The Factory Floor - 2015-09-14

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11:39 AM

8

Q: Creating a realistic world(s) map - Stars

This question is a soft of follow-up to Samuel's previous world map question, Creating a realistic world(s) map - Solar systems. Lots of science fiction stories involve journeying to nearby stars. Many involve the first human explorers setting out for a new star system. It's easy to pick from th...

space hard-science astronomy stars

the answer on this isn't bad, it would be nice to have some more though

12:27 PM

@TimB I could come up with an answer but it definitely wouldn't be hard-science

12:46 PM

@Green Just provide some sources for your assertions and it's fine. :)

1:15 PM

@TimB I'll give a go then.

2:12 PM

@TimB Done.

1 hour later…

3:31 PM

@HDE226868, question of you. In my answer about the realistic stellar neighborhood, does it detract from the answer to outline a process for drawing such a neighborhood?

(For ease of reference): worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/a/25622/10364

outlining the process seems reasonable, but you don't give any background for how the dots should be arranged, what the scales should be, etc

should stars be clustered with gaps between groups or uniform for example?

how many stars should be single, binary, trinary etc?

4:15 PM

@Green I don't think it would detract.

One thing I'm a bit uncomfortable with is the assumption that the neighborhood must be stable and habitable, like the area around the Solar System, or that there should be explorers. I'm treating this as a step before working on a specific planet/system, without accounting for whether or not life needs to be there.

It's a bit too anthropic-principle for my tastes.

4:58 PM

New topic challenge.

@ArtOfCode Did I use the most recent version of the generator?

The results bit is still broken for me, by the way.

@HDE226868 It's always the most recent non-beta version. I do my testing locally, and push it to the server when it's stable.

@HDE226868 How so? It works absolutely fine for me.

@ArtOfCode It simply generates . . . nothing. White space.

Worldbuilding Meta

0

Q: Fortnightly topic challenge #16: Warfare

Now begins our sixteenth topic challenge! Topic: warfare Dates: 14 September - 28 September Proposed by: Who doesn't like a nice war? Let's challenge the myth that it never changes! I love the smell of gunpowder in the morning. Remember to use this tag if you're asking a question as p...

discussion challenge

@HDE Generates this for me.

status-norepro right now, unless someone else can confirm the same behaviour.

5:30 PM

@HDE226868 Ah, somehow I got it into my head that you were looking for explorers. I've removed the anthrocentric portions of the answer.

@Green Okay, thanks.

Folks, this and this need merging.

@NickAlexeev ~~Why a merge? They're different questions, and the migrated one should be closed as a dupe of the first (if not closed as off-topic).~~

@NickAlexeev Why not simply tell him to edit in the information from the migrated one into the original? A merge would be . . . complicated, since the two aren't nearly the same. I also feel like the new question has no relation to worldbuilding - it's a pure electronics question, regardless of motivation.

@HDE226868 It's a lousy electronics question along the lines of "I don't know fundamentals (nor do I care), so prove me right. Oh, and I haven't done any research either."

@NickAlexeev I don't think it's any better here.

Don't Migrate Crap seems relevant here.

5:44 PM

@HDE226868 All right. We'll leave it to rot on EE.SE. I thought that the discussion was originated from WB, so that's where material should accumulate.

6:28 PM

@James, well done on that Pacific voyage question.

@Green -What might make sense is to keep it but mark it as being anthrocentric. i.e. "If you want the stars to be home to intelligent life then..."

@TimB It would. I've added that disclaimer and a few other edits to help with the clarity of the answer.

@Green That was a fun question

Which answer is this? The one about crossing the ocean?

@TimB Yes, the one about getting across the pacific in 1400AD.

38

Q: What would it take to build a ship capable of crossing the Pacific?

In my story, I have a small extended family of 30 to 40 individuals ranging in age from 0 to 50 who are on the run from Chinese and Japanese forces in 1400AD. No place in Asia is safe for them. By a series of lucky chances they have found a very quiet location that appears to be untouched by hum...

reality-check hard-science medieval ships shipbuilding

6:37 PM

yeah I upvoted that answer

@James, Jinks.

yes that one

lol

"they all die" pretty much sums it up

@Green I thought it was jynx...

Yep. Unless you've got a God giving you freshwater and food and guiding you and keeping your boat together....yep, everybody dies.

6:38 PM

@TimB Yeah just way too much to learn in five years in that specific scenario.

@James Could be. Jynx is way better spelling though.

@Green It could be your way but I have a penchant for trying to fit in underused letters so I am sticking with it.

@James Good point. X, Z and Q are clearly an oppressed population. They have rights (and feelings) too!

And so are J, and Y.

7:01 PM

Only on Worldbuilding:

This should be interesting. I am thinking of weaponizing a frog brigade. — James 33 mins ago

Yay! I got on the podium for WB-process ! :D

Does "How to win a Time War?" count as clickbait?

My experience is that it is not very attractive... worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/19539/…

Or I did it very badly

@bilbo_pingouin Wow, that was pretty much my question. I didn't think anyone would have asked it before.

that was for the time challenge

well I had to check whether you wanted to ask a new question or were referring to mine

At least if you want to venture to that field, you have an idea what to improve

7:22 PM

ok random non-world building question for you guys

@James Okay, shoot.

Lately if I am accessing gmail via chrome in incognito mode, when I try refreshing my inbox, chrome sorta times out and asks me to clean up my cookies/cache (which I have done) and I have no idea what to do about it.

First glance search results have not been particularly helpful...though i am still looking

incognito and logged in usually don't work well together

how do you do your refresh?

whole page (like F5), or clicking on some gmail UI...?

@bilbo_pingouin gmail UI

It worked fine for some months previous but all of a sudden it is being a pain

chrome update?

7:30 PM

yes but I only updated it after I started having this issue.

ok...

I don't use chrome generally

so I haven't seen that problem

one possible issue is how gmail is linked to chrome... both being google products

so UI refresh might call for page refresh

which, in incognito, should mean delete cookies

not long ago after you put in your credentials and log in it started redirecting to a "hey download the app" (I should mention this is on my phone) page that you can bypass to get to your inbox...seems to have started being an issue around the same timeframe.

Its always annoying when something works fine then suddenly stops working...

it is. Have you tried another browser?

it might be a not-so-subtle way by google to convince you to get the app ;)

@bilbo_pingouin I've not used another browser on android, suggestions?

(I use K9 as mail client on my phone. FOSS, and google-independent... if that's of interest)

I always stick to Firefox

I'm happy with addons

but gmail does not work well with it

7:43 PM

Ill try firefox, always been a good browser.

7:55 PM

Could somebody check to see that my math here is correct? I'm getting an absurdly small number.

dm/dz looks a bit strange to me, but it might be because I'm getting a bit tired

@HDE $ R = 9\text{m} $ gives $ D = 18\text{m}, A = 254.5\text{m}^2 $. Sounds reasonable to me, actually.

@HDE226868 Your numbers seem accurate but I can't tell you if the formulas you used to get to that number accurately asses the situation

@James My derivation matches exactly the one given on Wikipedia, so I think I'm good.

@ArtOfCode Okay, thanks.

@HDE226868 it seems like you would need a much larger tunnel to redirect the volume of water flowing over niagra...

8:02 PM

@James I thought that, too, but considering the huge area of the tunnel, and the fact that the actual waterfalls at Niagara have small cross-sections, it seems to make sense.

If your water moves at $ 11\text{m}\cdot\text{s}^{-1} $ then you get $ Q = 2799.5\text{m}^3\cdot\text{s}^{-1} $, which is absurdly close to your required figure of 2800, and that's probably down to me rounding off to 254.5.

Where $ Q = A_{\text{tunnel}} \times v_{\text{water}} $, which matches the units $ \text{m}^3\cdot\text{s}^{-1} = \text{m}^2 \times \text{m}\cdot\text{s}^{-1} $

@HDE226868 Makes perfect sense. I just pulled those ^ formulae from unit derivation, and they come up with the same numbers. Which means you're right.

@ArtOfCode Damn, so why does math trump intuition here?

@HDE226868 Because circles are bigger than their radii would indicate. The squared makes a big difference.

@ArtOfCode Dang exponents. They grow quicker than they should.

Also because Niagara is large it looks very impressive, but the debit is lower that the size would seem to indicate

8:08 PM

@HDE226868 That right there is funny...

@HDE226868 I thought your number was small too, but 9 metres is actually a pretty big length - it's most of an average house.

@HDE226868 I'm not going to do that btw...

@bilbo_pingouin . . . and the thickness of the water coming down is pretty small, I would imagine.

@James Aw. that's disappointing.

that's what I would guess

and btw, those are 9m radius

18m is going on 2 houses tall

8:10 PM

@bilbo_pingouin Ah, that would do it.

so 18m diameter

@HDE226868 Well now I feel like I should find a way to weaponize frogs...

@James Give them actual poison darts?

maybe fill them with nitro glycerin and chuck them at people.

train them for sword fight?

8:11 PM

@HDE226868 Frogs with mini harpoon guns...they just have to lick it first

This is an 18m diameter tunnel, which will make you feel better @HDE:

user image

nobody expect the Span... er, the Sword-Fighting Frogs

@bilbo_pingouin lol

@ArtOfCode Cool. What's that from?

@HDE226868 Google search for "18m diameter tunnel". Some big road engineering project.

8:12 PM

"How can I weaponize frogs?" would get some weird answers.

@HDE226868 how would you narrow that?

@HDE The Alaskan Way replacement tunnel. Seattle.

@Green Absolutely no idea.

Here's the page.

Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement tunnel

The Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement tunnel is a bored road tunnel that is under construction in the city of Seattle in the U.S. state of Washington. The project has been stalled since December 2013. No firm date for if/when the project will continue has been set. The 2-mile (3.2 km) tunnel would carry State Route 99 under Downtown Seattle from the SoDo neighborhood to South Lake Union in the north. Since 2001, the proposed replacement of the Alaskan Way Viaduct has been the source of much political consternation demonstrating the Seattle process. Options for the structure, which carries 110,000...

8:13 PM

@bilbo_pingouin Not quite the one I had, but that does it too :)

The thing with the tunnel is that you need to build it... for some length... and make sure all the water actually flow inside... a mere 90° on the ground, would probably miss some...

and digging that tunnel without the neighbours to notice is in itself another challenge

@bilbo_pingouin I've got a stealth TBM you can hire.

TBM?

Tunnel boring machine

@ArtOfCode @bilbo_pingouin Thanks. I added it in.

8:17 PM

@ArtOfCode which works in medieval times?

@HDE226868 ...well, I would say How would you best weaponize frogs as a counter in support an armed insurgency that lacks the hardware to counter heavy armor (tanks, apcs, etc)

@bilbo_pingouin Can I lend you a time machine, too?

@ArtOfCode Is that a Napoleon Dynamite reference?

@ArtOfCode with poket size power generator? Or can the power flow through the time machine?

@James If it was a good one, then yes. If not, then I don't know it.

@bilbo_pingouin Either way.

I'm going to have a <shameless_plug> and say go read the blog, which I've just published something on. </shameless_plug>

8:22 PM

oh, that reminds me that I haven't yet read your post!

@James Wow. It's already been asked:

11

Q: Let's Weaponize Frogs

Basically, our protagonist wants to get revenge on an evil warlord and his minions (not the cute kind) for the destruction and butchery of his home village and all those who he loves. He decides to "get biblical on their... I mean them" and begins to plot a plague. He currently lives near a mass...

yeah, I remember that question

@HDE226868 I thought it had

aww

let him post it so we can close as duplicate :D

8:23 PM

does police/security tactics count as warfare?

@TimB jerkwad. Lol

It would be strangely satisfying to be able to close a question about weaponizing frogs as a dupe....

@bilbo_pingouin Depends. How are the tactics used?

if its an organised group against another organised group I'd be inclined to say yes

"gang war" for example

If used against gang wars I'd say yes.

Ah, we agree on that!

8:25 PM

I don't know yet... I trying to think about a question for the challenge that might relate to a world I want to build... and I would have something like a SWAT group tactics to discuss...

for anti-terrorrism

ok... gang wars might do as well...

would it be a duplicate if I rather asked. How do I weaponize frogs as a counter to heavy armor (tanks, apcs, etc) in support of an insurgent force that lacks those capabilities. Additionally how could these courageous amphibians be used in concert with regular forces in a combined assault.

@James Probably not a dupe, because in the original, the frogs aren't being used as weapons of war, just as a plague.

@HDE226868 Oh, it's only a plague. That's alright then. Sometimes, the absurdity of questions and chats around here...

4

@ArtOfCode ...which is one of the reasons I like it so much.

@Green Yup. Most definitely.

8:36 PM

For the life of me, I can't come up with a good warfare question.

@HDE226868 Its not as easy as you would think...

Even weirder than anything before:

1

Q: Could a catdog hybrid exist?

Is there any way a catdog (like from the television program Catdog) could survive? If it could survive could it evolve? Are there any reasons it couldn't?

biology evolution creature-design

Creature design questions do tend to get very bizarre.

8:52 PM

@ArtOfCode "4.5x10^9 joules per shark, if you're interested". This. This is brilliant!

@Green $ E = mc^2 $, plus the average mass of a shark. Surprisingly easy to calculate, good fun to write in a blog post.

@ArtOfCode I love that conversion factor.

@All: Is this too broad?

@HDE226868 Converting what, sorry?

@HDE226868 Not necessarily broad, but IG.

@ArtOfCode Like 12 inches to a foot, but 4.5$\times$10$^9$ joules to a shark.

@HDE226868 Yep. Got that much energy? I'll trade it for a shark.

9:06 PM

@ArtOfCode I tried to narrow it down to two options, but I feel like those aren't enough.

@HDE226868 Ah, I see - I read that as having some suggestions, rather than asking specifically about those two methods. I'd rephrase it "which of these two methods would be more effective, and why" - then neither close reason applies.

@ArtOfCode Okay, clarified.

Aye, that works.

Holy crap, the question rate is high today.

5 in the past hour.

We're a popular beta.

Also, @HDE you're doing far too well on the topic challenges. You got the top spot in hard-science, one of the top spots in weapon-design, and now you've got first and second in worldbuilding-process

9:16 PM

@ArtOfCode Yep. That's pretty hard to explain.

@HDE226868 If we actually had these badges, you'd be rolling in 'em.

@ArtOfCode I think we need to host an intervention...he has a problem.

@James I do wonder if custom badges are on the list to be implemented. I'd love to have them.

@ArtOfCode It would be kinda cool to have them on all the sites...

@James Aye, that it would.

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Sep '1514

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