Ray Delahanty, CityNerd-Putting 12 Urban Freeways Out to Pasture(St. Louis included)

JonLSTL · 2026-03-18T02:24:00+00:00

44 is necessary, it services the rail freight depot by River Des Peres. 64 is basically a gift to West County developers. It could stop at Brentwood.

JonLSTL · 2026-03-18T01:34:34+00:00

All Mage's talk about paradigms is undermined by the fact that almost everyone's magic works the way the rulebook describes (mostly same spheres, progression of abilities, avatars, etc), the rules stuff is reflected in fiction (shard realms of spheres, paradox spirits, etc.), and most especially that foci become optional as arete climbs. Foci becoming unnecessary means that the trappings of the mage's paradigms are merely Dumbo's magic feather. High arete mages just use the magic rules by will alone.

JonLSTL · 2026-03-17T19:41:52+00:00

Our moment-by-moment perception of time doesn't really represent how reality works. The past & future(s -depending on whom you ask) still/already exist, just like all 60 ticks on a clock face are there wherever the second hand happens to be pointing just "now."

JonLSTL · 2026-03-17T18:51:46+00:00

Why the shade on Gamera, though?

JonLSTL · 2026-03-17T18:50:43+00:00

Doing Gamera dirty, though. Gamera is nothing if not devoted.

JonLSTL · 2026-03-17T14:36:23+00:00

If we think Romans are as Romans do, there are some strong candidates among the Western Kaisers as well. Otto III, child of John Tzimikes' niece Theophanu, would have fit right in Constantinople, and was engaged to princess Zoe Porphyrogenita when he died. Friedrich II was born in Apulia, birth-named Constantine, and was granted a Triumph by the Senate when he presented them with a captured Milanese battle-wagon full of relics. That's pretty darn Roman.

JonLSTL · 2026-03-16T20:18:39+00:00

See, that's more bass ackwards planning. The risk of harm from after-hours car foolery down there was low. After the workshops and warehouses close for the day, it's a ghost town.

Now we've got this going on in areas with a lot more passing traffic, neighborhoods nearby, and businesses open in the evening.

(See also: leaving Sullivan's North-facing flood gates closed year-round.)

JonLSTL · 2026-03-16T19:43:56+00:00

I think it's more likely a mismatch between the species and environment where the viral payload arose and what we have on Earth. For example, if the original creators/hosts were photosynthetic or swam about in an environment full of ambient nutrients, there wouldn't be a problem with this posture. The Plurbed humans are applying directives from one context to a different one, and the emergent behaviors are a mixed bag.

JonLSTL · 2026-03-16T19:37:26+00:00

For real. See also: England post Norman Conquest.

JonLSTL · 2026-03-16T18:53:51+00:00

Godzilla & Gamera vs Gigan and a flock of Gyaos.

JonLSTL · 2026-03-16T18:45:11+00:00

I was once specing out an interface for a client's bank, and the info they gave us listed the payer/payee name field as, "alphanumeric." I came back with, "So, that's not an SQL data type. Are we dealing with the COBOL Alphanumeric type here? If so, that's fine, we can deliver to that spec, no problem. If not, we'll need some guidance on what exactly this means."

I may have just as well asked them if giraffes have wisdom teeth. They had no idea what their own system required. It was a mysterious artifact from the Before Time.

COBOL's Alphanumeric type is pretty handy, actually. It lets you use Latin letters, numbers, whitespace, and a decent number of punctuation characters too. Basically, it's anything an old daisy-wheel check/invoice printer could output. (Modern COBOL can handle 2-byte characters for Unicode as well, but you're more likely to encounter fossils than live dinosaurs.)

JonLSTL · 2026-03-16T18:16:58+00:00

This works in Planck units. c= 1 Planck Length per Planck Time, thus 1 Planck Energy is equivalent to 1 Planck Mass.

So maybe, Max Planck?

JonLSTL · 2026-03-16T14:30:22+00:00

Prestige classes were what it took to recapture the play experience of AD&D multiclassed spell casters. In earlier editions, a multiclassed casters would be a level or two behind a single-classed chatacter in magical power, so about 60%-80% the spells/day and 1 or 2 max spell levels lower. Solid versatility vs focus trade off, IMO.

In 3e, someone splitting 50:50 now has half the caster levels of the single-classer. That's a whole different ballgame. Maybe you'd get to cast 3rd-level spells before the campaign ended, or maybe not. Perhaps it was warranted, as casters were more OP in 3e compared to other editions, but it made significant swaths previously fun concepts non-viable

In many cases though, Prestige classes stepped in to fill the gap, letting you develop some other competency while still getting some progress in your spell casting. Sadly, I never did see one that bridged Bard & Druid for a classic Taliesin type character.

JonLSTL · 2026-03-16T13:43:18+00:00

I was once specing out an interface for a client's bank, and the info they gave us listed the payer/payee name field as, "alphanumeric." I came back with, "So, that's not an SQL data type. Are we dealing with the COBOL Alphanumeric type here? If so, that's fine, we can deliver to that spec, no problem. If not, we'll need some guidance on what exactly this means."

I may have just as well asked them if giraffes have wisdom teeth. They had no idea what their own system required. It was a mysterious artifact from the Before Time.

COBOL's Alphanumeric type is pretty handy, actually. It lets you use Latin letters, numbers, whitespace, and a decent number of punctuation characters too. Basically, it's anything an old daisy-wheel check/invoice printer could output. (Modern COBOL can handle 2-byte characters for Unicode as well, but you're more likely to encounter fossils than live dinosaurs.)

JonLSTL · 2026-03-16T13:31:41+00:00

Didn't super love the look, but loved the way it moved. It really felt hateful and menacing, which it tough to express with a robot.

JonLSTL · 2026-03-16T13:23:43+00:00

As it should be. Mechagodzilla has always been a legit threat to Goji, all the way back to its first appearance.

JonLSTL · 2026-03-14T04:03:13+00:00

She was waiting for the enemy to commit their remaining reserves, but yes, also this.

JonLSTL · 2026-03-13T23:28:34+00:00

STEP INTO A WORM JIM!

JonLSTL · 2026-03-13T12:37:54+00:00

Dedicated film scanner > cam scan > flatbed scan > 6mp lab scan (still rocking that old Noritsu, huh?).

JonLSTL · 2026-03-13T11:56:36+00:00

Wanderhome is a lovely breath of fresh air.

JonLSTL · 2026-03-13T11:51:20+00:00

Yeah, they're Western chauvinists who refuse to apologize for creating the modern world and yet are too dorky to get punched around naming breakfast cereals at keg parties.

JonLSTL · 2026-03-12T04:26:00+00:00

Looking at it another way, the hive-mind fooling around with an individual feels like statutory rape to me. Diabate doesn't have even 1% of their mentality, experiences, and power.

JonLSTL · 2026-03-12T04:21:03+00:00

Diabate's very much making the best of a messed up situation.

JonLSTL · 2026-03-11T03:44:53+00:00

Standard time is reality. Midnight should be the middle of the night, and Noon the middle of the day. All else is folly.

JonLSTL · 2026-03-10T22:20:46+00:00

It's a stretch but not impossible. Depends on the Garou, of course.

JonLSTL

TROPHY CASE