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12:05 AM
0
Q: Can a popular question be kicked off the hot network question list?

MuzeI asked a question here that was receiving views and votes from the hot list and then it stopped. Marked as off topic although 12 people up voted it but it only took 5 to close it. I'm not complaining I just want to know if getting put on hold kicks you out of the hot list? Could a person float ...

discussion support on-topic specific-question
 
Feeds
Feeds
12:46 AM
0
A: Sandbox for Proposed Questions

Shard martinin this setting, i want to limit the use of projectiles and promote the use of melee battles. melee weaponry like swords, axes,etc are more effective than bullets, arrows, and the like. armor is enchanted to have better defense against projectiles that move at a certain velocity. whenever they im...

 
Pleiades
Pleiades
1:28 AM
Agh why do I do this to myself @m@ So I know, I know, overexplaining magic ruins "the magic", but I wanted to link magic to the biology of the creatures of my world, and that was fine and dandy until I realized I'd specified that it was a part of the body, something the body produced, and that basically means it's some kind of weird chemical compound so frick on a stick.
I'm doing alchemy under the scope of this system, so the chemistry of this world is a bit more important to me than it otherwise would be, and I have no idea where to begin remedying this now...
 
Shalvenay
Shalvenay
hey there @Pleiades, how're things going otherwise?
 
Pleiades
Pleiades
I'm doing Stats homework (kind of, not really). Wbu @Shalvenay ?
 
Shalvenay
Shalvenay
not a whole lot
 
Pleiades
Pleiades
You mind helping me brainstorm idea or did you want to just chat about stuff?
 
Shalvenay
Shalvenay
hrm...what do you need help brainstorming?
 
Pleiades
Pleiades
1:38 AM
Either explanations for magic as a chemical compound or some way around that, I guess. I sorta backed myself into a corner on this one f>~0')
 
Shalvenay
Shalvenay
yeah....that's a hard one :/
 
Pleiades
Pleiades
I tried toying with the idea of a new particle (which would mean a new anti-particle too), but I'm nowhere near well-versed enough in particle physics to know where I can just ignore rules and blur the lines... In theory, this particle can combine with the existing set of known elements, but just agh I don't know what it breaks and where...
I'm trying to get a basic grasp of particle physics though. I just don't have the time to really dedicate serious study to it yet and even then I'm not sure that's where the solution lies.
 
Shalvenay
Shalvenay
1:56 AM
hey there @user45751
 
user45751
user45751
hey
 
Pleiades
Pleiades
@user45751 I'm looking at the question you posted, and while it's interesting to say the least, I really get the feeling it'll be closed as too opinion-based in its current form :/
 
user45751
user45751
@Pleiades Oh, I don't know how to tell if it is or isn't cause I've seen so manny of those types of questions on this site.
 
Pleiades
Pleiades
They don't tend to stick around for long though
Idea generation stuff is better suited for the chat anyway
 
user45751
user45751
@Pleiades So what is your major field of expertise in the worldbuilding
 
Pleiades
Pleiades
2:08 AM
I don't know that I really have one tbh
I think I'm on the younger end of things overall, so while I tend to know quite a bit related to what I'm doing specifically, that tends to be where my knowledge lies.
I think if I had to pick though it'd probably be culture-building, I guess. I've never had to think real hard with that one, but cultures are easy stuff
 
user45751
user45751
If you do't mild answering do you think you could give me some pointers on what kind of cultures an intelligent detrivore alien race might develop
@Pleiades whoops forgot to tag you
 
Pleiades
Pleiades
Well, usually I nail down the development of sapience and reproductive habits, since those have an effect on developing societies, gender roles, sometimes specific cultural niches, and the race's overall psychology.
If I remember right though, detrivores eat dead stuff, right? Also usually insects?
 
user45751
user45751
oh i got those as well but they are a bit complicated I'll go copy and paste them from one of my stack exchange questions
 
Pleiades
Pleiades
Okay. Fair warning though: if they're too long, you might have to break up the response into multiple messages.
 
user45751
user45751
Physiology hope it doesn't look too grose

-Planet The planet has about 20% less gravity than earth, a much hotter and more radioactive core, and stronger electromagnetic field(on the surface about 2.55 Gauss). It also orbits a dwarf star, so other than that it is very similar to earth.

-Ecosystem So most of the ecosystems on the planet are thick forests, but not like an earth forest as the tallest autotrophs are called the ZXyphernics and they look like super tall(about 500-1,000 feet) pail blue mushrooms with multiple stems(30-50 per ZXyphernic). They absorb most of the light so it is da…
since the picture didn't load just imagine a humanoid slim mold thing with three large eyes
 
Shalvenay
Shalvenay
2:19 AM
@Pleiades deadstuff, yeah, insects would be an insectivore
 
user45751
user45751
I'll be back in a bit, i need to leave
 
Pleiades
Pleiades
@Shalvenay My bio class used that word I think literally once so I'm just happy I remembered it tbh xD
@user45751 I know you're probably trying to keep this short, but I'm probably gonna need a bit more explanation on the life cycle and reproductive parts because the life cycle seems to skip quite a bit, and I think I get what you mean with reversed genders under the Breeding section, but I'm not 100% sure (if it's what I think it is, then you have one sapient gender and then a non-sapient breeder unless something else is happening here).
Females are just egg donors, right?
Also, are these guys loners or more social? The touching thing makes me think social, and that'll influence quite a bit
 
user45751
user45751
3:00 AM
Okay so for the life cycle basically they are born then 3 days later their metabolism gets really high and they eat a lot as they grow really fast and after day eight the females stop growing and remain the same for their life span and then for the males growing slows down for the next 2 years then they full size and for 20 years the gonads in them form. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osedax for animal reference
yes the females are the egg donors
very social
like sugar glider level social
 
Pleiades
Pleiades
Females aren't sapient though, right?
Wait how did they get that social?
 
user45751
user45751
yes
havent figured that out yet
 
Pleiades
Pleiades
Yeah I was a bit lost on that point
 
user45751
user45751
yeah
 
Pleiades
Pleiades
Parasites are loners by nature, and typically social groups are formed out of necessity. Usually to rear young or find/hunt food.
Ignoring the sapience issue for a bit, how do males find females to mate with? Do they just latch on at a certain age and fuse or some other method?
 
user45751
user45751
3:08 AM
they latch on to a mature male after their eight days and mate by fusing to the males gonads and pumping eggs into it.
 
Pleiades
Pleiades
Mkay. So right off that, you've got essentially a single-gender society, so gender norms might not exist in the way we're used to, but there will likely be some metric this race uses to measure one another and establish rank. I'm just stuck on the detrivore part because of how that complicates things...
 
user45751
user45751
how does it complicate things?
 
Pleiades
Pleiades
I'm having a hard time figuring out what would get them to group together the way you've envisioned because it seems to be that this race is pretty self-sufficient.
 
user45751
user45751
how about religion
 
Pleiades
Pleiades
They don't need to care for their young; mating is easy and requires little competition; and their food source is easy enough to obtain that I don't see why they'd be compelled to group together to find food.
 
user45751
user45751
3:15 AM
because of the predators
 
Pleiades
Pleiades
I might have misread something; I thought the predators were after the herbivores
 
user45751
user45751
the predators are after any meat they can get
 
Pleiades
Pleiades
Most predators have a preferred food source though. Something probably tries to eat these guys, but not everything.
 
user45751
user45751
well they are easy targets, they aren't strong or fast but that can give you frost bite
 
Pleiades
Pleiades
If giving a predator frostbite is one of their defenses, there's a good chance their predators will mostly leave them alone out of not wanting to be frostbitten.
 
user45751
user45751
3:20 AM
yeah but the some of the predators have layers of dead skin over themselves to defend against it
 
Pleiades
Pleiades
Okay, so then that could develop a herd mentality among this race if there's any safety in numbers
 
user45751
user45751
Okay thanks I'll be back tomorrow but it is getting late where I am thanks for your help.
 
Pleiades
Pleiades
Not a problem. I'm not sure when I'll be online tomorrow, but just ping me and I'll try to get back to you
 
 
10 hours later…
Green
Green
12:59 PM
Greetings programs!
 
Ajnatorix Zersolar
Ajnatorix Zersolar
@Green greetings user!
 
Green
Green
@AjnatorixZersolar sudo make sandwich
;)
 
Ajnatorix Zersolar
Ajnatorix Zersolar
1:17 PM
@Green how are you?
 
Green
Green
@AjnatorixZersolar I'm good. Fighting with an ugly system at work but that's par for the course.
 
Ajnatorix Zersolar
Ajnatorix Zersolar
@Green you show that system who's boss
 
Green
Green
@AjnatorixZersolar Hah! That will take more coding skill than I have. It's tough to rip out a few man-decades worth of contractor work all by my lonesome.
I really wish it would tell you why it failed instead of just failing.
 
Ajnatorix Zersolar
Ajnatorix Zersolar
@Green that would be useful in a lot of things.
 
Green
Green
But there are chances to make things fun. On one application, I set the name of the evaluator to "All Mighty" then set the prefix to Mr.
I joked to myself "Yeah. That's Mr. All Mighty to you."
 
Ajnatorix Zersolar
Ajnatorix Zersolar
1:24 PM
@Green when opportunities like that pop up, a boring day gives you a smug feeling of satisfaction, i love it when that happens.
 
Green
Green
@AjnatorixZersolar what do you do for a living?
 
Ajnatorix Zersolar
Ajnatorix Zersolar
@Green i'm still in school at the moment, and to be honest i still dont know.
 
Green
Green
@AjnatorixZersolar cool, what are you studying?
 
Ajnatorix Zersolar
Ajnatorix Zersolar
@Green I'm in secondary, thinking of taking woodwork, physics, art and philosophy for S4
 
Green
Green
@AjnatorixZersolar you just take the four courses?
Philosophy is so powerful. Dangerous in lots of ways but every good tool is dangerous.
 
Ajnatorix Zersolar
Ajnatorix Zersolar
1:30 PM
@Green english and maths we have to do (unfortunately) so 6 really
 
Green
Green
@AjnatorixZersolar Ah, that's a bummer. I really enjoyed my literature teachers (though I wish I'd done more of the reading.)
As an older adult, I find I don't care about literature at all. My library is full of technical books.
 
Ajnatorix Zersolar
Ajnatorix Zersolar
@Green i like the subjects just the teachers make things seem worse, it took a good 20 minutes just to explain the concept of a prism, a cone and a sphere. English is good but our normal teacher is of ill so cover-teachers make things a pain.
 
Green
Green
@AjnatorixZersolar yeah, substitute teachers are only really good as minders.
 
Ajnatorix Zersolar
Ajnatorix Zersolar
@Green minders pretty much sums it up, they take the register, give us a textbook/comprehension paper and then sit at the desk ignoring us.
 
Green
Green
@AjnatorixZersolar I wonder what course I would take in secondary/high school if I knew then what I know now about myself.
 
Ajnatorix Zersolar
Ajnatorix Zersolar
1:43 PM
@Green my guess would be something computerey or sciencey
 
Green
Green
@AjnatorixZersolar I would keep the computer sciencey part but I don't think I'd beat myself up quite so hard that I'm not very good at it.
 
Ajnatorix Zersolar
Ajnatorix Zersolar
@Green we are told to take the subjects we like and are good at.
 
Green
Green
@AjnatorixZersolar Have you ever heard of a book called StrengthsFinder?
 
Ajnatorix Zersolar
Ajnatorix Zersolar
@Green no, but it sounds like i need to, whenever we are asked what our strengths are i am always stuck
 
Green
Green
@AjnatorixZersolar I struggled for a really long time with low self-worth. I just didn't know what I was good at. I did okay in school but was never a super high achiever (which I'm glad I wasn't now.) I never seemed to fit anywhere and never seemed to do anything really well.
The premise of StrengthsFinder is that there's some stuff that people are just jaw-droppingly amazing at then suck at everything else. Why on earth would you waste so much time getting good at stuff you stink at? Spend that same time getting absurdly good at the stuff you're already good at.
There's a test associated with the book that you take and it spits out results.
Like all tests, it's not perfect and will miss things or get something wrong. That's fine.
The knowledge that I was really good at some really valuable things blew my mind.
 
Ajnatorix Zersolar
Ajnatorix Zersolar
1:49 PM
@Green i have that problem, and with my fantasy writing anything i am confident at isn't quite what the school looks for, and the mindset of the school is "walk out here with five nat5s/highers" that's all they want us to do really.
 
Green
Green
It took me a while to figure out how to use those strengths. But I kept them in the back of my mind and it's formed the core part of a narrative for my life.
 
Pleiades
Pleiades
I graduate high school in less than a month, so I'd greatly appreciate it if you could shoot that quiz my way, @Green
 
Green
Green
 
Ajnatorix Zersolar
Ajnatorix Zersolar
@Pleiades one of the things our school uses is "my world of work" which takes a few quizzes then evaluates it.
 
Green
Green
That's the book. The access code is the really important part. The report they send you contains thorough descriptions of your strengths.
@AjnatorixZersolar School is an environment that selects for a certain type of person and skillset.
 
Pleiades
Pleiades
1:54 PM
My school also has you take literally one test your sophomore year and that's seriously all the more career counseling they give you.
 
James
James
Mornin all
 
Green
Green
I love WB because of the broad exposure it gives me. School never had anything this cool or this expansive.
 
Pleiades
Pleiades
Hey @James
 
Green
Green
@Pleiades LAME!
@James sup!
 
Ajnatorix Zersolar
Ajnatorix Zersolar
@James morning/afternoon
 
Pleiades
Pleiades
1:55 PM
@Green The only useful thing about the site was the cost-of-living comparison tool it had, but it's only for my state and I don't plan on living here forever lol
 
James
James
@Pleiades My best career advice. Go do stuff. Learn what you like and are good at that way
 
Green
Green
@AjnatorixZersolar I read an article once about students who make it into Harvard. They're so tuned to getting good grades that it actually inhibits their ability to enjoy the things they read or write.
 
James
James
@AjnatorixZersolar Good afternoon Sir (sir?)
 
Pleiades
Pleiades
@Green I feel that applies to AP students too
 
Green
Green
@Pleiades facepalm those things are so inadequate.
 
Ajnatorix Zersolar
Ajnatorix Zersolar
1:56 PM
@Green life isn't an exam!! they should teach us budgeting and understanding mortgages and stuff we need
 
Green
Green
@Pleiades A lot of them, yes. I got lucky to be in AP classes but not be an AP student.
 
Pleiades
Pleiades
I'm absolutely an AP student lol
I've taken everything the district offers except Calc, Art History, and Music Theory
 
Green
Green
@Pleiades I mean, AP classes were great. The smarter, well behaved kids were in there so disruptions were minimal.
 
James
James
I think I broke wood working...
0
A: Creating gaming dice from wood

Ast PaceThe issue, as you probably already know, is not one of drawing regular polygons, but one of shaping regular polyhedrons. There are five regular polyhedrons made of equilateral triangular faces, square faces or regular pentagonal faces. They can all be created without ever constructing any of th...

 
Pleiades
Pleiades
You generally get a better caliber of teacher as well. I've loved all my AP teachers, especially my teacher from AP World. Fantastic class and I still occasionally pop in to chat with him. I didn't even like history classes before then, but that was also the first history class I ever took that wasn't U.S. history so... It might have just been a boredom thing at that point
 
Green
Green
2:00 PM
@Pleiades I kept up with my AP teachers too for a long time.
 
James
James
I think the only AP course I took was Bio...but I liked it.
 
Green
Green
My school didn't have many AP courses. I took the ones I knew I could do okay in.
 
Pleiades
Pleiades
@James Oh man I freakin' LOVED my Bio class. We had to design creatures for different environments and explain why they'd survive in that biome. I think I made like four animals and we were only supposed to do one, but whatever, I got extra credit
 
James
James
@Pleiades See we never did anything that cool.
 
Green
Green
@Pleiades Yeah, we never did anything that cool either. I had to sit in bio class and just read text books. We didn't even do disections.
 
James
James
2:08 PM
@Green Well at least mine was better than yours...
 
Green
Green
I wonder if teachers know that their students will forget 100% of the things they teach them.
Or if it's that place that they dare not look.
 
Pleiades
Pleiades
@James @Green I think only the third or fourth tier of the PLTW biomed classes get to dissect anything here, and either way, it's a cat (sometimes they find kittens too agh), so that was never an option for me; I like cats too much
 
James
James
@Green I still remember 2 things from my AP bio course.
 
Ajnatorix Zersolar
Ajnatorix Zersolar
@Green 99%, we always remember how little they taught us, they taught us to fend for ourselves
 
James
James
1) The crappy paper towels the school bought we referred to as evaporation aids not towels.
2) All arguments/discussions in biology can be drilled down to a discussion of surface area.
 
Pleiades
Pleiades
2:10 PM
@Green My Lit teacher is pretty straightforward in knowing we'll probably never use any of the stuff we learn in there so it's kind of become half AP Lit, half film analysis because his main this is to get us to analyze what we read and watch so we can enjoy it on more levels or just make sense of confusing media in general.
 
Green
Green
@Pleiades You have an unusually wise teacher.
 
James
James
@Pleiades Thats actually not a terrible idea...
 
Pleiades
Pleiades
@Green He's an unusual guy. I'm actually struggling to describe him because this teacher is kind of an experience... I mean some days we write essays or do multiple-choice practice tests, and others... Well, last class we watched an art history video from KhanAcademy and all he did was rag on their commentary.
 
Green
Green
@Pleiades Sounds like my kind of guy.
 
Pleiades
Pleiades
Oh yeah and he played with the speed of the video both for laughs and to show how the speed at which you talk influences people's perception of what you're saying, whether it's smart or crap
 
Green
Green
2:14 PM
@Pleiades DUDE! I want to take classes from this guy!
 
James
James
...that is way the F$%^ more useful than any of the lit classes I had in high school.
 
Pleiades
Pleiades
He and my Lang teacher have been some of my favorite English teachers EVER. My AP Lang teacher was a hard-core hippy and was more focused on developing our voices in writing than teaching the claim-evidence-commentary model. I also liked her class because we could talk politics in there without any real restraints besides obviously not attacking students and their beliefs. APUSH did NOT do that, which sucked.
 
Ajnatorix Zersolar
Ajnatorix Zersolar
@Pleiades i like teachers who let pupils debate real-life issues.
 
Green
Green
@Pleiades She's an exceptional moderator to be able to pull that off in a classroom of teenagers.
 
Pleiades
Pleiades
She was kind of a teenager at heart, so I think she just knew how to approach us a bit better, which is hilarious because she's like 65 or something
I don't think she had kids of her own either, now that I think about it...
 
AndyD273
AndyD273
2:23 PM
@Green Now here's an interesting idea from your image. There are obviously beings in physical space, and there are beings in both idea space and power space; Some magic users that didn't make it all the way to god space, but also natural denizens of those realms. Are beings in either of those spaces able to access realms outside their own, or is it kind of a one way thing?
 
Green
Green
@AndyD273 "There is no privileged perspective" in physics. I don't know why we should privilege the physical space over the other two. I see no reason why the communication between the three planes wouldn't be bidirectional.
We are just biased to the physical plane because that's the one we are most familiar with.
@AndyD273 I don't see why we couldn't have an genie from power space somehow grok infinity and jump to God space. The same thing would happen if a human grokked infinity and jumped to power space.
Heh, we'd have Khorne, Tzeentch so quickly.
 
AndyD273
AndyD273
@Green I have no preference, it just never occurred to me that it might be possible. Which also means, short of grokking infinity, could a power entity jump to physical space? Or could a wizard who tried for godhood, missed, and got into idea space somehow jump out back into physical space or power space...
You could potentially have people jumping from realm to realm all over the place... Seems like that could break things.
 
Green
Green
@AndyD273 Well, everything is hard. Sustaining a normal physical body on a plane that is perpetually like standing on the surface of the sun will require some extreme skill. I'm not super worried about it.
All those people jumping around will be visitors or undergo some process that will make them a native of that plane.
Similarly, a power creature on the physical plane is going to get cold really fast. The energy will just leak out.
A info space entity will similiarly be leaky. Contact with all the information in physical space will alter them; perhaps taking away an essential thing-ness of being an info space creature.
 
AndyD273
AndyD273
So I guess this brings up death... Power and idea denizens that never had a physical form might only be able to live in physical space for a short amount of time before evaporating.... Ok, I'm having an idea, but it's probably best left till recording time.
 
Green
Green
2:40 PM
@AndyD273 Bring your best :)
Anyone else have thoughts or questions on the above diagram?
 
Green
Green
3:33 PM
@Pleiades If you do take the StrengthsFinder test, I'd be curious to see your results, should you be willing to share them.
 
Worldbuilding Meta
Worldbuilding Meta
3:54 PM
0
Q: Can Glarnak save us from the Stack Exchange app?

JBHRecently I've reviewed a lot of first questions, late questions, and low-quality questions from the ubiquitous user###### class of users — people who use the Stack Exchange app on their cell phone during a bored moment on a bus to find an (apparently) random question on any of the SE sites and th...

discussion reviews new-users
 
 
1 hour later…
Pleiades
Pleiades
5:13 PM
@Green I’ll have to do some reading up on it. Reviews are a bit mixed, with some praising it highly and others saying you can’t take the test without shelling out another $80...
 
Green
Green
@Pleiades I bought the book at $15. That was the only cost I had with it.
Maybe there's a special fancy version of the test. I could see that going for $80.
 
James
James
5:40 PM
@Green From my conversation recollection skills I got the feeling that physical space was sandwiched between info and power space.
 
Green
Green
@James I think we referred to them that way, yes. I've viewed them in the triangle format since the really early days. Layering them on top each other is an easy way to explain it but they're interlaced with each other.
Rotating yourself plane-wise 60 degrees (which doesn't make any sense if you constrain yourself to 60 degree rotations of physical objects.), will get you into power or info space.
 
James
James
The only reason I'd argue otherwise...when we talked about magic we mentioned a power source (power space), a way to invoke the power (info space) and a result (physical space) so magic exists as a confluence of the three spaces...and I admit I like the idea that physical space is the medium by which the others can interact.
 
Green
Green
@James Earlier I described to Andy that there's no preferred plane over another. We prefer the physical plane because we live here and are most familiar with it.
I see no reason why someone from info space couldn't planeswalk into powerspace and vice versa.
Sure, all our stories would be set in the physical plane. That's easiest to relate to.
 
James
James
@Green Well I mean we could decide that they can't but my argument would be that the power and info space denizens wouldn't have a common understanding. Powerspace would be energetic and chaotic while infospace would ordered and calm.
Physical space gives them common ground...so to speak.
So maybe a powerspace denizen could make it to info space but could be driven mad or destroyed by the process, where as if they went through physical space first...
 
Green
Green
@James I think this would depend on whether we allow disembodied intelligence. If the energy can organize itself into some kind of learning intelligence, why wouldn't it eventually be able to find out about the other planes then try to get there?
@James Any denizen going to a non-native domain isn't going to be able to stay long. An unprepared human going to power space is going to get fried. A power space denizen going to normal space is going to cool off really quickly.
 
James
James
5:51 PM
@Green Fair point, I guess I pictured the powerspace denizens more along the lines of elementals, energy embodied, be it wind, fire, lightning etc.
 
Green
Green
Info space creatures will lose coherence quickly with all the noise of physical and power space.
 
AndyD273
AndyD273
This is one of the things that we'll have to talk about. Also, it's highly relevent to the religion discussion
 
Green
Green
@James Yep, and none of those elementals last very long unless sustained by something physical.
@James I agree with this imagery of power space creatures.
 
AndyD273
AndyD273
How much of it do we want to hammer out in chat?
VS in the episode?
 
James
James
Strictly speaking will we be talking religion in the episode or cosmology?
 
AndyD273
AndyD273
5:53 PM
I think 6 is Magic, 7 is Religion, and we can go from there
 
Green
Green
@AndyD273 I'm not sure that talking about it now harms us any. If we can refine these (fairly) complicated ideas, it means I'll have less long thinking spaces to cut from the episode.
@AndyD273 my understanding as well.
 
James
James
lol
 
AndyD273
AndyD273
But magic and religion are going to be super intertwined,
 
Green
Green
@AndyD273 hell yeah they are.
 
AndyD273
AndyD273
So they should go back to back
 
James
James
5:55 PM
religion is organizations and rules. Cosmology is the way the world is created and ordered. We will talk about the latter for now, correct?
 
AndyD273
AndyD273
@James Not exactly? I forget that not everyone uses the term religion the way I do... Lets skip that word and use supernatural for now
 
James
James
Well cosmology would clearly include 'gods' in this case
 
AndyD273
AndyD273
Meaning, all the things outside the physical space, expecially when pertaining to the god and such
Sure sure, I think we're talking about the same thing, just from different sides
 
James
James
mk
 
AndyD273
AndyD273
You gotta grok the infinite, @James.
 
James
James
5:58 PM
give me a standard definition for grok. I want to make sure we are all working with the same understanding.
 
Green
Green
grok, v. understand (something) intuitively or by empathy.
It's a hacker term for understanding something in your soul. It is to "be" that thing.
 
AndyD273
AndyD273
It's from Stranger in a Strange Land. I also always got the idea that it meant to understand something completely.
 
Mithrandir24601
Mithrandir24601
@Green I grok that :P
 
Green
Green
From Wikipedia: When you claim to "grok" some knowledge or technique, you are asserting that you have not merely learned it in a detached instrumental way but that it has become part of you, part of your identity. For example, to say that you "know" Lisp is simply to assert that you can code in it if necessary — but to say you "grok" LISP is to claim that you have deeply entered the world-view and spirit of the language, with the implication that it has transformed your view of programming
My assertion is that some humans alive now understand infinity, no one groks it.
 
Mithrandir24601
Mithrandir24601
I for one, definitely don't grok the idea known as infinity
 
Green
Green
6:02 PM
This also gets wrapped in the mystery of god. If you know it, you can't convey it. You can't talk about it.
@AndyD273 It's our lethal texts again. Infinity is a lethal text.
 
AndyD273
AndyD273
@Green Yeah kinda. Though I don't know if it would destroy your mind per se... Maybe
 
Green
Green
@AndyD273 I think it would alter your mind sufficient that you would fail most common definitions of a human mind. Does that count as destruction?
 
AndyD273
AndyD273
I don't know... Assuming that the human mind in it's native form even has the capacity, which it probably does not, infinity includes everything, including the definition of a human mind. So even if it was no longer a human mind, it could simulate one.
Though you'd probably end up going Dr Manhattan and just drift off
 
Green
Green
@AndyD273 Or not. Dr. Manhattan is definitely a possibility.
There's lots of questions that would need to be answered.
 
AndyD273
AndyD273
In the Peter F Hamilton books there is a thing were all civilizations that don't wipe themselves out eventually change into something higher, usually using some form of technology. No one knows what happens after that, because as soon as they change they just go away, not bothering with anything physical any more.
I forget the word they use for it
 
Green
Green
6:18 PM
@AndyD273 Ascend? Transcend?
 
AndyD273
AndyD273
One of the characters sends a copy of himself to find and reactivate an transcendence machine from a long gone race so that they can stop the void from consuming the universe. After the mission is done it just goes off into the cosmos... I think it's the ultimate definition of a Deus Ex Machina...
Transcend probably.
I'll probably have to re-listen to them sometime soon. I have the audiobooks, and the whole series is around 150 hours long... It's like a marathon.
 
Green
Green
@AndyD273 maybe play at 1.3x speed?
 
AndyD273
AndyD273
@Green Perhaps. Then it would only take 3 weeks to get through, instead of a month :)
It's something to try. Since I already know the story.
I forget about listening at different speeds. Maybe it would help me get through the one I'm listening to now.
 
Green
Green
@AndyD273 accelerated speeds is the only way I can make it through Dan Carlin's Hardcore History episodes.
 
Pleiades
Pleiades
6:53 PM
I just posted a question that I somehow already have 2 upvotes and 4 views on... Hm...
I'm genuinely unsure if people just got to it that much faster than I'm used to or a glitch occurred because the upvotes were present literally as soon as I was redirected from the editing window
 
Secespitus
Secespitus
@Pleiades I've read your question multiple times in the Sandbox - there is no need for me to read it again before deciding whether I like it or not.
 
Pleiades
Pleiades
@Secespitus No I mean I get that, but as soon as the window directed me to the posted question, I already had two upvotes, and that's just weird for me.
 
James
James
7:19 PM
@Pleiades The pace on worldbuilding is quick.
 
Bellerophon
Bellerophon
We're very zippy people. We like to live fast, move fast, be fast.
 
James
James
7:30 PM
How is this not "too broad"
14
Q: Shapes for an infinite animal?

SilverCookiesThis creature exists in an infinite world, a flat landscape that extends ad infinitum, where light rains from the sky from infinity during recurrent day-night cycles, and, similarly, the ground goes down continuously. All kinds of critters populate the cosmos including the skies and the undergro...

creature-design mythical-creatures alien-geometry
It has more answers than upvotes.
 
Ajnatorix Zersolar
Ajnatorix Zersolar
@James or opinion based?
 
James
James
@AjnatorixZersolar I just don't see any requirements that would make one answer make more sense than any other.
 
Ajnatorix Zersolar
Ajnatorix Zersolar
@James in a way "infinite" by its definition is "too broad" so you are right, i think
 
James
James
Once upon at time I would have just voted to close but I am much more restrained now that I have my diamond...
 
dot_Sp0T
dot_Sp0T
@James what reason would you have probably used?
 
James
James
7:38 PM
On that one...now that I think about it, probably "unclear what you are asking"
 
dot_Sp0T
dot_Sp0T
good call
 
Green
Green
It feels like a dumb question. If you have an infinitely large creature on an infinite plane, how is the creature not the world too?
 
dot_Sp0T
dot_Sp0T
@Green it feels like a thought experiment rather than an actual worldbuilding issue
 
Ajnatorix Zersolar
Ajnatorix Zersolar
Is idea generation a reason to VTC?
 
James
James
@Green Can two co-existing, non-identical things both be infinite?
 
Green
Green
7:42 PM
@dot_Sp0T Things just get weird when you start using infinity. Infinite shapes? Most of them will be garbage for any kind of survivability. In fact, there's only a tiny selection of organisms that do work.
@James Yes, but you'd have to be really careful in describing how they're infinite.
 
James
James
@AjnatorixZersolar It used to be...I think we sort of merged it into the other options. It ended up being a catch all category.
 
Green
Green
@James Yeah, there were lots and lots of discussions about idea generation and what that actually meant.
 
James
James
@Green The idea of something being partially infinite makes my brain hurt.
 
dot_Sp0T
dot_Sp0T
@AjnatorixZersolar if you can reform the question into saying something akin to: 'I have xyz, what can I do with it?' then yes
 
Green
Green
@dot_Sp0T And that formulation would be classified as "too broad".
 
dot_Sp0T
dot_Sp0T
7:51 PM
@Green very interesting
 
Green
Green
@dot_Sp0T Let me clarify. Without proper constraints, that formulation is too broad.
 
dot_Sp0T
dot_Sp0T
I always understood too broad as that answers would grow way too huge if they adressed everything that is asked
 
Green
Green
@dot_Sp0T There are infinite things that can be done with an object. Usually, there's a relatively small number of things that can be done with an object. Asking me enumerate the universe of things you can do with a particular object is too broad.
If properly constrained, then it's just fine. I've probably asked lots of those kinds of questions myself.
 
dot_Sp0T
dot_Sp0T
So you're saying asking others to tell you what you could do with the thing u thought up is fine?
sounds wrong to me
 
Green
Green
@dot_Sp0T If the question described some arcane object and you asked me what you could do with it, I'd say that's too broad.
But, people ask what they can do with asteroids or alien creatures all the time and it's fine.
 
dot_Sp0T
dot_Sp0T
7:55 PM
@Green mind linking one of the ok questions?
:)
 
Green
Green
Thing + Environment + usage constraints = Just fine.
Thing alone = Not fine.
@dot_Sp0T let me go find one.
53
Q: How to monetize uploaded consciousness?

Pavel JanicekIn 2039, our company was the first to bring a safe and reliable solution to upload someone's mind to the cloud. Although it was 10 years ago, you probably remember the news, don't you? We guaranteed that your mind would be able to wander through the artificial world for at least 50 years. The th...

reality-check economy near-future artificial-intelligence
I have a thing, "upload conciousness", what can I do with it? (specifically, how can I make money with it?)
Without the constraints of "how do I make money with it", the question would be too broad by far.
Note also that the question avoids implementation questions of how you'd keep a mind in a bottle.
 
dot_Sp0T
dot_Sp0T
But that is not asking what they can do with xyz... that is asking about how to achieve xyz from situation vw
it has a (clear) goal
 
Green
Green
@dot_Sp0T And that's the difference between too broad and just fine.
Too broad means that there are too many good answers or that the universe of answers is too big. If the answer can't be answered in a few thousand words at most, it's too broad.
If an entire book would need to be written to answer the nuances of the question, it's too broad.
 
dot_Sp0T
dot_Sp0T
...
 
Green
Green
kingledion did some research a while back about the sizes of answers. They don't tend to get very big.
 
 
2 hours later…
Worldbuilding Meta
Worldbuilding Meta
9:42 PM
0
Q: Consensus for Shapes for an Infinite Animal

FrostfyreThis is in regard to the question Shapes for an Infinite Animal. I consider the question to be lacking some critical criteria to be objectively answerable with a "best" answer, and commented as such (after noting that the question had close votes without explanation). The question was later put ...

discussion specific-question
 

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