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[Nirur Torir]

Does anyone else find it odd that the US education system so often teaches a story about a drunk getting sealed into a wall for petty revenge?

Why is it important that we all know Montresor's fable?

[MetalSlimeHunt]

"Yes," I replied. "For the love of God."

It's a famous piece of classic English literature and that's what gets taught when you run through the really good American lit, is the short answer. But it is also a genuinely great story, it's certainly the story that I remember most clearly from those days. It's short, it's senseless, and it's thrilling. What more could you ask for?

[Rolan7]

I keep resisting posting this bit of Montressor/Space Station 13 fan "art".  But tonight, well.

Spoiler: I regret nothing. (click to show/hide)

[Ghills]

Does anyone else find it odd that the US education system so often teaches a story about a drunk getting sealed into a wall for petty revenge?

Why is it important that we all know Montresor's fable?

I have literally never heard of this story, and I was in public schools in 4 different states.  Is it a regional thing?

[Rolan7]

It's Edgar Allen Poe!!  I mean, he's Virginian, but that's literally borderline.
He's like "intro to Cthulhu".  Madness inoculation.  Did you at least get The Raven?  Nevermore, and all that?

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I still think it's a crime that none of the Mythos authors get taught in schools, at least no schools that I've ever seen. That'd serve people better than struggling through the impenetrable prose of The Scarlet Letter.

[Rolan7]

I liked the Scarlet Letter, but I only remember the twist.  You're probably right that it took more time than necessary.

Really though...  I always assumed everyone read the Raven (and maybe they did).  But I thought they all got the Cask of Amontillado, too.  And hopefully, The Telltale Heart.
It's a lot like the Cask of Amontillado, in that both are about

Spoiler: Actually this describes a lot of Poe's protagonists (click to show/hide)

Murderers who you might empathize with, without approving of their deeds

They're short stories.  VERY short.  If you read nothing else, please read The Cask of Amontillado
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/poe/cask.html

The Telltale Heart is also really good:  http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/poe/telltale.html

Seriously, this is mythos 101.  Intro to madness.  Know your fundamentals.

[GiglameshDespair]

I still think it's a crime that none of the Mythos authors get taught in schools, at least no schools that I've ever seen. That'd serve people better than struggling through the impenetrable prose of The Scarlet Letter.

I would have probably paid more attention if we'd covered the Colour out of Space in school.

[Parsely]

Assuming you were wearing an RPG warhead prominently on your back, and you decided to put some kind of camouflaged bags over the individual warheads, how badly would that affect the rocket's flight if you needed to fire in an emergency where you had no time to remove it (also assuming you've already removed the safety caps)?

[Sheb]

Assuming you were wearing an RPG warhead prominently on your back, and you decided to put some kind of camouflaged bags over the individual warheads, how badly would that affect the rocket's flight if you needed to fire in an emergency where you had no time to remove it (also assuming you've already removed the safety caps)?

Why don't you spray-paint the warhead in camo colours?

[Arx]

Terribly, I would expect. Your general drag coefficient is going to be shot to all hell, but more importantly the bag is going to whip around and destroy any semblance of accuracy. I wouldn't give you any kind of reasonable odds of hitting anything far enough away that you'd want to.

Could be wrong, of course!

[Parsely]

Why don't you spray-paint the warhead in camo colours?

We don't have any paint?

Terribly, I would expect. Your general drag coefficient is going to be shot to all hell, but more importantly the bag is going to whip around and destroy any semblance of accuracy. I wouldn't give you any kind of reasonable odds of hitting anything far enough away that you'd want to.

Could be wrong, of course!

Take the bags off first. Got it.

[Sheb]

Maybe you could use paper bags that would shred on firing... But I don't see solid fabric bag that flap behind the rockets being safe.

[Parsely]

Paper bags could work. If we used cloth bags they'd have to at least be short enough to not cover the popup fins. Really, in a combat situation you wouldn't fire the RPGs without taking the bags off first, since they have safety caps to keep them from accidentally detonating, and you can't take those off without removing bags first. Unless you're okay with the risk of not having the caps on while you're in combat. Not to mention you usually have lots of advance warning of armor, since they have loud engines and big guns, so there's normally plenty of time to do simple prep work.

[Baffler]

This might be a bit big for this thread, but I'm having some trouble finding the rest of a series of 12 handscrolls titled "The Qianlong Emperor's Southern Inspection Tour." The Met in New York has scrolls 4 and 6 and that's easy to find, but though it mentions that all of them are intact and accounted for those and scroll 7 are the only ones I can actually find pictures of. Are they collected together someplace that I'm just not seeing?