The Factory Floor - 2014-10-10 (page 1 of 2)

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7:26 AM

1

A: Is this question "too opinion based"?

Well, darn... I just spent the last hour+ typing up a lengthy response to this question (considering historical analogues to see how societies react to culturally-distinct minorities in general), and then signed up for an account on this SE, only to refresh the page before posting, and see that t...

Any thoughts?

also,

0

Q: What would be the consequences of an exploratory group discovering a more advanced civilization?

The European explorers who came to the Americas were much more advanced than the Native Americans living there. To the Europeans back in the day, they most likely assumed they'd be more advanced than anyone they found because if they weren't, the other guys would have visited Europe already. But ...

civilization history

Is anyone up for rewriting that one?

The Op doesn't seem too involved.

7:42 AM

Wanted to make sure everyone had seen this post. I think if one of the banners gets 6+ votes, I'll post it on a site as a candidate for a community promotion ad

4

Q: Creating an ad for community promotion

One of the ideas for promoting the site was creating a Community Promotion Ad for another site. But if we want to do that we need a banner to post. This banner needs to advertise our site in visual manner. So, to decide on the best banner to represent a site, post the banner here. If you have mul...

discussion site-promotion

1 hour later…

9:02 AM

@overactor can you go to the chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/17257/… chat?

1 hour later…

10:10 AM

Only 3 days left on the erosion bounty...going to award it in next couple of days

That's a tough one

*You don't get giant amoebas in space nor space-goats, launching themselves between rocks.*
@ivy_lynx This makes me sad beyond belief.

actually

my answer did have space-goats

and gian amoebas

maybe I should have named them that :D

@TimB link?

10:26 AM

1

A: Could life form in outer space?

The problem with life is that it needs raw materials to work with. You need air to breathe, you need solid matter to consume, you need energy to power all of this. In space you can get solar energy but there is a big shortage of matter to use to build your own structure and to metabolize to powe...

extremely intriguing site! good work on the questions and answers!

thanks :)

@TimB Your answer was more encouraging :)

@TimB what color should teh text on the hazard tape be?

I can't get it to look decent

well, good luck with the site

you called? :P

10:33 AM

@Omen Thanks for stopping by

@ivy_lynx Yes, your lack of belief in space goats makes me sad

@overactor Space goats cannot be!

@ivy_lynx FINE! I'LL INVENT MY OWN UNIVERSE, WITH SPACE GOATS AND HOOKERS!

(you can tell I'm yelling by the use of caps and the exclamationmark)

@overactor did you use caps-lock or shift?

@ivy_lynx Oh, I made the effort of holding down the shift key.

SO you know I mean business

@overactor oh sh-

@TimB indeed you had both space amoebas and space-goats

10:52 AM

@overactor nice reflexes - saw the platinum core question on the hot list and i'm like "this was made for us" and you've aready got an upvoted comment pointing back, kudos

@TimB

user image

@ivy_lynx I thought the same thing

Hmm, see what you mean

maybe frame it

hazard tape, black rectangle inside hazard tape, writing in black rectangle

I don't know if there's been more discussion since yesterday but wheren't the colors going to match the existing palette?

The guy already had an association bonus account on here, so he likely knew about us

but still, good opportunity

@overactor yeah

10:54 AM

@ivy_lynx It was a possibility

@TimB I could try that

you could also make a layer out of the text selection, grow it by 1 or 2 pixels, place it behind the text and paste the hazard tape again within that layer, with the colors reversed

but the box is a cleaner solution :P

@ivy_lynx I tried a red glow behind teh text

rather subtle

perhaps you can color-wheel the blue text over the yellow stripes to a different shade, which, due to them being close by, will look consistent as a color but still increase the contrast to make it easily readable.

@ivy_lynx Or just go in photoshop and add an outer glow on the text layer as a layer effect :p

@TimB come on, have some ambition!

oooooh that already has the red glow

now that's subtle

11:02 AM

@ivy_lynx uhu

It improves readability though

user image

@ivy_lynx @TimB I don't know

That's much better.

But bring the blackout box all the way out into the bleed on the left and right.

user image

meh the black box works a lot better

brings out the site title as well

and then there's this idea:

user image

OOo, I like tha tone

although I'm not sure about the difference between orange and yellow

@overactor It feels like this should work better, but I liked the subtlety of yours versus mine - this one has a smaller palette (good) and nice complementary colors (good), but I think the spirit is kind of lost

11:15 AM

@ivy_lynx I agree

The subtle blue text over space felt cool, this is clean but it feels like it's got too much makeup on

I like that most recent one - however I'd like to see it with the black box extended off the edge in both directions and with the writing at the bottom the same colour

The blue planet is superior.

There's something about the blue and prurple/red/pink

I'm not sure if blue or yellow text for the site name is better--I'd have to see it--and the yellow should match the tape at any rate.

11:16 AM

@overactor This is actually my favorite so far - maybe with the yellow in the writing slightly brighter and the box extended off each side

I use this sometimes: paletton.com

At the moment the writing looks slightly darker because it's thinner

making it slightly lighter would compensate for that

I'm with @TimB on this one

the only issue with that one is the worldbuilding.SE bit is almost the least prominent bit of the advert

@TimB I think that's fine, the rest of it is intriguing enough

11:20 AM

Thicken the name text, put it at the top, and put the banner tape at the bottom.

@TimB banner blindness will take care of ignoring what an ad says anyway, I don't think the text has to be clearer, as far as the name is concerned

@BESW that feels like a product ad or company - putting it at the bottom feels more like a place ad

@BESW From top to bottom, left to right is a sequence of causality - with a product, you get the product, or got to the company then stuff happens - but here, if you already are into worldbuilding, you come here

user image

I think placing the text at the bottom makes it more of an invitation, which I think is appropriate

user image

I actually like the structure of that

the banner pulls you in

gets your attention

nice contrast to the blue planet

11:23 AM

Hmm, the bottom text still looks a bit dark

@overactor this is perfect

then once you see it you can then see the bottom text and see what it's about

There's something to the contrast of the first one

I agree

one thing to try - a slight yellow hallo around the writing at the bottom on the first one

it might tie it back to the banner at the top in a subtle way

and help the text stand out against the dark background

(or it might fail miserably)

but worth a shot

Is the source material available?

11:25 AM

@TimB i dont think this will work well

Right now, it's clear and simple

Sec, I'm tweaking teh yellow/blue version

No glows, please.

I did say slight :p

user image

I'll post this one and the first one above

I prefer the above one

@overactor I like this one, but I'd like to see it with a blue planet...

11:27 AM

@TimB, the hazard tape really did turn out nicely, good idea

@BESW What about the background color then?

I dunno, I rather liked this planet/background, but I don't have the ability right now to envision how it'd match with the yellow text. I think it'd work.

@overactor Thanks

on a different subject guys.... meta.worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/326/…

thoughts?

But whatever background is needed to make it work, I think the planet should probably be blue.

@TimB about reopening so caleb can post his answer?

@BESW I can get you my .psd file if you'd like

11:31 AM

read the comments

the OP is asking what changes he needs to make to open the question

I've posted a suggestion but would like 2nd opinions on it

Beware though, it's quite messy

@overactor I'm very tempted! I'm a graphic designer, but book layout and theatre posters and the like are more my speciality.

@BESW You're more qualified to work on it than I am then

I'm not as familiar with online content development as most contemporary graphic designers, but I'll give it a shot when I have some time.

Hmm, how do I share this file

Do you have google drive?

Or a good suggestion as to where to upload this file?

@TimB your suggestions to narrow it down seem very reasonable

11:34 AM

email :p

@TimB @BESW, where do you live, maybe I just stop by with my USB stick?

That'd be a bit of a hop; I'm on Guam.

Google drive works. Let's use my social email--phreid9, at the usual.

I'm near London in the UK :)

lunchtime, back in a bit o/

I'm in Switzerland!

@BESW, did that arrive?

Yup, got it! Thanks.

11:40 AM

@BESW Cool, use it as you like

Be aware though, I didn't check under what licenses the images I used were

@overactor I met some lovely Swiss in Haifa last year.

@BESW I'm not swiss though, I'm Belgian

But I'll agree, the Swiss are lovely

ARe you Guamese?

Oh, well, I work with a Belgian on service projects.

@BESW FRENCH OR DUTCH SPEAKING?

CAPS LOCK '-_-

@overactor ...I probably shouldn't say, should I.

Let's just say his name's Philippe.

11:43 AM

@BESW I'm asking out of innocent interest :)

@overactor I'm Guamanian by birth and citizenship, but I'm not Chamorro (the local ethnicity).

@overactor love that design :)

@BESW Considering his french heritage, I'm surprise you know him through work.

@Liath Thanks, some credit goes to @TimB

Religious service, actually; we're both Bahá'ís.

@BESW I have honestly never heard of that

Is it Abrahamic?

11:47 AM

Aye, it comes out of Islam the way Christianity comes out of Judaism.

@BESW Islam came out of Judaism similarly too, no?

@overactor That's a little more complicated. It's safe to say Islam is Abrahamic. More than that gets contentious depending on the audience.

@BESW Do you mind if I'm pragmatic about religion?

Not at all. But if we continue this conversation, it might be good to take it to another room.

I use the Not A Bar for conversations that people might not want to be part of involuntarily.

12:01 PM

worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/1354/… has been edited. The assumptions are expanded, and will hopefully be enough to make the question less opinion-based.

looks much better

reopen vote is in

One thing; I thought the main problem with the question was, that the elves' behavioral patterns where not well-defined, thus causing problem due to how people would interpret them - I don't understand how the edit changed that.

It's more focused to be sure, but I think not in a way that changes what the problem was

The question is what would their behavior pattern be given the assumptions

If I defined their attitude towards technology, I answer my own question

I see

why did you remove the "traditionalistic" part you previously had?

I thought that helped

I felt it was a little vague, myself. I mean, what is "Traditionalism" anyway?

I , personally, am traditionally a technophile

12:16 PM

resistance to change :P

much like how the english didn't want to give up their bows, long after crossbows where around

Truth, although the longbow was superior to the crossbow in many respects but this is not on topic and I'm going to start wandering... Bah

@DannyReagan only superior if you knew how to use it properly

Yup, which the English did.

Darn you

Wandering again

@DannyReagan my point is, traditionalistic can be interpreted vaguely but only in its details - overall, it's pretty clear it's a resistance to change

@DannyReagan not sure it's necessary - i'll vote to reopen, but I feel the traditionalism should be stated, if that's the kind of elf you want

I was hoping to show that, to some extent, by the other assumptions, rather than just saying "traditionalist"

12:19 PM

@DannyReagan and let the answerers sort out whether this trait would remain

@DannyReagan well, here's the info I have on how elves differ from humans: 1. pointy ears, 2. have enclaves, 3. there's few of them, 3. aloof (mysterious means nearly nothing, except how others view them)

that's not much - it's like trying to decide if the French will have a revolution based on the fact that they like green.

Well, keeping away from other races in remote parts of the world sounds pretty defining to me

But you are correct, not too much to go on

I sort of assumed some basic familiarity with the elven archetype

@DannyReagan well perhaps, but that's not much to go on - I could just as well take it that they're North Koreans - but North Koreans are humans

@DannyReagan @DannyReagan you did well to assume that, it's just that you don't define which of all of them.

Think of them as the Platonic Elves

@DannyReagan tolkienish is one thing, but it's pretty much in-context of his world - also, he didn't give us much to go on as it was

The "ideal" elf, as it were. :D

12:25 PM

@DannyReagan add that to your question with a link that describes it or gives an example and I'll happily vote to reopen

@DannyReagan link may not be needed if you describe it yourself

Done. Explained, but also linked because the question doesn't need to get sidetracked by discussing Platonic Realism.

@DannyReagan nice, voted for reopening

Which, while fascinating, is not really relevant.

yeah, honestly I think the question is still in the "opinion based" territory but since someone already had a researched answer there is at least enough there for people to build on

so it's worth re-opening it and see how it goes

@TimB that's what i felt like

12:37 PM

lol, I'm rep capped 3 points short of 4k

I think that in a .SE full of people who create worlds the way they like them, we're going to run into a lot of things that can be answered based on opinion. Laws of physics don't even always apply to some of our questions.

yes, but they can be backed up

11

Q: Back It Up! policies

The Good Subjective/Bad Subjective guidelines talk a lot about what make for great questions and answers for subjective issues, and it primarily falls around Back It Up!: answers need to cite some kind of relevant material (scholarly works, authoritative discussions, relevant personal experience,...

discussion policy close-reasons

Well then in absence of scholarly works on elves, research on humans would have to suffice.

> Every answer needs to justify the conclusions it comes to. “This sounds like a neat idea to me” simply does not fit in well with how the Stack Exchange system works. It probably is a neat idea. The next guy’s got another neat idea. How do I decide which one to vote for? They’re both neat ideas, so I guess I’ll vote for both?

for those who haven't yet:

5

Q: Creating an ad for community promotion

One of the ideas for promoting the site was creating a Community Promotion Ad for another site. But if we want to do that we need a banner to post. This banner needs to advertise our site in visual manner. So, to decide on the best banner to represent a site, post the banner here. If you have mul...

discussion site-promotion

vote?

@TimB Didn't we decide to be a voting heavy community?

12:45 PM

@overactor well, that's not really a decision so much as just what does or doesn't happen

but the point is that you have no criteria with which to vote....neither answer can be objectively better than the others

@Tim B I think @overactor was talking about voting for the images

Don't get me wrong, I agree with you @TimB

@DannyReagan No, I did mean being able to back up answers

Ah

@DannyReagan Hover over a reply in chat and you can see what line they were replying to (try it with this one)

I see. Interesting

@TimB There's a little arrow over on the side. Cool feature. Will use

12:48 PM

It helps reduce confusion if multiple discussions happen at once

@TimB So it does.

have you checked the license on that planet and that nebular image?

@overactor Indeed

@TimB I have to admit that I have not

I probably should

@overactor Where did you find it?

12:51 PM

google images :]]

The planet is from NASA

That should be fine, right?

yeah, Nasa put most stuff out in public domain

mreclipse.com/Astrophoto/SSSP/SS97galleryA.html

1997 Southern Sky Astrophotography

Photo Gallery A

Copyright by Fred Espenak. All rights reserved.

uh oh

All photographs, text and web pages are © Copyright 2007 by Fred Espenak, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. They may not be reproduced, published, copied or transmitted in any form, including electronically on the Internet or WWW, without written permission of the author. The photos have been digitally watermarked.

@overactor That would seem to be copyrighted

Rather a lot, actually

12:58 PM

yep, fortunately nebular pictures aren't too hard to find :)

I could contact him?

that's one option

:D

he may say yes...he may not

The other one being finding another background image

12:59 PM

google.co.uk/…

Luckily, I set up my psd file properly with masking

working with stuff that isn't explicitly licensed in a permissive way is really funky

Some good stuff here from wikimedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Carina_Nebula_by_ESO.jpg

user image

Image not found

see the image search I did at the top - notice I selected the licensed for reuse

you still need to double check the individual license

1:00 PM

@ivy_lynx Click it

but at least you know they're available

user image

@TimB useful

@DannyReagan cool - there's a spot right there for the planet to sit in

@TimB Wikimedia helpfully lists the license at the bottom of the image page.

That's handy to know

@TimB how's your JS?

1:02 PM

javascript?

Yeah

I have a table which is 60% wide and I want to make the cells inside it square (so I need to make the height/width the same). Any ideas?

why do you need javascript for that?

I feel like I'd rather have a view of a galaxy from the inside though

ahh to update the height dynamicall?

Well, or html but yeah

I don't know how wide the table will be in px

1:03 PM

ask a stack overflow question :p

actually this shouldn't be too bad

put a listener on the window for resizing

when it does read the width of the div

divide by number of columns

loop over the rows, set their height

done

Apparently $('#MyTable').width(); does it

I'll have a jsfiddle

yep

@Liath Ah JQuery. Love it so much

jQuery is one of Javascript's few saving graces

Huh... that was easier than I expected!

1:06 PM

@TimB Yes. Yes it is. I tried using javascript for a lot of things when I started this job and then a teammate was like: "Why don't we just import JQuery?" Mind blown, right there

var width = $('#MyTable td').first().width();
$('#MyTable td').height(width);

I've never used jQuery, what's so great about it?

it looks cryptic

Not really #MyTable is Where ID = MyTable

td = all the cells within

pixabay.com/en/tarantula-nebula-30-doradus-ngc-2070-60549

public domain

I'm no expert but you can do some very cool stuff with it

1:08 PM

@overactor It lets you interact with any given dom object by a lot of different parameters, and it lets you modify them

@DannyReagan that's what I meant to say ;-)

@overactor Basically you combine selectors with what you want to happen and it does all the finding of the objects, applying the callbacks. It's got nice built in supports for popups, windows, animation, delayed events, AJAX, etc

@TimB It's not like I wanted it :(

@TimB that does sound cool

I find the ajax stuff an absolute lifesaver

pixabay.com/en/orion-nebula-emission-nebula-11137

1:09 PM

That and all the nice UI controls, want a calendar? Dialog? Accordion? No problem!

$('#MyDiv').dialog("open"); just turns a div into a dialog

@TimB Got any pictures of the milky way?

some rotation and recolouring on a few of these would have the same feel as the old one

google.co.uk/…

user image

Bah. Why is it even trying to link the image?

@TimB love that nebula one

I want to link the site

I'm sorry if this turns out to large: upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c6/…

Nope, that time it decided to do the link...

1:12 PM

Hehe

it only tries to link the image if the file ends with an image extension

and the link is the only thing in the mesage

user image

add something else and it doesn't

@TimB That makes sense

:p

1:12 PM

@TimB Ah. Thanks!

user image

I'll try that one

@Liath this one

user image

I like this one

user image

That IS nice

And this

user image

I did this search here: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Milky_Way

I'm not quite getting the same effect

I can't get it right :(

user image

1:31 PM

I like that

can you rotate the background anticlockwise slightly and move it right a bit?

There's something to it, but it's not quite as stylized as the other version

add a colour filter and put some more red/purple into the background will make it punch more I think

There are filters all over that background

:)

0

Q: Community wikis - are they ever a possibility?

After seeing this question on shared worlds and this one, I'm wondering whether such questions are better handled as community wikis, or even if they would be on-topic if broad enough to work as community wikis. The question is, is there any class of question that is not too broad on this Q&A th...

discussion on-topic questions policy too-broad

1:41 PM

user image

nice

I can't move the background because I'm an idiot

you cropped it?

@TimB I collapsed filters onto it

Which apparently use the canvas as a mask

scale backround up by 10%, rotate it 5 degrees anticlockwise, move it as far right as you can without exposing anything

1:43 PM

@TimB I considered that, good thing I'm working at 200% size

user image

better?

hmm, building isn't very clear this way

yeah it's a bit bright now - still needs to move further right, did you move it as far right as you could after rotating?

@TimB yup

user image

perfect

although

the area to the up and right of the planet is a bit empty and black now

maybe copy that bright star back into it - or the little cluster of stars just up and left from the planet

user image

?

user image

Not too fond of that one

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The Factory Floor

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