The Factory Floor

FoxElemental

1:07 AM

@Green, edited.

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A: Sandbox for Proposed Questions

Slowing Global Warming with the Help of Elementals: Part 1 (Fire Elementals) Other posts from this thread will be posted here as these are updated. Info A group of politically powerful witches has decided that global warming is getting out of hand. And they need to fix it, now. Unfortuanately,...

FoxElemental

1:26 AM

Posted A follow up to my first 27 suns question, finally (so much work in the Sandbox on this one! Keep your fingers crossed it's possible

Anyways, I've got to leave

bye yall

Green

12:29 PM

@FoxElemental I think the only thing missing is your intended scale. Are these webs a few centimeters across or a few meters across? After that, it looks like it's ready for main to me.

HDE 226868

12:42 PM

@Secespitus Thanks for the bounty. I really should have answered that question sooner. . .

FoxElemental

1:44 PM

@Green 30 centimeters (1 foot). Just edited. I'll start readying it for main

Worldbuilding Meta

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Q: Get rid of double dollar sign formatting

I was writing an answer where I ended up using two dollar signs to indicate amounts of money. The text in between the two dollar signs became formatted, although I did not want the formatting I was just discussing money. Is there a way to opt out of the formatting given by symbols? Feel free to r...

Secespitus

@HDE226868 Thanks for the answer. It's not like you have to answer every question in that direction.

FoxElemental

2:01 PM

@Green, posted

Green

@FoxElemental Good luck!

FoxElemental

Thank you, @Green!

I'm on a roll with posting here, and 5 in a row on the sandbox wiki answer!

AndyD273

Howdy all! Anything much happen over the weekend?

Green

@AndyD273 Over the weekend? Not for me. Yesterday I got max rep from two answers to the same question.

FoxElemental

meh, nuffin much

AndyD273

2:13 PM

Took the kids on their first real camping trip

Went pretty good, but I really want to find out a way to commit mass murder of mosquitoes. Like a total genocide.

FoxElemental

Besides me posting this, this, this, and this.

All sandboxed drafts, all posted. I'm on a roll!

AndyD273

@FoxElemental Seems like you're on a roll

yup

Green

@AndyD273 sounds like a WB question to me.

FoxElemental

Yes. And I have 5 drafts in the Sandbox, still brewing . . .

@Green Absolutely.

AndyD273

@Green "I'm going camping in two weeks, and I don't want to get bit up by mosquitoes. How do I commit total genocide on mosquitoes before then?"

Seems like the first draft may be a bit broad

Green

2:19 PM

@AndyD273 narrow it down to a certain geographical area and your financial resources and that should be sufficiently narrow.

FoxElemental

@AndyD273 Then put it on the Sandbox!

Just a warning, though . . someone will say:

"Nuke them! It's the only way!" But that's Worldbuilders for you

Green

Killing all mosquitoes all over the planet is different than killing them all around a certain pond.

@FoxElemental The Sandbox isn't required for every question. ;)

FoxElemental

If you think it's too broad . . .

And IK, but I prefer its saftey and comfort.

Less chance of being viciously closed/downvoted. The antimatter planet question scarred me for life. Now I always use the Sandbox

AndyD273

@FoxElemental Sorry, were you Anonymous before?

FoxElemental

Yes! Howdya guess?

I changed my name+image to the Identicon. I was tired of everyone saying @ "Anonymous".

Worldbuilding Meta

2:24 PM

0

Q: Deletion of Comments from Sandbox?

When a Sandboxed (technical term) draft is posted on main, the author is expected to update their draft, shorten it, and delete it. But what about the comments? I'm not a high-rep user, so I can only see my own deleted posts, but it's enough to become annoying as I try to scroll down and see the...

discussion sandbox comments deleted-answer

AndyD273

@FoxElemental Thought so, the avatar icon looked the same.

FoxElemental

Yes

Oh, yay. That meta post of mine finally came through

I haveta go, but I'll be back later

bye yall

AndyD273

2:39 PM

So I limited the question to 20 mile radius, but I'm not really sure how to limit it in budget or technology, which is where the too broad will be a problem.

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2:50 PM

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A: Sandbox for Proposed Questions

Mosquito Armageddon I'm going camping in two weeks and I really don't want to get bit up by mosquitos. So I want to figure out a way to commit total genocide of all mosquitoes in at least a 20 mile (32 KM) area around the campsite. I also want the camping trip to be enjoyable, so nukes, doing...

Green

3:06 PM

@AndyD273 Give yourself a budget of $100K and call it good.

@AndyD273 you can also make it fun by saying it must be permanently free of mosquitoes but still livable by every other non-blood sucking creature. That's a fun puzzle to solve.

HDE 226868

3:23 PM

@Secespitus I just meant that I wish I'd seen it earlier. It's a good question.

Bellerophon

@FoxElemental Sorry, I was away earlier but that link seems to just open the main sandbox page (might be my computer which doesn't always open links to answers). If you still need help could you say which question you meant?

Secespitus

@Bellerophon The question has been posted here and he deleted his draft.

Bellerophon

I thought it would be something like that but I wasn't sure.

Secespitus

@HDE226868 Ah, okay, misunderstood you

FoxElemental

3:55 PM

@Bellerophon , Secespitus was correct. I posted it and deleted the draft but forgot to update you (sorry!) Renan got back to me on that a bit more so I didn't need more feedback. Thank you for offering, all the same

Worldbuilding Meta

4:05 PM

0

Q: Should we take off our [footwear]?

A short time ago, a blatantly off-topic question got posted on main, and I was curious to see that it had been (incorrectly) tagged footwear. I didn't know we had such a tag. It seems as though only one other question has used it, about 8 months ago, and that it was created specifically for that ...

discussion specific-tag tags

FoxElemental

@WorldbuildingMeta Yes, agreed. Time to kick back our footwear and relax

FoxElemental

4:29 PM

bye yall

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A: Sandbox for Proposed Questions

How could a cow protect itself from acid milk? Info: I'm designing (please don't laugh) a breed of cow that produces acid instead of milk. Please don't bother with whether this would be nutritious for the calf or not. Part of the reason this is useful for my story is because the cows produce as...

Green

6:13 PM

Yay! Max rep for the day! Thank you wealth to the past!

AndyD273

6:32 PM

@Green congrats again

Green

@AndyD273 Thanks!

AndyD273

Hey, all of the podcast episodes are up right? So we should start talking about scheduling the next one?

Green

@AndyD273 No, I still need to post 7. Thank you for reminding me.

AndyD273

OK, couldn't remember. Probably should still start talks about the next one, considering how that process usually goes :)

James

Hola

Green

6:35 PM

@James hey

James

@Green What's shakin?

Green

I'm designing a temporal bank that makes it hard to cheat. It's freaky hard.

James

@Green Ok...that needs more explanation.

Green

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Q: How could an inter-temporal banking system work?

(This question is meant to be an improvement and/or replacement for How would you bring wealth back to the past?, which some users have argued is off-topic for this group.) Imagine a future world in which time travel is not uncommon. (Think of it as being like intercontinental travel today -- s...

economy time-travel

The OP hasn't said what kind of time travel this is specifically, so it's a bit ambiguous at the moment.

James

Weird...

Green

6:41 PM

I think you can design a scheme to do it but with some really strict constraints on what the system can do.

Double spending funds would be super easy in this situation.

James

Yeah how could people with time travel possibly abuse money?!

Green

@James I think there's some extraneous concerns in the question like how do you handle inflation at various stages. That's a currency exchange problem which is pretty well understood.

James

@Green Considering you would be able to know all exchange and inflation rates for all time that would be the least of my concerns...you'd just need a temporal database...so thats a fun idea.

Green

6:57 PM

@James And it's that kind of variation that leads me to design an approach that doesn't care about any of that exchange rate info with regards to calculating the value of the OneTrueTimeTraveler currency (know as 1T3).

FoxElemental

7:23 PM

Help, please! I'm getting old! Edited to bump up

HDE 226868

8:13 PM

Google indicates I'm the first person to use the phrase "hornet-like platypus" on the Internet. I feel proud.

7

Secespitus

@HDE226868 We are all proud of you. And curious about your reasons for searching something like that.

HDE 226868

@Secespitus I used it in an answer I just wrote, and I wanted to measure my linguistic creativity.

(In other words, it's a very boring reason.)

Secespitus

@HDE226868 Interesting answer, especially the hornet part. Haven't heard about that before.

@FoxElemental I don't think it's necessary to go through the first Sandbox and mention that there is a new one. That one has been inactive for a year. People aren't working on it anymore and there were no rules about keeping the Sandbox clean when that Sandbox was still active.

I left comments under the Sandbox that was recently used because people might still be working on those and with that Sandbox we established the rules about keeping the Sandbox clean.

HDE 226868

8:41 PM

Hey, @FoxElemental, if you undelete your Sandbox post, I can move the comments to chat; you can then re-delete it. I could undelete and delete myself, but if a mod deletes something, normal users can't undelete it, and I thought that maybe in the future you might want to, so. . .

FoxElemental

@Secespitus good point, thanks.

@HDE226868 I'll undelete it now, thanks. I started this discussion on that practice, actually

Undeleted

HDE 226868

Comments moved. Delete whenever you want.

FoxElemental

Thank you

Aaaand deleted

Secespitus

9:01 PM

@HDE226868 A question about the comment removal: is it a lot of work? As far as I know mods can move everything to chat once in an easier way and after that it becomes tedious, but would it be reasonable to ask for comment removal together with draft removal for example?

HDE 226868

@Secespitus Moving comments to chat and simultaneously deleting them takes maybe two clicks. Deleting them without moving to chat means you have to go one by one.

^ If I were to move comments to chat on the original Sandbox post (I didn't actually click submit).

Secespitus

@HDE226868 Thanks, that's good to know.

FoxElemental

A POB question more suited for here than elsewhere: creature-design. Should I have an elephant that shoots (1) ice breath out its trunk and is made of animate ice, (2) an elephant with a flamethrower trunk, or (3) an elephant made of emeralds that shoots lightning out of its trunk? Opinions please?

@HDE226868 And by the way that image is sooo cool. Though I imagine you see it differently

Secespitus

@FoxElemental Why emeralds? Also, you have an ice version with ice power, an emerald version with lightning power and a normal version with flame power. That's pretty inconsistent

FoxElemental

I mean, which one should I choose?

They all seem so good. Emeralds because . . . well, any gem

Secespitus

9:12 PM

Depends on your enemies. What is their weakness?

FoxElemental

Enemies? Who says I'm using enemies for this? Just predators

Enemies, really

Secespitus

Same thing

FoxElemental

No, the predators would be, uh . . . I have no clue.

Secespitus

Then you can't decide what's best.

Mithrandir24601

@HDE226868 Can't you 'purge all comments'? (I've never tried that one yet to know)

FoxElemental

9:14 PM

The predators depend on the elephant. The ice one's predator is a fire being, the fire one's is an ice being, and the emerald ones is a jaguar carved from silver

I was asking more on which would be cooler/nicer/generally just someones preference, hence my asking this here and not on main

HDE 226868

@Mithrandir24601 . . . Oh, yeah. You can.

I've never used that one before.

@Secespitus - never mind what I said before about deleting comments.

Secespitus

@HDE226868 That's the one below the entry you chose, right? So, how does it work? If you would like to test you could for example simply use one of my old drafts

FoxElemental

So, personally, in your opinion, which would be coolest?

Secespitus

@FoxElemental You already seem to have quite a clear preference .

FoxElemental

I do???!!!

HDE 226868

9:18 PM

@Secespitus It looks like I just select "purge all comments" and it deletes them all instantly.

Secespitus

@FoxElemental Fire is done quite often with dragons, so it's the least interesting. Ice is done not-quite-so-often. And you have far more details for the third one, so that seem to be your more-or-less unconcious favourite.

@HDE226868 Cool, thanks. And thanks @Mithrandir24601 for mentioning that.

FoxElemental

Hmm. I think I'm tied between fire&lightning now. I like the idea of a gem-lightning elephant but the idea of an elephant with a flamethrower trunk is oddly--funnily--appealing.

Mithrandir24601

@Secespitus And I only have 1 (temporary) diamond compared with @HDE's 5 :P

FoxElemental

So, since I can't decide, users of chat, which is better? A lightning shooting elephant trunk or a flamethrower one?

Bye yall

Secespitus

@Mithrandir24601 That's probably why you are still aware of all the fancy features instead of using the ones that are normally used. I can imagine that many people wouldn't react nicely to complete comment erasure without even a chat feature. Many people are having problems with understanding normal partial comment deletions already.

HDE 226868

9:23 PM

@Mithrandir24601 80% of mine are just as (theoretically) temporary. :P

Mithrandir24601

@Secespitus Yeah, seems reasonable, although I'm still discovering things I didn't know existed...

@HDE226868 Still way more than me!

Journeyman Geek

well, there's a reasonably good chance of permanant diamondness somewhere

I was a SR pro tem before I managed to become a SU mod

HDE 226868

@JourneymanGeek Moderating SR must have presented some . . . challenges, given the normal SE policy on recommendations.

Journeyman Geek

@HDE226868 somewhat

we got yelled at at least once

Mithrandir24601

@JourneymanGeek For me? Unless at quantum computing (if/when it graduates), that's not very likely - almost half my rep comes from here, most of the rest comes from QC

Journeyman Geek

9:25 PM

@Mithrandir24601 probably will graduate

Mithrandir24601

@JourneymanGeek We're at about 3 questions per day, 85 days in. It's hard to tell whether we're getting more activity or not, but it's at least stable at the minute

Journeyman Geek

@Mithrandir24601 true but its also a hot niche subject, and kind of a poster child for partnerships with other organisations

Mithrandir24601

9:40 PM

@JourneymanGeek This is true... If you've got any questions about it, you'd be very welcome to ask on the site! ;)

Journeyman Geek

lol

shockingly enough

I'm a non dev techie ;)

Mithrandir24601

@JourneymanGeek QC is for everyone :)

We even allow questions on the history of quantum computing, which I really wasn't expecting when the site started up

Journeyman Geek

@Mithrandir24601 maybe when I can walk into $geeky_retail_place and buy a quantum computer, or a PCIe QC card ;)

Mithrandir24601

@JourneymanGeek You can access a few (albeit very small ones) online. Doesn't cost anything either :)

Journeyman Geek

@Mithrandir24601 then it comes to what I do with it :)

Mithrandir24601

9:49 PM

@JourneymanGeek Yeah... Um, if you can figure out what to do with it, feel free to write a paper :P

Journeyman Geek

and that's a problem with new stuff

they're solutions looking for problems

Mithrandir24601

@JourneymanGeek If it were, say, a million times bigger, it would have many applications, but... We're not there yet

Journeyman Geek

Bit of a bootstrap problem?

any new tech needs a killer app. People don't really write apps unless the tech is going to survive

or they can find an itch to scratch

Mithrandir24601

@JourneymanGeek Hard to tell - there's plenty of research happening and people are seriously looking at applications of near-term ones that aren't classically simulatable (this is where the magic happens), it's just that everything we've got so far is classically simulatable. On the other hand, you can buy a commercial device for quantum key distribution and there are telecoms companies planning on implementing it in the relatively-near future :)

Journeyman Geek

@Mithrandir24601 in a sense, its still too early for someone like me, kinda teetering between "power user" and "regular muggle" to use QC directly

Mithrandir24601

9:55 PM

@JourneymanGeek It's never too early! You just won't be able to do anything useful with it :/

Journeyman Geek

lol

Mithrandir24601

Although there is a point to be made about energy savings

e.g. it seems that you might need a supercomputer to simulate at least some of what D-Wave is capable of, which takes a lot of energy

Journeyman Geek

on the other hand, how efficient/fast is the D-Wave?

ALso quantum key cryptography seems cool

but but

its almost certainly will be an invisible tech for most

Mithrandir24601

@JourneymanGeek this is very true, yeah, weird as it feels to type that

Journeyman Geek

oh

not a bad thing

MOST useful tech is nearly invisible

you don't see, say the backend of your internet connection or your power station

Mithrandir24601

10:02 PM

@JourneymanGeek That's an interesting question - if you use it alongside a classical computer, it can be faster (not massively, for what it can currently do and certainly not for everything). It uses 25kW of energy, compared with over 100x that for a supercomputer

Journeyman Geek

ah

FoxElemental

10:15 PM

Bye until tomorrow!

Feeds 4026

11:57 PM

0

A: Sandbox for Proposed Questions

"How dangerous is someone who can control the friction coefficient of air, in a limited volume?" Given someone who can alter the friction coefficient of any volumes of air in her sight and then maintain those changes indefinitely, so long as the total volume is no larger than 10m^3. If both g...

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