The Factory Floor

JDługosz

9:09 AM

nobody around of late?

Mithrandir24601

@JDługosz o/

JDługosz

My video files are driving me crazy. Joining the files (the camera splits them) makes a result that Premiere can’t read. Yet the ones I did before work fine, and I don’t know what’s different.

Mithrandir24601

@JDługosz Sounds fun...

JDługosz

Not.

High-end commercial editors are quite limited on what they can ingest. Contrary to open or free programs which use libraries that are complete and flexible. Premere can’t read mkv files. It can’t read flac or alac audio codec.

Mithrandir24601

9:36 AM

@JDługosz Huh? That's really counterintuitive... I would have expected that to be the other way round if anything O.o

JDługosz

9:49 AM

@Mithrandir24601 Well, I just found that if I concatenate to .ts and .wav files separately, and then combine them back together into a MOV container, it works! The file is about 240KB larger than the one I had doing it directly (!)

Mithrandir24601

@JDługosz That's good, but that's also such a random solution

JDługosz

crazy

I'll keep both for one instance and see if Adobe support can tell them apart.

Mean time, I can get on with my project.

If Premiere could "logically" join the files as one clip, I wouldn’t care.

Meanwhile, most dSLR will not record video more than 30 minutes in one take. It’s an intentional limitation in the product. GoPro for example will record 'till it runs out of space.

Mithrandir24601

@JDługosz Again, none of this actually makes sense? Why would a company intentionally shorten the length of time something (especially something someone's paid serious money for) can record for?

Secespitus

10:05 AM

@Mithrandir24601 Maybe there is a premium version that they could sell for even more money?

Mithrandir24601

@Secespitus So people have to pay more for something that was easier to make? Yeah, this is why monopolies are bad for the consumer

JDługosz

@Mithrandir24601 to distinguish it from a video camera product. DSLR have gotten so good that it may compete with video cameras. Also, it's been suggested that some places have different tax or import trade agreements regarding video camera distinct from still.

«If a camera can reach 30 minutes, but goes no further, it is due to EU tariffs. With very few exceptions (GH4), stills cameras (including those with file size limitations) will always be limited by the EU tariff limit.»

It seems to be true: breitbart.com/big-government/2016/06/27/…

Mithrandir24601

10:20 AM

Well, that kind of makes sense, although still rings of companies trying to cheat regulations and tax etc. :/ again

JDługosz

10:43 AM

@Mithrandir24601 no,countries trying to cheat by claiming a tax accepted for TV recorders applies to products that will never be used for this purpose.

Rory Alsop

@JDługosz that would be useful on Video Production Stack Exchange... :-)

@JDługosz although I wouldn't necessarily assume anything from that site is trustworthy... (generally the opposite)

JDługosz

11:04 AM

@RoryAlsop I'm hoping to get a real answer there, or info on better tools to see what detail might be different.

Mithrandir24601

@RoryAlsop It is true that there is an import duty of 4.9%-12.5% on video recorders (depending on functionality). It's not true that the EU are regulating the amount of cinnamon in Danish pastries - it's actually Denmark's own Food Safety agency doing that as a result of the EU's classifications of baked goods - The food safety agency could have classified it as a traditional product, but they didn't and as a result of their own decision, now Danish pastries are required to have less cinnamon

(as a result of most EU cinnamon coming from something which can be poisonous if too much is taken)

Feeds

12:16 PM

1

A: Sandbox for Proposed Questions

Earliest possible colony in the Americas? alternate-history other-descriptive-tag The first Europeans to land in the Americas were Viking explorers who arrived in the 1000s. Viking colonisation didn't last, and sustained European colonisation began after the late 1400s when Columbus' expeditio...

Feeds

12:46 PM

0

A: Sandbox for Proposed Questions

Why would a modern country execute it's criminals only during a certain time of the year? This modern country has strong democratic institutions, and leans toward extreme religious conservatism. The state feligion is very present in culture, and has a major influence on the laws passed by govern...

dot_Sp0T

1:04 PM

@Secespitus do you think that the diet tag is really necessary? It is 6 months old, has been viewed 2 times (me and you most likely) and there's only 3 questions using the tag, 1 of which has been closed as a duplicate.

Secespitus

@dot_Sp0T There are a few questions using the tag. Only a few, but every tag starts with only a few questions. Do you have an existing tag in mind that would fit better?

dot_Sp0T

@Secespitus if you would want to merge I'd say retagging it with nutrition and adding a wiki to that tag. It seems somewhat more generic and forgiving than the diet tag imho

On the other hand there's always the possibility of getting rid of small tags altogether. There's a maximum of 5 tags per question so it might be better to remove specializations in favour of generalizations :/

Secespitus

@dot_Sp0T That one has 4 questions, one of which also uses diet, and two are closed.

@dot_Sp0T Yeah, maybe food is enough

dot_Sp0T

@Secespitus yeah, there's an overlap - that's why i brought it up. 2 small tags merged might fare better than making a wiki for both

@Secespitus didn't realize we had a food tag

Secespitus

@dot_Sp0T Me neither, but two of the nutrition questions are also tagged with food

dot_Sp0T

1:10 PM

Also I don't want to bash you, it's awesome that you take the time to go through the tags and label them properly!!

@Secespitus well, I guess it's an obvious choice then; there might be a possible distinction between food that is eaten and what can be considered food, but that hasn't yet been an issue on the site iirc

Secespitus

No problem, it's good that we can have such discussions. Maybe getting rid of both and replacing them with food would be good... Though I feel like they are both trying to go for the value of the food for the body

Though food says "For questions about sources and types of nutrition for a living organism. "

Would you say we need a Meta discussion about this first? Seems like we need to get rid of the two small ones and replace them with "food" where that hasn't been used yet.

It would only affect four questions.

dot_Sp0T

1:31 PM

@Secespitus if you want to go the extra mile it would probably be worth it to map out all less-common tags and see which can be merged into more common ones (or combinations of less common ones) - then a batch of meta discussions, 1 per merge

But that'd be a hell of a lot of work for comparatively little to no reward

Secespitus

@dot_Sp0T I wrote a question for food/nutrition/diet. And no, I won't search for every tag that could be merged. I sometimes go through the tags and whenever I find something that looks fishy (or someone like you realizes that something is not really good) I post a Meta discussion about it.

Tags are created all the time, going through all of them would help once but others would come up again. And it's flooding the main site. So going step by step whenever you find something seems like a better approach to me.

Future Historian

Well, that is it.

Earth is officially conquered.

3

@FerretCivilization?

Any human nicknames for those robotic ground units, especially the ones that look like mini-tanks?

Gryphon

@FutureHistorian Um, "mini-tanks", just to point out the obvious one.

Future Historian

@Gryphon. I wonder how those would work with coilguns installed on them accelerating something at up to 5 km/s.

Not to mention I may need other nicknames.

As well.

Because I was thinking of calling them "Shredders", named because they normally would slaughter entire squads in a single firefight, but I am not sure.

And that is on their own.

So, @Gryphon? Is that good or do you have a better one?

Gryphon

What do they look like? (more specifically)

Future Historian

1:47 PM

They basically have a coilgun turret, use tank treads to move around the battlefield and are practically the size of a modern UGV.

Actually, no.

They are probably slightly bigger than that.

But not enough to be a light tank.

Foster-Miller TALON

The Foster-Miller TALON remotely operated vehicle is a small, tracked military robot designed for missions ranging from reconnaissance to combat. == Overview == Foster-Miller claims the TALON is one of the fastest robots in production, one that can travel through sand, water, and snow as well as climb stairs. The TALON transmits in color, black and white, infrared, and/or night vision to its operator, who may be up to 1,000 m away. It can run off lithium-ion batteries for a maximum of 7 days on standby independently before needing recharging. It has an 8.5 hour battery life at normal operating...

Gryphon

I see. "Shredders" isn't bad. Let me think for a few minutes.

Future Historian

Something like this, but bigger.

But not light-tank bigger.

@Gryphon? Anything yet?

Gryphon

2:04 PM

Shredder is pretty good. Something that emphasizes it's coilgun a bit more might be nice.

That could punch through a pretty thick wall quite easily.

It could destroy pretty much anybody on the battlefield, even if they're behind cover.

Future Historian

True.

They would get shredded.......badly.

:P

Gryphon

Nice one

Yeah, I don't have anything better than shredder.

I'll tell you if anything better comes to mind.

Future Historian

That makes sense.

@Gryphon? How many tanks does it take to kill one Shredder?

In all seriousness?

Gryphon

2:24 PM

A lot. It depends on its sensors, and how far away it sees them from.

That coilgun would have a lot of range.

Future Historian

Well, it does have autonomous capability.

No need for human input.

And it can wipe out an entire squad of human infantry in a single engagement.

Before getting blown to pieces, of course by humans.

Gryphon

What sort of sensing capability does it have?

Future Historian

What would best work for infantry vs tanks anyway?

Gryphon

Infrared would be good to have. Visual, obviously.

Infrared would pick up humans and engines.

If the Visitors have satellites, it could use that.

Future Historian

That makes sense.

So, the sensors would be infrared, with visuals being used to help lock on to its target.

@Gryphon. They have an entire spacecraft that is 10 km long and 6 km in diameter in orbit.

I am sure that can serve as a satellite early on.

Green

2:31 PM

Do we have many questions about law systems? Tons for political systems, sure. But, what about laws systems?

Future Historian

Hmmmmmmmmmm.

Interesting.

Secespitus

2:48 PM

@Green I don't think so. At least I can't remember that many.

Future Historian

Hmmmmmmmm. Come to think of it, if Sgt. Sikes runs into shredders, I need to find a way to keep him alive.

I need to reserve his death for later.

Green

@Secespitus I think I might start a series on it. Keeping them narrow enough is going to be really tricky.

Future Historian

Without relying on plot armour.

Secespitus

@Green Sounds interesting, looking forward to it.

Worldbuilding Meta

3:12 PM

2

Q: Do we need the tags [diet] and [nutrition] on the Main Site?

Today I went to writing a few tag wikis as I do every once in a while. I found the diet tag and suggested an edit. dot_Sp0t had a closer look at the tag and we discussed what to do with it. Basically I will summarize the chat here: diet is rarely used - a handful of views on the tag (probably m...

Gryphon

3:59 PM

@FutureHistorian There's not a lot of ways to survive an encounter with those, especially if they have infrared sensors. I would just suggest having him not meet any. Something like a shredder could simply shoot everything coming near it using a ballistic trajectory. It would have a terrifying range, could target using satellite (It's not hard to get full satellite coverage of the globe if your base is in orbit), so you could be 50 km away and just have projectiles start coming out of the sky.

They wouldn't be too accurate though. What's the rate of fire for the railgun?

And what's the projectile size? Can it fire explosive ammunition? If it can, and the rate of fire isn't too shabby, you've essentially made a device that can effectively control a terrifying amount of land.

You may want to tone down the railgun if that makes shredders too powerful.

Gryphon

4:12 PM

Something with that kind of a railgun can have the range of a small ICBM.

dot_Sp0T

5:48 PM

did we yet have something on achievable max acceleration in space? (using current day or near future tech)

sphennings

7:01 PM

@dot_Sp0T Do mean max survivable acceleration or just max acceleration?

dot_Sp0T

@sphennings max achievable in this case. limited by the fact that the method to achieve the acceleration must not be a one-off thing but something that can be reasonably maintained for interstellar travel (e.g. no one-use solid boosters)

Could also use a better word for the limitation mentioned above, I feel that there must be a single word to say what took me a whole sentence

sphennings

@dot_Sp0T So max continuous acceleration? For how long?

dot_Sp0T

@sphennings I guess that would be something an answer would define; and thus answers would be judged by how effective the method of acceleration is and secondary by how economical it is

sphennings

7:17 PM

@dot_Sp0T It's going to be bounded by the rocket equation. I can tell you that much.

dot_Sp0T

@sphennings you mean that it has to expel mass to propel itself forward? Or are you talking about another fact?

sphennings

@dot_Sp0T The former.

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