The Factory Floor

2:04 AM

Excited for the long awaited Terminator movie about Count Dracula?

Go to www.IllBeBackula.com

3:56 AM

I just saw a flag on a "welcome to the site; here's our tour"-style comment from somebody who wondered if this sort of thing should be a prerogative of moderators. I can't reply to the individual flag, but I wanted to pop in here and say: please, continue to welcome and guide folks! No, it's not something that should be restricted to moderators or high-rep users or anybody else. When I see our users helping and guiding our new users it makes me smile. Our strength is in our community.

3

TrEs-2b

5:37 AM

@MonicaCellio Most of the main people here get that, we're just getting tired of new people I think

a4android

6:12 AM

@SCPilot Neon makes the sky orange, but how? This is a new one on me. On the other hand, the light from red dwarf stars, and presumably orange dwarfs too, will still appear white and the skies of their Earthlike planets blue. So what does neon do?

@TrEs-2b Shouldn't that be the Terminator and Count Blackula crossover movie? Go to www.IllBeBlackula.com

AndyD273

12:04 PM

@Green That's not my call. Some people like that info, and if the podcast was going to look for sponsors it would be very valuable to say "we reach N number of people every episode."

But it's not mandatory

@MonicaCellio I think that's a pretty nerd focused show. Still pretty fun

Green

1:31 PM

@AndyD273 True. Better to have them and not need them than need them and not have them.

AndyD273

@Green There are of course other methods besides sponsors, or possibly with sponsors but where numbers aren't needed. Audible for instance might even be a good fit. I can see there being a book recommendation portion which would be fun. Other methods are things like Patreon, and let the listeners support the show. Even if it only brought in a couple $ a month it might make the editing less of a chore. And there might be other ways to get statistics even using archive.org...

You can use a URL shortner with google analytics, so host the stuff on archive, and put the shortened links to the files in the RSS feed.

1

Q: URL Shortener API Stats

Thru Google API I am creating programatically short URLs. This works fine. On my API console I can see the stats showing, for example, the number of requests as "urlshortener.url.insert" several dozens since I started using this API last Friday. Now I would like to know how many clicks were done...

It looks like you can get stats from Amazon S3 hosting with a bit of a workaround: forums.aws.amazon.com/thread.jspa?messageID=444418

Though that solution would cost tens of pennies a month.

DaaaahWhoosh

2:13 PM

whoa... Gandalf the White wasn't a wizard

HDE 226868

2:31 PM

@DaaaahWhoosh Hmpf. I should have read the fine print.

AndyD273

@DaaaahWhoosh Huh, very cool. It definitely wasn't a demotion.

"Have you heard that bob isn't the mayor any more?" "Huh, what did he do?" "Oh, he got elected president."

DaaaahWhoosh

what I like about it is that it actually makes the wizards weaker. If there's an appreciable difference between an Istar and a Maiar, it makes everything Gandalf did that much more impressive

AndyD273

Though that kinda makes that one scene a little weird, where most of the surviving fellowship are fighting at the gate to be a distraction so the two hobbits can finish their quest. So out comes a huge horde of orcs, and they are like "well, we're probably going to be over run and die, so lets make this good." and here's Gandalf who could probably wipe out all the orcs single handedly, just kinda holding back and potentially letting a lot of people be cut down by the orcs...

I suppose it could just be that he knew that the hobbits were very close, and would get to their destination before the orcs could kill them all...

DaaaahWhoosh

I guess the idea is that it still needs to be convincing. Olorin can't beat Sauron, so he needs to bring an army with him

plus, if Olorin had the Ring he'd want to have an army. Going in alone would imply he was in control of his senses

AndyD273

He didn't really need to beat Sauron, just look like a big enough threat to make Sauron worried and send all his troops to the gate.

DaaaahWhoosh

2:46 PM

right. which is why he brought the army.

Worldbuilding Meta

0

Q: Should we have some sort of chat sessions?

Worldbuilding has a somewhat active chat that's maintained decent levels of participation since the start of the site. We're lucky; that's not the case with all sites. I thought we could take advantage of that to use chat as a tool to figure out site problems, get to know the users here - especia...

discussion chat

AndyD273

@DaaaahWhoosh But revealing himself in all his power would be a pretty big threat. It might even have looked like a bigger threat because Sauron would know that Gandalf would know he couldn't match Sauron power for power, unless Gandalf had the ring, and so if Gandalf is coming to the gate solo then he must feel like he has an ace up his sleeve.

Mithrandir24601

@DaaaahWhoosh just because someone/thing is no longer human and no longer a member of the equivalent of the 'order of wizards' doesn't mean that they're no longer a wizard...

DaaaahWhoosh

@AndyD273 I guess at that point, Sauron would probably have to come out and fight Gandalf one-on-one. So the army would be there specifically to fight the orcs, so that Frodo and Sam wouldn't have to

AndyD273

@Mithrandir24601 I think it is implied that because he broke the rules he wouldn't have been allowed in the order any more

@DaaaahWhoosh Yeah, that's a good point

DaaaahWhoosh

2:57 PM

what I still don't understand is why the guy driving the sun doesn't get involved. But that's a different matter.

AndyD273

but he did reveal his power against the king of the Nazgûl and at helms deep, and so if Sauron had been looking he would have seen that something was different. He didn't have to hold back when they were at the gate.

@DaaaahWhoosh He's above worldy things...

DaaaahWhoosh

lol literally

AndyD273

:D

@James Pod. Cast! When???

AndyD273

3:14 PM

Huh, I wonder what middle earth would look like if it progressed into the modern age? I mean, the Elves have left, the wizards are disbanded... would any of the fantastic things survive, or would it look exactly like our world, with the amazing things fading into myth and legend?

I guess the dwarves would probably survive, and there might be orc holdouts in the remote mountains and deep caves

DaaaahWhoosh

@AndyD273 it is our world

AndyD273

Except not. It is like an alternate history of our world that is made up.

So say it is an alternate history that flows into an alternate timeline, how would that timeline be different than ours.

We have the history up to the 3rd age, so what about the 4th, and 5th...

sphennings

Does anyone know how total reputation could be less than year reputation in the yearly reputation league?

DaaaahWhoosh

@sphennings bounties, maybe

sphennings

Bounties aren't counted in total reputation?

HDE 226868

3:20 PM

@sphennings Do you have a specific case in mind?

Maybe the association bonus is doing something wacky.

DaaaahWhoosh

@AndyD273 I'm thinking dwarves would fade away from lack of women, orcs would fight each other to death or interbreed with men. It'd end up being mostly men, with some traces of a more magical past being quickly swallowed up by time

sphennings

It's Will in the Worldbuilding yearly league. His yearly rep is 300 higher than his total rep.

DaaaahWhoosh

maybe total rep doesn't update as often

sphennings

I've noticed that the rep league updates only once a day. The recalculation seems to happen 6.5 hours from now.

Secespitus

@sphennings downvotes?

DaaaahWhoosh

3:24 PM

weird, his total rep is different both from his league total rep and his league year rep

so that's three different numbers, I was hoping two of them would match

HDE 226868

@sphennings Huh. Not enough bounties or downvotes to account for that.

I notice that he's only been a user since early January, so he earned all of his rep this year.

sphennings

3:42 PM

@DaaaahWhoosh As far as I know the reputation league is updated once a day so it is possible for it to get a little bit out of sync. I have no idea why two leagues disagree.

AndyD273

4:26 PM

I lunch!

AndyD273

4:50 PM

I return!

DaaaahWhoosh

I was here the whole time!

I'm finding it very difficult to stay on task today

AndyD273

Boss: Can you get me this report?
Me: Yes! *click, click, click* Here you go!
Boss: Thank you very much!
Me: Well there was a good days work, time to nap.

DaaaahWhoosh

lol yeah maybe I should've worked from home today

oh, but that's right, my computer's battery died, I need the IT guy to fix it

in my grandparents' day, IT guys would make house calls. But not any more

DaaaahWhoosh

5:33 PM

on a completely different note, apparently there is some debate over whether or not fish can 'feel pain'

I propose an experiment where a series of men are slapped with a series of fish, after which both parties fill out a survey

3

AndyD273

6:17 PM

"Did the presence of a beard in any way pad the blow?"
Salmon: "Blub"

Somehow I feel this has been done before. Like a blindfold fish slapping... slap perch! slap salmon! slap OW! Tuna.

Fish Slaps Boy in the Face (VIDEO)

►

DaaaahWhoosh

lol good one, fish.

AndyD273

8:40 PM

@James YOU STARTED THIS! When is this podcast happening?

Darn busy people who have lives to live.

Redacted Redacted

10:16 PM

Hmm... do we have any intel on neutral particle-beam weapons?

Last time when I was researching it, I only stumbled across this video of Pingu getting flattened:

YTP tennis: Snoo pingu

►

Shalvenay

sadly -- making neutral particles go fast or go in the direction you want is...hard.

Redacted Redacted

@Shalvenay They are charged, then get neutralized.

Shalvenay

@RedactedRedacted ah, an interesting approach.

Redacted Redacted

Particle-beam weapon

A particle-beam weapon uses a high-energy beam of atomic or subatomic particles to damage the target by disrupting its atomic and/or molecular structure. A particle-beam weapon is a type of directed-energy weapon, which directs energy in a particular and focused direction using particles with negligible mass. Some particle-beam weapons are real and have potential practical applications, e.g. as an antiballistic missile defense system for the United States and its Strategic Defense Initiative. The vast majority, however, are science fiction and are among the most common weapon types of the genre...

My source, still not enough though...

Ender Look

In this question Zxyrra put two answers, ¿Is it right do that? Sometimes in a post I write several answers, ¿Shall I split them (future answers)?

sphennings

10:35 PM

If you make one post with multiple answers it becomes difficult to proved feedback on your answers individually.

HDE 226868

This is better as a separate answer. It allows the up/down voting on two very different poisons. It also avoids commentary on one getting confused with the other. — SRM Feb 8 at 6:49

Basically, what @sphennings said.

Ender Look

Ok, thanks.

Transcript for