20 Questions

By Shamus Posted Tuesday May 10, 2022

Filed under: Random 104 comments

Recently (ish) Zeta Kai sent 20 questions to the Diecast. I thought that it would take too much of a show to cover them all. At the same time, these were fun softball questions and it seemed like I could get a blog post out of them. So I have appropriated these questions to try and keep the blog alive while I convalesce. Here we go…


1) Favorite planet in the solar system (other than Earth)?

If you asked for a favorite body then I probably would have picked one of the Galilean moons. But you asked specifically for a planet. So I’ll have to go with Mars, since that’s the easiest to stand on. 

2) Blue? Or Orange?

Blue. I don’t even know what you’re asking about. Favorite clothing color? Decor? Lighting? Favorite Portal? The answer to all is blue.

3) Do you speak any other languages? If so, which?

I’ve learned seven or eight programming languages in my lifetime. I’ve also used a handful of additional scripting languages. But I’ve never bothered to learn any additional human languages. Make of that what you will.

4) Favorite ice cream flavor?

I pretty much only eat vanilla, although I never eat it plain. I’m a fan of putting breakfast cereal – Rice Krispies in particular – in vanilla ice cream. Try it. It’s boss!

5) What is your preferred IDE (Visual Studio, NetBeans, Eclipse, etc.)?

Visual Studio, although I have very limited experience with the others. It’s not so much that I prefer it, as MSVS is the default setup for the type of work I do. (C++ and C# development on and for Windows)

6) Do you have a favorite flag? If so, which?

I really appreciate the Canadian maple leaf, since it helps you remember who the flag belongs to. It means the image works as both a flag and an icon. I wish more countries did that. England could have a cup of tea on their flag. France could have the Eiffel Tower. The USA would be a giant cheeseburger. Netherlands could have a windmill. China could have a boot. Russia would be a picture of shirtless Vlad. Then it would be trivial for everyone to remember and recognize the flags.

7) Which lifestyle would you say is best: hunter-gatherer or agrarian?

Studies make it seem like hunter-gathering is optimal for our health: We seem to live longer when we go for that sort of diet and exercise, as opposed to sitting around all winter eating slowly-spoiling starch crops. But I dunno. You can’t really form a complex society if you’re wandering around, and I’d rather be a farmer than a nomad.

8) Which would you rather be killed by: a Predator or a Xenomorph?

Not sure why one would be better than the other. In either case it’s a gruesome and painful death. I guess I’ll go with the Predator, since I don’t want to take the chance that I end up hosting a chestbuster. That’s a slower way to go for sure.

9) Pizza? Or Sandwich?

You didn’t specify what kind of sandwich, which matters a lot. A peanut butter & jelly is nothing special, but a philly steak and cheese or a meatball sub is a fine meal all by itself.

Are we talking about one meal, or am I stuck with one or the other for an extended period of time? If we’re talking about a single meal, then I’ll take the pizza. If you’re asking what I want every day, then I’ll go for “sandwich” because it gives me more variety.

10) What superpower would you want to have in real life?

This is tricky, because it’s hard to do much with just ONE superpower.

Super-strength without super-durability just gives you the power to shatter your own skeleton. 

Flight sounds cool, but it’s incredibly dangerous unless you also have improved durability. The urban landscape is filled with low-hanging hazards: Utility poles, tree branches, power lines, etc. It would be very easy to blunder into something at high speed during takeoff / landing. It looks easy when Superman does it, but I imagine a mortal is going to have a hard time keeping their eyes open when getting blasted in the face by 100mph wind. Also, given the default flying position – face-down flying head-first through the air – you’re going to spend a lot of time looking in one direction (down) while flying in another (forward) and that’s a good way to run into something at high speed.

Being indestructible isn’t all that useful on its own. What am I going to do with that? I suppose I could become a fireman, and maybe once a year I’ll find myself able to run into a situation that’s too dangerous for a regular fireman and maybe save someone that couldn’t be otherwise saved? 

But look, if I’m trying to pick something awesome and useful that will let me help people, then I have to ask: Is miraculous healing available? Can I have the power to walk up to a cancer patient, put my hand on them, and fix them up? Because that would be crazy OP. Even a full-powered Superman would have a hard time saving people and improving lives faster than a healer. Cancer is going to kill over 600k people this year, just in the USA. If I heal someone once every minute, for eight hours a day, five days a week, all year, then I’ll save 120k of those people. Very few superheroes can put up those kinds of numbers, and usually only by defeating world-ending super-villains. 

In fact, I think the limiting factor of my power would be basic logistics and crowd throughput. Even if I hang out at the airport, I’m not sure our transport infrastructure could deliver me 120k people in a year.A major airport handles millions of people per year. But remember that those people are going to jump on another plane to go home as soon as they’re healed. So 120k patients turns into +240k additional passengers. And all of those people need to pass through the same room. It seems like that would turn into the queue from hell and clog the place? I don’t know. If you had one person who could heal like that, what would be the best way to bring them sick people? 

If I’m not allowed to have miraculous healing, then maybe I’d take flying. Zipping around town isn’t super useful, but a flying superhero can generate thrust for free. Even without super strength, it seems like you ought to be able to put on a pressure suit and haul small payloads into orbit. You could really make yourself useful as an orbital taxi. Every trip saves you from needing to set off one of those immense rockets.

But if my flying is limited to atmospheric travel, then forget it. I’ll just take a Wolverine-style self-heal. It won’t really benefit the world, but it would be nice to be personally free of injury and ailments.

11) What was your favorite cartoon when you were a child?


Link (YouTube)

Spider-Man does whatever a spider can.

It doesn’t hold up at all today, and I’d rather watch anything made in the last 20 years than the janky barely-animated dreck of the 1970s. But that’s what we had, so that’s what I was into.

While I wouldn’t call it my “favorite” show (and it certainly wasn’t a cartoon) I do remember that Electra Woman and Dyna Girl left a pretty big impression on me. I wasn’t old enough for school yet and I wasn’t savvy enough to recognize the show as a hasty rip-off of the Adam West Batman show. But those spandex outfits… Well, I didn’t yet understand why I liked them, but I liked them.

12) When you park your car, do you just pull into the spot & back out later, or do you back into the spot & pull out later?

Pull in. Backing up is harder than driving forward. When you park, you’re entering a tight space where you need to be careful to avoid hitting other cars. It’s easier to drive forward into the tight space, and then back up into the open lane, rather than the other way around.

Disclaimer: I never parallel park. I’ll walk for ages if it means I can avoid parallel parking on a busy street. I don’t do well when I feel like I’m being judged by everyone in the area. 

13) Apples? Or Oranges?

I prefer oranges by a mile, but citrus gives me a rash for some reason? So if you’re asking which I’d prefer, I’ll ask for an orange. But if you’re asking which I’ll be able to eat, then I’m forced to take the apple.

14) When you are reading a book, & you need to mark your place, do you dogear the page, or do you use a bookmark?

Neither – I put the book on the floor open, with the current page facing down. It’s hard on spines. When I was in school, I’d memorize the current page number rather than keep track of a bookmark, which always seemed to fall out of my books.

15) Bro, do you even lift? If so, how much?

I do not lift. Post-surgery, I am in fact not allowed to lift. 

Before I got sick, I had a couple of 25lbsA little over 11kg. dumbbells that I’d lift once in a while. I’d just lift them until my arms gave out and put them down again. I wasn’t serious about it. I did it mostly to get my heart pumping if I felt I’d been sitting still too long. It was a way to get a little exercise without resorting to aerobic stuff that would ruin my concentration.

16) When playing a tabletop RPG, what is your preferred character class?

I don’t have one. In a tabletop setting, I’m much more concerned with personality and backstory than with mechanical abilities. (In a videogame, I care about mechanics more.)

17) In science fiction, do you prefer FTL drives (Star Trek / Star Wars), or gate networks (Star Gate / Mass Effect)?

I don’t prefer one over the other. What’s important to me is that getting around is a pain in the ass. I just can’t believe in a travel system that doesn’t have any drawbacks. 

It needs to take a shitload of energy, or generate hazardous radiation, or give off huge EM bursts that screw up your equipment. Or maybe the fuel is bulky, or the system is inaccurate and you need to make many small jumps rather than just teleporting exactly to your destination.

Whatever. As long as it’s inconvenient, I’ll dig it.

18) Vampires? Or Zombies?

I guess zombies? I never got the appeal of vampires. I never thought they were cool. I don’t think they’re sexy. A lot of the vampire rules seem weird and arbitrary to me. 

I’d rather play tower defense against the zombies. 

19) When you’re at an Asian restaurant, do you use chopsticks?

No. 

20) Whatever happened to the stinger on the Diecast? That’s sometimes my favorite part! You gotta reward people who sit through the outro.

Sometimes we say stuff after signing off. I’ve told Issac that if it’s funny / interesting, use it as a stinger. If not, cut it. He almost always cuts it. Maybe Paul and I aren’t amusing enough. Maybe he’s a harsh judge. I dunno.

 

Footnotes:

[1] A major airport handles millions of people per year. But remember that those people are going to jump on another plane to go home as soon as they’re healed. So 120k patients turns into +240k additional passengers. And all of those people need to pass through the same room. It seems like that would turn into the queue from hell and clog the place?

[2] A little over 11kg.



From The Archives:
 

104 thoughts on “20 Questions

  1. ContribuTor says:

    In fact, I think the limiting factor of my power would be basic logistics and crowd throughput. Even if I hang out at the airport, I’m not sure our transport infrastructure could deliver me 120k people in a year.

    I think you’re overthinking this. For each individual patient, this is not really different from visiting a specialty clinic out of town (for example, traveling to the Mayo Clinic).

    You’re seeing 480 patients a day, which is really just a blip on the capacity of the airport in even a midsize city. Assuming everyone stays overnight one night, you’re going to be a boon for the local hotel business, but this is a small number by the standards of convention centers that handle this sort of problem routinely.

    Your real problem would be patient scheduling and logistics at your clinic. You’re going to need some triage algorithm that assigns everyone a place in line. But even pretty aggressive cancers aren’t generally fatal on a scale of a few days, so you can hand out appointments a few weeks in advance – plenty of time to book a flight.

    You’d need to handle 480 people a day coming in, getting any paperwork in order, and being patiently called into rooms one at a time to see the Shamus. But again not crazy on the scale of modern hospitals, so those skills exist (and given you’re using magic, you don’t need to worry about taking vitals or maintaining a sterile environment.

    1. The+Puzzler says:

      Your biggest problem would be that your power is so useful that if you took any time off, you’d be condemning hundreds of people to death. You’re basically going to be expected to work 17 hours a day forever.

      1. Thomas says:

        This is where you get those overly detailed short stories, that ends with Shamus sleeping on a bed with his hand sticking out of a little window, as a conveyor belt of people come past and brush his finger tips.

        I guess if you were going to set-up triage for it, you’d prioritise for illnesses currently beyond medical science. But soemone at some point is going to try and ruin the good thing by suggesting ‘important’ people should skip the queue.

        You’d also want a lot of detail on how it works. Does it take effort? Does it take concentration? Is it touched based? Can multiple people touch at the same time? Can you just spit in the town’s water supply and have everyone drink magical healing fluid?

        1. Syal says:

          This is where you get those overly detailed short stories, that ends with Shamus sleeping on a bed with his hand sticking out of a little window, as a conveyor belt of people come past and brush his finger tips.

          That was actually my first thought; forget the hospital, set up at airport security with a book and your hand out, healing everyone who walks by. Probably bring a tip jar; save the world, get rich in the process.

          1. Mattias42 says:

            I actually got mind blown by this type of healing power logistics meets modern air-travel plus city sizes in a book I’m trying to write right now.

            Short version without a lot of the detail: Student of the occult figures out how to write Deal With Devil style contracts in blood, and how to induce slow but genuine regeneration & other ‘super’ powers in people via that medium. Drama & backlash ensue even before the other mages get uppity.

            But I did the math, and with one in 100 000 globally actually trusting that sort of healing powers claim, you’d still have freakin’ empty seats in the sport arena of the city, Stockholm.

            TL: DR version. Modern cities are BIG, and they have a LOT of people in them.

            XXX

            Long~ version:

            One signature on pre-printed forms: 5 sec.
            Number of folks with the power to write such contracts: 2.
            = 1440 people served per day, with a twelve hour work day.

            One in a hundred thousands willing to trust this Magic AND able to travel, using the figure seven billion since the story takes place in 1997: 70 000.

            If one in ten can actually make it, AKA one in a million: 7000.

            Thus: 7 000 / 1440 equaling roughly: 5 days.

            In other words: I figured out my protagonist & her friend could save as much of the world as logically wanted saving via such a controversial method, AND have a weekend.

            For contrast: Stockholm Pride’s usual visitor number (city book takes place in, so relevant) is 500 000 people. And the Avicii Arena, the city’s sport arena, can normally host 16 000 people. 14K ish, something, during hockey.

            In other words… what I had planned to be such a titanic moment that it all but cripple the city with a throng of bodies, would probably barely make hotel & air port fees hike a bit if it had happened in real life. To the average citizen, it would be a minor annoyance you’d go around for a few days.

            Oh, and thus: If every tenth person is so overwhelmed with gratitude, they give $1,480, the world average monthly income according to Google…

            700 X 1480 = $1 036 000

            Not too shabby for a week’s hard work. Kinda makes you grokk why faith healers make the sort of bank they do.

            Know it’s not quite the same as Samus’ “One touch = One Heal” example, but that math just blew my mind. And made me rewrite the entire third act of the story because… well, I’m going for realism, right?

        2. Paul Spooner says:

          I don’t see why super-powers mean you have to do everything for free. Payment would help a lot with the triage priority sorting.

          There are even more problems with super powers though, aside from the details. What happens when the military kidnaps you and ships you off to an active conflict zone? Or there’s a major disaster? Or someone with nothing to loose wants to skip the line? What about when the medical establishment wants to shut you down because you’re cutting in to their bottom line? Or the feds arrest you for practicing medicine without a license? Or the FDA refuses to allow you to operate because your super powers haven’t been the subject of a RCT and no one knows what the side-effects might be? Or people start blaming unexplained illnesses on you as the side-effects of healing people (regardless of the well-foundedness of that claim)?

          1. Thomas says:

            Yeah, sadly this is a very Warren Ellis style scenario where it’s easy to imagine the power leading to a lot of trouble for the user in all sorts of ways.

            And unlike some of the dark age of comic books stuff, we know some of it probably would happen from the experience of lottery winners who let their names be published and end up getting bombarded left and right with requests for money. Miracle healing is power so much further than anything the world has access too.

            1. Thomas says:

              Actually I think I’m being too pesimisitic, if you allow yourself to get rich enough to the point where you can afford a Brad Pitt-sized security team, and if you stayed away from the authoritian countries you’d probably be fine.

              The security team would keep you safe from people who go too far in desperation, and you’d be so loved by the public that your fame would protect you from the bigger powers.

              Unlike lottery winners, your resources are endless and you are able to help people as much as you want.

              1. Paul Spooner says:

                Yeah! That, and if the power is at all under your control then you could just as easily kill people with a touch, so people should want to stay on your good side.

              2. Zak McKracken says:

                A security team holding desperate people at bay while you rake in tons of money from less-desperate but better-off people — where I’m from, that won’t turn you into a beloved celebrity.

            2. Gautsu says:

              I mean Zelazny covered this in To Die in Italbar in 1973

          2. Lanthanide says:

            I don’t see why super-powers mean you have to do everything for free. Payment would help a lot with the triage priority sorting.

            Well, master surgeons have to train for a life time to get their skills. So high payment is fair in that case. If you just have a magic superpower you didn’t do anything to earn, it’s a little different.

            Also if you are a guaranteed cure for any and all ailments, no matter how dire, you’ll be able to charge literally millions for some patients who are desperate enough. Is that moral?

            These are the sorts of issues that The Boys touches on, with respect to superheroes and modern society. Although in their case the superheroes are mostly all narcissistic assholes. You might also become a narcissistic asshole if you had the power to heal anyone you liked – or indeed refuse to heal anyone you liked.

            1. Chris says:

              you picked super healing at the expense of whatever else you could ask for. I made a choice that helps others, giving some compensation is the least I can expect. And You can even be decent about it. Superstar with cancer that has millions? You will help him if he pays you well, poor guy who cant afford anything? You give him a free lay on hands

              1. Lord Nyax says:

                The ideal solution is to treat everyone for free based on triage, but auction off 2 spots each day to the highest bidder. Plus you take donations. I would think chronically ill billionaires would easily fund the rest of the operation, plus enough for you to become quite wealthy,

        3. Dorenkosh says:

          My first thought was, in fact, this particular overly detailed short story: https://qntm.org/indy

          1. Thomas says:

            Wow, that’s so close to what I was imagining.

      2. Chuk says:

        If you can heal yourself too from things like exhaustion, dehydration, or starvation, then you can go 24/7.
        Does it work on mental health? I feel like you’d need that too pretty soon.

      3. Mersadeon says:

        Hah, that reminds of this SMBC comic!

        https://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2305

        It’s… 11 years old! Why do I remember it! Help, I am aging rapidly and I don’t like it!

    2. Dev Null says:

      Perhaps you should just wish for the superpower “miraculous healing from a distance”.

      Wish for more wishes; that always works out well in faerie tales and DnD games.

      1. The Nick says:

        I thought of the same thing.

  2. Mephane says:

    I guess this is the part where us commentators are expected to also answer these question. :)

    1) Favorite planet in the solar system (other than Earth)?

    Mars. Best target for eventual colonization, plus it looks kind of neat with that red color. (Who thought beige planets were a good idea?)

    2) Blue? Or Orange?

    Assuming this is a choice between only these two colors, definitely blue.

    3) Do you speak any other languages? If so, which?

    Well English is that “other language” since I am German. :)

    4) Favorite ice cream flavor?

    Chocolate, no contest. This applies to pretty much any sweet food that comes in different flavours. Cookies? Chocolate. Cake? Chocolate. Cereals? Needs to have at least some chocolate and I will pour chocolate milk for good measure.

    5) What is your preferred IDE (Visual Studio, NetBeans, Eclipse, etc.)?

    I’ll go with Visual Studio, mostly because I don’t know what most of the others are like these days.

    6) Do you have a favorite flag? If so, which?

    The rainbow flag, not specifically for aesthetic reasons (though it looks good), but its meaning.

    7) Which lifestyle would you say is best: hunter-gatherer or agrarian?

    Agrarian. Without that we wouldn’t have modern civilization today, maybe ever.

    8) Which would you rather be killed by: a Predator or a Xenomorph?

    Xenomorph. Predator always seemed to me like a 12 year old boy’s cringe fan fiction (I wouldn’t be surprised if it actually started out like that).

    9) Pizza? Or Sandwich?

    I’ll go with Shamus’ answer here as well. For a given meal, pizza is clearly the superior choice. But for an extended period, sandwiches offer the greater potential for variety. But! If we assume I had to eat the exact same type of pizza or the exact same kind of sandwich for a while, I’d choose pizza.

    10) What superpower would you want to have in real life?

    Shapeshifting. So many other superpowers are encompassed within that. Want to fly? Become a bird. Want to breathe underwater? Become a fish. Need to see in the dark? Become a cat. Want to follow a trail? Become a dog.

    Also underrated is the possibility of partial shapeshifting, mixing characteristics and traits as needed. Like, to see in the dark you don’t need to become a cat entirely, just change your eyes. Need to reach something on the upper shelf? Just shapeshift your arm into a longer version. Super neat.

    Shapeshifting also implies self-healing. If you can control your body to the extent as to change into a completely different species with different anatomy, cell structure etc, if you get injured you could just morph back into your pre-injured state. It’s not total immortality, but as long as you are still conscious and not instantly killed, you could easily recover from a lot of things.

    And as a cherry on top it has its uses for vanity. Make your hair the length and style you want right now, no need to cut it or wait months to let it grow. Change its color whenever you want. Same for nails, tatoos etc.

    11) What was your favorite cartoon when you were a child?

    If I had to choose one – Gargoyles.

    12) When you park your car, do you just pull into the spot & back out later, or do you back into the spot & pull out later?

    I don’t have a car, but I imagine I would prefer backing into the spot.

    13) Apples? Or Oranges?

    Apples to eat the fruit directly, oranges when it’s for the flavour used in other food.

    14) When you are reading a book, & you need to mark your place, do you dogear the page, or do you use a bookmark?

    What kind of savage would intentionally put a dog ear into the page of a book?

    15) Bro, do you even lift? If so, how much?

    No.

    16) When playing a tabletop RPG, what is your preferred character class?

    Usually something that uses magic. Right now I play a sorcerer in my D&D group.

    17) In science fiction, do you prefer FTL drives (Star Trek / Star Wars), or gate networks (Star Gate / Mass Effect)?

    FTL drives, usually they are much more convenient.

    18) Vampires? Or Zombies?

    Vampires. They’re cunning, charismatic, and not even necessarily evil, just in a bit of a tricky predicament. Meanwhile, zombies are just a mindless brain-eating horde of animals. Boring.

    19) When you’re at an Asian restaurant, do you use chopsticks?

    Yes. I even use them at home for some dishes.

    20) Whatever happened to the stinger on the Diecast? That’s sometimes my favorite part! You gotta reward people who sit through the outro.

    How am I supposed to know. :P

    1. tmtvl says:

      I’ll jump in here so we can keep things organised.

      1) Favorite planet in the solar system (other than Earth)?

      Neptune, nice and far away from the sun, definitely safe when said sun enters its red phase.

      2) Blue? Or Orange?

      If we’re talking about colours, I like a nice and warm orange. If we’re talking fruit, blueberries.

      3) Do you speak any other languages? If so, which?

      I speak a handful of languages to some extent. Besides my native Dutch I speak some heavily-accented English, a bit of heavily-accented Japanese, a small amount of non-accented French, a little slightly-accented German, a tiny bit of slightly-accented Spanish, and a few words of badly-mangeled Mandarin.

      4) Favorite ice cream flavor?

      I guess strawberry, but I’m not a big fan of ice cream.

      5) What is your preferred IDE (Visual Studio, NetBeans, Eclipse, etc.)?

      I have never used VS, being on GNU/Linux and all. I am slightly partial to NetBeans due to its simplicity. Eclipse and IntelliJ (and yes, I have had the chance to use the Ultimate version) just feel too clunky to me.
      That said, I generally use Emacs, because I like undo-tree.

      6) Do you have a favorite flag? If so, which?

      The flag of Bhutan is great. Yellow and orange with a dragon. Though some of the Japanese prefectural flags also have neat designs.

      7) Which lifestyle would you say is best: hunter-gatherer or agrarian?

      Agrarian. For health, you can’t really send people to university to learn to be surgeons when you constantly have to hunt, gather, travel, and take care of all the things that need doing in a hunter-gatherer society.
      The only benefit of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle is that we would pollute less.

      8) Which would you rather be killed by: a Predator or a Xenomorph?

      Well, the Predator would be more likely to just shoot me, so at least it’d be quick.

      9) Pizza? Or Sandwich?

      Frumenty (I could go on a tangent on what a shame it is that Medieval food has fallen out of favour).
      …Okay, if I have to choose one of the two I’ll go with pizza, vegetarian pizza is way nicer than vegetarian sandwiches.

      10) What superpower would you want to have in real life?

      This is a tricky question, not only do I have to consider what will happen to me if I decide to go public with whatever power I would have, but I would also have to consider the implications on things like international relationships of my host country, what would happen when I die, and what certain countries (the big CUR) may want to do to get their hands on me.

      I think I’ll go with time travel. Not only does that give me the option of rewinding time if it turns out that going public with it is a bad idea, it also gives me the strongest possible threat to ward of would-be agressors (I could kill you before you were even born).
      Of course, there is the slight problem of causality probably destroying the universe, but it may be interesting while it lasts.

      11) What was your favorite cartoon when you were a child?

      I was never the biggest fan of television, but I kinda liked Samurai X (aka Rurouni Kenshin) when it was on.

      12) When you park your car, do you just pull into the spot & back out later, or do you back into the spot & pull out later?

      Back into the spot, its nice to be able to see oncoming traffic when heading out. Especially considering Belgian drivers are insane.

      13) Apples? Or Oranges?

      Why not both? But really, apples. Although it is unfortunate that many breeds are being manipulated for appearance rather than taste, which is a really silly thing to do to food.

      14) When you are reading a book, & you need to mark your place, do you dogear the page, or do you use a bookmark?

      My grandfather worked a stint as librarian after his retirement, when I see a book with a dogeared page I die a little inside. Bookmarks all day every day.

      15) Bro, do you even lift? If so, how much?

      Depends, do fireman carry squats count? The heaviest dude I ever squatted was over 100 kilos, but that really put strain on my back. 80 kilos is much more doable.
      If we’re only going by barbell/dumbbell weights, I have two dumbbells of 5 kilos each, to hold during stance training.

      16) When playing a tabletop RPG, what is your preferred character class?

      Beggar (playing Das Schwarze Auge), though of course it depends on the system. Usually the lockpicky, sneaky, climby rogue/acrobat archetype fits well with my desire to avoid all combat (after having a 4-hour combat session in DSA3).

      17) In science fiction, do you prefer FTL drives (Star Trek / Star Wars), or gate networks (Star Gate / Mass Effect)?

      Isn’t warp drive more of a hybrid? I have watched both TOS and TNG in their entireties, but it’s been a long while. Regardless, I prefer gate networks like in Tachyon or the X universe.

      18) Vampires? Or Zombies?

      Traditional Haitian zombies or Hollywood zombies? What type of vampire? Well, considering my love for All Flesh Must Be Eaten, I’ll go with zombies.

      19) When you’re at an Asian restaurant, do you use chopsticks?

      If it fits the meal, yes. Though I really have to mind my manners because I have a habit of “raking in” my food, which is impolite.
      In Taiwan and Japan I ate a lot of rice because the rice was delicious, Asian restaurants in Belgium should really up their game.

      20) Whatever happened to the stinger on the Diecast? That’s sometimes my favorite part! You gotta reward people who sit through the outro.

      Issac has listened to hundreds of hours of Shamus and Paul’s Diecast so his standards have risen to unfathomable heights.

      1. Daimbert says:

        1) Favorite planet in the solar system (other than Earth)?

        Don’t have one.

        2) Blue? Or Orange?

        Probably blue across the board as well.

        3) Do you speak any other languages? If so, which?

        I learned some French up until Grade 10, and took a semester of Russian and Latin during my two separate degrees. I’ve always been good with languages and always want to pick up learning them but never have the time.

        4) Favorite ice cream flavor?

        Butterscotch ripple.

        5) What is your preferred IDE (Visual Studio, NetBeans, Eclipse, etc.)?

        I don’t use one — to the mockery of my coworkers — but prefer Eclipse of the ones I have used.

        6) Do you have a favorite flag? If so, which?

        Nope.

        7) Which lifestyle would you say is best: hunter-gatherer or agrarian?

        I don’t really have a preference or know enough about them to have an opinion.

        8) Which would you rather be killed by: a Predator or a Xenomorph?

        Predator, since at least that would be hunting or something and not merely a random, purposeless death.

        9) Pizza? Or Sandwich?

        Sandwich, for variety and because I’m lukewarm about pizza in general.

        10) What superpower would you want to have in real life?

        Wolverine’s healing factor. Lots of benefits to me and it isn’t visible enough to cause problems or give me any moral obligations, while being able to pull off the “walk into a fire to save someone no one else can” model. Yes, wounds still hurt, but knowing you’ll survive them will take away a bit of the sting.

        11) What was your favorite cartoon when you were a child?

        Transformers, probably. It’s also one that I find is still watchable today.

        12) When you park your car, do you just pull into the spot & back out later, or do you back into the spot & pull out later?

        Pull in and drive through to be able to pull out when leaving as well, even if it means I have to walk. If I have no choice, I prefer to pull in.

        13) Apples? Or Oranges?

        Apples.

        14) When you are reading a book, & you need to mark your place, do you dogear the page, or do you use a bookmark?

        I used to simply put it down like Shamus does, but that ended up kinda wrecking a few so now I use bookmarks.

        15) Bro, do you even lift? If so, how much?

        No.

        16) When playing a tabletop RPG, what is your preferred character class?

        Fighter/Mage.

        17) In science fiction, do you prefer FTL drives (Star Trek / Star Wars), or gate networks (Star Gate / Mass Effect)?

        Gates seem to be more fun in general, as FTL drives seem to be just normal travelling most of the time.

        18) Vampires? Or Zombies?

        Vampires. I’ve always liked the vampire legends, and zombies, overall, bore me. There’s something to be said for horrific and yet intelligent horror monsters, and zombies are too stupid to do that and if you make them smart they aren’t zombies anymore.

        19) When you’re at an Asian restaurant, do you use chopsticks?

        No.

        20) Whatever happened to the stinger on the Diecast? That’s sometimes my favorite part! You gotta reward people who sit through the outro.

        I don’t listen to the Diecast and so cannot even opine on the topic.

        1. Paul Spooner says:

          1) Favorite planet in the solar system (other than Earth)?
          Venus! Tons of thermal differential and high density atmosphere means clean energy sky cities.

          2) Blue? Or Orange?
          Orange all the way.

          3) Do you speak any other languages? If so, which?
          Japanese, German, Latin, Greek, and Python

          4) Favorite ice cream flavor?
          Rocky Road, probably. Vanilla ice-cream with cereal is pretty good, though I prefer Cinnamon Toast Crunch as an aggregate.

          5) What is your preferred IDE (Visual Studio, NetBeans, Eclipse, etc.)?
          Pycharm, but that’s only because I don’t use any others.

          6) Do you have a favorite flag? If so, which?
          Off the top of my head, I’d say Singapore. After a bit of research though, I’d say Albania.

          7) Which lifestyle would you say is best: hunter-gatherer or agrarian?
          I’d have to go with hunter-gatherer. From what I can tell the main agrarian advantage is beer, and I’m not really a fan.

          8) Which would you rather be killed by: a Predator or a Xenomorph?
          I think the Predator would enjoy it more.

          9) Pizza? Or Sandwich?
          Sandwich all the way.

          10) What superpower would you want to have in real life?
          Ahh, that’s a hard call. Transmutation I think, from this classification scheme: http://blog.hawkbats.com/2021/02/27/the-seven-superpowers/

          11) What was your favorite cartoon when you were a child?
          Rescue Rangers, with Tailspin as a close second.

          12) When you park your car, do you just pull into the spot & back out later, or do you back into the spot & pull out later?
          Back in. You never know when you might need to leave in a hurry.

          13) Apples? Or Oranges?
          Oranges, in part because of the cool little spurts of fire the skins make when you light them on fire.

          14) When you are reading a book, & you need to mark your place, do you dogear the page, or do you use a bookmark?
          Bookmark to keep my place. I reserve dog-ears for places I find cool quotes (top corner) or errors and typos (bottom corner)

          15) Bro, do you even lift? If so, how much?
          Not regularly, but I bench 170lb, with a 145lb bodyweight thanks to patrilineal epigenetics (Dad could bench 2.5x bodyweight in college at his peak)

          16) When playing a tabletop RPG, what is your preferred character class?
          The big dumb brute.

          17) In science fiction, do you prefer FTL drives (Star Trek / Star Wars), or gate networks (Star Gate / Mass Effect)?
          As an engineer, I prefer the macro-infrastructure and technical complexity of a gate network. The freedom and elegance of an FTL drive really appeals to the core conceit of Sci-Fi though. Why not have both?

          18) Vampires? Or Zombies?
          Vampires, both to kill and to sympathize with. The Helsing anime is wicked metal btw.

          19) When you’re at an Asian restaurant, do you use chopsticks?
          Yes, and at home as well. I keep a pair in my car in case I need to eat on the go.

          20) Whatever happened to the stinger on the Diecast? That’s sometimes my favorite part! You gotta reward people who sit through the outro.
          That’s probably my fault for not being funny enough.

          1. baud says:

            > As an engineer, I prefer the macro-infrastructure and technical complexity of a gate network. The freedom and elegance of an FTL drive really appeals to the core conceit of Sci-Fi though. Why not have both?

            Well, Mass Effect has both, but reasoned that even light-speed is quite slow to travel galaxy-sized distance (and then used the portals for some of the world-building)

          2. PPX14 says:

            Ooh why not:

            1) Favourite planet in the solar system (other than Earth)?

            Saturn, probably because the second largest (everyone always gushes over Jupiter, bah) and has the rings.

            2) Blue? Or Orange?

            Blue! Orange is good, but blue has Turquoise.

            3) Do you speak any other languages? If so, which?

            No, only the weird hybrid that results from school German and French, filling the gaps in vocabulary with whichever language I can remember for that word.

            4) Favourite ice cream flavour?

            I’d like to say honeycomb or toffee because they once were but I think I have to concede to the richness of chocolate. Yet it’s one of those ones where really, good ice cream is good ice cream. Pistachio was delicious, there are those ludicrous chocolate bar flavoured ones. So if we’re talking the plainest and relatively bland ice cream, where the quality isn’t so high as to make the comparison too difficult, then it’s chocolate!

            5) What is your preferred IDE (Visual Studio, NetBeans, Eclipse, etc.)?

            IDE? I know that only as an old connection in a computer from the motherboard to the optical drives.

            6) Do you have a favorite flag? If so, which?

            Macedonia is possibly the only that I’d put over the UK flag.

            7) Which lifestyle would you say is best: hunter-gatherer or agrarian?

            Agrarian, still get the exercise but hopefully less of the death.

            8) Which would you rather be killed by: a Predator or a Xenomorph?

            Predator would be less agonising I suspect.

            9) Pizza? Or Sandwich?

            What on earth… Pizza of course. Only point in a sandwich is the portability and convenience really. Unless this is USA terminology where sandwich includes burgers and literally anything between 2 bread-related things. And toasted sandwiches and things that are practically pizza full of melted cheese. In which case… hmm. Bacon sandwich is also an important factor.

            10) What superpower would you want to have in real life?

            May I choose luck? Or charm? Perhaps super-intellect. Actually forget that, Super-Contentment!

            11) What was your favourite cartoon when you were a child?

            That CBBC compilation we had. Or glimpses of DBZ.

            12) When you park your car, do you just pull into the spot & back out later, or do you back into the spot & pull out later?

            No idea, would probably depend on the space.

            13) Apples? Or Oranges?

            Apples have to take it. Apple pie, crumble, juice, and use in savoury things.

            14) When you are reading a book, & you need to mark your place, do you dogear the page, or do you use a bookmark?

            Damage the book? I remember the number or remember to use one of the many bookmarks that so rarely see use. Only the thinnest bookmark will not leave an unsightly bulge however.

            15) Bro, do you even lift? If so, how much?

            No. Myself doing squats or press-ups. My back has started hurting when I exercise so I seem to need to strengthen that first.

            16) When playing a tabletop RPG, what is your preferred character class?

            Played only 2 characters ever, probably a spellcaster.

            17) In science fiction, do you prefer FTL drives (Star Trek / Star Wars), or gate networks (Star Gate / Mass Effect)?

            I did find the idea of the gates and lanes in Freelancer very cool.

            18) Vampires? Or Zombies?

            I get rather tired of zombies I’m not sure I like them at all. So Vampires though again…

            19) When you’re at an Asian restaurant, do you use chopsticks?

            Not if it’s Indian :P And no, chopsticks are nonsense and have been surpassed in every way. To the point, given the strange propensity for people to use them for the sake of authenticity, I don’t want to use them on principle. But saying that, yes, occasionally, for fun :D But not because “you’re supposed to!”

            20) Whatever happened to the stinger on the Diecast? That’s sometimes my favorite part! You gotta reward people who sit through the outro.

            Must be a bee rather than a wasp.

    2. tmtvl says:

      As an aside, Mephane, I really dig your choice of shapeshifting. That was also one I really fancied back when I hadn’t lost my faith in humanity. It’s the reason why I played Shifter in D&D for a few dozen sessions.

    3. MelTorefas says:

      Shapeshifting is also my default response to superpowers, assuming we’re talking about “magic” superpowers. If we have to stick to realism (as implied by Shamus’ response) then I can only imagine that shapeshifting would be fairly horrific and probably a one-way trip (assuming your brain shifts into the animal’s brain too). The minor piecemeal shapeshifting might be doable though!

      Otherwise, in the case of “realistic” superpowers, I would take perfect health for sure. I’d like to eat whatever I want, including nothing at all. (Also it would be nice to not be dealing with the autoimmune crap I am dealing with, but that’s a little too serious for an actual answer I think.)

      1. Sleeping Dragon says:

        While I can come up with a myriad of power of varying degrees of usefulness and/or coolness I, like many other neurodivergent people, was always partial to telepathy. Just the “know what the other person is thinking” kind would spare me a lot of anxiety and get me out of many awkward social situations.

        1. Syal says:

          Just the “know what the other person is thinking” kind would spare me a lot of anxiety and get me out of many awkward social situations.

          That’s… the optimistic version. I’m always worried about telepathy turning into the Tommyknockers.

    4. Zak McKracken says:

      Just the interesting ones:

      1) Favorite planet in the solar system (other than Earth)?

      Venus. The atmosphere is so dense, you could conceivably build something like Bespin cloud city. If you find a good way of dealing with the sulfuric acid floating around, that is :)

      2) Blue? Or Orange?

      Apple

      3) Do you speak any other languages? If so, which?

      English, German, Dutch, Romanian. French if I must. I also learned Latin, but almost nobody _speaks_ it.

      4) Favorite ice cream flavor?

      Ben & Jerry’s Cooky Dough. I only had it once, but I will remember that forever. Not saying why.

      5) What is your preferred IDE (Visual Studio, NetBeans, Eclipse, etc.)?

      Spyder 3. Sadly the current version (Spyder 5) is all bloated and slow, and the tooltips are acting weird, so I mostly use PyCharm, which is less suited for interactive use, and a bit more roundabout, and has a weird hotkey configuration like nothing else, but … not much else to do, I guess.

      9) Pizza? Or Sandwich?

      Pizza, but please make it a proper Neapolitan one. Those are works of art.

      10) What superpower would you want to have in real life?

      The power to truly understand other people and get others to truly understand me. Not great for Marvel movies, but quite possibly a way bigger life saver than all those others.
      Although flying would be really really enjoyable

      12) When you park your car, do you just pull into the spot & back out later, or do you back into the spot & pull out later?

      Backing in and pulling out requires less space on the road, so that’s my preferred method. It can also be done fairly fast and precisely if you know the shape of your car and have done it a few times. Except I sold my last car in 2020 and don’t intend to own another one.

      13) Apples? Or Oranges?

      Is that even a fair comparison? :o)
      I’ve long been a proponent of the idea that you _can_ of course compare apples and Oranges — Apples are clearly better)

      14) When you are reading a book, & you need to mark your place, do you dogear the page, or do you use a bookmark?

      Bookmark, and the spine must not be bent, ever.

      16) When playing a tabletop RPG, what is your preferred character class?

      All kinds, as long as I either completely avoid cliches or embody them (until you get closer and realize it’s actually very different from how it looks.

      17) In science fiction, do you prefer FTL drives (Star Trek / Star Wars), or gate networks (Star Gate / Mass Effect)?

      If the Scifi doesn’t care about technical detail, choose whatever. Otherwise, none of the above. Come up with something more realistic. surprise me

      18) Vampires? Or Zombies?

      Zombies, for a guilt-free extermination experience

      19) When you’re at an Asian restaurant, do you use chopsticks?

      Yes

  3. Destrustor says:

    I figure the best way to handle the logistics of a single person having magical healing powers would be to bring them to the sick people. Have a given city organize some kind of healing event where everybody who needs it gets lined up along the edges of a pre-determined path near the local airport (maybe twist the path inside a convention center/sportsball arena to maximize the surface area), and then the healer arrives at the airport and starts walking along the path, constantly high-fiving a person with each hand along the way. Then the healer gets back on the plane and flies to the next city.
    Could probably handle a few thousand people per hour, would be easier to set-up in advance, and two or three cities would be able to organize in parallel each day without significantly increasing the strain on air travel networks. Hit up City A in the morning, City B around noon, and City C in the evening.

    1. Drathnoxis says:

      Yeah, that would definitely work better. And just think how overpopulation would skyrocket.

      1. Dev Null says:

        Not to mention the resulting crash in the health industry – which is still a lot of nurses jobs, even if you don’t give a fig for Big Pharma – and medical research. Why research a cure for cancer if Shamus can just high-5 it away? I mean sure, he won’t live forever (or will he, if he can cure anything?) but who wants to invest in a company that will only make money after the Most Popular Man in the World dies?

        1. Sleeping Dragon says:

          Eeeeh, if it’s a singular person it doesn’t make THAT much of a difference. As other people pointed out above there are some specifics that are undeteremined about the power, like how long does it take to heal a person or what are its limits. But even assuming a very efficient “short touch, not exhausting, without having to understand the nature of the issue” the healer would barely make a dent in the medical demand worldwide (probably even countrywide).

  4. tmtvl says:

    Russia would be a picture of shirtless Vlad.

    Is that president-specific? Would that mean that back when they would’ve needed a flag with a shirtless Boris Yeltsin?

    Still, I really like the idea of having flags with national symbolism, Japan could have cherry blossoms, Taiwan could have a pineapple… but I guess we ought to be careful of stereotyping.

    1. Ester says:

      Japan already has a symbol on their flag. That red circle is supposed to be the morning sun rising, which symbolizes Japan because they’re the easternmost country in Asia.

      1. Syal says:

        It’s in the name.

        Coined in Japan of Sinic elements, as compound of ? (nichi, “sun”) +? ? (hon, “origin”) and literally meaning “origin of the sun”.

        1. Retsam says:

          Since the commenting system seems to eat any non-unicode characters on submitting a comment, I wrote a user-script that escapes them before commenting, if you’re interested: https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/441678-twentysided-unicode-fixer.

          That way you can comment with stuff like 日本 without having to jump through hoops.

          1. Dev Null says:

            That’s kind of awesome.

          2. Cubic says:

            Those characters are valid unicode though (U+65E5, U+672C).

            Perhaps I’m being too pedantic about terminology and haven’t properly suffered through this commenting system?

    2. Thomas says:

      Everyone would pick lions, regardless of how many lions exist in their country.

      Why does England have three lions on their emblem? A country where the largest apex predator other than a human is a fox, which gets most of its food these days from scavenging dustbins. Who knows, but it does.

      1. Liessa says:

        The ‘three lions’ emblem dates back to the Plantagenet dynasty. Appropriately, Richard I (‘the Lionheart’) was the first to use it.

    3. Chris says:

      Like how the US flag has stars equal to the amount of states? I think the lines also have some meaning but im too lazy to look it up. The tricolor colors also have meanings.

      1. Syal says:

        The thirteen lines are for the thirteen original states.

        Don’t know about the colors. Political parties? (Nope.)

        1. Thomas says:

          A flag where red doesn’t stand for the blood of the people who died for their freedom!

        2. bobbert says:

          Fun fact: they used to increase the number of stripes as well as stars when admitting new states. Somewhere around 17 everyone quickly realized it would become stupid, so they changed the rules.

          Keep in mind, this was before sewing machines.

      2. John V says:

        The lines stand for the original 13 colonies that later became the USA

      3. Cubic says:

        What’s with that eye on the pyramid though?

        1. Syal says:

          Ooh, this one’s cool.

          On the version of the seal that would eventually be approved, the Eye is positioned above an unfinished pyramid of thirteen steps (again symbolizing the original States, but also incorporating the nation’s potential for future growth).

    4. djw says:

      I think for Boris Yeltsin you would go for a vodka bottle. For Gorbachov you could put that birthmark on the flag.

      It probably would get old changing your flag every time you change leader though.

    1. tmtvl says:

      Purple, I’m a grape paladin.

  5. Mr. Wolf says:

    But is it bigger than a breadbox?

  6. Gargamel Le Noir says:

    Cracked’s After Hours examined the question of the best super power (without secondary powers), and they arrived a pretty good conclusion I thought.

  7. Lino says:

    Interesting considerations about the superpowers :D

    Also, I’ve never been able to undestand people who just remember the page of the book they’re on. What if you forget? Then you have NO IDEA where you left off!

    1. Philadelphus says:

      Then you just use a bisection algorithm to get back to where you were. No big deal.

  8. Matt` says:

    Funny, my answer to the “pull in back out, or back in pull out” driving question would use similar reasoning but arrive at the opposite answer.

    I want to be doing the marginally more difficult thing with less visibility when I’m pulling into a small controlled space with no other cars in it, rather than when I’m venturing out into an open lane of traffic.

    Also fine-control manoeuvrability is better in reverse because the front wheels typically do the steering – the front end of a car swings in a wide arc while the back ends turns on a dime. So if you realise you’re slightly misaligned when you’re halfway into a space in reverse, you can adjust the direction you’re pointed in. But if you try to do the same adjustment while going forwards, you’ll have less room to turn before swinging the front end into the adjacent other car.

    1. Geebs says:

      My car has a rear camera and I have never quite got used to how long the front end is. Backing in is therefore way easier (also I agree with everything you said about manoeuvring in reverse)

  9. Leviathan902 says:

    Hey Shamus – you’ve mentioned a couple of times that you’ve had surgery, but not what it was (that I could find). Did you get a transplant already?

    Transplant or not, whatever it may be, I’m glad it went well and your quality of life should improve.

    1. Drathnoxis says:

      I think he got surgery for whatever is required to enable dialysis.

  10. RamblePak64 says:

    My logic with parking is exactly the same, including parallel parking. I’ll only park along a sidewalk if I’m not forced to squeeze between two other vehicles. This means I avoid driving into the city as often as possible and would rather just take a train in.

    However, pulling out of a space is technically more safe because it gives you reaction time and the ability to see who is coming. Perhaps this is not universal and I happen to live in a particularly garbage area, but it seems to me when people see someone backing out of a space, their instinct is to speed up and try and get past first rather than stop and allow the other person to back out.

    Which leaves me cynical enough of humanity that your healing powers discussion not only had me thinking of The Jesus and how people would respond to such a thing (how many would claim you’re the second coming of Christ and how many would claim you are the Anti-Christ?), but how many people would seek you out for even the smallest of things. For example, what if someone is 95 years-old with a body that is naturally failing and comes to you to “cure” them. Do you try? Do the powers work temporarily since death is a natural occurrence or could your powers be used to stave off even natural aging death? If the latter is possible, then what happens in the above mentioned scenario when the wealthy begin to demand your time for greater money? Or, more logically, what happens when the inevitable world governments demand you prioritize their own sick and needy or demand you give yourself up to be poked and prodded so that your super healing might be replicated onto others?

    Basically, my first thought was the Lepers from Jesus Christ Superstar and it went from there.

    1. Gautsu says:

      That song still gets me when I hear it

  11. King Marth says:

    Any sufficiently powerful propulsion system is an equally powerful weapon. Lightspeed projectiles cannot be avoided (though they also cannot be guided) and are immensely destructive no matter what material you use. Gate-based FTL is a good way to avoid this result, along with the many other fridge logic holes which go along with arbitrary movement.

    I have enjoyed sci-fi which emphasizes how painfully slow the speed of light is at the scale of space.

    1. Zekiel says:

      Enter Mass Effect, which decided to have both gate-based and propulsion light speed, and had to essentially handwave why FTL projectiles are not used as weapons

  12. Cilba Greenbraid says:

    In my own driveway, yes, sure, pull in and back out. In a parking lot, with giant SUVs constricting my view on both sides (because I live in the U.S.), aw hell no am I backing out. No way in hell am I going to expose my car to the vicissitudes of idiots I can’t see coming.

    If it’s at all possible, even if it requires me to park the very pessimal distance from the store, I will park in a space that I can pull into and pull out of–I’ll find two opposite spaces, both empty.

    Is that just me?

    1. Daimbert says:

      No, I do that as well. But when it comes to the driveway, I prefer to back in and pull out because it’s on a small incline and also in the winter it’s easier to see over the snowbacks pulling out instead of backing out, and it’s easy to back in by driving onto the shoulder — we don’t have a sidewalk yet — and then just backing in.

  13. Rho says:

    As an amateur historian, I feel the need to discuss this one:

    “7) Which lifestyle would you say is best: hunter-gatherer or agrarian?

    Studies make it seem like hunter-gathering is optimal for our health: We seem to live longer when we go for that sort of diet and exercise, as opposed to sitting around all winter eating slowly-spoiling starch crops. But I dunno. You can’t really form a complex society if you’re wandering around, and I’d rather be a farmer than a nomad.”

    Hunter-gatherering worked for the majoritry of human history, and there is *some* evidence that farmers were less healthy in some ways. However, it also basically lost *every* single time humans actually faced the fundamental choice of what to do with a given plot of land. Either the hunter-gatherers switched to agriculture, or they were driven out by farmers (including ranching/herding agriculture, which also outpaces hunter-gatherers).

    There are several reasons for this. One basic, vital issue is that it’s much better to take it easy in the winter even if the food might spoil a bit and the stocks run short, than to do the same thing in a hunter-gatherer tribe where the annual surplus may not be store-able at all. The dawn of farming was more monotonous, but it still created enough surplus to more reliably get people through the year. This also created enough surplus for more trade and to support specialized craftsmen even in very early civilizations. Some can be stored up over several years to get through lean times, and farmers can often adjust to changing conditions. In fact, farmers do worry about the weather but the most dangerous threat they face is human action, not nature. Depending on exactly where you are in the world, the hunter-gatherer diet is probably more varied and the labor less back-breaking, but you also have fewer calories to spare. You *can’t* spend them carelessly.

    In hunter-gatherer tribes, not only does the surplus basically not exist, but you’re essentially at the whim of nature, much more so than the farmer. Sure, in good times when food is plentiful, the tribe thrives and it’s easy living. But in a bad year, people start to die. The young, the old or the sick may not be able to support themselves by going to where the food is, but unlike the settled community there is a very limited amount of useful labor they can add at home. And it’s not just an individual perspective: the tribe as a whole can get stretched very thin very quickly if times get tough.

    [Historically, settled farms had too much labor and not enough land. This is not perfectly ideal but it also lightened burdens and implies a substantial surplus of food.]

    Finally, in hunter-gatherer societies violence tends to be endemic: constant but low-level. Theft and murders by a hostile group (and there’s ALWAYS at least one hostile group) just happen annually. In settled farm civilizations, these tend to be addressable in some organized way. It doesn’t mean that theft and murder don’t occur – obviously they do – but there is usually some way of facing down and warning the aggressor. And the more developed the agricultural civilization, the less theft and murder happens.

    So hunter-gatherers can be a superior choice – if you’re lucky. In a region with a warm climate and rich resources then it’s a pretty attractive option. But whenever things go wrong the tribe may face some very stark choices very quickly. The tribe had to kill to get its territory and it must kill to keep it. And all the upside only applies while you’re healthy. If not, there’s not much help for you. Your family can give you food, if it can manage it, but that’s about it. You either recover or you’re not going to consuming resources much longer. Tribes have different ways of handling these situations, but in effect those too weak or too sick to contribute are either “dealt with” or find a way to “end” the problem…

  14. Chris says:

    I always wondered if you would get superpowers, whether you wouldnt just be caught by some secret service so they can take you apart. I mean, how difficult is it to make someone disappear? Taking one guy to figure out flight or magical healing would be a minor sacrifice. Even if most organizations wouldnt do it, it just takes 1 to go for it.

    Super healing could also be really horrible. Not spending an hour healing is basically condemning a lot of people to die. People from all over would come to you to try and get your help. People who win lotteries apparently get flooded by letters of people saying they need money bad (even though quite some probably are scams) for medical expenses. You would be the hottest property on earth. If I got super healing I would hide it. Thats probably immoral, but otherwise you effectively nuke your own life.

    1. Philadelphus says:

      Yeah, I feel like spontaneously getting superpowers would be utterly horrible in a modern-day world. (Or, really, probably just about any tech level world.) At best, you’re non-threatening (like having super-healing factor), and someone just wants to take you apart to see how you work (maybe with the best of intentions, like figuring out how to give other people this super-healing power!). How long until someone succeeds at that if you remain a private citizen, do you think? At worst, you’re such a significant threat that governments are going to compete over you to either recruit you into their military or take you out so that you can’t be recruited into a rival government’s military. You best chance of survival is to try to find a government that’s strong enough to protect you and won’t also vivisect you, and voluntarily join them. Sure, maybe you’re immune to bullets, but do you still have to eat? Drink? Breathe? Sleep? As long as you do, you’re vulnerable to capture or assassination via poison. Maybe you could survive as a private citizen if a large enough group of people are also simultaneously getting superpowers that there’s no way to recruit them all/hunt them all down, but then society’s going to be going through a pretty major upheaval anyway so it’s probably not going to be a fun time no matter what.

  15. Dreadjaws says:

    2) Blue? Or Orange?

    The answer to all is blue.

    I prefer oranges by a mile

    A-ha! I have found a contradicting statement! All of your arguments heretofore are rendered invalid and you are therefore canceled. Internet logic saves the day once again!

    I’m a fan of putting breakfast cereal – Rice Krispies in particular – in vanilla ice cream. Try it. It’s boss!

    I don’t eat only vanilla, but I love putting cereal on ice cream.

    1) Favorite planet in the solar system (other than Earth)?
    I like Saturn. It’s the one that knows how to accessorize.

    2) Blue? Or Orange?
    Color? Blue. Feeling? It’s orange a feeling? Because if it is, I kinda think that’d be the one.

    3) Do you speak any other languages? If so, which?
    Yes, English is my “other language”, with Spanish being the main one.

    4) Favorite ice cream flavor?
    It really depends on the brand, but there’s this limited Piña Colada ice cream that a local company makes that is absolutely fantastic and I buy it every chance I get.

    5) What is your preferred IDE (Visual Studio, NetBeans, Eclipse, etc.)?
    Not a programmer, so I can’t answer.

    6) Do you have a favorite flag? If so, which?
    I like the Sri Lanka one, because it has a lion holding a sword, and that’s pretty badass,

    7) Which lifestyle would you say is best: hunter-gatherer or agrarian?
    I think the former would be more exciting, while the latter more comfortable. Can’t say either is “best”.

    8) Which would you rather be killed by: a Predator or a Xenomorph?
    Predator. At least I know it was an honorable fight.

    9) Pizza? Or Sandwich?
    Pizza. Always pizza. Yes, sandwiches have different kinds but so do pizzas.

    10) What superpower would you want to have in real life?
    Telekinesis is really the best answer. There’s a lot of help you could do just moving stuff that’s otherwise unreachable or hard to get without endangering others (depending on your level of control you could easily use it to remove otherwise inoperable tumors) and every time some asshole cuts you off on the highway you can either rip his car’s engine away or send him flying depending on your mood. And you can use it on you for a limited form of flight. It’s really the most versatile superpower.

    11) What was your favorite cartoon when you were a child?
    Probably Super Friends. Its only value today is as unintentional comedy, but as a child I loved it. Today the Justice League animated series is a magnificent replacement.

    12) When you park your car, do you just pull into the spot & back out later, or do you back into the spot & pull out later?
    Depends on the place, really.

    13) Apples? Or Oranges?
    I like apples better for the basic fruit and desserts, but I prefer orange juice.

    14) When you are reading a book, & you need to mark your place, do you dogear the page, or do you use a bookmark?
    Bookmark. I have many different kinds always at hand, and if I don’t a nearby ticket or receipt will do the trick.

    15) Bro, do you even lift? If so, how much?
    Nope. I really should, though. Should definitely exercise more.

    16) When playing a tabletop RPG, what is your preferred character class?
    I never really played tabletop. Never had the chance. It’s not the sort of thing you can do on your own. You need available (and interested) friends.

    17) In science fiction, do you prefer FTL drives (Star Trek / Star Wars), or gate networks (Star Gate / Mass Effect)?
    The former. The latter will only allow you to reach established places. They’re not so good for exploration.

    18) Vampires? Or Zombies?
    Zombies. I’m not really that interested in neither but I have yet to be entertained by vampires in fiction outside of the Castlevania series, while works with zombies have nearly always been interesting to me.

    19) When you’re at an Asian restaurant, do you use chopsticks?
    Never been to one. I do have a couple of Darth Vader chopsticks, though. They’re pretty cool.

    20) Whatever happened to the stinger on the Diecast? That’s sometimes my favorite part! You gotta reward people who sit through the outro.
    It had to be sacrificed due to copyright issues.

  16. Syal says:

    1) Favorite planet in the solar system (other than Earth)?

    Jupiter. He Beeg.

    2) Blue? Or Orange?

    Yes. Though probably blue wins out for practicality; I can’t show up to work in a solid orange shirt, and can’t imagine living in a room with solid orange walls. But an orange cup? Strictly better than a blue cup. That’s just science.

    3) Do you speak any other languages? If so, which?

    …no. My halfassed attempt to learn Japanese has fallen on its face.

    4) Favorite ice cream flavor?

    Chocolate of some kind, but I’m not very picky.

    5) What is your preferred IDE (Visual Studio, NetBeans, Eclipse, etc.)?

    …?

    6) Do you have a favorite flag? If so, which?

    Might sound arrogant, but I really dig the US flag; it’s got a lot going on pattern-wise.

    7) Which lifestyle would you say is best: hunter-gatherer or agrarian?

    Agrarian, also known as the “bring-it-over-here-first gatherer”. Hunting is too dependant on finding things to hunt.

    8) Which would you rather be killed by: a Predator or a Xenomorph?

    Predator uses weapons. I’d rather die in a nuclear explosion than be eaten by a bear.

    9) Pizza? Or Sandwich?

    Trick question, a pizza is just an open-faced sandwich.
    This also depends on the context; I eat a lot of pizzas, but like Shamus said, if it’s one or the other forever, it’s sandwiches. Also, if I have to cook the thing, I’ve made sandwiches before, while my one attempt at making pizza ended in disaster and tears.

    10) What superpower would you want to have in real life?

    Telekinesis is my first thought. Imagine being able to clean the ceiling, or change lightbulbs, without having to find a ladder, or figure out if the ladder is safe to stand on with that big crack in the side of it.
    Shapeshifting and time stop were mentioned above, and are solid options, though time stop lends itself to supervillainy, which I should probably avoid.
    The cheeky answer, of course, is “the power to give people superpowers”.

    11) What was your favorite cartoon when you were a child?

    …don’t know, don’t remember very many of them. Rocko’s Modern Life? Space Ghost? Whichever show came on right before Pirates of Dark Water? Flight of Dragons?
    I’m gonna say The Great Mouse Detective.

    12) When you park your car, do you just pull into the spot & back out later, or do you back into the spot & pull out later?

    At home I back in and pull out, in parking lots I pull in and back out. It’s a small town here, all you really have to worry about is foot traffic.

    13) Apples? Or Oranges?

    Yes. Although like blue, orange once again loses out to practicality. You can put apple slices on a sandwich, or diced apples in a bowl of rice. Not so much with orange slices.

    14) When you are reading a book, & you need to mark your place, do you dogear the page, or do you use a bookmark?

    Bookmark. And then I forget to bring the bookmark with me. A lot of books are bookmarked with toilet paper.

    15) Bro, do you even lift? If so, how much?

    Not regularly. I’ve got some 30 lb. weights I lift one set of every… three days? I’ve also got a 20 lb. weighted vest I take on walks when the weather is nice.

    16) When playing a tabletop RPG, what is your preferred character class?

    Never did learn the rules of those games. Always played wizards, always ignored the rules around limiting the power of wizards.

    17) In science fiction, do you prefer FTL drives (Star Trek / Star Wars), or gate networks (Star Gate / Mass Effect)?

    FTL drives. Why go to the infinite vastness of space if you’re just going to build highways and follow traffic laws?

    18) Vampires? Or Zombies?

    Vampires are smart, which means they’re more interesting. A zombie is just a smaller, dumber bear.

    19) When you’re at an Asian restaurant, do you use chopsticks?

    I can’t remember the last time I was at an Asian restaurant. I’d probably try to use chopsticks, then give up and use a fork.

    20) Whatever happened to the stinger on the Diecast? That’s sometimes my favorite part! You gotta reward people who sit through the outro.

    I don’t know why you’re asking me that, you should ask Shamus.

  17. John says:

    Agriculture, agriculture, agriculture. I do not want to live in a world without paper or moveable type. I do not think I could live in a world without modern medicine. The hunter-gatherer lifestyle is a fantasy. It can be done, but it’s not actually pleasant to do except in certain areas. You try living in Tierra del Fuego, without clothes, covering yourself in seal fat to stay warm, and living off raw gulls’ eggs and then come back and tell me how great the hunter-gatherer lifestyle is. The agricultural lifestyle isn’t always easy either–I’d rather not be a subsistence farmer on some tiny plot of land somewhere–but it makes so many good things possible that the hunter-gatherer lifestyle simply doesn’t.

  18. Philadelphus says:

    Bro, do you even lift? If so, how much?
    Every day I lift my body mass up against the gravitational force of an entire planet a trillion trillion times my mass trying pull me to its center. On a whim I can even briefly leave the surface of the planet for short (~1 second) sub-orbital hops. I perform these incredible feats basically without having to think about it.

    1. Ester says:

      Well played :-)

      1. Rho says:

        *slow clap*

  19. Retsam says:

    I prefer oranges by a mile, but citrus gives me a rash for some reason? So if you’re asking which I’d prefer, I’ll ask for an orange. But if you’re asking which I’ll be able to eat, then I’m forced to take the apple.

    Didn’t anyone tell you you aren’t allowed to compare Apples and Oranges?

  20. Octal says:

    Instead of “just” having miraculous healing powers, what about the power to give other people healing powers? It’s a bit cheeky but it sure gets around a lot of logistical issues! And being able to delegate would relieve the pressure of “people are dying every second I don’t use my power to save them”. You could just fly around the world, stay a day or two in each place, and leave behind a bunch of magic doctors everywhere you go. If you could do hundreds of times a day as in your example, you could easily cover the expenses with a very small fee–$5 each could cover plane tickets, hotels, and booking a venue (Or, with luck, maybe you could get local governments to cover your expenses and arrange venues). If you could use it as an AOE and cover a crowd, even better! Then you could use stadiums and take advantage of the existing infrastructure for tickets and managing crowds.

    No doubt that would cause some problems, too, though. For example, if anyone could credibly claim to have gotten magical healing powers from you, there would be a lot of fakes, possibly even more fakes than actual healers. Perhaps this could be mitigated by keeping a public record of people you’d given powers to–have a processing step where someone checks IDs and takes photos.

    1. aradinfinity says:

      You could fix the issue of fakes by making it slightly less direct- say, instead of one touch = one heal, give people the power to produce a panacea that can then be distributed to hospitals and the Red Cross and everyone who needs it. You can solve countless other problems too with inventive solutions- give people the ability to create food from nothing and teleport it to those who need it, and you’ve just solved world hunger. Give folks the ability to absorb the CO2 in the atmosphere and you’ve just solved climate change, etc- and if you focus on people who would be displaced by these developments (give nurses the power to heal, give farmers the power to create food, etc) then you can minimize the harm any of this will cause.

  21. Lanthanide says:

    The super power I’ve always sort of mused about would be the ability to switch places with any other human in the world at any moment. I guess it sort of stems from the movie Jumper – which I haven’t actually seen, but its a slightly more restricted version of that power.

    It has its benefits – you can swap places. But it’s downside – the person you swapped with is now where you were.

    Good for catching baddies like Osama Bin Laden or Putin – go into a secure facility with a swat team or whatever, and then repeatedly trade places with targets, teleporting the swat team to where your targets were and your targets to the secure facility.

    Also good for holidays, but also emergency response situations (rescue people from rubble or burning buildings). Can turn it into a business service too, if someone needs to get expert A out to remote location B, they can send some schmuck out there instead, you swap places with the shmuck and then the expert, and then swap back again when the expert has completed their job. Guess it would help with astronauts too – could cycle a bunch of different experts up onto the international space station for a few hours at a time, without them needing to train for years to become fully fledged astronauts.

    The usefulness would really depend on how frequently in succession you could make swaps – fractions of a second, or minutes or hours cooldown makes a big difference. And of course what physical cost it exerts on your body.

    Generally I imagine around 5 second cooldown and no bodily exertion. Also you just have to think about the name/identity of the person you want to trade places with, don’t need to know their location or anything.

    1. tmtvl says:

      Have you ever read Saving Up 80,000 Gold In Another World? It’s about someone with a teleportation power which, while more powerful than what you’re describing, gets used in some interesting ways over the course of the story.

  22. GoStu says:

    I may as well take a kick at the questions too. At least the ones I think are interesting to answer.

    1. Favorite Planet in the Solar System (other than Earth)
    Probably Jupiter. I’ve heard the theory that having a big gas giant like Jupiter out there stops us from getting pelted by a lot of space debris, because its gravity well is so big. Jupiter’s looking out for us.

    3. Do you speak any other languages?
    Some French, some Spanish, a tiny bit of German. I can probably ask where to use the washroom and where my dog is in each of these.

    7. Hunter-Gatherer, or Agrarian
    Some part of me wants to say hunter-gatherer, because it encourages humanity to take better care of the environment and wildlife populations than agrarian “chop it all down, more fields for cows”. On the other hand, I like not hunting or gathering for a living.

    10. What superpower would you want to have in real life?
    Telekinesis, in the style of a Mass Effect biotic. Can be used for laziness to retrieve things you don’t want to get up for, can also be a 1-on-1 fight winner for all your personal protective means, isn’t militarily powerful enough to warrant your immediate kidnapping and dissection, and would have peaceful uses like getting a job as a crane. If you could lift and manipulate a couple tons in an awkward spot, you’d have a job for LIFE.

  23. Ultramandalore says:

    The best single superpower I’ve ever heard of belonged to an obscure X-men character named Prodigy/David Alleyne, Basically Prodigy had the power to telepathically copy the the total knowledge and skills of anyone nearby, so you could become an expert in physics by attending a physics conference, a master political campaigner by attending a major party conference, etc. just with this power you could amass enough scientific and engineering expertise to basically invent a post-scarcity society and enough political and economic expertise to convince countries to adopt it.

    1. Zekiel says:

      That’s a good answer.

      Made me recall that in a world with other superheroes, Sylar / Peter Petrelli basically have the best power.

  24. smosh says:

    You can tell people’s age by what they answer for super-power. Young people go for a wide variety, but people above 40 or so will very reliably go for healing, because we all either have some ailments ourselves, or more likely, had to watch a loved one die.

    My second choice is a Death Note. Not to murder random criminals (like the idiot protagonist of the anime) but for global politics. It would sure be awfully convenient to get rid of a bunch of people who are threatening to cause a third (nuclear) world war right now, or are trying to make the dystopian show/book The Handmaid’s Tale actual reality.

    1. GoStu says:

      If I recall correctly, the protagonist of Death Note needs to write a name in their book at least once every week, or they lose the book. They also needed to picture the face of their target too I think.

      I feel like if you started using that power for global politics you’d rapidly create power vacuums – name some dictator and they snuff it, but then can you name all their enablers? Learn from what, international news reports? Do they include pictures of all these people reliably enough? Can you be certain you’re improving anything or are you just wreaking indiscriminate havoc?

      1. smosh says:

        Light made the mistake of targeting nobodies (and being extremely obvious about what he was doing), which meant he was susceptible to experimentation. As long as no-one figures out that pictures plus names is what’s needed, that should be easy enough to hide. You can’t lead a country without becoming famous.

        Of course we have the advantage of having watched the Anime and knowing about most of the pitfalls. It’s a lot easier to plan a perfect (mass) murder when you got a book to learn from, so to speak.

      2. Retsam says:

        The picturing the face bit is correct, but the “must write a name every 13 days” rule is one of the fake rules that Light has written in the Deathnote to try to trick the investigation team.

    2. damiac says:

      Hey that’s funny. Who needs democracy when you can just murder everyone who doesn’t see things your way. You seem like a real peach.

      Handmaid’s tale is close to reality in some places in the world, but the US is not one of them. Get a grip, go touch grass.

      1. smosh says:

        I personally know over thirty people who had to flee from a war zone in Europe recently. I’m not quite sure how you think that’s not real, or why I should hesitate to stop a war if I could, even if it meant murdering a couple famous tyrants in countries that aren’t democracies.

        Is a war politics? I wouldn’t call it politics that my co-workers had to evacuate from Kyiv. I’d call it a tragedy.

        1. damiac says:

          You actually literally said “global politics” but that wasn’t the part I was really annoyed by. More the “handmaid’s tale” comments. You must realize you’re uh… dancing on a super explosive political topic there…

          Obviously this is not the place to get into that, but I think murder is a rather strong reaction that would be unlikely to improve things for many people.

        2. pseudonym says:

          Still, murder isn’t the answer. What if a certains dictator’s inexplicable sudden death leads his cronies to believe that they are under threat and retaliate with nuclear missiles?

          Besides those practical concerns there are major ethical concerns as well. To put it in Star Wars terms: you’ll have become the very thing you swore to destroy.

  25. David F. Ellrod, Sr says:

    @Shamus: If all those people to be healed are passing through a single room, there’ll be an awful lot of crowding. Might be able to improve throughput if some enterprising sorts cut a hole through the roof and lowered the occasional person down on a mat :)

  26. damiac says:

    I’m sorry, but isn’t the objectively correct answer to the super power question “Genie powers”? If I can say it as one thing, it counts as one super power right?

    Or “Ability to do anything”. Something along those lines. Man, it’s like those fools that find a genie and never think to wish for powers, or more wishes, and just waste them on stupid shit like money, or reversing the unexpected awful effects of the previous wish…

  27. Killjoy says:

    If I were able to choose any power, no matter how broken it was, I’d always default to what God is supposed to be – omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence

    Omnipotence however is about the most boring answer one can give. It’s “the power to get more powers”, wishing for more wishes, etc. So let’s rule that one out just so there can be anything interesting to do

    Omniscience is very tempting but the immediate problem I come up with is figuring out whether the universe is deterministic or not. If it is, you were meant to get omniscience at that point anyway and thus your future actions are already laid out for you, regardless of your future knowledge. If it isn’t, you’re effectively the only one with free will still, given knowing everything means you know what actions anyone else will take, and only you can change that. Could get nihilistic very fast

    Omnipresence is my go-to, but with limiters or control over it. Being everywhere physically all the time would just destroy the world, but having your conscience anywhere in the world at any time means you can experience all the new things being created that one individual really doesn’t have time for. If you could also have multiple physical bodies in different places at the same time, you could potentially learn as much as there is to learn, and maybe even innovate with current knowledge. Since you could have multiple bodies you’d effectively be immortal, and perhaps you could choose to experience all kinds of life there are to experience, from rags to riches. It’s the one choice with the most possibilities I can think of while still keeping things very human in scope

    1. Damiac says:

      Yeah I guess omnipotence is just the better version of genie powers isn’t it…

      Omniscience is an interesting one, as it sort of implies that you’d know how to do whatever it was you wanted to do anyway, and you’d know how it was going to turn out. I don’t think it really works without a deterministic universe though. Otherwise what, you just know the odds in advance? That’s hardly omni anything! There does seem to be a lot of short story potential to the idea though.

      Omnipresence without omnipotence or omniscience is an interesting thought experiment. I guess being everywhere doesn’t mean necessarily understanding everything you’re present for. That’s kind of the hardest one to imagine. Omnipresence sort of implies being the universe. Like… if the godlike being is the same thing as the universe, then by default it’s all three omnis. Just being everywhere without the other aspects is hard to even imagine as a concept.

      Your limited version is interesting though. It’s kind of like astral projection combined with the powers of multiple man. And that’s limited enough that you could probably make an interesting story out of it.

      1. Syal says:

        I don’t think it really works without a deterministic universe though. Otherwise what, you just know the odds in advance? That’s hardly omni anything!

        Even without knowing the future, it would still imply perfect knowledge of the past. That’s always cool.

        I guess being everywhere doesn’t mean necessarily understanding everything you’re present for.

        It’d be like watching a million televisions at once. I can barely pay attention to two.

      2. Lino says:

        It’d be like watching a million televisions at once. I can barely pay attention to two.

        *insufferable pedantry incoming*

        Which is why omnipresence is useless without the superhuman mental capacity to process all of that information at once.

        Still, it’s a really interesting thought experiment, and you can take it in a lot of different directions. What I thought of at first was a dystopian fantasy (or even modern-day) setting where the bad guy is a tyrant who has the power of omnipresence, and is extremely paranoid about losing power. So he’s constantly monitoring all of his subjects for the slightest hint of disobedience, which is always met with a gruesome end.

        So, the Resistance has to communicate and coordinate with each other using seemingly mundane phrases and gestures to communicate with each other. It would be like 1984, but taken to the Nth degree, mixed with the language of the Bene Gesserit from Dune.

        Hmmm. Come to think of it, it just sounds like a shitty version of 1984. Part of the brilliance of that book was how we never found out whether Big Brother was an actual person (that was actually the point). In the version I was proposing, you’d pretty much have to put a face on the villain.

        I don’t know, maybe it could work. What was your idea for a short story using this power? Because there are definitely a lot of directions you can take it.

      3. Killjoy says:

        In retrospect, I feel kind of silly proposing a power that only really works with several buts added, while completely dissing omniscience. With limiters it could probably be real fun to tinker too – maybe knowledge only comes of conscious attempts at knowing something (say, you want to know about mountain climbing, and then suddenly you do) and is limited to what we currently know as a species. However, technical knowledge does not mean muscle memory or even the preparedness to do something, much less being given the chance to. Imagine someone who knows how to solve world hunger, but they can’t get a real platform to explain that or put it to action. It’s not all that omni, but neither was what I proposed for omnipresence

        It still wouldn’t be what I’d choose (I’m just really into the idea of living several different lives as per my concept above) but it does sound interesting in a different way

  28. SidheKnight says:

    1) Favorite planet in the solar system (other than Earth)?

    Tough one. Depends on the criteria I suppose.
    Favorite to live in? As in, a space colony? Mars, I suppose. It’s the more amenable for that sort of thing.
    Favorite as in, which planet’s existance I appreciate the most other than Earth? Jupiter. That gigantic space vacuum cleaner has probably saved us from mass extinction via asteroid impacts that we can ever know.
    Favorite as in, pretties? Saturn! Closely followed by Uranus

    2) Blue? Or Orange?

    Blue. I like orange, but if I had to look at only one color for the rest of my life, blue is easier on the eyes.

    3) Do you speak any other languages? If so, which?

    I speak English in addition to Spanish.

    4) Favorite ice cream flavor?

    Hard to choose, but I guess chocolate never fails. So that.

    5) What is your preferred IDE (Visual Studio, NetBeans, Eclipse, etc.)?

    I have only ever done serious work with Visual Studio, so maybe I’m biased. But I really like Visual Studio.

    6) Do you have a favorite flag? If so, which?

    Another tough one. I really like the flag of my country (Argentina) but if I have to pick a favorite it would probably be a tie between the flag of Barbados and the flag of Wales.

    7) Which lifestyle would you say is best: hunter-gatherer or agrarian?

    Agrarian. It’s better for sustaining larger levels of population and building modern civilizations. Even though hunter-gatherers probably had more free time and were somewhat healthier. Also, no internet and videogames in hunter-gatherer world.

    8) Which would you rather be killed by: a Predator or a Xenomorph?

    A Predator, for reasons similar to Shamus. Less chances of having a chest-burster, and Predators seems slightly less gross than Xenomorphs.

    9) Pizza? Or Sandwich?

    I agree with Shamus reasoning for Sandwich, but I don’t think the question was about only being able to eat one of these, just which one you like the most. And thus I’ll go with Pizza.

    10) What superpower would you want to have in real life?

    Another tough one. I guess I’ll go with invulnerability or eternal youth. Or both?

    11) What was your favorite cartoon when you were a child?

    It’s hard to pick just one, but I’ll go with Spider-Man The Animated Series fromm the 1990s.

    12) When you park your car, do you just pull into the spot & back out later, or do you back into the spot & pull out later?

    I don’t have a car, so I can’t give a meaningful answer.

    13) Apples? Or Oranges?

    Oranges.

    14) When you are reading a book, & you need to mark your place, do you dogear the page, or do you use a bookmark?

    If I have a bookmark, I use a bookmark. If I don’t have one, I use a pen, or a random piece of paper or cardboard, or whatever is at hand.

    15) Bro, do you even lift? If so, how much?

    No.

    16) When playing a tabletop RPG, what is your preferred character class?

    I’ve never played a tabletop RPG, although I always wanted to, but I suppose I’d play a wizard type, mostly for roleplaying reasons.

    17) In science fiction, do you prefer FTL drives (Star Trek / Star Wars), or gate networks (Star Gate / Mass Effect)?

    Both are fine as long as they’re very well explained and are at least theoretically plausible. I like my sci-fi on the harder side, though without losing the sense of adventure. I really liked Mass Effect 1. Unfortunately the sequels, for all their technical improvements, were intellectually inferior.

    18) Vampires? Or Zombies?

    Vampires. I honestly don’t understand the American obsession with zombies. I used to like them more when I was younger, but I think that was just because of Iron Maiden’s iconic mascot, Bruce.

    Conversely, I wasn’t very fond of Vampires then. But I’ve grown to like the more. They can be classy, sexy, mysterious, and sometimes really scary.

    Sci-Fi author Peter Watts makes a great plausible reimagination of Vampires in his novel ‘Blindsight’ and it’s sequel ‘Echopraxia’.

    19) When you’re at an Asian restaurant, do you use chopsticks?

    I’ve never been to an asian restaurant, but I guess the answer would be yes.

    20) Whatever happened to the stinger on the Diecast? That’s sometimes my favorite part! You gotta reward people who sit through the outro.

    I think this question doesn’t apply to me..

  29. DaveMc says:

    I was *astonished* by the Electra Woman and Dyna Girl link. I mean, how is it possible for there to be a 70s superhero-based TV show that I have never ever *heard of*? Weird. That completely passed me by, despite my being solidly in exactly its demographic (I assume, from that YouTube clip).

  30. EwgB says:

    As far as parking goes, I do it the other way round. That was one of the first lessons my dad gave me after I got my driver’s license. It’s way safer to back into a parking space where the cars (and other things) around you are stationary, rather than backing into traffic. And with modern assistances (parking radar, cameras) it’s even easier. And it’s also a useful skill to have in general.

  31. EJ says:

    This discussion reminds me so much of Scott Alexander’s short story called …And I show you just how deep the rabbit hole goes that I’m breaking the lifelong habit of not posting stuff to share a link to it (which I think many people posting here might like):

    https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/06/02/and-i-show-you-how-deep-the-rabbit-hole-goes

    1. Lino says:

      Thank you so much for sharing! Initially, I was very skeptical of the premise, but once I started reading it, I just couldn’t stop :D

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Can you imagine having Darth Vader as your <i>father</i>?

You can make things bold like this:
I'm <b>very</b> glad Darth Vader isn't my father.

You can make links like this:
I'm reading about <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darth_Vader">Darth Vader</a> on Wikipedia!

You can quote someone like this:
Darth Vader said <blockquote>Luke, I am your father.</blockquote>

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