Scythus

Originally Posted by BafflingBeerMan

Same reason humans get caught in speed traps?

Originally Posted by Dollymistress

Oh noes!

The only way Sam could possibly answer this post would be if he replied with 5 interweb links proving that the Large Hadron Collider may destroy the planet, or that the millenium bug will doom us all, or that Swine Flu will kill tens of thousands...

waittaminute...!

Originally Posted by Zikar

Yeah, I always like it when people say humans don't have "super" powers when comparing us to other creatures. They always forget about the brain, ours is huge and amazingly effective compared to any other creature.

Originally Posted by SwellGuy

What? I suppose you're going to claim I am not Bender next?

Originally Posted by Oliin

I spent rather a while thinking about why I never found 3/3.5e as fun as any of the previous versions. I finally came to the conclusion that they actually gave far too much room to tweak characters for my taste. It may not have been too terribly bad if it had just been the skills, but added to the ability to take levels of different classes and the like I always ended up feeling like I was playing a spreadsheet instead of a character.

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow

...

What? A cell phone with a small, light battery is putting out as much energy as a power line hooked up to a major power plant and supplying an entire city? What kind of cell phones are you using?

It doesn't matter how close you put the thing to your ear. You live inside electromagnetic fields every moment of every day, unless you live out in the woods. Everything electronic puts out an EM field, and it doesn't matter if you put it to your ear or look at it from across the room. Your cell phone's radio is powerful enough to reach a comm tower outside of your house, through your walls and through surrounding buildings, and it broadcasts that signal in all directions. It doesn't matter if you're next to it, across the room or in the next building over. You're inside its broadcast radius.

Even if you don't own a cell phone, your neighbour probably does, and it's transmitting its signal straight through your head. Right now, in fact. If you have a wireless router in the room, that's broadcasting straight into your head. That satellite dish your neighbour has? It only picks up a broadcast that's coming down from space anyway, which means a satellite is currently broadcasting straight into your head right now. Do you have a GPS in your car? Same deal. Do you have a wireless mouse or keyboard? They're broadcasting into your head.

And on top of that, everything electronic broadcasts an EM field just by working. And those EM fields tend to not really decay by all that much over space. So it doesn't matter if you hold your lights to your head. They're broadcasting an EM field inside your head either way. It doesn't matter if you watch your TV from the other end of the room. It's broadcasting an EM field inside your head, unless you're watching it through solid lead or a large water tank. In fact, older cathode-ray tube TVs are basically emitters aimed at the screen, and with you on the other side, those are emitters aimed AT YOU. Those speakers you hear sound out of? They broadcast some serious EM fields, too. Hell, you get blasted by electro-magnetic waves FROM SPACE all the time just doing nothing.

I mean, sure, if you want to be afraid of these things, then I really can't argue with that. But to single out cell phones when they're one of the smallest offenders is just... Unreasonable.

Originally Posted by Coyote_Seven

I'm afraid that if you're that scared of UHF signals doing something to your brain, then you'll be terrified to know that those radio waves are being used just about everywhere else as well. Simply refusing to use a cell phone won't help you one bit. If you're serious about not being touched by radio waves between 300 MHz and 3 GHz, you'll have to move out into some extremely remote location (or better yet, deep into an underground cave) and encase yourself in a Faraday cage (with very thick walls of metal). You must also bring no device with you that generates an EM field of its own (translation: nothing electronic). So, no electric lights; you'll have to make do with gas lamps. So make sure to bring plenty of kerosene! You'll probably want an ample supply of oxygen as well.

Originally Posted by Eiko-chan

Two things:

1. It's the 21st century.
2. I don't have a cell phone.

Originally Posted by McNum

Yeah, if that's your attitude towards life, you'll never find happiness.

Me? I'm happy. Genuinely smiling happy. Been so for years now. And it's not a case of denial

Originally Posted by Cowman

Originally Posted by Cowman

There sure is a reason why it exists.


It really has no bearing on my points, but it DOES have a reason to exist.

Or was that your rebuttal. "This trope does occur, so obviously the opposite could NEVER have a negative side of it's own."

Sorry, if I get invested in a show/book/whatever about a certain character, I wanna see stories about THAT character. Not a season or two of that character and then this other character whose quite similar.

"Look, we've killed off the character's parents, ruined his marriage, crippled his son, and given his dog cancer."

Know what I hear when I see stuff like that?

"Look at us, look at us! Look how gritty and shocking we are! Hold on, there'll be cussin' next!"

It's like in the 90's when they were cutting off Aquaman's hand and smearing shadows all over Spiderman's face in a desperate attempt to be taken seriously.

Originally Posted by Cowman

I keep hearing this argument and I gotta ask; what shows, books, etc are cavalcades of "this guy never having a bad day"?

Comics?

No, comic characters are getting put through the wringer just fine.

Movies?

Well, there are comedies, but there doesn't seem to be any shortage of depressing movies.

TV?

No, judging by examples in this thread the "realistic" and soul-crushing shows are coming fast and furious.


So where ARE these shows that are all sunshine and rainbows? Are we talking about children's television? Sitcoms? We can't really blame THEM for not being gritty enough. Sorry, but "realistic" shows are NOT the minority. That's the point of the thread.

The revolving door of death in comics has never bothered me as much as it has others. Can it be eye-rolling at times? Sure, but I view it as a failsafe against cheap shock kills that take out a perfectly good character. I mean, is the solution REALLY to just replace the hero with a different one?

And how long would that last before it got as ridiculous as the returns from the dead.

"Whoops, looks like the Flash got killed again. Cause... y'know, 'nobody's safe', right? But don't worry, here's yet ANOTHER guy with superspeed. I mean, it's only like the 15th guy to show up. Let's get on with the show, but don't get too attached to him. After all, 'NOBODY'S SAFE', remember?"

I'm all for some realism in my entertainment, but the question isn't whether there SHOULD be, it's when is it too much. Nonstop horribleness is just as boring as nonstop happiness.

Originally Posted by BrandX

This has been done in television to great effect.

NCIS LA killed off one of their cast.

The Unit killed off one of their cast.

This all said, I think the problem doesn't come from shows not willing to kill off characters, but rather, the crew not willing to just get rid of the actor.

Also, you can't do it for every character of every show. You keep Buffy dead, it pretty much ends Buffy. Okay for the last show, but not so okay when the show is still going.

For comics like Spider-Man, Wonder Woman, Superman...ect...ect this just doesn't work. These characters have become iconic. Killing them off doesn't work, because to do so and make it really mean something, means you HAVE to make it stick.

Now, it's different when you plan this out in advance, and better imo that audience knows, this isn't going to change.

The problem is, they like to promote it as if it's sticking, and everyone knows it's not.

It however, can still be done to great effect.

I understand when people see it and complain about it constantly happening. For example, Collosus should of stayed dead. If they actually killed my favorite X-Men (while I'd hate it and likely hold it against them >_>), if it was done with the thought of it being permanent and done in a great fashion, while I'd miss Jubilee, and (likely) hate the writers for doing it, I don't want to see a "Oh I'm back" poorly/half-***** return.

This exception goes for Jean Grey though. Never understood why people complain about her death and return. She's the PHOENIX, that's what they do That said, Scoot should stay with Emma.

Of course, with today's audience, it doesn't look like there can be any new iconic comic book heroes who can last as long as the ones we know. Both writers and artist have no sense of a work ethic to stay with a property to get it to such a status.

I think this is one of the reasons Manga have become popular over american comics. They generally aren't planned to be on-going, never ending stories (there's nothing bad about such things imo), so they can do the killing off of characters, make it mean something, and keep it.

Again, not 100%, but generally.

Originally Posted by BrandX

Though, only problem I have with the story as it's given, is when you do obtain full incarnate status, it assumes you have all this massive strength.

I'd prefere to see it as...you're going from B-List heroes (possibly up there, but NOT quite), to becoming A-Listers.

Originally Posted by Forbin_Project

Instead Sifee is systematically trying to drive the fans away.