How Many Jobs Could A Bothan Do, If A Bothan Could Do Jobs.

A really confusing explanation

2008-05-20T06:28:00Z

This picture you see is an explanation of a crazy raid Idea I had that probably won't work, I just made this picture and the following explanation to attempt to make sense of it. If you don't know what RAID is this probably isn't your can of beans (not that I'm an expert or anything)

As you can see, each disk is partitioned into 2 equal parts, and each drive is a mirror of one another. On each disk, one of these halves is "used" and the other half is "backup". This setup allows the harddrives to work over seperate pieces of data in order to speed up read rate, while also retaining the full security of RAID 1. The crosshatched, or "backup" areas, are virtually invisiable to the computer, unless one of the disk fails, where the backup on the other disk becomes readable, therefore allowing the computer to continue to function, albeit slower. uhhh... I know that wasn't a very clear explanation, but it's late, and I"ll try to clear it up at some point.

Z's Problem solvers of the week (updated 7/08)

2008-05-01T11:35:00Z

Just something random I thought I'd do.

So, every week I will (try) to make a problem solver or life lessons:

1. Denial can be used in any and all situations.

2. If you're stuttering during and argument, you're probably wrong.

3. Today is the tomorrow you feared yesterday.

4. Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life. (I'm tellin you, TF2 is an obsessive disease)

5. Love is like a roll of tape, it makes two things one.

6. Don't inhale pillows.

7. Follow the dollar.

8. Humans are like slinkies, pretty useless, but really fun to watch fall down stairs.

9. If you do things right, nobody will know you've done anything at all.

What Zurthas Does For A Living

2007-12-07T07:17:00Z

Here's one of Zurthas' missions, made up as I went. Some things may seem outrageous, but it's starwars, and it's me. Enjoy! Oh yeah, it's 3 pages long, just a warning.

A Colonel was addressing a special operations unit about to embark on a mission most of them would not return from. They were in a submerged bunker, armored with multiple feet of reinforced concrete and steel. The Colonel stopped mid-sentence and looked up, a light whistling sound found its way through the armor. Suddenly, a large thump, quickly followed by a loud bang, as part of the roof collapsed onto the troops below. The remaining who were still conscious heard a second, much lighter thump on the roof. A dark figure dropped from the new hole in the ceiling, almost unnoticed. The dazed survivors looked amongst the rubble for the wounded soldiers underneath. Few if any heard the small gasp that came from the head of the room.

The colonel stirred, finally opening his eyes in a dark smoky room, with only one wall lit, just barely. He groaned slightly, realizing painfully that his left leg was broken. The light on the wall responded to the sound by jerking to the left onto the side wall, and then the source faced him, just a narrow strip of light, which then went out. His eyes were not spared the onslaught, as two bright lights, a bit higher then the small strip, and not spaced very far apart, turned on, cutting through the smoke, and bearing down on him.

A low voice mumbled, “well, for effect” and suddenly the two bright lights went out, replaced by a sparkling flare, which split in two, and now he could see his tormentor. The two flares dropped to the ground, revealing a tall, thin figure, encased in armor. The golden visor glinted in the light of the flares. The mysterious figure was holding a small black, highly durable booklet, which had been in the Colonel’s jacket pocket before the meeting. It was their battle plans for the next 5 years.

“He can’t get out of here!” the thought roared through his mind like a TIE fighter. He reached for his e-beacon on his belt. The man looked up from the glowing object on his wrist, realizing what he was doing, and full on dove across the room, landing a fist in the colonel’s face, but it was too late, the hand fell on the emergency button.

Zurthas heard a muffled alarm, got up from where he landed next to the colonel in an attempt to stop him, and jumped through a hole in the wall. He turns on the lights on the top of his helmet, and comes back out with a large cylindrical tank on his back, and holding a flame thrower.

He pulls the flamethrower up, holding it with one hand and resting it against his shoulder, and with resolve seldom seen outside the movie theater, states,” When in doubt, use fire.”

Arriving at the top of a long spiral staircase, with several burning carcasses somewhere behind him, he slowly forces the door open, enough to survey outside. Army personnel are lined up and patrolling, with others obviously searching for the colonel in charge, both groups are assisted by vehicles, heavy and light. Thankfully for Z, the emergency beacon didn’t have a homing chip. He places the flamethrower next to his right thigh, and activates the magnetic clips to hold it. Pulling from his belt several C4 charges, he places them on the door, and then he removes a cardboard tube from his back, mounting it on his shoulder, presses the safety, and fires a single high velocity rocket at the nearest tank through the door. He jumps backwards over the railing, landing a floor down, mid flight he presses the button to detonate the C4 on the door. He races back up the stairs, turns out the door, and begins throwing flames.

His advanced new flamethrower, with a range of over 200m, easily reaches most of the armed personnel in the area, as well as some of the vehicles. The lighter armored ones are out of action almost immediately, but some of the crews in the heavier vehicles aren’t getting cooked alive, and are still providing quite the nuisance. He reclips the flamethrower to his thigh, and grabs two thrown rockets from a clip. Leaning around a corner, he tosses one towards an APC spewing light turbolaser rounds in his direction. The rocket travels about 5m out of Z’s hand, before the rocket ignites and propels it towards the APC, where it impacts with enough force to punch through and kill the operator. With the other rocket, he turns, and seeing a tank slowly coming around a corner, he throws it, attempting to time it so it would hit the turret when it became exposed, but the pop out fins catch the wind and the nose falls, and it skips off the ground, destroying one of the tanks repulsor pods. Now disabled, the tank’s fire from its main cannon is blocked by the building. Seeing how most everybody who was in the courtyard had taken cover in buildings, he ran into what seemed like it would be an armory.

With plenty of small rooms filled with explosives and live rounds, mayhem ensued as soon as he lit the flamethrower. Though looking at the diagnostic screen on the weapon, Z realized he had spent more than most of his fuel in the courtyard, so he disconnected the fuel tank to the actual flame thrower, and dropped the auto-booby trapped fuel tank onto the ground. He attached the flamethrower to his back and pulled the shotgun from the shin attachment. Turning the next corner, he showered the room with BBs and lasers. After clearing what he thought was all the rooms, he returned to the main room to see if he could scavenge any useful weapons.

Scouring among the weapons, he heard a door open, and looked towards the sound. One of the Colonel’s personal guards and two other, much lower ranking guards stepped through the door. The main one, a trandoshan, was wearing what seemed like an awfully ceremonial outfit to be wearing during a one man invasion. Then he realized he was here to fight, one on one, mano a mano. The trandoshan was holding a power hammer, so Zurthas unclicked his belt and bandolier, and also disabled the magnetic weapon clips, so he was left with a machete and his father’s hunting dagger. He placed the dagger in a hideaway compartment in his right bracer. He felt no need to discard his armor, as the trandoshan was too wearing armor, though Zurthas felt confident it was not nearly as good, nor did it cover his face, hands, or feet. Looking down at himself, he activated a feature in his armor he had not used in a long time, the two liquid weapon dispensers in his right bracer lifted their back ends, and two long, brilliantly red feathers emerged. This was no longer about politics; this was a fight of honor.

One of the lesser guards clapped his hands twice, and the trandoshan charged, Z figured it meant go, so he did the same, sidestepping at the last moment, as his opponent went roaring past. The fight went on for a good twenty minutes, Zurthas simply sidestepping more attacks then blocking or giving. The trandoshan suddenly paused and reached under the small cape he was wearing, and pulled out a modified, high power blaster pistol. Z froze, then dodged as the gun went off. Figuring if it was a free for all, he turned, going to one knee as he did, raised his right arm, and activated the pop out mini flame thrower. He grinned under his helmet, and napalm gushed out the tube, but it failed to ignite, his target simply coated in goo. He dove to the side as another shot from the blaster rang off, then jumped up and charged at the dosh, pulling his last flare from his hip. The trandoshan raised his gun for the last time, as Z jumped he lit the flare and jabbed it into his opponent’s face, causing initial pain, before he burst into flames. He about faced the two other guards, reached down while lifting up his right leg, on which his shotgun was situated (he had slyly placed it there when he dodged after his flamethrower malfunctioned) and keeping it attached to his ****, fired it twice. Both guards received all the force of one shot in their stomachs, they died almost instantaneously. He returned to his pile of weapons, and replaced each to its spot.

Peering around the door frame, he saw a conjugation of armored vehicles in front of the building, though they were facing in no particular direction. Stealthing himself, he ran back to the door through which he came from the spiral staircase, and jumped down the stairwell. Arriving where he had left the Colonel, who was still there, or at least his body was, he stepped over the carcass and into where he had stashed his weapons months prior to the attack. He took what things he thought he might need, along with a 2 foot long, 10 inch thick, round topped cylinder, and booby trapped what remained. He slung the SPABTC (Self Propelled Air Burst Tactical Nuke) over his shoulder and headed back up the stairs.

Arriving topside, he scaled a short building, for a vantage point to activate this suicide weapon with. He unstealthed, and leapt off the roof, landing in the middle of a crowd of people and vehicles, at first nobody wasn’t surprised enough to realize who he was, so they all stood in stupor, until he stabbed the SPABTC into the ground, and activated it, in which, they began to grab for their weapons. Zurthas sprinted for cover, behind a pillar on the mayoral building, pulling a book sized box and a waterbottle sized cylinder from his belt, he pressed a button on the cylinder and stabbed it into the box, causing a handle to protrude from each object. He had started his count at 15 when he had initiated the nuclear device, he was now at 3…2…1. The bottom inch of the nuke exploded, igniting the rocket motor in the upper half, which sped strait up to over 500 ft in less then two seconds. Upon hearing the initial explosion, Z had grabbed both handles on the shield booster mechanism, sending millions upon millions of volts of electricity through his suit, which it used to create a ton of more shield power… for about 5 seconds. The nuke exploded at 572 feet above Zurthas and the large group of enemy forces. The 9 kiloton warhead wiped out the entire city.

Zurthas’ boosted shields had held up, though the outside of his armor was glowing red when he stood up. His armor’s radiation filter had kicked in, and he headed out of the flattened, lifeless town, through a mile or two of charred and decimated forrest, and to a pre designated rendezvous point.

Zurthas' Armor

2007-09-23T01:23:00Z

General Description:

-Primary Defence Consists of: Depleted Uranium Inserts cased in several layers of Titanium/Composite/Ceramic armor, with top layer being composite. A plasma and electromagnetic field are bound just under the top layer. 3rd most inside layer consists of aerogel, for thermal and kinetic protection.

-Unarmored areas are protected by synthetic spider silk bound Kevlar

Helmet:

-Contains several types of sensors, including but not limited to radar, FLIR, and night vision

-Visor displays vital signs, battlenet info, and can be overlayed with night vision or FLIR.

- Main computer for the armor is stored in helmet

-Neuro reader plates allow Zurthas to activate suit systems by thinking

Arms:

-Boosted Muscle Motors

-Left bracer contains a 5x2.5 in. screen for controlling suit systems and communications gear among other things

-Left bracer contains a miniature dart launcher

-Right bracer contains a flame thrower and an acid sprayer, with stores of each stored in backpack

-Each bracer has a pop-out blade, measuring 3 in. from where it passes the knuckles

-Right Bicep contains self auto injecting syrums and anti-venoms.
- Left Bicep contains pop-out lights.

-Gloves are Mandolorian Crushgaunts

Chest:

-Has a synthetic spider silk bound kevlar overlay for asthetics.

-contains backup batteries in case of generator failure. can run for 40 mins

Legs:

-Boosted muscle motors

-magnetic holster for a carbine at the shin

-Synthetic muscles don't require outside energy, and are used in event of generator failure.

Boots:

-Kick out knives are stored under the toes

-repulsors built into the sole assist the antigrav jets

Belt:

-Holds such weapons as: dual pistols, explosive charges, and a survival kit

-contains the backup generator for the suit, can run at max power for 10 minutes, with a 25min cooldown time

-Stabilizer clips for backpack

Bandolier:

-Holds such weapons as: grenades, darts (stun, poison, trinqualizer), and explosive charges.

-Clips for the backpack

-Magnetic clips for a rifle at the back

Backpack:

-Contains the main generator for the backpack

-3 hyper pressurized tanks contain oxygen, napalm, and acid

-2 pop-out antigrav jets can hold Zurthas in the air for up to 1 minute with a top speed of 55mph

Jacket:

-An optional excessory to the armor that fits over everything, magnets embedded in certain areas ahear it to the armor, where corresponding magnets lie.

-Consists of synthetic spider silk bound kevlar.

Now Fletch's Turn

2007-07-28T20:13:00Z

Fletchyr Gunflick (Flero Ku'rah) was born as the first child of his family, 4 years after he was born, his only sybling, Zurthas was born. The Gunflick Family lived peacefully in their community outside Anchorhead for many years, until the Empire caught on to a little smuggling business that Fletch and some friends had started to make some dough. at the age of 14 he was forcefully arrested by stormtroopers. There was no trial, he was sent to a jail in bestine, but when he blew a hole in one of the prison cells with a bomb he made in the prison machine shop, he was sent immediatly sent to the Imperial prison on Dathomir. Fletchyr rotted in quite hate for the Empire in the Dathomir prison for 7 years, dead to his family. Finally he got fed up with the jail and he and his cellmates managed to steal a rocket launcher from the Imperial barracks. Fletchyr and most of his cell block escaped, combined killing at least 25 stormtroopers. All of them went in seperate directions, some were hunted down, some weren't. Fletchyr managed to escape on a stolen Rhixyrk starship, which he would use as his own for the rest of his life. Aboard was a large sum of credits, solving another of his problems. He set course for Tatooine, to find his family.

But his family had long ago moved back to Bothawui, and upon finding a different family living in his home, one of his neighbors, very surprised to see him, told him his family moved. So, Fletch set out on the long journey to Bothawui, hoping his family resided on their clan lands, where they would be easy to find. When he arrived, his mother was sick and in the hospital, and he was not allowed to see her. However he could talk to his very surprised father, who told him that the imperials hadn't told them anything about where they put him. The conversation was very awkward as the last time they had seen each other, Fletchyr had been but a young teenager. Now past the drinking age on most planets, it was just weird. So Fletch asked his father was Zurthas was doing these days, the response was that he was in suclusion on Dantooine, which reminded his father that he had sent him the clan armor, which he had been elected to wear. Fletch was slightly mad, as he'd been expected to obtain the armor, but, that's what happens when you go to prison. So again, he set off on a journey, this time to Dantooine.

He ran into some trouble with pirates on his way, delaying his arrival, but he finally got there. Zurthas was surprised to hear the loud whine of military grade starship engines outside his house, he ran outside, ready to blow the hell out of anybody who was here to fight, he instantly dropped his gun when he saw Fletchyr climbing out of the cockpit. He then leaped off the porch and tackled Fletch. He invited him inside for a drink and they talked through the night, about what had happened to them both in the past 7 years. Zurthas showed Fletchyr the clan armor that had arrived but a week ago. Fletchyr remembered two things that he had captured when he was escaping the Imperial prison. He ran out to his ship and came back with a big heavy bag, he unloaded a full set of stormtrooper armor, and then handed Zurthas a pair of smallish, odd looking mandolorian Crushgaunts, which he had determined were crushgaunts on the next thing he pulled from the bag, a stormtrooper bracer, completely crushed, with bits of bone still inside from the wearer's forearm. Fletchyr had already modified the stormtrooper armor to accept his snout and ears, and h began to put it on. Seeing this, Zurthas began to put on his armor, and once he finished, he looked at his gloves, then at the crushgaunts. He slid the gloves off, then put on the mandolorian gloves, he clipped the end to his bracers, forming and airtight seal. They both left the house to go have some fun in their new armor. let's just say there wasn't much wildlife left in the area when they came back.

TOO BE CONTINUED............................................................................................................

D-na na-na na-na na-na na-na na-na na-na Zur-thas!!

2006-09-03T06:47:00Z

Zurthas: A Fact Or ALegend?

Zurthas Gunflick was born into a family of 1 child, his brother. They lived near Anchorhead on Tatooine, living peacefully in support of the rebel alliance. The Empire did not have a strong grip on the far corners of the planets on the far corners of the galaxy. Zurthas, Fletchyr, and their friends enjoyed the thrill of taking down loan Storm Troopers wandering the nearby desert.

One day Zurthas was out by himself on the hills around town, when he saw an Imperial transport sitting on a plateau a few kilometers away. He rushed home only to find his Father on the ground unconscious outside, his mother had been in Anchorhead and wouldn’t be home for a few hours. He went inside to find his brother, looking throughout the house and then in his room. In Fletchyrs room, he found the door busted open, the marks of a struggle all over the room, and a video datapad sitting on his desk. Z picked up the data pad and turned it on, he noticed it was connected to a small camera, which had been smashed. When the datapad turned on, a video popped up, Zurthas watched it intently and saw Fletchyr sitting at the desk saying, ”Whoever finds this, I’m being hunted by Storm Troopers, they found me at home, and are looking for me right now, I don’t know what force they’re authorized to use…”

*An explosion followed by blaster fire*

Fletchyr is now shown on the floor with a Storm Trooper standing over him. The Stormie yelled, “You are under arrest for resistance against the Empire and possession of smuggled goods!” One of the other Storm Toopers Walks up and hands several things to the leader, saying, “Sir, I found these in this room, they are the smuggled good we have been looking for.” At that, They proceed to cuff Fletchyr and drag him out of the room. One of the Stormies smashed the camera at that point.

Zurthas fell back into the chair when the video ended. His mind was racing “What? Fletchyr, gone? How? Smuggled goods? But…” He couldn’t think strait and was beginning to get dizzy.

He woke up to his mother’s voice saying, “Zurthas, are you okay, what happened?” He sat up, he was still in his brothers room, and his head hurt. He had fallen unconscious after watching the video. “What happened in here? Where’s Fletchyr?” His mother asked. Zurthas showed her the video, and she stood there, stunned.

8 long years later, Zurthas had become a renowned spy, known for his disappearing skills worldwide back on Bothawui. His parents had moved back to their home planet, Bothawui, and had gladly been accepted back onto their clan lands. Zurthas though, had moved to Dantooine, into seclusion to practice his martial arts and swords skills.

While at a stop on his way to his new house on Dantooine, Zurthas had come across something rather peculiar. Lodged between two large rocks that appeared to be the remains of an old building, was a sort of shiny cylinder, he took a closer look and attempted to pull it out, but it was stuck. He found a button on its side, so he pressed it. There was a bright flash and he staggered back. He then found the cylinder on the ground, he examined the hole it was stuck in, and saw a large cut with burn marks in the stone next to it. He picked up the cylinder, shrugged, and stuck it in his pack. Only later would he find you that it was a lightsaber. Then he would replace the battery and begin to train himself how to use it.

There came a day when Z woke up early one morning to find a large package on the ground outside near his house. He brought it to his porch and left it there until he had finished several chores after lunch. He finally got around to bringing the package inside the house. When he opened it, he found a note, in his fathers hand writing, reading as so: SHAPE \* MERGEFORMAT

Dear Son,

I hope this package reaches you intact, and that I remember the coordinates of your house (It must be a hassle not having an address). In this package is our clan armor. While you have been in seclusion, the clan voted and picked you to have the armor passed down to. Rendgo, the new leader, has told me to include the following rules in this letter:

You must respect the armor and keep it in excellent condition
You must add at least one feature to the armor
When you retire, the armor must be returned to the clan
You must arm yourself and the armor yourself, nothing is supplied
If anything happens to the armor, you must replace the damaged area or piece
You have been chosen to represent our clan with this armor, you must show politness, fierceness, and you must command respect

Well, as it says, treat it well. Zurthas, please stay safe, for all our sakes.

With Love,

Koe Gunflick

When he was done reading the note, he opened a cabinet in his back room and placed the note in a perfectly sized pocket. He then returned to the box and began pulling out the armor pieces. He first split the very flexible chest armor and slipped it over his tight training shirt. He opened up the bottom of the helmet and slipped it over his head and snout, checking that his ears fit in the built in slots. He began clipping the arm pieces on, and put the gloves onto his long, thin hands. He pulled the pants on and finally put his feet in the boots and clipped all the pieces of everything together. As he did this, he noticed another small box, and one smaller box inside the original box. He pulled both of them out, opened the bigger one, pulling out a bandolier and a belt, and inside the second box was an oxygen tank. Clipping the oxygen tank onto the Bandolier and putting it on over his head, then clipping the belt around his waist, he examined the armor in the mirror.

He went into the back room and opened his weapons cabinet, pulling out 2 DE-10 Pistols, a SFOR Carbine, a LD-9 Rifle, 5 thermal detonators, 3 flashbangs, 10 miniature smokebombs, several trinqualizer darts, his 3 samurai swords (2 short and 1 long), his trusty dagger, and finally a black pocket containing his lightsaber. He clipped the pistol holsters to the belt, along with the swords, the lightsaber, and the dagger. The darts go into a small pocket, also on the belt, his thermal detonators fit into slots on the top of the bandolier, by his shoulder, the flash bangs clipped down the front of the bandolier, and the smoke bombs went onto the belt area of the bandolier. His rifle used a sort of clip to attach to the back of the bandolier, and his carbine had a holster oh his right shin. He then noticed a screen on the left bracer, so he turned it on.

He was able to stealth himself, turn on his night, infrared, and ultraviolet vision, the armor contained a life form sensor, and he could see a map of life forms in the area. The armor also contained a built in shield generator, reflective plating, built in comm. Unit, air purification unit, and several other tricks and sensors.
Figuring he’d take the burden off his shoulders and make his modification now, he took off the armor. He already had a great idea, he went to a chest in one of his rooms, and pulled out a miniaturized flame thrower and acid stream launcher. He then took the right bracer of the armor and cut out a piece of it, and began to build in the two weapons. He added arming and firing buttons, then added two hyper compressed flat tanks of napalm and acid in the back of the chest plate.

Too Be Continued…………..Hehealdjfask