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      Welcome!   03/05/2016

      Welcome, everyone, to the new 910CMX Community Forums. I'm still working on getting them running, so things may change.  If you're a 910 Comic creator and need your forum recreated, let me know and I'll get on it right away.  I'll do my best to make this new place as fun as the last one!
HarJIT

Story Comic for 2016 April 25th

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3 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

And I was trying to point out that BEFORE they had the technology, such an expansion would simply not be practical.

An interesting little fact: A lot of people back then already knew or suspected that the Earth was round. They thought Columbus was an idiot, not because it would be impossible to reach India through circumnavigation of the Earth but because they had done the math and worked out that it would be a LONGER way to sail to India from Spain if you went west, not shorter. They were right, but Columbus happened to bump into another continent on the way and so his idea ended up making a profit anyway.

 

Yes, the "necessary technology" in question was the ability to build and navigate ships that could endure several consecutive months out of sight of land without repairs or resupply, and which could endure passing through hurricanes, etc. that they would encounter at sea with no safe harbor for shelter. A Roman galley or Trireme would not be able to make such a journey--it had neither the endurance nor the ability to avoid capsizing in the midst of a hurricane.

As for Columbus, yes, the people who were aware of the Earth's actual size (which had been calculated to within a margin of 3% as early as the 3rd century BC by Eratosthenes of Cyrene) knew that sailing west to reach China would mean traveling some 20 thousand kilometers across open ocean, which would mean as much as a year continuously out of sight of land while traveling in each direction. They were right to be skeptical that anybody could survive such a voyage--food and water preservation being what it was in those days, the sailors' supplies would spoil long before resupply would be available--food for sea voyages at the time was either dried, pickled, or fished out of the sea, since proper airtight canning would not be developed until more than two hundred years later.

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Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore.

Edited by HarJIT
(Was responding to Matoyak)

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7 hours ago, ijuin said:

As for Columbus, yes, the people who were aware of the Earth's actual size (which had been calculated to within a margin of 3% as early as the 3rd century BC by Eratosthenes of Cyrene)

Bah. Eratosthenes was a wuss. If he had been a real man like Galileo he'd have waited until Christians came into power so he could have been threatened with burning at the stake for saying the Earth was round. :demonicduck:

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2 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

Bah. Eratosthenes was a wuss. If he had been a real man like Galileo he'd have waited until Christians came into power so he could have been threatened with burning at the stake for saying the Earth was round. :demonicduck:

Be fair.  Any entrenched power structure acts to destroy threats to its status quo.

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7 minutes ago, Vorlonagent said:
2 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

Bah. Eratosthenes was a wuss. If he had been a real man like Galileo he'd have waited until Christians came into power so he could have been threatened with burning at the stake for saying the Earth was round. :demonicduck:

Be fair.  Any entrenched power structure acts to destroy threats to its status quo.

Not always. It certainly happens, but I'm not sure the tendency. Galileo for instance wasn't exactly executed for the heliocentric model. The church was fine with him publishing his theory, though asked him to include a nod to the prevailing theory. What ultimately got Galileo executed was that he acted like a jerk. When he included the mention of the geocentric model, it was with insulting, condescending tone. He also ended up insulting the pope at one point, who at the time was the main (maybe even only) person on Galileo's side.

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30 minutes ago, Drasvin said:

Not always. It certainly happens, but I'm not sure the tendency. Galileo for instance wasn't exactly executed for the heliocentric model. The church was fine with him publishing his theory, though asked him to include a nod to the prevailing theory. What ultimately got Galileo executed was that he acted like a jerk. When he included the mention of the geocentric model, it was with insulting, condescending tone. He also ended up insulting the pope at one point, who at the time was the main (maybe even only) person on Galileo's side.

Galileo wasn't executed. He was tried for heresy (and placed under house arrest for the remainder of his life) basically for saying it was PROVEN that the earth moves around the sun and for rather blatantly insulting certain prominent clergymen who held to the geocentric theory. The church didn't have any objection to either theory - but did not consider either to be PROVEN, and objected strenuously to overly-confident assertions of what was still questionable.

(In fact the proof that Galileo offered was inadequate - because the instruments of the time were insufficiently accurate and precise.)

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6 minutes ago, Don Edwards said:

Galileo wasn't executed. He was tried for heresy (and placed under house arrest for the remainder of his life) basically for saying it was PROVEN that the earth moves around the sun and for rather blatantly insulting certain prominent clergymen who held to the geocentric theory. The church didn't have any objection to either theory - but did not consider either to be PROVEN, and objected strenuously to overly-confident assertions of what was still questionable.

(In fact the proof that Galileo offered was inadequate - because the instruments of the time were insufficiently accurate and precise.)

Huh...I thought he was executed for some reason. I guess that's what I get for working from memory instead of checking my facts.

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It really didn't help Galileo that, in his book, the spokesperson for the geocentric theory was a rather recognizable caricature of one of the most politically powerful and religiously influential archbishops of the time... and, in the book, named "Simpleton".

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19 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

Examples: It was not actually Cristopher Columbus who 'discovered' the New World. It is known for certain that a Viking expedition made it to the Americas but that its attempt at colonisation failed due to attrition and logistics. It is also believed (and has been proven possible) that an Irish monk named Brendan went to America 500 years before that. But in both cases, sea travel remained too dangerous and impractical for a firm logistical line to be established, and so colonisation remained impossible.

On 05/05/2016 at 0:16 AM, hkmaly said:

Obviously, Leif Erikson didn't had the same technology as Columbus and his method of getting to America was less practical, but the technology "window" for start of traveling might easily been hundred years, with political reasons behind the exact date.

Already addressed. Leif Erikson was leader of that Viking expedition you talk about.

19 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

Why 1492 specifically? It required two conditions. One, a man with the vision and technology to go out and look for loot. Two, financial backing from wealthy expansionist nobles -- and it turned out that Spain had the resources to spare, having just finished the Reconquista and having cleaned house inside her own borders (robbing and expelling all the Muslims and Jews).

So ... you think Spain just having the resources was more important than Constantinopolis? Hmmm ... possible. But the technology was already there some time before.

19 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

because they had done the math and worked out that it would be a LONGER way to sail to India from Spain if you went west, not shorter. They were right, but Columbus happened to bump into another continent on the way and so his idea ended up making a profit anyway.

The way around Cape Agulhas was not exactly short or safe ; the issue was not that it's longer, but that without land somewhere on the way the ships would be unable to carry enough water and food for whole travel. Which would be true of course, the circumnavigation would be impossible without resupply on America continent.

15 hours ago, ijuin said:

They were right to be skeptical that anybody could survive such a voyage--food and water preservation being what it was in those days, the sailors' supplies would spoil long before resupply would be available--food for sea voyages at the time was either dried, pickled, or fished out of the sea, since proper airtight canning would not be developed until more than two hundred years later.

Ok. So it was not the amount of supply but the freshness. Makes more sense.

4 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

Galileo wasn't executed. He was tried for heresy (and placed under house arrest for the remainder of his life)

He MIGHT've been executed if he didn't recant.

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Isn't his expectations as to how his other forms think and act shaping them into being more like that? They likely have basic natures, i.e. Mild Mannered is, well, well mannered and unlikely to go to extremes, but probably can range approaching Velma levels of SRS BSNS inspired by Tedd on a quest, all the way to Fluttershy levels of social anxiety. It's unlikely she's cripplingly timid since magic is way more convenient than that... Although, saying that, do the characters in-continuity know the "It's More Fun That Way" rule we know from outside continuity periods?

 

Otherwise Elliot's magic is terrifying, since he rewrites his brain chemistry to alter his personality every time he transfoms, and that can't be good!

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4 minutes ago, RainbowWizard said:

Isn't his expectations as to how his other forms think and act shaping them into being more like that?

Hard to say, would need to be tested. I would expect there IS some resistance, on the other hand some influence will likely be there.

4 minutes ago, RainbowWizard said:

Although, saying that, do the characters in-continuity know the "It's More Fun That Way" rule we know from outside continuity periods?

I don't think so. It certainly wasn't mentioned in continuity.

5 minutes ago, RainbowWizard said:

Otherwise Elliot's magic is terrifying, since he rewrites his brain chemistry to alter his personality every time he transfoms, and that can't be good!

Changing to women already makes gigantic changes in chemistry, including the brain. And that's staying human. What happens with Grace when going squirrel will be totally terrifying ... except she's obviously completely fine. "More fun that way".

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What is meant by "SRS BSNS" in this context?

 

Scientific hubris has been recorded at least as far back as Plato and his mentor Socrates. Much farther back is a bit harder to track because most stuff older than that either wasn't written down, or the writings did not survive until our era.

 

12 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

The way around Cape Agulhas was not exactly short or safe ; the issue was not that it's longer, but that without land somewhere on the way the ships would be unable to carry enough water and food for whole travel. Which would be true of course, the circumnavigation would be impossible without resupply on America continent.

Ok. So it was not the amount of supply but the freshness. Makes more sense.

 

Yes. Carrying a year's worth of consumables was not an unmanageable burden in terms of bulk or weight if your ship was big enough to be sailing the high seas in the first place (i.e. hundreds of tons displacement--the Santa Maria was about 200 tons fully laden). The problem was that it would all go moldy/rancid (or get infested by bugs) after several months in the warm and humid air at sea. It wasn't until the invention of methods of sterilizing and airtight-sealing food (i.e. canning, whether in glass/clay jars or in metal tins) that food could be preserved for years on end in such a climate.

 

 

 

 

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14 hours ago, RainbowWizard said:

Although, saying that, do the characters in-continuity know the "It's More Fun That Way" rule we know from outside continuity periods?

It technically hasn't been ever brought up, though the characters do know about magic's flair for the dramatic. Knowing Moperville North (the school), characters might already not take the world "entirely serious", so I think most characters automatically don't really worry about it like we would in real life? It's like they know they are in a cartoon. Knowing the fourth-wall breaking aspects of the very early days, this may even technically be true.

I don't think discussing whether the characters know that they are "perfectly safe" from the "dangers" of magic is a valuable discussion, other than philosophical "meta" discussions :P

Characters would be more worried about being "stuck" in a form than about magic changing their brain or resulting in physical damage.

I just realized Vladia falls completely out of this idea. I blame "the early days of the comic" again.

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3 hours ago, Maplestrip said:

It technically hasn't been ever brought up, though the characters do know about magic's flair for the dramatic. Knowing Moperville North (the school), characters might already not take the world "entirely serious", so I think most characters automatically don't really worry about it like we would in real life? It's like they know they are in a cartoon. Knowing the fourth-wall breaking aspects of the very early days, this may even technically be true.

I don't think discussing whether the characters know that they are "perfectly safe" from the "dangers" of magic is a valuable discussion, other than philosophical "meta" discussions :P

Characters would be more worried about being "stuck" in a form than about magic changing their brain or resulting in physical damage.

I just realized Vladia falls completely out of this idea. I blame "the early days of the comic" again.

There is a reason they have clone form backups. ;)

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On 5/10/2016 at 10:12 PM, The Old Hack said:

Why 1492 specifically? It required two conditions. One, a man with the vision and technology to go out and look for loot. Two, financial backing from wealthy expansionist nobles -- and it turned out that Spain had the resources to spare, having just finished the Reconquista and having cleaned house inside her own borders (robbing and expelling all the Muslims and Jews). And so Cristoforo Colombo managed to cross the Atlantic and discover new lands to loot, plunder, subjugate and exploit.

I would add a third condition: reasonably good communications.The movable-type printing press was invented in Germany about 1440 (according to some reports the Chinese invented it earlier - but kept it to themselves and didn't do much with it). By 1492 it was probably pretty common around Europe's major capitals and other intellectual centers.

Printing presses had been used before, but they were done with single-piece printing plates; every letter had to be hand-engraved in the plate, and any error meant throwing out the plate and starting over. The movable-type press made printing VASTLY easier and less expensive, facilitating the spread of accurate information across the continent.

According to a book I read many years ago, one of Columbus' captains had actually been to the New World previously - when he was a cabin-boy, and aboard a ship that got blown way off course in a storm. Figure 20 years earlier. The notion that printing presses took longer than 1440 to 1470 to reach Madrid, but were there by the 1490s, is extremely plausible.

On 5/10/2016 at 10:12 PM, The Old Hack said:

An interesting little fact: A lot of people back then already knew or suspected that the Earth was round. They thought Columbus was an idiot, not because it would be impossible to reach India through circumnavigation of the Earth but because they had done the math and worked out that it would be a LONGER way to sail to India from Spain if you went west, not shorter. They were right, but Columbus happened to bump into another continent on the way and so his idea ended up making a profit anyway.

Scholars and early scientists figured out that the earth probably is round, not long after they figured out that a lunar eclipse is the moon passing through the earth's shadow. They'd watch a few eclipses, and read about other people watching eclipses, and notice that no matter where the moon is relative to the horizon, or where on the earth the observer is, the edge of the shadow always appears to be part of a circle. The simplest shape for the earth that would produce this consistency is spherical.

The shape of the earth actually mattering in the day-to-day lives of ordinary people is rather a newer phenomenon.

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Another "fun" fact about Galileo and his insulting the Pope: Galileo lived in the so called "papal states", where the Pope is also king. Not only did he insult the head of religion, but also the local monarch. Not too wise.

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Spain wasn't the only candidate to sponsor Columbus.  Nearly every prince or king in Europe with the resources to finance the voyage was contacted.  Christopher's brother Bartholomew, for example, approached Henry VII of England.  Mr VII rejected Bartholomew's proposal.  His son would turn out to be the family expert on proposals.

And there is some evidence that English Fishermen were already fishing the shoals off the coast of Newfoundland before 1492.  But like many anglers, they kept the location of their fish.

Another point, Eratosthenes had calculated the overall size of the Earth in antiquity.  And Marco Polo did a decent job of reporting the size of Asia.  But there were dissenting opinions.  Christopher Columbus had "expert opinions" that he could show potential investors and crewmen that the overall size of the Earth was smaller and the length of Asia was longer than what the mainstream academics claimed.  Net result is that Columbus's prediction for where the Ocean would meet Asia is actually close to where the Atlantic hits North America. 

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