hkmaly

At the time (I'm assuming you mean the upgrades done to fight species 8472, or the Undine as they're called in Star Trek Online) I think it was because of the risk of the borg having a backdoor to take over the ship if Voyager ran into them again. Based on episodes 406 The Raven and 515 Dark Frontier, they have anyway. And? I am not you. Sorry, I should've quote just Vorlonagent, this was reacting to him. My own motivation for studying second world war (probably not so thoroughly as you) includes that I like dictatorships being defeated, so I guess it could apply, but generally, I was speaking about fiction and other universes. In case of our real world, there is no option to just ignore what I don't like, unfortunately: even if I ignore Trump for example, I will still be affected by his decisions. Even if Romulans would be in our universe, I'm pretty sure I can safely ignore them until 2063, possibly even until 2152. But I don't want to ignore them, I like Romulans. At least reasonable Romulans like commander Donatra.

AFAIK we have no information on how a wizard learns a spell from someone else, only that they can. We have several Tedd's notes which might or might not be based on actual knowledge. Even if he would see it simpler that it is, however, I would assume that wizards are really OP compared to normal magic users and learning spells is relatively easy for them. Given that Tedd is specifically described as rare type of WIZARD, I would assume that the process wizards use to learn new spells is similar to how Tedd gets understanding needed for his magitech: so, yes, they basically only need to look, but carefully and from short distance and preferably undisturbed. Where Tedd get conscious understanding, they get understanding subconscious/instinctive, allowing them to cast the spell themselves despite not being able to describe it as well as Tedd. (Also, Tedd likely can combine spells similarly how Grace can combine forms ; "normal" wizard probably can't.) Of course, this hypothesis might prove to be incorrect.

No it didn't. TOS era used food synthesizers. Presumably, they were not usable for machinery, although they possibly had some sort of technology on similar base. Even later, there were things which can't be replicated, and while DS9 replicators were able to create automatic defense system including disruptors, it wouldn't surprise me if ship phasers wouldn't be replicable. Did they actually had someone else doing repairs than Scotty? Also, antimatter can't be replicated, logically. While they were repairing hull damage and structural integrity damage all the time, I think it was sort of patch, not providing the same strength as proper full repair at dock. Anyway, they certainly weren't able to just download upgrades and install them on fly. So, letting them go to five year mission with substandard equipment would be irresponsible, even if they didn't expected fight. Could still happened, of course. Refitting Enterprise after the five year mission took two and half years and wasn't really finished when they send Enterprise to another mission ... definitely not the kind of upgrades possible on-route. (Of course, Borg did had technology to do substantial upgrades without any dock facility. Which brings question why exactly Janeway dismantled it ... jealousy?)

Oh, look, our very own continuity error! Considering how long EGS has been going, there are a surprisingly small number of them. Not that small and I'm sure we overlook something ... but yes, considering how long EGS has been going it's small. Yes, or I could easily see Edward having to order a wand with the Create Spellbook spell in it. Would be weird way to formulate it then wouldn't it? Good question but probably considered spoiler so wouldn't be answered. Can you ask as a guest? I think Dan has gone back and forth about allowing anonymous questions.... Didn't actually bothered to try, I just assumed anonymous questions are still off. Are you sure you didn't create it years ago and then forget? I'm pretty sure I did that with a few email addresses and forums in the past, sometimes discovering the fact by getting a "There is already an account linked to that address!" message. I almost forgot the yahoo but even if I would have any doubts about tumblr the fact that it asked me for specifying some topics it can bother me with confirmed that it doesn't knew me. Oh wait. You mean the hkmaly.tumblr.com one? The language doesn't match, the photo doesn't match and the only post is too recent to forget it.

Oh absolutely. It was a great episode. My friend mostly made his remarks because it annoyed him past endurance to think of any military unit equipped with weapons that unreliable. And unfortunately it is not even unrealistic -- for example, during WW1, the French managed to design an early submachinegun that functioned so badly that it would often jam after firing just a handful of rounds or less. You know, if I don't like something, I rarely bother to get enough knowledge to nitpick it. Yeah, it's not as if it would be on deep space exploration mission into uncharted space, possibly outside the range of federation repair facilities for whole five years oh wait. (On the other hand, that deep space exploration mission didn't get so deep considering they ended up near Romulan neutral zone.)

The last Q&A stated that "Elliot and Ellen's books were made by Mr. Verres". If he had to get someone else to do it, they should have said he got someone make them for him. Whether he knew the spell, or used a wand to make them is a question only he (and Dan) can answer. Interesting (yeah forgot that). Well, while it may be retcon, it could also mean that he first needed to order the books as "ingredience" and then "made" them by turning them into actual spellbooks, in other words linking them to Ellen and Elliot. (Someone can still ask Dan to clarify. I can't, I don't have tumblr account.) Given we don't saw Elliot and Ellen getting those books, he actually might made them in front of everyone. Of course Tedd might not know he should be looking back then. It certainly looked like she'd taken a bit of a physical blow - and I doubt that the fairydoll was in physical contact with her when she detonated it. (And there was only one. Imagine three simultaneously.) Exactly. While true, the question was if she can do damage. Even Ellen can do dazing, confusing and deafening with her FV5 beam (ok, maybe not deafening, but the effect may be similar). EDIT: Wait: I do have yahoo account and seems they are connected now ... but someone beat me to hkmaly.tumblr.com ... damn ...

Between change blindness and people not really thinking it through and/or having experience with how steroids work, I would still say that rumors about him taking some illegal substances may be more likely than rumors about magic. But hard to say: it depends on how will general public see other stuff happening in Moperville. So far, official explanation is nothing extraordinary is happening. (Not counting Arthur Arthur, who might still not be exactly believed). With that failing, the options are magic, extraterrestrials, some sort of super heroes technobabble like gene X which Marvel claims is not magic (yeah sure) and earth-origin super-science. WE know that both magic and extraterrestrials are true, but public does not and most people would likely assume just one is involved. Actually, not true. In EGS, it is totally believable that Tedd gets spell for changing gender because he's really into sexy fun and tease/trolling. Remember that both Larry and Rich were markable with girl spells. Sure, spell which specifically changes default form might be different, but I still don't see it as ultimate proof. If Edward decides to not accept it, he can.

I use "pure TeX" about once a month. That's the nice thing a LaTeX, it's just layer on top of TeX so, if you need to, you can go really deep. I actually use it even less often ... but still much more often than LaTeX. Despite being quite loud, we don't really know whether Susan's fairydolls could do any actual damage. Flashbang may be a good analogy. Flashbang grenades CAN do actual damage. And while Susan looks unharmed, she does look like actual physic force was applied to her. We don't know how the linking actually works. If the book is "trapped" to link on touch or if Edward is doing the linking, then yes, there would be countless ways how Tedd can arrange to be there. Note that Edward doesn't have stack of spellbooks lying around, he orders them, so he likely first scan Justin, then orders the books and then tell Justing to come for the specific purpose of being given the spellbook. It would be more complicated if the linking would be done somewhere else. Note that we didn't actually saw Ellen and Elliot getting the spellbooks ; We see Elliot having one here but presumably it's not first time he see it because if it would it wouldn't make sense to scold him for not reading it. Yup. He's not able to make it himself. Easy. Interesting idea but I don't think it works this way. Like, there may be similarities, but it wouldn't be similar enough for him to reproduce the effect of one based on just seeing the other.

I get the feeling that Hijinks are winding down. Seems like a mall chase with magic use would be about as high as the jinks could get when you consider the people involved. Rhoda and Catalina lost Kitty so now they can find a proper spot to undo their enchantments, then leave the mall. We'll likely get one more appearance from Pandora as well. Kitty still didn't casted her mark spell. (Yes, I assume she is or will be marked.) I expect another round of hijinks as well. Also, EFMT 4 and EFMT 5.

"I'd say this counts as a Friday comic." But today IS Friday. Eh, the pacing makes me snarkier by the day. Yes, but Dan meant that it is cliffhanger. Or steroid use I guess Behaviour, maybe. Feeling, not so much. He would still be more brittle than usual, no matter what his decision would be. Better not telling him about his mother today. This. Even if magic would change (and not knowing he's the rare wizard who will became MORE important then), he can still change gender using TF gun. Hmmmmm ... this makes sense. It PROBABLY isn't decision he need to do now, but ... maybe he don't want to risk? It IS still default form and if magic changes, he wouldn't return. It would be good idea to talk about it, but shouldn't Tedd do it even if his father WOULD freak out?

It's apparently new trick for her. She wasn't FORCED to stop, it only worked because it surprised her. Regarding the guard, I'm not surprised he didn't catch up. Also, if he did? I don't think he would actually try some rugby manoeuvrer ; just running in mall doesn't seem like reason enough to risk injuring someone. And it's hard to yell at someone when you can't catch your breath.

LaTeX? My turn complaining about kids on my lawn. Plain TeX only! Yup. My favourite methods of writing formatted text: Plain TeX, HTML, Prawn ... nothing wysiwyg. (Although I usually DO use wysiwyg form here on forum, only switching to source when I need something more complicated. So, maybe it's more because the other wysiwyg editors are lacking key functionality. Like the switch to source version.)

Cause it is what? I second Tedd's "Did everyone but me know I was gender fluid?!" ... yeah, sure, it's not something which would often appear in normal conversation, but conversations with Tedd are often not normal ; it's weird it took so long before someone mentioned it. And regarding his choice: yup, that spell could make it harder until he get used to it. Although I think going to school as girl is bad idea. Or does he thinks about making himself more masculine?

Stuff like that is USUALLY on youtube, you only need to search. Nevertheless, yes, Kirk battle as if those ships are submarines, while Khan battles like they were sea ships. Neither would be good, but Khan is worse. Balance of Terror, meanwhile, is SO much inspired by submarines they are actually WHISPER to not alert enemy of their position.

From what the ones that have spellbooks describe, they're certainly not in any clear text format. Obfuscation is NOT encryption. Unfortunately, lot of people makes such mistake.

Or, since they are magical anyway, a spellbook could be an ebook display device using a decent ebook format*. Everything is being reformatted to fit the display every time you read it anyway, page numbers are determined at viewing time, so there's no change in behavior when a spell is added or revised. You mean decent ebook format like HTML? But, yes, it can work like this too. Or, the fact the book needs to be reformatted doesn't mean it needs to get whole content again, it just receives the changes and then reformats itself. Obviously. Whereas PostScript is not a decent ebook format nor a printing format, it's programming language.

You said DGB already knows about Justin, I said they believe he's still dreaming. I would think that if Edward suspected that Justin was awakened, he'd had scanned him with that analyzer wand and either say he'd have to give him a spellbook or say "nope not awakened". As it is, Justin's only very recently been awakened by Pandora and no one else knows yet. Yes. I agree that they believe he's still dreaming, but telling them he awakened wouldn't really be problem. (Assuming Justin or someone else realize what happened, of course.) They EXPECT him to awaken sooner or later. I hope they can't, but I mentioned this possibility for case someone thinks they can. Naive implementation can crash whole application. You're lucky you never meet system with such bug. Yes, IF each spell would start on top of a page and the page wouldn't be numbered, then it would work like this. (Actually, even if the page would be numbered it would need to be stupid implementation to not being able to update them without rewriting whole content.)

http://www.egscomics.com/egsnp.php?id=568 Ok. She DID got the idea to transform some item as I keep talking about last two strips (but ok, I have more time to though about it than her, and not running all the time also helps). At least I suppose it's definitely item and not someone else. Now, how can this cause Kitty to be tangled into the spell link? Doesn't seem so likely ...

Thank you. You've saved me from way to many hours of doing something useful. That page is just slightly less dangerous than tvtropes... Not true. TVTropes are much bigger. You can't get lost on what-if.xkcd more than twice.

OK, I think we are talking past each other. Assuming the "sensors" work like radars, you don't use negative degrees. My tracking radars had a full 6400 mils azimuth (with 0 mils being due true north, 1600 being east, 3200 being due south and 4800 being west), but elevation went from 0 mils1 (pointing parallel to the ground) up to 1600 mils (pointing straight up) to 3200 mils (parallel to the ground again, but facing the other way) 3200 to 6400 elevation would be pointing into the earth, which, of course, a ground mounted radar isn't going to do. Angular mils Thing is, target on elevation 0 azimuth 0 and target on elevation 3200 azimuth 3200 would be the same target. It obviously makes sense for tracking radar, because if you would rotate it 3200 mils every time the target goes over you you would lose it, but it doesn't make sense for "mapping" radar or how it's called, which has fixed "path" to scan. So, your radar only does one hemisphere, but twice ; it would be able to scan the same hemisphere even if it's elevation would stop on 1600 mils. Obviously, no single sensor would be able to scan whole sphere (because the ship would be in way), but ship is supposed to be equipped with multiple sensors with overlapping fields of "vision". (Except gravimetric sensor. Ship is likely hardly visible on those.) Depends on what is average vampire. I think that the vampire Andrea and Tara fought is above average in fighting capabilities, the one Nanase and Susan fought in France was easier target. Nevertheless, it's possible she can only hurt the vampire and not kill it ... unless she lend magic weapon somewhere. (or ... Grace: "I'm holding him, kill him!" Diane: "Wait, I almost succeed in summoning the dagger!")

It's possible they believe he's still dreaming, since everyone else does. Spellbooks are for those that are awakened. Unless the spellbooks from DGB are tapped/bugged, trying to hide he awakened from DGB is probably not worth the effort. It's much less important that Rhoda and Catalina, who are not yet in DGB's database at all, not speaking about Sarah who not only isn't in DGB's database as magic user yet, but also have rare and very useful talent DGB is likely to want to use. And, you apparently missed it, but I proposed Tedd would use the opportunity to learn how to make spellbooks, which would totally be worth it.

360 degree circle centered on the ship. 180 arc going forward. Hemisphere. If you take circle and rotate it 180 you will get sphere, not hemisphere. Alternatively, get half circle and rotate 360. Or, think about geographics coordinates: longitude goes from -180 to 180, but latitude only from -90 to 90. 360x180. Still, it's whole Earth.

Where would she get the spellbook from? Would she want Tedd's dad, and thus the DGB, to know about her abilities? ... good point. Tedd probably doesn't need one and also wouldn't be possible to pair with any. DGB already knows about Justin, so he can get one from DGB ... and Tedd can watch. Spellbooks, just like wands, already ARE magitech. I'm picturing her showing up at, say, school (college?) with genuine cat ears and tail. and her classmates all just assuming she got more elaborate fakes than her current sweatshirt. And note that the same would work for Catalina. Only people they need to avoid are Otaku, because they would ask where she get those. Agree. Her non-damaging and damaging offensive options are both limited. Unless she gets another spell based on battle with Not-Tengu. Yup. Susan has more damaging offensive options than Nanase, if we don't count guardian form because it's hard to activate. Instead of object paradigma, you may want to consider relation database one. With database, magic user can easily update all books which contains reference to him without any risk when spellbook is destroyed, whereas destroying the magic user can cause cascade delete to destroy or empty the spellbooks. On a different note, based on how the books can change (new spell, new section of old spell but apparently also change of existing spell, based on Nanase's "simple outfit" change) and taking into account need for change in formating (re-dividing content into pages), I suspect the book is actually overwritten with every change. Or, possibly, some sort of rsync-like protocol is used. What makes you think magic user can only have one spellbook?

There was this old space board game where a ship's sensors had a 3% chance of missing a planet the size of Jupiter while within 11.000 miles range of its surface. I always did wonder who designed those sensors and just how thick the ship's crew would have to be if they had not noticed the planet WITHOUT technical aids before then. Depends. Did they had windows? If they had artificial gravity and no windows, they can't notice ANYTHING without sensors. That's true, but doesn't change the fact that you DO need to take 3D into account. You know, they don't use money in 23th century's Federation. The company probably didn't SELL that hardware. Which might be the reason it worked so bad. 360x360 is a sphere. 360x180 is a hemisphere 180x180 is hemisphere. Try to imagine it. From -90 to 90 up and down, from -90 to +90 left and right. Hemisphere.

Because thats where Ellen was practicing when Sarah called after Elliot was kidnapped. And I'm pretty sure they have gym equipment down there, they at least have a punching bag, because I don't think Tedd's got one at his place. Good point. Forgot about this. It's a lot easier to make sure you're unobserved indoors, but the ceiling would be a limiting factor. They should do some training indoors and some outdoors, ideally, so they're ready for either situation. Based on how long GRIFFINS manage to almost avoid being observed ... Generally, there are plenty of places where you can be unobserved outdoors, but it's true that they would be rare in Illinois (because it's flat). And of course they should train both, but I think the outdoor training would be easier so it makes sense to start with it. With two moving ships, you have four points: my ship now, my ship in next second, their ship now, their ship in next second. Four points, three dimensions. If they do, it's tactical mistake. 360x360 and 360x180 are actually the same, aren't they?