Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT

WCDT strips 3716-3720 (9th-13th April 2018)

<< < (15/35) > >>

Gyrre:

--- Quote from: Thrudd on 10 Apr 2018, 08:07 ---When it comes to names my solution is a bit of this and a bit of that.
One of several random name generators based on what ethnic flavor I am going for and pick one that catches my fancy or seems to fit the character concept for the story.
The other is a random word generator that then feeds into a fantasy language generator. This is a little harder and usually ends up with a bit of smoothing with a blunt object out to make it more palatable to whomever will be stuck having to try and pronounce it during a convention slot.

Yeah I write/wrote/edited adventure modules for the RPGA as well as some more local conventions back-in-the-day.  :parrot:

--- End quote ---

My game group will be doing a Curse of Straud game soon, and I was thinking of playing as an animated scarecrow. Here's how I got 'Ivan Cob' for his name.

*looking at trinket list*
Hmmm..... 'a set of clothes stolen from a scarecrow', I should see if I can play as an animated scarecrow. No blood, fewer vampire problems. Though, maybe I should just play as a warforged..... A warforged primarily made of tin! Heh, wonderful wizard of Straud. Oh, there's two scarecrows in the Oz books. 'Jack' for a scarecrow is a little on the nose. Maybe Jacob? Shorten it to 'cob'. Just being called 'cob' could be weird. Ivan is probably the Ravenloft equivalent of Jack. Ivan cob.

OldGoat:

--- Quote from: zisraelsen on 10 Apr 2018, 16:46 ---Up to code? is the placement of the main light switch in apartments legally mandated?

--- End quote ---

Some places it is.  It's in the NEC (National Electrical Code), the electricians' bible.  Some jurisdictions adopt it at which point it acquires the force of law, others often paraphrase it.  It may appear under building codes or local fire codes.  OTOH, it may not be mentioned at all.  I assume most of the Boston area is NEC, but I do not know that.

Storel:

--- Quote from: BenRG on 10 Apr 2018, 05:05 ---
--- Quote from: Storel on 10 Apr 2018, 01:12 ---howinhell'd you get into Elliots apartment?
--- End quote ---

The doors in that apartment block seem to have an external electrical keypad to open the lock. It's possible that, with her 'numbers are abstract' mindset, Melon doesn't bother to remember her own door code, she just quickly enters in every possible combination until she gets the right one. That guarantees she has (eventual) access to any apartment in the building.

--- End quote ---

Possible, but seems a little unlikely. If it's a 3-digit code, that's 1000 possible combinations (000 to 999), and if it's a 4-digit code that's 10,000 possible combos -- frankly, I don't think Melon's got enough dexterity to enter that many codes quickly enough to get into the apartment in a reasonable amount of time. (Like, less than half an hour.)

Besides, Roko said Melon knows her door code, and so presumably she knows her own code too.

awgiedawgie:

--- Quote from: Storel on 10 Apr 2018, 18:23 ---Possible, but seems a little unlikely. If it's a 3-digit code, that's 1000 possible combinations (000 to 999), and if it's a 4-digit code that's 10,000 possible combos -- frankly, I don't think Melon's got enough dexterity to enter that many codes quickly enough to get into the apartment in a reasonable amount of time. (Like, less than half an hour.)

Besides, Roko said Melon knows her door code, and so presumably she knows her own code too.

--- End quote ---
I used to work as an auditor in a hotel. The first thing I had to do every night was manually copy the previous year's data onto the current worksheet (until I got tired of having to do that every day, and I wrote the code to automatically pull the data from the previous year's file). It was roughly 350 fields with numbers and decimals, and I could enter them all in less than 5 minutes (yes, that really is faster than one per second). We know that Roko's door code is only three numbers, so assuming that Melon's fingers are at least as fast as mine, she could easily punch in all the possible combinations in less than 15 minutes.


The problem is, all the electronic locks I've ever used will lock you out for a prescribed amount of time (usually between 5 and 15 minutes) if you enter more than a prescribed number of wrong codes (e.g. five tries). I even had one that would lock you out permanently if you entered ten wrong codes before entering the correct code (it locked you out for 15 minutes after the first five, and then you got five more tries before it locked you out permanently). Then the only way to open the lock was to enter the master code, which was a ten-digit code. So regardless of how fast she could enter the codes, it's still almost impossible to accidentally open someone else's door (unless of course she knows the master code).


That leaves the only other possibilities being that A) Melon can electronically "crack" the code without actually entering it (hope Roko doesn't find out), or B) Elliott didn't lock his door after he came in - which is far more likely.

Perfectly Reasonable:
I think Melon would be fine with the concept of the inherent nonexistence of mundane objects. Our deluded meatsack minds endow them with an illusion of reality.
For instance that hard, solid door -- there was a time when it did not exist. There will come a time when it no longer exists. Yet we treat it as if it were eternal.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page