Random Banter #239 - Now 50% more tangible!

[Lord Raziere]

If anyone is interested, TeamFourStar has started posting DBZA with creator commentary on one of their side channels.

Yeah, that might be a good break in between watching Wh40k lore videos for the Jumpers Vs. 40k freeform game, there is a LOT of lore for that universe, its impressively world-built in its intricacy and how each thing is thought out, there is lot of interesting scenarios I can do just from finding some obscure thing that happened in 40k canon and expanding on the possibility or questioning whether one of the more ridiculous piece of lore as whether its really true or just propaganda that wouldn't work in reality because the great thing about 40k canon is that its all built to be not entirely reliable or completely accurate- there is room to change details of how this or that works without actually breaking the setting because what we know about the setting isn't meant to be examined uncritically.

[Anonymouswizard]

A thought occurred to me. There's a trope about precursors disappearing and leaving information for the 'modern' races to find. But that information is always on computers, and pretty much every major storage medium has been less durable than the one before it. Can we really expect precursor SSDs to work?

Surely what you'd want to do in that situation is something like carving the information into granite or etching it into metal and then putting it into a hermetically sealed chamber.

[Fyraltari]

A thought occurred to me. There's a trope about precursors disappearing and leaving information for the 'modern' races to find. But that information is always on computers, and pretty much every major storage medium has been less durable than the one before it. Can we really expect precursor SSDs to work?

Surely what you'd want to do in that situation is something like carving the information into granite or etching it into metal and then putting it into a hermetically sealed chamber.

In my experience it tends to be weird psychic stuff. But even, they wouldn't be precursors if they didn't have magic superscience, so they could probably design a system that endure in geological time.


That said, there's a pretty funny scene in the last book of the Three-Body Problem where the people trying to archive all of human knowledge in the likely event mankind gets atomized soon run into this exact problem and settle on rock carvings.

[Form]

A thought occurred to me. There's a trope about precursors disappearing and leaving information for the 'modern' races to find. But that information is always on computers, and pretty much every major storage medium has been less durable than the one before it. Can we really expect precursor SSDs to work?

If powered down, cooled to near absolute zero, stored in vacuum and shielded against cosmic rays and magnetic fields then maybe? Of course you can't just leave it sitting out there without any precautions against gradual deterioration of the storage medium over time. Some level of sci-fi handwaving would help and that's probably what a lot of fiction does.

Surely what you'd want to do in that situation is something like carving the information into granite or etching it into metal and then putting it into a hermetically sealed chamber.

I remember reading about a plan to mark sites of nuclear wastes using information engraved on gold discs to warn off possible future, but less technologically advanced humans along with making the overall area as unappealing as possible with lots of ugly, jagged rock formations. It's also a really cool example of turning something mundane (toxic waste) into this mythical, cursed area with all kinds of legends being told about it in surrounding villages.

That said, there's a pretty funny scene in the last book of the Three-Body Problem where the people trying to archive all of human knowledge in the likely event mankind gets atomized soon run into this exact problem and settle on rock carvings.

I'm nearly at the end of The Three-Body Problem:

Spoiler

Show

Some of the members of the ETO strike me as absolutely delusional for thinking the Trisolarans will solve mankind's problems. It's like 1. Invite Trisolaran invasion force. 2. ???. 3. Everything is better now!

The Adventists in the ETO want the Trisolarans to wipe out mankind, so they seem to have a better understanding of how contact with them will turn out. It's still a pretty major assumption on Evans' part to think that the Trisolarans will treat Earths non-human species any better, though. Alternatively, he is aware he's gambing with their future as well, but thinks it's worth the risk because he's completely written off humanity.

[Fyraltari]

I'm nearly at the end of The Three-Body Problem:

Spoiler

Show

Some of the members of the ETO strike me as absolutely delusional for thinking the Trisolarans will solve mankind's problems. It's like 1. Invite Trisolaran invasion force. 2. ???. 3. Everything is better now!

The Adventists in the ETO want the Trisolarans to wipe out mankind, so they seem to have a better understanding of how contact with them will turn out. It's still a pretty major assumption of Evans' part to think that the Trisolarans will treat Earths non-human species any better, though. Alternatively, he is aware he's gambing with their future as well, but thinks it's worth the risk because he's completely written off humanity.

These people just aren't very bright.

[Lord Raziere]

A thought occurred to me. There's a trope about precursors disappearing and leaving information for the 'modern' races to find. But that information is always on computers, and pretty much every major storage medium has been less durable than the one before it. Can we really expect precursor SSDs to work?

Surely what you'd want to do in that situation is something like carving the information into granite or etching it into metal and then putting it into a hermetically sealed chamber.

Well, yes probably but the problem is there is only so much information you can put on something like that. if say the precursors want to say, leave the knowledge of how to reconstruct a bunch of advanced tech to make sure civilization can rebuild itself to their heights, it'd be incredibly impractical to put the information on such tablets due to the vast amount of information in science, technology and so on it would involve.

though really, from what I can see the issue is never really brought up; most works just outright ignore it and reveal far more than just mere messages as surviving- entire ruins and structures and ancient super weapons and so on. the assumption being that somehow they just....survived somehow. and since no one knows how this tech works, no one knows how they engineered around erosion and decay either. is it magical? yes. but as they say.....sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, and precursors like these, are always by definition sufficiently advanced in any story they come up in.

[factotum]

In the Arthur C. Clarke short story "The Star" the ancient race put their vault of information on the furthest planet in their solar system, marked with a continent-wide pattern of radioactive elements. Although he doesn't specify what the storage mechanism used actually inside the vault is...

[Jasdoif]

A thought occurred to me. There's a trope about precursors disappearing and leaving information for the 'modern' races to find. But that information is always on computers, and pretty much every major storage medium has been less durable than the one before it. Can we really expect precursor SSDs to work?

Surely what you'd want to do in that situation is something like carving the information into granite or etching it into metal and then putting it into a hermetically sealed chamber.

A good part of that durability progression is going to depend on whether you're talking about persistent storage or not, tapes and floppy discs were much less resilient than optical disks, and maybe even books* depending on what we're worried about.

Anyway, something that came readily to mind is some paper I saw long ago, proposing to maintain a binary state inside a quantum computer by entangling a set of quantum bits such that a single quantum bit changing state would be naturally corrected without affecting the overall state of the collection. Which I guess is a long roundabout way of getting to "a physically self-healing medium could outlast physical deformation on a solid surface". You could still use your hermetic vault; and if the explicit intent is to keep this data available, using RAID to repurpose storage as reliability in case of larger physical medium problems is an obvious approach (and if it's specifically mirroring across more than two drives, it could even be usable by whoever stumbles across the thing not knowing what it is).

The other issue to consider is the drive that reads the medium; I imagine the granite drive is going to more of a bottleneck than the granite medium, no matter how much it literally rocks. It was similar in Farscape; Crichton recorded his diary/messages to his father on a boring-even-at-the-time magnetic audio cassette, presumably because none of the hyper-advanced technology on the other side of the wormhole would involve media remotely usable if he ever managed to get his NASA IASA test space module back on Earth.

---

*

A nonvolatile storage medium. They're very rare. You should 'ave one.

[halfeye]

I remember reading many years ago about long life cd/DVD type media, they were claiming to have disks capable of lasting a thousand years, I'm not sure whether you needed a special writer, I would guess you would, but I don't remember that.

[Anonymouswizard]

A friend suggested laser etching diamond, which seems like the most reasonable realistic suggestion.


Also writing roadblock clear, I finally decided on the name of my main character's flatmate! Now if I only had a clue for her girlfriend...

It'll mainly depend on what her nationality ends up being. That flits around every week at the moment, and I've got a few chapters to decide.

[Keltest]

A friend suggested laser etching diamond, which seems like the most reasonable realistic suggestion.


Also writing roadblock clear, I finally decided on the name of my main character's flatmate! Now if I only had a clue for her girlfriend...

It'll mainly depend on what her nationality ends up being. That flits around every week at the moment, and I've got a few chapters to decide.

Elisabeth. She's Irish and everybody associates her with England and it drives her up the wall.



More seriously, when choosing between multiple good options, make a decision arbitrarily and then dont look back. Its harder to second guess yourself if theres no basis for your decision in the first place to reconsider. Pull stuff out of a hat or something if you need a truly random arbiter.

[HalfTangible]

Yeah, that might be a good break in between watching Wh40k lore videos for the Jumpers Vs. 40k freeform game, there is a LOT of lore for that universe, its impressively world-built in its intricacy and how each thing is thought out, there is lot of interesting scenarios I can do just from finding some obscure thing that happened in 40k canon and expanding on the possibility or questioning whether one of the more ridiculous piece of lore as whether its really true or just propaganda that wouldn't work in reality because the great thing about 40k canon is that its all built to be not entirely reliable or completely accurate- there is room to change details of how this or that works without actually breaking the setting because what we know about the setting isn't meant to be examined uncritically.

Jumpers ?

[Anonymouswizard]

Elisabeth. She's Irish and everybody associates her with England and it drives her up the wall.



More seriously, when choosing between multiple good options, make a decision arbitrarily and then dont look back. Its harder to second guess yourself if theres no basis for your decision in the first place to reconsider. Pull stuff out of a hat or something if you need a truly random arbiter.

When she actually appears I'll use whatever nationality I'm currently thinking of for her and change it in editing if it doesn't feel write.

Also why would anybody associate her with England when the series takes place in London? (The 'sequel' series will move around the UK beginning in the town I grew up in.) Fnar fnar put the kettle on my good chap, tally-ho!

@HalfTangible: I believe in the US they're known as 'sweaters' fnar fnar

[Rater202]

Jumpers ?

You know how I mention Jumpchain every so often?

Jumper is the term for someone on a chain.

Raz is hosting a game in the free form section involving multiple jumpers getting dropped in Warhammer 40k without warning.

...I think I might have gone overboard on power level with mine though.

[Keltest]

When she actually appears I'll use whatever nationality I'm currently thinking of for her and change it in editing if it doesn't feel write.

Also why would anybody associate her with England when the series takes place in London? (The 'sequel' series will move around the UK beginning in the town I grew up in.) Fnar fnar put the kettle on my good chap, tally-ho!

@HalfTangible: I believe in the US they're known as 'sweaters' fnar fnar

I dunno. Cause she's Irish and it would be amusing? It wasnt really meant to be a serious suggestion.

[Anonymouswizard]

I dunno. Cause she's Irish and it would be amusing? It wasnt really meant to be a serious suggestion.

Ah, I thought this was just supposed to be Americans taking 'Scotland is part of England' to another level.

For the record Scotland isn't part of England. Yet. We're a bit too busy lusting after France

[Fyraltari]

Ah, I thought this was just supposed to be Americans taking 'Scotland is part of England' to another level.

For the record Scotland isn't part of England. Yet. We're a bit too busy lusting after France

You are aware that if you invade the Scots again, we are legally bound to get all up in your business again, aren't you?

[Keltest]

Ah, I thought this was just supposed to be Americans taking 'Scotland is part of England' to another level.

For the record Scotland isn't part of England. Yet. We're a bit too busy lusting after France

Indeed. And Ireland is not part of Scotland yet that I'm aware of.

[Rater202]

So my town does a cardboard regatta every august.

Back in 2019 my stepfather and uncle entered a boat and won but never got the certificate, trophy, or prize money.

They were somehow declared the winners this year despite not entering.

[Lord Raziere]

Clearly your stepfather and uncle somehow became Luigi Rater, because they won by doing absolutely nothing, and previously won but never got any recognition for it.

[enderlord99]

Luigi Rater

I rate Luigi a perfect 5/7

[Rater202]

Clearly your stepfather and uncle somehow became Luigi Rater, because they won by doing absolutely nothing, and previously won but never got any recognition for it.

Considering that neither of them have made well over half a billion dollars in a single night, I'm gonna say no.

[Keltest]

Considering that neither of them have made well over half a billion dollars in a single night, I'm gonna say no.

Well obviously they will eventually, they just need to wait for their more visible brother Mario Rater to be kidnapped by a vengeful ghost king first.

[enderlord99]

Here's a potential lone to include in a novel or movie or what-have-you:

"I would say it was held together with superglue and good intentions, but the glue isn't exactly 'super' and the intentions are more... morally grey."

[Jasdoif]

Here's a potential lone to include in a novel or movie or what-have-you:

"I would say it was held together with superglue and good intentions, but the glue isn't exactly 'super' and the intentions are more... morally grey."

I think I've read something similar, actually....

"It's barely held together with spit and chewing gum."
"I believe their term is 'threads and wishes'."
"Okay, then it's holding on by a thread."

[Anonymouswizard]

You are aware that if you invade the Scots again, we are legally bound to get all up in your business again, aren't you?

Like we needed a reason to fight you. Is it our turn to invade this time, or do I have to learn to build a barricade?


I've heard and come up with a lot of good lines, the issue is that they need to be in context and need to be the right length not to break flow. You can't have the main character recite a Shakespearian speech while skydiving, or speak in single syllables throughout the entire date (unless you're E.L. James).

[Form]

I've heard and come up with a lot of good lines, the issue is that they need to be in context and need to be the right length not to break flow. You can't have the main character recite a Shakespearian speech while skydiving, or speak in single syllables throughout the entire date (unless you're E.L. James).

A good line can also be used to great effect to break the flow on purpose for dramatic effect or as a deliberate stylistic choice if you think it fits.

[tyckspoon]

Like we needed a reason to fight you. Is it our turn to invade this time, or do I have to learn to build a barricade?


I've heard and come up with a lot of good lines, the issue is that they need to be in context and need to be the right length not to break flow. You can't have the main character recite a Shakespearian speech while skydiving, or speak in single syllables throughout the entire date (unless you're E.L. James).

Nonsense, it is well known that time pauses while soliloquizing.

[Metastachydium]

Nonsense, it is well known that time pauses while soliloquizing.

Or, at the very least, people start autofailing their Listen checks for as long as it is convenient for you.

[Rater202]

does anyone know of the earliest known example of a "sandwich?"

I know the story of the name, after the Earl of Sandwich who according to legend asked for some meat stuffed between two slices of bread so he wouldn't have to worry about getting his playing cards greasy *or* stop in the middle of a hot streak but I also know that the concept of eating stewed meat poured over a slab of bread had been a thing in Europe for a good long while before that.

...I want to say that we've probably had sandwiches for as long as we've had bread, which was circa 8000 BC in Egypt, but I know very much that sometimes things you think are obvious things that everyone figured out early on... weren't.