The Factory Floor - 2017-02-26

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Universe Factory

3:18 AM

Universe Factory - Medium: Medieval Warfare — An introduction

posted on February 26, 2017 by Mithrandir24601

An introduction to using strategy and tactics to write (slightly more) realistic medieval warfare It is said the warrior’s is the twofold way of pen and sword, and he should have a taste for both ways… Generally speaking, the way of the warrior is resolute acceptance of death. — Miyamoto Musashi, the Book of Five Rings Battle of Grundwald (15 July 1410) — Jan Matejko (1878)How many times have y…

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2 hours later…

Worldbuilding Meta

5:44 AM

0

Q: An odd question about kiddie rides tests the VTC ideology we've been debating

How is it possible for an AI to stay in a kiddie ride for as long as it wants? I'm interested to see how the community handles this one. It seems obviously from a kid. Providing the background education to make this a meaningful question seems dubious. Does that mean it should be closed? Or does...

discussion specific-question

13 hours later…

6:58 PM

@Shardmartin Asking whether one change could change society is nearly always going to be too broad.

I had asked this before and it was closed, so I would like some feedback on how I can narrow it down. In this worldbuilding scenario, pregnancy would be an active rather than passive process. A woman could biologically determine the sex of their child in the womb and make it a boy or girl. They could choose whether to carry it to term or abort it completely. Rate of gestation could be controlled, sped up or slowed down as needed. Birth would be a painless or maybe even enjoyable experience. Exteme stress would be detrimental to the pregnancy, and the baby''s health could be adversely affect…

Sorry I accidentally deleted it. How can I change it?

Click the arrow next to the post then click edit.

I meant how could I narrow down the question?

Mithrandir24601

@HDE226868 @TimB Is a mod answering a question, then using mod power to close that same question (before anyone else has answered) considered an abuse of mod powers?

@Mithrandir24601 Link?

Mithrandir24601

7:07 PM

@HDE226868 worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/72276/… To be fair, the close reason is valid

@Shardmartin Honestly, I think your question is fine now.

@Shardmartin It is good that you posted on Meta and are coming to the chat. Not many people do this.

4

@Mithrandir24601 I'll get back to you there.

Normally you would post something like that on our Sandbox but seeing that the question is already there I think opening another post is a good idea. Maybe a problem is that we have only a vague idea of why patriarchal systems were dominant, as there have existed matriarchal systems throughout history.

I am no expert on this topic so it's hard for me to help you here. I think it would be interesting to know if something like this would influence partiarchy vs. matriarchy.

Let me read you questions again. Maybe I will find something...

By the way: it would help if you edited your Meta-Post to include a link to the question so everyone can quickly find it if they want to take a look at it ;)

hey there @Mithrandir24601

@Shardmartin Your question was probably closed before your big edit 14 hours ago. Focus only on the aspect of developing matriarchy. The other aspects, especially the general "what would be the social ramification" are too big. This is a general tip: "What would be the impact on society?" is almost always too broad as there are far too many aspects to society which interact with each other.

Worldbuilding Meta

7:19 PM

0

Q: I need help editing this question about a hypothetical matriarchal society

I had asked this before and it was closed, so I would like some feedback on how I can narrow it down. In this worldbuilding scenario, pregnancy would be an active rather than passive process. A woman could biologically determine the sex of their child in the womb and make it a boy or girl. They c...

discussion closed-questions asking-questions suggested-edits

Mithrandir24601

Rytsas @Shalvenay!

how're things going?

Mithrandir24601

Good, thanks. I did my first cartwheel today! How are you doing?

would be better if my AD&D game wasn't On Hold (our DM's employer diamondhammered it)

Mithrandir24601

Aww... :(

7:23 PM

@Mithrandir24601 So you're a gymnast?

Mithrandir24601

Oh, I also tried yellow tea for the first time last night! Shame about the game

also -- maybe you can answer this -- how flexible can a blade be before it stops being usable as a weapon?

Mithrandir24601

@Bellerophon Nope - I do Kung Fu (traditional Shaolin, modern San Da (kickboxing) as well as some Wing Chun). In order to do Shaolin, it's pretty important to be flexible, have good balance etc. so we do a little bit of gymnastic stuff

@Shardmartin If you edit this out it looks fine to me. The problem might be that your question was already automatically "closed" as there haven't been edits in some time. The question is then viewed as "abandoned by the author" by the system. At least that's what I think.

Mithrandir24601

@Shalvenay Ooooh... That's a really good question. I can't give you a definitive answer, but I can say that it depends on what you want to use it for

I'll try and find a relevant video

7:27 PM

@Shardmartin If you edit a question it is rushed to the top of the questions-tab. If you edit a question that is "on hold" it is automatically placed in a special review queue for reopening. Plus: If you want to get the attention of someone who said something you should edit then you can always use the ping with @Username to get their attention. This might be useful if something like this happens again. All in all: Someone with more rep has to give you feedback on this.

@Mithrandir24601 think more dagger-like things than sword-like things

Mithrandir24601

Hmm... I would reckon that daggers would need to be stiffer than a sword, but then swords are more flexible than most people think (I'm not an expert though)

@Shalvenay This is relevant: youtube.com/watch?v=GuZwgqI06Qk

So I should just make anothe post or simply edit it?

@Mithrandir24601 -- I've considered sword steels for a while now, and I've wondered if a shock-resisting tool steel like AISI S4 is the best alloy out of all the modern steels for swordmaking

(it's the stuff that say, jackhammer bits are made of)

Mithrandir24601

I have no idea about how good/bad different materials there, so I'm afraid I can't really help you on that front :/

7:34 PM

@Shardmartin As far as I know a question cannot be reopened after it was closed. Only from the "on hold"-status. So you should probably post it. But please wait for more feedback from more experienced users. Maybe someone who put your question on hold in the beginning can tell you more about this. But a good way to go: Meta and chat are always good starting points for feedback.

Mithrandir24601

@Secespitus Description of reopen review queue: "Vote whether or not to reopen closed questions with reopen votes" suggests that you can

Also, that's kind-of a large chunk of the point of closing questions

@Mithrandir24601 someone online brought up the idea of a dagger that was like a filet knife (which I understand to be quite flexible, almost floppy even, in order to make tricky cuts

@Mithrandir24601 Thanks.

@Shalvenay It probably depends on weight and sword type as much as anything. Will it be used for breaking armour in which case a strong, less flexible steel is probably better or for stabbing unprotected flesh in which case a light, flexible sword is better.

@Bellerophon you do have a point there

Mithrandir24601

7:38 PM

@Shalvenay Well, I've held (not practised with though) Chinese practise swords (dao) and they're very flexible, but I think that's due to them not being for causing real harm - the flex helps them not break, but is bad for thrusting

@Mithrandir24601 yeah -- makes sense in that case

Mithrandir24601

@Shalvenay The issue that I'm having answering your question is that I've only ever used daggers in a practise scenario (thankfully!). These daggers tend to be fairly flexible so as not to cause damage/hurt as much (although they're also blunted). However, in a real-life dagger this is the exact opposite of what you want, so you'd probably want as non-flexible a dagger as is reasonable. Not sure though. I want to try to figure this out though!

@Mithrandir24601 ah. nods yeah, I'd think you'd want your daggers to be fairly stiff as well (even stiffer than your swords)

Mithrandir24601

@Secespitus Kein Problem!

@Shalvenay Yes, stiffer than swords. That I'm reasonably sure of. Still no guarantees though

@Mithrandir24601 Wusste gar nicht, dass du auch Deutscher bist :D

Mithrandir24601

7:50 PM

@Secespitus That's because I'm not :P

I was trying to say that in German, but it was getting difficult as it's been a while :/

@Mithrandir24601 Ah, okay.

Mithrandir24601

@Secespitus I do intend to visit Germany someday and would like to learn properly, but never have time - a good number of my friends are German

@Mithrandir24601 Germany can be a beautiful land. If you visit the right places that is.

From which country are you? As far as I know german is regarded one of the more difficult languages to learn.

Mithrandir24601

@Secespitus Everyone I know is spread around the place... Although I think I'd visit the one in Heidelberg first :) Currently, I'm in England, but I'm actually from Northern Ireland

@Mithrandir24601 Heidelberg is definitely a good place to start. I've been there on my vacation last year. The only downside were a lot of tourists.

Mithrandir24601

7:58 PM

In primary school, we did some basic Spanish, then went to secondary school and spent 2 years learning equally basic French (which I hated), then I did some not-quite-as-basic but still simple German for 3 years. Then met a few Germans during A-Level and more at Uni (2 years ago), so it hasn't all gone away, but large chunks of my German are no longer here :(

Lots of tourists... I'm not a fan of tourists... He says, while planning on being one

If you don't mind me asking, which region are you from?

I'm from the northern region, around Hamburg. Hamburg is a nice city for a visit. You learned quite a few languages, I am impressed. I learned english since fifth grade. Then had a few years of latin, which I hated. Then in uni tried a semester french to see if it would have been better. It would have been equally horribly. And now I am trying to learn japanese. Though I rarely find the time for that.

Mithrandir24601

Learned... Well... Attempted to learn, then forgot more like. My mum did a degree in languages, so at one point knew English, German, French, Czech and Russian. Not bad! - Japanese sounds interesting. I've been told to see Hamburg as well. Someday!

" English, German, French, Czech and Russian". That's a lot of languages. I could only compete with such a list if programming languages counted :D

Mithrandir24601

8:14 PM

Yeah, that's quite a lot of languages, but it was also reasonably common to the people I knew during my undergrad doing languages. What's mildly scary is when you hear of people fluent in 8 languages such as Greek, Hebrew, Latin (as much as you can be fluent in Latin) and so on

How are you supposed to be fluent in dead languages?

Mithrandir24601

The issue is that they're not sure about how exactly it was spoken, so there's only so far you can know, but he knew up to that point (I think his name was Andrew McIntosh or McIntyre or something like that). Not fluent fluent as a native Latin speaker would have been, but 'fluent' at translating and able to speak the words in a way that was potentially spoken

8:32 PM

This sounds vaguely like something my latin teacher always said. I still think it is weird to try to speak a language that is just not spoken anymore. I mean: why? What's the point? You only really need to write and read it. Is there another usecase besides naming stuff today? You wouldn't try to have a conversation with someone in Latin.

Mithrandir24601

@Secespitus Because it's interesting! And it would be downright hilarious to try having a conversation in Latin with someone else :P

@Mithrandir24601 Well it would be kind of secure. Nobody else would have an idea what the hell you are talking about.

And "interesting" is an argument I can accept.

Mithrandir24601

Haha! True that

I am just imagining three blonde teenage girls starting a conversation in latin in a pub somewhere in Hamburg. Just because it would be sooooo weird.

Mithrandir24601

I'm imagining: "Sir, they've rendered our Quantum Communications useless by trying to evesdrop... What can we do? If we don't get our message sent, we'll all die!"
"Not worry. I'll get it sorted"
[5 minutes later] "Sir? What is this?"
"It's called Latin. The most secure thing known to man. Now get it sent"

Although your scenario is also pretty hilarious :D

8:39 PM

XD Definitely a star from me for that one

The day Latin saved the world

Mithrandir24601

Lol

(because I find that phrase weird, I feel that I should justify it by saying that you actually just made me laugh)

Maybe those three blond teenage girls are actually spies from somewhere that have just discovered a horrible plan to take over the world that they have to stop :P

And then in one scene one of them turns away from the others and whispers towards her wrist-watch in Hebrew: a counterspy!

Mithrandir24601

This would be the most hilarious scene that I've seen in a long, long while

10/10 would definitely watch it

I wonder what the others will think tomorrow morning when looking at the stars and the transcript

Mithrandir24601

Apart from being told that I'm going to be doing cartwheels and landing in the splits by summer, this is definitely the best conversation I've had all day, so hopefully they'll get some laughs out of it

:)

8:59 PM

Yeah, definitely the funniest and weirdest conversation I had today.

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