The F Plus - 280: For A Better Slearth

Episode Date: May 24, 2018

Of the many Stack Exchange communities out there, the brave souls at the Worldbuilding Stack Exchange are the ones working tirelessly to solve the very dumbest of problems. Got a problem with your fictional alternate reality universe? Logistics you want to work through? Poorly drawn metaphors you want to hammer home with Hard Science? Let's waste our time together. This week, The F Plus asks what is a hat.

All right, Jimmy Franks, can you give me a little bit more Neil, please? Money talks. And it don't take a shower or take a walk. Don't know the words to this one. Here with me. I wonder if I've ever heard this song. I wouldn't have any no, any indication. Together in blue jeans.

Waking up early. Yeah. Gotta get to the post office Oh, forgot my bus pass, babe I'll call you later Today Hello, players. You've entered the realm of the F+. It's an imaginative place for terrible things read with enthusiasm, and I'll stop using this voice pretty soon.

In the room tonight, we have Boots Reingear. Would trams be workable in the low-gravity world? Jimmy Franks. How do people wash dishes before dishwashing liquid? Nutshell Gulag! Why does the ISS need thermal blankets if the sun is hot? Your friend on the internet, and his name is

Adam Bozarth. Has Captain America ever been an ape monkey? And Lemon. How do I prevent players from breaking the rules of the game? You see, they invented the dishwashing liquid first and then needed to figure out what a dish was.

Oh, yeah. It's called Rock's Fall. Everybody dies. Hey, F-Plus. Hello, Lemon. Hello, Ben. Hello, Ben. Hey, would you folks like to expand your knowledge? Boy, howdy.

Mm-hmm. Okay. Always. I am a student of life. Ooh. And your knowledge. Boy, howdy. Okay. Always. I am a student of life. I'm a student for a for-profit college, and I'm $250,000 in debt. Well, that's kind of your fault. I mean, you really should have thought about that going in. That's what you get for wanting an education.

Ugh, sucker. I'm going to introduce us to a document given to us actually about two years ago now. This was a document provided to us by... Elephant! Provided to us by an elephant? No, it's dusty in here. That was comedy. Oh, it's dusty in here. That was comedy. Oh, that was comedy. It's a sound effect.

Remember how you guys were doing sound effects? Yeah, I do remember that. Come on, fucking guy. Come on, fucking guys. Hang on, hang on. We got Michael Winslow in here. You want me to press the button that does that? It's not going to work.

Today I want to introduce us to a document that was provided to us about two years ago or so by Zeka. And this document is entitled Stack Exchange Explains It All. Okay. It's not just by Zeca, though. Oh, you're right. You're right. This document was curated by Zeca, but then

edited by SmogFucker69. I wonder if he has an agent for this as well. There's like a whole publishing team behind it. The desolation of SmogFucker69. They're all lizard themed. I think he came pre-desolated. Yeah, so this is a document all about a stack exchange. If you are a programmer, I would say about, or at least in my case, I would say about two hours of my life every day at work is I don't know how to do this thing in JavaScript.

Type in the thing I'm trying to do, then copy-paste the shit from Stack Exchange. but lemon before people tune out as a layman what i want to know is what i want to know is is this episode going to be stupid enough for me oh well that's that's a great question um the first category uh that zeka has here um is he's titled normal stupid oh good oh so oh man that stack exchange is Stack Exchange has many different categories. It is not just for technical stuff. It's also for creative support, I guess.

You can also, like me, if you want to go, like, how do you draw eyes on a cartoon, you can look up on Stack Exchange how to do that, too. Well, you can also look it up on Wiki exchange how to do that too well you can also look it up on wiki how but then you get the wrong instructions exactly so so if you're also trying to you know build a world in your sci-fi or fantasy novel or um you know whatever it is the right instructions this is where you would go this is stack exchange Yeah, yeah, yeah. So here we are in Stack Exchange World Building.

And Adam, your name is An-a-un-wime. An-a-um-me. Something like that. And you have a question. It's An-anime. It is An-anime. It is. My own-a-me.

So you have a question you want to pose to us, won't you? I plan to make an RPG setting. Oh, wait. What's your question, though? What's your question? Oh, okay. Birds can mind control everyone. What will happen to humans?

They can. They can. Okay. You know, he's just asking the question we've all been thinking. I've played this game. The one with the pigeons, right? What will happen to the humans? asking the question we've all been thinking.

I've played this game. The one with the pigeons, right? What will happen to the humans? I plan to make an RPG setting, and I want it to be as credible as possible. By that I mean I want to be able to explain everything with science without cheating. Okay, but then there's the part where birds can mind control everyone.

Yeah. I want to make a science fiction game without the fiction. Oh, okay. Statistically not likely, but possible scenarios are accepted as long as there is no absolute contradiction with things we know not being possible. There's a lot of contradiction in that sentence, but okay. Yeah, that makes complete sense. In this setting, some bird species have grown an organ that emits special brain waves. When any animal, human included, receive these waves, they override its own and it loses control of itself. At first, birds were not particularly intelligent, but this ability made them able

to give orders such as feed me or protect me. In a way subtle enough that it was not discovered by humans before it was too late. Yup. Okay.

So everyone's following along sure we are yep no questions okay when the game takes place the birds rule the world since centuries keeping many humans as slaves free humans survive free humans survive now I want this to be as credible to science as possible. Science fact. Hard science fiction. Free humans survive by living in places where birds can't go, like

caves and tunnels. Birds are afraid of the dark. Some the top of very high mountains Where you need an oxygen supply Space stations, etc. Okay

Quick! Into the rocket! Quiet! I think you shouldn't go into the rocket Okay, so yeah, the birds are our sentient overlords, but they haven't figured out how to get in our spaceships. Yep. They're just a puppet as well.

Human mutated, and as there is no more anything like globalization, they separated in different species. What do you think would be would be a realistic gap of time for this setting to a core assuming the psychic birds appear tomorrow oh uh 20 xx i think at least two or three hours wow birds are very efficient they are is there a way to explain that despite the difference in structure between different human brains everyone can be targeted and there is nothing such as immunity to psychic waves quote unquote yeah it's called i am the gm and i say so i'm i'm playing so it's not it's not psychic powers that you need to justify it's that the concept of nobody being immune to psychic powers that's the thing you need

to justify i need to justify that and they need to know when is a proper amount of time for birds to evolve the commanding organ in their brains that enslaves humanity. I also like how they evolve the ability to push thoughts before they had thoughts to push. Yes.

Just like, oh, reflection. Yes, exactly. Destroy all mirrors. Now, yeah, I really want to make sure this is perfect because I play RPGs with a bunch of bird specialists that I don't want to get made fun of. There's a bunch of answers, and boy, they're lengthy. Really not interesting enough to make up for that length. So we're going to go to the next thread. Nutshell.

I've learned several things in this podcast, and that one of them is that a kitsune is like a human-foxed hybrid anime Japanese thing? Is that right? Yep. Okay. It's just a fox. Oh, okay. It's an evil, evil fox spirit that likes to take the form of buxom young women in anime everywhere. All right, I see it.

I mean, who doesn't, really? You can. You might as well. All right. I'm JetLef. And I have a question. How would a kitsune conceal her presence

in a city? Suppose you have a kitsune. Ari from League of Legends is a perfect example of what I have in mind, who loves to roam near human cities. More specifically, the story is set in Russia. She has visible non-human features,

her ears and tail. Everything else is anatomically the same. How would she conceal them in order to approach humans without raising suspicion? You might object that she doesn't have to conceal herself if she's so good at running away. I'd say that if she's caught multiple times, people will get wary slash curious

about her, and she'd lose her prize and anonymity which is necessary to observe people closely I hate this person already What jobs could she do? This is probably the most sheltered person I've ever heard of who's like, Deerstack Exchange, what's a hat? Deer Stack Exchange, what's a hat? It may be useful to point out that she's considered quite attractive.

Before you suggest modeling, I'd like to point out that she isn't afraid to be naked, but she's loathed by the idea that people would lust after her. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. I loathe that, too. Yeah. I mean, this is just an off the cuff hypothetical I haven't spent years of my life thinking about this

I don't try to share this on some sort of forum can we take a very brief break here and just take a look on the right side under linked articles there's a title of one that just says the role of anthropomorphic foxes in a medievalieval Army. The front lines.

The front lines. Nice. Also related with 120 upvotes, a most subtle magic. Also, mermaid land combat. Oh, oh, this is not. Oh, no. Oh, no. All right. Sorry. Oh, no. Oh, no. All right.

Sorry. Continue. No. It's okay. How does she go about her daily life? She can't bare her head in a public place and is reluctant to do so even in a private area with few people. Say, how could she get her hair styled? She's proud of her appearance, but not to a narcissistic degree.

How could she get her hair styled? She's proud of her appearance, but not to a narcissistic degree. Would she just wait until the hairdresser has served the last customer and is about to close so that she's alone and she'd show her ears to less people? Would she be able to live like that? Would she be able to live like this? She'll find a human companion that takes her in eventually, which makes her life easier. But still, until then, how long do you think she'd be able to go on? Thanks in advance uh she'd be able to live like that or would she be able to live like this

how can i live like this the responses go on for a while and then they're like whoa what about uh you know uh japanese mythology and then they're like what about judeo-christian mythology and then uh lauren petchell just-Christian mythology and then Lauren Petchel just closed it out with yeah a burka would work fine hey I'm Philip I don't play League of Legends and I have no idea what a kitsune is

but many of the pictures I found with Google images depict an anthropomorphic woman with bluish skin and yellow eyes is the skin and eye color of your character also unusual? I think he accidentally googled that lady from the X-Men instead. So, yeah, I'm going to move on to a thread here.

By the way, Worldbuilding Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for writers slash artists using science, geography, and culture to construct imaginary worlds and settings. Join them. It only takes a minute. So this thread has been closed.

I do not understand why this thread has been closed. But Jimmy Franks, what do you want to talk about here? You opened the thread. What are we going to talk about here? You opened the thread. Is how to heat your house by being naughty. All right. I have a few ideas. This is Eric Phillips.

Assume that Santa Claus gives out gold to more than just children for being naughty. Also assume that the amount given is proportional, in some way, to the amount of naughtiness one can do legally.

How naughty does one have to be to heat an average house in a mildly climate region? Fuck your premise. Just a mildly climate region? Fuck your premise. Sometimes we get weather. Eric, your mom and I didn't want to tell you this, but there's something you need to know about Santa.

Oh, yeah. Boots, what do you got oh i'm uh yeah i am what rough beast oh no you don't first you say amount given is proportional in some way but you don't give the naughtiness conversion coefficient? Or NCC. Then you ask for what is essentially a numeric answer, despite the fact that you also have not specified house size or insulation values. Your question is extremely naughty in itself. Pedantry is naughty. I'm the anathema.

Pedantry is naughty. I'm the anathema. Let's assume from this that the average square footage of a home is 12,500 feet. We'll be a little relaxed for the sake of calculations and increase the average by a tad. In order to raise a 50 by 50 by 10 houses temperature from average winter temperature of 30 degrees Fahrenheit or negative 1 degree Celsius to 70 degrees Fahrenheit or 21 degrees Celsius, you're so welcome for converting that for you, which is a comfortable room temperature. You need 72,000 BTUs an hour or 21,101 watts. No. BTUs an hour or 21,101 watts. No. With hard coal, anthracite, at 13,000 BTU a pound,

that comes out to requiring 5.5 pounds of coal, which require exactly 5.5 NTU or naughty thermal units. We are so naughty. Now we're finally on Stack Exchange. Now it feels like Stack Exchange. You know, there's a much easier naughty way to heat up your house.

What way is that? Fuckin'. Oh, I was gonna say matches, but... That's naughty, too. Fucking with matches. One of the related articles to this is, can urine be used for radiation shielding?

Only one way to find out. Okay. So, as I said, section number one was called Normal Stupid. Section number two is called Stupid Stupid. So, Boots, your name is Arathi Angosi. Arathi Angosi. What's wrong with stack exchange names? Do you think maybe they're maybe they're algorithmically generated?

Are they anagrams? Algorithmically. No, there's a randomizer. It just takes your name and spits out some weird shit for privacy. Oh, okay. So it's like base64 encoded usernames. Do we stay on worldbuilding for pretty much the whole thing? I think so, yeah.

Okay, that's fun. That's fun. I like this. How can a shapeshifted jaguar... Sorry, what was my name again? That thing. Arte Angosi. Your thing is vowels.

Yeah. My name is... How can a shapeshifted jaguar perform a blood transfusion on a dying person? I don't know. How can a shapeshifted jaguar perform a blood transfusion on a dying person? Why don't we go ask Lowell K. Hamilton? It's that riddle from Alice in Wonderland that doesn't have an answer. It does have an answer.

We're starting off with a parenthetical here. Yeah. I am not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV. My assumptions below are based on reading Wikipedia, so they're very likely to be incorrect. Any corrections are welcome. Okay. So there's this woman who's been injured and is bleeding out. Our hero's with her, but there's no one else around to help.

After putting pressure on the wound, he wants to give blood to her and stabilize her, or at least buy her enough time to get real help. The catch is, he's currently in the form of a jaguar and cannot change back to a human in time. Well, there's your problem, ma'am. You're dating a manimal. back to a human at time. Well, there's your problem, ma'am. You're dating a manimal.

You're going to have to call a CBS script writer immediately. He has all his normal human intelligence, but he has paws instead of hands, and he doesn't exactly have any IV tubing with him anyway. So, two questions. One, how could one do a field blood transfusion while in the form of a jaguar? You can't. Next question. Great.

Two, I know that a single donor couldn't cure serious blood loss, but could it be enough to get her to a less serious stage of blood loss so that she has a chance of survival in a hospital setting. Please ignore the very real risk of transfusions with animal blood. Can we ignore the rest of the two then? If you can transform into a jaguar, why can't your blood transform into human blood when you put it into a lady? Hey, that's a great question.

That's fucking stupid. Make the lady into a jaguar. Hey, that's a stupid question. That's fucking stupid. Make the lady into a weird jaguar. Hey, that's a stupid question. When I'm turning into a jaguar, my blood's turning into jaguar blood, idiot. Anyway, the overall plot point is to get jaguar blood into the woman's system. Something that I can't imagine occurring outside of some very dire circumstance, like above. But if you can imagine another scenario. And I can't imagine occurring outside of some very dire circumstance like above. But if you can imagine another scenario. How about where Jaguar donates blood to a blood transfusion drive and somebody gets it accidentally?

How about that? That's way more interesting. Do you like it? Do you like it? That might be pretty good. Okay. But the topic's closed, so we'll find out what happens at the comments, maybe. Or maybe just ignore that and go to the next one.

Who knows? Edit. I have an edit. I want to read this fucking edit. Pass. Does it change anyone's opinion if the woman is herself a doctor? Low-tech, typical fantasy environment with supplies say, could she recognize

that her bleeding was going to get serious soon? So before that, she started the transfusion herself. The first transfusions were in the 1600s. What equipment did they use then? Like dirty equipment.

That didn't work. My name is Loren Petchtel. Why are you assuming there's nobody else to help? I think it would be much easier if you had a situation where you have three people. The victim and the were-dragoir and a doctor. Okay. Transport is available and it doesn't matter if the were-jaguar is weakened

with blood loss. It doesn't matter if the doctor is thus weakened, though. Thus, the jaguar can give more blood than the doctor could. Whoo! In a nutshell? Yeah.

You got Clara. Clara! Clara! Yeah You got Clara Clara Third person doctor helper Is a non-biological person robot Or a sapient non-mammal

Or a human With a very serious bloodborne Infection Or some blood toxicity thing All very good reasons not to use their own blood. What were they helping?

Blood. Just like blood passing forth. This is Henry Taylor. Reducing your scenario to its barest facts, you're trying to get the jaguar's blood into the woman. Presumably with the intention of infecting her with feline lycanthropy.

Why doesn't he just tear his paw with his teeth and then press his new wound to either her mouth or her wounds? I know that that makes his act of infecting her deliberate, and I sense that you would prefer that it be an accident. It gets your characters from where they are to where you want them to be. Where do you want them to be? Why does this plot point exist? I specifically don't want that. I want the blood to be clean when it goes in the lady. I think you've heard of a little thing called the hero's journey.

All right. Now, ultimately, the cat could just lick the woman's wounds and attempt to clean them or just to comfort its dying mate. Now, this would be in character for a big cat, so it might be more instinctual than rational. Again, it would get some of the jaguar DNA into the woman's bloodstream. The problem is that this magic isn't actually shape-shifting but rather possession i thought that aspect wouldn't be important to the question but clearly i misjudged how dare you hold back on us my apologies so he's only controlling the jaguar his human body is elsewhere not nearby then why does your title say how can a shape-ifted Jaguar perform a blood transfusion on a dying person? Oops. Shapeshifted into the Jaguar.

That's what the means. You shapeshift into things. Yeah, but when I shapeshift into something, I just discard the body that I'm also currently in. I'm still there. Block done. Slough it off. This is Henry Taylor again. Possession, not shapeshifting?

Oh, in that case, it's easy. Just kidding. It is still impossible. But it does leave you with a rather interesting opportunity. Have your jaguar-possessing wizard relinquish his hold on the jaguar to the wounded woman. Have him pull her soul out of her dying body and affix it to the perfectly healthy jaguar body. She gets to survive as a human intellect jaguar, and together they go off in search of an unoccupied human female body

for her to move into. It doesn't work that way. The machine doesn't work that way. Q.E.D. I just expected to come back. He's like, no, I don't want the lady to be a jaguar. I just want her to be full of jaguar blood. Where am I going to find an empty lady?

Okay, we're moving on to a new thread. And my name is Triptoplex. Sorry, I read ahead. Yeah, Jimmy Franks, I'm looking for a plausible explanation for a lack of reflection in a mirror. Absolutely. This is a serious matter. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

Please, go ahead. Go ahead, Trictoplax. Yeah. You have the floor. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Please, go ahead. Go ahead, Schick. Help me. Schick to Plax. Yeah. You have the floor. Yeah, okay. In many vampire stories, the vampires do not have a reflection in the mirror. This is generally not explained beyond simply being a supernatural phenomenon.

Is there any plausible way for something to be visible directly but invisible with a mirror? Oh, is this George Lucas? I've spent 20 years on this shit. It's the other guy from Mythbusters. Is there any way that we can make a mirror that you can't be reflected in, Adam? I don't know, man. I think we should give it a shot. Even with magic as the explanation,

there still seems to be opportunities and I'm doing Jamie for inconsistencies or at least odd consequences. Imagine someone crouching to drink from a pool and a vampire leaning over them. Will there be a shadow cast into the water? Or will this person just see a shadow on the bank that abruptly stops at the water's edge?

Not only do you not have reflection you just don't okay it's just like difference between a shadow and a reflection how how how can i design the rules so that they are in keeping with the familiar vampire mythology and still self-consistent when exploring consequences. Oh, self-consistent. Yeah, I want to make mythological beings, but without the, like, mysticism of it, that's stupid. I don't want to make shit up. This is Henry Taylor again. Mirrors reflect

the visible light which is bounced off of the objects in front of it. Perhaps a vampire absorbs all visible light that hits it, but emits a currently unknown form of energy which excites a human optic nerve, much like visible light does, but is absorbed and not reflected by silver. If all of this were true, modern mirrors and standing water might show a vampire's reflection, while an old-fashioned

silver-backed mirror, and maybe a video camera, wouldn't. Putting a poetic spin on the light-absorbing properties of a vampiric corpse, you might say that the hungry spirit which animates the flesh eats the light in the same way it drinks human blood.

Yeah, that's so much more interesting than damned by God. Yeah, you're right. Empire bodies love light. I just feel compelled to answer questions. Just eat it up, yeah. Phillip with two Ps. Nutshell, if you'll take that one, please.

In a high-tech world, mirrors could be obsolete and replaced with smart 3D screens, which show a reflection of the environment. When such a screen displays a human, it identifies the person and projects some information about them around the reflection in the form of floating text panels. Charlie Brookery, you've done it again! Due to a quirk in the biometric recognition system, it doesn't recognize vampires as humans, so they might show in the mirror screen,

but the lack of information panels around them gives them away. The inability of vampires to trigger biometric sensors could also be used to transfer other common vampire weaknesses into a futuristic scenario, like... Being unable to enter a building unless being invited. Doors just won't open for them, so they always need to follow other people. The inability to cross running water. All bridges over rivers are biometric checkpoints, so vampires cannot pass them without being identified.

Being unable to enter churches. without being identified. Being unable to enter churches. When entering a church, the biometric system recognizes you and automatically takes a small tithe from your bank account. Voluntary donations just no longer cover the running cost of churches. Vampires don't register,

so they are denied entrance. Holy water, replaced with medical nanite solution. I want to turn these fuckers loose on the episode of The Simpsons where Bart sells his soul. You know, I always wondered what Dilbert would be like if it was about vampires.

Now I know. Now you know. And, uh, Boots, you're up next, and you are the MVP of this thread. Sorry, where are we? Uh, you're at user 100487. Sorry, where are we? You're at user 100487.

Oh, yeah. I am user 100487. The world is actually a simulation, like the Matrix. In this scenario, a vampire would be a specific kind of program construct

within the simulation. Yay! Yay! I mean, you can't argue with that. No. No. I do not get it. This fucking world building forum should get automatic upvotes for just going,

it's probably like the Matrix. Matrix. upvotes for just going like it's probably like the matrix uh as i mentioned uh document uh zeka and smog fucker 69 uh started out with normal stupid then we moved on to stupid stupid now we're into stupid 2.0 oh nice 2.0 uh yeah so uh so jim Franks, you're haunted by something. Is that right? It's true. It's true. What's haunted with a minute's drag?

Yeah, this is, yeah. Thank you, Lemon. Thank you for giving me this forum and this safe place where I can talk about this. No, thank you for sharing. Thank you for sharing. It's very great. I'm known on Stack Exchange's user, 6760. Oh, yeah.

We know. Yeah. I've always been curious. I've always been curious. Whenever I heard the mother were-rabbit sings a popular folk song to the young, there's a particular line in the lyric that seems to puzzle me. It goes like this. Up, up and away.

I had a chance to talk to one of their elder regarding the origin of the song while my space shuttle docks at the lunar station for refueling. However, I can't speak were-rabbit, hence I got irritated and throw a volley of punches at the folk. In the end, my trip was cut short, and I'm now studying the song behind bars.

So how can a were-rabbit jumps high enough to escape the moon's gravity and then perform a re-entry into Earth's atmosphere unaided and probably unscathed? These were-rabbits are known to possess incredible healing factor and can regenerate any form of laceration to the muscle tissues in mere seconds. However, most of them are dim-witted. Are you LARPing as your own fucking character right now? Are you LARPing as your own fucking character right now? Comment below should there are doubts not pertaining to why they are called Were-Rabbit and how they do their business.

Passing motion in microgravity? I would appreciate the answer to elaborate on the art or science behind the leap of faith. I'm a great fan of numbers and equations. Please indulge me! That paragraph started with comment below should there are doubts not pertaining to why they are called were-rabbits.

Yeah. That was beautiful. Truly. My name is Obi 2.0. There are two possible solutions for your question. Magic. Magic can generally explain everything.

No matter what the question is asked in this goddamn forum. Magic? There should just be a bot that replies, magic. Your were-rabbit is actually a spaceship. Seriously, if the were-rabbit gets jumping energy from rocket fuel. Seriously, he says. And is covered in a layer of metal. There is a fictional heating

and as a skeletal structure made of some kind of metal and a parachute, it might survive that journey. However, by this point, it is more spaceship than rabbit. He's more spaceship than rabbit. He's more spaceship than rabbit. He's not wrong.

He's not wrong. No. No. Well, yeah. So great question. Great answer. Terrific. User 6760, I hope you found your piece.

And then you can come right back around onto worldbuilding.stackexchange.com with another question. What's your next question? Can I turn cloud into house? What kind of cloud is suitable for carrying people? And what 21st century technology can enable people to reside on the cloud? See, I thought you were suggesting that the hero of final fantasy 7 become a doctor as long as our weight is supported only by the cloud itself anything goes clouded house

And, Boots, what's your response? I'm ox in a box. No sort of cloud is suitable for carrying people or houses. Yay. Fuck. Not even a cumulus? Fuck. How about a nimbus? What's the difference, Boots?

I don't know. A cumulonimbus. My name is user 5, 4, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8. Did you get lost? Did you get lost? 4 6 7 8 being the warden of the correctional

prison planet called slurth what nothing what is there something funny about my I'm sorry

user 5 4 3 4 6 7 8 please continue

you better watch it, Jimmy Franks. He'll send you to slurth. It's short for slutty earth. What types of rules would you regulate? What rules would you enforce to have total control of slurth inmates? That's the dumbest name. Enforce. I-N.

Enforce. It's a slippery, slippery earth. What privileges would you give the inmates of slurth to keep them at ease? Would you enforce medication to all slurth inmates to keep them calm? What procedures would you take if a group of inmates tried to escape slurth? Download a slurth now for Steam. Now available in the Humble Bundle, would you allow the inmates to educate themselves,

or would that make slurth twice as dangerous and stressful to maintain? Would you allow them to have access to current events of the outside and universe while doing time at slurth? What other rules would you enforce being the warden of the SCPP? You assholes aren't answering my question. I got another one. New global system to lower the murder rate on Earth. You didn't give us a chance to think. Yeah.

Okay. My name once again is 543-678. I have a new system. Okay? Okay, okay. I've thought of a new system to lower the murder rate of Earth. Different place. On Earth? Yeah, this is I've thought of a new system to lower the murder rate of Earth. Different place. On Earth?

Yeah, this is Earth. This is Earth. It's lowercase Earth in this case. This new law is enforced and authorized for every human who is 25 years age that is found guilty by trial for the murder or attempted murder of a human or murder by abortion of the attempted abortion or the attempted abortion of a human. What? Attempted abortion of human.

What? I need to pass my genes on to user 5, 4, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9. The sentence would be immediate abandonment to abso- Abso- Abso- Abso- Abso- Abso- Abso- Abso- Abso- Abso- Abso- Abso- Abso- Abso- Abso- Abso- Abso- Abso- Abso- Abso- Abso- Abso- Abso- Abso- Abso- Abso- Abso- Abso- Abso- Abso- Abandonment to Aboliseer. Aboliseer?

Aboliseer. Aboliseer. Aboliseer. The square structure of 33,000 acres. At that point, how does, it's not a square. It doesn't matter. Okay. Anchors loosely afloat, constructed to never be at ease,

but in a sinking cycle with an area flooded slightly underwater 25% of the time just to rise and sink the next corner every hour so a settlement for permanent housing is never possible. Oh, so it's just like a big tilting thing that just floods in a corner? It's just a square version of Key West. The surface area is completely flat and of steel. Every acre has 22 gravestones of iron for shade with the words unity imprinted on bold. That is important for some reason.

Each abolisher is issued a white t-shirt and a white pair of pants made of wool. The abolished have to drink and eat of the ocean. So they die. So they're all dead. Is this Lord of the Flies now? If Lord of the Flies was a giant dunk tank. It kind of sounds like one of the circles of hell.

One of the squares of hell, nutshell. Oh, man. I'm still going. Why? By the age of 25. Because you're lowering the murder rate. Oh, sure. People are always threatening me.

By the age of 25, a human will have viewed documented footage, that is all capitalized, or have heard, as an animal heard, terrible stories of how murderers felt the pain and agony with fear on their wrong fair face, being murdered, or how the structure gives no mercy by giving a constant environment of obscurity and unrest, most will die of unrest, starvation, or dehydration. The only way of living you cannot land. If people found out that going to prison was a bad thing, they wouldn't commit crimes. In my fiction, I made a prison that's bad and people don't like it.

Yeah, it teaches everybody a lesson on the outside. Oh, fuck me. Question, are my rules fair? That's it. That's all. All right. That's all. Neat.

Okay. Oh, God damn it. Okay. This next thread title is absolutely fucking magnificent. Damn it. Okay, this next thread title is absolutely fucking magnificent. Once again, started out with normal stupid, stupid stupid, stupid 2.0, and now we're in stupid 2.1. Yeah. Adam, what's your question? I'm Hamarm.

I'm Arm. I'm Arm. I'm Arm. I'm Arm. I'm Arm. What's the extent of Frylock's powers? I remember him having capital laser eyes on maybe some form of telepathic

powers, but what's the full range of his powers? That is definitely... Oh, by the way, we are now in sci-fi.stackexchange.com. Right, okay. That's a great question to ask, and I'm glad that Nutshell's got an answer for you.

Okay, so I'm Scuba, and Pryluck is shown to have the following powers. Eye-related, laser vision, as most commonly shown and seen in the opening credits. Fire suppression, shown in the episode Dusty Gonzaga's. Fire vision, shown in the episode Hansel and Hamburger. And ice vision, shown in the episode The Clowning. How are fire vision and laser vision different?

They just are. Okay. We should point out that Frylock is a character from a cartoon called Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Oh, God. I just assumed that that was something that everybody knew, but you're right. It's a little aged now. Yeah. As we get older.

That's true. That's true. Okay. Okay. So he's got other powers, too. He's got flying. He's always shown to be hovering as well. No, he's shown to be doing something else.

Oh, sorry. Howering. Howering as well. He's got super intelligence. And he's got Frydar TM. This is Fry that bends at a 90 degree angle. So cool. Cool.

So, again, I mean, if you're not familiar, Frylock is a sentient large McDonald's french fry. And this dude watched that and went, now what's the implicit logic? I know that he lives next to an unemployed man, and then Glenn Danzig moves in. But what is the implicit

logic of the story? Yeah, so, uh, still on sci-fi.stackexchange, and now we got some Harry Potter. Yes, hello. Hi, and Boots, what do you got there? Oh, yes, yes. Hi. Hi.

Hi. Yes. Hi. Yeah. What evidence supports the idea that Voldemort or others could use magic to develop witches slash wizards with genetically engineered slash enhanced abilities. Like magic. Just like magic.

I want evidence. It's magic. Why evidence? Magic. No, we need proof. And my name is Brix. Brix. I am seeking additional supporting canon evidence for the idea that within the Potterverse, it would be potentially possible to use magic to genetically engineer slash enhance witches slash wizards to have superior magical ability.

magical ability. Related to that question slash idea, what same evidence might support the idea that muggles could eventually learn to use genetic engineering to introduce magic genes into the muggle gene pool, thus making magic accessible to the general population? If members prefer,

I can break this into two separate stack questions. No. Oh, yay! Could you, please? Nobody asked for that. Well it i'm breaking into four evidence i believe which already support either slash both of these scenarios include magical abilities appear to be genetically inherited see we see numerous references to families in which magic appears pretty much to appear from in every generation the term pure blood is used to denote where such abilities are almost guaranteed within wizarding families only

rare recessives aka squibs is that okay whatever appear to not inherit such abilities like a squib isn't that like a blood packet yeah it's the it's the thing that he got shot with in The Godfather. Squibs. Yeah. It's magic. Is there anything interesting here that I'm skipping forward to? I don't know. Fucking, what have we seen? Have we seen anything?

We have seen the ability for cross-species type transformation. seen the ability for cross-species type transformation, such as the use of polyjuice potion with a cat hair made Hermione a mix of feline and human. Transfiguration is commonplace, and it is possible that even just temporarily, these types of efforts extend down the genetic level in some way beyond just the surface appearance. If so, this would make such activities similar to muggle experiments

and genetic splicing using cross-species genes. Two is a weird way to start a sentence. Yeah. Two, comma, that if there is a temporary genetic component, it would possibly be made more permanent and or even inheritable. And what's the very last sentence in your post? Um, wait,

I wanted to say, dedicated practitioners willing to commit the use of their own children, Draco's father was proud to raise his son to become a death eater. It is certainly in the realm of possibility that such parents would consent to efforts to genetically enhance their child's magical ability for a cause.

Also, I welcome counter-arguments slash evidence why it would not be possible to do this. Good. You want to keep an open mind. The thing is about this stuff... It's four o'clock in the morning! You're right. That's what it is. It doesn't feel like fun to me of this sort of stuff it

always feels so angsty it's like i gotta figure it out yeah yeah yeah like okay i know it's magic but uh is i mean why would that happen like magic that magic? That's bullshit. But, like, are they going to start genetically engineering witches? And it's just like, what? Who cares? You need to talk to somebody. Yeah, I know. J.K. Rowling. I need to talk to J.K. Rowling.

You're right. All right. There is a long post called Non-Binary Computing the Way Forward, which we're just going to skip over because it's pretty wonky, but it's also fucking insane. But the wonk kind of overshadows the insane. Jimmy Franks. Yeah. We're moving into section stupid 3.0. Oh, hang on.

Let me put on my VR headset and Nintendo Power Gloves then. This is where the brain 3.0. Oh, hang on. Let me put on my VR headset and Nintendo power gloves then. This is where the brain explodes. Do those work together? Yeah. Oh, great. I'm running a game shark. It's time for us to enter the math world zones.

Oh, good. We're back in world building. I missed you, world building. Worldbuilding.exchange back in world building. Yeah, yeah. I missed you, world building. Worldbuilding.exchange.com. Yeah. Oh, God. Yeah.

Oh, boy. You want me to do the whole thing? Yeah. All right. Strap yourselves in. Okay. Math World Zones. This is Caters, and one of the stories I'm working on is Math World.

This is, in fact, a galaxy with several different... Well, wait. I'm sure if he explains it, you'll be interested. Now, just hear me out, okay? I think you're going to be pleasantly surprised. You want to play Math World? There's no Mario, but there's math world. Now, this is, in fact, a galaxy with several different solar systems. Arithmetic, the one I'm working on right now, is planet base 2, closest to the star, planet base 62.

Base 2, base 3, base 4, 5, 6, base 7 are all in the hot zone. Oh, of course. Wonderful. Now, when a number becomes pregnant in the hot zone, you follow your own same page, right? Yeah, that's where that number becomes pregnant. Yeah, all right. Well, anyway, when a number becomes pregnant in the hot zone,

a heat shield is formed around the developing number. Now, this super elastic heat shield stays with the baby. From pregnancy to one year, the number is in the heat shield full-time, but other numbers can reach into the heat shield to feed the growing number, play, and several other things. From one year to 26 years, end of college,

you know, you gotta get them out of the house if you know what I mean. You gotta get them out of your basement. On base 2 and 13 years, 7th grade on base 7, the heat shield is on part-time to acclimate the number to the heat. Part-time increases every year until finally the number is acclimated to the heat and doesn't need it. You know what I'm saying, brother? Of course.

I've always known what you're saying. Yeah, well, the same thing happens in the cold zone. From base 13 to base 62, only with cold shields instead. The same number of years as boundaries, but there are many more planets in the cold zone. They have their own year and day, but that's beside the point. Goldilocks zone is from base 8 to base 12. Numbers don't need a temperature shield for this zone. All right, so this is somebody, when they were a kid, they were watching Sesame Street.

And they saw Johnny Cash saying, don't take your ones to town. And then never stopped thinking about that for the next 30 years. And did his mom dose him? All right, all right. Look, fellas, we're getting a little in the weeds here, okay? Let's get back to the rules. A number born in the Arctic or Antarctic will have more brown fat, the warming up kind of fat, than white fat,

which is energy reserves in case there isn't enough glucose. Numbers have fat? What's that? Yeah, numbers don't work out. Yeah. We're okay with it being present. Just for the sake of argument, okay? This does mean, however, that the number needs a high amount of glucose.

Now, there's two things I'm wondering, and why they both relate to these different bases. Now, one, given the year boundaries for the shields and the fact that for the other planets in the hot zone and cold zone, it's proportional, how can I calculate how many years the number will have the shield on part-time and thus how many years will it have the shield on from birth? And number two, if you want to go to the back of the envelope, grab a pen and paper or whatever, that'd be great. The economics here, it's complex here. For a given type of currency, or in other words, dollars, pesos, et cetera, the exchange rate is one-to-one, even if it isn't nearly that in real life. Each planet has a different currency. So two planets can have dollars, right?

But the dollars might be completely different. Let me give you an example. Use base 10 and base 2. Oh, thank God. Base 10. Okay, cool. Okay, great. You missed my turn a couple of stops back, and I'll call a different lift if you need me to. Look, I'm almost done here.

Let me just get to the good part. Example. Base 10 is running well until almost everybody gets infected with a virus. Money production stops. In this case, it's a third Zimbabwe dollar. And a family that has been infected by the virus finds out that two, two is pregnant with twins. I use Roman numerals that there's the same number again. So because there are two twos, I have a two and two I's.

Anyway, there's trillions of dollars in reserves. They want to use as little as possible. They want to use as little as possible of the reserves, basically only for pay and city maintenance. Anyway, the family's desperate need of money because the pregnant number's sick. You remember the pregnant number? Yeah, I remember the pregnant number from the beginning. The pregnant number is sick with severe viral pneumonia, which is caused by different virus and outbreaks.

See, it's all coming together. Now, base two, on the other hand, is running nicely, producing a surplus of money. 20 calls, plant a base two, and ask for a billion dollars. Now, base two transports the one billion dollars. There's still base two dollars, but they need to be converted to base ten dollars. A 20 puts it through the base converter. It gets converted into base ten

dollars, right? They put a mask on the pregnant number's face to take her to the doctor as fast as possible to limit virus exposure both to the family members and the viral outbreak surrounding them. And the doctor leaves the pregnant number in the hospital for the rest of her pregnancy to prevent other numbers from getting the virus she has. And the doctor says 7, 8, 9.

You're skipping ahead there, brother. All right. So they put the pregnant number in the hospital to prevent the other numbers from getting the virus she has. And so the doctor knows that the virus is completely gone before she gives birth. Currently, the interplanetary money transport is like this. Excellent. Okay, cool. Jimmy Frakes, our time is up for today, but if you'd like to make another appointment with the lady at the desk,

we can see you in a week. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Can you sign this for my court so the court knows that I came in for my meeting? I just got three more and then I'm off probation. I want to know how the interplanetary money transport is like. Oh, oh, yeah.

Well, okay. Well, production to teleportation, which relies partly on electricity, to conversion through base converter after it lands on a planet that needs money. Finally, we get to my question. Oh, okay. I want the conversion step to essentially be lost. So how can I make it automatically convert from one base to another while it is being sent? I think I know your problem. Oh, good.

Yeah, well, I'm all ears. Yeah. So you know how you've been microdosing for the last two years? Yeah. Yeah. Usually when people microdose, they don't just take acid the whole time. You're not supposed to microdose. Wait, you mean I've been doing it wrong?

I'm not supposed to do the whole bottle? Eyeballing it is not a valid form of microdosing. I thought it was a bottle a day. That's what the bottles keep telling him. Hey, guys, what do you think caters his house smells like i actually think it mostly smells like windex i think he's doing so much cleaning yeah index and sharpies every every wall is painted with like a with chalkboard paint and he's just oh yeah absolutely he's just written just like just integers on everything Every wall is painted with chalkboard paint. Oh, yeah, absolutely.

He's just written just integers on everything. There's a couple threads at the end, not worth reading, being from Worldbuilding. Would it be possible for a population of snakes to survive by eating nothing but fruit? One from the Sci-Fi Stack Exchange called How Does Religion Work in Zootopia? Philosophy.stackexchange asks iBank donations. I looked into that one, and it is involuntary iBank donations. Oh. And I think – I wish this one wasn't a 404 because I love this question, which is from law.stackexchange, and it's, how can someone force me to follow a human rights act?

Oh, that's against my human rights. But, F+, what do you think we learned from any of this? Yeah, the material we have in here is really neat, because it's people sort of really focusing on the least important details of world building if they want to create a fictional setting. It's like, well, I need to... God, I need to be able to explain this shit. Yeah, to me it's like if you were going to build a house

and somebody is like posting like hey guys i can't figure out how to paint these door hinges i want to paint them this this purple uh transparent purple color and it's just not working uh so what's the idea for my house yeah uh and and the sort of uh the sort of fun thing about just stack exchange just in general is that like i mean this this harkens back to uh other episodes that we've touched on like tv tropes for example um where it's a lot of uh people just getting like really um super excited about just like like television writing tropes, except for, like, these people take this thing

very seriously. Like, and every one of these responses, like, everyone is so excited to whip out a calculator and just be like, oh, this premise is not worth exploring? Let's explore it at length. At one point, there was a point

where I was watching an episode of Star Trek The Next Generation, and Data said how many bytes of memory he had in his brain. And when he said that thing, I was like, oh, I'm going to look that up on Stack Exchange, because I bet there's a fight. I found a 45-page fight about them talking about the capacity of his brain and what that would mean for the Star Trek universe. I think it was Johnny Mnemonic where one of the things that Keanu Reeves says, he sacrifices his long-term memory because I have 40 gigabytes in my brain. It was not a good exchange. And, of course, that shit matters. Because if he would have said I have 40 terabytes in my brain, that would have been a not stupid line.

Because brains look... Brains work like computers. Yeah, the website is always thefpl.us. We hope you enjoyed the 24 Terrible Hours because we, at this moment, have yet to go through it. So we

are optimistic and we don't think anything will go wrong. If you're listening to this episode, we survived. If you're listening to this episode, we might have died

and somebody edited this post-mortem. Ballpit, bye. Ballpit, bye. Bye, Ball pit. Bye. Bye ball pit. Great sex dot tips. Great sex dot tips. A young bird named Bertie Big had learned to count to one.

He said it's time to leave the nest and go and have some fun. So he gathered all the number ones that he could find around. But his good friend cried as he walked out. Don't take your ones to town, son. Leave your ones at home, bird. Don't take you once to town the centaur

let's get real shall we didn't you tweet about that earlier Adam oh well yeah I wrote a joke about that I said like I said actually a centaur is half man three quarters horse but continue