The Factory Floor

TheWolfEmperor

12:10 AM

Hi. I have limited Internet access, so don't take it personally if I don't answer straight away.

Shalvenay

1:13 AM

@TheWolfEmperor no worries :)

TheWolfEmperor

2:33 AM

It's my first day on this site and I gotta say I'm about fifty-fifty. Some people seem eager to help. Others seem dedicated to putting 110% into being the least helpful. So yeah. There I am. Quora was a great place to get answers for research questions but their ," we'll pay you to participate," ,thing turned out to be a scam.

Shalvenay

4:28 AM

hey again @JoeBloggs

Joe Bloggs

6:49 AM

@Shalvenay I think something somewhere must have a session that hasnt expired. I haven’t been in this chat room for hours now.

Mithrandir24601

11:10 AM

@TheWolfEmperor In what way(s) are people being non-helpful?

bilbo_pingouin

11:24 AM

@TheWolfEmperor The world is wide and large... and there are many kind of people around. On Worldbuilding and outside of it. We just hope that the voting systems would profit mainly to those who actually are helpful... that does not work 100% of the case, but I like to believe it works more time than not.

It's also sometimes good to know that we are all subjects to our own subjectivity. And helpful is sometimes subjective.

Yet, as Mithrandir suggests, if we can help you make the most of it...?

Kepotx

12:18 PM

Well, a huge difference with Quora is that here are more rules. Lot of question in WB (or other SE networks) are closed because they are off-topic, duplicate, or many other reasons. When you ask a question, lot of people will ask to clarify, make it less broad, or vote to close because they think it's too story based. An important think to consider is that they don't attack you, but but your question. And it's not for the sake of being harsh, but to improve the overral quality of the website

Feeds

1:17 PM

If physics had a mafia, I'm pretty sure the BICEP2 mess would have ended in bloodshed.

Mephistopheles

1:43 PM

@Feeds Ok, xkcd really is the best thing, except for fluoroantimonic acid.

AndyD273

2:18 PM

Can they take a nobel prize back if it turns out that dark energy isn't a real thing?

AndyD273

2:35 PM

I mean, something is making the universe expand, so "dark energy" is basically code for "We know it's happening but have no idea why", so in that respect it's a real thing, BUT if we discover that it's actually that "dark fluid" or some other mechanism that can't be explained as energy, can the Nobel be revoked?

Hosch250

As far as we know the universe has already collapsed, but it just hasn't gotten to us yet.

James

2:54 PM

@Hosch250 And there's my happy thought for the day.

bilbo_pingouin

/me hoping it collpased pretty far away from us... and that the exponentially expanding universe theories are the right ones... ;-)

Hosch250

@bilbo_pingouin Hmmmm.

What happens when it starts expanding at the speed of the collapse?

Is that an equilibrium?

Hosch250

4:17 PM

I'm going to start calling K&R braces "Quantum braces".

Because they are cool and hot at the same time.

AndyD273

4:34 PM

@Hosch250 Not 1TBS?

Hosch250

@AndyD273 1TBS?

AndyD273

One True Brace Style

70

A: What is the difference between K&R and One True Brace Style (1TBS) styles?

The biggest difference between K&R and the One True Brace Style (1TBS) is that in the 1TBS, all if, else, while, and for statements have opening and closing braces, even if they aren't necessary. The purpose is to make it easy to insert new statements and know exactly how they will be grouped. A...

Hosch250

@AndyD273 Oh yes, braces are mandatory in my book.

AndyD273

5:29 PM

So I binged most of The Umbrella Academy on Netflix over the weekend, and it's pretty interesting. If The Magicians is basically the dark, adult, dysfunctional version of Harry Potter, then this is the dark, adult, dysfunctional version of X-Men.

That being said, I stopped after episode 8 because I needed something funny as a pallet cleanser.

TheWolfEmperor

@Kepotx That's how inbreeding happens. Too many people "concerned" ,with "quality".

I consider all aspects of world building to be relevant. You don't just build a house by making a house shape object do you? No.

You need to know what materials to use to make sure your house is stable, warm, and can keep Mormons from converting your pigs. So if I ask a question about what species of tree would have been used in house building, then that is a facet of the overall world that I am building. But then a bunch of people say, "Well I don't know how to answer your question because you didn't tell me what color the drapes were going to be."

Shalvenay

5:47 PM

@TheWolfEmperor the Stack model needs questions to not only be answerable, but to have some sort of ranking criterion for answers, so that people have some way of separating the wheat from the chaff when voting aside from the obvious

TheWolfEmperor

Whatever. I'm not arguing with you over what color the sky is. Feel free to have the last word whole k

While I'm away.

Mephistopheles

6:15 PM

Do you think I can skip the phonology segment in conlanging?

AndyD273

6:45 PM

@Mephistopheles You have my permission to do that.

I don't have the time to look up what that means right now though.

James

@Mephistopheles phonology is the study of sounds if I am not mistaken. If you are only making a written language you might be able to get away with it...but usually people want to read what is written more than one character at a time.

Mephistopheles

@AndyD273 I think I can do that because unlike French and English, in Hungarian everything is pronounced as its written down, that's why we have a and á, e and é. Clear, straightforward, and powerful in the right hands, that's why it's a superior language.

James

@Mephistopheles Hungarian is cool sounding. I actually use it as a base for an ancient language in my world...I mean it's totally bastardized but...

AndyD273

@TheWolfEmperor Maybe try changing the direction of the question, namely, ask about what qualities of wood are needed for buildings. The answer might still be "well, what kind of trees exist in the geographical area, or that they have the ability to import." but at least there would be some criteria to judge by, which helps you as the person who has to pick a best answer as much as it helps the people who want to answer your question.

We've definitely had questions along the lines of "If I want to build a building that is X stories tall using technology from the year Y, what kinds of building materials should I use?"

Mephistopheles

7:01 PM

@James I'm creating a conlang as a base for naming conventions, magic spells, and curses. Mostly curses, we're quite good at those. Though how I'm gonna add new words is still unclear, last time anyone tried we've got "foltos nyakorján" (giraffe), rovátkolt barom (insect), véglakás (tomb). They're way too descriptive, or just plain random.

Shalvenay

7:14 PM

hey there @Mithrandir24601

AndyD273

@Mephistopheles Could you just use phonetic variariations on real hungarian words? Like if there is a word that means fireball, and you spell it fyreball... is your audience hungarian?

James

@Mephistopheles That's generally what I do to, I am not truly creating a language, just a standard for certain situations.

AndyD273

Or go the Magic 2.0 route and have all the spells be in esperanto.

Mephistopheles

@AndyD273 Well, I will obviously change up the dictionary, and some things, like adding aliases as kanjis/runes because I'm a sadistic fck. Some Japanese, English, magyar, and bash >:)

AndyD273

@Mephistopheles "The wizard stood before the king, and in a commanding voice intoned a spell in bash 'sudo | cd / | rm -r *' and the world suddenly disappeared."

Mephistopheles

7:27 PM

@AndyD273 It usually prompts you to enter the password, though. And no, a sysadmin (yours truly) would probably intervene and say "u can't do dis m80, that's illegal."

AndyD273

@Mephistopheles Sudo get off my back, you're ruining the joke.

Proper User Policy apparently means Simon Says.

Mephistopheles

@AndyD273 "superuser does, get off my back" ??

I guess it's not that far fetched

AndyD273

:)

Mephistopheles

Superuser, the God of Privilege, the destroyer of gender theory, the guy who divided by zero

...

@AndyD273 So this is what my teacher meant by comparing sudo to Simon says, but again, he also said something about landing on the GNU planet and played us this video for some reason

Wildebeest from Birdbox Studio

►

AndyD273

@Mephistopheles I always liked this one of theirs...

Sketchy Ice Creams from Birdbox Studio

►

Mephistopheles

7:48 PM

@AndyD273 Yeah, that's totally me trying to save everyone in ANY game that has time travel in it.

Shalvenay

hey there @James and @Mithrandir24601

Mithrandir24601

@Shalvenay Rytsas! How're things?

James

@Shalvenay Hola. How've you been?

Shalvenay

@James alright here, as for you?

@Mithrandir24601 OK, how're things going on your end?

Mithrandir24601

@Shalvenay Busy :P Haven't started making dinner yet, have a rehearsal tomorrow evening... My next free evening will be... Next week sometime?

Shalvenay

7:56 PM

@Mithrandir24601 heheh. quiet here, holiday over here

James

8:21 PM

@Shalvenay Eh, wondering when this day will end and trying to figure out how in the hell I will have a nine year old tomorrow...

It makes no sense.

He was only 5 like a week ago, two weeks tops

Shalvenay

@James heheh

@James -- actually, a worldbuilding Q for you -- how advanced could the metalwork of a nomadic people get? Cold-worked stuff (native copper, meteoric iron, traded-for metals that can be worked cold) seems like a starting point, but would they be able to go beyond that, and if so, how far?

James

@Shalvenay not far, working steel cold is...really really hard, especially without modern tools. I mean...you can squish low carbon steel with high carbon steel tools if you want...but it sucks. As for copper...you can get pretty elaborate working cold copper. Copper is weird though. the more you work it the harder it gets.

Hosch250

9:04 PM

@James Say happy birthday for me.

James

9:43 PM

@Hosch250 "The internet says hello buddy"

Hosch250

@James Sounds about right.

James

@Mithrandir24601 Whats the rehersal for?

Captain Man

10:12 PM

Is this question on topic for this site? OP seems to be asking about current technology, so it almost sounds like a question for biology SE maybe? (Not implying that every question must be on topic for one site or anything.) Guess I'm curious what everyone feels about where questions for present day technology begins and questions about world building in a realistic, present day setting end.

6

Q: Would life expectancy increase if we replaced healthy organs with artificial ones?

Can we increase life expectancy by replacing important organs for life such as the heart, kidneys, etc. (but not the brain)? Most of the organs can fail and, for the ones which we already have the technology to develop artificially, would it be beneficial even if the person is otherwise healthy?

Mithrandir24601

10:24 PM

@James A bit of a small 'competition' in a couple of weeks - I'm not really expecting it to be a competitive thing, more of a bit of a get-together where everyone has a good time making some nice (and probably loud at times) music

Shalvenay

@James yeah, I know that copper work-hardens XD

@James I was actually half-wondering what they could do for hot metallurgy without extensive amounts of fixed infrastructure, though. (obviously, we're talking small-scale stuff here, but that probably suffices for folks who are relying on bows and polearms for the most part)

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