Holy Glarnak!

Bats swim!

Really well

Pretty elegant.

This seems pretty-much story-based.

@NexTerren try Fortran 77 ;)

On behalf of my country I apologize for the next four years.

@James yeah, was not really a good morning on my side... France will probably be one of the next to fall to insanity.

I am still failing to grasp what bad thing's going to happen that everybody seems to be totally sure of

Or why there is a system in place that allows someone to win the elections with only 51% of all votes

well, to be honest, last time we had an economic fallout, which lead to the countries to fall back to isolationism... that did not end so well

that the triumpf of emotions against reason

electing someone who is openly racist, xenophobe, sexist, and a few other nice words

international relationship is about moderaite words and equilibrium. And if Trump does what he promises, he is changing the whole world's equilibrium.

And I'm not sure we would really improve from it.

Plus, the USA being an example for many countries in Europe, I would not be surprised to see the like of FN, AfD or UDC win their respective elections (note, I'm not saying they are all at the same level, but they do share that isolationist and patriotic views).

Here is an opinion, which tries to see the consequences on foreign relationship: washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/…

Interesting read; thanks

Ugh. America. There are no words.

The politics of hatred, and division are winning everywhere. I'm growing more and more convinced that democracy is a terrible idea ... it's just we still don't have anything that isn't worse.

@TimB I think the people where kind of cold with the concept of democracy, so decided to essentially throw it away.

I can understand being angry at the political establishment and just how much they are in the pocket of big business. But people like trump and farage are part of the problem, not the solution.

Pre-emptive strike: Let's try and keep this chat nice, eh? There are many other places on the Internet for ranting/gloating/panicking about the elections. I'm not asking for a moratorium on the subject, but keep it squeaky clean please.

Like we learned with Pokemon Go, not every public space is suitable for every possible use.

Yeah, don't worry - all the real rants are being kept in my head :)

@BESW pre-emptive strike, means someone got offended by the current content? Or you wanted to remind us, not to go too far?

Pre-emptive: getting the idea into play proactively before it becomes a problem.

ok, just wanted to make sure :)

@TimB can hardly agree more. I don't want to pin it down, because of the sensitive nature, though...

@TimB the thing is: Trump is a successful businessman, making him president will make the US a successful country which means there is more money available so people can earn more and live better

It's basic psychology.. :/

yeah, depending on your definition of successful. I'm sure all the employees of his companies that went bankrupt thought he was great

@TimB I don't say it's true; what I am trying to show is how many people think :/ you're totally right there

I think people voted more against Clinton and what she represents... than for Trump.

honestly, he has been moving in the same circle as she has, inherited a fortune, made some disputable success in casino, in charity, in education.

She was completely the wrong candidate to field against trump, people were saying as much as well

Though from reading a few reaction, the wall thing has been popular

blame the foreigner for the fact that rich people have screwed you often enough and people believe it

what I'd really like is to come up with a positive way forwards, but I'm really not seeing one

It's saying what people wanna hear that gets you their votes; same is here on WB - there's many questions that are extremely successful not because they're good but because they're simple enough for a broad mass to understand (or make them think they do)

@TimB yeah, I admit I was wrong there, I thought that being more moderate than Sanders she would have the best chance to get the Republicans who felt Trump was a bad idea. How wrong could I be...

yeah, like Santa is Satan :D worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/32086/…

I wonder if he might mess up enough to break down the two-party-system

2 more upvotes, all I need for a gold badge :(

Only over my dead body

@TimB well, actually we are more jumping into uncertainty than necessary drama.

we have to see how what he said goes through the filter of reality of power...

the parallels with nazi germany & pre revolutionary russia/china are what really scares me. It's not trump/brexit as such. It's what they say about the direction the world is going in.

@TimB I know that feeling, I have an answer with 97 score... ^^"

they're a symptom, not a cause

@TimB yeah, I made that parallel earlier...

Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it

a global economic crisis, which lead to people to turn to themselves with increasing isolationism and patriotism...

las time it did not end well... but really not at all.

But again: A person wanting to be elected as the leader of their people does have to be charismatic, not smart

What does it matter if you're the person best-suited for a job if the one hiring you does not understand what the job is about?

@bilbo_pingouin Ahh your herbivore army one, I liked that one. Upvoted in fact.

@TimB apparently you weren't the only one ;-)

I must say, I am really not a populist. My two most voted answers (and posts) on SE are some where I fail to see the "greatness".

Oh me too. Really good questions/answers often earn middling rep

@bilbo_pingouin it's the koalas

In that one, I think I won with the humour. And the relative shortness

btw a question about the thrust applied to a sail by the wind at various heights would not be on topic, would it?

@dot_Sp0T tvfanatic.com/quotes/…

@dot_Sp0T Only on topic if you can explain why it is relevant to building a world

what's the question though? The answer is probably simpler than you think

@TimB I just wanted to type it out in the end :)

(I used to both sail and windsurf)

The answer would mostly be looking up reference values of different forms of sails and extrapolating

if you know the answer, no point asking :p

@TimB I am designing a basic sail-airship and there's a bunch of issues that I know are there but cannot see (besides the ones I see, such as how I would possibly retract the sails)

@TimB Self-Answered Questions, though?

@dot_Sp0T Oh, I can answer that one now. Force is zero at all altitudes on all parts of the sail

@TimB huh?

the airship is being carried by the wind already, sailing ships on water work by exploiting the difference in movement between the wind and the water

once you're already airborn there is no difference, you need active propulsion, the best you can do without that is adjust altitude and try to find wind going in the right direction

you'd still use sails to gain speed, you just need some fancy way of breaking

no

so how do you break?

there is no "gain speed" the wind carries you at the same speed as the wind

sails or not doesn't matter, the wind carries you

to break you drop an anchor or similar into the ground and drag it behind you. If you're up high...you don't.

not without some form of active propulsion (i.e. propellers/jets/em drive/magic/etc)

the wind only carries something that is <= air

you said airship

doesn't necessarily make it lighter than air

then how does it fly?

how does an airplane fly?

active propulsion (even gliders, although in their case it's external)

Ah well then no airships anymore

I'll just scrap the world and make a new one

:)

it might be better if you explain what you're trying to achieve and I can tell you how to get there

Nah, I don't like you anymore now

(y) My work here is done :D

I am tempted to show my discontent by making your job to achieve 100 upvotes harder

Nah won't do that, would be silly

I want you to find me a way of building airships with sails

So that my designs can work out

@TimB what you could help me with is explaining/elaborating on how far apart different layers of wind are

:rubs eyes: I wonder if I've been changed in the night. Let me think. Was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different.

@SerbanTanasa it's called a hangover... ;)

@dot_Sp0T That would need some research. I do know there are not generally very abrupt transitions though.

and you get very turbulent airflow at the boundaries

@TimB sounds fun

my suspicion is that the boundaries fluctuate too much and are too hard to detect for you to meaningfully use them

I've no way to prove that thouhg

A question on how to justify a decision would be on topic right?

Aaaah my non-native-speaker background haunts me again, I can't find the words to express my thoughts..

@TimB I weep for my country.

That's all I'll say.

@HDE226868 You and me both.

@HDE226868 I weep for the world, tbh.

Normally, I have no trouble falling asleep. Ever. I've got two hours of sleep in me since yesterday night.

@dot_Sp0T Hmm, it might be too much about the character not the world. "Why" is generally bad. "How" or "What" generally ok.

@TimB talking more about an engineering decision; but I see how the wording can get people to think about the wrong thing

I basically have an airship design and I need reasons for it to look like that :)

Ok, sure. That could work so long as you make sure it's constrained enough

Dear god, took me at least three attempts to realize that there's an error in the article I was reading...

The submarine ballast tanks now filled with seawater is denser than the surrounding water. <-- the ballast tank doesn't magically get denser than the surroundings when filled with the same thing as the surroundings, but the complete mass of the sub changes and thus its density; or am I wrong..?

ish

technically it will be denser, since the metal of the tank weighs more than the same volume of water and the air inside is replaced by water of equal density

what I said

but I doubt that's what they mean. What they mean is that the submarine as a whole is now denser

well "ballast tank" means tank+ballast, so technically they are right but it's very much on a technicality and really they are wrong

So pretty much what I suspected; thanks for confirming - I was briefly doubting my understanding of the whole thing

nah, you're right

I know it does not have much with what you are just saying, but I have to share that article: rue89.nouvelobs.com/2016/11/09/… (in French), "The victory of Trump is the victory of trolls" (own translation). I found that title funny.

@bilbo_pingouin interesting article to say the least

Ugh, good morning people.

morning. Or, mourning?

Happy Trump day!

who knows, maybe it won't be too bad

@DaaaahWhoosh He mocks disabled people, women, minorities and religions without regard to reality and preyed on peoples basest fears to get elected. Not to bad means there's actually still a country we recognize when he is done

whoa, whoa

yeah, but as long as the rest of the government isn't so bad, they can keep him in check

Shouldn't there be a senate, or what's it called, to evaluate and counter bad decisions?

@dot_Sp0T yeah, but they're Republicans. So they might go along with it

@DaaaahWhoosh I kind of get that you are not a Republican :)

@DaaaahWhoosh they're still presumably intelligent member of the human race, aren't they?

@dot_Sp0T yeah, so he won't get away with the crazy stuff. But the stuff that's only almost crazy might work

I don't know, I'm probably still not smart enough to talk about this

but I will say that politicians want to be re-elected. And if Trump can be president, then they might as well do what he's doing

Trump in of himself is bad but I'm actually more concerned about the fact of his election than what he might do now he is elected. The fact that an openly mysogynistic sexual offending serial bankrupt billionaire egotist (who matches all the profiles for a corporate psychopath btw) who got rich from ripping people off is considered by millions of people to be fit to run a country... what does that say about the world?

@TimB Yep my thoughts exactly.

I agree with @TimB, the first power of a president is to be the center of the debate.

Trump will make himself very rich, grind a bunch of people to dust to do it, and set back minority rights and societal progress by a generation. It's not the end of the world. The state of society that allows him to come to power in the first place. That is voting for brexit, for UKIP, for the French national front, neo nazi parties in Germany, etc, etc.

The "news" outlets that have abandoned all pretense of being anything but partisan speaking heads for their billionaire puppet masters ringing out a song of "hate hate hate" and cheering on the screaming mob of people turning on each other while their masters get quietly richer and richer and richer and pull the strings. That is what worries me.

Now it could be argued that the state of society represents the idea that humanity is unfit to live in a world where living is not hard

For example everyone can at the click of a button get anything they want, but most do neither understand how that button works nor why they're suddenly indebted

Good morning.

@NexTerren Something like that yeah

It's always fun to have someone say good morning when I am about to leave the office

Joy/Upset about the election aside, how's everyone doin'?

@dot_Sp0T It is kind of cool to be casually reminded that we're all living on a lil' spinning blue marble in space.

@NexTerren That's a happy thought. Thank you. My brain is currently full of confusion and rage...and the word F*&% over and over again.

To placate those who are currently raging about certain election results, have some Internet:

@ArtOfCode Is that a comet spouting racist and otherwise offensive things as it falls toward the white house where it will make a large smoldering crater?

@James surely you recognize the Teletubbies sun

@ArtOfCode oh...now you mention it...no actually I don't ;P

@James Come on, man. How could you not recognize (the horror that is) Teletubbies?

@NexTerren that comes from the man that failed to recognize TMNT

@dot_Sp0T thank you.

Never watched it...I would recognize the little...whatever they are but that's about it

Well anyways, I gotta run for my bus; if anyone would like to help me with my airship problems I'd appreciate it thousandfold

@dot_Sp0T Airship problems?

Have lots of them. FTFY.

@ArtOfCode pretty sure the Teletubies sun was less terrifying

and where are the rabbits?

@ArtOfCode ftfy?

for the fifth year

fight the flying yaks

hello, all

fortunate to find you

who is fortunate and why?

feeling tired? fried yams.

yams ... yummi

fun times for you

oh... fixed that for you

am I not seeing someone's comments here?

I think he's just being strange

ArtOfCode said 'FTFY' and dot_Sp0t asked what it meant

@TimB oh good, so I am not the crazy one :P

@DaaaahWhoosh Having fun with alliteration?

@HDE226868 more like fun with initialisms

@DaaaahWhoosh well the real Teletubbies sun didn't have a racist, misogynist maniacal president in it.

as long as fun is being had

@DaaaahWhoosh Oh, that's why. I saw the f's but missed the overall trend.

I still don't know what it means

fixed that for you

Aaaaah, it was a joke; now I understand

SO back to the issue

@dot_Sp0T which issue is that?

@AndreiROM November's issue, I assume. National Geographic, naturally.

you guys need to learn to read up

@NexTerren naturally

@DaaaahWhoosh read up how far back though? also there's like 3 different conversation threads woven into one another .. god it's confusing

I love the randomness of this thread

I just hate catching up on it :P

I had a headache, but now my brain is so confused it's forgotten all about it

just nuke them all and let the flying spaghetti monster sort them out.

I think if you start with the Teletubby sun you'll get the gist of what's going on

@DaaaahWhoosh the only reason I know what the teletubies are is because of 9GAG

missing out on that show is one of the few advantages of growing up in post-communist Romania

@AndreiROM The only reason I know what the teletubies are is because of my nightmares.

I'm just sad that they aren't actually telepathic

@NexTerren you have my sympathies

I forget when exactly this happened, but I remember a horror cartoon version of the teletubbies where there's a zombie outbreak in their "realm"

it was quite gruesome

most satisfying thing I've ever watched

@AndreiROM That actually sounds better than the real thing.

@NexTerren that's quite a low bar though

@AndreiROM ...I can't argue there.

have any of you guys tried a game on steam called Duskers?

@AndreiROM I have designed a cool looking sail-powered airship and then @TimB made me sad by saying that they don't do anything for the airship because the ship will be drifting in a homogenous mass of air, so be always as fast as the surrounding wind

Well my company's stock went up, while the market as a whole went down. I guess that doesn't come as too much of as shock?

@dot_Sp0T well .. yes

when you're floating on water you have currents that push you to and fro

@AndreiROM so I need a reason to incorporate the sails again; also some way of steering and braking without resorting to engines

and you can fight against them by getting pushed by the wind instead

but when you're floating in air ...

@dot_Sp0T fans blowing into the sails?

@AndreiROM Lol. In case anyone reads and believes that...it also doesn't work :p

@dot_Sp0T can you flap the sails or spin them or something? If you turn them into active propulsion then they could work

or if you have magic then "because magic"....if the sails were catching the aether winds not the regular ones and the aether wins flowed different from air, then we're back in business

@TimB yes, it occurred to me after the fact, but it would look interesting :)

I'm missing something. Why can't the ships just use the normal wind to push them? That's how hot-air balloons travel, more or less.

@AndreiROM that's not that stupid an idea actually; I could create primitive jet engines to power the sails by burning liquids in a chamber with only one exit towards the sails

have you guys heard about NASA's new microwave drive?

@NexTerren they can use wind. There's just no point in sails as the ship doesn't have to fight any currents or drag, so it'll have the same speed with and without sails

it breaks the laws of physics as we understand them, but it works

@TimB the only nigh-magical thing will be whatever keeps those heavy things up in the air

@AndreiROM does it break the laws of physics in a way that can't be explained by measurement error?

@AndreiROM Sometimes something "works" or "is the case" and then when it's further tested it turns out it was wrong. I'm waiting for peer reviews and reproduction by other parties before I buy in.

@AndreiROM I agree with everything before the comma.

@DaaaahWhoosh the drive works by shooting microwave radiation into a closed chamber

it essentially has no output

most scientists thought nasa was wasting their time

Thought -> Still think. The media likes it; most actual scientists don't.

i just read the article yesterday

@AndreiROM I do that all the time, it's a great way to warm up leftovers

maybe there's something I didn't quite understand

@dot_Sp0T Are you sure? It seems like it would have greater effect if you can increase the surface area affected by the wind in ratio to the mass. Like how boxy cars are more affected by strong winds than small cars.

@DaaaahWhoosh i know, right? I love dual purpose devices

we'll all fly to mars on a spaceship built out of microwave ovens

cheap and quite useful for heating up your meal packets

@AndreiROM Hot Pockets for daaaays

@dot_Sp0T Or large kites are harder to control vs small ones.

sciencealert.com/…

@NexTerren yeah they help for speeding up/slowing down but that's it

@dot_Sp0T ...Now I'm really lost. Isn't that the exclusive purpose of sails? Increasing speed along a vector on demand?

The EM Drive is certainly interesting

@dot_Sp0T why not just use the jet engines to push yourself as planes do?

people are worried because it seems to break conservation of momentum, which they thought was a fundamental physics law

@TimB yea, I'm a little bit mind-blown

@NexTerren they won't work the same way as in ships though; what they'll do is, as you say, increase the area that is affected - thus when changing between winds the ship will adjust to the new wind faster than without them, other than that there is no point. And the cost of tremendous wooden masts to hoist the sails might as well cancel this out as the gasbladders/balloons needed to grow in size

but multiple teams around the world are getting reproducible results. Enough that we can now say "something" is happening

well .. science is supposed to be open minded and open to amending their beliefs

@AndreiROM because I don't want jet-engines at that point in the technological timeline

how high do you want the airships to fly and over what terrain?

@dot_Sp0T a big propeller powered by a hamster wheel would work as well :P

@TimB as high as they need, over all the terrain :D

submarine style, but cuter.

@AndreiROM there's no hamsters, but I think I'll introduce boozerats to the world

I wonder how energy efficient it'd be to burn boozerats instead of coal

@dot_Sp0T I think the crew would be in great peril

"oh, no! The boozerat cages are hit! Get the fire extin..." boooommmmmm

@MolbOrg ping

that's when they're not drunk that is

they would work with sails if you ran them over water and dropped a keel into the water. They would work over land if you had rails to hook them up to

@TimB don't have none of that fancy mumbo-jumbo, alas the second thing is how I concepted trains before I introduced more mountains to discourage trains

So I guess I'll simply use the sails as a means to increase the area that is affected by changing winds in order to have faster changes in direction and speed when gaining/loosing altitude :D

Wait forget that, I'm using magical lifting gases with negative mass; displacement won't do me no good

Howdy

@TrEs-2b ho o/

Any ideas on how to gain/lose altitude other than adding some hot air ballonnets to the mix? (nor by venting the precious lifting gas)

@dot_Sp0T currents

question, as I didn't have wifi last night

also, maybe your magic gas also lifts your vessel by virtue of heating to a certain degree ?

who won the election?...

@TrEs-2b I'm surprised you haven't heard .... Trump

hmmm

@TrEs-2b I think that's pretty much everyone's reaction

I'm going to say it's like a prostate exam. The next four years are going to suck, but I think America is going to be better off after Trump is gone as opposed to after Hillary.

along with ... "Am i dreaming?"

@TrEs-2b i seriously despise that woman

They are both horrid, disgusting human beings

@AndreiROM it bothers me enough that I have not found a way around introducing a gas with negative mass; I don't want to add more magical properties to it - e.g. it can compress and expand, the more compressed it is, the more lift you will have for less volume (negative weight)

I've said it before, I'll say it again, this is why you should not have a two party system!

but .. i'm not even american, so i'll keep my political opinions to myself

same

@TrEs-2b where are you from?

@TrEs-2b doesn't america have a two party system?

I live in middle of nowhere Alberta

@dot_Sp0T the reason hot air just works so well is because if you cool it, you go down

Did you mean should not have a two-party system?

@dot_Sp0T typo

@TrEs-2b urban Ontario :P

yeah

@TrEs-2b I hear that your country is very popular all of a sudden.

City slicker

@TrEs-2b yes, but less than you'd think. Grew up on my grandparent's farm in Romania as a very young kid

hail Canada and our sexy god leader Trudeau

@TrEs-2b don't get me started on Trudeau

hmm, I'm moving to a farm

@AndreiROM that's why I'll likely use hot-air-ballonnets for altitude changes; but the reason it works so well is, that hot things expand und thus displace more cold air, so they rise. The gas doesn't work with displacement, so the airship would be heavier than air weren't it for the negative mass provided by the gas

@TrEs-2b should be quite a change of pace from ... well ... everything

@dot_Sp0T i'll be honest .. I have a splitting headache, and what you just wrote made it worse :P

@TimB It's not the Trump stuff that scares me as much as people being convinced he's the second coming of the Lilithu demon come to eat their children-- the talk on my twitter and facebook feed is all elites discussing dismantling the American election system because someone they/we didn't like got elected...

@AndreiROM let me break it down: AIR is a mix of gases. This mix of gases takes up a certain amount of space per liter of it. This mix of gases takes up more space when it gets hotter, because the gases do something called expanding. As the hotter mix takes up more space it is getting pushed towards the top of the container, where the density (weight/volume) is less than at the level the gas is currently at

@SerbanTanasa isn't that what politics is all about?

@SerbanTanasa to be fair, we really should change the way we vote, the current system has never been good

@SerbanTanasa yes, people are going off the deep end. They need to come to grips with this thing called "democracy"

Can someone please peer-review my edit to this question: worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/60770/… - my OCD will thank you

@dot_Sp0T I understand all that. I'm just having some trouble focusing at the moment :(

@AndreiROM try some Ritalin, it does wonders for me

@dot_Sp0T yeah, looks good to me

@dot_Sp0T I'm sticking with copious amounts of caffeine for now

@SerbanTanasa when someone like trump can get elected then something is seriously wrong with the system. Wanting to fix it seems like a reasonable response

@DaaaahWhoosh I thank thee

@TimB as opposed to someone like Clinton?

@TimB not if it involves restricting the right to vote, as I've seen proposed over and over again

@AndreiROM I'd say regardless of who the other candidate is.

@HDE226868 Bingo