TRPG General Chat

KorvinStarmast

00:10

@nitsua60 Mitch is a hoot, thanks for the link. And I just introduced my son to another comedian he now likes ... goodness.

AncientSwordRage

@MikeQ go for the eyes Boo, GO FOR THE EYES!! RAHGGGHH!!!

@BardicWizard I remember when I thought that

Hot RPG Questions

00:30

1

Q: Is there a class feature, magic item, or spell that will allow me to telekinetically disarm one or more opponents?

The Disarm action (DMG p271) allows you to use a weapon attack to attempt to disarm a foe. I would love to be able to do this to one or more opponents telekinetically, similar to Darth Vader in Rogue One. Are there any class features, magic items, or spells that might let me accomplish this?

Ben

Morning all

AncientSwordRage

@Ben ahoy

Ben

How's your [insert time of day] going?

My morning is going well, it's a productive start to the day

linksassin

00:56

@Ben You must have stolen all my productivity. It's 11am and I have barely started anything.

Ben

@linksassin I had a 15 minute meeting that actually only lasted 15 mins, and identified that a variable was, as the programmer believed it to be; useless.

That's my "productivity"

I think that says something about the state of my workplace XD

linksassin

@Ben Useless variable? Your build tools don't catch that kind of thing automatically?

Ben

@linksassin Well, the variable was being used.

The original declaration was an array[50]. Later on someone had assigned array[100] = "";

linksassin

Ah ok

What language? Unused assignments like that can be caught by build tools.

Ben

Arduino

So similar to C++

Bardic Wizard

01:04

@Ben My evening is going well, it’s not a productive middle to the day

I have no productivity please send some so I finish my homework

Ben

@linksassin Unfortunately the IDE for arduino isn't that smart lol

It catches errors, but not much more

Bardic Wizard

@nitsua60 fascinating.

Ben

@BardicWizard while (homework != finished) { productivity = true; }

linksassin

@Ben I find that surprising. There should be some compiler flags for Pedantic Errors and Warnings as Errors. That raises up those kind of issues to actually be build errors.

You might have to dig into the compiler options of the IDE to find them though. I usually use CMake and commandline build tooling with VSCode rather than an IDE.

Ben

Well, it's not too much of an issue. The code is a waterfall program that basically does "read input, get data, report" on a loop

this gif is accurate

BESW

01:15

TLC - Waterfalls (Official Music Video)

►

Bardic Wizard

01:31

@Ben print (“thanks”);

print (“I made a stupid bet probably 3 times in middle school where the end result involved talking as if I was reading out a program every time I talked.”);

Ben

if (self.identifier == "programmer")
{ joke.format[Code].Apply(); }

Bardic Wizard

print (“I finally stopped making that as a consequence of bets after the time the winner chose JavaScript as the language in question”);

it didn’t help though for some reason

I still lost a lot of bets

Ben

02:16

@linksassin I am now not doing any work. My mind is stuck in my "book" about gene-based time travel.

Heyo @Korvin

Hot RPG Questions

02:58

7

Q: Can a Shadow Magic sorcerer cast the Darkness spell using sorcery points, and still apply a Metamagic option to it?

Let's say that I want to use the Shadow Magic sorcerer feature Eyes of the Dark (XGtE, p. 51) to cast the darkness spell by spending 2 sorcery points. More, I would like to cast it as a bonus action, using the Metamagic option Quickened Spell. Is this possible? Can a Shadow Magic sorcerer cast th...

dnd-5e class-feature spellcasting sorcerer metamagic

Bardic Wizard

@Ben hey, I’m not doing any work either! I’m currently being ‘busy’ by typing into my doc for my English essay “Pip is a morally complex character” over and over. Instead of actually writing anything useful

Hot RPG Questions

03:47

7

Q: Can I shadowstep to the Ethereal Plane if I can see into it?

I am currently playing a Way of Shadows Monk in D&D 5e and now have the Robe of Eyes. I am loving the MadMage campaign. Since the Robe of Eyes says You can see Invisible creatures and Objects, as well as see into the Ethereal Plane, out to a range of 120 feet. And Shadowstep says When you are ...

dnd-5e teleportation ethereal-plane

V2Blast

05:03

@BardicWizard lol

Great Expectations? :)

BESW

@BardicWizard When I was in high school, I heard about a class where almost nobody did the reading and they all copied from one person who'd written a book report despite not having read it either. In their version, Pip shoots Biddy a third of the way through.

Ben

I honestly don't remember any of my book reports I had to do in school.

BESW

I tended to get bored and see how far I could push things.

Ben

I know we read several - Animal Farm, Slave...

BESW

Like arguing that Long John Silver in Treasure Island represented the serpent in the Garden of Eden.

lisardggY

05:16

Mornin'

Ben

a couple of short stories - one about the "butterfly effect" in time travel - an election was running ("Intelligence" was winning against "strength"), a group went on a "tour" of the prehistoric era, they went off the boardwalk and accidentally stepped on a butterfly, when they came back the election was reversed

Another was about a distopia where they weren't allowed to use adjectives

@lisardggY Arvy-noon

BESW

@Ben "A Sound of Thunder," Ray Bradbury.

He didn't invent the term "butterfly effect," but that story popularized it.

Ben

That's the one

And yeah. I think it might have been exploring the wordplay or something when we read it in school

BESW

@lisardggY Yopp! I don't think Twitter translated your potato tweet very well, what was the product?

lisardggY

@BESW Instant mashed potatoes, I think in common English parlance.

It's not a very common product here.

BESW

05:21

Ah, I thought so.

Bardic Wizard

@V2Blast unfortunately

and it’s not technically a book report

BESW

Those are good for bulking stuff up! Thicken sauces and gravies, add them to burger-style patties...

lisardggY

Yeah, it came out as "dried potato chips", which, I suppose, most potato chips are.

Bardic Wizard

it’s the thesis for an essay

lisardggY

@BESW So far I've used them in bread I've baked, used them as replacement for flour when frying breaded chicken breasts, and last night, in a moment of weakness, I... *whispered* made mashed potatoes with them.

BESW

05:24

I also like making them into regular mashed potatoes but them just adding all kinds of extras.

Feb 27 '17 at 8:45, by BESW

Tonight's dinner is freshly mashed potatoes with mushrooms, bell peppers, and carrots sautéed in garlic, pepper, and olive oil, topped with chives.

Sep 2 '15 at 8:42, by BESW

Tonight's Kale Week dinner is very simple: mashed potatoes with onion, carrot, kale, and sunflower seeds. Flavoured mostly with garlic and pepper.

in The Frying Pan, Sep 21 '15 at 14:24, by BESW

Tonight's dinner was crushed walnuts and diced carrots toasted in olive oil with garlic and pepper before being mashed into potatoes, with a salad of apples, mandarins, and sunflower seeds.

Ben

@BardicWizard Oh fuuuun XD

lisardggY

Garlic, you say.

BESW

Apr 24 '16 at 1:52, by BESW

My aunt says, "Provided it is fresh, one can never have too much garlic."

lisardggY

Garlic is good. I never understand recipes that call for "one clove of garlic". The only recipe I am willing to accept with a single clove of garlic is a recipe for "A single clove of garlic". And even then, I'll go with two.

5

MikeQ

There exists a minimum threshold quantity of garlic. Any lesser quantity must be rounded up.

5

BESW

05:27

Bardic Wizard

@Ben not due for a little under a month, thankfully. The outline is due for peer review Friday and I forgot to start it Monday when it was assigned

lisardggY

Anyway, with the new lockdown in place I've had a lot more time to cook, so we've been experimenting. This week included an Uzbek plov and Iraqi kubbeh halab

BESW

I've been making Experimental Pesto.

Ben

@BESW That sounds like a Flubber Sequel

MikeQ

"Experimental Pesto" sounds like a ska band

Ben

05:30

XD

Bardic Wizard

I taught myself how to make tortillas over the summer from my great-grandmother’s recipe, as far as cooking goes

BESW

@MikeQ I assume their only charting hit is a cover of "Prisencolinensinainciusol."

lisardggY

In a surprise move, the US government recently coined the best damned name for a freeform punk band/musical collective in history with "Anarchist Jurisdiction".

Ben

@BardicWizard Ohh very nice. The best I can do is quiche. The good thing about that is it's a mix-n-match dish

lisardggY

@BardicWizard I've tried a couple of times (with store-bought masa harina, though), but they never came out very good - either they're too thick or they tear apart.

trogdor

05:40

Experimental pesto XD

Bardic Wizard

@Ben it’s super easy to make them. Getting them pretty, however, takes more practice than I have

Hot RPG Questions

4

Q: Does the bonus action attack from Polearm Master receive the bonus to attack and damage rolls from a magic weapon?

If I have the Polearm Master feat and am wielding a +1 Glaive, the bonus action attack will use the same modifier as the standard attack (STR). However, does it also receive the +1 bonus from the fact that the weapon is magical? Personally, I'd think that the full weapon is magical (not only the ...

dnd-5e magic-items feats dnd-beyond polearm

3

Q: Are there any examples in D&D lore (all editions) of metallic or chromatic dragons switching alignment?

In a previous question I asked about a dragon antagonist I am planning. I originally intended this to be a chromatic dragon because I believed they are always evil, but an answer to that question got me thinking. In the Monster Manual it states that all chromatic dragons are driven by greed and s...

dungeons-and-dragons lore dragons

Bardic Wizard

I can make tortillas, quesadillas, scrambled eggs, peanut butter and jam sandwiches, and I can maybe follow a recipe.

Maybe.

@lisardggY mine are always thicker than my bisabuela’s were. Hers were perfectly round and just the right thinness. Of course, she’d made them every couple days, from the time she was five or so, to the time she died, only a few years short of 100.

BESW

Do you use a press?

Bardic Wizard

No, a rolling pin usually. It’s the way our family’s done it for a long time

Which sounds all snobby but really means “it’s a family recipe, and the taste is better than the look so nobody cares much”

lisardggY

05:59

Yeah, for thin tortillas (and doughs in general) practice really makes perfect. Getting the right consistency to keep its shape without tearing takes a lot of tries.

Bardic Wizard

I rewrote the recipe (from my dad’s transcription of it) to be readable a month or so ago

lisardggY

There are various dishes around the world that are traditionally used to assess a cook's "worthiness" or finesse. A common one here is stuffed zucchini, which needs to be emptied of its contents. If you leave the walls of the zucchini too thick, there's not much room for stuffing and you'll get a sniff of disapproval. Scrape them too thin and they'll break.

Traditional cuisine is an knives-out murder-fest of passive-aggressive judgmental one-upsmanship.

BESW

Oh gosh, red rice and fina'dene'. Family fina'dene' recipes are jealously guarded.

And latiya, and rosketti...

lisardggY

06:16

My grandmother had many classic dishes she always made for her family. But every time someone would ask her for a recipe, she would give one that's subtly different than the last time she was asked. Part of it was because she didn't cook by a fixed written recipe, but most of it was her keeping her secrets to her grave so no-one's dishes would be as good as hers.

lisardggY

07:00

It's interesting how different SE sites develop their own cultural identity and norms. Not always good ones. The technological basis is the same, but the various other factors (size of community, ratio of newbie vs regular users, and the random accident of personalities involved) determine whether the stack is inviting or standoffish, useful or annoying.

I used to answer in English Language & Usage until the stack's atmosphere drove me off. It's a shame, because I like the topic.

BESW

yeah, I've dabbled in several different stacks and never lingered long.

lisardggY

For some reason, it's become common there to drop a short, half-assed answer in comments. Common even for veteran high-rep users. It has the immediate effect of discouraging people from writing a full answer because, hey, someone already gave the answer.

BESW

08:32

Aug 27 '13 at 12:29, by BESW

(I'm afraid every time I've wandered into the english.se chats I find that the participants are more interested in debate than conversation.)

V2Blast

09:03

@lisardggY Sadly (in my opinion), too many SE sites are fine with answers-in-comments. It has the unfortunate effect you mention, and also so many of the answers-in-comments are just bad but highly upvoted (and not deleted by mods even after being flagged) anyway.

AncientSwordRage

09:20

@lisardggY likewise

KorvinStarmast

10:47

@Ben sorry I bailed out, belated greetings.

@lisardggY we do the same in our kitchen.

@Ben I have discovered that quiche and fritattas are a very close approximation of each other ...

doppelgreener

Thing I learned yesterday from a viral post about cat cookies: when you cut cookie dough into shapes, you absolutely must chill it in the fridge. If you do not, it will come out of the oven as a shapeless blob. Chilling it is vital to maintaining the cut shape. It helps it develop in a few ways, and I speculate that it helps the outermost parts of the cookie solidify much earlier than the internal mass of the cookie when it's baked in the oven, and thus act as walls to resist deformation.

Thomas Markov

12:47

@doppelgreener My daughter, as her mickey mouse cookies are going into the over: "Have fun in there mickey!". My daughter after her mickey mouse cookies come out of the oven: "Dad you killed mickey."

trogdor

lol

Bardic Wizard

13:12

@lisardggY my great grandmother did that with her tortilla recipe, but not because of avoiding oneupmanship, almost entirely because she just knew how much to use for certain amounts without thinking and measuring took too long (the only reason we have her recipe is because my dad, her grandson in law, took notes on it a long time ago so there’s a copy)

nitsua60

13:56

> All I have to say to this is: being true is different from being taken to be true, whether by one or many or everybody, and in no case is to be reduced to it. There is no contradiction in something's being true which everybody takes to be false.... If being true is thus independent of being acknowledged by somebody or other, then the laws of truth are not psychological laws: they are boundary stones set in an eternal foundation, which our thought can overflow, but never displace.

Gottlob Frege, Die Grundlagen der Arithmetik

That's to say: hang in there, everyone.
<kitten_branch.jpg>

RevenantBacon

14:10

@doppelgreener not a cooking expert, but that does sound just about right to me

related topic, I was just up to my grandmothers house the other day helping her to make some tomato soup. Got her to tell me most of the recipe too

aconfusedruid

14:59

The spores druid have a new type of wild shape the symbiotic entity. In the rules is stated:

At 2nd level, you gain the ability to channel magic into your spores. As an action, you can expend a use of your Wild Shape feature to awaken those spores.

But wild shape is like a metamorphous trait, right? And what exactly is "awakening the spores", you became a giant mushroom? Mushrooms are grown on your back? But if they just grow with the wild shape how you can spread spores? It's just a random question, but I like to describe every single ability that I use.

shit

I wanted to ask how to describe the wild shape of the spores druid, but I'm dumb and sent the message without the question.

MikeQ

Wasn't this asked on the mainsite recently?

Thomas Markov

@aconfusedruid no worries haha, welcome to the chat

Someone_Evil

@MikeQ And closed as opinion based

lisardggY

Back in the day I used to play Gamma World, the post-apocalyptic RPG. This was its 4th edition, I think, back in the early 90s. It was a fun game where you could play mutated humans, mutated animals or mutated plants, and each had their own table of positive mutations your character could have (much better than deadEarth's thankyouverymuch). One of my favorites for sentient plants was "explosive fruit", where you literally had grenade-fruit growing on you, that you could pick and throw.

doppelgreener

i for one have never ever sent a message that's been missing a

aconfusedruid

15:03

@MikeQ yes, but people told me that they couldn't answer there because was opinion based.

MikeQ

It sounds like the kind of thing you can describe however you want. Maybe you become a big mushroom. Maybe the druid gets coated in thick fungus, or dons mushroom-themed armor. Maybe you have a magical girl transformation sequence. There doesn't seem to be a wrong answer.

doppelgreener

@MikeQ what about all of those at once?

aconfusedruid

@doppelgreener neat

lisardggY

To follow up on @MikeQ's answer - this would be a good opportunity to choose a thematic flavor for your druid, which will help you easily choose how to express his various powers consistently, if you wish.

Someone_Evil

I suggest chantarelle, very tasty

Thomas Markov

15:05

@MikeQ Yeah, I suggested that chat would be a good place to discuss it.

aconfusedruid

Ok, I think that I have an idea. Thanks for the help!

lisardggY

@Someone_Evil But is it thematic?!

MikeQ

It's similar to effects like eldritch blast, magic missile, or mage armor. There's no specification of what exactly they look like, so the player has leeway in how they want to describe it.

Someone_Evil

@lisardggY Well, 1. that was joke, 2. that subclass feature is already part of Mushroom themed Druid (see Ravnica's Golgari) so it's maybe more choosing how that theme expresses visually

MikeQ

Personally I'd opt to manifest the fungal spores as some sort of blue cheese power armor

Then you can summon plants and become a salad

lisardggY

15:13

@MikeQ Druids in general have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.

Someone_Evil

Would you rather have Golgari salad or Simic slaw?

MikeQ

Golgari salad sounds like a euphemism for Ravnican sewage waste, so Simic slaw it is

Bardic Wizard

15:29

@Someone_Evil I like Golgari salad. Sounds more... mushroomy

KorvinStarmast

16:19

If I can please get a ruling: is this question worthy of adding to our Cheese archive?

I love clever little tactics like this ... but it's another reason that artificers belong in Eberron ... and only in Eberron ... 😜

Bardic Wizard

Nice answer there. I’d say, if it were my players, “why???? Why?????????????????? WHYYYYYYYY??????????????????????????”

KorvinStarmast

@lisardggY Oh, man, Gamma World. Didn't get to play enough, it was fun but the one DM we had left school and nobody else wanted to do that/do world building. sad face I think we were Original Gamma World so no idea what later editions look like.

@BardicWizard Because it's fun to do stuff like that. It's part of the joy of D&D: shennanigans.

Bardic Wizard

@KorvinStarmast i know. I’d probably let them do it, once

after that... then physics comes into play

KorvinStarmast

I remember the first time I used Reverse Gravity in a large battle ... after that, we got no more scrolls of Reverse Gravity as treasure ... .😂

@BardicWizard I liked his idea about how someone from the Astral Plane comes looking for your pair of artificers. I would have them hand the two artificers a citation for littering. Someone like a Githyanki Knight riding a red dragon ....

His message before going back to the Astral Plane would be "Only you can prevent dragonfire on your home town ....."

Thomas Markov

I went back through the revision history. OP edited the system in 11 days ago, but it was after it had been deleted by Community. I was going through deleted posts on SEDE and stumbled across it and voted to undelete.

KorvinStarmast

16:30

@ThomasMarkov Undeleted cheese is so savory ...

... goes well with fava beans and a nice Chianti ....

lisardggY

@KorvinStarmast They changed quite a lot. But because it was never TSR's top-tier game, the mechanics were always hand-me-downs. 3rd edition used a stripped down version of the Marvel Super Heroes system. 4th used a stripped-down AD&D 2e (with AC going up!). 5th was based on the Alternity system, 6th on d20 Modern and 7th on the D&D 4e SRD.

GW was always fun because it leaned into the "wild and wacky" post-apocalyptic tropes, not the "grim and gritty".

KorvinStarmast

@lisardggY mind blown I doubt I'd recognize it.

@lisardggY Yep, it was wide open.

Thomas Markov

Are moderators notified when a community deleted post is edited?

Rubiksmoose

@ThomasMarkov Nope.

Thomas Markov

@Rubiksmoose That bag of holding question sat in limbo for 11 days, I only caught it because I was trawling deleted posts on SEDE.

Someone_Evil

16:44

But deleted posts being edited should bump it to the home page

Thomas Markov

@Someone_Evil Do you see deleted questions on your home page?

Rubiksmoose

@ThomasMarkov Nice catch :)

JohnP

@Someone_Evil It should, but only 10k and mods would be able to see it.

Rubiksmoose

I'm not sure I've ever seen a deleted question be bumped...

Thomas Markov

@JohnP My understanding is that you can only see deleted questions if you have the link.

Which is why I was using SEDE.

Someone_Evil

16:47

@ThomasMarkov Ahh, no. Isn't there a spot in the 10k tools for undelete votes?

Thomas Markov

@Someone_Evil Yeah, but someone has to find the deleted question first. It showed up there only after I put in an undelete vote after finding it totally by accident

Someone_Evil

And notifying mods that something should be undeleted is a good use of flags

Thomas Markov

@Someone_Evil I left that comment on the post.

Rubiksmoose

@Someone_Evil Definitely. Especially because if its from an unregistered user since they can't flag anything.

JohnP

@ThomasMarkov If you have at least 2k rep, you can search "deleted:all" and see deleted items.

Thomas Markov

16:49

@Rubiksmoose Ah.

@JohnP "Note: only content you own is returned when searching for deleted content"

Rubiksmoose

@JohnP Sadly that is mod-only

Thomas Markov

@Rubiksmoose Mod-and-SEDE-only :P

Rubiksmoose

I've been tricked by this before

JohnP

@Rubiksmoose Ah, so it is. Dangit.

And editing a delete doesn't bump it either.

And it's 10k rep on a graduated site. We still havent had the "baby graduation" applied to fitness.

Thomas Markov

Anyway, if someone with some SQL chops wants to help me out, I've got an idea.

It's happened once, so its probably happened before, and will happen again, I'd prefer good questions not sit in limbo like this did.

If we had a SEDE query that listed deleted questions since a date that had been edited by the post owner, we could manually keep an eye out for this kind of thing.

Someone_Evil

16:55

Hmm... I just lost 2 rep to a user removal, meaning an asker who accepted, but did not upvote my answer?

Thomas Markov

@Someone_Evil User upvoted when you were 2 away from your rep cap for a day?

Someone_Evil

That would require that to be the only vote which got rep capped, and I don't know if it would retroactivly reduce my Epic progress?

JohnP

@ThomasMarkov My SQL is not outstanding, but I'm not getting any results from the following query:

Thomas Markov

@JohnP I was just about to say, someones working on my problem haha

JohnP

select *
from posts
where lastEditorUserId = OwnerUserId and deletionDate > '2018-01-01'

hrm. Let me try something.

oh wait...there's a cleanup process for deleted items that haven't been touched. Anyone remember the time frame they hang around?

Someone_Evil

17:05

I think it's a month

But it'll vary abit with state/votes

Thomas Markov

@Someone_Evil i have a user script that shows the roomba time at the top of a question

Someone_Evil

@JohnP rpg.stackexchange.com/help/roomba

Thomas Markov

@JohnP I deleted the date condition from that script and it returned 31000 results.

I think it just pulled every deleted post.

JohnP

Uh...no, if you delete the date portion it returns all posts that were last edited by the owner. :D

Thomas Markov

right.

RevenantBacon

17:08

@ThomasMarkov I came in late to this and am now confused, does the floor have a separate time zone or something?

Thomas Markov

@RevenantBacon The roomba is a common name for community user deleetion.

JohnP

@RevenantBacon Script shows time to deletion for a question I think is what he's saying.

er, time to removal

RevenantBacon

Yes, I was making a pun on the floor cleaning robot :P

Thomas Markov

Yeah how long before community will delete the post if it isnt active.

Bardic Wizard

17:20

Uggghhhh everything’s going wrong today

Complex numbers are stupid

Thomas Markov

@BardicWizard Need some help?

Bardic Wizard

No, just super frustrated. I get it but don’t get why it’s useful

JohnP

@BardicWizard why what is useful?

Rubiksmoose

@BardicWizard I can't really explain it right now, but I can tell you that I do deal with complex numbers as part of my job as an engineer.

Bardic Wizard

@JohnP Complex numbers, also known as “the thing my math teacher’s spent a week on and I still don’t know why”

JohnP

17:30

@BardicWizard Engineering major?

Bardic Wizard

Nope, student in precalc

Thomas Markov

@BardicWizard Direct application of the math is often not the point for students. The mental and cognitive skills learned to work with math are what is useful to most students. Your teacher is challenging you with new and unfamiliar concepts. Complex numbers are entirely counterintuitive when you first encounter them, and accepting and learning to relate to counterintuitive ideas is an immensely valuable skill.

I once encountered a hard-core fundamental conservative Christian math teacher who refused to teach complex numbers because according to him, they were ungodly numbers. He couldn't accept or relate to any ideas that were counterintuitive to what he was used to.

Bardic Wizard

@ThomasMarkov i guess that’s a way of looking at it.

Rubiksmoose

I agree though that where they get fascinating is when you explore how they are used and how they come up as a result of physics. But some of those discussions require even further knowledge.

@ThomasMarkov wat

Thomas Markov

@Rubiksmoose Im not making it up.

Rubiksmoose

17:36

@ThomasMarkov It is too ridiculous for the thought that you made it up to even have crossed my mind.

Bardic Wizard

@ThomasMarkov wow.

Thomas Markov

I was raised in a very conservative home, so when I went to college I basically had to learn to accept and relate to people who had sexual and gender identities that were counter intuitive to what I was raised to understand. But I found it easy to do. Just as when I learned complex numbers and was told "this is how it is, accept it and love it", I was able to realign my perspective and accept and love people I would not have related to before.

Rubiksmoose

:)

Bardic Wizard

That’s very important and a good way of dealing with the world!

Thomas Markov

Math teaches you all sorts of ways of subconsciously dealing with the world.

MikeQ

17:51

Heh, I remember having teachers who said math & science weren't "real" because the scientific method allows for theories to change over time. By their reasoning, their religion claimed itself to be true, and therefore things that don't claim absolute truth (such as the scientific method) must be untrue.

Thomas Markov

@MikeQ On what basis did they make that claim

MikeQ

@ThomasMarkov On the basis of the American education system, apparently

Thomas Markov

head scratch

KorvinStarmast

@BardicWizard we got taught in EE that it was useful in assessing line loss (and some other kind of loss) in power transmission, but it's been over 40 years since I took EE.

@MikeQ ?? There is no 'American education system'. It is devolved to the 50 states (generally speaking) ... and even within those 50 states, to attempt to assert "system" is a really bold statement. It's only a system in that students go in and at some point emerge.

Within a given district, you may be able to describe a systematic way of implementing education. (Universities are now a for profit business, so I am not sure how they fit into 'system' other than degree accreditation programs.)

Bardic Wizard

@KorvinStarmast maybe...

and that all is before getting into public/private/charter

and things like Montessori, Waldorf, other non traditional ways of teaching

MikeQ

18:05

True enough. It was part of a religious institution in a somewhat insular community, so it's not entirely representative of the public schooling system.

KorvinStarmast

Montessori is something my daughter got to benefit from in Pre K years. We moved, and there wasn't one when My son was that age. rant censored

JohnP

18:20

@KorvinStarmast We were lucky enough to get our older boy in a dual immersion Spanish kindergarten. English morning, Spanish only afternoon.

KorvinStarmast

@JohnP cool. I went to a full immersion German kindergarten in Germany when I was 3-4. We lived in Germany. I barely remember it, but my dad still has reel to reel tape of my older brother and I speaking in German after school. It's fascinating, and it's why I can recall stuff in German sometimes, out of the blue.

Bardic Wizard

@KorvinStarmast Montessori is awesome. I went to the only Montessori public school in the district for elementary and it was awesome

for Historical Figures Day (they didn’t want to have us celebrate Halloween in class but wanted to let us dress up) one year I went as Maria Montessori and talked about how she developed it, and I learned a lot that I then tried to apply to class

Granted it wasn’t effective because I was maybe in 4th grade?

RevenantBacon

20:11

@BardicWizard Didn't want you to celebrate Halloween? weird

AncientSwordRage

20:33

@ThomasMarkov wow

Thomas Markov

@AncientSwordRage hmmm

AncientSwordRage

@ThomasMarkov that's worse than my pointers anecdote

Thomas Markov

What is

Oh, the ungodly numbers?

AncientSwordRage

Yeah

Sep 11 at 19:00, by AncientSwordRage

My supervisor famously said "C doesn't like pointers, so just make everything global"

kviiri

I have a love-hate relationship with Halloween

Bardic Wizard

20:38

@RevenantBacon i think it’s more that if they made it “Halloween” rather than “historical figures day” it didn’t imply candy, which would have broken the sugar-free school rules

AncientSwordRage

@kviiri Do you dress up as marmite?

RevenantBacon

@AncientSwordRage No one could be that depraved, could they?

kviiri

on one hand, it's yet another instance of foreign cultural influx overriding our local traditions in favor of more readily commercial alternatives

Thomas Markov

@AncientSwordRage I think I just died a little bit.

kviiri

but it's also the most creativity-inducing holiday of the year with all the costumes and that, which is something I'd definitely like to keep

Mark Wells

20:40

@BardicWizard There's an incredibly useful representation of the trig functions (sin/cos/etc.) as complex exponentials.

AncientSwordRage

@ThomasMarkov you just did an Oof last time, maybe it hadn't sink in?

@RevenantBacon Google proves you wrong

RevenantBacon

I used to work with a lady who is a Jehova's witness, and she insisted that Halloween was about devil worship. And all I could think to say to her was that she must not know much history

kviiri

@AncientSwordRage Whatever you're trying to communicate is wooshing hard

RevenantBacon

@AncientSwordRage my eyes

AncientSwordRage

@kviiri wrong reply

@RevenantBacon what about samhain?

RevenantBacon

20:44

It's like 7 different holidays from all different religions rolled together. I know it's part harvest festival.

kviiri

We had dress-up for Vappu at our upper primary, I went as Uuno Turhapuro

lh3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/…

Couldn't find a more representative picture at a quick search but basically looking a bit like I had survived an explosion

RevenantBacon

I think it's kind of amazing how many season change holidays were coopted by Christianity to draw in more converts. Halloween, Christmas, Easter...

BESW

21:02

@BardicWizard Two hundred years ago some of the smartest people in the Western world were arguing about whether imaginary numbers were useful, so you're not alone. The answer I can keep in my head is that imaginary numbers are used as catalysts to solve otherwise unsolvable problems. It's really really useful to be able to drop the square root of negative one into an equaltion, and once it's done its thing to let you solve for an unknown you can take it back out if you need to.

AncientSwordRage

@BardicWizard they can describe physical particles doing unphysical things, which only make sense when you get a little quantum

Sep 1 at 13:14, by AncientSwordRage

Physics is just maths and lying

BESW

(Greek mathematics, on which Western math was heavily based, is very much an exploration of geometry, so they didn't really run into negative numbers as much as Indian or Chinese mathematics did. The "imaginary numbers" argument in the mid 1700s and early 1800s was an extension of the debate about whether negative numbers existed as objects or if they were only shorthand for the operation of subtraction.)

AncientSwordRage

I need to make dinner so I'm outta here.

kviiri

@BardicWizard If it's of any consolation, I am still unsure whether I believe if real numbers exist or not. Friends much more versed in non-discrete math say they're necessary for their work, so I feel compelled to agree, but I still don't know it in my heart. (So, ultimately, the same thing BESW says – they help one solve problems otherwise unsolvable)

BESW

@kviiri Amusingly one of the most vociferous anti-negative-numbers mathematicians was named William Friend.

kviiri

21:14

@BESW Must've been a positive thinker

BESW

@kviiri Well, he wrote a satirical burlesque ridiculing the use of the number zero? He was also against general undefined symbols in algebra (like x), writing "we desire certainty not uncertainty." (This was a major debate in the 1820s/30s.)

kviiri

@BESW Maths has gone a long way...

BESW

I wonder what it would look like if our default way of thinking had developed to consider negatives as operational rather than objects? It's not wrong, it's just different.

kviiri

Defining open-ended stuff would be a lot harder, at least!

Something as basic as co-ordinates on an arbitrary space would get tricky, because one'd presumably only consider one quadrant to actually exist and therefore the placement of the origin matters... quite a lot.

BESW

Or we'd have developed a different way of locating objects in a space!

user15026

21:25

@BESW whaaaaaaaaat

BESW

@Ash More intellectual debates need to be expressed in the form of satirical burlesque.

user15026

Yes please

kviiri

Galileo wrote his thesis attacking the geocentric Ptolemaic model in favor of the heliocentric Copernican model in the form of ostensibly fair dialogue between three characters

BESW

I did not know that!

kviiri

There is Salviati, who is a direct reference to one of Galileo's friends from the Academy of the Lynxes, and more or less makes Galileo's case directly. Then there is Sagredo, a clever outsider, who doesn't know much of the different models beforehand but is clever and inquisitive.

The character defending the Ptolemaic model is called Simplicio, more or less "Simpleton". (You can probably see where I got the "ostensibly fair" bit from!)

Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems

The Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo) is a 1632 Italian-language book by Galileo Galilei comparing the Copernican system with the traditional Ptolemaic system. It was translated into Latin as Systema cosmicum (English: Cosmic System) in 1635 by Matthias Bernegger. The book was dedicated to Galileo's patron, Ferdinando II de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, who received the first printed copy on February 22, 1632.In the Copernican system, the Earth and other planets orbit the Sun, while in the Ptolemaic system, everything in the Universe...

BESW

21:33

I am here for petty shade-throwing scientists.

kviiri

The resemblance of fairness was important, though, because Galileo feared repercussions should he be too direct in making a Copernican thesis. This way, he could argue for his point – in a way, let his readers be the Sagredo and decide for themselves – while not going out of his way to rock the boat of established natural philosophy.

@BESW Have I remembered to share with you the story where Kepler tried to "hack" two then-recent discoveries by Galileo?

BESW

I'm vaguely aware that Kepler's got a reputation for yoinking other peoples' stuff.

kviiri

Back in the days, it was an established practice that scientists would release preliminary results in the form of anagrams. That way, if another scientist made the same discover before the results were ready for publication, the releaser of the anagram could prove they had made the discovery first by presenting the un-jumbled form of the finding.

Kepler tried to "hack" two such anagrams by Galileo, and got each wrong – but each of his faulty interpretations by an odd twist of fate were discovered to be true a few centuries later.

BESW

I love it.

kviiri

The actual discoveries were the phases of Venus and the rings of Saturn (which Galileo, due to having a somewhat period-appropriate telescope, believed was actually some sort of "triple planet" with two "mickey mouse ears" (my words, not his) almost touching the planet proper). Kepler deciphered their anagrams to mean a red spot on Jupiter and moons of Mars – correct on both counts, although by sheer luck!

Bardic Wizard

21:55

Welp I’m not gonna fail all my classes it looks like

even if i spent Spanish class drawing a 4d dungeon map for my next rpg session

It’s 4 times better than that oldfashioned 3D dungeon

BESW

Yey for not failing!

user15026

@BardicWizard well, that's a good thing :)

BESW

22:33

@kviiri Off the top of my head, a radial coordinate system would let you put the origin point anywhere and describe any location in positive numbers of angle and distance from the origin.

It's weird how so many things that seem like the obvious/natural/easiest/only way to think or do, are just the ways we've stumbled into and gone "sure, that works."

Mark Wells

23:07

@BESW My intro EE textbook, in the chapter that started using complex numbers, had a digression about this: Typically this would be where we'd assure you that imaginary numbers are not real and are just a convenient mathematical shorthand for representing phase and magnitude in an AC circuit. But what we're going to say instead is that real numbers aren't real either.

BESW

Morphs in the Dark - Blades in the Dark but Animorphs by Fore.

@MarkWells I'm grateful to my mother for teaching me very early that in mathematics, nothing is true unless the mathematician chose to define it as true for that particular problem.

Things like real numbers are just assumptions which got popular because we've found them to be useful in a lot of different contexts.

Mark Wells

Right. It's a tool we invented to model things.

BESW

And yeah, we're modelling real things and the ways in which our models describe those things imply that we've tapped into some kind of underlying shared truth, but that doesn't mean our model is that truth.

Sep 1 at 13:12, by BESW

and I do love how math turns into philosophy when you poke it with a stick.

Bardic Wizard

@BESW doesn’t everything though??

MikeQ

Philosophy is just applied science, science is just applied math, and math is just applied philosophy

Bardic Wizard

23:13

also, what is truth? Is it what we know to be real? Is it what is known to be not false? Is it everything?

BESW

Yeah, but often you have to prod a thing really hard. The math->philosophy reaction has very low activation energy.

Mark Wells

Philosophy is the pan of gravy, and math is that weird skin that forms on top as it cools.

BESW

@MikeQ My problem with that structure has always been its linear implication of an unbranching natural hierarchy.

Bardic Wizard

@BESW prodding something really hard is just the same thing as stabbing it until it agrees with you

or doesn’t, as the case may be

@kviiri also, oh yay more Medicis. They must be stabbed.

MikeQ

It's a type triangle. Math-type attacks deal 2x damage against philosophy-type Pokemon, but 1/2x damage against science-type Pokemon.

nitsua60

23:26

Hmm... looks like I got to the math-philosophy-epistemology conversation about ten hours early?

10 hours ago, by nitsua60

> All I have to say to this is: being true is different from being taken to be true, whether by one or many or everybody, and in no case is to be reduced to it. There is no contradiction in something's being true which everybody takes to be false.... If being true is thus independent of being acknowledged by somebody or other, then the laws of truth are not psychological laws: they are boundary stones set in an eternal foundation, which our thought can overflow, but never displace.

I blame time zones. I've been remote-teaching too much this week. That must be it.

Bardic Wizard

@nitsua60 by some amazing coincidence, I’ve been remote learning too much this week! I believe most of my teachers can’t blame time zones though

nitsua60

socially-distant high five!

o/

Mark Wells

@nitsua60 If you remote-teach someone who's 8 hours ahead of you, and they remote-teach someone 8 hours ahead of them, and that person remote-teaches you, you can learn what you're going to teach tomorrow. Because time zones.

2

Bardic Wizard

Also, I have conquered the complexities of complex numbers to the consequence that i cannot fail!!

Mark Wells

Before the invention of fiber optics, we had to have Superman fly around the earth to do this.

nitsua60

23:32

@MarkWells I believe that's how diesel engines work.

Bardic Wizard

. . . . \o

Social distancing!

nitsua60

Don't disabuse me. I like my beliefs =)

Bardic Wizard

23:49

Unrelatedly our printer has moved from sounding like a dying seal to two dying seals

Which I found out about in the middle of a club meeting

MikeQ

Be careful because the sound of dying seals can attract polar bears

(Polar bears are equivalent to Cartesian bears, but they are measured differently)

6

Hot RPG Questions

3

Q: If I have already used all my movement, and then Zephyr Strike increases it after my attack, can I move more with the increased speed?

My character is a Ranger with the spell Zephyr Strike, which increases my speed by 30ft after I make an attack. If I have already used all my movement to reach an enemy, can I attack and then use the increased 30ft to move away?

dnd-5e spells movement

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