in the book, an ancient and unseen alien race uses a device with the appearance of a large crystalline monolith to investigate worlds all across the galaxy and, if possible, to encourage the development of intelligent life. The book shows one such monolith appearing in ancient Africa, 3 million years B.C. (in the movie, 4 million years), where it inspires a starving group of hominids to develop tools. The ape-men use their tools to kill animals and eat meat, ending their starvation. They then use the tools to kill a leopard preying on them; the next day, the main ape character, Moon-Watcher, uses a club to kill the leader of a rival tribe. The book suggests that the monolith was instrumental in awakening intelligence.

The book then shows the year C.E. 1999, detailing Dr. Heywood Floyd’s travel to Clavius Base on the Moon. Upon his arrival, Floyd attends a meeting, where a lead scientist explains that they have found a magnetic disturbance in Tycho, one of the Moon’s craters, designated Tycho Magnetic Anomaly One, or TMA-1. An excavation of the area has revealed a large black slab, precisely fashioned to a ratio of exactly 1:4:9, or 1�:2�:3�, and therefore believed the work of intelligence. Floyd and a team of scientists travel across the Moon to view TMA-1, and arrive as sunlight falls upon it for the first time in three million years. It then sends a piercing radio transmission to one of the moons of Saturn, Japetus (Iapetus),[2] where an expedition is then planned to investigate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001:A_Space_Odyssey%28novel%29

@General:

And another side note civilians lose wars not the American military.

Agreed, terrible policy has been the bane of the US fighting man for over half a century. (or longer even)

We give the people all the battle wins, and spineless leadership and ineptitude takes those victories and squanders them.

From one trooper to another “Brave Rifles!” and thank you for your service!

@Cmdr:

As I do every year, I post my favorite Christmas Poem to wish you all a very Merry Christmas!

This year, I include a link to YouTube so you can listen to the music that has always accompanied this poem (in my mind at least.): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8D-OL-KQOt4

_With medals and badges, awards of all kind
A sober thought came through my mind.
For this house was different, so dark and dreary,
I knew I had found the home of a soldier, once I could see clearly.

The soldier awakened and I heard a rough voice,
“Santa don’t cry, this life is my choice;
I fight for freedom, I don’t ask for more,
my life is my God, my country, my Corps.”

So I took off my jacket, the one made of red,
And I covered this Soldier from his toes to his head.
And I put on his T-shirt of gray and black,
With an eagle and an Army patch embroidered on back._

A Marine stationed in Okinawa, Japan wrote this poem. (Allegedly, from what I have been told, in other words, don’t go b*tch’n and moan’n that some yahoo in Uzbekistan who was constipated on a Monday morning wrote it, I was told it was a Marine in Okinawa, Japan and that’s who I am giving credit too until informed otherwise.)

I had to look it up because the emboldened items are not congruent.  Apparently a Marine wrote it for Leathernecks magazine, and others have come behind and modified it, like this one.  Here’s the original:
Merry Christmas, My Friend

_Twas the night before Christmas, he lived all alone,
In a one bedroom house made of plaster & stone.

I had come down the chimney, with presents to give
and to see just who in this home did live

As I looked all about, a strange sight I did see,
no tinsel, no presents, not even a tree.
No stocking by the fire, just boots filled with sand.
On the wall hung pictures of a far distant land.

With medals and badges, awards of all kind,
a sobering thought soon came to my mind.
For this house was different, unlike any I’d seen.
This was the home of a U.S. Marine.

I’d heard stories about them, I had to see more,
so I walked down the hall and pushed open the door.
And there he lay sleeping, silent, alone,
Curled up on the floor in his one-bedroom home.

He seemed so gentle, his face so serene,
Not how I pictured a U.S. Marine.
Was this the hero, of whom I’d just read?
Curled up in his poncho, a floor for his bed?

His head was clean-shaven, his weathered face tan.
I soon understood, this was more than a man.
For I realized the families that I saw that night,
owed their lives to these men, who were willing to fight.

Soon around the Nation, the children would play,
And grown-ups would celebrate on a bright Christmas day.
They all enjoyed freedom, each month and all year,
because of Marines like this one lying here.

I couldn’t help wonder how many lay alone,
on a cold Christmas Eve, in a land far from home.
Just the very thought brought a tear to my eye.
I dropped to my knees and I started to cry.

He must have awoken, for I heard a rough voice,
“Santa, don’t cry, this life is my choice
I fight for freedom, I don’t ask for more.
My life is my God, my country, my Corps.”

With that he rolled over, drifted off into sleep,
I couldn’t control it, I continued to weep.

I watched him for hours, so silent and still.
I noticed he shivered from the cold night’s chill.
So I took off my jacket, the one made of red,
and covered this Marine from his toes to his head.
Then I put on his T-shirt of scarlet and gold,
with an eagle, globe and anchor emblazoned so bold.
And although it barely fit me, I began to swell with pride,
and for one shining moment, I was Marine Corps deep inside.

I didn’t want to leave him so quiet in the night,
this guardian of honor so willing to fight.
But half asleep he rolled over, and in a voice clean and pure,
said “Carry on, Santa, it’s Christmas Day, all secure.”
One look at my watch and I knew he was right,
Merry Christmas my friend, Semper Fi and goodnight._

Credit to Snopes.

@Jermofoot:

@frimmel:

Water is the third most important substance for human survival.

After internet porn and beer?

Wait…you need water for beer.

Beer is mostly water.  :-)

But based on the survival tips Rule of 3. You get thirty seconds if you’re bleeding, making blood number one. 3 minutes without air making it number two. 3 hours without shelter in a harsh environment no one thing counts as shelter and this is highly dependent on the environment. 3 days without water and depending on the environment that could shorten considerably making water the third most important substance.

I thought that “Quantum of Solace” was remarkably prescient in having the villains trying to control the water supply.

Merry Christmas players! And many more to come.

GG

@Chengora:

Thanks, Jen.  I’m still waiting for Tom’s Hardware to update their CPU chart, but my understanding was that Intel initially released only its two top Core 2 Duo processors for testing.  I understand that the other 3-4 lower end processors were also being tested, but I wasn’t sure which if anyone had done it yet.

I probably should just be patient, though, since DirectX 10 cards haven’t even come out.  :-D

I’m going with the 1.83 Ghz Duo in my laptop.  Should be good enough.

No, He didn’t look that bad after he left office.

He gained weight, had the heart/artery problem, lost the weight, has started working his butt off for what may be a manuevering shot at UN SecGen, plus related and unrelated attempted to rewrite his legacy. Put all this together with Hillary and I’m surprised he’s not dead yet!