The Factory Floor

1:40 AM

@James for reasons I can't quite explain, got remind me strongly of Samuel Vimes from Discworld. It's a very entertaining thought.

@Shalvenay hey!

Shalvenay

how're things going?

Secret

4:05 AM

Simple machine

A simple machine is a mechanical device that changes the direction or magnitude of a force. In general, they can be defined as the simplest mechanisms that use mechanical advantage (also called leverage) to multiply force. Usually the term refers to the six classical simple machines which were defined by Renaissance scientists: Lever Wheel and axle Pulley Inclined plane Wedge Screw A simple machine uses a single applied force to do work against a single load force. Ignoring friction losses, the work done on the load is equal to the work done by the applied force. The machine can increase the amount...

One can draw some interesting philosophical connections of these with mathematics. For example, Wheel and axle work as they do because of the mathematical properties of a circle

5:27 AM

@Shalvenay I'm up entirely too late rereading on of my favorite books, "Thud!" by Terry Pratchett.

2:04 PM

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

Pleiades

Haha, I wanna get home before it starts doing anything here lol

God, the weather here has been weird. If anyone needs a world with bizarre weather patterns, just look at the Midwest for examples; it literally jumped from 57 F to 10 F in a span of a couple hours and then started snowing.

dot_Sp0T

@HDE226868 the cold never bothered me anyway?

@dot_Sp0T groan

2:27 PM

@HDE226868 We got an inch or so down in Virginia, the super light fluffy stuff

@dot_Sp0T I'm pretty sure that is 'let it go'

@kingledion That's roughly what we've gotten where I am, although we might get up to 3".

@HDE226868 Good lord, I;m reading the transcript between you, Bellerophon, Sphennings and Future Historian from yesterday

That guy

He needs to get out and talk to people more; I can't imagine what his interpersonal dialogue is going to be like

@kingledion If you feel that I'm being too harsh on him please call me out on it.

I bet he needs to do more research at a bar, and less at Stack Exchange

@sphennings Nah, he needs some truth telling, otherwise he'll just get spun up working out back details for years and never write anything

Which probably won't make him a happy person in the long run; you are looking out for his long term happiness @sphennings

@kingledion That's a very diplomatic way of saying I'm tired every plot point getting fielded to chat.

2:38 PM

And correct me if I'm wrong @HDE226868 but he's been on chat pretty regularly for a year at least

If he's still going over plot like this....he's never going to get anything done

@kingledion No, that's about right.

We should collectively decide not to talk to him until he publishes something :)

My mom's husband has been writing a book for about 15 years now

@kingledion Not hard to agree. I couldn't take his style of questions so he's on mute to me.

He still hits me and my wife (both Navy officers) up for plot points because its some sort of Tom Clancy style military thriller

But let me tell you, the ship he was writing about has been decommissioned, all his technical data is out of date, etc

Thats going to be future historian if he doesn't publish and move on

He's going to end up writing about countries that don't exist any more

How do we communicate to users, that worldbuilding/detail/scientific accuracy won't make their story better?

2:43 PM

@kingledion perhaps we might introduce him to the Done Manifesto. medium.com/@bre/the-cult-of-done-manifesto-724ca1c2ff13

While bad worldbuilding/details/scientific accuracy will greatly detract from it.

@Green I need to adopt that manifesto for my thesis which needs to move to the state of completion in about 3 months.

@kingledion It's done wonders for me.

@kingledion Are you aware of this blog?

@sphennings I hadn't seen that one

That blog has a pretty good breadth

2:49 PM

I saw it and thought it was right up your ally.

Yeah I'm actually having trouble tearing myself away from all the awesome urban planning stuff, and into boring old feature selection.

Although I did write up a nifty feature selection algorithm last night, so that was the first good work I've done on my thesis in a month

Speaking of urban planning and rails, who is interested in subways? @HDE226868 @Green

Because if you are I have a place just for you

area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/105759/…

Railways Stack Exchange, I'm going to single handedly make it a thing

@kingledion You've piqued my interest. Go on.

@kingledion I'm down with subways. What's the question?

@kingledion :smile:

So its a Stack for railroads. I read a good deal of transportation blogs like pedestrianobservations.com and thetransportpolitic.com about various aspects of design and cost of rail transit

In the US, I think it is important to work on good political arguments for urban transit, if you are a person who likes cities and doesn't like global warming

So a good Q and A site would be a net good thing for the world for spreading ideas on how to get efficient cheap public transit (i.e. European) as opposed to corrupt, broken public transit (i.e. the US)

So come participate! Need about 140 more people.

area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/105759/…