Separatrix

@VLAZ I get you, but I think we're better continuing with the transactional nature of question with answer rather than question with link to other question. Certainly add links to related questions, but the answer should be in place

@VLAZ Potentially, but I'd rather let a few extras go by on any given subject than close basically everything as a duplicate

Also, lightning lemons, always lightning lemons

@TannerSwett They'd have stuck with steam. By the end there were some advanced steam powered cars that you wouldn't have realised were steam powered by casual observation as they were identical to the petrol equivalents and burned petrol themselves. Calculators and early computers were all mechanical etc etc. Electricity makes our lives easier and I don't think we'd have the same casual international communication as we do, but you're basically proposing a steam/mechanical "punk" world

bump to keep it open

@Catofdoom2 There's nobody here but us chickens. If you want a question reviewed there's a meta thread you can use. worldbuilding.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/7183/…

@Hosch250 opposite of down

But of course, just as soon as you get more people ... at an undefined point in the future in an applicants market. I did shift work for a couple of years when I was a WoW GM, never again!

@JourneymanGeek With those hours I can see why the roles are never filled!

It's an old rule, if you're first in you can be first out and since nobody knows what time you got in...

I basically get to choose my own hours (within reason) and I choose to knock off at 4

least*

Hours are at lease predictable

Those too

and there are only so many hours in a day

I did consider standing for mod on WB but I realised I was already coming to the end of an active period and I wouldn't be around as much any more

I've done my years on enough committees keeping such things going

@JourneymanGeek As with any voluntary organisation

That might at least get the regulars back in with something to argue about

How about a weekly conversation starter, like the old fortnightly challenge subjects

Also all we do in chat is moan about how it's not what it was since Monica left, so it's not exactly inspiring for new users!

You have to know where to look

It need critical mass though, an inactive chat room doesn't come back by itself

Yep, maybe people will come back here in due course

The old community chatted, the new one is just here for the internet points

@JourneymanGeek It still freezes for inactivity, and it's a long way from as active as it used to be

I wonder what a rapidly approaching mountainside smells like

Perhaps the world has just changed a lot in 70 years and you're picking random thing that suit you but aren't actually useful

Or we could pick a batch of other random events to work with, maybe nuclear power is holding us back

Let's use a different value, for thousands of years the West was in a pretty steady state of war with itself, since we've decided not to be in a steady state of war with our immediate neighbours, the rest of the world has caught up

That actually the system is no longer as broken as it was

That the rest of the world, perhaps due to globalisation and global trade led by the west is no longer generations behind on technology

@AncientGiantPottedPlant So what you're saying is that the rest of the world is no longer critically poor

The question you could ask is "is that correlation or causation" which I cannot really answer

@AncientGiantPottedPlant In 1950, basically everyone was racist and patriarchal, so there's no comparison, but better than some, by1970 it's improving in some areas, but outside oil money you start seeing a clear disparity between the more egalitarian states increasing wealth and the less egalitarian ones slipping behind.

@AncientGiantPottedPlant If they were of equal population, perhaps. But they're countries with populations more than 4x that of even the US, next in line are places like Germany at the UK with populations that barely register against China or India. They should be in a position of total dominance, not "competitive". That how uncompetitive these "blatantly patriarchal" societies are in real terms.

@AncientGiantPottedPlant It does matter because a key part of the argument is about the fundamental instability of the culture type, perhaps there's always one in ascendance, but they rise and then fall

@AncientGiantPottedPlant as you say "right now" but they also have an aging population, China is already approaching population collapse as they have an even greater reluctance to reproduce than western nations, which are declining steadily but more slowly, while replacing population through migration in a way that China isn't. India is the next one to watch, they already have the largest population, it's just a question of what they do with it.

The kids don't know what happened, the parents won't talk about it and hence you don't have to.

@AosSidhe, you know, sometimes a trope is just a trope, it doesn't have to be anything more. Orphan boy finds he has magic and goes off to wizard school is a pretty major trope to start with, but tropes exist because they work, it doesn't make them bad.

@KerrAvon2055 what they want is what they have but faster, whether plough horse, cart horse or carriage horse. They want the familiar, upgraded.

It's clever, but it still plays into the self-fulfilling prophesy game. If you enter you win, but if you don't enter you wouldn't have won with those numbers. The correct prophsey that includes all the actions will still work. The one that gets you is: your numbers would have won if you hadn't entered.

50 Shades of Grey was fundamentally a Twilight fanfic, don't underestimate the possibility of writing an "unrelated" story and make it big in your own right.

@ClaraDiazSanchez Ah wait no, I've just seen the Professor's name. Looks legit

@ClaraDiazSanchez Is this the one that's famously a hand thrown pot because the potter's wheel hadn't been invented when it was made?

@AncientSwordRage Privileged kids can be nasty little blighters and Quirrell was clearly a walking victim, that Turban wouldn't have lasted a week

The tall teacher with the flat cap was largely immune, the shorter ones with broad brimmed hats, especially those who made a point of never removing them were fair game.

@TheLethalCarrot My school was terribly middle class and some teachers wore hats. We never threw things, the art was in brushing past slightly too close

@AncientSwordRage Both these points counter @TheLethalCarrot as it makes the spell to knock it off harder and hence a more fun game.

I have an important Harry Potter question. Quirrell turns up at the school with a hat that he wears at all times under any circumstances. What sort of school children don't make it a point of honour to knock that hat off under any and every circumstance they can manage?