Hey guys!.. anyone explored the idea that an initial plant gene was an alien implant on earth ? which evolved over time just like animals.. animals were supposed to survive by being carnivores.. but this plant gene changed the dynamics of the world making us animals/humans depend on it (exact opposite respiratory behavior - inhale co2, exhale o2).. may be to spy, may be to study.. or may be just as a good samaritan alien colony dropped this plant gene to help our planet sustain (may be carnivorous planets perished soon, this plant gene is what helped our planet survive this long)
Alien races are probably like humans in many ways - we want to find out stuff about others but be sure to be able to utterly destroy them if we start to fear them for whatever reason
So I'd say spy with a dead-man-switch or something like that
Once life on Earth becomes dangerous and wipes out plants humans are being wiped out.
Maybe thinking about Mother Nature would serve us good in your story - it may keep us alive
think about this.. a plant is alive.. it listens to music.. you cut it down, it grows back.. it knows how to sustain (deep roots) and we blind humans are so dependent on them that we advocate planting more.. everywhere possible, roof tops, hanging pots, bonsai
and we do know that the genology is different from all animals
whats the probability that two different genologies have randomly popped up ? :P (dont go into specifics, just get the drift).. one has to be definitely alien
One more addition.. our darwins single celled organisms kept dying repeatedly, sometimes luckily reaching upto being a few multi cells (surviving on other organisms alone) before perishing. Only after those alien godfathers have custom synthesised this plant gene and implanted on earth, the whole eco-system was stabilised
And of course that synthesis had some cruel intentions attached too
... i forgot to add stars, but here... then again with a partial i don't think you'd be able to see stars anyway (also, this has a darker bg then it would probably be in real life, but maybe just imagine you're looking through a dark lens... like you should be when looking at an eclipse
@Bellerophon a couple mins playing about with Circles in photoshop - though admittedly i did add the moons surface to both moons to give it a bit more realism
In How can I let my boss know her methods for management aren't useful? the OP asked for a chat session to improve her question.
After a week or two thinking why we don't have our sandbox thread, is it time to create one?
We have 18 questions closed with various reasons this month, so I think s...
The nature of an eclipse changes a lot depending on the size of the objects. The fact that our moon exactly covers the sun is a very unlikely coincidence really, so something like this is much more likely to be seen on an alien world than what we see.
@NVZ Ah, reactivating a lurker :D Good luck with your Sandbox by the way. You might want to keep an eye on this discussion (and a few more; we are rethinking our Sandbox currently)
@NVZ I think a sandbox would be good for IPS. Since a lot of IPS questions are how to say the right things, people asking them probably worry about asking the wrong questions.
@DaaaahWhoosh Misinformation spreading seems like a poor trait for someone who spends time on a Q and A site. Particularly one like IPS that has real world meaning.
@Mithrandir24601 Some dogs are much more sensitive than others, and as with anything else it depends on exposure. It's just safer to avoid them.
Onion is also really bad for dogs, and nastier in some ways since there are no immediate symptoms. It kills their red blood cells but that can take days to really hit them. petmd.com/dog/conditions/toxicity/…
humans are omnivorous. dogs are primarily carnivores with adaptations for scavenging
even among humans there are wide variations in food tolerance...for example the ability to drink milk in adulthood is an adaptation that evolved after the domestication of cattle and which is not present to the same degree in all populations
yeah, I've been meaning to look further into how humans digest things. I feel like I've been losing the ability over time and want to figure out if that's reversible
@DaaaahWhoosh That may have something to do with the changing contents of your gut flora.
@DaaaahWhoosh There are more bacteria cells in our bodies than there are human cells. We're only beginning to start studying what effect all those bacteria have on us.
yeah, I have this idea that if I'm missing bacteria, then science should be able to grow some and feed it to me to fix the problem. But I don't know if that exists yet
yep. And it really is what you think it is. They take poo out of a person with healthy digestion and insert it into the digestive system of someone without
*changed inject to insert in that sentence to prevent confusion :)
Random drunk scientist: "What if we take my poo and insert it into someone with digestive problems?" Other random drunk scientist: "... Let's write a thesis!"
@Bellerophon Blender seems like the best, perhaps only, option. The top two search results were Blender and Autodesk (which is really just a bunch of trials).
@Bellerophon Have you considered the game Spore? It has a pretty innovative creature creator. It's flexible enough to make giant six legged monsters with mouths 2x their body as well as the highly juvenile penis monster.
It's much simpler to use than Blender and probably gives you enough control/options to flesh our your characters.....
unless you want something like human characters then it probably won't work that well.
@Bellerophon Be aware that drawing and sculpting both highly interrelated skill sets. Choosing Blender just because you can't draw may not give you the results you want. In every single sculpture studio I've ever been into, there are tons and tons of drawings on the walls.
@Bellerophon I suspect the fun will come after many many hours of head-banging in frustration :)
@Green Don't worry, I'm not expecting it to look good. I'm only doing it because I feel being able to create characters in future might be a useful skill.
random physics question: due to the nature of elliptical orbits, would two different 'total' eclipses have different levels of 'totality'? That is, could one eclipse cover more of the sun than the other, even when the moon is directly in front of the sun?
@DaaaahWhoosh Yes. If you look at the maps of eclipse coverage of north america for the next 100 years you can see that different areas are being covered by different eclipses.
like, I know the eclipse can be seen from different places for different eclipses, but, like, supposedly the moon appears slightly smaller than the sun. What I'm saying is that if, say next time the sun is further away and the moon is closer, could the moon completely cover the sun?
I thought a partial eclipse was just when the moon missed.
or, the angle was wrong
what I'm saying is that when the angle is perfect, can the apparent sizes of the sun and the moon be different, so as to make different total eclipses look different, even when all the angles are the same
like, a simpler question would be, can we tell when the moon is at perihelion as opposed to aphelion? Or... periterrion and apterrion?
and the same for the sun, supposing we looked at it every day with eclipse glasses, could we detect when it was closer or further away?
I want to say yes, but no one has ever suggested to me that we can
@DaaaahWhoosh If the distance is wrong you can also have an eclips where the moon doesn't fully block out the sun because it's relative size is too small.
yep, that was a gap in my knowledge, I am glad that my theory was proven correct
I guess now I'm wondering, then, what different eclipses look like. If there's like a perfect eclipse where the sun is 100.0% covered, or if it'd look better if it was just under 100%, or just over.
so, mostly unrelated, but I'm thinking about switching my world's 'neo-g' technology from a source of gravity to a source of anti-gravity. That way I can put it in ceilings to provide artificial gravity, put it on the outsides of ships for shielding, and possibly use it as a means of escaping a planet's gravity well
now I just need to figure out how strong it is, and if forces in opposition to the anti-gravity will impart forces onto the emitter, or onto the matter in the parallel dimension the emitter is opening a portal to.
and also what happens when the emitter breaks. Like if things fall in.
making up science and technology is fun
(anyone feel free to cut me off but) this is really interesting. I'm imagining missiles trying to hit ships with anti-gravity shields. Essentially, they bounce off, then turn and force their way through, getting slower and slower as they go. I can imagine ships covered in missiles, in a mad rush to shoot them all down before they make it to the hull
similarly, I'm imagining what artificial gravity would be like if the neo-g force diminishes quickly over distance. Essentially everyone would feel topheavy, you'd want to fall over but if you did you'd get lighter before you hit the ground. Crawling might be faster than running
Are people up for having another chat session at some point? cc @DaaaahWhoosh @James @Green @NexTerren @Secespitus @MonicaCellio and anyone else interested who I forgot to mention.
@sphennings I thought it was James, crusher of dreams, first and last of his kind, immortal and indefatigable, master of the Round Table and wielder of Excalibur.
@HDE226868 ... Arthurian legend... or at least the parts with merlin in, are a huge cultural thing in wales apparently... (at least historically, i can't really say much for modern day)
Also, if there was a 'real' Arthur he would likely be a clan chief fighting against Saxons (I think) and most of the resistance to the Saxons was Welsh.
@Bellerophon I think he's supposed to be of mixed Roman descent (though tbh i'm not entirely sure why that was a good thing), But yes, places like Dinas Emrys and Snowdon have myths/legends relating to arthur, though those are based on his quests.
@Hannah There were Roman Britons who were soldiers who stayed with there British families when the Romans left and former soldiers and there descendants who farmed Britain as when you left the army you got given land where you had served and they usually got land in the South or in Wales. When the Romans left the Saxons and Vikings began raiding while the former Romans were kind of a symbol of order and kept the empire life, which most of the South had adopted, going so were seen as good guys.
@Secespitus Talking to the client about the painting i'm doing, as we're talking costs (because stupidly i didn't talk about it in the beginning) - She wants it for £100, i'm like - No. My price for it is £250. So, while i'm not against bartering it down, the literal minimum i can do it for is £185... this is not a conversation to have at 9pm...
I really should have spoken to her earlier. and i'm really feeling bad - but honestly i've just explained where the costs come up, so i'll see how that comes through.
This is really a discussion i should have started with my dad with me - he's been the one helping me set a decent price for it (as he works in glazing, but also has made mirrors for clients along with decorative glass pieces such as coasters)
@Hannah Still a loss, right? You mentioned your dad - why not tell your client that you need to talk about this with your dad, who is also the friend of your client?
Just asked him, and he asked me what the absolute minimum i'd sell for, i told him - and he just said to go with £200 (meet at the middle), and if she doesn't accept it to tell her that theres no sale
Either way, i'm not going to be doing any more fine-tuning on the piece.
@James I'd write off the loss as a learning experience and negotiate the price up front in the future. If I was showing my paintings or something I'd display it priced at 250.
... could auction it off ebay... put it on Devientart with a price.... Pretty sure for my area I'm actually going a bit cheap for a painting of this size
I've seen much smaller paintings priced slightly higher.
I think the most I ever got for artwork was around $20. But it didn't take much time or material. And it wasn't a commission, it was some sort of contest.
@HDE226868 Me neither - but when you live near a shopping area called 'Merlin's Walk', with a wooden statue representing the wizard (who apparently looks like a mix of Gandalf and an old Chinese man), its kinda hard to miss
@Mithrandir24601 If i'm honest, - if i'd gone by the £1/sq inch method of pricing, the painting would be worth just over £1000, So i do feel as if i'm going quite cheap here
@HDE226868 Oh yeah. Totally, (though according to one bit of Doctor Who lore, The Doctor IS Merlin, and still hasn't gotten around to putting the Sword in the Stone yet)
Anyway. I'm going to bed now. Hopefully tomorrow will seem clearer
@DaaaahWhoosh Iirc Scalzi uses a similar concept in his novel The Collapsing Empire; calls it push-field or sth similar there. At least I think it was in that novel, otherwise I can't remember where I read it :/
They're going good. Noticed some people posted on the question I've asked.
Also, thinking about something: why don't we use diamonds in armor-piercing bullets?
Diamonds are the hardest substance on the planet and can cut anything, with only another diamond being able to cut a diamond. If you combine it with tungsten or depleted uranium 232, you could have extremely effective armor-piercing round. I figure cost is a major factor, but you could always use synthetic diamonds.
that's interesting, considering the dropping cost of PCD coatings on machine tooling
I could see that being somewhat practical on a tungsten-type LRP, albeit undesirable on DU LRPs as it'd interfere with some of the terminal effects of DU
@SCPilot diamond doesn't quite have the frontal density of DU or W, and also would have to be made as a single large, high-purity crystal to avoid breakage problems
@dot_Sp0T diamond-coated knives are useful, but not in an expected way (they'd sure be handy if you were working with FR-4, fiber-cement, or similar materials)
well, not truly coated -- its more of a sintered-on cermet facing
So, in other words, don't make weapons and armor out of diamonds...unless you live in a fantasy world where magic exists and you can enchant said diamonds to cut through anything.
Wait...Would a diamond sword be able to cut through anything?
re: a diamond sword -- again, you're looking at PCD in a metal matrix, and it'd help its cutting ability I suspect but not as much as you get with machine tools
OKay. So, I wonder: which crystal/gem works better for lasers: diamonds or rubies? I would say diamonds, but I know that rubies are used a lot in lasers.
In How can I let my boss know her methods for management aren't useful? the OP asked for a chat session to improve her question.
After a week or two thinking why we don't have our sandbox thread, is it time to create one?
We have 18 questions closed with various reasons this month, so I think s...
The Factory Floor
The Factory Floor