The Factory Floor

Shalvenay

2:23 AM

hey again @Green

Shalvenay

3:44 AM

hey there @sphennings

Secret

5:25 AM

Some random thoughts: Hollow and emptiness as magical aspects differ in one important aspect: Hollow has some kind of "partial existence". It is basically the notion of living dead generalised, in that it behaves as if it has some property, but actually it isn't. It might be more closely related to illusions in a way in that only the superficial effects are present, but there is no content

The above thought is inspired by a short video of mine which because of various file transfer reasons, became corrupted in the process. The video have choppy audio and flickering images in most players, but in some players the audio will play correctly while the images will flicker like crazy, and in others the opposite happens.

However, in some players in certain conditions, the video played as if it is not corrupted, but one can easily realised that the corrupted nature because all internal screen recorders and screen savers will basically turn it into a green screen in a file, suggesting that internally to the computer, the bits are corrupted despite for unknown conspiracy reasons, it visually looks ok

(of course I have an earlier full database backup, thus the video is easy to restore, but will do it later)

But anyway, my point is, which also linked to the above random thought is that the video is corrupted in such a perculiar way that it can be seen to play normally on screen,, even though all the internal data is messed up. Which means had no backup exists, the only way to salvage the video is to record it externally (since bits are not smart enough to look corrupt outside the confines of the computer)

This ties with the idea in that the gist of hollow is that it is basically imaginary and nonexistent, despite for all purpose it behaves like a real thing, but given a sufficiently meticulous method, one can convert the illusion to reality

whereas it is impossible to do so for illusions

Therefore, hollow and glitches are expected to work hand in hand as glitches are those transient phenomenon that seemly violate the usual rules being set with its nature being basically unknowable, which means its law breaking nature will allow the hollow to become complete because normal rules don't apply in the Verse settings

and therefore:

Hollow: A partial existence that can only be made to exist via phenomenon that does not follow the rules of the Verse

Glitch: Transient phenomenon that are law breaking in the Verse

Worldbuilding Meta

7:32 AM

0

Q: Topic challenge: alien geometry

I propose an alien-geometry topic challenge. Its often hard to tweak the mathematics of a world (for example, you can't really make 2+2=5 in a reasonable way), but one way you can is by tweaking the geometry. This can lead to many interesting implications, including chemical, biological, and eve...

Joe Bloggs

8:39 AM

Turns out it’s quite hard to write murder mysteries in a world where everything is recorded by an infallible AI.

Secespitus

@JoeBloggs The usual twist is "nothing is infallible"

Tim B

10:53 AM

@JoeBloggs I've seen it done a few times successfully. For example in the Night's Dawn trilogy seemingly innocuous actions weeks in advance and long enough apart not to trigger the AI's interest all added up (to something other than murder in this case but it was similar).

The simplest solution is to introduce a weakness in the AI (either a limitation or something that criminals have developed to bypass it).

Secret

It would be interesting if there exists a situation where you can create the perfect murder mystery even if the AI is flawless

Secespitus

11:36 AM

The AI can only work with the information that is fed to it. Give it different or insufficient information and it's just as fallibe as any human being, even if the AI itself is flawless. Or work with edge cases that work around the expectations of the designers. If the AI is designed to be flawless and the designers only thought of single-murder cases go all orient express on it and suddenly it's completely useless.

AndyD273

12:58 PM

@JoeBloggs Give it as many false positives as possible, so that the true positive can get lost in the noise

Something similar is using a bomb to take out a single target. It's hard to know that only 1 of the 50 people taken out was actually supposed to die

@TimB is that "A Second Chance at Eden"?

Green

@AndyD273 hence why the US is deploying the Small Diameter Bomb. It's stupidly high precision and small explosive yield is designed to answer this question.

@Secespitus Godel's incompleteness Theorem is very clear that there can never be a flawless system.

AndyD273

1:18 PM

@Green 26ft blast radius is still pretty big. Also, it's 250lb and dropped from a jet. I'm thinking more like this:

Green

@AndyD273 I think I'd trust that device more if I had an indication that it was directional. Right now, it looks omnidirectional.

I'd trust a small claymore mine to kill only one person more than I would an omnidirectional blast.

AndyD273

@Green That's what I'm saying though. If you were trying to hide that you were committing a murder, one way to do it is to commit a lot of murders all at once, so that the true murder gets lost in the noise.

Tim B

@AndyD273 I was more thinking of the Neutronium Alchemists's escape in the book by that name.

AndyD273

Of course the other way is to target that person very specifically in a way that looks innocent, like targeting a food allergy or something. Maybe induce a food allergy...

Tim B

I'm sure I saw a Criminal Minds (or similar) episode once where someone faked being a serial killer to hide the true target of their murder.

AndyD273

1:27 PM

@TimB Oh probably. I think I've seen that plot a few times. I didn't make it up myself :)

Secespitus

1:45 PM

Can a mod ping this user? I think I've seen him answer in edits before today...

Here. But there is no way to contact him when he has never written any legit post on the site...

Secret

He is a regular in this chat. You might catch him later

Secespitus

@Secret He has 1 rep, he can't access the chat. I think you are talking about someone else

Secret

ooops sorry, I thought you are talking about sphennings

Secespitus

@Secret I am not sure what gave you the impression. Is it the canned comment that sphennings and I left as a review to that edit suggestion I linked in my second link? I was referring to this user and linked his edit suggestions, where he mentioned himself that they are supposed to be answers. But there is no way to explain to him how the site works if there is no post I could comment on.

Secret

well, the thought process that zipped through my mind that lead to that judgement is like this:

First I saw your above post:

Then I focused on:

> I think I've seen him answer in edits before today

and

> when he has never written any legit post on the site

When I read the links you gave me, the first dot point is triggered because:

and the keyword Edit matches with edit, thus correlation. And then for a very short (< 1s) moment, the 2nd dot point zip across my thought process, which caused me to confuse because sphenning is never known to write non legitable posts

but for some reasons I don't know why, that thought disappeared in < 1s, until I saw you said:

> Is it the canned comment that sphennings and I left as a review to that edit suggestion I linked in my second link?

Secespitus

1:58 PM

Sphennings has written a lot of stuff on the site and doesn't answer in comments or edits. What you see there are the review messages we left. Those are canned comments. It's often useless to write specific things for edit suggestions because very few people know how to acces them (clicking on the "Reject" link in the suggestions tab of your profile; at least I think 1 rep users that don't know how to answer don't know that, which is why I didn't bother writing more)

It would be very easy for me to notify users with an activity comparable to that of Sphennings. But it's impossible for me to reliably notify a 1-rep user that hasn't written a single answer or question and thereby not even a comment. Which is why I asked if a mod could do that. I know they can mod-ping people to chat, even 1-reps I think, and maybe they have a better idea what to do about someone who shows this kind of behaviour.

Secret

Yes I agree, one rep users are quite hard to contact if they don't even wrote in comments, I am just explaining why I made my misjudgement

Secespitus

They can't write comments. That's a privilege you earn with 50 rep, except for comments under your own answers and comments under answers to your questions. And it's good we could clear up that misunderstanding.

Secret

I really have to figure out a way to slow down my stream of consciousness so that I can make less misjudgements. Perhaps next time at the slightest moment I had a doubt that oen of the piece of information does not match, I should froze and pause and think carefully what I have overlooked

I think that's the closest thing I can do to make cognitive bias more traceable. Clearly my brain is trying to ignore things just like how neuroscience often said our brain have the tendency to ignore info that does not match its expectation

Secespitus

Sometimes quick judgment can be a virtue, sometimes patience can be a virtue - it depends on the situation and is a judgment call

@Secret That's normal. Most people would become crazy if they had to always remember every little detail.

Tim B

Even if we pulled them into chat they can't reply here unless they have the rep on at least one site on the network

we do have other ways to contact people but they are for escalation of more serious matters tbh - considering the guy has basically zero activity I think leave it for now and see if it becomes a pattern

Journeyman Geek

2:11 PM

@TimB superping + explicit chat permission. I've done that. like no times in 3 years a mod ;p

Tim B

yeah, I guess that would work. :) Still seems excessive though

kingledion

2:28 PM

@Secespitus I was really looking forward to seeing who had answered my trivia challenge when I got into work this morning, but, whoops! Someone already answered it hours ago.

Harrumph

Secespitus

@kingledion It's not my fault, they are too interesting to leave them aloen :D

Maybe you need some questions that are really guessing. For example everyone can easily control whether my answer to the second one is correct or not, leaving nothing to "guess" differently. The first one did leave more room, because checking the solution is not easily available without SEDE

Green

@AndyD273 ah, sorry. I missed that. I thought you were working in the context of hitting a target with minimal collateral damage. You were talking about murder. The intent is the same, someone dies but somehow the semantics are different.

kingledion

@Secespitus Yeah, there are some that are definitely guessing

Secespitus

Like your "Who has the highest all-time three-month rep increase?" you mentioned some time ago. That one is not easily available and will surely make people guess, which might increase the amount of participants.

kingledion

I'm working on one that is: who was the first user on the site to post the word 'the' 100 times

That is definitely guessing

Man its hard to get out of rep whoring mode on the site

I'm on checking views against time posted to see what might be on the HNQ so I can add a post

I got my badge, time to calm down with the over-answering

Journeyman Geek

2:35 PM

lol

@kingledion 2 things. We're officially not supposed to say repwhore any more...

and stopping is hard ;p

kingledion

I have to find out if I can even enjoy the site without the pursuit of some objective :)

Secespitus

@kingledion You could switch from answering to asking

kingledion

@Secespitus Now there's an idea!

Theres more badges to be had that way too :)

Secespitus

Or if rep-whoring doesn't let you go, you could go for tag badges. Those need answers and answer-scores, so not quite the rep amount as sole focus, but you would obviously still get a lot of rep. And the rep cap wouldn't stop your inner badge-related perfectionist

Future Historian

3:09 PM

Hmmmmm.

I wonder something.

In real life, if either Voyager probe is found........what would extraterrestrials think of the once proud species of hairless apes that had once dominated the third planet of the Sol System?

What would they think.......of us?

As a species?

Pretend that you just discovered a strange object carrying some sort of disk. You and a bunch of other fellow scientists figure out how to play the disk. What would you think of this primitive species that sends its message to the stars?

Secespitus

@FutureHistorian Let's see how long it takes to get there - if they can afford to randomly send out stuff like that there got to be valuable resources we can get on their planet. We just have to enslave them - or kill every last one of them. Easy. Today's a good day.

Future Historian

@Secespitus. Wait a minute. This species looks familiar.......I think it's the natives from NV_70110.03. Are they not supposed to be extinct?

Voyager Golden Record opening greetings plays as sad music plays in the background

:P

(Read the designation from right to left).

Secespitus

@FutureHistorian Some of them must have escaped. Let's take a few samples for the scientist and bomb the rest away. They are multiplying too fast. Who knows where else they got to?!

Future Historian

3:31 PM

@Secespitus. How?! It has been 3,274 home stellar cycles! That is equivalent to 37,000 stellar cycles on their planet. They had barelyestablished small bases on their planet's moon and a small outpost on NV_70110.04 in the immediate prelude to the NV_70110 War. I do not see how they survived. Unless.....wait a minute. Check the half-life of this object's composition.

Secespitus

@FutureHistorian They must have hidden somewhere. I say we nuke 'em and take their stuff.

Future Historian

@Secespitus. Hold your temper for one moment. It looks like there is some kind of radioactive material. Possibly dating back to the same time period of the NV_070110 War......

@Secespitus. Of course! This must have been sent before the conflict. Play the disk. Let us see what this contains.

(By the way, I am sending you the link to a site so I do not have to type in the quotes from the record. goldenrecord.org/#discus-aureus ).

Secespitus

@FutureHistorian To be sure, let's nuke 'em again. Can't hurt, can it?

Secret

bombs are sooooooo overated

Secespitus

@Secret Let's use our make-them-go-away-forever spell.

Future Historian

3:42 PM

@Secespitus. I said 'play the disk'. That is an order. They are already dead and it is improbable that they have survived. Just in case, I am ordering the deployment of probes to the NV_70110 system.

Secespitus

@FutureHistorian And I said: better safe than sorry.

Future Historian

@Secespitus. Fair enough. Just to be safe, I want a scan of NV_70110.03 and probes sent in to investigate before we do anything rash. In the meantime, play the disk.

Secespitus

@FutureHistorian Can I destroy the probes afterwards?

Future Historian

(And here I am, with my fictional ET character being the voice of reason).

@Secespitus. If the savages destroy those probes, assuming they survived, feel free to deploy a relativistic missile at the planet.

Secespitus

@FutureHistorian Already deployed one.

@FutureHistorian *Two

Future Historian

3:49 PM

@Secespitus. This is going to be a long trip......

Secespitus

@FutureHistorian Not for those critters.

Future Historian

.....Some stellar cycles later.

Secespitus

BOOOOOM

Future Historian

Looks at @Secespitus. Well. Launch a relativistic missile, then.

Secespitus

@FutureHistorian Like I said: already did that. Twice.

You can never be too safe.

Future Historian

3:54 PM

@Secespitus. Sighs So much for preserving this planet's native ecosystem.

Wait. Wait.

In all seriousness, and jokes aside, how would extraterrestrials see us if they find the Golden Records on either probe?

Secespitus

@FutureHistorian Exploitable slaves

Gryphon

@Secespitus If you have robots that are cheaper, slaves become kinda pointless.

Future Historian

Even if they are already dead?

Secespitus

@Gryphon Entertainment is invaluable.

Future Historian

@Gryphon. Well, the Visitors humans run into are only one group. They merely wanted to create a coherent empire out of the systems this semi-nomadic force had conquered (which in reality is a tiny fraction of their species). They are not the only political entity, however, and a rival group tries (and fails) to liberate the humans.

By that, I mean that they arrived too late to save humanity from being scorched Earthed (literally) by the initial invasion force.

Then again, they are a very multicultural and politically fractured species, just like humans and other civilizations so........

Sorry about the drifting into the specific species.

I just wanted to help probe @Gryphon's point.

If a species already has automation, slaves are unnecessary.

And much less if you are capable of STL interstellar travel.

And spamming 500 light years' worth of star systems + scattered colonies and conquered systems.

And self-sustaining space forces and arks (aka: nomadic/semi-nomadic groups).

Secespitus

4:09 PM

@FutureHistorian Except for when you want to use them as entertainment. A near-extinct different species will surely be sought after in some kind of zoo, for scientists and for people with weird... tastes... Everyday robots can't replace that

Gryphon

@Secespitus True. You may have a niche market.

But "slaves" is kind of inaccurate, since you wouldn't have them doing any actual work, given that its cheaper to provide power for robots than food for slaves.

Secespitus

I would use the term as "no free will of any sort or they get killed immediately". You could of course call them "animal", "specimen", "toy" or whatever specific purpose they serve in one of those scenarios I mentioned.

Gryphon

@Secespitus In my opinion, the word "slave" carries connotations of forced labour, but, strictly speaking, it is technically accurate. I just wouldn't personally use it for such a situation.

Secespitus

I would view that as forced labour of sorts, but it seems we are just in the realm of semantics.

Gryphon

@Secespitus We are certainly in the realm of semantics at this point. I guess the word just doesn't "feel right" for me in this situation. I wouldn't have a problem reading it, but it wouldn't be the word I'd write.

Secespitus

4:20 PM

Which word would you prefer to use if you were writing this?

Gryphon

@Secespitus Maybe "pet" if used as, well, pets. Or, if for medical or scientific experimentation, "specimen", as you suggested. If in a zoo, probably "specimen" again.

Bellerophon

Is there a new banner for low quality answers?

Secespitus

@Gryphon Yeah, but isn't there a way to express all of these "unwillingly participating in something"-things with one word? Something to change my former sentence to? Exploitable _______

@Bellerophon Can't see a banner, so not sure.

Piomicron

4:37 PM

@Shalvenay @Bellerophon Thing is, I was planning to make steel be various combinations of iron and coal, and 'magnetism' would be interesting, but first I'd have to elementalify that

Energy would be air and fire, light would be energy and void, electricity, possibly metal and energy? But how would I then get magnetic-ness?

Bellerophon

Electricity and metal?

Gryphon

@Piomicron Earth and energy? Maybe metal and electricity (electromagnet)? Light minus electricity? (can you even do subtraction?)

AndyD273

@Piomicron Metal and void?

Piomicron

@Gryphon You can do subtraction if the thing includes the other thing

@AndyD273 I was thinking about having 'cold iron' be iron + void

AndyD273

@Piomicron I don't actually know what kind of elements you have to work with... so I was just guessing

Piomicron

4:50 PM

@AndyD273 The original elements are Air, Water, Earth, Fire, Mind, and Void.

AndyD273

5:02 PM

@Piomicron Well, IIRC, the ancients believed that elements at their smallest level had specific shapes, like iron atoms had little hooks that grabbed onto each other, which is what made iron so strong. So it could be that magnetism is some extension of that, like a love of iron, so maybe magnetism is iron and mind.

Secret

steel->metal+coal->metal+(plant+fire)->metal+((earth+life)+fire)->metal+((earth+‌(?+?)+fire)

ugh, life is a difficult one...

Piomicron

@AndyD273 Interesting... I currently am making it so earth has one bond, water and fire have two, air has four, mind has six, and void has 8

Secret

I tend to be bad at void, because I have a very fine classification of the various aspects of void itself

Piomicron

@Secret Ooh, do tell

Secret

Void = (creation+destruction+neutral) interaction: complex

ie. for me, void is very primal, but not atomic

Bellerophon

5:06 PM

@Secret metal+((earth+(energy+mind))) -> metal+(earth+((fire+air)+mind)))

Secret

yeah, that would work

AndyD273

@Secret seems like life would be earth+mind... and once the mind is removed it returns to earth.

Secret

yeah, that's a good way to represent death also

Also to me, the following are distinct:

Void=/=emptiness=/=hollow=/=vacancy=/=nothingness=/=nonexistence etc.

and also, to me, 99% of this diagram the concepts are distinct

So, had I were a wizard, I probably a master at nothingness type magic

Piomicron

5:22 PM

@Secret I'd say still, stationary, and immobile are the same, and not classified under void

@Secret As well as stable, invariant, steady state, constant...

Gryphon

@Secret Where they are close together, many of them are simmilar, occasionally to the point of being almost identical concepts, but as the distances grow larger, they tend to become more distinct.

Piomicron

@AndyD273 I like that life one, I hadn't thought of that.

Future Historian

5:35 PM

@Gryphon? I am back.....

What did I miss?

Gryphon

Why did you write everything twice?

Future Historian

Total accident.

Internet is being an arsehole today (again).

Still, why would humans be exploited?

Secespitus

@FutureHistorian You can scroll up click "load to my last message" if necessary to have a look at the transcript

Future Historian

Besides, the humans by the time the Voyager 2 probe is recovered are completely extinct.

As in: 37,000 years prior.

By the same species that had wiped them out 37,000 Earth years prior.

kingledion

7:32 PM

@dot_Sp0T I'm doing summary statistics on immigration to the United State in the late 1800s. The US Census identiifes like 26 nationalities, so I'm trying to lump groups together (like Denmark/Norway/Sweden). Its it reasonable to lump the Swiss with the Germans? Would the average Swiss peasant from the 1880s be a German speaker? Keep in mind Italians and French/French-Canadians are other lumped groups.

dot_Sp0T

@kingledion it's difficult to say. German is presumably the most-often spoken language here, followed by french. While the Swiss do not like to be called German, French, Italian, etc. They also don't liked being grouped with the other groups from within our country..^^ If you lump Denmark/Norway/Sweden as Skandinavia then lumping Switzerland together with Germany and Austria is likely to be ok I guess

Also if it helps afaik I got distant-relatives in the Chicago area or so

kingledion

@dot_Sp0T If it makes your nationalist sensibilities feel better, I'm lumping the Dutch in with the Germans too. Here in America, there was a long history of calling German things Dutch.

Illinois is the state with the 4th most Swiss immigrants in 1900, according to the US Census page I am looking at right now

dot_Sp0T

@kingledion hmmm are you sure about that? Why not lump Belgium with the Dutch instead ?

kingledion

Well, first there were very few Belgish immigrants. Second, I lumped the Belgish with the French.

Since the Flemish speak Dutch...sort of, the Waloons speak French and should be French.

The problem is that the Census isn't super clear on the criteria for assigning nationality to the people that were counted.

Also, national border changes are a big problem. The people counted as Austrian in the Census are actually mostly Croatian

@dot_Sp0T So thats why I was wondering about the language more than anything else, if most of the Swiss speak German, then that should be good.

Bellerophon

7:59 PM

@kingledion Wasn't that originally a corruption of Deutsch rather than a confusion between German's and Dutch?

kingledion

8:18 PM

@Bellerophon I'm sure it was, but in the context of figuring out who is Dutch and who is German as reported to the Census Bureau, I'm going to just merge the two columns and not worry about it

Ben Schwabe

Ok this question is going to be wildly subjective (and if it is an unwelcome question, please let me know or redirect me to where I should be asking), but how does one go about building a universe/story (specifically for a video game, but general tips are welcome).

I've tried to just sit down and "storyboard", as well as design a universe beforehand (when raw storyboarding didn't work), but both ways ended up with stacks of disorganized notes and pages of ideas and no clear ideas or direction I wanted to head.

AndyD273

@BenSchwabe can we assume that you have a story idea in mind? There are lots of ways to outline things. You could try the Snowflake Method for instance

your question is not a good fit for this site, though might be better over in Writers.SE. But if you want to talk through ideas you can do it here in chat and it would work.

For how to start outlining, maybe try

It's kind of geared for the act of actually writing.

We're more for working out worlds and parts of worlds once you know where you're going

6

Q: What is a good tool for organizing story notes?

I'm working on a fantasy series and have been keeping a Word document full of backstory, character/location information, and other world-building elements. At 160+ pages, it's reached the point where it is difficult to search for a topic if I want to go back and edit it. Even with a plethora of s...

software tools

Ben Schwabe

8:46 PM

@AndyD273 Hmm that might help. Thanks for the advice! I'll look up the Snowflake Method as well (I've never heard of that before).

AndyD273

Here's one explanation:
In step one, the writer comes up with a one-sentence description of the novel.
Step two expands the short description to a paragraph of description.
In step three, the writer does a one-page summary sheet for each main character that reviews that character’s major goals, conflict, motivation and epiphany and summarises the story from the point of view of that character.
Step four returns to the plot and involves creating a brief synopsis. This time, the writer takes those five sentences from the summarizing paragraph and expands each one into a paragraph of its own.

It goes into more detail, and there are probably better explanations out there

Pros and cons: jordanmccollum.com/2009/10/pros-cons-snowflake-method

My biggest problem with writing is that I rarely know how I want the story to actually end. Which makes outlining difficult.

Green

9:42 PM

@AndyD273 My biggest problem is I don't really care about the characters at all, just the world they [don't] live in.

AndyD273

@Green I wonder if there is a business idea in creating new, fully fleshed worlds, and then selling them to people who are good at characters but bad at worldbuilding. Kind of like those people that grind WOW characters for the purpose of selling them to wealthy people who don't have the time to grind a character up to a high level.

Green

@AndyD273 Maybe. You'd have to have a pretty high quality world to be able to sell it for something beyond a few bucks. But, you could also develop a really strong brand first. Sell your worlds to very successful authors then take some credit when they write a very popular book.

AndyD273

10:07 PM

@Green Or maybe start off as a collaboration? Most successful authors probably know how to world build. So maybe start off with a not yet quite successful author, and then once they become successful...

"Other guy did the hard work of coming up with the story, but I came up with the world. That's what I really love to do. If there are other authors that would like to start a story in a world that is fresh and original, give me a call."

Bit of a gamble

Shalvenay

11:15 PM

hey there @Mithrandir24601

Shalvenay

11:30 PM

hey as well @James

Transcript for