NetMinder

The Distance by Cake (used in my All tanker-STF video)

Mamma Said Knock You Out by LL Cool J (used in my still in production vid)

Sabotage by Beastie Boys (as used The Operatives vid)

Back in Black by AC/DC

Tomorrow Comes Today by Gorillaz (great back beat.. good storytelling groove)

Who Stole the DJ by DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince (built in story line, storyboarded but no footage recorded)

Everyday Superhero by Smash Mouth

Last Resort by Papa Roach

Cold as Ice by Foreigner

Im workign on mine, should have the video well mixed this week, and as soon as it rains again to knock the pollen count down, ill get the audio recorded (because sounding congested rarely works).

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In this day and age is it simply motherly paranoia that prevents me from making my 9 year old son walk home from school? It's about a 15 minute walk home. He seems too timid to make the journey.

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15min walk.... that equates to about a mile give or take a few blocks.
So the questions are:
Major Roads?
Sidewalks?
Safe neighborhood?

If: No, Yes, Yes.... then its paranoia.
2 "good answers" then there might be something to it...
1 or zero good answers, then its probably for the best.

At some point children, especially boys, want the chance to "prove themselves"/grow-up.... usually about 20 years before Mom is ready to let them go. Goes with the territory. When I was that age (3rd grade), I took the City Bus to school (Masters Elementary) in the morning and walked home. It was about a 2-3 mile journey, flat both ways. The school and my house were 1block from major roads, with nothing but sidewalk lined middle class residential in between. Wasnt always the funnest walk, especially in winter time (Omaha, NE get really snowy and cold), but I did it with no major problems (aside from bullying 6th graders who finally got the hint when I started wielding one of those mini-baseball bats on the walk).

Try this, let him walk home, but start from your house about the same time and meet him half-way (have a planned route). This will break both you and him into it.

Net

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Best to stock up on vaseline now for that nasty diaper rash you will oneday acquire.

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Its been several years since, but I recall using this white cream when said treatments were necessary for my son. Not nearly as greasy.

That article is full of pain.

"These results coincided with those of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, which in 1999 commissioned the University of Connecticut to test the civics knowledge of seniors from the U.S.'s top 55 colleges and universities. Four out of five received a grade of D or F. Only 23% knew that James Madison was the "father of the Constitution," and more thought it was Ulysses S. Grant who was the victorious general at Yorktown than knew it was George Washington."

Part of my soul died. Wrong war. Wrong side. Ugh. Heck, (Benedict) Arnold would have at least been the right side and right war, tho wrong General (and by 1781 Arnold had already fled after attempting to cede West point to the British for money and a officer post, but at least he was an Amer. Rev. Gen.)

And it still doesn't mean my (step) daughter shouldn't be learning American History.

So you want to be a Mastermind....
<emotes cheer, praise, etc..>
Woah there... before you get delusions of granduer; lets cover the basics of being a MasterMind.
Take good notes, there will be a quiz later.
<em clipboard>

<title screen>
MasterMind 101
Never take a bullet you can send someone else to take in your stead.
<end>
<new screen>
Lets look at the numbers here. At level 50, you'll have about 1/2 the hps of a brute.
<Mastermind: 802, Brute 1499>
Getting into the fight means you'll time to study the wonderful masonary of the Rogue Isles.
<petless MM getting tromped and faceplanting>


Private here has agreed to help us see how the Robotics MasterMind fights.
<insert fight scene; robots trouncing a spawn>

See, all those lasers and rockets and bullets, and Private safely out of the way, obscured by his secondary powers.

<title screen>
Upgrade your summons.
mmmokthx
<end>
MasterMind summons have a unique property that allows special buffs that can only be applied to them.
You get your first upgrade at level 6
<show equip robot drone>
Notice how the lowly Drone picked up an additional laser attack.
<show equip robot ABot>
And look at the Assualt bot, he got another plasma beam and a flame-thrower.

Now lets make them really good with the second upgrade available at level 32.
<show upgrade robot drone>
<show upgrade robot abot>
This is a major upgrade.
The drone picked up another laser attack; full auto laser.
The assault bot added missiles. Lots of missiles. Explosive and Incindery.
You are now a walking wave of death.

<title screen>
Do not ignore your secondary, power pool, and epic powers
<end>

Masterminds like Private here can sit on thier laurals of having robots of doom, or they can step it up using secondary powers that augment thier primary.
Robotics/Dark Maisma/Mace is a very potent mix, capable of soloing some Archvillian/Heroes and Giant Monsters.

Lets see why:
<tar patch>
Tar Patch is -30% Resist and a major slow. Great for keeping things in the burn patch from the Incindary missiles.
<ABot em cheer>
Thats right, an instant increase in damage to your already great ranged damage.
<Darkest Night>
Darkest Night: This power lowers incoming damage by 22.5% and decrease opposing chance to hit.
<Add protector bot cheer>
<twilight grasp>
Twilight Grasp heals you and your robots, and debuffs opposing toHit and regen!
<all bots cheer>
And I haven't even brought in toggles from Leadership or the Dark Servant's debuffs.

Quick Recap:
<Bots>
Robots plus
<show tar patch>
debuffs
<show large dead group>
equals ownage.

<title screen>
You can never have enough meat shields
or
Even Masterminds team with other players.
<end>

Ok, so the Robotics/Dark Mastermind has 7 "teammates" already, so why do you need to team?
<em shrug>
Because sometimes, you can't do it all. Brutes do a great job of keeping that random mez grenade along ways from you. Masterminds are really weak on mez protection, and when you are stunned, held, or sleep; you cannot issue commands to your minions. It also drops toggles, which can leave your team exposed, and subsequently asking the nurse in the hospital if they have anymore coffee.
<em donut/drink in hosp>

Have I mentioned your attacks yet?
<em draw rifle>
There is a reason for that.
As a general rule, your minions will outdamage you. Your attacks are light support at best. Squeeze them in if you've got nothing else to do, but a good difficulty for a MM to be at is one that keeps you buffing and debuffing, not idling through out the mission. Besides, Masterminds are supposed to work from the shadows. Play a corruptor or blaster if you want to be active with ranged attacks.
<drawn out battle scene show heals, debuffs, etc.. with few attacks>

<fade into scenes of different MMs>
I hoped this helped explain a little what its like to be a MasterMind.
I only showed you one of dozens possible combinations for the mastermind AT.
Read your help text if you need a refresher on when you get your next bot.
<show summons>
1 Level 1 at level 1
Second level 1 at level 6
1 level 2 at level 12
Third level 1 at level 18
Second level 2 at level 24
and Level 3 at level 26.


Well thats all I have.... if you are on Champion, feel free to drop Private Parts a tell, he'll be happy to help with any questions you might have.

<fade out>
<credits>


So, something like that?

From the "I can't believe she said that" file:
Last night, Im happily playing some CoX, my son is playing quietly and my step daughter is doing her homework when she decides to ask me for some information.
(mind you, she's in the 8th grade)
"What was the Civil War about? Wasn't that the one about slavery?" ...... dramatic pause before I responded, "Amongst a few other things, but slavery is probably good enough for 8th grade social studies."
"What were the two sides? Wasn't the Soviet Union one of the sides?" ...... Talk about a mag 100 stun. Absolutely stunned. There just wasnt a good responce to that but to stifle my laughter, "The north and the south."
"Yeah, but what were the sides called?"... I didn't have enough break frees to withstand another mag 100 stun question. "You mean the Union and the Confederacy?"
"Yeah, those...... which side wanted slavery?"
I totally lost it at this point.

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/em jealous at all the people who get to go to PAX

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Meh. PAX is ok. Still a much bigger fan of GenCon.
(PAX is just too much. Its always packed solid and the ventilation system just cant hack it. GenCon while really busy has a better layout, better ventilation, and better overall participation.)

Usually hit the deductable sometime in early Feb. =P

August isnt over but lets get a quick recap of the antics of a 6yr old; my son; for this month alone.

Lets start early this month when he decided to take a tire chip (the shredded remains of tires used for playground padding) and place it in his ear. Which got crammed into there to the point of resting on the ear drum and had to be surgically removed under general anathesia. We give this $$$ out of 4 on the cost scale and a full !!!! out of 4 on the whiskey tango foxtrot scale.

Next while down in Florida on a mini-vacation to see his grandparents (his moms, I dont have any left), he desides to stick his fingers (2 of them) in a pop can.... and promptly slicing them pulling them out. Only a $ and !!, but still... quite annoying and messy (finger tips bleed alot).

And lastly, while playing outside with the water hose, he sees the 2 white PVC tubes extending from the side of the house. And decides to use the hose to run some water in them. Those 2 tubes are the exhaust and intake to the furance. And as luck would have it, he really swamps the intake, because the exhaust really wouldnt have mattered. Furnace heat exchanger flooded. Air pressure lines now water lines. Basement floor wet. $$ and !!!!! (yes 5 out of 4). Spent about 3 hours last night disassembling, drying and cleaning what I could. The electrical was un-damaged so its just a matter of cleaning up the washed in debris and drying everything out (already did a test run of both A/C and Heat.. both ok).

And school starts tomorrow... oh joy.

If anyone is looking for me, I've gone crazy. Back later.

net

Lets look at something simple first.

Set pitch 767 on the Left leg. I see the upper left leg at 90deg but the lower left leg doesnt follow. Its only at about 45 degrees.

Furthermore, I see the upper left leg with a dist of about 13mm, same as when it was striaght. But the lower left leg is now almost 20mm in legnth where as it started at 15mm as well. Your rotate added 33% to the legnth of the inherited limb. Thats not good and could certainly be part of the problem.

Ill dig up some of my old OpenGL code I did for something very very similar I did about 12 years ago and see how I did the 3-D joint manipulation (OpenGL has those nice glRotate and glTranslate functions). Ill likely find something in there of help


Net

You can use Windows Movie Maker and just encode them into a lower resolution/different format.

Actually by posting anything you are asking for critique.

1) The UI is cluttering. Demorecord and playback.
2) The game sound conflicts with the music at points.
3) Not including the Epics? Thats just lazy.
4) Listing the powersets was really pointless. Especially with the canned small/large text. Could have done more there.

Good idea, poor execution. I wouldnt use this to introduce someone to CoX.

Good camera work, but it seems "cluttered" with too much audio and video all happening together. Good plot. Loved the idea of helping the Warriors punch the guy for no appearent reason.

Needs a better mic. Sounds like it kept hitting the input rail. After about 2 minutes I got a headache from listening to it.

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As of now in this forum, Biological children are now required to be born with...

A Mute Button
A Pause Button
The Sudden Urge to Clean their rooms
Unending Attention to Prevent "Boredom"
Pet Sense (so they know the litter box needs to be cleaned)
A Pull Start (for the mornings they just WONT get out of bed)
For Boys: The Will Mom will approve my Girlfriend Sense
For Girls: The Will Dad shoot this guy sense

And last but not least....

Common Sense (though this one will be a mircle if any)

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1) Its called a [censored]. No, you dont actually say it, but it can be as simple as the "Shhhh!" from Austin Powers to the more forceful "Shut it or I will!".
2) Why would you want to Pause them? I want a turbo FF button.
3) Place a shovel and a trash barrel outside thier door. In 24hrs the room is clean or I use the shovel. Only had to use it once FYI.
4) Be less predictable as a parent. Random movie outings and trips to "Chuck E Cheese" keep the kids on thier toes.
5) Don't get a pet. If you think your kids are ready for that level of responsibility; you are wrong. All pets are family pets. And if they disaster of a room they sleep in doesnt motivate them to clean, why on earth would you expect them to clean someoneelse's toilet?
6) Glass of cold water. Besides, they bedding needs to be washed frequently anyways. Consider it part of the "pre-soak" cycle.
7 and 8) Broke and at home. No car and no money is a best way to keep your kids away from said miscreants and at home.
9) Common sense isn't.

Money is a "light" (as in not heavy) object, if you are flying/hover or have any gravity effects in the vacinity, said objects will move in odd ways. Let some Council Force unload full auto for a while and then hover amongst the shell casings..... its a pretty rain of steel. =)

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My wife and I are expecting our first biological child in December

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Huh? As opposed to a mechanical child? Are you the Clockwork King in disguise?

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I had a step-daughter before my biological child (son)... so there is nothing odd about said distinction. Free your mind, Peterbilt.

I wish I had alot more time each day to spend in my workshop, with my kids, playing games, doing housework, etc, etc, etc.
Comes with the territory. Prioritize and do what you can.
I've got a project in my workshop that sits unfinished after 6 years because its a low priority. (set of animitronic wings for a gryphon costume). All i need to finish it is about 20 hours to re-mill the aluminum plates and rods, but thats noisy so I cant just do it at night when everyone is sleeping... so it idles.
I still haven't finished my first CoX video, despite making 6 other ones since. Need to get back inthe groove with ragdoll working on demoplayback.
The list goes on and on. The important stuff, like teaching my son baseball, and my step daughter how to fast pitch softball have been accomplished. But at the end of the day, there just isnt time to do everything, whether or not it makes money.

So prioritize and realize that even with 48hrs in a day, you still cant get everything done on time.

A couple of GenCon's ago, I did the "Gamer Olympics".
(out of 20 each)
Robin Hood test: 4. Four!!!! Gah! Totally hosed it. Granted they were wieghted arrows with huge pads on the tips, but still... a FOUR! It was like 20 yards away.... and I scored a four! Never got the range/hieght down with the heavy noses.
The other events were 9, 20, 18, 18, and 15.. so I scored overall very high, but that 4.... groan.

It haunts me still.

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It just made me slightly annoyed you said it was a fact of life. I hated pedicures before, during, and after my pregnancy. Seeing as I haven't been able to sleep in the past 24 hours, I may just be grumpy so sorry if I seem mean.

Edit: I swear I typed 24 not 48.

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It was double xp weekend. Blame the servers for doubling your number.

Can you see your toes? ^.^

*ducks*

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My wisdom, (what little of it I've been able to gather) is that if you try to lock down your child, they are going to do really stupid things as soon as they can get out from under your thumb. If you teach them high standards, and show them by example your living up to those high standards, and expect them to live up to those standards even if you are not there looking over thier shoulders, they will still make mistakes, but they tend to be lesser mistakes.


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Thats so idealistic and cute... and no bearing in reality. I've tried the high ground on a couple of other avenues and remarkably it didn't work. Not a lot of hope it will work on this front either.
Teenagers will do stupid things, no matter how much you teach them, no matter how much you show them a better way...... its a rite of passage. At least with the Iron Fist approach, I can minimize the amount of opprotunities for stupid actions to happen until she is on her own... at which point I have no liability for said actions.

[ QUOTE ]
That's the problem.

We all remember why we wanted to date their daughter.

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Amen to that. We know what that testosterone laden teen is thinking cause we were thinking the same thing X number of years prior.

The worst part is that its not a 100% thing, and most of us dont play with demo on. Happened to be this morning, I taunted a 1/2 health Council Force minion, and he bolted aroudn the corner and down two halls before walking back.