Don Edwards

And that is why X/0 (for X<>0) is "undefined" but 0/0 is "indeterminate". Part of the mathematical definition of division is that if A = B/C, then A*C = B. For, say, N = 3/0, there is no value of N that meets this definition. But for N = 0/0, ANY value of N qualifies. 0 = 1*0. 0 = 17*0. 0 = (242375892374i + 4)*0.

If the world is rich enough, it effectively becomes a character - or even several characters - that OCs can interact with. And fanfic can also feed on fanfic.

And the playing field used to have a castle on it. In a high-tech war, magic would be a weapon primarily for unconventional forces. And if there's no way to definitively tell who doesn't have magic (which is implied by some of the things Edward said about Tengu)... For most of the Main 8 it's not hard to imagine how their magic could be used to kill or disrupt, or at least gather information, while keeping the person doing it safe from non-magical detection. Tedd: override the safeties on the TFG and make a no-bronchia transformation with 5 minute duration. Ellen: FV5 a person who's on their way to a high-security area (disruptive, unlikely to do lasting damage - but there is a possibility). "On their way to" can have a rather expansive definition, so Ellen need not even enter an area that would bring her under suspicion. Nanase: clothing-swap a suicide vest with a dead-man switch on a 1-second delay, from her onto the target. We know her range is considerable (home to school) and buildings in the way are simply not a concern, so if she's familiar with an area and is watching a live TV broadcast of the target in that area, or looking out an upper-story window at people on the street below... Sarah: espionage, obviously. "Take a nap" in the passenger seat of a car that is stuck in nasty traffic going past the facility of interest. Susan: fairies. Espionage, again. Unlike Nanase's, they disappear - sometimes explosively, so have four of them group-hug a target's neck and unsummon them. (With Tedd's and Nanase's help, produce fairydolls that look like currently-popular toys.) Grace: she needs forms that have a much different face, but Tedd can fix that. And she's a fire-resistant flying telekinetic melee-combat machine that can disguise itself as a cute teenage girl. Of course, she's on-site and therefore subject to things like weapons fire. Elliot: unfortunately, his most powerful form is rather identifiable, and he also has to be on-site. So far. He'd have to turn into some random non-superhero female, do the deed, and escape. (Of course, if he's in custody but outside, and everyone turns their back on him, he can fly straight up. Hazard: unnoticed video cameras.) Justin: another weak spot. So far all his magic requires his physical presence and has immediate effect, and he has no shapeshifting ability on his own - everyone else has either range, delayed effect, or shapeshifting, or some combination thereof - so he's extremely identifiable. Also consider: what could you do with a fire the size of one lit match? What if you could create that fire at a hundred yard range behind cover? Like, oh, inside a gasoline tank, or inside a person's skull?

Some don't like to use the expression because, when you add in the definition of "fittest", it becomes a tautology: "survival of those who survive" or "those who have lots of descendants, will have lots of descendants".

Me too. In France the two immortals guided and empowered a couple of kids - entirely within the rules. As far as we know there are no circumstances where immortals are obligated to guide or empower, so their failure to notify the authorities was also within the rules.

Looney thinks we're a pun in the neck.

Sirleck indicated that selecting a new host and arranging for said new host to "inherit" a nice fortune from him takes significant time and effort. So I doubt that he does it casually - he wants a host that he can remain in for a long time. People who already have nice fortunes by other means tend to be fairly conspicuous and connected - so a change in behavior will be noticed. So do established people with careers, spouses, children... For a variety of reasons, Sirleck wants a young person. Someone at a breakpoint where they normally tend to leave their family and friends (or have friends leave them) and scatter, such as shortly after they graduate from high school or college, would be great.

At first I misread that as "causing runaway literature" and I was going to ask for a link or reference... because it sounds interesting.

Those killer penguins are real, as far as herring are concerned.

My daughter tripped a few days ago, and had just enough control to faceplant on grass instead of pavement. Unfortunately there was a tree-root just under the grass. X-rays show she didn't actually break a rib. But it hurt enough she was concerned, so I'd guess she got a pretty substantial bruise.

That's assuming Pandora can remove the clog. Which may or may not be the true, without regard to whether or not she caused it in the first place. I could easily imagine Tedd being the only one (of all the characters we've met) even capable of removing it... and he doesn't yet have sufficient understanding of his own nature to even begin to figure out how. (Or, at the alternate extreme, Elliot and Ellen stand in exactly the right spot and simultaneously do a Tamashii Gekido. Then the clog opens and in the flood of magic energy they are swept through to the other side, where they have adventures until Tara and Andrea catch up with them and show them the way home.)

When someone approaches me in a mall and asks me if I want to do something, with the incentive being a free gift, I tell them "No thank you, I prefer expensive gifts".

According to something I read once, there were very few documented instances in the American west of extralegal "frontier justice" NOT turning the suspected criminals over to law-enforcement authorities. And in one of the few such instances, the reason they decided to hang the cattle-rustlers rather than turn them over to the sheriff was... the first rustler they hanged was the sheriff.

Well, it's explicitly canon that 17-year-olds aren't allowed to be employed as delivery drivers. Working in a non-corporate business owned by one's parents, though, pokes a hole in a lot of those restrictions. (I remember my first job working a cash register. In early September I had to reduce how many hours a week I worked, because I had to go attend second grade.)

To the (very) limited extent that I can distinguish between Asian ethnicities by appearance, Ashley looks more southeast-asian or southern-Chinese to me. Possibly mixed with European.

Several comments: 1. I've seen the idea expressed that our reality changes according to our understanding, possibly because we are actually a computer simulation and the programmers keep tweaking the system. As one example of this, you can find DECADES worth of old biology books which say that humans have 22 chromosome pairs, with no dissent or disagreement... and have photographs of human cell nuclei where you can count 23 chromosome pairs. Suddenly, apparently in one abrupt change, everyone who counted the chromosome pairs started counting 23 instead of 22. 2. Honey badgers are not dubbed "honey" for their disposition. That would be "rat-ass-vicious-bastard badgers". (Which is a pretty accurate description of all badgers. And wolverines are about the same.) 3. From what we've seen of spellbooks for Awakened individuals (Wizard spellbooks might be different; we haven't seen any), a spellbook does not contain "how to cast this spell". Instead it contains a detailed description of the spell's effects and how much the individual can choose to vary them. This doesn't seem like it would be of much use, on its own, to someone else - even a wizard - wanting to learn how to cast the spell. Although it would be useful alongside some other source of "how-to" information, such as maybe a suitably competent observer watching it being cast.

It's also been strongly implied that "negative space" doesn't count as part of the mark area. Susan's female symbol, in its simplest form, is a ring with a cross under it. Assuming the interior of the ring isn't filled in a lighter shade, it's going to have to be rather large relative to the area required, because that interior won't count. Filling the interior would make it harder for Susan to draw strictly-the-same symbol on a box. (But then we don't know just how strictly the same her drawing needs to be.)

(Well, in a universe such as ours it would literally take a lot of energy - several megatons equivalent.)

The watches Tedd and Sarah were wearing were supposed to shrink them and *their* clothes Instead the watches shrunk them and *Grace's* clothes. (Grace's clothes exploded in a tiny cloud of dust.)

Besides, either "box" or "jug" - or any synonym for either - would be an extremely common object, with a few of each in almost every household. Not a clear reference to anything in particular. "Pandora", on the other hand, would at most refer to a few percent of the female population.

1. Elliot could have bought his own much-used car from earnings from summer jobs. And/or it could be a hand-me-down from his parents or another relative. 2. All we know is that there were no servants shown in the evening on what was probably a weekend. There could be a couple housekeepers during the day on weekdays. 3. My guess is that Dan forgot whose car it was. Alternatively, they happen to drive similar cars that are even more similar in B&W. 4. The schools aren't necessarily all that far apart. 5. Mr. V is the only parent whose job has been relevant to the story line so far. We focus on the kids, who don't normally go to their parents' workplaces. 6. Lots of people who aren't Italian run pizza places. (One of the best pizzas I've ever had was from a small family-run Chinese restaurant - and everyone I saw working there appeared to be Chinese.) Matt isn't necessarily that strictly Lawful; he'd take a job delivering pizzas (and lie about his age to get it) because he needs the money. 7, 8. No idea. 9. Rather limited magic, fit into a joke meme, and while pretty much any woman *could*, not that many were aware of it. General capability isn't the problem, general awareness is. 10. We have no knowledge of reproduction among immortals - and only a little about immortal/human hybrids. I imagine Jerry was not at all bashful about sharing the information regarding the hammers, at least with other immortals. 11. No. His part is being played by Claude Rains.

Wolf was going into a high-security area. Protocol probably is very simple: you want to go in (or someone is taking you in), you get scanned. It doesn't matter what-all is in there, or why you want to go in, or who you are.

The vampire that Susan and Nanase dealt with in France, modified his own body. Tengu modified his own body. Spidey modified his own body. Sirleck arranges to take over someone else's body. That makes it MUCH harder for most beings to dispose of Sirleck without also killing an innocent. At the moment, Sirleck's host is (allegedly) brain-dead anyway, so there may not be a big moral dilemma with killing that host. On the other hand, nobody except Sirleck knows that.

Also, the Germans were using some special machines for encryption. These machines (at least some of them) were built by Polish* slave labor. The laborers systematically smuggled parts and assembly instructions out to the Polish Resistance for shipment to England. The Allies put considerable effort and ingenuity into concealing how easily they could read German encrypted communications... and sometimes were left with no better alternative than let some troops be slaughtered by an attack they knew was coming and could have countered. (On the other hand, on another occasion they did something that blatantly showed they had advance information... and then had a diplomat in Switzerland, whom the Germans knew was a spy for the Allies, send a gift to one of Germany's better generals "in thanks for his assistance". A few days later the general disappeared.) In one of Neal Stephenson's books there's a US Army unit whose mission is to apparently be the source for information actually gained by other means. * I think it was Polish. Not absolutely certain.

Grrl Power has a similar (not identical) problem in that Sydney can use her TrueSight orb to bypass illusions - so they are taking the approach of introducing her to what's behind the illusions under controlled circumstances. Of course, if they can actually keep something physically out of her sight, then Sydney doesn't see it. That doesn't necessarily work with Sarah.