The Factory Floor - 2019-04-24

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2:48 AM

@James Looks like @bilbo_pingouin mostly got it.

I did a variant with a 7 day rolling average

data.stackexchange.com/worldbuilding/query/edit/1036972#graph

hey there @kingledion -- you about a bit?

You can't see much change around the March 11 cutoff

Hey @Shalvenay

Not really, I got mod pinged by James to satiate his desire for data

2 hours later…

5:08 AM

@kingledion technically it was @NexTerren but thanks none the less. how you been?

6 hours later…

10:57 AM

@James Busy! I'm in ... like ... management now.

I used to visit SE every day as a programmer, but now that I'm a team lead I spend less and less time alone in front of my computer and more and more on the phone.

No time to sit idly on chat much anymore, alas

2 hours later…

12:46 PM

0

A: Sandbox for Proposed Questions

Why would non-kinetic weapons be used for orbital bombardment? At the moment this is more a snub I'm working on than a fully formed question. Most space invasions face the need to destroy some, or all, ground based infrastructure in order to take over a world. Kinetics are, potentially, highl...

2 hours later…

2:33 PM

@kingledion Welcome to the mgmt club. :)

@kingledion Eventually phones calls will be reflexive and you will be able to do other stuff at the same time. We expect to see you back here once you get practiced :)

2:55 PM

@James So, everyone else in management does calls while driving

which I am currently exceptionally uncomfortable with

I think that is the key to cracking the code here

If I do all my calls in the car, I pretty much won't have any more work to do

Better be hands-free, or it's dangerous.

And even then it's dangerous.

@kingledion lol. bluetooth is your friend.

Its a whole new world

I never tried to program and drive before, that is for sure

I remember a "test" being performed where they took business managers and other execs who claimed they were fine driving and talking, and had them drive avoiding massive beach balls being hurled at them.

Then they did the same test except they had to answer simple trivia questions via a bluetooth call.

Not super scientific, but it made it's point. I'll let you guess how it went. :P

@NexTerren I want to see that

3:05 PM

@NexTerren @kingledion I on the other hand want to try it.

@NexTerren I believe that's when you tell the person on the other end of the line "hey, can you hold on for a second, some ahole is throwing beachballs at me."

situational awareness combined with communication is key

@AndyD273 Thing is, you don't have time to do that when something happens on the road.

@AndyD273 If you're in a situation you need to break or swerve you normally don't get a heads up was the point; your reactions and coordination take a dive. Humans suck at multitasking.

If a giant beach ball comes hurtling at the car, I'll stop talking to the person on the other end of the line and then apologize for swearing after the fact.

@AndyD273 Also acceptable.

3:10 PM

What if you are doing 60 mph on the freeway, and the idiot in front of you drops a pop can out their window?

@Hosch250 ...I'd break out my headlight rockets and explode them. Isn't that what everyone does?

Happened to me.

@James LOL, perfect answer.

/bow

But also, even single tasking isn't perfect. You're just driving with no distraction, and a deer (aka blood beach ball) comes hurtling out of the night with no warning, chances are you're going to take it out

What if you are behind a garbage truck (side-lifter style) and are suddenly smothered with a massive roll of paper flying out?

3:12 PM

BTW, they teach us not to swerve when that happens.

@AndyD273 Free dinner.

@AndyD273 Make that a kid instead of a deer.

Better off hitting the deer than losing control and hitting the tree. Trees don't have as much meat

Also, saw that happen to someone else (garbage truck thing).

@Hosch250 A kids a different story

3:12 PM

@Hosch250 Remind me not to drive wherever it is you live.

And I had the advantage of being two lanes over and able to see it lift out and come over the truck.

The victim didn't.

@James MN. 694 through the twin cities.

@Hosch250 Ohhhhh...yeah I've totally driven that. My personal favorite is the death turn on I94 on the SW side of downtown.

@James Not sure I know that one. I typically don't do 94.

I actively avoid going into the city.

I usually persuade my mom to drive when I have something going on down there.

Right on the SW side of downtown I94 takes a real hard turn...I haven't driven it in a few years but you have to drop down to like 40mph or something and its always a cluster f during rush hour.

But the thing is that you can't always predict those things, and sometimes they happen so fast there is no reaction time, distraction or no. One time was driving through the next city over, and a couple girls were standing on the corner where I was turning. One of them acted like she was going to push the other one out in front of my car. If there had been a place to turn off I would have gotten out and slugged her.

3:16 PM

Then, there's "spaghetti junction", where a couple of freeways run alongside each other for a bit, and people have to cross like 5 lanes.

I went to school in St. Paul.

@James Oh, I might know it.

Where 694 joins 494 in Plymouth?

I do that every day, and it's a hard 90+ degree turn.

Hmmm, I think that's the northwest side of town.

I do look forward to 5 Years From Now™ when we have level 4 or 5 self driving cars...

user image

@James That one?

@AndyD273 Meh, those are just biker killers.

@Hosch250 That one was level 2

3:20 PM

Oh.

But I also don't think it'll be only 5 years from now

@Hosch250 nah, this one.

user image

Oh, I've not done that one.

Why I think Yang might have some good points, but I think he's really premature. Still good to have the conversation, but it's hard to argue that 50% unemployment from automation is an eminent threat when we have record low unemployment.

Mine looks pretty similar, though.

3:25 PM

Ill actually be up there in July, my kid is competing in Nationals for Taekwondo.

Nice.

@AndyD273 I think there's just generational unemployment, and that's a false premise.

I'm not sure what you mean?

Automation always opens up new fields and releases labor for other jobs. The only unemployment is people who can't be retrained, and of course, that sucks hard for them--especially people nearing retirement age.

But, in the long run, it's not permanent.

@Hosch250 Sure. If you watch his interview with Shapiro, one of Yangs main platforms is UBI for everyone. He justifies it by pointing to job loss because of automation, and suggests funding it by taxes on automation, similar to how the taxes from oil in Alaska get used to fund subsidies going to the citizens of Alaska. I (and Shapiro) agree with you that automation is likely to make things better, not worse, for the majority of people, though there may be some people caught in the transition.

Which is why I think he's premature.

But that doesn't mean it's not a good conversation to have, in case it does become an issue one day

In other words, he's an idiot on a mission.

For UBI to work, there'd have to be a closed loop where all money comes back to the gov.

3:38 PM

Maybe, or (if you wanted to be charitable) a visionary without a cause.

We all know that doesn't happen--it just keeps changing hands until the gov increases it's interest rates to draw money back in (which is one way of deflation).

So, all the banks take it out of private loans and put it in gov loans and effectively remove it from circulation.

I recommend watching the interview. It's at least informative, and Ben does a good job of pushing back on the ideas (as a good interviewer should) to get everything out there, and point out some of the holes in the argument (like you have done).

3:58 PM

@James you rang?

@Green uh...

thats possible...I have no idea why though.

@James I thought it was a friendly "Hey, you're my favorite abomination and I haven't seen you around much lately."

@Green Sure, yeah, lets go with that.

:D

Anything new and exciting?

Not particularly, running projects, making sure kids don't die...you know the norm.

You?

4:05 PM

I built my first RC airplane though I haven't taken it out to fly yet.

Ok that sounds fun.

And I'm trying to learn OpenFOAM so I can design a real airplane.

I expect something that can break the sound barrier in less than 4 years.

4:25 PM

@James I was going for 220mph for 2000 miles.

Flying across most of the continent on one tank of gas sounds good to me.

user image

Something like that would be fun.

@Green Can a human fit in there?

It's designed to fit two people.

bbcomposite.com/content/…

that would be...snug.

But, if it's fast and flies like a fighter jet, I'm okay with snug.

Exotic sports cars are 'snug' as are Formula 1 racers.

@Green Either my sense of scale is way off, or it looks like it'd have trouble fitting two children in that thing.

4:32 PM

Yeah, that really doesn't look all that big

...and if I'm designing it, I can scale it to fit me just fine.

OH it's a MODEL

That's a picture of a scale model, not the actual plane.

OKAY

I don't know if they ever build the actual plane.

4:32 PM

That makes so much more sense.

I doubt they did. The personal jets at Oshkosh last year were nowhere near that... out there.

ok yeah wow. I am way less concerned with your sanity now.

@James It's bigger on the inside

@Green what's the propulsion on that? It doesn't look like it has propellers; is that a turbine?

Also (warning, it's pretty geeky) but Door Monsters is my new favorite Youtube channel. Their voice acting isn't stellar, but I love their sense of humor/comedic timing.

@AndyD273 They didn't put a propellor on that model. The little spike you see is a propellor cone (or what I choose to imagine as a propellor cone.)

@NexTerren subject matter?

4:37 PM

@AndyD273 Looks very, very turbine to me. bbcomposite.com/sites/default/files/files/images/article/…

@James Humor geeky videos. Some not geeky, just humor. There's some D&D, Civ 5/6, some video games.

They're... maybe I'm old but they're kind of kids, but it's still great.

To save you the search, if you want to check them out.

youtube.com/user/Qubbie/videos?view=0&sort=p&flow=grid

user image

looks like a big propeller arc to me.

@Green I stand corrected.

I wonder what kind of shop you'd need to make one of those. is it a kit? Seems like it would be hard to scale if it was a kit

@AndyD273 Since it's composite you'd need a pretty fancy shop.

I wonder if Colin Firth could make one. He seems to have the right kind of shop

4:42 PM

@NexTerren Other planes they've prototyped are much larger. The composite is white (or painted white) so I don't know exactly what it is they're using.

Actually, I wonder if my friend could make one... He has the plasma cutter and CNC machines...

@AndyD273 Probably.

The wing design is really interesting to me. I learned about vortex rings on normal wings but I'm really curious to see them on staggered biplanes like this.

@Green So what are your plans for it? Maple syrup smuggling doesn't seem like it would be lucrative enough to justify the effort

@AndyD273 Given my longstanding habit of doing a lot of design work then never building the actual thing, I suspect that I design the plane, tinker with it till I'm happy then move on to something else.

Or, this time I'll get lucky and actually build something.

@Green Probably styrofoam.

4:58 PM

@Hosch250 I'd believe that the original model is made out of styrofoam but the molds themselves look like something else.

...or some kind of pourable foam.

Cardboard, maybe?

@Hosch250 Not styrofoam but some kind of foam. They cut out all the slabs then glued them together.

user image

You can see the faint lines along the rear of the cockpit.

Huh, intresting

I've made art projects that way using thick slabs of high density home insulation foam

It's pretty easy to carve and shape

@AndyD273 If I can get garage space, I'd probably take the same approach.

5:16 PM

Seems like you'd need some kind of metal frame somewhere in there to bolt the motor onto. Also, heat would be a big problem if it is too close to the foam

@AndyD273 This is one of the best videos I've seen on building molds for fiberglass airplanes. youtube.com/watch?v=qStFDcZs5Og

@Green Says in that video it's made from molded carbon fiber, and the BBComposite page for the first plane you showed used carbon as one of the tags. Makes me think those lines aren't layered foam, but instead are strips of carbon fiber next to each other. But I'm not willing to put money on that either

I think the plug is foam and the products from the finished mold are made with carbon fiber+[expoxy,resin]. The mold itself, I'm not sure what that's made out of.

Bondo maybe?

could be

1 hour later…

Worldbuilding Meta

6:42 PM

0

Q: Is the question: "Rowing dragon, could it work?" ready for reopening?

Rowing dragon, could it work? Is the question ready for reopening? If no, why?

discussion specific-question

U[unprintable glyph]: The elements a higher power uses to bend that moral arc. U[even more unprintable glyph]: The higher power's overall experience bending that moral arc.

@Feeds I am disappointed that "eldritch glyph" wasn't used... Though I guess "eldritch" and "moral" don't usually go together...

7:13 PM

@AndyD273 There's an eldritch glyph?!?!?!?!!

@Green What else would the great old ones write down their dark cosmic secrets and family recipes with?

Also, McMaster Carr is a really dangerous website to just poke around in. "I'll take one of those and ten of those and 3 of those...."

The Elder Sign is an icon in the Cthulhu Mythos, whose stories describe it as a form of protection against evil forces. Although not described in Lovecraft's work, he illustrated it in correspondence as a line with five branches. Mythos writer August Derleth described the Elder Sign as a warped, five-pointed star with a flaming pillar (or eye) in its center, and it is this interpretation which has become the most popular in subsequent Mythos literature. == Description == The Elder Sign is first mentioned in H. P. Lovecraft's 1926 story The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath, although it is no...

Hmm, apparently the alphabet used by the great old ones is called R'lyehian, but no one can read it. Mostly because anyone who sees those eldritch glyphs goes utterly insane.

At least, any human. Other eldritch abominations probably have no problem, so you should be good, @Green

@AndyD273 Sweet! I knew all those tentacles and extra eyes would come in handy eventually!

@Green Also useful for taking the lid off the jelly jar, and finding where you left your keys.

7:34 PM

@James Hmm, I have an idea for a new game show... A person has to drive around a closed track answering trivia questions. The more questions they get right, the more money they win. They have to drive either 20 miles or 20 minutes, whichever goes first. Periodically someone throws a large beach ball out in front of the vehicle. If the person hits the ball they lose all their points, and if they lose control and drive off the track they lose all their points.

And I guess you could make it so that they get a new question for each 1 mile they drive, just to keep them from wanting to drive too slow/just park.

so to get the maximum number or questions, you'd have to drive faster than 60 miles an hour.

you could get by with a pretty cheap car, stripped down, with a racing harness, and throw in the racing safety gear like helmet, no glass windows, etc. and make answering the trivia questions more challenging by removing the muffler...

7:56 PM

How Captain Marvel Should Have Ended

1 hour later…

9:00 PM

@AndyD273 I thought he did a good job with this one. Not his best, but I still enjoyed it.

Yeah. I can think of a few other places it could have ended, but all in all not bad.

3 hours later…

Worldbuilding Meta

11:34 PM

0

Q: Where do I go if I'm just fishing for ideas?

What I'd like to ask it too broad with no definitive answer and to my understand of how WB is handled this is considered just fishing for ideas. Does anyone recommend a place I can as this without issue? Is this question too broad by the meta's rules?

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Apr '1924

The Factory Floor

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