<Iskierka>
can't get guard out of the way, can't sneak past. Screw it, yell him into a block of ice and run past
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<Ellied>
fuck, I forgot to close the window at the lab before I left.
<Ellied>
someone's going to get pissed about that.
<Ellied>
I mean, it's their own damn fault for turning off the HVAC over the weekends, but they don't have sense, just rules
<Ellied>
(I mean really what kind of fucking building manager goes "oh, it's the weekend, this building doesn't need a breathable atmosphere, nobody has any work that needs extra time in a physics department")
<UmbralRaptor>
...
<Ellied>
I can't even use my lab at all because it has no windows and gets utterly inhospitable with no ventilation
<Ellied>
when I need to fetch things I left in there it's always a game of run-in-run-out
<Ellied>
feels like those fully-enclosed couch cushion forts I made as a kid
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<UmbralRaptor>
Apparently Peter Watts can take a setting that's drifting towards a (plausible) utopia, and bring in Paolo Bachigalupi levels of crushing despair/hopelessness.
<Pinkbeast>
(SFW, unless they just don't like SA at all)
* UmbralRaptor
tends to avoid using IRC on work computers. Seems safer that way.
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<Pinkbeast>
Ellied: Why _are_ fidget spinners a federal issue?
<Iskierka>
#
<Pinkbeast>
TIL that Novik invented ships with all their masts at one end so dragons can land on them, which is a really good idea except for it not working. # it may, to be fair, have become garbled on the journey to me
<Iskierka>
it's described as a big platform that prevents a foremast & jib but I don't recall reading it as all at one end
<Pinkbeast>
I think without a foremast you have the same problem viz the ship turns uncontrollably head to wind
<Iskierka>
Or you have a very large rudder and small sails to the aft. Certainly they're not described as agile or fast, they just fill a need
<Pinkbeast>
You can't really deal with being effectively dismasted with a rudder & they'd have to be verrry small. (I think it's more practical to make a large space amidships like a bomb ketch)
<Iskierka>
"But it would also result in an unbalanced and poorly handling rig and terrible wind profile on the bow, which is actually described in the books whenever we get anything about the sailing of the dragon carriers.
<Iskierka>
"
<Iskierka>
(admittedly stolen from discussions rather than going and double checking myself)
<Pinkbeast>
Mmm, I just think it's worse than that (as in, it's not a nuisance to sail, it just won't sail at all). That said, when we did this on #chiark...
<Pinkbeast>
One reason steam isn't adopted earlier is that without propellors, paddlewheels will take up a lot of the ship's broadside space, but a dragon carrier isn't concerned with that. So you might be able to build paddle steaming dragon carriers
<Iskierka>
Possible, though still somewhat early. I suspect that looking at it practically you might still not like using the middeck because of still too much rigging around it for wingspan clearance - and looks like the allegiance probably does still have a foremast, but shifted to about 1/3 back to make room
<Iskierka>
which is still going to be poorly balanced but may be poorly handleable
<Pinkbeast>
We were mostly doing square-rigged aircraft carriers
<Pinkbeast>
... but you probably can't shoot dragons off the deck horizontally with a steam catapult
<Iskierka>
That has a whole other set of problems, and yeah. Temeraire dragons actually also fly bizarrely slow so a near-standing-start is acceptable
<Iskierka>
the speed is based on (some) estimates of pterodactyls, but somewhat neglects that you'd need to go faster with the scaling, so an astounding metablism and faster flight would probably be more believable
<Pinkbeast>
I think you're right that it could work but actually it might be best to have a HUGE jib and a bunch of foresails which you then take down for dragon retrieval. If the ship turns head to wind, so much the better; she is now drifting backwards, reducing the speed differential between her and a dragon coming in from directly ahead
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<Iskierka>
although windspeed is something that was definitely not properly understood, at least in book 1, as tacking is used to try catch up in flight with a boat getting ahead
<Pinkbeast>
Apparently also I don't understand it since drifting backwards at speed < wind is not a good idea if by doing so you require the dragon to fly downwind to you :-/
<Iskierka>
I was slightly confused by what you were trying to suggest but assumed I was just visualising it poorly
<Iskierka>
since you can't power into wind all approaches would tend to be awkward anyway. Which might be further argument for paddle steaming
<Pinkbeast>
No, it was just a bad idea. We should anchor at the stern for dragon retrieval, then they can fly upwind to us
<Iskierka>
anchoring makes it difficult to do during engagement, which does happen (though the dragonship will attempt to stay back)
<Pinkbeast>
Also the bottom may not be conveniently positioned
<Pinkbeast>
Paddle steaming> it's obviously more convenient in fresh water but the first steam tug is 1803.
<Iskierka>
for some numbers, "The dragon transports were appox. 400 hundred feet long, bore 4-5 masts and 150 guns, and could carry 100 1/2 tons." The dragondeck is a fan at the front that's about twice the hull in beam and a third of the total length, but does overhang the hull at the front also
<Iskierka>
so very big and basically at the limit of what wooden ships could do
<Pinkbeast>
Oh! I didn't appreciate they were enormously huge. Bother.
<Iskierka>
yeah, not messing up a tiny little boat that doesn't have much mast to begin with
<Pinkbeast>
In that case I withdraw my objection and replace it with "hang on, this thing is twice as long as the biggest first-rates, how's that work?"
<Iskierka>
A chunk of that is the dragondeck, but yes, they push the limit of wood in order to fit
<Iskierka>
at least if that's quoted accurately. It's a small incomplete wiki
<Pinkbeast>
Also I think you can now find space amidships with masts at both ends given how huge it is, and there seems to be some confusion on the part of the designer as to whether it's a tender to stay out of combat or is utterly bristling with guns.
<Iskierka>
I presume with being so unmanoeuvrable their only combat solution is to carry as many as possible so no-one wants to get close while the dragons are distracted
<Pinkbeast>
I think I would build a dragon transport just as large as is needed to transport a dragon and a first-rate or two to put next to it
<Iskierka>
certainly gun arrangements were pretty consistent across sizes so it shouldn't be too surprising that bigger is automatically more guns, just because that's how they do it
<Pinkbeast>
I was going to say how come about the armament of Santisima Trinidad at twice the size, but presumably two gundecks not four
<Iskierka>
or three and none below the dragondeck, possibly
<Pinkbeast>
Well, we know the designer was on crack because this didn't occur to them, but that does open the possibility of an ordinary ship of the line using its superior maneuverability to come alongside the front half and go "hello, you don't seem to have any guns here, how unfortunate"
<Pinkbeast>
s/because/so perhaps/;
<Qboid>
Pinkbeast meant to say: Well, we know the designer was on crack so perhaps this didn't occur to them, but that does open the possibility of an ordinary ship of the line using its superior maneuverability to come alongside the front half and go "hello, you don't seem to have any guns here, how unfortunate"
<Pinkbeast>
Again, if we put the dragon in the middle we can have guns at each end (& we can sail with the wind abeam and the dragon can easily take off and land upwind in an unobstructed-by-masts direction)
<Pinkbeast>
... yes, I may be overanalysing, Novik just jolly well wanted aircraft carriers. :-)
<Pinkbeast>
Thank you, this has been most interesting
<Iskierka>
"The allegiance was a wallowing behemoth of a ship: just over four hundred feet in length and oddly narrow in proportion, except for the outsize dragondeck that flared out at the front of the ship, stretching from the foremast forward to the bow. Seen from above, she looked very strange, almost fan-shaped. But below the wide lip of the dragondeck, her hull narrowed quickly; the keep was fashioned out of steel rather than
<Iskierka>
elm, and thickly covered with white paint against rust: the long white stripe running down her middle gave her an almost rakish appearance.
<Iskierka>
To give her the stability which she required to meet storms, she had a draught of more than twenty feet and was too large to come into the harbour proper, but had to be moored to enormous pillars sunk far out in the deep water and her supplies ferried to and fro by smaller vessels: a great lady surrounded by scurrying attendants. This was not the first transport which Laurence and Temeraire had travelled on, but she
<Iskierka>
would be the first true ocean-going one; a poky three-dragon ship running from Gibraltar to Plymouth with barely a few planks in increased width could offer no comparison."
<Pinkbeast>
Poky three-dragon ship> if it is feasible to build non-collosal ones I think that's actually the answer
<Pinkbeast>
*colossal
<Iskierka>
I didn't find where that one was mentioned so quoted just the Allegiance, which is most featured and quoted as a ten-dragon ship. So I think even just three might be large enough to cause big problems for a small ship
<Iskierka>
it does confirm a foremast and quite tall decks in the following pages, though not noticed anything exacting
<Iskierka>
the foremast being tucked right up to the dragondeck
<Pinkbeast>
I think if it's feasible to accomodate them on ordinary size ships at all you actually razee down obsolete 64s and make them poky dragon ships rather than big frigates
<Iskierka>
Description of the transport is not provided in book 1 so cannot provide comparison of the poky thing
<Iskierka>
possible "poky thing" still means the size of a first-rate to provide stability with three dragons, and a half-steel double-length for three times the dragons could be considered worth it?
<Pinkbeast>
I think the trouble is a) no-one knows how to make steel-framed battleships or they'd be doing it and b) you'd also start getting longer battleships
<Pinkbeast>
I mean, if you have the technology to do this for dragon carriers you have the technology to do it for everything else
<Iskierka>
mhmm, though it does state the steel being problematic still. And that as they're ponderous craft they'd rarely have the opportunity to claim prizes, so crews and captains found them undesirable, so you may wish to minimise the number of transports required
<Iskierka>
not saying it does make sense, but there is at least some consideration to the set of problems presented
<Pinkbeast>
prizes> I fear this won't do because it's already the case that frigates get most of the prizes and yet ships of the line are more prestigious assignments.
<Pinkbeast>
(Also we tend to overestimate the importance of prize-money because the popular culture soup is entirely full of captains modelled on Cochrane, but Cochrane was utterly exceptional)
<Iskierka>
"Captaincy of a ship of this class was not usually considered to be a high honour. During the 18th and early 19th century dragons were considered to be dangerous beast of low intelligence despite their ability to talk, and close proximity to them as could be expected on a Dragon Transport was avoided. In addition, as Dragon Transports are large ponderous craft, it was rare for them to be in a position to claim foreign
<Iskierka>
ships as prizes. This meant that the prize monies that crews of fighting ships earned were rare for the officers and crews of transports, further lowering their desirability."
<Iskierka>
just providing the logic presented in the books :p
<Pinkbeast>
Mmm, not your fault, but I dunno as it hangs together - they're the biggest most important ships in the navy, and dragons may be dangerous but so is being in the line having Frenchmen shoot cannonballs at you
<Pinkbeast>
French people, rather, the all-male Navy is a bit of a Victorian whitewash too :-)
<Iskierka>
better to be shot honourably than thrown overboard for not bringing up a large enough roast cow? (at least how they may imagine it would go)
<Pinkbeast>
You have midshipmen for being thrown overboard
<Pinkbeast>
(I mean, if dragons are thought to be dangerous beasts of low intelligence, the captain no more interacts with them than he does with the wardroom goat)
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<Ellied>
Pinkbeast: they got popular and people started writing thinkpieces
<Ellied>
it just came as a particular shock to me because I didn't have any clue that they were popular until I saw the thinkpieces
<Ellied>
yelling on twitter was in a moment of particular disllusionment with the constant cycle of "hey, it looks like kids like a thing, what if that thing is BAD!?!?!?"
<Iskierka>
A couple people I know have one or two. I'm tempted. But it seems rather disproportionate how much people think it's bad
<Ellied>
yeah.
<Iskierka>
final note on the dragonships: with few descriptions of others I don't know how exceptional the Allegiance in particular is, although they've run into a french one that can't hold about 6 of them (including smaller dragons) after the Allegiance exploded, so there's smaller ones pottering about for sure. The Allegiance was chosen in particular for the mission in the second book to impress the chinese envoy and was
<Iskierka>
completely unnecessarily large for the task
<Ellied>
for a good portion of what I now understand to be their growing period, my friend was 3D printing them and making them with ceramic bearings. I figured he was just using them as test platforms for the ceramic bearings (since he spent a lot of time calculating their moment of inertia and timing how long they'd spin) and having them around as fidgets was just a coincidental plus
<Iskierka>
I also don't know when it was laid down so it may predate 1803, though the Lyonesse still being laid down should probably be recommended for paddle-steaming and made considerably smaller
<Pinkbeast>
Once they steam we can make the whole deck dragony and carry a very limited armament because we can run away upwind.
<Pinkbeast>
(This 150-gun armament is particularly absurd, as if WW2 aircraft carriers also mounted eight 15" guns just in case they changed their minds :-)
<Iskierka>
maybe also experiment with turreting, since with dragons for defense it's not so much of a disaster if they're less effective
<Pinkbeast>
Turreting comes partly as a consequence of much bigger guns which first needs metal structure so the ship doesn't fall apart and then needs steam power to work the gun
<Pinkbeast>
I mean, the trouble is again you're going to end up inventing ironclads here and now we aren't doing Napoleonics with dragons
<Pinkbeast>
Turrets also like all that prime no-masts-nearby space which you want to keep dragons on :-/
<Iskierka>
eh, can stick them on the end in this case
<Iskierka>
not necessarily that serious an idea, but the earliest problems were just that they were so clearly inferior, but with dragons you can keep it safe while figuring out the issues in actual combat
<Pinkbeast>
There are some very big turrets early on before combined turret-barbettes, perhaps we can keep the dragons on top of those, singing "spin me right round like a record^W wax cylinder^W^W Sarah Siddons singing a song"... hm, I think sleep deprivation has made me Silly
<kmath>
<melgillman> I've gotten this question 3 times so far at WisCon, which is about average. https://t.co/tddU8m0B5z
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<UmbralRaptor>
Oh, hey. Humana finally sent me my insurance ID card.
<UmbralRaptor>
(Not sure if it'll be that useful, as I eggspect to move some time in the next 90 days, and they're pulling out of the insurance market.)
<Iskierka>
time to develop early treatable stages of a pre-existing condition?
<UmbralRaptor>
Hah.
<UmbralRaptor>
Actual coverage is sparse enough that I'm still hesitant.
<UmbralRaptor>
(Reminder: the mandatory coverage list does not include anything with eyes or teeth)
<Iskierka>
mandatory coverage does not include humans?
<UmbralRaptor>
Hah!
<egg>
only blind birbs
<UmbralRaptor>
More seriously, it means that any plan sold on an exchange must cover certain items (I recall some maternity things, TDAP & MMR vaccines, and cardiovascular screenings above a certain age)
<UmbralRaptor>
Who designs a system that is supposed to be available to all 3.3e8 Americans, but requires you get at least the equivalent of an Associate's degree to understand how to get into it and use it effectively?
<UmbralRaptor>
I *think* the only things that apply to me are the vaccines, and maybe one other item. But would need to double check.
* egg
gets pinged by double checking
<egg>
have you tried float checking
<UmbralRaptor>
American Radix Act
<UmbralRaptor>
Minimum Essential Kahan Summation
pi|Zzz|aoverhead is now known as pizzaoverhead
<egg>
UmbralRaptor: KSP question
<egg>
if you are orbiting the Mun, can you target Kerbin?
<egg>
or Iskierka or pizzaoverhead or someone who plays that game
<UmbralRaptor>
egg: IIRC, yes.
<egg>
hm
<UmbralRaptor>
But, I don't have any easy way of running KSP at the moment.
* UmbralRaptor
does recall that you can't target the body you're currently orbiting, because Reasons.
<pizzaoverhead>
egg: "playing KSP"? You mean using it to launch your code? :D
<pizzaoverhead>
I believe you can
<egg>
UmbralRaptor: *Reasons* seems to be a running theme
<UmbralRaptor>
pizzaoverhead: It almost seems like there should be a way to combine, say, Principia, FAR, kRPC, Telemachus, and maybe RSS/RO without ever running KSP proper. >_>
<pizzaoverhead>
wasn't that the plan, way back when?
<egg>
yes it was
<egg>
also isn't this a discussion for kspacademia
<egg>
or kspbitters >_>
<UmbralRaptor>
Bah, there needs to be a kspcoffee <_<
<pizzaoverhead>
egg: Just tested. When in orbit of the Mun, you can target neither Kerbin nor the Mun. You can however target Minmus.
<UmbralRaptor>
^I was wrong
* UmbralRaptor
stares at apartment costs. A 1 bedroom in Fairfax is more than a house in Overland Park. =S
<UmbralRaptor>
Ah, part of it is that those are some big 1 bd apts.
<Iskierka>
trying to make a system for more easily controlling the reference frame or something?
<egg>
yeah, trying to unify things with the stock UI a bit
<egg>
have done quite a bit of that already, and now principia#1414 comes up and it's tempting
<Qboid>
[#1414] title: Body Targeting | For those of us who do not have Jebediah delusions of cowboying, the ability to target celestial bodies (and thus rely on MechJeb's relative inclination indicator and, more importantly, launch into pl... | https://github.com/mockingbirdnest/principia/issues/1414
<egg>
but targeting celestials seems largely broken