Annoying Questions I'd Like Answered...

Juton · Post by **Juton** » Sat Apr 21, 2012 12:53 pm

As google moves farther and farther away from its motto of 'don't be evil' I'm getting more and more fed up with them. I've already switched my search engine, but I'm still stuck on Gmail. Can any one recommend a web based email service that is more respectful of privacy than Gmail and is likely to still be around in 5 years time?

sabs · Post by **sabs** » Sun Apr 22, 2012 7:35 am

how can you switch their search engine? Bing is completely worthless.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Fri Apr 27, 2012 1:37 am

So, I get the reason why all viruses* crank your temperature up, and why they make you feel cold - your body does that so you wrap up warm and raise your temperature even higher, so as to cook the virus off.

I guess the sleep thing is that extra energy is being spent fighting the virus and you don't have as much remaining for such things as "being awake".

But why does every fucking virus cause a really sore throat?

*That I can recall having

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri Apr 27, 2012 4:28 am

Fevers are indeed part of the body's natural defense mechanism. There are many causes of sore throats, but one of the most common is a secondary knockdown effect of producing more mucous. Mucous production is cranked up to sequester and expel virus particles, but when you fall asleep it slides back into your throat where it dries out and irritates the tender skin there.

That is why your sore throat is worse when you wake up and better when you go to bed. Unless you've been talking on a sore throat all day, in which case it's shit in the morning because of mucous irritation and shit in the evening because you've been talking on a sore throat all day.

-Username17

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Fri Apr 27, 2012 5:21 am

Ah, thanks. And yeah, it's worst in the morning - mostly I don't speak with a sore throat. I'll speak/whisper the minimum, and communicate the rest with hand gestures. Mostly one in particular, actually.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Fri Apr 27, 2012 6:26 am

Whispering is actually more strenous for the throat and vocal chords than normal speech.

...You Lost Me · Post by **...You Lost Me** » Fri Apr 27, 2012 6:34 am

Bonus Answer: One of the reasons you feel tired is because your body is removing iron from your bloodstream. Iron is a wonderful metal used in red blood cells that helps transport oxygen, and bacteria love to steal it and use it, so a natural self-defense mechanism of the body is to drop its iron-levels when bacteria are around. While this does help kill the bacteria, it also makes you more tired.

So that feeling of being tired when you're sick isn't so much because your body is spending tons of energy fighting bacteria (it certainly is spending some energy), it's because the overall energy you're extracting from your oxygen has gone down.

Life is amazing sometimes.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat Apr 28, 2012 4:18 am

Ok, so I've got the list in Arms and Equipment Guide, and the Food and Trade Goods lists in PHB. Any other books that layout prices for various food stuffs? Alternatively, what's a reasonable price for a gallon of milk and a dozen eggs in D&D land? I'm working on a gnome that invented twinkies and I need to figure out how much he sells them for and yes I'm an incredible nerd, I know.

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Sat Apr 28, 2012 6:18 am

So the wife and kid were playing Lego Star Wars and the question came about age. Who is older? Zam Wessel or Darth Vader/Anakin? I'm guessing Wessel but as far as I can tell there's no concrete proof of when she was born. She could very well be around Anakin's age.

edit: To be more specific, who was older at the time of the episode 2 when Wessel was chased by Obi Wan and Anakin. Right after the attempted poisoning of Padme.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Sat Apr 28, 2012 12:55 pm

Wookiepedia puts Anakin's birth at sometime in 41 BBY and Zam Wessell was already fully grown and associating with bounty hunters as of 32 BBY. It's safe to say Zam is older, as though no exact date of birth is given, Zam's species appears to have a fairly standard lifespan according to their Wookiepedia entry.

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Sat Apr 28, 2012 1:04 pm

There's no specific birth date available for Zam. However, by the time of the Phantom Menace, she had already been trained as a warrior, condemned as a heretic, fled her homeworld, worked her way up a security career, and partnered on a bounty job with Jango. It's the Star Wars universe, so many things are possible, but that resume strongly suggests someone more than ten years old, which was Anakin's age at the same time.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Tue May 01, 2012 4:07 am

So the Disgaeagame document is now at >90K words, so that got me wondering. What's the word count for your average D&D splat? Or indeed, roleplaying splatbooks in general?

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue May 01, 2012 6:14 am

Koumei wrote:So the Disgaeagame document is now at >90K words, so that got me wondering. What's the word count for your average D&D splat? Or indeed, roleplaying splatbooks in general?

That's about the length of one of those bullshit nWoD books like Dogs of War that are mostly pictures and super short. A "real" WoD book like that one about people who see ghosts is 140k, and one of the ones where they attempt to include content but don't really expect you to play it is like 120k.


Player's Handbook	200,000 words
Dungeon Master's Guide	150,000 words
Monster Manual	175,000 words

Moby Dick	187,000 words
Atlas Shrugged	540,000 words
Draconomicon II: Chromatic Dragons	175,000 Words
Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide	175,000 Words
Eberron Campaign Guide	175,000 Words
Player's Handbook 2	150,000 Words
Dungeon Master's Guide 2	150,000 Words
Monster Manual 2	150,000 Words
Player's Handbook 3	150,000 Words
Monster Manual 3	150,000 Words
Adventurer's Vault	150,000 Words
Open Grave: Secrets of the Undead	150,000 Words
Draconomicon II: Metallic Dragons	150,000 Words
Martial Power	100,000 Words
Arcane Power	100,000 Words
Divine Power	100,000 Words
Primal Power	100,000 Words
Psionic Power	100,000 Words
Adventurer's Vault 2	100,000 Words
Martial Power 2	100,000 Words
Underdark	100,000 Words
Dungeondelve	100,000 Words
Manual of the Planes	100,000 Words
The Plane Below: Elemental Chaos	100,000 Words
The Plane Above: Secrets of the Astral Sea	100,000 Words
The Demonomicon	100,000 Words
Forgotten Realms Player's Guide	100,000 Words
Eberron Player's Guide	100,000 Words
Player's Strategy Guide	100,000 Words

The Combined Works of the Wheel of Time	3,430,682 words

-Username17

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Tue May 01, 2012 6:39 am

So big for a thing someone chucked together on the web, but if it were actually published (it won't be) and sold it'd be kind of small. Cool.

Thanks. That last one is very specific.

Ted the Flayer · Post by **Ted the Flayer** » Sun May 06, 2012 4:10 pm

I keep having a strange recurring nightmare where I keep getting attacked by large predatory animals (lions, bears, dropbears, etc.). In my dreams I'm strong enough to grab them by the head and flip them over my hip, but not actually strong enough to harm them. I can't help but wonder if that has some sort of deeper meaning...

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Mon May 07, 2012 12:30 am

Have you recently played a grappler in 3E D&D? That may be the cause...

Ted the Flayer · Post by **Ted the Flayer** » Mon May 07, 2012 4:09 am

My last character was a female elf dread necromancer with the personality being summed up as "Twilight Sparkle's Evil Clone". She used the magic of friendship to make people her best friends forever and ever! But she died due to me having a brain fart and trying to melee a mimic at level 2...

(Note that as authoritative as the Frank/K Necromancer handbook is, it won't prevent death due to player brain fart...)

More recently I have prepped a female wizard/beguiler to go into Ultimate Magus when the time is right whose personality is based loosely from Rarity (who doesn't need a lot of work to make her seem evil...) Unfortunately, that DM seems to have dropped out, and the only other DM in the area can't stop radically changing the house rules less often than 1-3 times PER ADVENTURE and what we are actually playing at this point I couldn't tell you. Nice guy, but I am trying to find a diplomatic way to tell him that he should DM just straight 3.5, write down every house rule before the game and stick to them, or just not DM at all because it's gotten tiresome.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon May 07, 2012 6:43 pm

Anyone know the easiest way to find out if a given term is copyrighted? I had an idea, and I want to know if WotC copyrighted "Psicrystal"

sabs · Post by **sabs** » Mon May 07, 2012 7:18 pm

can you copyright single words?
I didn't think you could. You can TRADEMARK single words, but usualy only in your field.

Also Psicrystal so outdates wizard of the coast. They'd have to pay Anne McAffrey royalties, and she would probably have to pay someone else royalties.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon May 07, 2012 8:11 pm

huh, ok. And yeah, I may have been thinking Trademark.

Parthenon · Post by **Parthenon** » Mon May 07, 2012 9:01 pm

Isn't trademark the one where if you can get away with stealing it then the original people didn't have it in the first place?

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Mon May 07, 2012 11:12 pm

Parthenon wrote:Isn't trademark the one where if you can get away with stealing it then the original people didn't have it in the first place?

That's actually true of everything.

K · Post by K » Mon May 07, 2012 11:43 pm

Wizards claims a lot of terms are "product identity," which only means something if you agree to the Open Gaming License. These include terms like "illithid," but it could basically be anything they want.

Since the vast majority of ideas cannot be copyrighted or trademarked, only the form in which they appear, the OGL is a trick. By agreeing to it, you agree to protect rights that they don't normally have and get in return things that they don't have the right to keep from you (except the ability to use their real trademarks like the "D20" mark).

I don't think the OGL would survive an actual case.

I know that it won't protect you from litigation if you agree to it.

That being said, don't mess with WotC. Just use a different word because even a baseless lawsuit is more money than you are willing to spend.

Parthenon · Post by **Parthenon** » Tue May 08, 2012 3:53 am

Kaelik wrote:
Parthenon wrote:Isn't trademark the one where if you can get away with stealing it then the original people didn't have it in the first place?
That's actually true of everything.

Heh.

On a similar note, a few times on the internet I've seen websites, often for writers, have a warning that

No part of any of the material on this web-site may be reproduced by any mechanical, photographic, or electronic process, or in the form of a photographic recording, nor may it be stored in a retrieval system, transmitted or otherwise copied for private, public or commercial use, reposted, disclosed, or redistributed, without prior written permission from the author or copyright holder(s).

I'm always highly amused because they've just said that no part of the website can be copied for private use, but every single time you look at a website you make a copy of it at the least in RAM on your computer, and often in your temporary internet files.

Why do people copy and paste this warning when it doesn't mean anything and following what it says means you can't actually look at the website?

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Tue May 08, 2012 4:52 am

Parthenon wrote:
Kaelik wrote:
Parthenon wrote:Isn't trademark the one where if you can get away with stealing it then the original people didn't have it in the first place?
That's actually true of everything.
Heh.

While it's a funny joke, it's also really true. The thing where if you don't sue to protect trademark you lose it is derived from other types of property law, where if you own a chunk of land, and someone goes and builds a house on it, and then lives there for a few years, then when you sue them for trespass and try to kick them off, the court declares that they own the land, and have ever since they first showed up.

It was just extrapolated to trademark as well.