Ask the mods anything

@ArmadilloEater  
I guess I’ll ask for it in 20 years when I turn 42, if I remember and still alive.
 
 
@Cyan Lightning  

@Cyan Lightning  
I thought it was given to people whose email accounts use fake names, hence that they are a mystery?

@Zaknel  
No.
 
It’s for people who repeatedly demonstrate the need for written instruction.

@Archonix  
>It’s for people who repeatedly demonstrate the need for written instruction.  
Aw damn, if I do that now the mods will know what I want.

@Archonix
 
As I understand it, it’s essentially one step below a duck badge, though not everyone who has a duck badge also has a Mystery badge.
 
Also, why is it always marked as “Mystery Badge #1”, even though there are no other Mystery Badges?

When is the best time to wear a striped sweater?

@Count Adramélekh Sear  
According to some, It’s Always the best time~  

@Zeb  
Do you realize who made that image?

@Jarkes  

 
That you know of.
 
@Zeb  
Vertical stripes are slimming, horizontal stripes make you invisible apparently.

@Count Adramélekh Sear  
Which is why the answer should have been obvious to you~ =V
 
[And no, I didn’t look at the uploader. heh.]

What was the last book/piece of fiction you read?
 
New number plz

@Marx  
Do fanfics count?
 
78

@Marx
 
The Master and Margarita.
 
42.

@LightningBolt  
Yee
 
@Mildgyth  
I’ve never heard of that :o

@Marx  
Surface Detail, by Iain Banks.
 

 
And now of course thanks to the ending I’m going to have to re-read Use Of Weapons. Because wot.
 
Also 32766

@Ciaran  
Can you pick a favorite out of Consider Phlebas, The Player of Games, and Use of Weapons?  
Any preference towards the older or the latter books in the series?

@Shayzorr  
Out of that set I enormously prefer Use of Weapons. It’s one of my favorite books of all time. Like, it’s on my shelf next to “Lord Of The Rings”. But - it’s not a book that I really recommend very often. It’s like Feersum Endjinn - a really fantastic novel if that is the kind of novel you want to read, and if it isn’t the kind of novel you want to read it then will literally do you an injury.

@Ciaran  
Consider Phlebas got me out of a (relatively short) era of not reading. I love it. Use of Weapons had one of those endings that almost made me punch a wall. I haven’t been able to reread it. Perhaps I should try to see what it feels like today.  
Feersum Endjinn’s writing style kept me away at the time, and at some point I forgot that it existed.
 
Since this is an ask thread; ever read Cordwainer Smith?

Who could I ask about how much I’ve donated in total up to now?
 
I’m eager to receive my first donation gem :3

@Shayzorr  
At his best, Iain Banks had a habit of showing you the ending you expected, followed by the ending you didn’t expect. Followed by a very clever ending that adds a new twist to the book and leaves you very startled yet satisfied and absolutely pleased that you’d read the book all the way through. Then he always added one more paragraph or sentence at the very end that is the true ending that makes you question your life choices and stare at a wall for a half hour wondering what the fuck just happened.
 
FUCKING SPOILER Like, finding out that one of the characters in Surface Details was that same reprehensible horrible son of a bitch from Use Of Weapons and NOW we have a story here, right? On top of which I’m not sure which book to reread first now.
 

 
Ooo … interesting. I hadn’t heard of them - thank you for the tip I’ll check it out.
 
@wumbl3  
You could probably sent an email to ops (contact info is on the Contact page linked on the bottom of every page) to find out. At the least they will be able to forward it to the right person.

@wumbl3  
56.

Favourite live action TV show?

@Moonatik  
Firefly. Then Babylon 5 because I got to touch that production a little. Also the show was awesome, but being able to stick my finger in something always makes it sparkle a little more.

@Ciaran  
whaaaaaaaat? For real? What did you finger?

@Archonix  
Basically, serendipity happened and everyone got something nice out of it.
 
The show was still in development and needed those big backlit displays and fake computer screens and windows showing scenic views of the interior of the station for the sets - but their budget was, like, Doctor Who money. And the place I was working at needed to print thousands of feet of “something” to test new printers we were trying to create, for a market that didn’t exist, and we didn’t have a budget for test files or any real-world examples of how people might use what we were trying to make.
 
We had helped with some other sets for shows just because we had tons of toys and no adult supervision, and we were trying to figure out how to make large format printers do more than print blueprints and charts - the stuff that eventually became the “DisplayMakers” at Kinkos and other print shops. This is back when printers were still, like, $20,000 each and a “big” computer for graphics design had 24 megs of memory.
 
So, we had rooms full of wide format inkjet printers that were little more than CAD printer chassis with some “gee, I hope we get this working” hardware and software duct tapped to them, and a warehouse full of “can we print on this?” plastic ranging from tyvek to high quality canvas and sheets of polycarbonate, and just about everything in between - but we had to figure out how to get print heads to work for days instead of hours, and only put down enough ink to make a color show on plastic, and also be able to dry on it, without melting the media we were printing on, and get color matching and dry times figured out, and all of that.
 
Somehow someone working on the set designs for B5 knew someone who we’d done weird printing for in the past, like maybe through Disney or Adobe something like that, and they gave us stuff they wanted printed big - like, 10’ wide and 100’ long, and they wanted it on backlit frosted plastic, which we were only just starting to play with. They gave us a bunch of files that turned out to be signage for the station, and the background control panels that actors didn’t interact with, and views of the station that you can see through the windows in offices and hallways.
 
All that kind of set stuff was super expensive to do back then, like make things look like flat screens, or big displays or that didn’t change. Basically it had to be screen printed or painted by hand.
 
The files they sent were all really big and complex images in Illustrator or Canvas with lots of gradient fills, and they did a good job of breaking our RIP or screwing up the printers, so we made that what we tested with for, like, months. Anything that successfully dried (read: the media didn’t just melt into a puddle on the floor and the printer or the RIP didn’t catch fire) we would send to the set folks. They would give it a try and let us know how it worked, or if it didn’t, and we’d print some more.
 
Eventually they were sending us new stuff every week, and we were sending them 100’ rolls of printed output as we figured out how to get the printers to not catch fire or explode. And as the sets aged we got to see how well the media stood up to “normal” wear and tear under bright lights.
 
We didn’t know what the show was - the rumor was that it was “something French”, and we could see it was something science fiction-y.
 
Then the show hit the air and we all saw those big backlit displays and literally freaked the fuck out. We had big team viewings of the show and partied until everyone passed out.
 
Good times.
 
So - Babylon 5 had a lot to do with why those large format inkjet printers with the “never run out” print heads at print shops happened the way they did :) And it’s why we have plastic that you can print on with soy sauce based inks that look solid when you look at them from one side but you can see through them from the other side, like on store windows.
 
It’s like the advances we got from the space age, in a future space age. But instead of aluminum and Velcro we got full-window liquor store ads for beer. So …