The Factory Floor - 2016-02-11

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7:31 AM

@HDE226868 Yeah, it seems like you'd actually get comparable tidal influences.

I completely missed out on the starspree .(

3 hours later…

10:05 AM

I often feel frustrated when that happens... the review queue shows a [4] but none for me. You guys should be reviewing some :-)

Worldbuilding Meta

10:57 AM

0

Q: VTC on a question with a bounty

Today, during my early morning stroll around the site, I found this question: Super A.I. trapped in an R/C car. Can it escape? It is blatantly off-topic, since it's about the actions of a single character. However, it got a bounty. As such, we can't vote to close, so it not just stays open as...

discussion closing-questions bounty

11:25 AM

@ArtOfCode I pushed some changes to SE-Chatbot today, have you pulled them to karma?

@overactor Nope. Karma's still on the CE3 version :)

say wha?

Pro updated SEC to CE6 a few days ago, which is in the twitter bot, but not in Karma.

I know, you should update karma though

2 hours later…

1:04 PM

→ 373 messages moved to Trash

boom

Thanks, good idea

That's just about the biggest batch operation I've ever done. Now to create a bot room.

I'm not sure how you even did that off hand

ahh move/delete messages

found it

not needed to do much chat moderation :)

Worldbuilding's Robots

A room for Worldbuilders to play around with bots without anno...

We're all friendly round here, that's why

@PavelJanicek ^ there we are

and you were asking me why I did not want to play with it on the election chat ;-)

1 hour later…

2:28 PM

OK, I just took a shot at the worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/35715/… question. Does my answer seem logically reasonable? I had to write it twice and read the question 3 times to understand what they were getting at. I think I'll try to edit the question to help clarify

oh man, that's some Portal-level puzzling

@bowlturner I want to say you're wrong, but I still can't figure out what you're saying, so you're probably right

crap. I was hoping it made sense. B

@bowlturner I understand it

You have a dome in space with a portal in the base/floor. On earth you have a pillar with a portal ring around it at the top. as you lower the ring, the piller goes through the portal and "rises" up in the dome, pushing the dome fabric up

basically the first part I was saying if you put the one portal at the bottom of the piller, it has no base and gravity will pull it through until it the other end has just as much gravity pulling on it.

@HDE226868 Yeah if you want to answer I will of course take a look.

2:40 PM

Right. you'd have to have a crane or something to keep the pillar from just falling through, and since momentum is conserved it'll be falling through with a lot of force/momentum

@AndyD273 right. So putting the portal at the TOP of the pole is the better option.

But the pole would still need to be able to support the weight of the dome, as well as be tall enough to actually reach into space.

(which I didn't mention in my answer

@bowlturner Well, it wouldn't have to reach into space, that's what the portal is for. Unless I'm not understanding you

Well the question said he pushed the dome into space

@bowlturner My hands HURT this morning

Technically, the pole doesn't move at all...

2:47 PM

Didn't we have a question like this some time ago?

Hmm, I may need to try to re read that question

@AndyD273 I had to reread it twice while trying to answer

@overactor I do know we had some portal questions before

about that portal question, what happens if the dome hits into something in space?

like what?

like a giant deer

just a big stupid space deer in the road

does the portal feel the collision?

2:51 PM

I kind of think he's operating from a flawed premise... but I can't really tell :)

15

Q: Gravitational effects of portals at different heights

Summary: I am looking for a portal transportation mechanism that is consistent with the laws of thermodynamics. Portals (or wormholes or gateways, something that connects two different locations in space-time), are usually portrayed with interesting side-effects: When one of the portals ...

science-based physics travel

@AndyD273 that was part of my answer, "you're not doing it quite right"

@AndyD273 what I'm getting at is that I think it spontaneously creates momentum

I remember hurting my brain trying to make a drawing of gravitational potential lines because of that question

I think they are similar but don't really think they are dups

2:54 PM

@bowlturner agreed

I have to wonder if anyone else has ever got to use the term Gravitational buoyancy before! :)

@bowlturner Probably not.

Maybe I should copyright that! ;)

Let me know what the Patent Office says when you file the paperwork :)

@bowlturner That sounds like a Fine thing to do...

3:01 PM

Just reread my answer. I said gravitational equilibrium, not buoyancy...

@Green you can copy write anything, they aren't Patents... :P

@bowlturner No copyright for yoUUUU!

@Green actually you are correct, since every answer given is actually in creative commons...

you still keep the copyright... it's just that people are allowed to use it

@bowlturner technically you can't ... there's no such thing as copy write :p

ah, I've never read real deep into that stuff

@TimB :P I said it correctly the first time!

and any way copyright started on things that were written!

4:01 PM

@bowlturner Thank you Lawrence Lessig for that.

1 hour later…

5:11 PM

Have a good day everyone, I am out early...wife's bday...going to try and make this:

dessarts.com/2010/07/cherry-almond-tart.html

...I don't really bake.

later!

@bowlturner Oh hey. I learned something last night. Anvils higher off the ground lead to more scale burns...just fyi.

@James interesting.

or is it an ID ten T error? ;)

user153821

5:33 PM

Bot started.

user153821

Bot started.

$>hello

user153821

@DaaaahWhoosh Command not found. Did you mean: help?

nope :)

$>listcommands

user153821

5:37 PM

@overactor alive, utc, listcommands, help, cat, exec, read, getcurrentusers, ping, flip, doubleflip, xkcdrandomnumber, xkcd, random, randomint, randomchoice, shuffle, detectlang, translate, *translationchain, *translationswitch, *stop, *disable, *enable, *ban, *unban, +delete, *module, define, givepoints, +adminpoints, getpoints, star, pin, unstar, unpin, +givemedal, showmedals

$>kill Superman

user153821

@Samuel Command not found. Did you mean: flip?

@KarmaBot Can you do flips? Front or back?

@KarmaBot Cause I think you mean flops, lots of flops.

$>help flip

user153821

@DaaaahWhoosh This command will flip anything you throw at it. Syntax: $>flip something

5:39 PM

$>flip yourself

user153821

@DaaaahWhoosh (づ'益')づ︵ɟןǝsɹnoʎ

$>flip @DaaaahWhoosh

user153821

@Samuel (づಥДಥ)╯︵ɥsooɥMɥɐɐɐɐ◖@

Ok, flip him back.

$>flip (づಥДಥ)╯︵ɥsooɥMɥɐɐɐɐ◖@

user153821

@Samuel (╯ಥ.ಥ)ง︵@DaaaahWhoosh︵╯(ಥДಥづ)

5:41 PM

He came back... different...

o_o the things I've seen...

ಥ.ಥ

:(

:C

8C

$>xkcd black

user153821

@Green Not enough arguments.

user153821

@Green Command contains invalid characters.

user153821

5:43 PM

:27502760 Command contains invalid characters.

$>xkcd 1001

user153821

'ARE YOU TURNED ON YET?' 'I DON'T THINK SO--ARE YOU?' 'MAYBE A LITTLE!' 'OK, FIVE MORE MINUTES.'

$>givemedal HDE

user153821

@Green Command not found. Did you mean: givemedal?

user153821

@Green You don't have the privilege to execute this command.

5:46 PM

HAHAHAHHAH!!! This thing is hilarious!

$>random

user153821

@DaaaahWhoosh 0.10444423426039262

Shouldn't he be named Slartibotfast?

@DaaaahWhoosh Nice, I just found out how I'm going to answer my next hard science question.

@Samuel Random numbers usually don't provide sufficient answers to questions.

@DaaaahWhoosh sure they do, all you need is a WAG in front...

;)

5:52 PM

@DaaaahWhoosh If you put an equation in front it usually works out.

Related to a discussion last evening, this is one I consider a cool question. worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/35644 and I worked fairly hard to get a good answer (not claiming it's great). But the question doesn't garner much attention from the greater community. But 'what does a Minotaur eat?' gets thousands of views.

sad IMO

@bowlturner That is one of the longer answers I've seen from you.

@Samuel I have a few. I tend to be terse though

As I said I liked the question

@bowlturner It's a winning strategy.

I have a meeting right now. Later

6:05 PM

@bowlturner I like that question too. It looks well thought out and reasonable. (haven't looked at any answer yet.)

6:21 PM

@bowlturner It could be because the question is kind of long, and it would be hard to verify answers as plausible. Plus I feel hard-science questions might not generally get as many answers because of the higher burden of proof that answers need. Where as "what does a Minotaur eat" just requires a good imagination and some common sense.

The best I could come up with for an answer to that question is "Sure, why not. Life would be poor, and centered around the warm spots..." Basically the short version of your answer

$>xkcdrandomnumber

user153821

@AndyD273 Command not found.

user153821

@AndyD273 4 // Chosen by fair dice roll. Guaranteed to be random.

Huh, that wasn't what I expected

@AndyD273 That command, with that output, is useful exactly once.

I still don't understand its claim 'guaranteed to be random'

6:26 PM

I was actually kind of hoping that it would return a random XKCD...

@AndyD273 me too.

@DaaaahWhoosh Well, the initial dice role was random, so that should be good enough.

Hmm, so to figure out how to feed the (output of the random function) mod (the number of xkcd comics) into the xkcd function...

I'd be so impressed if Karmabot supported piping of commands.

$>xkcd random % 300

user153821

@AndyD273 Command contains invalid characters.

6:30 PM

worth a shot

I think I saw someone get that command to work earlier

maybe check the bot room

$>xkcd {{randomint}}

user153821

@AndyD273 xkcd.com/5011904488

closer

$>help randomint

user153821

@AndyD273 Returns a random integer. Syntax: $>randomint [ [ min ] max ]

6:34 PM

$>xkcd {{randomint 1 1600}}

user153821

Took me five tries to find the right one, but I managed to salvage our night out--if not the boat--in the end.

That's the one you want

@ArtOfCode I almost had it

Pretty much, yeah

can karmabot return primary election results, and make predictions based on bayesian updating of all past SO elections?

6:35 PM

@SerbanTanasa um. No.

useless

:)

Pretty much :)

we should put it up as a challenge on prog-golf

has to fit in under 50 lines of JQuery

2 hours later…

8:14 PM

anyone ever written a program for playing rock-paper-scissors? I'm wondering how difficult it would be to get it to win most of the time

@DaaaahWhoosh I must admit I have done that. But I have to do a lot of optimization before it can beat even.

I'd think that a random number generator would win about 1/3 games, I was thinking you could log results and make new moves based on moves of the past

but then I realized that a good player will realize you're doing that and use it against you, perhaps to the point that the program never wins

@DaaaahWhoosh There you have the RPS complexity paradox: Any strategy can be beaten or is equal to a simpler strategy.

yeah... but does that mean that the best strategy is to not have a strategy, and just throw at random?

because if you have no strategy, your opponent can't have a counter-strategy...

but if your opponent does have a strategy, it's to your benefit to discover it, so you can assure your victory

8:30 PM

And a random strategy is equal in performance against a fixed "rock,rock,rock..." strategy...

@Hohmannfan, not against a human

in repeat games

I meant that if one of the players play purely random, you come out even playing with a fixed throw

oh, ok

if one player plays random, every strategy comes out even

but if both sides have a non-random strategy, one can take advantage over the other

so if you're not smarter than your opponent, go random and have a 50-50 chance of winning. But if you are smarter, it's to your benefit to think it through

actually with rock paper scissors you have 1/3 chance against random win and 1/3 chance tie.

8:36 PM

One strategy that works good against humans the first time is saying "stone, stone, stone" before the throw. They get so confused that they forget to change. You chose paper of course.

so a 66% chance you don't lose

@bowlturner I guess I was assuming there'd be a tiebreaker round

@bowlturner 33% win, 33% draw, 33% lose, and 1% kick em in the fork and run

The % is the same at each round

@bowlturner In that case, I'm talking about a series of rounds (with odd # of elements)

8:40 PM

I suppose if you consider that the ties don't count, then yes it does work out to be 50/50

50% chance of winning the most games in 2x+1 rounds, where x is an integer

or, I guess there's a diminishing chance they're all ties

ooh, I wonder if there's a nice-looking function for that

@Hohmannfan if you went "Stone Stone Stone" with me the first time I play, I'd go scissors.

@SerbanTanasa :)

@SerbanTanasa I meant saying "stone,stone,stone" out load at the first throw, instead of "rock,paper,scissors"

@Hohmannfan, yeah, I'd assume you were about to go paper.

Like that old game:

What color is your fridge at home?

8:43 PM

maybe he was going to go rock and call your double bluff though

competitive RPS players normally work out their move sequence in advance

@SerbanTanasa I don't understand, what is the game?

Somebody must create a RPSMMORPG

(Does't work as well now, but all fridges used to be white when i was a kid)

Followed by the next question: What does a cow drink?

90% of people would instinctively respond ....

(well, what does a cow drink?)

milk... but that's wrong?

Yeah

Water

8:47 PM

yeah, huh

but since we primed your neurons with "white" "fridge" "cow" "drink"

I like to drink vodka lemonade with my cow...

milk is automatically activated

I think milk was activated when you said 'cow'

Well, the extra reinforcement helps

8:49 PM

yeah, I guess it catches the outliers

same with the stone stone stone

fun fact, though, I thought my fridge was white, but I think it's actually silver

yeah, the chrome colored fridges open whole new areas

What does your cow drink? - Mercury!

2

@SerbanTanasa I'm trying so hard not to laugh right now... I think I sound like I'm sobbing

that frozen world question is indeed excellent

I've seen a similar trick done where you get someone to say Post 5 times fast and then ask them what they put in a toaster

8:55 PM

user image

frozen world question?

6

Q: Feasibility of conventional life evolving an a sub-zero climate

My basic question is could life 'as we know it' (carbon DNA/RNA based, using water as the main solvent in metabolic processes) evolve on a planet where the temperature ranges from 16 degrees Celsius (at the equator in summer), to -120 Deg. C at the poles in Winter. For anyone wanting more elabor...

reality-check evolution hard-science

yep, I think she did a great job

@Hohmannfan where are the lizzard and spock?

user image

9:37 PM

@James Okay, cool.

Grrr. "Sun"$\neq$"star". "Solar System"$\neq$"planetary system"$\neq$"stellar system". Get it right, people!

lol

There was even a question on this on Astronomy a while back, which got me hung up on semantics.

that's a result of mass media education... and laziness

I say apathy and ignorance.

Neither of which are good.

@HDE226868 well before you answer and steal my 'accepted answer, I need one more upvote today to get my 200.

9:47 PM

I should flag when I see plagiarism, right?

@bowlturner You'd most likely get an upvote, anyway.

I assume you mean the question I asked James about?

no the one you edited for planetary system

@HDE226868 well it's hard to judge... uncited is probably bad. But depending how much of the post that concerns, I have mixed feelings about it.

I also noticed that I don't have a link for the article I quoted from in there either

one might assume they haven't seen the other answer...

@bowlturner Oh. I was thinking of passing on that one. I have no wish to go into the equations of motion for that setup; it's way too complicated. And your answer's fine. Plus, my snarky comment response was "Just scale it up. The equations of motion aren't much different; just change the semi-major axes and masses." In other words, I find it boring.

@bilbo_pingouin In this case, it's a four-line answer by a new user (well, this is from about nine months ago) with just the plagiarized text and no attribution.

The user's only answer, too.

9:50 PM

ya, that sounds like a flag

seconded

Flagged.

@HDE226868 BTW does that mean you're going answer the sub-zero climate one?

@bowlturner Which one's that?

the one Tim has posted above

9:52 PM

This one?

54 mins ago, by Tim B

6

Q: Feasibility of conventional life evolving an a sub-zero climate

My basic question is could life 'as we know it' (carbon DNA/RNA based, using water as the main solvent in metabolic processes) evolve on a planet where the temperature ranges from 16 degrees Celsius (at the equator in summer), to -120 Deg. C at the poles in Winter. For anyone wanting more elabor...

reality-check evolution hard-science

yes

Nah, out of my area. And again, not too interesting to me.

It didn't seem like your baliwick but your other comment made me wonder

Interesting, but not interesting enough for me to answer.

@bowlturner Nah, I had been looking at an older question of James's.

9:54 PM

Oh, ya, I saw the comments, but didn't look into it

8

Q: Can you add a mini moon to Earth?

So we have had multiple questions on having multiple moons and this is another. I did check and didn't find questions that covered this specific setup. I have an earth-like world I am working on, including a similar moon. In my world I would like to add a second smaller moon that is about ha...

hard-science earth-like moons

You also had your answer there accepted, so I thought you had been referring to it before.

ah, I'll have to look at that one again then.

no battery any more... enjoy the rest of the day :-)

Oh, @James, can you answer the question I posed in a comment?

Good question. Would an answer have to take into account the formation of the extra moon? Earth's Moon formed from a giant impact, and capture would require interaction with another body - an unlikely chance. That would seem to indicate another impact of some sort, which could change the planet quite a bit. — HDE 226868 Aug 26 '15 at 21:49

Well I expect if you answer that one, I'll lose the accepted. But it won't be the first

9:57 PM

Checks other accepts he can steal from bowlturner

Starts down-bot for downvoting new answers of HDE

Hijacks bot and sets it loose on Hohmannfan

thinks about changing upvote to downvote for HDE

Starts up sock puppet army to compensate for loss due to hacked bot

Shields up, Mr. Sulu! We're going through a cloud of downvotes!

2

10:01 PM

I'm the redshirt then.

upvotes for Star Trek references

10:17 PM

Here, let me spice this up just a tad.

And so I return...and have that to read.

Interesting.

[Insert terrible Far Side reference.]

^ See the Far Side.

> The crew of the starship Enterprise encounter the floating head of Zsa Zsa Gabor.

That's too low res.

I can't find anything better.

@James Okay, answer up. Oh, and I'm so happy that I can finally write about the disturbing function! That will come later, I promise.

10:44 PM

data.stackexchange.com/worldbuilding/query/61087/…

Nice

cool

I guess there isn't a badge for number of accepted answers.

Unless you get no votes on them.

pretty much

I pulled off unsung hero over on SO

Nice, I wonder if voting will ever get so low over here.

Not from apathy, but simply volume.

I got Tenacious on Mathematics, but Unsung Hero might take a while.

10:53 PM

@Samuel I hope not. But...

11:15 PM

The active tab now consists of edits of economy by Samuel and my constant revisions of my answer. It's kind of funny to see the back-and-forth.

Shameless post bumping!

Yeah, I was looking at the Generalist badge. I meet the requirements as described, but it turns out the "Top tags" need to have at least 200 questions to count.

I was testing this by adding a few questions to economy to get it over 200.

We only have 13 tags with over 200 questions, which is why no one has that badge.

Well, 14 tags now.

@Hohmannfan Naw, I don't think I answered any of the bumped posts.

@Hohmannfan No, actually I did answer one of the four.

I have a volume problem. This is what my top tags look like:

user image

18 more answers to go in the "survival" tag...

user image

I also have a volume problem.

10 bronze tag badges?

11:25 PM

Yeah.

And a silver badge

Just 105 answers to go to get the "science-based" gold badge I see :)

Sounds daunting.

I have 108 to go. I'll race you there.

Ok, you'll be busy with mod work.

Ehhhhhh. . . 1) I won't necessarily get elected. 2) The workload can't be that bad.

11:30 PM

1) Hahahaha 2) Perhaps.

1) yeah...

Although a WB mod could probably answer 2).

20 hours to the election

My brother is a mod for gamedev, he says he basically just does that now, rather than answer very many questions.

11:47 PM

@HDE226868 bwahaha...

Samuel's plot becomes clear now.

The SE brothers!

@MonicaCellio Ahhhhhhh. . . @Samuel wants to keep me busy. . .

Yeah, he's my identical twin too.

Well, spare organ farm, but it's the same thing.

3

@HDE226868 I'm interested to see how much time you'll have when you start university :)

@Samuel Oh, well, that's a whole 'nother story.

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Feb '1611

The Factory Floor

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