TRPG General Chat

Harvard University scientists have made a radio receiver with no moving parts that can be as small as two carbon atoms and as durable as a diamond--because it is two or more diamond atoms.

2

Adeptus

@RollingFeles a song of ~~ice and fire~~ a-hole fathers

3

RollingFeles

6:46 AM

It reminds me that I haven't watch two last episodes.

@Adeptus nice!

BESW

7:07 AM

Emotiki aims to bring Māori culture into digital age http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/te-manu-korihi/320934/emotiki-aims-to-bring-maori-culture-into-digital-age

Tweeted by SHaunui on December 20, 2016 at 7:08 PM

Trish

greeeeeat... I was about to hit enter on tellign "you touched half of the question only" when the answer got deleted...

BESW

Mission preccomplished?

Trish

11:06 AM

@BESW kinda. He gave me somethiong to correct on my answer though :3

doppelgreener

1:47 PM

@nitsua60 Behold

Sheepy, Hong Kong

1.8k 1 10 15

nitsua60, Northeast USA

33.3k 6 151 221

dnd-5e spells combat monsters magic-items rules-as-written published-adventures

nitsua60

2:05 PM

@doppelgreener Does this mean I have to share my ~~daisy~~ daffodil?

(Seriously: what kind of flower is that supposed to be? It's become painfully clear to me that I don't know jack-all about plants.)

doppelgreener

@nitsua60 some little yellow one. (there's lots!)

nitsua60

@BESW So... "diamond" is a specific crystal structure of carbon, and the structure for diamond is FCC with a unit cell of 8 atoms. So I don't understand how a "diamond" can be as small as 2 atoms. Perhaps 2 cells?

@doppelgreener [goes to edit mouseover in the photo album]

doppelgreener

@nitsua60 the video suggests it's a diamond with two imperfections each the size of atoms. so probably not just 2 atoms, but potentially only a few dozen of them!

nitsua60

@doppelgreener (I wasn't in a position where I could watch the video. And solid state physics is a fascination of mine...)

@BESW no need for me to be so pedantic, there... sorry. (Posting before breakfast = poor choice.)

doppelgreener

@nitsua60 Want me to summarise the invention?

(not sure if "wasn't" implies you now can/have)

nitsua60

2:31 PM

@doppelgreener Sure, thanks! (Sorry, afk a bit, and still can't, generally won't be able to for some hours.)

doppelgreener

2:47 PM

Actually the explanation is in text so I'll copy that!

> ["It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year" from 1963 is playing in the background.]
A diamond radio receiver: This music is coming from an assembly of the world's smallest radio receivers. It's made from atomic-scale imperfections in a single piece of diamond crystal. The imperfections are the size of two atoms. Electrons inside the imperfections are powered by green light. When the electrons receive radio waves, they convert them into red light. A simple photodiode converts the light into current. Speakers convert the current into sound -- just like a traditional radio. Because diamonds…

LegendaryDude

3:20 PM

Just earned the "6" hat.

Not sure why.

It came in right after a few comments and two edits on the same post.

At first I thought it was because I had earned 6 hats prior but clearly that's not the case.

doppelgreener

@LegendaryDude There's also an "8,243,721" depicting Ernie.

LegendaryDude

Yep. They're related, they both come from the same Sesame Street sketch.

Bert's favorite number is 6. Ernie's is 8,243,721.

doppelgreener

I am sure nobody but Jon Skeet has 8,243,721 of anything on Stack Exchange.

LegendaryDude

Haha

nitsua60

3:48 PM

If you've got a moment, @doppelgreener, I wouldn't mind your eyes on this post: I'm feeling like it doesn't read well, but I've been at it too long to justify any more, and you've been helpful in similar situations before =)

(Also, anyone else who wants to help, of course feel free!)

doppelgreener

Couple of points:

At the start you summarise the "why" as "only dave could make the trip". That's the *beginning* of a why. Upon reading it I *guessed* that you were further going to say, but not saying at that point, "dave's group played differently but with only dave there dave had to play role that's the prototypical DM". If you're going to make a big bold executive summary, mention the rest of the picture which I just wrote in quotes. (Don't use my words.)

One of your sentences is "In Blackmoor some players in the Twin Cities group played "traditional" heroic PCs--Dave Fant controllin…

nitsua60

So you're saying a skosh more detail in that summary?

doppelgreener

@nitsua60 Yes. "Only Dave could make the trip, and this meant ..." and also "Dave's group usually played with collaborative control, with the players even playing the story's antagonists (to each other)"

nitsua60

Hmm... meant that traditionally-heroic, as in fighting for good, not "traditional, heroic PC" like the one I play in AL. Let me take a stab at both those thing. (Great notes, btw--thanks.)

doppelgreener

@nitsua60 Yeah, the phrase "traditional heroic PC" has both "traditional" and "heroic" as modifiers on "PC", and you're setting it up to give us examples of such PCs, phrasing-wise.

Maybe "characters (or groups of characters) which embodied traditional heroism"?

nitsua60

4:00 PM

@doppelgreener better?

doppelgreener

Also watch your tense. You use "Dave Fant controlling..." and "Duane Jenkins played..." which is slightly jarring.

nitsua60

(just noticed and fixed that)

=)

@doppelgreener As a top-level thing: I hesitated for weeks before adding this, a thirteenth answer. But I felt like (a) it does add something new, (b) RSConley's answer wasn't really close enough to just suggest this as a small addition. Does the idea of the post strike you as novel "enough"

Looking better and better...

Man, it's nice having an editor =)

doppelgreener

@nitsua60 yes, it's quite novel

were you not already at 33k there'd be a bounty already on the question for your answer (but i very rarely give bounties for people over 20k, since at that point rep's only a number and bounties are a pittance)

nitsua60

@doppelgreener If I were more-obsessed with haaaaats I'd actually want you to bounty the question and give it to someone else, because I currently value hats more than rep and know that's a trigger. But I'm not obsessed, so I don't know that's a thing =)

doppelgreener

4:16 PM

@nitsua60 there's a hat that's awarded for a bounty being given to someone else within a question you answered?

nitsua60

doppelgreener

@nitsua60 oh, hahahaha!

nitsua60

194

A: Winter Bash 2016 - All Hats

Secret Hats Live updates on this Google Doc (edit link can be found in the chatroom), discussion in this chatroom. Don't Wanna Taco 'Bout it 180° This Is Fine Elementary 8,243,721 6 They Live Blue in the Face Mild Mannered Where in the World ...

Aaaaand... I just got 8,3442692 (or whatever it is). The trigger remains a mystery!

doppelgreener

[ponder] cause an edit conflict for someone else? you edited that answer at one point while i was editing it...

nitsua60

Ooh, I might have to leave "fiery" on. I've been going with the took, 'cause I'm wearing one IRL, but the sheep looks good with a goatee....

doppelgreener

4:29 PM

@nitsua60 that's impressive XD

nitsua60

Just updated photo album--I think I nailed the mouseover text =)

doppelgreener

@nitsua60 that made me burst out laughing

nitsua60

@doppelgreener Wanna help me test a hat-pothesis?

doppelgreener

@nitsua60 sure!

nitsua60

@doppelgreener check your inbox =)

doppelgreener

4:45 PM

@nitsua60 done

nitsua60

Is there a Nobel Prize for tourism boards? You could say this place has a long history of violence. So does every other place we’ve lived, though, so don’t let any of this stop you from visiting.... I'm sure it's lovely now.

THiebert

1k Rep!

woo! Sorry, just wanted to brag

doppelgreener

@THiebert Congratulations :)

THiebert

I realize that most of you are way beyond that

doppelgreener

that's nevertheless a great milestone to hit

nitsua60

4:54 PM

@THiebert no apologies. As is often observed, the Stack's great at making us want Fake Internet Points and then helping us get them =)

2

doppelgreener

@nitsua60 That sounds like a really superb day you've got lined up.

nitsua60

@doppelgreener Yeah, it's tough to beat. I finished a Master's last week, so there's all this... time =)

THiebert

Also, does anyone know where the Moon hat comes from?

doppelgreener

@THiebert Operating theory is it comes from site participation on the solstice. (That's also today.)

People randomly get either the sun or moon.

Once you get one or the other, it's locked in across all other sites.

THiebert

It showed up yesterday for me.

but maybe it was after the new day in GMT or UTC?

nitsua60

5:00 PM

It's Solstice for UTC, +/- 12 hours, probably. (Creating a 48-hour window.)

That's the way "day-specific" hats have been counted in prior years. Basically, if you do the qualifying thing and it's solstice anywhere, not just your time zone, you're in.

@doppelgreener no hats yet, meaning we haven't quite cleared the bar. Next: let's generate some upvotes. Why don't I upvote yours but you don't upvote mine, so we can discriminate.

[twiddles thumbs eight minutes--is pretty sure the hat-script runs "on the tens"]

doppelgreener

@nitsua60 yeah no hat for me either

nitsua60

Gosh, I love forfeiture proceedings: United States v. Article Consisting of 50,000 Cardboard Boxes More or Less, Each Containing One Pair of Clacker Balls

doppelgreener

@nitsua60 what!? XD

United States v. Article Consisting of 50,000 Cardboard Boxes More or Less, Each Containing One Pair of Clacker Balls

United States v. Article Consisting of 50,000 Cardboard Boxes More or Less, Each Containing One Pair of Clacker Balls, 413 F. Supp. 1281 (D. Wisc. 1976) is a 1976 United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin decision regarding a requested order from the United States government to seize and destroy a shipment of approximately 50,000 clacker balls under the Federal Hazardous Substances Act because children could hit themselves with the balls. The form of the styling of this case — the defendant being an object, rather than a legal person — is because this is a jurisdiction...

my goodness, there's a wikipedia article on it

nitsua60

5:15 PM

@doppelgreener Didn't know that. I just saw it in a list of funny case names.

In forfeiture proceedings the articles in question are named as a party to the case. So you get things like Reno vs. approximately 64,000 shark fins, or 2,700 live parakeets vs. Ashcroft (the parakeets, defendants in the first instance, become appellants on appeal).

In any case, I'd have paid money to watch that last one =)

@doppelgreener hat yet?

doppelgreener

@nitsua60 nay

@nitsua60 the parakeets one is hilarious

nitsua60

@doppelgreener Okay, go ahead and delete your side of the dialog.

doppelgreener

@nitsua60 deleting

SevenSidedDie

Huh, just got the 6 secret hat (the Bert one). All I was doing was a multi-step edit of this:

6

Q: Depowering a high AC PC without killing the rest of the group

I am a relativly new DM and we are playing Pathfinder. We are playing a pre-made adventure, Rise of the Runelords. My group consists of a Bard, a Sorcerer an Alchemist and a Knight on Level 7. Problem is: the Knight's AC is very high, but totally within the rules of what the class is allowed to w...

pathfinder balance encounter-design

Dig through the revisions for clues maybe?

nitsua60

@SevenSidedDie mind if I link that ^^ in Ye Olde Hatte Shoppe?

SevenSidedDie

5:26 PM

@nitsua60 Sure! Maybe note that the revisions contain spoilers for Rise of the Runelords, for the rare Hat Shoppe denizen who might care. :)

nitsua60

@doppelgreener haaaaat?

doppelgreener

@nitsua60 no hat

nitsua60

Interesting. Maybe 5 was necessary.

doppelgreener

5?

nitsua60

wanna post one more pair?

doppelgreener

5:41 PM

@nitsua60 sure. should we try this answer? no comments on it, relatively recent, etc

LegendaryDude

@SevenSidedDie It's not spoiler-related. I got my "6" hat just by editing the same answer (not my answer) twice in a row.

And there were no spoilers.

OH nevermind.

You're saying that it might spoil RotRl for others who visit that question.

SevenSidedDie

@LegendaryDude Yes, that. :)

nitsua60

@doppelgreener just dropped one.

SevenSidedDie

@LegendaryDude Maybe it's a timing thing. Edit twice within the grace period where any edits are mushed together in the revision history as a single edit?

LegendaryDude

I don't think so, as my edits were not within the grace period. OH but my first edit happened on a 6 minute (15:06).

The next edit was on a multiple of 6 (18). So... that's something.

15:06:56 and 15:18:48 were the timestamps on the edits.

nitsua60

5:58 PM

@doppelgreener okay, so let's wait 7 minutes just to be sure deletion's required, then delete all of them. If one of us (you) gets the hat and the other doesn't, we're looking pretty good.

@doppelgreener jeezy-creezy, why are we testing serially? Watch your inbox.

SevenSidedDie

@LegendaryDude Hm. None of my timestamps are on the :06. One is on the :07 though, and it's conceivable that one of my mushed-together edits (I definitely made more than the three shown) was on the :06. Need more data!

Though, that hypothesis should be easy to test. In 2 minutes!

LegendaryDude

@SevenSidedDie might it be an edit on any timestamp ending with a 6 in the seconds? My first edit had two 6's in it.

That you can test 10 times in a minute... assuming you're synchronized with server time

nitsua60

@LegendaryDude I've got to imagine they'd be more common if that were it. I mean, there's been a lot of editing going on the last few days. [nervous chuckle]

doppelgreener

@nitsua60 did you get the hat? do we need to do something now?

LegendaryDude

@nitsua60 Good point, you'd have approximately a 1/10 chance of getting it with each edit (not factoring for the odds of the existing circumstances under which you're doing your edit...)

SevenSidedDie

6:08 PM

@LegendaryDude No :x6 in the seconds for my visible timestamps, but then there are those mushed edits, so, can't confirm or refute. Though @nitsua60 has a point: that would make it 1 in 10 edits earning the 6 hat (as opposed to 1 in 60, if it were on the :06 minutes).

nitsua60

:3426691 none for me; go ahead and delete yours on the "out of scope" question.

I suspect in 4 minutes you'll get it and I won't.

(and keep generating more on the "high empathy" one, in case the "out of scope" one is a non-hatter)

Hmm... so you didn't get one on the "out of scope" one. In which we posted 5 back-and-forth, upvoted yours, then deleted. Interesting. (Did I get that right?)

doppelgreener

@nitsua60 that's right. and you deleted, then i deleted, and it was on my answer.

nitsua60

6:28 PM

I edited the "high empathy" post, as well.

@doppelgreener jeezy, just got both blue and 6.

Moments after those two post edits.

@doppelgreener I'm giving up =)

I've got an afternoon planned, and this wasn't part of it.
Fun as it was =)

@doppelgreener out of curiosity, what if you edit one of the posts on which we've been commenting? It may not work since it's your post, but if it does then I think that's a strong signal.

Zachiel

7:18 PM

"You open the trapdoor, and an imposing humanoid wearing a black, flowing..." "I SPIT IN HIS EYE!"

2

Sometimes my players are hard.

doppelgreener

7:39 PM

i think we've got a question handling that scenario haha

doppelgreener

8:04 PM

117

A: Punishing a player for instant-actioning

No, it's not fair to punish a player in this way. But it's not okay for this player to take an unfair share of control over the game, either. You are the DM — you are in control. You are in the Big Chair, and the group put you there to be responsible for pacing and mediation. You have that job b...

SevenSidedDie

8:23 PM

Also

28

Q: Tried all the existing advice, but players still never roleplay fear

I've read some other posts on here about how to telegraph danger to my PCs and how to make them flee. The problem is, I believe I am actively using all the strategies in both of the posts and my PCs are never afraid of anything. It takes away the suspension of disbelief for me as a DM. My goal i...

dnd-3.5e roleplaying character-death

nitsua60

11:04 PM

@Shalvenay when you've got a moment, do you think this would be on-topic at DIY? (Also, anyone else with DIY.SE experience.)

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