The Factory Floor

12:28 AM

If anyone can figure out a way for a star of mass ~1-2 M$_\odot$ to rapidly lose most of its mass but not destroy the core, can you please ping me? I've encountered an issue with justifying mass loss for my self-answer. Thanks.

bowlturner

2:00 PM

@Shalvenay Sorry this weekend I didn't get much time on the internet. As to your questions, I am a novice black smith, I have no idea about production speeds, but I'm guessing it is significantly less than by hand.. Also I have NO IDEA what steel I would use to make a sword. Haven't done any research into it. Still working on Black smithing, not blade smithing myself... I'll try to find out more about swords

DaaaahWhoosh

3:04 PM

oh, no...

the next topic challenge is gender

I have a strange sense of foreboding

also, the last challenge was on two tags, that'll break the answer generator

bowlturner

you'll have to do each separately and merge them I would guess.'

AndyD273

@HDE226868 Rogue black hole. Traveling at .1-.2 c it would go through a solar system pretty fast, and passing through a star wouldn't slow it down enough to keep in in the system. If it was a grazing shot it might take enough mass without causing the star to go nova.

bowlturner

Though it looks like someone was thinking that calendar should be bumped up because of leap year this month

AndyD273

@DaaaahWhoosh It could be interesting, or horrifying. I'm not sure which either.

Is there anywhere that shows the queue of upcoming challenges, or does the next challenge only get decided when the last ends?

bowlturner

@AndyD273 There is a main thread that meta.worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/1768/… where the suggestions are voted on. The highest one at the end of the previous challenge is generally the next challenge. Steampunk was at the top on Friday.

And Mythical Creatures and History are tied with gender right now

and Now Mythical Creatures is in the lead

AndyD273

3:20 PM

@bowlturner Well, I put a vote in for mythical creatures. I'm hoping that balloon-whales falls into that catagory.

bowlturner

They sound pretty mythical to me!

DaaaahWhoosh

does anyone feel up to generating the new challenge question while I reconcile the old challenge answers?

AndyD273

I've never done it, but I can give it a try if no one else wants to...

bowlturner

@AndyD273 give it a shot!

AndyD273

So, since mythical creatures is in the lead, that's the one that gets chosen?

DaaaahWhoosh

3:24 PM

yup

and here's the generator: jenkinsstuff.bl.ee/challenge/#

AndyD273

0

Q: Fortnightly Topic Challenge #26: Mythical Creatures

Now begins our 26 topic challenge! Topic: mythical-creatures Dates: 1 February - 15 February Proposed by: Myths are always fun to adapt to one's world and entertaining to read about. Lets bring on the mythical-creature questions. Remember to use this tag if you're asking a question as ...

All right, it's up. If I made any mistakes feel free to correct, or whatever

I also updated the previous question list to include culture and society

Oh, but I can't mark it as featured, since only mods can do that.

DaaaahWhoosh

well, I put up an answer to the last challenge, but I get the feeling I made a mistake

I also think we broke a record with this one, though I'll need to double-check

Worldbuilding Meta

2

Q: Fortnightly Topic Challenge #26: Mythical Creatures

Now begins our 26th topic challenge! Topic: mythical-creatures Dates: 1 February - 15 February Proposed by: Myths are always fun to adapt to one's world and entertaining to read about. Lets bring on the mythical-creature questions. Remember to use this tag if you're asking a question a...

discussion challenge

bowlturner

3:40 PM

Well the challenge certainly helped me on my way to a silver tag badge in Society

DaaaahWhoosh

is there a way to track tag badges?

bowlturner

@DaaaahWhoosh what do you mean?

DaaaahWhoosh

well, you were talking about tag badges, I want to know if I have any or am close

bowlturner

Well you do have Society for sure. you can see all your badges on your profile

DaaaahWhoosh

oh yeah, there it is

bowlturner

3:51 PM

you are closeing in on reality-check, 95, but need to answer 6 more questions

DaaaahWhoosh

what does it take to get the silver version?

bowlturner

400 upvotes and 80 questions answered

Gold is 1000 upvotes and 200 questions

DaaaahWhoosh

well, neither of those things seem in any way obtainable to me

bowlturner

If you go to your activity tab, and click on the little gear by the tag you are currently 'working toward', it will show you your progress on each tag

You have plenty of time!

DaaaahWhoosh

I don't know, it feels like Worldbuilding rep is one of those upside down exponential functions

bowlturner

3:57 PM

how do you mean?

DaaaahWhoosh

like you get a bunch early, then sort of start slowing down.

maybe that's just how I am though

bowlturner

ah, yes, though for me, I have slow downs and then things pick up again. So... But then I try to answer almost anything, even at times I probably shouldn't.

AndyD273

@DaaaahWhoosh I feel like it just goes in spurts. I'll have a run of really good ones, and then it slows down to where it seems like nothing is getting upvoted, and then it picks back up again.

I'm not sure if it's me, the questions that come in, or the other users on the site.

bowlturner

I have mostly giving up trying to guess which questions people will like, because I'm almost always wrong. But activity on a question makes a huge difference (obviously)

AndyD273

Yeah.

My paranoid side tries to convince me that it's because when I get into the top .4 percent people stop upvoting because they don't want me to stay there.

Paranoid me is kind of irritating though

If someone isn't on the recent participents in chat, will they still get pinged if you reply to them. I'm just curious if my reply to HDE 226868 will get lost...

Tim B

4:15 PM

32.6k page views on friday to go with the massive number of questions. Looks like we just had a lot of visitors that day

bowlturner

wow. And I'm guessing saturday was dead.

Tim B

nope

Friday 36 questions, 32.6k page views, 127 answers

Saturday 11 questions, 11.9k views, 38 answers

so about 1/3rd

but still 11 questions on a saturday is pretty good

I remember when we used to get 2 or 3

bowlturner

ya, dead is relative.

AndyD273

Hey Tim B. I put the next challenge page up, but don't have the ability to mark it featured. I don't know if there is a system for that or whatever

sigh I keep getting so close to that fanatic badge...

Had a sick kid over the weekend, and forgot to check in.

bowlturner

4:32 PM

ouch. I had to start over once, because I didn't use the phone app correctly one day when I had no other service available.

Well I tried a bigfoot question for mythical creatures.

Might need to tweek it, we'll see how others take the question

AndyD273

4:50 PM

Yeah, I've been close 4 times now. 98 days once.

bowlturner

Ya, at one site (I think it was a different one) I had 96 and some mistake caused me to miss it.

Tim B

@AndyD273 yeah, you need a mod to do it. If one of us is online then ask in the chat here - if not then flag it for moderator attention and ask us to feature it

I've made the change but it might need a little time to filter through

AndyD273

@TimB Yeah, that's why I brought it up :) I forget about flags though. I'm never sure if I'm using them right or what's appropriate.

Samuel

Did we have elections?

AndyD273

Got my balloon whales question up :)

2

0

Q: Evolution of giant floating mammals

Whales are majestic creatures of the sea, as they glide more gracefully through the water than their size should seemingly allow. What kind of evolutionary path would it take for whales to glide gracefully though the skies? Would it be possible on our planet, or would other conditions need to ex...

mythical-creatures balloon-whales

Samuel

5:03 PM

Also, hello all.

AndyD273

@Samuel Not yet

after the new site is up I heard?

Also, long time no see

Samuel

Yeah, I was travelling. Six weeks.

Back to the winter hemisphere, le sigh.

bowlturner

5:19 PM

So @Samuel you come back so you can pass me up again? ;)

Tim B

well in theory the site is eligible for elections at any point after we went out of beta, that doesn't wait till the site design is done. We've heard nothing though so no idea if they planning to do them any time soon

the only thing that's waiting on the site design if the change to permissions

AndyD273

5:44 PM

@TimB I could be wrong about that. I kind of remember overheard Monica Cellio and someone else talking about it, but that was a while ago.

Samuel

@bowlturner After I get caught back up at work, perhaps.

DaaaahWhoosh

6:18 PM

man, mondays are awesome

all day I've been half-asleep, it feels so good

Monica Cellio

6:47 PM

@Samuel welcome back!

There's a pileup of sites waiting for elections, and it appears they prefer not to run bunches of them concurrently. (It appears there's some extra CM load during an election.) My unofficial, not-informed-by-anything-in-particular guess is that they'll start our election in the next several weeks. How's that for vague?

DaaaahWhoosh

6:58 PM

@MonicaCellio 6/10, could be vaguer

Samuel

@MonicaCellio That's pretty specific. Maybe instead of "weeks" use "unspecified time units".

@MonicaCellio But, thank you for the information :)

bowlturner

8:08 PM

Well I guess we now know when the elections are being held.

Worldbuilding Meta

1

Q: 2016 Moderator Election Q&A - Question Collection

In connection with the moderator elections, we will be holding a Q&A with the candidates. This will be an opportunity for members of the community to pose questions to the candidates on the topic of moderation. Participation is completely voluntary. Here's how it'll work: During the nominati...

discussion featured election

2

Q: 2016 Community Moderator Election

The 2016 Community Moderator Election is now underway! Community moderator elections have three phases: Nomination phase Primary phase Election phase Most elections take between two and three weeks, but this depends on how many candidates there are. Please visit the official election page a...

discussion moderators election

2

overactor

and it starts right now!

►

Lets's hope it doesn't go like that.

Monica Cellio

@bowlturner well, lookie there. I did not yet know about that when I made my earlier comments. :-)

AndyD273

Huh. I almost never get to see flags in the chat... While I was away there were 7, and then they were all taken care of before I got back.

bowlturner

@MonicaCellio I know. Just claim you were messing with us and didn't want to spill the beans! ;)

I tried updating my Big Foot question. is it any better?

Samuel

8:21 PM

@bowlturner Since your follow up question is "How would they continue to successfully hide and have enough diversity to keep from dying out from in-breeding?" You seem to assume it's likely enough to have occurred, so you might leave that rather subjective first question out.

Also, to narrow down the second question you could ask how they avoid some particular detection method, like cameras.

bowlturner

I see what you mean.

I was even wondering about never finding bodies.

Samuel

Also, you've got two fairly different environments there.

Ah, yeah, that's a good angle.

Maybe it's because they never die. That's a good way to avoid bodies and the problem of inbreeding (they don't breed).

bowlturner

ha! or at least very rarely.

Samuel

Like that movie "A man from Earth", or something similar

I'll bet they get waxed and play in the NBA for a while before hiding out again to resurface later.

bowlturner

Ok, I'll try to narrow it down some more.

Hohmannfan

8:26 PM

Who of you are going to nominate? Just curious.

Samuel

Probably half of all knee injuries are just Yeti's needing to drop out of the limelight.

bowlturner

Though with the answers you're coming up with do I really need too? ;)

Samuel

Yeah, cause they're joke answers.

bilbo_pingouin

Welcome back @Samuel :)

Samuel

Plus any votes from you to me gets you closer to second place again :)

bilbo_pingouin

8:27 PM

So who'll be the first to nominate themselves? :D

Samuel

@bilbo_pingouin Thanks. It was a great trip.

bilbo_pingouin

I guess :)

and nicer weather, I trust?

James

Afternoon all.

AndyD273

@Samuel I don't really think bowlturner's question has to many faucets. It's not like he's including the kitchen sink...

Samuel

@AndyD273 Good point, where do the Yeti cook and wash up?

James

8:31 PM

@Samuel Good to see you, how was the trip

bowlturner

OK, made some more changes. any better?

James

Soooo....elections were posted.

bowlturner

Nominations more specifically. 30 minutes ago or so.

Samuel

@James It was amazing. The most salient part for this crowd is probably the afternoon I spent in Hobbiton.

It was so freaking cool.

James

@Samuel ...I am suddenly exceedingly jealous.

Please tell me you went barefoot.

2

Samuel

8:36 PM

@James Not the whole time, but yes, I definitely kicked off my sandals around the Party Tree.

AndyD273

@bowlturner I dunno, but I think it's ok. You're asking for ways that a species could survive large amounts of time without being seen by people. I have a couple thoughts

James

@Samuel Well done sir.

@bowlturner Are you getting this blizzard up in the cities? We are expecting 12 - 18 inches between this evening and tomorrow.

bowlturner

@James I'm a bit North of the cities, and No. But my wife (still living at the other house) is expecting to be in the middle of a huge snow dump. She's planning on staying home tomorrow.

She's south of the Cities

James

@bowlturner I just got a super friendly email from my boss' boss saying, "If you're planning on not coming to work you have to take a vacation day"

bowlturner

Wonderful people. Just spend the night at your desk, and go home in the morning...

AndyD273

8:43 PM

I live in Michigan, and it's 42F out. It was a weird January, and so far February has been stranger weather wise.

James

@bowlturner Its an awesome policy considering I am required to work from home at night at least once a week...

@AndyD273 Its been a weird one for sure.

Samuel

@James Like in the contract required or work-shamed if you don't kind of policy?

bowlturner

@James that makes it terrible.

bilbo_pingouin

@James, if you can work from home, why don't you do it tomorrow?

James

@Samuel Required...config engineer.

Tim B

8:45 PM

and there it goes :)

James

@bilbo_pingouin "There is no approved work from home policy"

Tim B

moderator elections are on

bowlturner

A little behind @TimB ;)

James

@TimB Jeez keep up man

bilbo_pingouin

@TimB and already two candidates, one of them being among us on chat :)

Samuel

8:46 PM

@James Ah, sounded like the same "can't discuss compensation" kind of policy. Which is illegal.

Buahahhaa

bowlturner

If there is no approved work from home policy, then I would guess you can't work from home at night either...

bilbo_pingouin

@James yeah, I have the same in my work. Kind of a pain sometimes.

Samuel

@TimB It's just a couple of eager dorks that nominated themselves.

James

@Samuel You just described everyone in chat.

@bowlturner Yeah I tried that it didn't work...

Samuel

@James Just trying not to point fingers, just vaguely gesture at the room.

bilbo_pingouin

8:49 PM

@James so logic isn't really their forte, is it?

bowlturner

@James seriously, they can't legally have it both ways. I can see why you are thinking about learning mainframes, might be less frustrating.

James

@bilbo_pingouin The lack thereof makes my brain cringe on a daily basis.

bilbo_pingouin

@James and that's the job that you considered leaving, right? You haven't yet changed, have you?

James

@bilbo_pingouin Not yet. Working on it...a couple of large companies in town have shed tons of jobs lately so the market is pretty saturated with people...makes the search slow...

bowlturner

We're constantly looking for new Software engineers, preferably if you're willing to move up North, but some telecommuters are hired.

James

8:52 PM

@bowlturner I can't really code...I am more on the PM side of things...

bowlturner

Ah. Well Sometimes we need them too. But I think we're good for right now.

bilbo_pingouin

@James I'm not sure half of the persons who code for a living can... :D

James

@bowlturner Moving seems like a lot of work right now...its tough to PM remotely...far to easy for people to ignore you.

@bilbo_pingouin You have point there...some of the garbage we get is amazing (ly bad)

bowlturner

@James true, though plenty of our people are managed remotely.

Monica Cellio

Election chat room, for those interested:

chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/info/35137/…

Feel free to talk here too, of course. SE gives every election a dedicated room to make it easier for people to ask questions of candidates and for candidates to be available to answer them and stuff.

Tim B

8:58 PM

Right, put my nomination in :)

James

@bowlturner Well if something comes up and they are willing to deal with remote most of the time (I could drive up from time to time.) let me know.

bowlturner

@James will do.

James

@bowlturner Gracias. If I get a job via the WorldBuilding chat room I will buy 10 people world building swag...once it exists.

bilbo_pingouin

@James we hope you'll buy them either way ;-)

James

lol

Monica Cellio

9:10 PM

@James that'll be hard, as SE doesn't sell the swag. But weren't you the one who was going to fabricate the robots from the site design? Do that. :-)

James

@MonicaCellio oooh, good call, ok if anyone gets me a job I get ten robot miniatures created and share.

Monica Cellio

@James when you say PM do you mean project or product management?

James

@MonicaCellio I can do either honestly.

Oh...I just posted a question about lemmings.

Tim B

9:35 PM

Looks like we've got quite a few candidates

bilbo_pingouin

6 so far...

bowlturner

And it's been less than an hour

bilbo_pingouin

on the other hand, I don't suppose it'll keep up to that...

Tim B

the guy with a candidate score of 1 self deleted his nomination I think

bilbo_pingouin

probably

The Anathema was his name

Tim B

9:37 PM

enthusiasm is good but he'd have needed more experience to win

bowlturner

I saw that, he might have thought Samuel was referring to him up above...

HDE 226868

@bilbo_pingouin I'll bet you Trump Tower that we get at least 20 nominations, though.

bowlturner

How many are actually elected?

bilbo_pingouin

well, I think that was not necessarily a bad thing... you don't have to be the highest beast on the field to give it a try

@bowlturner 4

James

yep 4

bowlturner

9:38 PM

OK. That's what I thought.

bilbo_pingouin

@HDE226868 let's hope!

James

@bilbo_pingouin I tried for beta moderation, it didn't go well, got a few down votes and said...uh, nevermind.

bilbo_pingouin

@James well that sounds a bit aggressive... on SFF, I have seen a couple of relative small fishes trying it, and they just got no upvotes and that was the end of it

bowlturner

we have 7 days. I refuse to put my name in the hat until at least tomorrow! Besides, I need the time to come up with my catchphrase, maybe "Feel the Turn!"

James

@bowlturner Man...a catchphrase...I didn't know I had to do that.

bilbo_pingouin

9:42 PM

so far 5 of our top 20 users are in...

bowlturner

@James How are you supposed to parody trump without one!? ;)

DaaaahWhoosh

so, does this mean the current moderators have a chance of getting kicked out? As I recall, there are already 4 of them

bowlturner

yes. every year the moderator positions are up for grabs

James

Just to make sure its clear he said grabbing not groping.

bowlturner

Though they do have the incumbent bias

bilbo_pingouin

9:47 PM

normally no. Only when moderators step down. But since we never had an election on WB, they have to run for it

Hohmannfan

Why not eternal dictator-moderators? :P

Tim B

it's a special case here

the current moderators are all pro-tem

we were appointed not elected

so we need to re-stand

DaaaahWhoosh

@bilbo_pingouin they'd better run... I never realized the potential of that pun

Tim B

and yes, there are 4 of us and 4 slots

bowlturner

OH, I thought it was a yearly thing

Tim B

9:48 PM

I don't know if all 4 plan to re-run though

bilbo_pingouin

but so far only one nominated himself

@bowlturner it is often a yearly thing, but not all spots are vacant...

AndyD273

@HDE226868 Hey, I put an idea to answer the question you asked last night. I don't know if it'll help any...

Tim B

I'll let the others speak for themselves :)

HDE 226868

@AndyD273 Oh, right, sorry. I did see that.

bilbo_pingouin

the recent SFF election had only 2 spots free for... (I don't know how many in total)

AndyD273

9:49 PM

@HDE226868 Ok cool. I didn't know if it would ping you if you were out of the room.

HDE 226868

It's an interesting idea, and could work. I'm looking for something I can make periodic (with a period in the tens of millions of years), so that might work if I can put a black hole in a huge orbit.

I don't know if it would still be gravitationally bound to the system, though.

Hohmannfan

Former pro-term moderators after the election: "Hey! Where is my nuke button?"

HDE 226868

@TimB I'll have an answer up for the purposes of sanity-checks within a half hour or so.

AndyD273

@HDE226868 Yeah, tens of millions of years would be hard because it would need speed to keep from getting caught in system. unless it was orbiting something else even more massive like the galactic core and just happened to pass through the target system on it's way around.

James

Alright I am taking off, have to grab a few necessities before the blizzard arrives (beer mainly, I'm out)

HDE 226868

9:58 PM

@TimB Here's my very rough, very not-yet-totally-hard-science answer draft:

0

A: Can stars exist that are not powered by nuclear fusion?

Note: This answer is not even close to being finished. I’m putting it out there as a sort of sanity-check, so I can get some input as to whether or not my idea is totally crazy or not. Links and more numbers will be coming. Introduction When I wrote this question, I thought that the Kelvin-He...

Tim B

Cool :)

Or hot...probably

HDE 226868

@James 'Night. Wait, blizzard? Where are you?

@TimB Yeah, I don't know what temperatures it will reach. Probably not more than a few thousand Kelvin at the surface, hopefully!

AndyD273

@HDE226868 Have you looked into Black Dwarfs or Iron Stars yet? An iron star is what happens to black dwarfs after all possible fusion has stopped, since they don't have enough to collapse into a black hole. The theory is that way into the future, all stars that are left will be iron stars

Iron star

In astronomy, an iron star is a hypothetical type of compact star that could occur in the universe in 101500 years. The premise behind iron stars states that cold fusion occurring via quantum tunnelling would cause the light nuclei in ordinary matter to fuse into iron-56 nuclei. Fission and alpha-particle emission would then make heavy nuclei decay into iron, converting stellar-mass objects to cold spheres of iron. The formation of these stars is only a possibility if the proton does not decay. Though the surface of a neutron star is iron, it is distinct from an iron star. == References == ��2...

HDE 226868

@AndyD273 I thought iron stars were something waaaaaay in the future, not related to black dwarfs.

I also wanted the star to be standalone (besides a giant honkin' disk), which is why I discarded cataclysmic variables.

(They involve binary systems)

AndyD273

@HDE226868 I read somewhere that after 10^1500 years anything that can fuse will have fused into iron, while any heavier than iron will decay into iron. I'll see if I can find the source later.

HDE 226868

10:09 PM

@AndyD273 That would be great. Sounds a bit far in the future for me, though.

AndyD273

So a black dwarf would become an iron star if it's under 3 stellar masses

Yeah. it really is

headed home...

HDE 226868

Ironically, I had considered quasistars at first, which are way back in the past, at the opposite end of time.

@AndyD273 Safe passage.

Tim B

Goodnight all, will take a proper look at the answer tomorrow HDE

Samuel

Cheers

HDE 226868

@TimB Thanks.

Monica Cellio

10:27 PM

@James that was more than a year ago, though, so don't let that affect your plans now. Back then maybe you weren't as active or people didn't know you or whatever.

Moderators, once elected (not appointed), serve for as long as they want to (barring something going wrong, which thankfully is rare). Elections after the first are to add to the team; as sites grow they need more moderators. Or sometimes people retire and need to be replaced.

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