Random Questions Thread

I say, go polar. "Up" is away from the sun, "down" is toward the sun. So one man's "up" is another man's "down", if they were 180 degrees across from each other.

Which works with Earth as well.

(Of course, the downside is that the sun is always going to beneath you as opposed to above you.)

edited 30th Jan '14 1:36:49 PM by SabresEdge

Charlie Stross's cheerful, optimistic predictions for 2017, part one of three.

One completely arbitrary point of reference for direction that's exactly as good as yours.

So, care to rephrase?

Nous restons ici.

In your last post you pointed out that one completely arbitrary point of reference for direction wasn't exactly as good as another one.

edited 30th Jan '14 2:17:36 PM by m8e

So, lets say hypothetically that an alien species evolved without opposable thumbs.

What would their technology look like?

Oh really when?

I don't think you actually understand what this means.

I further don't think you understand why I pointed out they flip: as an illustration that it's an arbitrary way of deciding.

That you think because they flip it is a somehow less-useful way of deciding up-down than any other is, bluntly, a personal conceit rather than a reflection of any objective reality, given the scale of time over which this actually occurs.

Once again: do you wish to rephrase?

edited 30th Jan '14 2:55:40 PM by Night

Nous restons ici.

Using the accepted commonly accepted standard for orienting rotating planes in mathematics, physics, and other sciences is not arbitrary. The initial convention may have been, but that's irrelevant. It works, and it keeps things consistent.

Edit: in fairness, this only applies if one wishes to use Cartesian coordinates. For polar coordinates, Sabres Edge has it right. But the question of whether to use Cartesian or polar depends upon the specific situation. Actually, posted that a bit early, and then my phone died. Ironically forgot space is not flat — so you'd need cylindrical or spherical coordinates. Still necessitating an establishment of "down" — or, more accurately, the points where z or φ are negative, even if you're calling -r "down". But that's getting technical I suppose.

edited 30th Jan '14 4:13:25 PM by KillerClowns

Assuming their hands are more or less the same as thumbless human hands, they might not have much in the way of tech at all.

"Jack, you have debauched my sloth."

Right. It depends completely on what their appendages look like.

I was just sort of imagining a cute little bit at the Alien UN building or whatever and having one alien completely fascinated by the idea that humans have opposable thumbs.

So what would alien species be doing without them? Tentacles or something?

Oh really when?

What is the distinct difference between polytheism, paganism, animism, shamanism, and druidism?

"Somehow the hated have to walk a tightrope, while those who hate do not."

Tentacles are a great possibility. Just look at the elephant and octopus. Actually I'm writing a story right now with elephant-like aliens who assume that you need a trunk in order to develop advanced technology, since how else would you manipulate tools?

Blind Final Fantasy 6 Let's Play

What sort of antibacterial agent for ingesting might believably be in a New Zealand home or bought without prescription from a pharmacy?

If you mean antibiotics, they're prescription-only in New Zealand, just like in the United States and a lot of other countries.

"Jack, you have debauched my sloth."

Right. Sorry, I got completely muddled - yes I did mean antibiotics. Thanks.

What is government of a small American town like? What does the mayor actually do all day?

Blind Final Fantasy 6 Let's Play

His secretary.

But no really he sort of manages things, presides over events, makes budgets.

Writes town ordinances and the like.

Oh really when?

I thought the deputy mayor did everything.

edited 30th Jan '14 11:55:00 PM by m8e

Im creating a Superhero. The hero in question is trapped in a cyber suit, and can't get out. He tries, but can't. He has night vision googles in his helmet, but can't turn them off.

Its dangerous to use the night vision googles for long periods of time? I don't want my character to go blind.

To win, you need to adapt, and to adapt, you need to be able to laugh away all the restraints. Everything holding you back.

Ah, I get it. It's because females — due to pregnancy and nursing of newborn offsprings — would be overall much more affected by such conditions than males, and thus would have to be prioritized over males when it comes to food rationing to avoid the population's extinction.

The only problem is that my current conception of this Amazon race has them retain the traditional female role of motherly caring for offspring — which, of course, left me puzzled as to what role would males play in this Amazonian society, aside from mobile sperm banks.

Like I said before, "most cases that I know of animal species where females are the physically dominant sex also has them as the ones who do most if not all caring and nurturing of the offspring."

EDIT: Transplanting to General Writer's Block thread. I just realized that Random Questions Thread isn't really the place for questions that require non-short dicussions to answer.

You might be better off asking this here, actually. That's where I usually go when I want answers about such topics, anyway.

edited 31st Jan '14 8:17:24 AM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Yeah, it'll really fuck up your eyes when used in bright light.

As for prolonged use in what I'm assuming are nice dark conditions? I don't know actually

Oh really when?

Storyeller: define "small." There's a lot of legal townships in my (current) home state of less than a hundred people. In those cases, "the Mayor" is basically a side job for someone else, who also has a day job.

Care to elaborate on that?

My latest Trope page: Shapeshifting Failure

Question for those with film knowledge!

Okay, you know how your favorite Youtube stars where if you go back and look at their old videos, it looks "cheap" and the video quality might not be *bad* per se, but it does look "cheap" like a Funniest Home Videos type of way (although obviously some of them not *as* cheap)

However, recent vids it looks more "professional" and not as "cheap" looking, you get what I mean?

Is this a camera trick or something done post editing, a new camera? Because this is something I find consistent across the board for a variety of live action YT channels.

New Survey coming this weekend!

In general, the increase in quality is due to better, closer-to-professional-quality equipment, which can include not only cameras, microphones, and lights, but also video editing software such as Final Cut Pro capable of editing HD video with minimal loss in detail.

If it was simply a camera trick, nobody looking to make a You Tube channel would have particularly bad-looking videos. Few Youtubers start out with nice-looking videos because they aren't popular and there's little point to spending potentially thousands of dollars for pretty-looking videos that nobody watches. Think of it as the icing on the video content cake.

"Jack, you have debauched my sloth."

What could a cigar made in hell be made of?