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Scotty

Story: Monday April 3, 2017

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19 hours ago, Scotty said:

I'm half expecting the being before Pandora to turn out to be Noah Wyle or John Larroquette.

Though I totally wouldn't be surprised if it was another Immortal and this form is something they like to use to greet visitors. This does go back to the theory that some Immortals vowed to maintain all knowledge in some form or another.

I'd put my money on Drew Powell... I can totally see this being Ray in full Library mode. The next thing you see being Ray going: Was that to much? It was to much right? I've been trying different greetings to find something dignified and impressive but this isn't it, right?
 

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37 minutes ago, Cpt. Obvious said:

I'd put my money on Drew Powell... I can totally see this being Ray in full Library mode. The next thing you see being Ray going: Was that to much? It was to much right? I've been trying different greetings to find something dignified and impressive but this isn't it, right?
 

Yeah, I was leaning towards that kind of followup dialog as well.

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2 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

No more GPS; say sayonara to Pokemon Go, Google Maps, and self-driving cars.

I would like to note, that while losing GPS would be terrible, smartphones are not wholely dependent on it for location data. A smartphone can use other means such as cellular signal or a wi-fi connection to generate the location data. GPS is a lot more accurate and ubiquitous than other options, but the other options are workable in most situations.

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3 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

Actually analog is still much more durable than digital. We can still read five thousand year old papyrus scrolls, but optical disks, hard drives, and flash drives all degrade in no more than a few years. Reliance on digital storage and communication makes our entire civilization vulnerable to electromagnetic pulse which could come from a few high-altitude nukes or a big solar flare. "The cloud" is just an abstract concept; it's really just a collection of physical media utterly dependent on electromagnetic communication, particularly satellites. If you haven't seen Gravity yet, the disaster that knocks out all of the satellites in it isn't a fantasy, it's a real worry. And it doesn't take nukes to cause it. There's so much junk floating in near-Earth space now, collisions aren't uncommon at all. We could lose the ability to keep satellites up for decades. No more GPS; say sayonara to Pokemon Go, Google Maps, and self-driving cars.

Warning!

Long rant ahead!

I was writing a short answer to Tom and it turned into a wall of text. This is the cut down short version. You wouldn't want to see the original, trust me on this...

We're actually less dependent on satellites for communication now than we were years back. The internet require both huge capacities and low latency that's impossible to achieve using satellite links. So suddenly the expensive transatlantic cables became viable again. And once the cables were in place telecommunications migrated back to cable, though now in IP form.

The areas most affected by the loss of telecommunication satellites are probably third world countries where they never had a land based telecommunications network. The small island states are another area where it might be problematic to maintain communications. Radio link doesn't work beyond line of sight, and laying cables quickly becomes expensive.

Most of what we would lose if all satellites became inoperable is TV distribution, weather data, satellite imagery of the earth, a lot of scientific instruments and navigation. The SR-71 and other nations old spy planes would quickly be brought back into service to keep the military happy, and the meteorologists would have to write new software to use old fashioned methods, hopefully more accurate than when they had to do it all by hand. I'm sure I forget something important, but those are what I think of first.

Navigation would be hit hard, as the millions upon millions of devices that are using GPS would be unusable. It is however possible to fire up the old navigation systems such as LORAN and DECCA. In the short term shipping and airplanes could have functional navigation very quickly, but it would probably take several years before we had something in place that could replace GPS in daily use. e-LORAN will apparently allow for accuracy in the +-10 meter range, which would be good enough for car navigation, but not good enough for robotic combine harvesters…

Self driving cars would probably be affected less than what most might think. Sure they use GPS and street maps, but it’s not what they rely on to keep on the road. All versions of self driving cars I've seen use several sensors such as cameras, laser range finders and even versions of radar to keep track of things like lane delimiters, the road shoulder, street signs, curbs, other vehicles and pedestrians. Even if we would end up with e-LORAN or LORAN-C the accuracy would probably be good enough for self driving cars.

One thing I'm not sure about is just how small an e-LORAN navigator can be made. It's possible that the physical requirements of the receiving antenna makes it too large to be built into mobile devices such as phones or smart watches, but I'm certain we'll find a solution to get Pokemon Go working again...


 

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4 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

"Weird" is always relative. Here along the periphery of San Francisco Bay, gender fluidity stands out about as much as whole wheat bread vs. white.

The point is that it wasn't "turn". In my opinion, EGS is just steadily getting weirder and weirder.

4 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

Actually analog is still much more durable than digital. We can still read five thousand year old papyrus scrolls, but optical disks, hard drives, and flash drives all degrade in no more than a few years.

Actually anything written in Latin alphabet is digital. Hieroglyphs are not, but Latin means fixed and very limited set of symbols in single direction. You don't NEED to read two thousand year old papyrus written in Latin, you can get the same information delivered to you over optical cable. You need to make photo of papyrus with hieroglyphs and you might still not be sure what specific symbol was originally.

Optical disks, hard drives, flash drives ... all degrade. But the information can be copied without loss. And more relevant to what I was talking about, the photographic film WILL degrade. Colors on 20 years old film can't be trusted, original was colored differently but different colors degraded with different speed. Digital image can be preserved forever - if you copy it regularly from old medium to new one.

4 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

Reliance on digital storage and communication makes our entire civilization vulnerable to electromagnetic pulse which could come from a few high-altitude nukes or a big solar flare.

Technically, optical media are relatively resistant to this. And I'm sure there are databanks shielded very well.

4 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

If you haven't seen Gravity yet, the disaster that knocks out all of the satellites in it isn't a fantasy, it's a real worry.

The disaster as shown on Gravity was not exactly believable. Space is 3D, they shown it almost 1D. But it's true that satellites are vulnerable and the amount of garbage on low orbit might make impossible to launch new ones because there wouldn't be safe path through. Existing high-orbit ones would likely survive any problem with mass collisions, as high orbits are less cluttered and, well, bigger, but they are likely vulnerable to solar flare (although I would imagine military satellites are shielded).

In fact, this article mentions that both spy and GPS satellites are relatively high AND shielded.

4 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

As for high priests, we still got 'em and they can cause a remarkable amount of trouble (crusades, inquisitions, jihads, etc). But EGS has steered pretty clear of religion and its controversies and I think it's an excellent idea for this forum to do the same.

It's hard to stay clear of religion when talking with Pharaoh RutinTutin. (PM me if you still don't get it, I don't want to be boring on forum.)

Also, I wouldn't recommend Sinfest to anyone. It used to be good but now it just keeps ramming the same message harder and harder as if loudness ever convinced anyone.

56 minutes ago, Cpt. Obvious said:

We're actually less dependent on satellites for communication now than we were years back. The internet require both huge capacities and low latency that's impossible to achieve using satellite links. So suddenly the expensive transatlantic cables became viable again. And once the cables were in place telecommunications migrated back to cable, though now in IP form.

Yes. In fact I'm not sure if Internet was ever dependent on satellites, at least on the important lines like the transatlantic one.

56 minutes ago, Cpt. Obvious said:

Most of what we would lose if all satellites became inoperable is TV distribution, weather data, satellite imagery of the earth, a lot of scientific instruments and navigation. The SR-71 and other nations old spy planes would quickly be brought back into service to keep the military happy, and the meteorologists would have to write new software to use old fashioned methods, hopefully more accurate than when they had to do it all by hand. I'm sure I forget something important, but those are what I think of first.

I would expect that current spy planes would be able to provide usable meteorological data, although not as cheaply as satellites.

 

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6 minutes ago, hkmaly said:
4 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

As for high priests, we still got 'em and they can cause a remarkable amount of trouble (crusades, inquisitions, jihads, etc). But EGS has steered pretty clear of religion and its controversies and I think it's an excellent idea for this forum to do the same.

It's hard to stay clear of religion when talking with Pharaoh RutinTutin. (PM me if you still don't get it, I don't want to be boring on forum.)

The closest to current religious belief that EGS has gotten to was with regards to Nanase's Guardian form. That there are Immortals named Zeus is an indication that Dan is fine with delving into ancient religion, myths and legends.

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5 minutes ago, Scotty said:

The closest to current religious belief that EGS has gotten to was with regards to Nanase's Guardian form. That there are Immortals named Zeus is an indication that Dan is fine with delving into ancient religion, myths and legends.

Pandora herself is also from religion, technically, and definitely from legends. Griffins and dragons seems legendary enough as well.

I'm not sure why so-called "current" religions should have any advantages but I'm sure discussion about it would be both offtopic and dangerous.

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GPS:

IMHO if the GPS satellites were taken out and putting up new ones were not feasible, at least for navigation in populated areas it wouldn't be a big deal. They'd just put scaled-down GPS "satellites" on existing cell towers... which would spur the more-rapid deployment of suitable towers to remote locations that currently have little-to-no cell service. That would be a lot more practical than putting up a completely-different replacement system AND replacing all the GPS-using devices.

There would have to be some tweaking because of earthquakes and such moving towers around, but not much... with the current system, the GPS satellites' opinions on their precise orbital characteristics need to be corrected based on ground observation every month (iirc), because of orbital perturbations caused by pretty much everything in this solar system and maybe the next one over, and are corrected every week (so if something goes wrong on the ground causing a correction or two to be skipped, it isn't a big deal).

Religion:

The way Dan has used names from mythology, he has never made or implied anything about the truth of any part of that mythology. Pandora, in particular, is explicitly an ordinary human in the mythology - not an immortal being of any sort. And it's pretty plain that some immortals take the names of deities from mythology because those names are of deities from mythology - their mythological origin predates the immortals borrowing them.

If you want a webcomic that touches a bit more firmly on mythology, try Gunnerkrigg Court. A number of mythological figures from several different mythologies have appeared there... one of them from the mythology most commonly known as Sesame Street (but not in the same role at all). So far, I think only one being that is explicitly a god has appeared, and one other has been referred to.

Or I'd recommend Brat-halla if it were still going... the way it ended, it really looks like the artists just got tired of it and could be bothered less and less (the last several pages are as seen by a blind character, and then it just stops without anything resembling an ending). But that was after a run of more than a decade, and was a lot of fun for most of that run. It quite explicitly gets into religion and mythology, particularly Norse but also touching on several others on occasion.

Wapsi Square doesn't directly get into religion or the standard mythology, but sort of crafts its own. Major characters include a guy who fought in the Trojan War, a part-phoenix, a couple of sphinxes... and then if you get into the fanfictions in the forum, there you'll find more religious stuff including an appearance by Hades and a few scenes where Jesus has a speaking part.

 

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35 minutes ago, Don Edwards said:

IMHO if the GPS satellites were taken out and putting up new ones were not feasible, at least for navigation in populated areas it wouldn't be a big deal. They'd just put scaled-down GPS "satellites" on existing cell towers... which would spur the more-rapid deployment of suitable towers to remote locations that currently have little-to-no cell service. That would be a lot more practical than putting up a completely-different replacement system AND replacing all the GPS-using devices.

I'm pretty sure creating stationary GPS emulators will be very ineffective but compared to replacing all GPS-using devices ... you may be right.

35 minutes ago, Don Edwards said:

and maybe the next one over

VERY unlikely. In fact, I think lot of stuff IN our solar system have no effect on GPS satellites. Like Pluto.

35 minutes ago, Don Edwards said:

And it's pretty plain that some immortals take the names of deities from mythology because those names are of deities from mythology - their mythological origin predates the immortals borrowing them.

I don't think it predates the immortals. Their memories, on the other hand ...

Also, it's still very likely the "original" Zeus was one of immortals. Or even more than one - they might be taking turns or pretending to be one entity in different areas. And later forgot about it in one of resets.

But, yes, Pandora herself picked the name because the legend already existed.

35 minutes ago, Don Edwards said:

If you want a webcomic that touches a bit more firmly on mythology, try Gunnerkrigg Court.

I have that on list. Might even get to actually read it sometime.

35 minutes ago, Don Edwards said:

Wapsi Square doesn't directly get into religion or the standard mythology, but sort of crafts its own.

There are LOT of comics like that. There is one with half-pooka Hades, speaking about him ...

(I've read parts of Wapsi Square but I'm not sure if it's worth it reading it whole. Similarly as Girl Genius.)

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5 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Pandora herself is also from religion, technically, and definitely from legends. Griffins and dragons seems legendary enough as well.

I'm not sure why so-called "current" religions should have any advantages but I'm sure discussion about it would be both offtopic and dangerous.

I assume that Dan avoids discussing the truth/accuracy of current religions because somebody might get seriously offended if he said that Christ, Mohammad, the Buddha, or other important founding figures were the work of Immortals, Aliens, or Wizards rather than of deities. Religions such as the old Greco-Roman pantheon or the Old Norse gods are fair game because very few people believe in them being the One True Faith any more.

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46 minutes ago, ijuin said:

I assume that Dan avoids discussing the truth/accuracy of current religions because somebody might get seriously offended if he said that Christ, Mohammad, the Buddha, or other important founding figures were the work of Immortals, Aliens, or Wizards rather than of deities. Religions such as the old Greco-Roman pantheon or the Old Norse gods are fair game because very few people believe in them being the One True Faith any more.

Sooo, if you offend just small group of people it's more ok than if you offend large group?

(It's true that it's safer. Also, Dan can likely afford to lose all readers who get offended by implying Zeus is not real god but might not afford to lose all Christian readers or all Muslim readers or all Buddhist, to match your list of examples. It just doesn't sound nice if you say it like this.)

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But Dan never implied that Zeus is not a real god. He simply stated that there are (in his fictional universe) beings who go by that name but are not real gods.

You won't offend Moslems by pointing out that there are beings named Mohammed who are not prophets...

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6 minutes ago, Don Edwards said:

But Dan never implied that Zeus is not a real god. He simply stated that there are (in his fictional universe) beings who go by that name but are not real gods.

He never said it. What he's implying is harder to objectively measure ... but you may be right.

7 minutes ago, Don Edwards said:

You won't offend Moslems by pointing out that there are beings named Mohammed who are not prophets...

I'm not entirely convinced about that. But we are getting both offtopic and on dangerous ground. I personally think religious people shouldn't take religion so seriously, but there is lot of people who do ...

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On 4/5/2017 at 1:07 AM, Don Edwards said:

You won't offend Moslems by pointing out that there are beings named Mohammed who are not prophets...

 

On 4/5/2017 at 1:20 AM, hkmaly said:

Apples and oranges.  Don sounds like he's talking about, for example, Mohammed Ali.  You're talking about pictures which very definitely were depicting the Prophet specifically.

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15 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:
On 04/05/2017 at 8:20 AM, hkmaly said:

Apples and oranges.  Don sounds like he's talking about, for example, Mohammed Ali.  You're talking about pictures which very definitely were depicting the Prophet specifically.

I suppose I didn't saw all images and I don't read French, but the most famous one is head in turban with bomb in it titled Mohammed. Nothing specifically about Prophet.

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3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

I suppose I didn't saw all images and I don't read French, but the most famous one is head in turban with bomb in it titled Mohammed. Nothing specifically about Prophet.

It was a clearly insulting picture. Created specifically to be offensive to Muslims. Someone changing their name to 'Mohammad' as a show of faith after converting does not fall into quite the same category.

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21 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:
4 hours ago, hkmaly said:

I suppose I didn't saw all images and I don't read French, but the most famous one is head in turban with bomb in it titled Mohammed. Nothing specifically about Prophet.

It was a clearly insulting picture. Created specifically to be offensive to Muslims. Someone changing their name to 'Mohammad' as a show of faith after converting does not fall into quite the same category.

And someone named Mohammad who is of different faith?

Based on recent history, offending Muslims (or someone who claims to speak for Muslims) seems to be easiest AND most dangerous from all religions.

(But I think we got very offtopic ...)

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1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

Based on recent history, offending Muslims (or someone who claims to speak for Muslims) seems to be easiest AND most dangerous from all religions.

(But I think we got very offtopic ...)

The Moderator: Since you just moved over to an outright attack on a religion, yes. Thread closed.

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