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Irrelevant whatever.
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Morgrim Moon 09/30/2018 9:33 AM
It's just... it's excellent work, and I want more EULAs to be like this, and positive encouragement seems a way of getting that? I'm just not sure if that would serve the opposite and creep them out, because I know that normally people only ever contact IT to complain or because something broke.
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To skip back up a bit and move in-'verse, at some point I really have to write something about the curious memetics behind the widespread adoption of moe anthropomorphism as the preferred user interface/self-representation for animating intelligences.
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09:41
Specifically, by the animating intelligences.
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because waifus > non-waifus?
09:42
๐Ÿ˜„
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That seems more like the explanation for why the battlecruiser's commander prefers it, rather than why the battlecruiser does. ๐Ÿ˜ƒ
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09:49
Memeticists in general are pretty clear on the whole "mechanimism as a perfectly logical response to an environment filled with smart objects" part; it's just somewhat less clear where the compulsive adorability comes from.
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Morgrim Moon 09/30/2018 9:51 AM
in humans a lot of it is hitting the 'protect the offspring!' instincts. Given the drastically lowered birth rate of eldrae, maybe they get that even stronger?
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Could be - but it gets mighty incongruous when seen in the chosen avatar, of, say, a Leviathan -class dreadnought. ๐Ÿ˜„
09:56
("Is it weird that I want to hug the harbinger of the apocalypse?")
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Is it just me or are we seeing a resurgence in Sol system sci-fi? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCGPHprnoC8
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Morgrim Moon 09/30/2018 10:03 AM
now I'm thinking of the ranger I used to know, who was under 5ft, could be legitimately termed 'cute', and had the best aura of command of anyone I've met
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"You're... a little ship girl." "I can also reverse to my Scary Demon made from topological space-time defects avatar, if that helps your baseline mindstate process my choices of appearances better." (edited)
๐Ÿ˜Ž 5
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"Is it weird that I want to hug the harbinger of the apocalypse?"....... but it's so cuddly!
10:33
And really, what better friend to have then the harbinger of the apocalypse? When it comes time to have her friend's back she can back up the back-having.
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...Is it weird I now have this image of a little addolescent soph having a cruiser for a protective friend/mother.
๐Ÿ‘ 4
10:37
Seriously, we need more stories about military warships taking addolescents under their watch in a post-scarcity transhuman universe.
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See the childrenโ€™s book on this page: http://david-drake.com/2002/joke-covers-at-daves-roast/
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The mystery one almost sounds like something David Drake would actually write
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@Unknown for those ships that have upgraded to sophont AI, thatโ€™s entirely possible.
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"What's your mommy's name?" " CS Critical Wrath Excursion ."
10:58
"But Daddy and I call her 'Callie'."
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the only thing that shocks me is that no one has posted a list of anime that have been doing this for years
10:59
it is a gold mine
10:59
Japan! Why are you failing expectations?!
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I suspect it's far more a case of the list only being in Japanese than anything else
12:31
though at the same point, I also feel the need to point out that this overall concept HAS washed through EVE Online a few years back (precipitating a small war among other things)
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It's EVEO. T'would be shocking for it to not cause a war
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apparently one group just got tired of seeing shipgirls and various EVE-anime art being posted on their internal forums.
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we get people in World of Warships that flip their lid as all the gorram weebs
12:38
despite not being a weeb myself it is simply too tempting to not taunt them endlessly
12:38
(as with anyone who is easily triggered)
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ah yes, the opening calls of POI in game chat
12:40
half the time it's fun to see who goes spastic, just to know who to shoot first ๐Ÿ˜„
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worst I ever saw was some guy in an american CA who started shooting up one of our DDs for it
12:42
turns out that my 16" guns were already pointed more or less in his direction....... he should consider himself lucky that he only lost 1/3rd of his health ๐Ÿ˜ƒ
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indeed. American cruisers tend to react badly to 16" shells on the broadside.
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he was mostly turned away. otherwise a point blank salvo would have been insta-kill
12:45
Once caught a New Orleans broadside with my Fiji. Cunningham guided my shells that day. Half of them were citadels. The other half... well, he was exploded by then
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12:48
I've got a Minotaur, but honestly I love Fiji the most. Just the sweet spot in the line
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โ€”โ€”โ€” A discussion I had just now got me thinking: Why are bioconservatives so fundamentally opposed to the idea that the human mindstate can be factually defined, quantified and handled as data without creating "just copies" but actually transfering the person in question?
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I suggest asking Bioconservatives that.
04:59
You are unlikly to get unbiased answers here.
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Yeah well, the answers they give donโ€˜t exactly make much sense either.
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Morgrim Moon 10/01/2018 5:00 AM
Uncertainty that it can, I guess? So far we've failed at completely simulating a flatworm, so we've got a long way to go
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If you want my personal theory; overexposure to sci-fi and lack of practical concerns.
05:01
But as I said; Biased as all get-out.
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Because thereโ€™s no such thing as data โ€œtransferโ€ from one substrate to another, just copying
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Morgrim Moon 10/01/2018 7:09 AM
Tumblr is a place to express yourself, discover yourself, and bond over the stuff you love. It's where your interests connect you with your people.
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@Morgrim Moon Screenshot pls
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Morgrim Moon 10/01/2018 7:37 AM
07:38
sorry, I forgot Scott put his scratchpad on private
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my gut feeling is no, on the basis that if the upload were based on -my- mindstate I would be quite infuriated at someone dicking around with an instance of me like that.
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@Unknown Metaphysical confusion with regard to the nature of identity. Specifically, that it doesn't follow mathematical equivalence, but rather pointer equivalence. i.e., that after executing A = 2 ; B = A ; (A != B) is true because ("A" != "B") .
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09:40
Or to go with a different computing metaphor, that after fork(2) executes but before it returns, there's a meaningful intrinsic distinction between the two resulting processes. (I say internal because one of them has the same arbitrary label - pid - as the "parent" process, but that's an external label the kernel uses to track 'em and not something intrinsic to the process. fork(2) could just as easily have been written to throw out the old pid and give both resulting processes new ones.)
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My school, in its infinite wisdom, has banned phones during lunch/break.
11:38
The justification was some bullying last year which happened to involve phones... clearly this is the appropriate response.
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MarcusAurelius 10/01/2018 11:40 AM
Don't forget the technophobes/people who think phones are ruining our generation/people who don't like phone calls in public/people who (to some extent correctly) think phones are unnecessarily distracting during class looking for an excuse to ban them
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Yeah; it's quite likely a "this gave us an excuse to do what we wanted to do anyway" situation.
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@MarcusAurelius Fun fact, I just read in IIRC german news how the younger generations are more responsible than their parents with smartphones.
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Probably. It was talked about before that thing too.
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A hillarious reversal of expectations by the adults, that. ๐Ÿ˜
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MarcusAurelius 10/01/2018 11:45 AM
Makes sense though. Our generation tends to have a much higher dependence (in the sense that more of our lives are run through it) than older generations, so we are more protective of it
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The trick isn't to automate yourself out of a job, the trick is to automate yourself out of doing work. (edited)
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babysitting robots
12:40
making sure they haven't fallen over again
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Deleted User 10/01/2018 5:58 PM
@Unknown if that's your definition of bioconservitive, most of the people I know are bio conservatives.
17:58
I tried to make analogies to going to sleep or into a coma, and yet I couldn't convince them.
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Morgrim Moon 10/03/2018 8:29 AM
argh. I have a small tablet. It runs Windows 10. It is screaming at me that I don't have the latest more secure version. Because I do not have space for it in small tablet memory. Why the hell is a patch update 8Gb?!
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Ironically, to save on install time. (Also because drivers and the weird and wonderful variety of PC hardware means there're a lot of them, but that's less ironic.)
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Morgrim Moon 10/03/2018 8:34 AM
I've already uninstalled everything I can, but I currently have less than 1G of my stuff and 20G of Windows stuff, out of a 24G hard drive, and I am ready to scream in frustration.
08:35
Admittedly not helped by Windows telling me it is doing this to help me when it is being Very Unhelpful.
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Eep, 24GB?
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Morgrim Moon 10/03/2018 8:36 AM
yes
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...if I remember the listed minimum requirements right, that's only 4GB over them. I'm kinda shocked at the manufacturer, now, 'cause listed minimums usually mean "You can run Notepad, if you don't type much."
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Morgrim Moon 10/03/2018 8:39 AM
tiny transformer tablet. All I need it for is web browsing, word processing, and watching video off an attached external hard drive. But Windows has also decided that I can no longer use Word and Excel offline - which I want to strangle them for, of course you can't find my account when I'm offline, you are meant to be portable - and it won't shut up about being insecure while looking for an alternate light weight word processer. I am this close to formatting the thing and installing Linux, and I HATE Linux.
08:39
Tablet was purchased new a year ago. If I'd known it was so close to raw minimum specs, I may not have bought it
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Enderminion 10/03/2018 8:39 AM
I didn't know they made Windows for Tablets
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Morgrim Moon 10/03/2018 8:40 AM
Unfortunately I have a 17 hr flight in under 48 hrs, so no time to figure out how to install Linux. ๐Ÿ˜ฆ
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Windows ten is intended more for tablets than actual computers.
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Honestly? I might go for Linux as well on that, and I also hate Linux, just because it's a lot easier to strip down to fit. In the meantime... this patch might be one to skip out on, 'cause you've probably got better things to do in the next 48h than cajole it into installing reliably.
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Morgrim Moon 10/03/2018 8:41 AM
apparently only for 'tablets' in the "we've crammed an after market drive into this thing" sense and not the the 'smol computer' sense, which these memory reqs
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Enderminion 10/03/2018 8:42 AM
My computer is an all-in one, looks like a giant tablet
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Tablets in the sense of "a laptop which lost it's keyboard, and is, ideally, a surface pro"
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Enderminion 10/03/2018 8:44 AM
yeah
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Morgrim Moon 10/03/2018 8:44 AM
My last attempt at installing Linux was putting Arch on my old, functional-but- obscelscent laptop. Several hours of help and swearing later, friend and I discovered it is actually possible to cram an OS onto a machine with, and I am not joking, kilobytes of space left over. Which left us with an Arch install that could... sit there being Arch. Maybe write a very small .txt file.
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Depends on the tablet, I suppose. My last generation (bought three-four years ago) came with 128GB, base model with 64GB. I'm just shocked at 24GB. That seems small even for a smartphone these days.
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Morgrim Moon 10/03/2018 8:45 AM
(We did not realise this would be the end result, we kinda thought Arch was small enough to fit. Which it did? ...in the 'fill all available box' way)
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They tell me Alpine is the way to go for tinydisk Linuxes these days; 150-200MB installed.
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Morgrim Moon 10/03/2018 8:49 AM
how friendly is it to newbies, do you know?
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Um. I haven't used it myself, but I suspect not very.
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Text only
09:01
Want tiny distro with GUI? Look at, say, puppy linux
09:03
Want something sane? OpenSUSE
09:05
They suggest GUI install takes 5 GB, that's a bit of lie. But 20 is more than enough
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Morgrim Moon 10/03/2018 9:05 AM
/investigates
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Want to level up your level up your skills and have time-sink? Gentoo.
09:08
I spent two weeks total, over eight years, setting it up and messing with it until I got a system that works for me quite good, thank you
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Morgrim Moon 10/03/2018 9:46 AM
I suspect I don't meet the minimum skill requirement to attempt Gentoo
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I have a self-built desktop running Arch and a cheap server from Ebay running Alpine. They work quite well.
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Deleted User 10/03/2018 10:52 AM
What do people think would be the best, versatile, trope-y rusty old frigate spaceship design/form/shape?
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MarcusAurelius 10/03/2018 11:15 AM
Iโ€™m thinking something like the Rocinante from The Expanse
11:16
Although Iโ€™ve always been partial to the look of the UNSC frigates from Halo
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Deleted User 10/03/2018 11:17 AM
Mhmm
11:19
It seems that quite a lot of human sci-fi ships follow the 'prism-like ship with angular edges' pattern. Honestly I would've thought it would be a cylinder or a sphere, but those are hard to build
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MarcusAurelius 10/03/2018 11:21 AM
A lot of them might be a cylindrical pressure hull with angular armor and some protruding greebles (edited)
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Deleted User 10/03/2018 11:22 AM
Mmhmm yes probably
11:23
What about an unmanned cloud of nanobots that act like a tug? I mean technically they could be manned, if someone converted each bot into a neuron
11:26
Maybe a bunch of spacecored (from portal) with RCS.
11:26
that would be cool.
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Cloud of nanobots could form a tow cable or something, but what kind of propulsion would they have as an independent craft?
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MarcusAurelius 10/03/2018 11:39 AM
Last I checked, free-floating nanobots also had serious heat-reduction issues
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Deleted User 10/03/2018 11:39 AM
Heat-reduction?
11:39
Not sure what you mean.
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MarcusAurelius 10/03/2018 11:40 AM
Getting rid of waste heat
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Deleted User 10/03/2018 11:40 AM
Oh okay
11:41
I presume that their size would make them loose heat faster rather than slower
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Less surface area to radiate heat from
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Unfortunately not. Only way to lose heat in space is radiation, which is proportional to surface area.
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Deleted User 10/03/2018 11:42 AM
Lower volume
11:42
Higher surface area to volume ratio
11:42
So less heat to radiate
11:42
??
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And how would they propel themselves without air currents?
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Less volume == less heat capacity.
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Deleted User 10/03/2018 11:43 AM
So they wouldn't loose heat faster, but would loose proportional heat faster.
11:43
Oh okay.
11:43
@Zarpaulek no idea, maybe microlasers or something
11:44
@gollark had an idea about a 'potato drive' - a potato-powered photon drive
11:44
I have no idea how it came about, but presumably a similar thing could be used.
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It was a joke...
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Deleted User 10/03/2018 11:45 AM
so
11:45
It's a potato drive
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For propulsion? Light sails, electromagnetic tethers, and so forth. By a swarm working in conjunction, those should be fairly simple to arrange.
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Deleted User 10/03/2018 11:46 AM
Reminds me of the beer-can rocket from amazing stories
11:46
@Overmind yes, not air currents, but fancy stellar currents Perfect
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For extra credit, they can use the temperature differential between the light and dark sides of the sail they've arranged themselves into to recharge themselves.
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Deleted User 10/03/2018 11:47 AM
...
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I notice that the description for The Battlestar suggests that it originated as a way to employ both fighter pilot and naval artillery tropes in the same works https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheBattlestar
The Battlestar trope as used in popular culture. During World War II, the honored tradition of building more and more powerful gun-toting battleships came to โ€ฆ
21:00
I can see arguments for limiting cast size by having pilots and naval officers on the same ship. Though it doesn't excuse the obvious romanticism of manned fighters instead of missile/drones.
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MarcusAurelius 10/05/2018 10:13 PM
Partially romanticism, partially to make them more relatable
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Part of the challenge of SF genre reading ought to be relating to unlike things.
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People can relate to the crew of a battleship easily enough
22:25
Though I say that as someone who likes Xenofiction.
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Itโ€™s just that in WWI fighter planes were flying straight at each other in one-on-one dogfights that some people thought was closer to โ€œproper warfareโ€ than the meat grinder of the trenches (edited)
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it became a proper scrum later on though
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MarcusAurelius 10/06/2018 2:25 AM
Eh, most spacefighters especially in visual SF seemed more WWII inspired to me
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There was one game that had Vietnam type spacefighter combat
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So, want critique of FTL engine and/or suggestions.
11:37
It's jump drive, point to point. In most direct mode, it translates point into point with same gravitational potential along directional vector. Plus/minus similar points on same vector.
11:37
Practically, there are problems.
11:38
a) it preserves momentum relative gravity potential gradient.
11:39
b) You can jump up and down gravity well, but you need to either charge your engine with lotta energy or be ready to sink lotta energy out of your jump engine.
11:41
c) Point to point means when you jump point cloud, distribution is preserved relative to curvative of gravity field. So you can exit jump compressed or expanded, on quantum level.
11:41
d) that plus-minus similar points? Yeah, parts of you may exit jump in different equigradient place.
11:43
You can trick universe into thinking that your ship is point object/ideal incompressible body, but that needs tricky synchonization.
11:44
Because when you are point object, time isn't quite going for you and that complicates jump field dynamics quite interestingly.
11:48
Oh, and you get way, way more complications if you try to jump into combination of dirty vacuum and significantly different gravity potential. Too much matter at exit point and need to manage excessive energy means that universe notices that you aren't point object and you do not jump today and have a silly time, or you jump somewhere cleaner and/or with less difference in potential energy.
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if I'm on the north pole of a planet and jump to the same altitude on the south pole, what does that do to my energy budget ?
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Jade Nekotenshi 10/09/2018 4:32 PM
@NHO I'd think that'd create a situation where there are a set of fairly-well-mapped points that you can jump between while leaving the option to do expensive/risky/unpredictable jumps between non-mapped points, essentially leading to something akin to the Wing Commander-ish node-map travel system with some extra leeway involved, if you zoom out to the big-strategic-narrative level
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I wonder how inheritance laws treat password-locked devices and systems?
15:50
Thinking about this one RPG Iโ€™ve played and an aspect of the setting
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I mean, if they're yours, in most cases having physical access means you can just read off all the data, password or not.
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MarcusAurelius 10/10/2018 3:58 PM
Or if they thought about it in advance and had a service like Apple or Google's keychains, the company could give you access and you'd have the passwords. Or have their passwords dump themselves in an offsite server at, say, the office of the law firm keeping their will, who can hand them over after you prove that they were deeded to you in the will
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Well, in this game I'm thinking about, Hc Svnt Dracones, the seven MegaCorporations that own the solar system are overseen by anonymous "Shadow Presidents" who each have access to one of the most pervasive surveillance networks ever built. The access codes to which are only known by the current Shadow President and the identity of any Shadow President is only known by their immediate successor and predecessor.
16:38
It took three rulebooks for the obvious succession problems to be addressed.
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seems pretty clear that there has to be a backup gate keeper, possibly a secret appointee
18:34
and/or a physical override
18:34
being informed of partial keys in two or three places might also work
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MarcusAurelius 10/10/2018 6:41 PM
Yeah I'd imagine they'd split the full keys among the board of directors or some equivalent body, as a type of succession system
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The most recent โ€œGM-onlyโ€ book states that in โ€œrecentโ€ history four Shadow Presidents have died without designating successors, two of them were usurped by their killers when they brain-ripped the access codes from them, the third oneโ€™s position has somehow defaulted to his ten-year old daughter (whoโ€™s both unaware of her title and in hiding), and the fourthโ€™s network was managed by an AI that is actively looking for a โ€œworthy successor.โ€
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MarcusAurelius 10/10/2018 8:27 PM
The daughter one sounds like there is an interesting story behind it
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Kind of is.
20:42
Unfortunately it's spread between "Core: Extended" and Sound and Silence
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MarcusAurelius 10/11/2018 11:25 AM
I know Iโ€™ve brought this up in the past, but any chance we could get a complete Eldrae phonology run down?
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KRKIIIIIIIIIIII 10/13/2018 12:19 PM
Hello everyone
12:19
I need some help with worldbuilding
12:20
Essentially my entire setting had to get immolated due to a serious lack of consistency
12:20
So, where do I start now? I have a basic outline of what I want it to be but not much else as of this moment
12:21
Should I start with the history?
12:21
Seems like a reasonable plan
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Ask yourself โ€œwhat do I want to do with this settingโ€ first
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MarcusAurelius 10/13/2018 1:02 PM
Yep. Then Iโ€™d follow up with โ€œthis is how much Iโ€™m willing to break reality for the sake of storyโ€
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Deleted User 10/14/2018 11:08 AM
uh I was just watching that... spooky
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MarcusAurelius 10/14/2018 6:51 PM
I knew Iโ€™d heard โ€œmoon moonโ€ somewhere before https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/moon-moon?full=1
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Oh yes, those "X Name Generator" things aren't always that well designed.
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Hm. Alcuberrie drive, but instead of ship inflating/deflating space, it is rotated to/from compactified extra dimensions of M-theory.
20:28
Trying to use a Worldship as a warship
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MarcusAurelius 10/16/2018 11:23 AM
I tend to assume their Culture levels of automated, because a Civ that can make one of those is quite likely to have powerful AIs or at least very smart deep learning software
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Deleted User 10/16/2018 11:26 AM
@Zarpaulek wdym? Worldships are warships...
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KRKIIIIIIIIIIII 10/18/2018 2:40 AM
Am I not wrong in treating the Imperial charter as a constitution?
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MarcusAurelius 10/18/2018 8:43 AM
I'd say if anything the charter is more important in Imperial law that the constitution is, even in the US
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@KRKIIIIIIIIIIII You aren't wrong: when someone there says "constitutional law", what they mean is the Fundamental Contract, the Imperial Charter, and a couple of minor binding legal principles like the Antirecursion Principle that were elevated to that status de facto . (edited)
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09:42
(Of course, it's treated rather more seriously than most are here , due to the substantially higher likelihood of people who think of constitutional law as something to interpret your way around being thrown off waterfalls. ๐Ÿ˜Ž ) (edited)
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KRKIIIIIIIIIIII 10/18/2018 9:44 AM
@Overmind so, every bit of legislation is of course compatible with the charter
09:44
If so, thatโ€™s basically a constitution
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Yep. Has to be, or it can't become law.
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Do you think they'd rent us a waterfall?
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See, this is why you build your capital on a mountain, not in a swamp.
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and is that by time or by bodies over the edge?
09:48
nah, the swamp idea is good. They problem is that it should have been kept as a swamp
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Mostly just by inclination. But, y'know, you do these things once, you get reputation .
09:51
In locations we have not seen yet: "Senator's Walk". It's a riverside quay just upstream of the big falls in the capital (not the historic ones, but what the hell, falls are falls). It's a lovely place for a quiet walk, it's got little cafes and mathom stores, and comfortable places to sit and think, and is actually quite popular with the folks from the governance district. ...but it was built and named, back in the day, by a chap who figured a little pointed reminder wouldn't hurt.
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Em... What's antirecursion principle?
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[antirecursion principle] The one that says you can't use the powers granted by a law to modify it, or to modify legislation relating to the body that passed the granting law. (edited)
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10:11
So, for example, a local executive can't use emergency powers to modify the Emergency Powers Act, or to prevent the Senate (which passed it) from sitting, or to prevent the local assembly that authorized his use of them from sitting, either.
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10:13
Or, in the case of the Charter, it's the principle that says you can't use any of the executive or legislative powers granted by the Charter to modify the Charter.
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was about to ask that
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The "you can't take away the ladder you're standing on" rule, in effect.
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so your general approach would be to craft a new ladder of more preferable properties, jump onto that one, and then take away the old one
11:02
which gets back to 'throw them off a waterfall' rules again
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That seems like it would make modifications to the Charter illegal full stop, and I don't think the eldrae would be that confident they'd gotten it absolutely right the first time.
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MarcusAurelius 10/18/2018 2:01 PM
I interpreted it to mean "the government made by the Charter can't change the charter", so go with plebiscites?
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Yeah, probably. I recall the Charter having a 'All powers not explicitly reserved to the government are reserved to the people' clause, and it there's no explicit amendment mechanism that means that power is reserved to the people.
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MarcusAurelius 10/18/2018 2:10 PM
I mean heck even the US (yes I'm going to keep doing this because its the constitutional law system I know best and it's a lot stricter than a lot of other countries), neither Congress nor any other portion of the Federal government can change the constitution. It requires a supermajority of the states (which are considered the main building blocks of the Union as opposed to the more populist view of the Empire)
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Ah, actually, @MarcusAurelius , it's just the opposite. There's a limited amendment mechanism in Section I, Article IV, and a list of things that it can't amend in Section I, Article V. Defining that is okay by the Antirecursion Principle, because it's creating the power to modify itself and defining exactly how it can happen. What the A. P. says is that none of the various assorted powers the Charter delegates can be used to modify it, because they're dependent on it to exist in the first place. (edited)
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19:51
(A similar principle is why there isn't, for example, a pardon power there, because a crime violates one right or another of at least one citizen-shareholder, and all the powers of the Empire are based on a delegation of sovereign power from the individual citizen-shareholders. The Empire can't, therefore, pardon a crime against someone because no individual citizen-shareholder has the right to pardon a crime against anyone else in their own right, and so can't delegate what they don't have.)
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19:58
Or, on another note, going beyond even the Charter: while unlikely, it would theoretically be possible in many systems to, say, legalize theft or even murder. The Empire can't, not even by amending the Charter. The only thing that gives legislation force is the Charter, and the only thing that gives the Charter force is the Contract, and the Contract just defines the implicit-in-the-nature-of-sophonts rights to life, liberty, property, and contract. If you try to go against any of those, you're invalidating the whole chain of dependencies that you're relying on.
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Working on the non-placeholder effects for the Xeno-Compatibility ascension perk :]
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So, in looking at the new trope pages in my referrers and so forth, I have learned of the hilarious maiden cruise of the SDSD Freudian Nightmare : https://pastebin.com/UzTLMVTQ
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Oldie but goodie
10:07
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Ah, yes, the ISD Obvious Overcompensation .
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MarcusAurelius 10/19/2018 10:20 AM
That's when you go full David Weber and use orbital velocity artificial gravity generator propelled elevators
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cue jokes about internal rebellions on several decks and the idiocy of not installing toilets in the command tower
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I linked that a few days ago
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Almost a true Eldrae scientist.
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Names convey thought. And sometimes technological history. Compare speaking to ASI's humanoid interface versus remi-autonomous remote node.
04:14
Compare to messenger or agent.
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Morgrim Moon 10/20/2018 5:56 AM
hydrogen is scarily good at removing eyebrows without severely damaging anything else, it's responsible for both of my spontaneous hair removals
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As companies embrace buzzwords, a shortage of blockchain cryptocurrency connoisseurs opens. Only the finest theoretical code artisans with a background in machine learning (20 years of experience minimum) and artificial general intelligence (5+ years of experience) can shed light on the future of quantum computing as we know it. The rest of us simply can't hope to compete with the influx of Stanford graduates feeding all the big data to their insatiable models, tensor by tensor. "Nobody knows how these models really work, but they do and it's time to embrace them." said Boris Yue, 20, self-appointed "AI Expert" and "Code Samurai". But Yue wasnโ€™t worried about so much potential competition. While the job outlook for those with computer skills is generally good, Yue is in an even more rarified category: he is studying artificial intelligence, working on technology that teaches machines to learn and think in ways that mimic human cognition. You know, just like when you read a list of 50000000 pictures + labels and you learn to categorize them through excruciating trial and error processes that sometimes end up in an electrified prod to the back and sometimes don't. Just like human cognition, and Yue is working on the vanguard of that.
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I'm waiting for the Blockchain bubble to burst
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isnt it in the process of deflating?
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Maybe if investors have started to learn from the Dot Com Bubble
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`>>"investors" && "foresight of more than one week ERROR. DOES NOT COMPUTE (edited)
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Well, this doesnโ€™t look good
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who are we to judge on why some humans try to take a blorg home to mom?
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One of the most alluring motifs in HP Lovecraftโ€™s work is โ€œknowledge that drives you insane.โ€ What could be in a book or some discovery that turns a rational mind to madness? Itโ€™s easy to imagine tโ€ฆ
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Oh, yes, that's an excellent series.
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Enderminion 10/20/2018 7:35 PM
At near light speed, the planet killer weapon slammed into the ground with the force of a trillion hydrogen bombs. Like a water ballon shot with a rifle, the [uninteligible, presumably planet] liquidfied under the impact and sparyed its molten core across the darkness. Part of [Planet] is now a small astorid belt. the rest is a molten radioactive hellscape constantly rippling with kilometers-high planetquakes You did not survive
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sauce?
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Enderminion 10/20/2018 8:05 PM
Rimworld
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Morgrim Moon 10/20/2018 11:51 PM
https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/modified_bayes_theorem.png yes, this is my biggest issue with Bayesian maths; that I tend to make a small error at some point that gives me wildly incorrect answers.
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Old Getter Robo manga.
14:05
Why there's flamethrower in the hangar of main robot, based on newfound exotic particle and intended to fight theoretical invasion of reptiloids from the depths of Earth?
14:05
... Robot, that is, not flamethrower
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Re image: "So, if the kawaii don't kill 'em, then we resort to violence?:
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Imagine that beep-beeping from the dark in the deep of the night, suddenly.
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...well, now I have my next electronics project, and gift for someone I want to never sleep again.
14:08
๐Ÿ˜„
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I put it in different place as "Weapon to confuse Metal Gear"
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โ•
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for that image, the only thing I question is the rear spoiler. Does that body REALLY generate enough lift to warrant that?
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That's radar
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kinda looks like the cupola and weapons mount blocks it, though that might just be the angle.
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Maybe it's not fully extended?
16:41
Anders Sandberg on SFnal inertia-mucking devices and what their side-effects, per actual science, would be likely to be.
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KRKIIIIIIIIIIII 10/22/2018 1:28 PM
@MarcusAurelius have you heard the tragically hilarious story of Caesar's co-consul?
13:28
he got a literal bucket of crap shoved on himself
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MarcusAurelius 10/22/2018 1:29 PM
No, I hadn't
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KRKIIIIIIIIIIII 10/22/2018 1:29 PM
and then vetoed at the last day of his office to hold his closing speach
13:29
by a tribune of the PLEBS
13:29
Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus
13:29
that guy
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How's this system look to you guys? http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff3200/fc03192.png
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Enderminion 10/23/2018 8:36 PM
If its stupid and it works, its still stupid and you got lucky
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MarcusAurelius 10/23/2018 9:22 PM
...This may be an unusual request for Cultural Crossovers, but I'm wondering what the Eldraic opinion on Ms. Frizzle's teaching style would be
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Canโ€™t say. Not familiar with the source material.
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MarcusAurelius 10/23/2018 9:24 PM
Yeah, I guess that would be more a my generation thing
21:24
She's from The Magic School Bus, if you didn't know
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To put it simply, sheโ€™s very hands-on
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MarcusAurelius 10/23/2018 9:25 PM
She's a polymath with a transforming bus and an uplifted lizard as her TA
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Morgrim Moon 10/23/2018 9:25 PM
A bit more insisting she should ask the kids' permission first, but otherwise I think they'd be all for it
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A transforming bus that shrinks, flies, exceeds the speed of light, time travels, itโ€™s like a TARDIS with a half-functioning chameleon circuit
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MarcusAurelius 10/23/2018 9:34 PM
It's also possible a sophont, or has at least a similar intelligence to a particularly bright dog
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I seem to recall an episode where they were learning about urban wildlife and it turned into a bear and wandered off.
21:43
Unlike Ms Frizz and the kids, who were somewhat lacking in instinct after becoming foxes and raccoons and opossums
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A curious situation. The best known lower bound for the minimal length of superpermutations was proved by an anonymous user of a wiki mainly devoted to anime. https://t.co/z3wVAcUJl1
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This is useful mathematical problem, but lower bound for solution was derived and proved by anonimous person on the internet who wanted to see Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumia in all possible orders in fastest way possible.
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oh dang, 45 mins
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Oh damn. Glad the economy is getting a closer look at, too
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There's also a 45 second trailer
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Megacorps remind me of CKII's Merchant Republics.
20:00
And the Zann Cornsortium from Star Wars: Empire at War, especially the crime syndicates
20:33
So, I imagine everyone's heard this one before, but just in case, ya?
20:37
Somewhat more topically, if the eldrae don't have something parallel to this, I'll smoke my hat. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqL7Yllgeew&list=PLH1mfvQCiTCqo-9gJBgduGEn8qOSmpoSP&index=44
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Of the horrible bioweapons people thought out, mine was binary zombie plague.
15:39
Influenza-style primer virus that doesn't provide horrible symptoms, but induces subtle brain changes that render sapient ready for second step
15:40
Which is desire to spread bodily liquids, increased aggression and rapid neural deterioration.
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Jade Nekotenshi 10/25/2018 3:41 PM
So basically the garden-variety zuvembie, but with a bit more sense to it and not technically dead, per se.
15:41
Not a bad way to go about it, that it's not.
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To stop process you undo precursor, activator can be as interesting as possible.
15:43
I think there was some more interesting things in it, but I thought it long ago and mostly forgot.
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Jade Nekotenshi 10/25/2018 3:43 PM
I had designed one for my 'verse that was basically an aggressive life-destroyer, but it was a fungus that came pre-infected with a viroid, helped along by a nanite. Granted, pretty dern implausible when I think about it, but the idea was that this thing would mutate into forms that can infect almost anything in a biosphere, plant itself there and become nearly impossible to root out.
15:44
So even if you find a way to survive it, cure it, vaccinate the sophont populace, etc, it hangs around, springing up again - and it has a long latent period during which it's transmissible but not normally symptomatic.
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Unrelated, but it turns out that Cookie Clicker's "garden" feature supports surprisingly complex self-sustaining ecosystems.
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I have a nice simple one in project CYSTIC VELOCITY.
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15:51
Essentially, a fluid-borne virus which reprograms cells to create tumors made up of, โ€˜hem, semi-stable nitrogenous compounds.
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Needs lotsa nitrogen
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When poked sufficiently to trigger said instability, the resulting detonation spreads the fluids wonderfully.
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15:53
Got lotsa nitrogen in most oxygen-breathers.
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I now trying to remember a story where virus infected farmer's wife and she transformed into a... tree rocket, but was shot before ignition.
15:53
Don't remember if there was backup or not, there was something about collapsed Singularity?
15:53
Was long ago
15:54
Well, he lost wife, but got supplies of nitrogeneous fertilizer.
15:54
I can try to find it, but it was translated, in sci-fi magazine
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I'd like to see a zombie story that after establishing the fall skipped forward may 500-1000 years, plague still going on, but now society has rebuilt and integrated that (this being of TWD everyone infected variety)
15:57
Then the aliens show up. Either the ones who virus bombed the planet, or the other side in the big interstellar war
15:57
(Gotta enforce that Prime Directive somehow)
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Jade Nekotenshi 10/25/2018 4:04 PM
Quasi-related - I'm brainstorming on the big turning point event in my 'verse, and I've hit some fridge logic. The idea is that, of the local region of the galaxy's major movers and shakers, one is annihilated outright, one is gutted and turned into a poor but recovering successor state and an impoverished rump remnant, the third has its military kicked squarely in the junk but keeps its infrastructure intact, leaving what had been a second-rate regional power as the surviving big dog. Trouble's this - how do you turn a 625-world barely-Kardashev-II polity into a ghost town in very short order?
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MarcusAurelius 10/25/2018 4:04 PM
@Overmind ...youโ€™ve seen the exploding tumors episode of Stargate Atlantis, Iโ€™m guessing
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Er, relevant detail for that idea: the plague also forms "zombie trees" that are very closely defended by zombies. Those contain backups of every person that is infected. Whole point of the plague is keep this species out of the fight for a while rather than them getting used as pawns / RKVed
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Jade Nekotenshi 10/25/2018 4:05 PM
I originally had the death-bringer faction using that engineered fungus mabob, but the more I think of it, the more I think that wouldn't cut the mustard.
16:05
@Ian Bruene Oh, now that changes up the dynamic rather drastically!
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like Outsider.... everyone there gets screwed over by the political logic, but a mutually agreed upon "Zombie Accords" ๐Ÿ˜„ type thing....
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@MarcusAurelius Yeah, but mine are cooler. ๐Ÿ˜›
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MarcusAurelius 10/25/2018 4:08 PM
If they kill you know who, I will be sorely disappointed
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You know I just realized that this idea is very close to final fantasy 10's plot....
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Chalres Stross, Rogue Farm
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So, anyone got the real news on this whole "EU bans plastic" headline? 'Cause even with my usual skepticism in re governmental competence, that one fails to pass the "Are you all fucking high?" test.
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Deleted User 10/26/2018 1:52 AM
Wha~ I haven't heard this.
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looks like the EU on single use plastics
01:55
stuff like plastic cutlery, plates, straws, drink stirrers, that kind of stuff.
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Just single-user plastics?
01:55
Ah, that would explain it. That's not quite so insane.
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Deleted User 10/26/2018 1:55 AM
I mean that's reasonable.
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Plastic items such as cutlery and straws would be banned in the EU under plans approved by MEPs.
01:55
Single-use plastic items such as plates, cutlery, straws, balloon sticks or cotton buds, will be banned in the EU under plans adopted on Wednesday.
01:57
overall looks reasonably sane, especially since it's both not a total thing nor being implemented immediately. Also has notes for stuff that can't be replaced by non-plastics
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Deleted User 10/26/2018 1:57 AM
Thank god. So it's not 'all plastics are eEevil
02:02
Wait... The NHS (or equivalent medical service) goes through literal tons of plastics each year, and these are deemed unsanitary to reuse/recycle... So this proposal is still stupid.
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that;s mainly because it's cheaper to use single use plastic for a lot of things.
02:07
as opposed to having an actual cleaning/sterilization regieme
02:07
and on the other point "plastics where no alternatives available to be reduced by at least 25% by 2025"
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It's also rathr more reliable.
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Deleted User 10/26/2018 2:07 AM
^^
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true.
02:08
but if they can't carve out a logical exemption for medical uses, then we're all doomed regardless.
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Deleted User 10/26/2018 2:08 AM
Well, at least they have the 'no alternatives' clause
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Yeah, but the thing is: hospital single-use plastic can be properly disposed off push come to shove. Or you can make it from special decomposites like PLA that can decompose under proper environmental conditions.
03:18
But a lot of other single-use plastic gets thrown into the environment or otherwise improperly disposed of. So this is good stuff.
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Morgrim Moon 10/26/2018 4:07 AM
Yeah, hospital waste is usually incinerated, so while that's not great it's not running loose in the environment, it's just a flat carbon cost.
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Butterfly criticality. The point after which future knowledge begins to show exponentially diminishing returns for Tactical situations due to use of that future knowledge.
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03:24
Good phrase
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Heh. Reminds me of a idea for a superhero story.
03:32
The character has essentially infinite intelligence, for a week only. The story starts with them waking up at the end of that week.
03:33
And spends the rest of the story dealing with the consequences of the stuff they did while smart (and presumably becoming a superhero off the back of stuff smart-them left behind)
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... When you have essentially infinite intelligence for week only, why you aren't preparing to preserve some of that intelligence past that week? In any way probable.
03:34
"That's the Prime Evil? That's the person we're supposed to serve?! She's practically glowing with compassion! Fuck this-" "Quiet! Do you remember the last person to anger her?" "...No?" "Neither do I." "...Shit."
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My general policy on that was that levels of intelligence just isn't possible.
03:47
It's part of the absurdity of superpowers.
03:47
So he leaves behind a bunch of really good expert systems.
03:48
And the enhanced him, who has the same value system etc etc.
03:48
(and probably whatever trans-humanism they could whip up)
03:49
The exact definition of "Essentially Infinite Intelligence" is unclear.
03:49
Not quite the Path To Victory.
03:49
But pretty close.
23:48
Is that Kevyn? I thought they decabted him already?...
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Para Venturaโ€™s still in there
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...Yeah, this feels more like Ventura's idea of fun...
09:39
Probably to get over the entire "I'm a Laz-5 casuelty" thingy...
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ack, spoilers
10:35
I'm still in Vol 13
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Well catch on up boyo!
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TFW you see someone who doesn't religiously check every night at 8pm,,,,,
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KRKIIIIIIIIIIII 10/28/2018 3:27 PM
Got a tank for you guys, urban combat optimized, though Iโ€™m wondering if it screams fuuuuture Could technically swim by using a pseudo NTR with its two fusion reactors and shoving water in there as coolant and out as hot and fast moving steam Main gun is gauss of course and thereโ€™s a laser CROWS on top
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Enderminion 10/28/2018 3:28 PM
no pictures
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KRKIIIIIIIIIIII 10/28/2018 3:28 PM
15:28
Here we go
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A cool Minecraft mod which is basically a programmable magic system: https://psi.vazkii.us (actual site) https://www.reddit.com/r/psispellcompendium/ (users' spells)
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Well, tracks look vulnerable to the extreme
15:38
Plus, urban combat doesn't scream "Tracks" to me. More wheels
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KRKIIIIIIIIIIII 10/28/2018 3:39 PM
This is just a kit for urban warfare
15:40
The cages on the tracks prevent ATGM fire from causing too big of an issue
15:40
But autocannons will nom it up
15:40
Nevertheless, youโ€™ll be hard pressed to go up against autocannons facing you from the sides if you do everything right, whereas rooftop RPGs will be a thorn in your side in cities (edited)
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Turret looks a bit shell-trap-ish
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KRKIIIIIIIIIIII 10/28/2018 3:56 PM
It is kind of
15:57
The side cheeks are meant for active protection systems
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yeah, in urban combat I'd expect it would want to get escorted by a Terminator-esque tank unit.
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KRKIIIIIIIIIIII 10/28/2018 3:57 PM
And benefit from protruding
15:57
@Xveers say no more
15:57
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what kind of elevation can you get on those guns?
15:58
you'd want to get something in the 80deg range, ideally.
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KRKIIIIIIIIIIII 10/28/2018 3:58 PM
Probably shite, the turret is still main gun optimized
15:58
I need to tweak that a bit
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I think you might need to bite the bullet and just engineer a different turret altogether
16:00
IMO, barrels are too long and can get hung up on nearby structures, and you can't get a high elevation to deal with sudden high angle ambush attacks
16:01
I like the over the shoulder launchers since that's a nice way to get some additional use out of the turret bustle's structurale framework when you're using an existing turret.
16:03
I do like the placement of the radar on the forward turret however.
16:04
Perhaps have this one instead repurposed as a "Tunguska" style AA vehicle instead?
16:05
gun calibre looks large enough you could go with a VT style fuze for the rounds but still have enough ammuition capacity to be able to do some proper area denial.
16:05
and assuming you fired sequentially instead of simultaniously, you'd probably get a high enough ROF to work
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KRKIIIIIIIIIIII 10/28/2018 4:07 PM
Yeah, it is basically engineered to be a SPAAG more than a terminator type vehicle
16:07
Wouldโ€™ve kept the slat armor otherwise and thrown out the targeting radar
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yeah, as a SPAAG it's design makes a lot more sense
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KRKIIIIIIIIIIII 10/28/2018 4:08 PM
16:08
Making some progress with the guns
16:08
Theyโ€™re supposed to have a gauss firing mechanism
16:09
Iโ€™m considering 3+ km/s velocity for them and a 300-750g shell
16:09
Or 1.25 and a shell in the kg range
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depends on your firecontol, really
16:25
though it's worth noting that your guns are only good for short-med range engagements unless the shells have some kind of guidance.
16:26
faster velocity means more accurate fire and more rounds, but larger shells means you'll be more tolerant of near misses if you have proximity rounds
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KRKIIIIIIIIIIII 10/28/2018 4:26 PM
Noted, though the 3 km/s shell will cut into the lower stratosphere
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and larger shells also mean it'll work better at anti-ground work as well.
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KRKIIIIIIIIIIII 10/28/2018 4:26 PM
And, also, quite true for the larger shells
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IMO I'd think 1.25 should be effective. otherwise the ranges and potential changes in course means that you'd need an insane volume of fire to cover all the possible flight paths.
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KRKIIIIIIIIIIII 10/28/2018 4:28 PM
Iโ€™d like to optimize it well for SHORAD basically
16:29
Acting as the task force CIWS against drones/ATGMs and artillery shells
16:29
I put myself in a weird position by not having a place to put a laser system with that in mind though
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SHORAD?
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KRKIIIIIIIIIIII 10/28/2018 4:31 PM
Short range air defense
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it's a bit challenging to build something that can deal with all of those at the same time. Drones/aircraft are more or less the same thing within an order of magnitude, but dealing with AGTMs and Artillery require more divergent systems
16:43
for AGTM defense you need something with blistering fast speed and accuracy, since your detect-react-engage window is going to be VERY small. Even in RL you have maybe 3-5 seconds tops? and that's assuming it's being used at range.
16:44
but as a flip side, the average AGTM round is not exactly a tank. a little damage is enough to screw with it's aerodynamic profile and force it to miss or auger into the ground
16:45
Artillery rounds are almost the opposite. Much longer flight times and much more armoured a projectile. Doing some damage to it may cause it to miss, but that means it just might hit someone else instead of its intended target. For these, you have to do a lot more damage for them to be effectively neutralized
16:48
drones and aircraft fit somewhere in between, depending a lot on their design and purpose. Something like a HIND style aircraft is overall quite durable and requires more, harder hits to put offline. While something like a Predator drone or even a modern fighter aircraft is both more fragile and has a much poorer response to changes in its aerodynamic profile
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KRKIIIIIIIIIIII 10/28/2018 4:49 PM
Indeed, I planned a laser system to deal with ATGMs/artillery
16:49
Because the laser can seriously impact both their flight profiles from long range and practically vaporize them closer in
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You getting any inspiration from David Drake here?
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KRKIIIIIIIIIIII 10/28/2018 4:55 PM
How so?
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He had tanks with good enough PD to knock out most missiles and artillery shells
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Enderminion 10/28/2018 5:02 PM
Hammer's Slammers series?
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Oh yeah
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KRKIIIIIIIIIIII 10/28/2018 5:05 PM
@Zarpaulek that in particular was laser fire
17:07
it is an absolute pain in the ass to put a laser on this thing
17:07
17:07
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Behold the power of my glorious air-search radar hat!
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KRKIIIIIIIIIIII 10/28/2018 5:48 PM
Lol
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it's like a pope hat. Just with a better PER bonus
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Relevant to our interests in re memetic warfare: http://slatestarcodex.com/2018/10/30/sort-by-controversial/
[Epistemic status: fiction] Thanks for letting me put my story on your blog. Mainstream media is crap and no one would have believed me anyway. This starts in September 2017. I was working for a smโ€ฆ
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...Thatโ€˜s some good shit.
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It's an interesting story.
00:40
Very targeted to it's audience, ironically.
00:41
(As a spooky story; it's very rationalist to thinking searching a vast search-space for infohazards makes a good scary story)
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yeah, I want to share it, but who else would get it?
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Jade Nekotenshi 11/02/2018 3:10 PM
I liked that one rather a lot.
15:11
Even if it did sprain my brain slightly.
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It's just close enough to reality you can belief it is actually true.
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Jade Nekotenshi 11/02/2018 3:16 PM
Yeah, that was pretty much my feeling too. Like, "is someone actually Scissor-hacking our brains? Are they doing it by accident?"
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john dougan(his grace/his grace) 11/02/2018 4:17 PM
Of course they are. All it requires is incentives. Someone has to make money from controversy and have resources to keep it going.
16:19
No intention required
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the meme reactor of the internet has a tendency to randomly generate ideas and then the nasty ones can bubble up
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Yep.
17:13
Really, itโ€˜s just as much pattern-matching as Siriโ€˜s sissor.
17:13
Well, more brute force. Less heuristics.
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Jade Nekotenshi 11/03/2018 9:12 AM
That's basically what I was getting at - have we just gotten fast enough at flinging memes at the wall, that we're hitting into ones that mostly bypass our memetic immunities faster than ever before?
09:12
Well, that seems almost trivially true.
09:13
faster than before, and faster than we've properly adapted to, more like.
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megasilverfist 11/03/2018 10:17 AM
Finally.
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Humans: Can scratch you like nothing else, in places where you haven't knew you need scratching.
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KRKIIIIIIIIIIII 11/03/2018 4:03 PM
wicked cool
16:03
where are those from @NHO
16:03
?
16:06
SF่ชญใฟใงใ™ใ€‚ ็ตตใฏใƒฉใ‚ฏใ‚ฌใ‚ญ็จ‹ๅบฆใซใŸใ—ใชใ‚“ใงใพใ™ใ€‚ ใ‚ˆใ‚ใ—ใใŠ้ก˜ใ„ใ—ใพใ™ใ€‚ ใƒžใ‚คใƒ”ใ‚ฏๅคงๆญ“่ฟŽใงใ™ใ€‚ ใ—ใฐใ‚‰ใ่ŒจๅŸŽ็œŒๆฐ‘ใงใ™ https://twitter.com/shoboyuski http://www.tinami.com/creator/profile/20087
16:06
artist
16:06
Got lots of fun stuff
16:07
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KRKIIIIIIIIIIII 11/03/2018 4:40 PM
gold mine
16:42
There's artist who did extremely nice Blame-inspired works, too, but won't search right now.
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KRKIIIIIIIIIIII 11/04/2018 6:59 AM
alright, I've got a wall of text to present concerning my setting's worldbuilding
07:00
bottom line - I need things to escalate to war somehow
07:00
Flying fusion thermal ramjet powered bases are likely to extract upwards of 500kg of deuterium per second They could send that to orbital depots via mass driver or shuttle craft, having 100k of them doing the rounds on Molloth is probably not out pf the question And it would amount to upwards of 50kt per second - compensated for inefficiencies A freighter only needs up to 1kt for a monthly circuit to the Solar Habs if aided by its laser network Meridianโ€™s Deuterium harvesting efforts would be significantly more difficult, given the need to A electrolyze water, B extract tiny amounts of deuterium from the HD present(edited) The infrastructure for this exists there but is a lot more developed on the gas giants I estimate Meridian would be capable of chugging out up to 500 tons of Deuterium per second 40 kt daily, though it may be even less This would be enough to fuel a fleet of only 20 freighters making a circuit to the habs Without imported fuel, Meridian could deliver 5Mt of cargo to the swarm within a month Or around 2 million people Whereas the Outer Planets can reliably produce 100 billion tons of Deuterium fuel in a month Fueling a fleet of 50-100 million freighters in that same time span Or 500 billion tons of cargo, enough material for 50 new habitats (edited)
07:00
Under these premises we find that it is much easier for the belt to supply and develop infrastructure in the Solar sphere of influence than it would be for Meridian unaided Alternatively, they could devote a portion of these freighters to deliver fuel to Meridian for somewhat quicker transit times(edited) If they plan to visit the swarm at all theyโ€™d need to ego-cast to Meridian and hitch a ride So for their own purposes they need to beef up the aforementioned freighter/transport fleet via fuel exports, to bring the Meridian-to-habs passenger flux to 1-5 billion A third of their total fuel production would thus need to be Exported to Meridianโ€™s drydocks Lessening their total freight to the swarm by about 4/5ths if not more if they are to satisfy their own needs It would be highly advantageous to cut Meridian out of the loop entirely if they are to take control of the swarm further down the line The feelings are mutual to the Meridian administration (edited)
07:01
Molloth is the system Saturn equivalent
07:02
They're currently sending people via ego-cast, or by comms gauge wormhole to the belt from Meridian
07:02
the old fallen empire built these, but not one bridging Meridian and the solar habs
07:03
if the belters make an uberhuge laser array to send people to central star habs directly, Meridian wouldn't like it because it would in effect be cut out of the loop
07:04
they'd need a decade to make one, whereas if Meridian did the same in its orbital lanes to ego-cast directly to the partial Dyson swarm
07:04
it would be a far smaller burden
07:05
The belters stand to lose the least in a war, Meridian is shielded by the taboo of nuking its surface but would otherwise suffer greatly though the completion of the belter laser array might justify an armed intervention as a necessary evil
07:06
@Overmind in your opinion is this ripe ground for a war?
07:07
to summarize the wall of text above, the belt/gas giants can send a sh**ton of cargo to the swarm and control the system if Meridian were out of the loop
07:08
Meridian controls this sphere of influence however, so they'd go through space customs and be bogged down for longer, compared to sending the same cargo to Meridian's drydocks and transiting from there
07:08
if the Meridian Administration suddenly stopped breathing or had a personality shift, the belters would open all their champagne
07:11
Sorry for swamping the channel slightly, just thought I'd share some of my worldbuilding here as well to see what can be improved ๐Ÿ˜ƒ (edited)
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That's cool manufacturing. Also Eldrae-style.
06:59
I felt in love with this bit of ancient technology and decided to a) resurrect it b) sell it for profit
06:59
Because other people are also in love with it, but no one produces it
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Morgrim Moon 11/05/2018 7:26 AM
07:26
sound at the source link
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Truly a masterpiece of techological ingenuity.
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Today's random thought: given the existence of outer-system methane-breathers whose biology has a lot more to do with hydrocarbons than carbohydrates, it is entirely possible that there is a product which legitimately is both a floor wax and a dessert topping.
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"goes down smooth"
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megasilverfist 11/05/2018 6:49 PM
"Alexa, give me that filet o fish."
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Morgrim Moon 11/08/2018 8:08 AM
higgsboshark: โ€œ The thing about knitting is itโ€™s much harder to fear the existential futility of all your actions while youโ€™re doing it. Like ok, sure, sometimes itโ€™s hard to believe youโ€™ve made any...
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After revisiting some of PETA's un-prosecuted crimes I kind of want to see Dar-Bandals going to war against them
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Jade Nekotenshi 11/09/2018 7:02 PM
Hahahaha
19:02
There's a bit of me that sees the relative proximity of the PETA main office and the USS Wisconsin, and sees a great missed opportunity.
19:02
(All of the port-side 5" mounts can directly train on the building)
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Morgrim Moon 11/09/2018 7:30 PM
ooh
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I like where this train of thought is going. We could save so many animals!
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Enderminion 11/09/2018 7:42 PM
like with the Belfast in London?
19:42
"Missed" opportunity
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You've been GNR'ed
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Dogful!
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Beautiful response about legacy of WW3 in Star Trek
11:42
It's hard to justify honoring their sacrifices when if they'd all stayed home maybe the earth wouldn't have been blown to shit.
11:43
The heroes Earth remembers - among them the mayors of Bozeman, Calgary, Keelung, and San Francisco, the party secretary for Guangxi, the president of the United States of Africa, and the director of the IPCC - are postwar heroes, heroes of the recovery efforts. And, of course, there's Zephram Cochrane, whose momentous test of warp drive came a decade after the conclusion of the war.
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Stan Lee is dead.
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TBH I've never read comics proper so I can't give the "lost an old reader's friend" response, I'll just go full silly: DAMMIT where are the cameos going to be now?
13:32
(rip)
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Jade Nekotenshi 11/12/2018 1:34 PM
Mortality sucks.
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In a word: bugger.
๐Ÿ‘† 3
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Oh damn it
14:01
Douglas Rain, who voiced the soft-spoken HAL 9000 robot that went rogue in Stanley Kubrickโ€™s โ€œ2001: A Space Odyssey,โ€ has died. He was 90. The Stratford Festival, which Rain, who โ€ฆ
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waits for the third shoe to drop
14:06
By contrast, the US Department of Justice argues that โ€œthere is no right to โ€˜a climate system capable of sustaining human lifeโ€™โ€ โ€” as the Juliana plaintiffs assert.
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?????
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Some people need to be preserved in carbon sequestration repository
14:17
Well, preserved is wrong word.
14:18
Packed with all the CO2
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a more sane argument: does the court actually have the authority to order a meaningful remedy?
14:18
which is a procedure question
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โ€œthere is no right to โ€˜a climate system capable of sustaining human lifeโ€™โ€ Well, no, there isn't. Feel free to argue that one with, y'know, the sun. And literally everywhere else in the universe.
๐Ÿ‘† 3
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The government should at least aim to not break it so horribly that you don't have one.
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by that logic chain we have no right to exist in the first place
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"The universe doesn't care about you. Life sucks. Deal with that as it comes so you can fix the problem."
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which strikes me more of a semantic "right vs privilege" discussion than "should the goverement we put in place care about the world in which we live"
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(It's like the meaning of the right to life; you can have a right not to be killed by your peers, which is something that every other sophont in the universe could do, but you can't have a right to be kept alive no matter what, because the physical universe declareth "Nope".)
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Admittedly climate change like we (will) have probably doesn't (won't) make the planet unlivable, it'll just ruin our civilization a lot.
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I mean, I would prefer a planet where it stays livable enough I don't get shot during the resource wars
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@o11o1 We don't have any right to exist. It's a meaningless concept. And semantics are important, 'cause they're the root of meaning. You could make a meaningful - and much better - right-to-life argument that fucking up the climate is knowingly harming you personally, or a right-to-property argument that anthropogenic climate change is a de facto unlawful taking that deprives you of use and value. But whipping up some magical right to a climate that fits your preferences, enforceable by making arbitrary demands of arbitrary bodies, is pure nonsense on stilts. (edited)
14:36
(I mean, the entire agriculture industry should have the mother of all class-action suits here. Of course, then someone might point out that lots of people also have those against the ag biz by the same principle. so they might be a tad reluctant to set that precedent.)
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They probably just went for whatever argument would bring the most media coverage anyway.
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getting hired to fight climate change by planting forests seems right up their alley though
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Reforestation is definitely something worth pursuing. Although what we need lots of that no-one in particular touches on is swamp .
14:37
(Of course, swamps are less photogenic.)
14:38
((Also more odoriffic.)
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That's how you know it's breaking down toxins
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It would be nice if we had more proper environmentalists instead of ZOMG DON'T KILL TEH TREEZZZZZ REEEEEEEE types cue massive wildfire that burns down a state because it fuel was allowed to build up
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Oh, sure, but it makes it harder to sell the Let's Get Swampy! program to the public. People love to see pretty folk planting trees. They're less keen on mud-covered blobs raisin' mosquitos and gators, come Someone's Got To Use This In Their Reelection Campaign time.
14:41
Also, seriously, no reeeing here plz.
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those grid forests in oregon where they rotationally clear cut one square every ten years actually seems to work out pretty well
14:43
so, serious question, what function are mosquitos serving in the marsh ecology?
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* points out that the correct internet response to a forbidding of the reee is to reee ๐Ÿ˜›
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errrr?
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DON'T MAKE ME BREAK OUT THE ROYAL CAPSLOCK
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waves crimson flag
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Honestly, I have no idea. But they seem to be pretty inescapable.
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I guess I never put it together that swamps are Nature's compost pile
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(Side note, @Ian Bruene ; I'm just about to go ahead and pin that little rule to the announcements channel, since it's not readily visible to newcomers. Just mentioning to be clear that it's not a shot, or a reshot.)
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Morgrim Moon 11/12/2018 6:15 PM
certain species of mosquitos that feed on humans could be removed from ecosystems without harming said ecosystem; there've been serious studies on the topic because it underpins acceptable forms of anti-malaria campaigns
08:22
Whitehat company internal intrusion attempt twitter thread.
08:22
Interesting insights into how you build a secure system.
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Morgrim Moon 11/17/2018 8:44 AM
I know a couple of pen testers who would want to buy that IR team a drink
08:44
*IT
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good reading!
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what's that photo of?
16:13
Hong Kong?
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Given that they're mining an exploded UNE planet... yeah, I'd say they have every right to be ๐Ÿ˜›
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What else would you mine? A non-exploded UNE planet?
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Thousands of Amazon workers across Europe went on strike on Black Friday in protest over working conditions at Amazon warehouses.
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I have zero problems believing some amazon dickwick requested that.
08:55
Corporations in europe have managed to have the police break up strikes/protests before, and with use of force also.
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Yeah, but this time Amazon wanted the police to โ€œmonitor productivityโ€ of the workers still inside the building
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Read: check for saboteurs.
08:58
Also, I have to love the whole "We Are Not Robots!" slogan. Yeah, remind them of that, why don't you?
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Corporations are the true politicians, take big oil as an example, The Seven Sisters control politicians by controlling oil.
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Yeah, remind them of that, why don't you? to be honest, it's probably more humane to have them replaced by robots than not.
09:00
They don't even get afforded the time to fucking pee.
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ten minute breaks, and the restrooms are a five minute walk away (edited)
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I agree, automation would be ethical
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shrug Until and unless Amazon starts rounding people up at gunpoint and forcing them to work in its warehouses, everyone working there necessarily sees it as a better option than not working there.
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given the working conditions of the employees there
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Yeah sorry, but by everything, we are going to have to agree to disagree.
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Morgrim Moon 11/24/2018 9:04 AM
Amazon here got belted for promising certain conditions in their contracts and then not delivering, so I'm kinda wondering if that's happened elsewhere
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so breach of contract?
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Morgrim Moon 11/24/2018 9:06 AM
yeah, and it was OHSA violations to boot
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"everyone working there necessarily sees it as a better option than not working there." Well, given that they are striking, I'm not sure that's true
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And the whole "they see us as replaceable parts" thing. Dude, you are doing a job whose entire description is "spend all day doing exactly what the computer tells you to do, no more, no less". You are a replaceable part. You're just a replaceable part in absurdly deep denial.
๐Ÿ‘† 3
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Morgrim Moon 11/24/2018 9:06 AM
Apparently they've cleaned up their act.
09:06
Here, at least.
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Well, if it's a contractual breach, then I have a problem with it.
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here being the US ?
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A robot
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Morgrim Moon 11/24/2018 9:06 AM
here being Australia
09:07
Our safety board kinda has a rep for being vicious, because our primary industries are all resource industries and notoriously dangerous.
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is it implied in a labor contract that the employer will follow all the osha and labor laws of the country they are in?
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Here in Britain things are pretty leisurely.
09:07
In most places
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Morgrim Moon 11/24/2018 9:07 AM
There's been a couple of USA companies getting shocked that the same laws apply to warehouses and shopping stuff.
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or can companies just be "Here in subsection 13.7 you agree that we are not bound by such laws."
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Morgrim Moon 11/24/2018 9:08 AM
In australia, it's an automatic part of an employment contract. If they don't explicitly state it, it's included.
09:08
If they explicitly state it's not included, they get to justify it.
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@o11o1 You can't generally contract away matters of law. On the other hand, how much you care about them depends on your views of the ethics of compulsion.
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Morgrim Moon 11/24/2018 9:09 AM
Which I know a few industries do - surgeons have a clause about being able to exceed the number of hours worked in one hit, as long as they do other stuff in compansation, etc
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Also: given a list of options, rational people will always pick whichever one they think is best for them - in terms of satisfying their values. It's pretty much in the definition. So, if working at Amazon isn't providing you with some benefit... why are you doing it?
09:13
(Striking is also rational behavior, of course. If the law is nice enough to provide you with a legal means of extorting your counterparty, why wouldn't you? Ethical considerations aside, anyway.)
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Morgrim Moon 11/24/2018 9:13 AM
Any job is better than no job, but not having some sort of system limiting employers in terms of conditions has been firmly tested on Earth and it ends in workhouses and other terrible conditions that are a net loss to society, even if they're a limited gain to a limited group of employers.
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we can do better than "work or starve"
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Morgrim Moon 11/24/2018 9:15 AM
So yeah, I've no objections to striking to enforce minimum conditions. Granted, it works better when lots of people strike to force other companies to pressure the bad company to enforce minimum conditions because THEY don't want to subsidise the arsehole company, which is I think what the Amazon employees are aiming for? It's worked in europe before, like the Toys R Us incident. Internalise the externalities, sort of thing.
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The fundamental problem, really, is that prices are set by economic laws, which are every bit as useless to plead with as any other kind of natural law. The less value you add, the less you can expect to get. You don't get a choice between "this work" and "this work paid better"; you get a choice between "this work" and "no work". Or at the very best "this work paid better, for fewer people".
09:20
If we have a problem with the way this works out in practice, what we ought to do is - preferably UBI-wise - socially support the value-add-challenged directly. (Which would have the advantage of pushing on the supply curve for labor in the right way, too.) But, no, we prefer to try to push water uphill: result, ever-increasing substitution of capital for labor, because labor sucks.
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Morgrim Moon 11/24/2018 9:23 AM
Or figure out some way to value all the very useful functions added by people who are contributing in ways that aren't directly profit-related.
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If it's not on the P&L, you can't pay bills with it. Or, to put it another way: would anyone care to hazard a guess as to what Amazon, or Wal-Mart - to pick another example of shameless exploitation - makes by way of net margin?
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It was the third quarter in a row of profit above $1 billion, a remarkable feat for a company once known for investing so much it often lost money.
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(For AMZN, over the last 10 years, its maxed out at 4.03%, minimum of -0.27%. For WMT, it's maxed at 3.89%, min of 1.01%. That doesn't suck, especially in high-volume retail, but it's also not a number that suggests there's lots of spare cash lying around for someone to pick up. These guys live and die by their efficiency.)
09:30
Yeah. Because it's a big damn company. Absolute figures are meaningless; you've got to look at the ratios.
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Morgrim Moon 11/24/2018 9:30 AM
Walmart's employees get food stamps, that's a sign of a company committing fraud
09:31
Because they're getting taxpayers to subsidise their profits, in a way that, as far as I have seen, is not providing some other useful function to compensate.
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No, that's a sign that Wal-Mart employees, individually, don't add enough value to be paid more than whatever the food stamp threshold is. There's no economic law that says that can't be true.
09:33
And looking at those net margin figures, it seems evident to me that what taxpayers are mostly subsidizing is the ability of people to buy cheap goods at Wal-Mart.
09:33
Which, empirically, is something people value a great deal.
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Morgrim Moon 11/24/2018 9:33 AM
(I get antsy about companies doing bad things like that, because there are companies that DO act in better ways that prove it's not impossible, but get tarred with the same brush. Kinda like how I loathe Monsanto for what it's done to GM rep)
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What humanity-woo do you bring to a job to get paid more than a robot would?
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Morgrim Moon 11/24/2018 9:36 AM
Sometimes it's just being more flexible than a robot. Wrapping lots of identically sized parcels is easy to automate. Wrapping lots of differently sized and shaped ones gets increasingly challenging.
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True. But that question is what every would-be employee needs to answer
09:38
[Insert giant rant about the school system training people to be meat-robots]
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And, honestly, it's better this way. If we want people who can't earn much money to have more money, which we do, we should just give them money . (Granted, food stamps are pretty crappy money, but still.) That works. That's simple and nondistortionary. Bring on the UBI already. But trying to make companies pay them more than their value-add, i.e., make a gross loss on every transaction -- that's plain voodoo, like flapping your arms real hard and expecting gravity to cooperate.
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@Overmind and it distracts from the problem, real or imagined. It's like banning liking the color blue because you think surfers are prone to violence
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Consider the alternate world for a moment in which the low-end segment of cheese producers happen to not be doing so well. And those cheesewrights have families, etc. So we tell people that it's socially necessary to pay Whole Foods prices for government cheese. Maybe even enforce it by law. No-one even considers that maybe we should just make a relief payment to keep 'em going, without having to waste time and effort on making lousy goods that no-one'll pay well for. Instead, we tell everyone to pay high prices for low-grade cheese. We can all recognize that that's a long trip on the crazy train, right? (edited)
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for one we get stuck on supporting a no-longer-needed cheese production infrastructure in perpetuity
09:45
which is all sorts of headdeskery
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The very picture of eldraic work ethic.
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Morgrim Moon 11/24/2018 2:14 PM
work ethic, yes. Work content, on the first one in particular? Hell no
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Enderminion 11/24/2018 2:19 PM
lol
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Oh, that tropico quest.
08:03
Sometimes, you ride a mystical goat up to unscalable sides of a mountain to infiltrate EXALT base and sabotage their antishipping lasers and shoot all their guys with railguns.
08:05
Alternatively, it's just random goat.
08:05
That still gets to be trusty steed
08:05
Forever in the history
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We might have designer babies, or maybe not, it's China https://www.apnews.com/4997bb7aa36c45449b488e19ac83e86d
HONG KONG (AP) โ€” A Chinese researcher claims that he helped make the world's first genetically edited babies โ€” twin girls born this month whose DNA he said he altered with a powerful new tool capable of rewriting the very blueprint of life. If true, it would be a profound...
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I'll wait for independant confirmation. Chinese scientific announcements like this have proven to be.... premature
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Morgrim Moon 11/26/2018 6:44 PM
There's a competition on in my city, called the Mining Emergency Response Competition. Shortened to MERC. So there are currently huge advertising banners up of people in full hi-vis suits, often with helmets and air tanks and appropriate amounts of grime with just the word MERC blazoned over the top.
18:44
It feels like a space mercenary company is being creative in their advertising, or perhaps a conference for mercenaries has come to town
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john dougan(his grace/his grace) 11/26/2018 6:57 PM
"MERC is a not for profit organisation with the aim of providing a world class, safe and sustainable, industry event focused on fostering valuable networks and building professional and personal life skills."
18:57
Certified Buzzword Compliant
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Morgrim Moon 11/26/2018 7:02 PM
The industry speaks well of it, so guessing they got the marketing guys to write something for the downstream sponsors.
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MarcusAurelius 11/26/2018 7:03 PM
It keeps reminding me of WICKED
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probably, yeah @Morgrim Moon
19:11
corporate mission and vision statements are like that
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Morgrim Moon 11/27/2018 7:15 AM
I'm randomly critter building again, and thinking of a species where the incubating member of the reproductive triad is pretty helpless during the latter portion of the process, so species has deep instincts to protect and pamper them during this vulnerable time. Transplanting to the Associated Worlds may end up with a post-soph species where those instincts have been dulled but are still present, and this manifesting around the new-soph-growing machine that's mentioned as being preferred in the Empire and presumably the Worlds. So parents-to-be 'pampering' the non-sapient machine by personally cleaning the room even if there are bots for that, and bringing shiny trinkets, and spending free time curled up near it with crafting projects. Which could be seen as a little silly and irrational - and species will admit it too - but I think most people would feel that spending your evenings knotting intricately beaded machine covers is one of the more productive expressions of pre-natal anxiety.
๐Ÿ“Œ 1
07:15
Or at least prettier
๐Ÿ“Œ 1
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...this is almost certainly canon.
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Morgrim Moon 11/27/2018 9:41 AM
Excellent :DDD
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MarcusAurelius 11/29/2018 9:43 AM
@KAL_9000 let's move the meming to here
09:43
so you're middle/high school I take it?
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high
09:44
09:44
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MarcusAurelius 11/29/2018 9:47 AM
You haven't had the real fun yet
09:47
Caesar memes are true memes
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oh my deum (edited)
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MarcusAurelius 11/29/2018 9:48 AM
*deum
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MarcusAurelius 11/29/2018 9:48 AM
accusative of exclamation
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does not have time for cases when typing a response in 5 seconds
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Morgrim Moon 11/29/2018 9:49 AM
right, I know who I'm going to next time I'm struggling with how to declinate something
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MarcusAurelius 11/29/2018 9:49 AM
yep
09:51
When I said "did this competitively", I'm not exaggerating
09:56
But yeah KAL if you ever want to totally-not-cheat on your homework, .....
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thankee
09:57
but no
09:57
i will do this legit
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MarcusAurelius 11/29/2018 9:57 AM
Good man. You might yet meet Virgil then
09:57
The walls of high Rome will welcome you
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Enderminion 11/29/2018 7:52 PM
would you like a Salad? I Made it myself Julius Caesar - Civ IV (edited)
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*Caesar (edited)
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MarcusAurelius 11/30/2018 10:53 AM
*Caesar
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whoops
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MarcusAurelius 11/30/2018 10:53 AM
Also, remember kids, soft C's get hard slaps
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*Caesar
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MarcusAurelius 11/30/2018 10:55 AM
quid de eo rogas?
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Enderminion 11/30/2018 2:23 PM
@MarcusAurelius @KAL_9000 Fixed
14:23
@gollark fixed
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MarcusAurelius 11/30/2018 9:52 PM
Moving this here. @Morgrim Moon are you also from dropbear territory?
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Morgrim Moon 11/30/2018 9:53 PM
Yep
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MarcusAurelius 11/30/2018 9:54 PM
Ah. Iโ€™ve only seen bits of it, though natural landscape wise I think I got the highlight reel
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Morgrim Moon 11/30/2018 9:54 PM
Did you know that dropbears aren't just a prank, but started as a combination of teaching young children survival skills and (this is controversial still) partially as aboriginal oral history about now-extinct megafauna?
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MarcusAurelius 11/30/2018 9:54 PM
Oh right, the falling branches thing?
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Morgrim Moon 11/30/2018 9:55 PM
yeah, teach you to look up and never camp under a widowmaker gum tree
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Morgrim Moon 11/30/2018 10:36 PM
talking about game bugs: "There was even one sniper rifle silencer that, ironically, muted the sound on the entire server." This wins for 'most entertaining bug'
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MarcusAurelius 11/30/2018 10:36 PM
what game?
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Morgrim Moon 11/30/2018 10:36 PM
Battlefield 4
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MarcusAurelius 11/30/2018 10:36 PM
oh. That's a feature, not a bug
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Morgrim Moon 11/30/2018 10:36 PM
a good example of 'does exactly what you tell it to do, in ways that are definitely not what you want'
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MarcusAurelius 11/30/2018 10:52 PM
I kinda wish the crazy worm monster bug from BF3 beta was left in in some form
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MarcusAurelius 11/30/2018 11:06 PM
Is buying the Kindle version of Fine Structure worth it? Does it sufficiently streamline the archive binge?
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Uh, doubt it?
23:07
There seem to be PDFs on the site.
23:08
And a free Epub, even.
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MarcusAurelius 11/30/2018 11:08 PM
I was planning to read it on the site, just thought I'd ask since it was odd that it existed in the first place
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I read it on the site, though I wouldn't consider the expeience streamlined. (edited)
23:10
(It kinda starts as a bunch of semi-unconnected short stories)
23:12
(It makes sense in the end, though)
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MarcusAurelius 11/30/2018 11:13 PM
Sounds fine. If I can tolerate the nonsense I put in the otherworlds thread from myself, I think I can deal with someone else's not quite perfect organization.
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MarcusAurelius 11/30/2018 11:20 PM
just finished the first, might be the coolest origin myth for the universe I've seen in a while.
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I had this idea, Nicoll-Dyson Lasers would be the ideal weapons of Berserkers.
08:32
The probes build a sphere in the middle of a 50-lightyear radius and as soon as it detects a radio signal it fires.
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Morgrim Moon 12/02/2018 10:00 AM
"Bruce came up through grad school on a diet of coffee the consistency of sludge because thatโ€™s what the machine on the third floor churned out, bless its heart. They could have invested in a new one, but funding was then and will always be dispersed according to the following priorities: 1) shiny new equipment (more powerful lasers, now in blue!), 2) materials (alternate definition: things to laser), 3) salaries (to provide sustenance such that the lasering may continue in the future.)"
๐Ÿ‘Œ 2
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Is tagon still just a dupie?
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What?
12:47
The first time Tagon died Kevyn went back in time and stopped it from happening.
12:47
Second time he was cloned from external backup.
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Well why cant they do the same timey-wimey sufficiently advanced thing that bought Tagon back from limbo?
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Cause the gate network needed for that and its power supply kinda got kra-boomed?
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The descriptiony stuff at the bottom here: https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2005-04-10 is relevant.
Daily strip for Sunday 10 April 2005
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yep, they went out of their way to say THIS IS A ONE TIME THING
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Schlock you idiot
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Well, he had lost about 80% of his brain matter to a plasma grenade https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2005-08-23
Daily strip for Tuesday 23 August 2005
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Well why didn't they fix the bloody thing in time before Tagon decided throwing himself into a room with a big bomb was the best plan of action?
16:00
(the time-thingtm)
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It was a four-million year old wormgate from Andromeda
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Ah.
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Not exactly the kind of thing you can fix
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Well, maybe if you kicked it...
16:06
...with a sufficiently large boot....
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MarcusAurelius 12/02/2018 4:09 PM
...That if left open would lead to the purging of all baryonic life from the Milky Way
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That's happening anyway.
16:09
Well, they're attempting to do that.
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MarcusAurelius 12/02/2018 4:10 PM
Yeah, but Petey can barely hold the line without a shortcut straight into the galaxy
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True, true.
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So, who are the real bad guys in the Schlockverse?
16:28
i'm not familiar with the whole universe.
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many and varied
16:30
the exitential threat are the Dark Matter Entities from Andromeda
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Where is the anti-Andromeda cannon? (edited)
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they are highly vulnerable to terraports and terraport denial systems, also annie-plants are like beacons reading "COME KILL ME" to them
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What prevents the usage of TDS on the whole of andromeda? haven't we got some magic bullet radiation of some sort that can fry these blobby bastards? (edited)
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no
16:35
also both the milky way and andromeda have giant Zero Point Energy generators in their core
16:36
the andromedan one is much bigger
16:36
so there is a huge energy imbalance which is why Petey is barely holding on
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Thank god petey didn't screw up and break the core (edited)
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