The Factory Floor

Monica Cellio

00:59

@RowanKallioBaker-Whittaker the badges were implemented about a week ago and announced on Meta.SE. The blog posts usually lag some. (Not every new feature gets a blog post, so I wouldn't surprised if they watch for a bit to see how it plays out before deciding.)

Vincent

04:37

Is it me or our visits per day has just exploded ?

it says 1,635. Last time I checked it was around 800.

Feeds 1352

06:23

0

Q: Opinion based, list questions?

This question has so far attracted a higher than usual number of answers, most of which could be construed as opinion-based, and together looking like a list question. Mind you, I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad thing. Although most SEs avoid such questions, some (notably ELU's word/phrase...

discussion

user54412

06:35

@Vincent so I caught your question on the hot questions list. I'd rather not commit to signing up for more sites at the moment, but I thought I'd point out something the current (generally good) answers have missed:

user54412

while astronomers like looking for Earth-like planets around M dwarfs (red dwarfs) because planets in the "habitable zone" of such stars will, due to their proximity, have large radial velocity or transit signals, those stars also tend to suffer from large UV flares

user54412

a planet could very well have liquid water but be hit with enough UV to make life very unpleasant for humans without suitable adaptations

Tim B

08:02

@Vincent It was saying 1400 or so last night IIRC. visit per day has been rising steadily for a while.

I think we look pretty safe really, 2 weeks in we're already hitting or on track to hit every metric at the highest level

Liath

10:38

The only problem with this site is there are so many ideas going around it's far too easy to get distracted!

Tim B

lol

which one now?

Liath

The massive mountain with the resurrection service and an artificial orbiting ring... that's all possible in a steampunk world right?

Tim B

10:54

lol

steampunk orbitals

<3

I want to write a question just to get an ambiguous title.... something like "How many people can murder each other without causing population collapse"

but that's not good enough

and a bad reason to ask a question

"How many people can I sustainably murder?"

githubphagocyte

@TimB reread the Arqade meta post for inspiration...

"How many times can I murder someone before being considered impolite?"

Liath

Hehe - I must admit there was an element of that with the clothes question, I did have a genuine reason though

@TimB cyberpunk is the sql ;)

Doh... I've been a geek too long :(

githubphagocyte

lol

a joke and a pronunciation argument all in one ;)

I think as long as there is a genuinely interesting question behind it so we don't put people off, catchy titles are not a bad thing

Tim B

"How can I destroy america"? with the question being how to remove one continent from the world without wiping out everyone else too

githubphagocyte

11:22

That one would really increase our views from various US agencies...

In case our questions on bioweapons and drugs weren't enough to attract their attention...

ivy_lynx

@githubphagocyte @githubphagocyte or all the digging done on military carriers in order to answer the flying enterprise question :P

btw, the visitors per day did explode, it was at 800 yesterday on a51, now it's doubled - we were commenting on lagging behind on that just yesterday - now it can just be ticked off lol

@TimB I may have a nice and simple ambiguous title: "How can I destroy the world?" - a question about how to do the exact opposite your question series has been about :P

githubphagocyte

11:38

Although catchy questions bring in view, what we really need is more questions. I may have to actually build a world.

DonyorM

hi!

Wow, our visits per day is really high

and two day is our 1 week anniversary of public beta!

Don't we get an evaluation soon?

Or something?

The only thing we need work on is the questions per day, the avid users will come

githubphagocyte

Yes we do need questions.

Maybe we should all commit to build one world per week, and bring all the resulting questions here.

DonyorM

Did anyone see the idea I posted in the promoting the site post?

@githubphagocyte Not sure I have enough time for that :D

But maybe I should try and develop my RPG world a little more

githubphagocyte

4

Q: How can we promote this site?

Every site needs to be able to promote itself to people who will be interested in the content of the site. In fact, promoting sites is one of the The 7 Essential Meta Questions of Every Beta. So here we go! Everyone thinking about this should read: A Recipe to Promote your Site. That blog post h...

discussion site-promotion

DonyorM

exactly

BTW, do you think this might be a good idea: thunderclap.it

githubphagocyte

11:46

I don't know thunderclap. Is it mainly for important time-critical messages or is it also used for general advertising?

DonyorM

I think it can be used for both

It's a way of generating mass media posting

at one time

githubphagocyte

I like the idea of community promotion ads. I think we have so many questions going to HNQ that we don't need ads at the moment, but working on one now ready to post when the time comes sounds good.

Maybe gather suggestions and graphics from the community and vote on them.

DonyorM

Yeah, we have to wait to december regardless

@githubphagocyte Yeah, probably I'll post a question soon. Unless the idea somehow gets majorly downvoted

I figured that the original question would be good for having a list of ideas

Then individual questions can be made for individual options

Hi @Liath

Liath

Hi

Personally I think there's nothing wrong with phrasing a title so it's catchy... it's when you're inventing questions just for the title I think it's playing the system a little :)

DonyorM

@Liath Are you talking about a previous conversation?

Liath

11:50

Yeah... I'm a bit slow sometimes ;)

DonyorM

Ok cool

Just making sure :D

I might go advertise in some other SE chats too

Of course I would do it in a polite way (don't worry)

Tim B

I don't think we need to worry

with people coming questions come for free

githubphagocyte

@DonyorM yes that can work well - we've had a few interested from PPCG

Tim B

@ivy_lynx I've been tracking it a bit longer - it's gone 150->250->400->800->1600 - so exponential increase

give or take as those figures are all from memory

so the increase today is fast but is still on the same curve so far

githubphagocyte

@TimB are those measurements only 1 day apart?

Tim B

11:55

pretty much, as I said that's from memory

we came out of private beta with 150

it's gone up by between 50% and 100% every day since

githubphagocyte

Doubling every day we should have the entire world population within a month :)

2

Tim B

that only seems to count external views too

githubphagocyte

Even 50% per day should net us the whole world by the end of the year

Tim B

since we have individual questions with thousands of views

githubphagocyte

hmmm. Is there some way we can find out for sure?

Tim B

11:57

data.stackexchange.com

however

that's only updated each monday

we had 14 questions yesterday iirc

githubphagocyte

Wow that's great. A big increase.

How do we feel about questions in two parts for alternative approaches?

I've recommended that some questions be split into several to be specific, and it seems to work well.

I'm writing a question and I have two approaches in mind. I find both interesting but I think they belong in separate questions. Are they best posted a few days apart or would it be OK to post them in parallel since we have so many answers flooding in?

overactor

@githubphagocyte I think both approaches are acceptable

depending on the nature of the questions of course

githubphagocyte

@overactor I'm trying to maximise Earth's human population.

overactor

ok

In order to get more viewers to worldbuilders?

githubphagocyte

lol

The two approaches are shrinking the biological humans, and moving their intelligence into cyberspace. I think that will give significantly different results for different reasons, so I want to keep them separate.

I like the idea of posting both in quick succession, since there are so many answers at the moment I wouldn't expect that to be too much.

overactor

12:14

hmm

I don't see why you wouldn't post them right after eachother

of course mutually linking them and posting them further apart gives the first queston you post some extra attention

make sure to focus the questions so that they are clearly distinct

@githubphagocyte What exactly does moving their intelligence to cyberspace achieve?

what happens to their body?

githubphagocyte

@overactor I mean replacing the human population entirely - no more biological humans and those that are physically represented are robots.

yes I think I'll post the biological version, then post the robotic version shortly after with cross links both ways

overactor

seems like a solid idea

Tim B

yep

so long as the questions are different it's all good

This rocheworld picture I just found is great, not seen it before

githubphagocyte

12:30

Wow

@TimB joined atmosphere so you can travel interplanetary with normal aircraft?

Tim B

yep

in this particular case it was an interstellar expedition exploring it so they had some spaceflight capability

githubphagocyte

I like that they planets are ovoid - they've thought this through

Tim B

The Ragged Astronauts has a similar world set up but much lower tech - they used hot air balloons to get betweent he two

ivy_lynx

Just looked the author up - unsurprisingly, he also wrote "Dragon's Egg" :P good stuff

Tim B

yeah :)

1

A: Can an atmosphere englobe a planetary ring?

The problem with this idea is that air resistance would quickly slow the orbit of the asteroids, and bring them crashing down to the surface, it might work if the asteroids were out at geosynchronous orbit but then the atmosphere would just escape. There are two ways to get a similar effect to w...

the authors and stuff are all in my answer I think

overactor

12:35

@TimB How long can thos planets keep orbiting eachother?

I feel like they'd rather quickly lose energy and crash into eachother, but I might be wrong.

also, am I correct in assuming that they need to have almost exactly the same gravitational pull?

ivy_lynx

@overactor couldn't they just behave like a binary star? I'd assume tidal locking would do most of the stabilizing work, but I'm no expert

githubphagocyte

I believe that the planets could be different sizes and masses from each other, provided they were tidally locked to prevent further loss of energy

Tim B

they're just as stable as our earth-moon system

ivy_lynx

just kissing each other perpetually, how romantic

Tim B

both are tidally locked and are orbiting just outside the roche limit so they don't break each other apart

ivy_lynx

12:39

even the Moon is slowly drifting away after billions of years of marriage

overactor

If one planet is bigger, would it not steal the other one's atmosphere

Tim B

sort of

in the book one is slightly bigger

and it ends up with all the oceans

or maybe it was the other way around

can't remember off hand

overactor

would it aproach an equilibrium or would one likely end up with everything?

githubphagocyte

I think either could happen

Tim B

atmosphere would reach an equilibrium

actually its easy to think about it

you know the old thing with gravity being dents in a rubber sheet?

think of that in your head

the heavier one is a deeper dent

now fill the holes with water

the deeper one gets more water

but so long as there is enough water they both end up with some

githubphagocyte

12:41

If the larger planet takes enough atmosphere that the smaller one is above it, then the smaller one gets none. If the smaller planet is within the atmosphere even when the atmosphere is entirely around the larger one, then the atmosphere will always flow back to the smaller planet, albeit less dense than on the larger planet

Tim B

so if one world is 10% lighter atmospheric pressure at the surface will be 10% lower

overactor

but what if the edge of the smaller dent falls inside the surface of the planet?

Tim B

What @githubphagocyte said :)

overactor

or is that guaranteed to not be the case?

githubphagocyte

@TimB I like the water analogy

Tim B

12:42

in this configuration it can't be the case, because the two are orbiting each other

githubphagocyte

@overactor the dent extends to infinity so both planets are always inside the other dent

Tim B

and deep in each other's gravity well

and their combined gravity is holding the atmosphere in place as well, so they could actually hold a good sized atmosphere

overactor

What I'm saying is, what if standing underneath the more massive planet, on the second planet, results in you being pulled upwards to the more massive planet

Tim B

it won't

githubphagocyte

If you start with all the air around the larger planet, and the smaller planet overlapping that air, then the air pressure will dominate the gravity and the air will rush to fill the vacuum

overactor

12:44

is that implied by the roche linit?

ivy_lynx

@overactor but I would expect your weight to be reduced a teensy bit

Tim B

in that case the system would be unstable

githubphagocyte

@ivy_lynx I think your weight would be hugely reduced at that point

Tim B

and bits of the smaller one would fall off it onto the larger one

ivy_lynx

@githubphagocyte just being conservative :P

Tim B

12:45

Roche limit

The Roche limit (pronounced /ʁoʃ/ in IPA, similar to the sound of rosh), sometimes referred to as the Roche radius, is the distance within which a celestial body, held together only by its own gravity, will disintegrate due to a second celestial body's tidal forces exceeding the first body's gravitational self-attraction. Inside the Roche limit, orbiting material disperses and forms rings whereas outside the limit material tends to coalesce. The term is named after Édouard Roche, who is the French astronomer who first calculated this theoretical limit in 1848. == Explanation == Typically, the Roche...

overactor

@TimB So is it the Roche linit that makes sure this isn't the case?

githubphagocyte

@ivy_lynx actually I wasn't taking into account the rotation - it wouldn't be reduced as much as I was thinking. Interesting...

ivy_lynx

Wouldn't there be a sort of floaty interface between the two atmospheres?

githubphagocyte

@ivy_lynx at some point travelling from one planet to the other, there would be net zero gravity

Tim B

here's an interesting factoid: Jupiter's moon Metis and Saturn's moon Pan are examples of such satellites, which hold together because of their tensile strength (that is, they are solid and not easily pulled apart). In principle, objects resting on the surface of such a satellite would actually be lifted away by tidal forces. A weaker satellite, such as a comet, could be broken up when it passes within its Roche limit.

I never knew that

githubphagocyte

12:47

I wonder how small the planets would need to be before you could jump high enough to swim to the next planet through the air

overactor

I suppose the roche limit can be extremely small when the two planets are of similar size and density

@githubphagocyte Size of planets doesn't matter persay I think

ivy_lynx

@githubphagocyte I'd assume any object with an escape velocity of ~10 m/s or less would allow that

Tim B

the planet would most likely break apart at that point, you're too close to the limit

githubphagocyte

@TimB that is interesting. I didn't realise the roche limit was large enough to be relevant for gas giants - I've only thought of it in terms of orbiting a star

overactor

funnily, on some parts of the planets, the ground will have a rather steep apparent slope

ivy_lynx

12:48

@githubphagocyte oh misunderstood, lol xD disregard

Tim B

yeah it's a large part of how rings form

this is why the planets are stretched out towards each other

so actually you do end up with flat effective gravitation at the surface

ivy_lynx

Would attractive forces between gas molecules be enough to keep the atmospheres kissing at the point of net zero gravity between the objects?

Wouldn't it just shoot out into space due to the large pressure differential at the sides?

githubphagocyte

@ivy_lynx good point. That zero gravity region is a plane, so the gas could escape along that plane

ivy_lynx

I can only imagine that working if there's a mechanism circulating the air fast enough (giving it enough momentum) to create a zero-gravity high-turbulence zone at the interface

overactor

@githubphagocyte that seems wrong, only the gravity along the axis connecting the two planets would be zero

ivy_lynx

12:52

I'd expect lightning :P

githubphagocyte

Hang on, the plane rotates with the orbiting planets so hopefully the gas escapes along that plane and then falls out of it to rejoin the atmosphere

Tim B

neither

its not a plane

its a point

think of the rubber sheets again

at the point between the two balls you have a flat space

but it goes up away from their combined gravity well in all directions

githubphagocyte

@overactor if the planets are the same mass it's a plane, otherwise it's some kind of paraboloid/hyperboloid I think

overactor

@TimB It would look a bit like a pringle

Tim B

yeah, a bit

githubphagocyte

12:53

@TimB in the 2d rubber sheet version it would be a line of zero gravity rather than a plane. That would be a straight line for equal masses, or a parabola/hyperbola otherwise

Tim B

no, it wouldn't be

at the center it would look like a saddle

overactor

@TimB Or a pringle!

githubphagocyte

@TimB I see my mistake now - it would still act towards the point you mention instead of towards the planets themselves

Tim B

Saddle point

In mathematics, a saddle point is a point in the range of a function that is a stationary point but not a local extremum. The name derives from the fact that the prototypical example in two dimensions is a surface that curves up in one direction, and curves down in a different direction, resembling a saddle or a mountain pass. In terms of contour lines, a saddle point in two dimensions gives rise to a contour that appears to intersect itself. == Mathematical discussion == A simple criterion for checking if a given stationary point of a real-valued function F(x,y) of two real variables is a saddle...

ivy_lynx

@TimB the whole relativistic gravity sheet idea is good for non-technical explanations but falls apart pretty fast imho - it uses gravity to explain gravity

Doesn't a saddle have sides? it would still escape at the edges with flows along the saddle escaping as well

overactor

12:55

@ivy_lynx It's still a good way to visualize things

Tim B

@githubphagocyte Yep, exactly. Everything pulls in towards that point - you can see the saddle lifts up at left and right. Each planet would be at the end of the "low" point

githubphagocyte

@ivy_lynx I think in this case it gives the answer

ivy_lynx

@overactor yeah, just saying you can't use it to base an argument on, just to visualize on made independently

overactor

@ivy_lynx It's only like a ~~saddle~~ pringle locally

Tim B

:)

It's a useful way to visualize the system

nothing more, nothing less

ivy_lynx

12:57

@overactor what do you mean?

githubphagocyte

It's certainly been enough for me to see why my incorrect conclusion doesn't work, so it beats intuition ;)

overactor

Looking from a far, it would look mor like a bowl

@ivy_lynx Let's see if I can draw it

ivy_lynx

@overactor How different is the bowl from two saddles with the opposite orientation mounted on each other's back?

githubphagocyte

@overactor yes from far far away the two planets are in the same place, at the bottom of a single gravity well. Zoom in and you see that they are slightly separated with a saddle between them.

overactor

I can't draw it

@ivy_lynx It's like a bowl where you take the rubber it's made off and pinch it together a bit at the bottom of the bowl

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