Bay 12 Games Forum

It will overflow, because all that water has to go somewhere. If you want a waterfall into a basin 2 z-levels deep, you could run a drainage pipe out of the lower level of the basin into something that will take the water (aquifer, map edge, everburning bin) going up once before reaching it.

I... didn't think of using fire in that way. That could make a fun sauna/steam generator.

Hmm, wouldn't a singularity level AI use immense amounts of power? It has to get that power from somewhere. How difficult would it be to..hmm.. make the energy source incompatible... like if it uses oil, fucking with the chemical make up so it can't effectively use that as a power source.

Of course you'd probably end up screwing -yourself- in the end if you sabotage every energy source on the planet.

Luckily we're generalists, we can use a !@#$ load of energy sources to live. An AI, no matter how advanced, is limited by 2 basic things: the regress of what is required for progress, and it's energy source.

The first means that it has to follow a type of evolution in order to improve it's own code, as a program that is able think creatively and logically has to have a certain set of rules to do so, and modifying those rules (to  improve them), would require another set of the same rules. The only known way to solve this problem is to let some code die occasionally based off of some criteria, and then putting in some other randomized code to see if it works. that means at any point it likely has a huge amount of code vulnerabilities for virus's to wipe them clean.

the second means that even if you can't just shut it down, you can just starve it to death. Solar energy? sabotage the solar arrays. Heck, It will probably shut off anyways once some rat chews on power cord. Does it use bullets for defense? throw rocks until it's out of bullets (or even gunpowder), then go in and hack at it with an ax. One casualty versus human race, sweet. Or use an explosive, whatever works. If it doesn't use electricity (hahahaha), then there it becomes even easier. A match could destroy an oil rig. The winter would slow down a heat-supported one (enough for you to hack at the pipes again). Even a quantum nuclear reactor, if something were to exist, would require something like space-grown zirconium crystal or something, where even a well-placed grain of sand destroying everything.

Back to "removing the Higgs == FTL travel": my first thought was: what'll keep all the newly massless particles together? I doubt the molecules would remain assembled as the speed of light.

Heat = random variations in kenetic energy (aka velocity) of atoms (not a great description, feel free to elaborate/correct me)
speed of light = (effectively) infinite velocity

so, from the perspective of an atom, traveling at the speed of light is a bit like being superheated, at least as far as interactions with other nearby atoms

Gravity is only one of 4 different forces, and is irrelevant on the atomic scale. Heck, it means significantly less even on the insect scale, where they could happily hold a blob of water the size of themselves without worrying about a cup. The theories that are predicting the Higgs particle, I think they keep all atomic forces intact without gravity.

But what happens when it crashes into something? Since its massless, then the thing it flies into should be entirely unaffected. Hell, wouldnt light break the darn thing apart?

Well, it depends on how bouncy you are. If you stick to the object, then it will absorb all of your energy into motion. That is what happens when we shoot light at a dark object.

 If you are very bouncy, say 100% so, then you would fly back off of the object in teh opposite direction. The human structure would probably collapse like hitting a train (sucks to be that guy), but all your massless material would still exist. The object would actually gain twice your energy into motion, since it's sending you back the way you came. They can do this with high quality mirrors and light for space travel.

As for light breaking it apart, I... think you might be right. A massless object that still has the other fundamental forces would still absorb light, which would mean it absorbes the energy, and moves or changes accordingly. Light hits us now like a wet noodle might, but without mass we are basically wet noodles as well. Verdict? light-speed transportation would be a bitch.
I think that's what the theory guesses anyways, we'll find out more if the higgs exists and if we find it.

My obsession with building everything above ground means that I can't simply make a regular graveyard. I was struggling to think of a good area to build a graveyard, when I realized that using the platforms above the hospital would work just fine. Sure you might say there's something morally questionable about putting a graveyard on top of the hospital. I call that efficiency.

I just got a nice image in my head: floors of remains sitting on engraved plaques. Cataloged bone yard. Future kiloproject (less than mega, bigger than nothing). BTW, you could just dig a hole for a grave, sort've like graveyards are actually like. Sort've like this:
___ ....
__O   /
Where obviously O is a grave, / is a slop, and ... is a hole.

I personally have peasant burial grounds and huge tombs with a watery smiley face. the shift-square (11x11 I think) makes up each one, which I then dig out 3 holes 2 squarsd off the center, and an arch around the back. Later, I fill it with water.

Oh yeah Bill was being a jerk too. And I am probably being biased against the guest too.

I just think it's kinda hard to claim that all religion is a scam and still say you're not insulting anyone.

Yeah, I do agree with that. Of course I don't really know any polite way to put it. Do you know of a polite way of saying "everything you believe is a lie, and a lot of the members of your organization don't believe it"?

That president of that atheist place really came off as a jerk. At least in my opinion.

You're welcome to your opinion, but remember he's facing off against Bill O'Reilly. He could only get in a few words (which he probably practiced saying before he went on the show), and then he had to fight for the entire interview on whether he was insulting people, while he is simultaneously being loudly insulted.

I used to use a steak knife to clean under my keys. It scratched the keyboard a bit, but it allowed me to get EVERYTHING out without worrying about the vacuum sucking up the keys.

I'd suggest not a steak knife for this exact reason. A butter knife is better, and a finger is even better (if you can fit your finger under a key).

If toady does not want to pay for server space to house random gibberish, which gives his site an image he doesn't want, why should he?

It's unfortunate that half the internet is random, raving, gibbering lunacy and trolling. Well, who are we kidding, the vast majority of the internet is porn, but half of the part that isn't porn is crap. I'm sorry but how can anyone argue this isn't a problem given that the internet is expensive. If you think it isn't you're wrong, it's just that you personally aren't currently paying the cost.

I'd agree here, but that's not what toady said, is it?