The Factory Floor

Future Historian

12:07 AM

:D

StackExchange

2:16 AM

0

A: Sandbox for Proposed Questions

What would be the major weather patterns on this map? I drew a little map of a continent the size of Europe, but there is one are that I'm not sure about the climate. As for the location of this map, remove Canada and Mexico and replace the United States with this map. (Because hey are of compar...

Future Historian

2:59 AM

Test.

Is chat dead?

bilbo_pingouin

5:42 AM

@FutureHistorian why should it?

Future Historian

12:39 PM

Die chat ist tot.

Green

já, spjall er dauður

bilbo_pingouin

at European day time, there's usually more activity over there: chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/35580/worldbuildings-robots

Future Historian

:D

Yes!

And chat died again..... :(

Tim B

your definition of dead is different from ours :)

most people in this chat are busy, so they check in a few times a day

Mike L.

I like to call it "companionable silence".

Tim B

12:47 PM

you will occasionally see a live conversation but more often it's people replying to each other a few hours apart - that's why the "reply" thing is important

since people see the notifications and can see what you're replying to

bilbo_pingouin

actually instead of asking if the chat is dead or not, and if you have a concrete question, which, AFACT, you tend to have, do ask your question... people will answer, even if later

Future Historian

Oh.

:D

Tim B

Or just ask it as a question on the main site :D

bilbo_pingouin

or that

DaaaahWhoosh

1:27 PM

@TimB I just want to prove that I agree with this by saying so

Mike L.

2:09 PM

Debugging linear systems is so much fun

Serban Tanasa

3:00 PM

Can't believe I got in so late on the Vampire-in-home question

#timezonecurse

AndyD273

@SerbanTanasa That's what you get for living in Transylvania but not following the customs. If you were up during the night like a true Transylvanian native you wouldn't have had this problem...

DaaaahWhoosh

3:25 PM

actually, isn't that vampires question kind of idea generation?

AndyD273

@DaaaahWhoosh I don't really think so? (No more than any other question anyway). Questions about evolution and biological systems are on topic, and asking what would cause a creature to behave in a certain way falls into that arena.

DaaaahWhoosh

@AndyD273 They're on-topic if they're suitably constrained

maybe I just don't like it because I don't think there'll be a good answer, just a bunch of suggestions that are close to what the OP wants

that said, maybe I should just downvote all the answers that don't provide a physical solution

AndyD273

@DaaaahWhoosh That top rated answer is pretty good though. A psychological barrier can be just as real as a physical one. Better sometimes too because people will look for a way to get past a physical barrier, while the ones in the mind are a lot harder

DaaaahWhoosh

@AndyD273 right, I'm just saying that the OP asks for a physical barrier, not a psychological one

plus, the question just seems too open-ended. It's one of those 'hey, everyone come up with an interesting solution to this so I don't have to do it myself' questions

which I guess is what Q&A sites are for, to a degree, but in this instance it doesn't feel right

Future Historian

4:10 PM

Er....

Problem: which is worse: relativistic missiles or asteroid terrorism?

DaaaahWhoosh

@FutureHistorian define 'worse'

and 'relativistic missiles'

and 'asteroid terrorism'

Future Historian

By worse, I refer to: which is more of a nightmare scenario.

Asteroid terrorism is basically terrorists sending an asteroid on a collision course with Earth. Relativistic missile is basically launching a missile (not necessarily explosive) at a speed of 0.15 c at minimum, but is typically a speed of 0.75 c.

DaaaahWhoosh

0.75c sounds pretty bad

so I'd say relativistic missiles are worse

but asteroid terrorism may be easier

Serban Tanasa

relativistic missiles would desintegrate high up in the stratosphere. might still be a mess

Future Historian

Well, the sheer kinetic energy might still be enough to cleanse Earth of human life.

And possibly reduce it to the upper mantle.

AndyD273

4:20 PM

You could go subrelitivistic and cause a lot of damage.

Kinetic bombardment

A kinetic bombardment or a kinetic orbital strike is the hypothetical act of attacking a planetary surface with an inert projectile, where the destructive force comes from the kinetic energy of the projectile impacting at very high velocities. The concept originated during the Cold War. The typical depiction of the tactic is of a satellite containing a magazine of tungsten rods and a directional thrust system. When a strike is ordered, the satellite would brake one of the rods out of its orbit and into a suborbital trajectory that intersects the target. The rod picks up speed as it approach...

Depending on size and density, .75c would probably turn the earth into a cloud of gravel.

Serban Tanasa

well, how much mass are we talking?

DaaaahWhoosh

@SerbanTanasa how about one hydrogen atom?

Serban Tanasa

Pretty sure a relativistic bullet would not melt the Earth

AndyD273

relevant XKCD

what-if.xkcd.com/20

So I was wrong, it probably wouldn't turn the earth into gravel unless it was pretty big

DaaaahWhoosh

@AndyD273 I am not a fan of XKCD, but their What-if series is amazing

Future Historian

4:30 PM

And if the object was the size of an ICBM?

A modern day Minuteman III-class or an R-36-class ICBM?

AndyD273

@DaaaahWhoosh The comics can be hit or miss, but they usually amuse me enough to subscribe to the feed. I do like the what if stuff quite a bit

@FutureHistorian Which part of the ICBM? The whole rocket? the little bit at the top that is the warhead?

Future Historian

The whole thing.

Minus the warhead.

AndyD273

there are a few impact simulators online

simulator.down2earth.eu

Future Historian

Problem is....that one describes immediate effects.

I need a more long-term side effects.

Version.

Also, Andy, I noticed you answered my question.

What makes you think a 900 metre asteroid would cause a nuclear winter?

Especially when it is 1999 FN53 (a real life asteroid that passed Earth last year)?

Jon of All Trades

Hullo! Can just anyone make a new "Creating a realistic world" question, and add it to the related Meta question (meta.worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/2594/…) or should I request permission somehow first?

Future Historian

4:41 PM

Well, Jon, I am starting a set that could help for a realistic interplanetary setting.

So, does that count?

AndyD273

That one was about a mile long (1800m), 900m wide. If it hit land it would throw a huge amount of debris up into the atmosphere, which would block out sunlight, dropping global temperatures.

Future Historian

Wait, how much in diameter?

Jon of All Trades

Cool! Orbital dynamics is fun stuff. Were you planning on adding it to the "Creating a realistic world" meta, or just following in its footsteps of asking literal worldbuilding questions? I just don't want to step on toes if someone "owns" that series.

Future Historian

Calm down, Jon. You can use my alternate history/future as an example.

:P

AndyD273

Hitting water, especially deep water (as you later changed your question to specify) would not have the same effect

Future Historian

4:44 PM

So....how much damage are we talking about?

Fixed.

Now it is basically 2 km off the coast of Guam.

:/

AndyD273

hmm... I think I pulled up the wrong asteroid before :(

Future Historian

What? What was the asteroid you pulled off?

AndyD273

1999 AN10

(137108) 1999 AN10

(137108) 1999 AN10 is an Apollo near-Earth asteroid (NEA) discovered by LINEAR on January 13, 1999. On August 7, 2027, this NEA will pass within 0.0026 AU (390,000 km; 240,000 mi) (~1 lunar distance) of the Earth. During the close approach, the asteroid should peak at about apparent magnitude 7.3, and will be visible in binoculars. 1999 AN10 has a well determined orbit with an observation arc of 58 years. It was found by Andreas Doppler and Arno Gnädig in precovery images from 1955. When 1999 AN10 only had an observation arc of 123 days, there was a 1 in 10 million chance that it could return on...

FN53 was smaller. .6km or something like that...

Really, you could probably find any size rock in the belt that you want and nudge it into the right orbit.

Maybe even coat it in radar absorbing materials

FN53 with a water impact would throw up some big waves, cause a lot of damage in coastal cities all around the pacific ocean, but not end life on Earth.

Future Historian

Exactly the intention. Cause damage on coastal cities without killing the planet's biosphere.

And use it as a way to force Earth to negotiate.

AndyD273

I think the shallower the water, the more damage it would cause

Future Historian

4:58 PM

So, 2 km off of Guam would cause how much damage?

And which major cities do you expect to suffer the worst of it (or be erased from the map completely)?

AndyD273

Honestly, without doing some math I don't have time for, I'd probably be guessing to much.

Guam is on a sea mount, but 2km is pretty shallow water still...

Future Historian

But still, try a preliminary estimate and see if the math gets it correct.

My guess I would say a large chunk of Asia's economic centres are destroyed and the West Coast of North America suffers from extensive damage, in addition to certain cities in the Australian Coastlines. However, the remaining islands in the South Pacific would be completely gone.

Just a guess.

Green

@FutureHistorian Look up the damage patterns for large Pacific tsunamis. That should give you an intuitive feel for where and how the damage will be applied.

Future Historian

Thank you.

AndyD273

5:13 PM

here's the math for wave size in an ocean impact:

The tidal wave height in meters =10.9 × (distance from impact in kilometers)^-0.717 × (energy of impact in megatons TNT)^0.495

Future Historian

Thank you, Andy.

AndyD273

Japan is about 5000km from Guam

So for a 1km asteroid you'd see waves around ~5m

Future Historian

How big are those?

AndyD273

Here's some reading I found on asteroid impacts: astronomynotes.com/solfluf/s5.htm

Tsunami 101: video.nationalgeographic.com/video/101-videos/tsunami-101

at least there would be some warning for people to get to higher ground. Except for the people in Guam

Gotta run for a while

Future Historian

Goodbye, AndyD273

*.

TrEs-2b

5:36 PM

Has anyone else noticed the sudden flood of new users?

Green

@TrEs-2b I've noticed a lot more people in Chat than in months past.

TrEs-2b

I agree, even if you look at the site a good 80% (give or take) of posts this year come from recently new users, it makes me wonder what happened.

Green

@TrEs-2b I'd say it was because of our frequent exposure on the HNQ feed.

Future Historian

So, Green?

I need the exact coordinates for Guam + 2 kilometres off the coast to the West.

Green

@FutureHistorian I believe Google Maps can get that for you.

DaaaahWhoosh

5:45 PM

@TrEs-2b There has always been a lot of new users, I don't think anything has changed

now, as for a drop-off of old users, that might be occurring

Green

@DaaaahWhoosh I haven't seen Samuel in a while.

Just as an example.

Future Historian

Thank you.

DaaaahWhoosh

maybe we had peak old-user activity back during the election

I know I haven't been active on the main site for a long time, mostly because I don't have enough self-confidence to ask questions and not enough knowledge to form good answers

TrEs-2b

@Green thats true! I remembered when you would find a Samuel answer on almost every question. Wondered what happned to him?

DaaaahWhoosh

I haven't seen bowlturner in a while either...

Green

5:50 PM

@TrEs-2b Probably got busy with life, work, wife, etc. It happens, or he just burned out. I've had that happen to me at least once.

TrEs-2b

@DaaaahWhoosh I have the same problem, that and I like to save question for their tri-weekly tags spotlight

DaaaahWhoosh

@TrEs-2b that reminds me, I don't want to refresh the tri-weekly challenge but it is time for it

Green

@DaaaahWhoosh I've seen a few of his questions lately, but not much time in chat.

@DaaaahWhoosh Get up off your **** and do it already :)

DaaaahWhoosh

@Green when I get home... and remember...maybe

plus, it might be time to retire the challenge. I don't think it's nearly as popular as it once was

TrEs-2b

@DaaaahWhoosh Yeah I don't see many users do it any more, maybe just close the question and make it a weekly challenge to get rid of the remaining answers

Green

5:54 PM

@DaaaahWhoosh If I remember right, the challenge was a way of generating question traffic. I don't think we need that anymore with the volume of users we now have.

DaaaahWhoosh

@Green true, but that combined with my theorized old user dropoff also means that a lot of the people asking questions don't even know about the challenge. So it's boudly useless

TrEs-2b

@Green As much as I hate to say it (now that I am getting into it) I think it may be time for it to die

DaaaahWhoosh

maybe I can make a meta post proposing closing it, and see what people say

Green

@DaaaahWhoosh I was about to suggest that. :)

DaaaahWhoosh

@Green hopefully I said it more poetically than you would have

because I got double alliteration and a rhyme with that one

Green

5:58 PM

@DaaaahWhoosh Then you definitely did it more poetically than I.

DaaaahWhoosh

6:28 PM

huh, the Meta bot is slow today

Worldbuilding Meta

0

Q: Should we end the topic challenges?

We've been having a fortnightly challenge for a while now, but recently the attention devoted to it has appeared to drop off. Not only are people posting less questions with the topic challenge in mind, but less of our experienced users seem to be around/willing to update the challenges regularly...

Future Historian

Hmmmmm.

13° 26′ 24″ N, 144° 39′ 9″ E. What would the coordinates be if I head 2 km west?

Green

@FutureHistorian Google Maps should be able to give that to you too.

Mike L.

That sounds like somewhere in the pacific

Future Historian

It IS. Naval Base Guam.

However, what would they be if I went two kilometres west of there.

NOTE: That exact distance is the impact site in the story.

Of what, you ask? 1999 FN53.

So? What are the coordinates of the impact crater if going by this data?

DaaaahWhoosh

7:10 PM

there are 6378 km in 1 radian of earth

so the difference would be 1/3189 of a radian

which, when multiplied by 180/pi should give you the degree difference

I think

and by 'the difference' I mean 2 km

I don't know if 'west' is in the positive or negative direction, but Google probably knows that

for some reason, trigonometry is much more fun when talking about the Earth

oh, actually, it might be less fun than that

there's a big equation that I didn't use there, I'm probably not factoring in the curvature of the earth

but for such a small difference it may not matter much

TrEs-2b

I have a question, the badge curious requires me to write a well-received question on 5 separate days, and maintain a positive question record, it currently says I have 62/5, why haven't I earned it yet?

DaaaahWhoosh

7:28 PM

@TrEs-2b because you killed the cat

AndyD273

I've seen three dead robins in the last month, always right around a new snow storm coming through. How many times does it have to happen before it stops being coincidence?

People keep hitting the robin of spring with their cars. IT MUST STOP

TrEs-2b

@DaaaahWhoosh I feel there is an inside joke there, but I'm not getting it

DaaaahWhoosh

@TrEs-2b curiosity killed the cat, you were too curious

TrEs-2b

@DaaaahWhoosh Okay, I get it now, funny

DaaaahWhoosh

@TrEs-2b That's probably one of the worst things you can say about a joke

AndyD273

7:37 PM

@DaaaahWhoosh What about "Um, I still don't get it"

TrEs-2b

@DaaaahWhoosh yeah that seems to be worse

DaaaahWhoosh

@AndyD273 that's fine, I can just assume that means I'm smarter than you

TrEs-2b

@DaaaahWhoosh that or maybe "I got it, juest didn't find it funny"

DaaaahWhoosh

@TrEs-2b but in that case I can appreciate your honesty, and learn from my mistakes

AndyD273

"Oh, that was a joke. Sure"

James

7:38 PM

@TrEs-2b I was just going to suggest that the SE gods, mainly Glarnak the god of righteous vengeance who smites posters for violating the many laws of the network was angry with you.

3

Why he is angry with you is clearly between the two of you.

AndyD273

@TrEs-2b You just need to be curious one more time. 63rd times the charm.

And if that doesn't work, just try again

TrEs-2b

@AndyD273 try try again

DaaaahWhoosh

@TrEs-2b Looks to me like you still need a 'positive question record'

not sure what that amounts to though, you seem to have a lot of positive questions

do you have 75 or more negative or closed questions?

oh, it's more complicated than that

(total questions - negative questions - closed - deleted)/total questions >= 0.5

"It triple counts a question that is downvoted, closed, and deleted"

TrEs-2b

7:59 PM

@DaaaahWhoosh Thanks for that formula

Future Historian

@DaaaahWhoosh Oh. I am back. Also, regarding your formula, I have a problem: what variables would fill which variable?

DaaaahWhoosh

@FutureHistorian I don't think I gave any variables, did I?

which formula?

Future Historian

The formula to find those coordinates.

For the impact site.

DaaaahWhoosh

yeah, I didn't give any formula for that

though there is a formula out there

I just said (1/3189)*(180/pi)

that's the angle difference, and since you're only going west you just add or subtract that from the coordinate

TrEs-2b

@DaaaahWhoosh in your formula for a positive Question record, / mean divide right?

DaaaahWhoosh

8:09 PM

@TrEs-2b I was just quoting from... a tab that I have since closed

but yes, that's what I assume

TrEs-2b

@DaaaahWhoosh Okay, thank you

Future Historian

13° 26′ 24″ N, 144° 39′ 9″ E are the coordinates. If going by that equation, going 2 km west of here, where would the coordinates be for the impact crater?

DaaaahWhoosh

I actually don't know how coordinates work

Future Historian

Oh no.

DaaaahWhoosh

but whatever number that equation I gave gives, subtract that from the E angle

Future Historian

8:20 PM

Is there anyone here that does?

DaaaahWhoosh

8:31 PM

looks like your coordinates go to 13.44 degrees by 144.6525 degrees

Future Historian

Does that go into the water or still on land?

DaaaahWhoosh

no, that should just be what you already had

I just converted from minutes/seconds to just degrees

anyway, my equation goes to about 0.018 degrees

so do 144.6525 - 0.018

and that should be it

Future Historian

Thank you.

Mike L.

a nautical mile is about a minute of latitude

Future Historian

So.....I found the place.

Well, most of the asteroid hits the water.

Unfortunately.....some of it will take the island.

And the Earthquake would be either a 7 or an 8 on the Ritcher Scale.

So.....by that case, how big are the tsumanis likely to be and more importantly, how much on the damage department can I expect?

HDE 226868

10:29 PM

@TrEs-2b 1) I approve of your avatar. Maybe the system doesn't. :-)

2) I suspect that with the large number of deleted and downvoted (including deleted questions that are upvoted) questions you have, the algorithm decided that you don't have a "positive question record" somehow.

The issue is that some downvoted/deleted/closed questions count more than once:

> A positive question record means you don't have too many closed, downvoted or deleted questions, overall. The formula is (total questions - negative questions - closed - deleted)/total questions >= 0.5. Questions that have been downvoted and closed and deleted count three times in this calculation!

So, that's a new bit of fine print I didn't know about until today that really sucks.

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