Re: [Official!] Project Horizons Comment Crew Chat thread.

[Ketchup]

Okay, I've been given the Hamiltonian H(q,p)=((p^2)/2m)+(pA(q))+(B(q)) where p is the conjugate/canonical/generalized momentum of q. They want me to find the velocity, but ∂H/∂p=qdot+A(q), as far as I can tell.

What is this math for?

[Sindri]

Developed by a third, neutral power in secret not long before the bombs fell, and it was never widely deployed because of logistical issues : the power which developed it has for all of its history suffered from a chronic shortage of magical gems and wasn't going to waste them on ammunitions unless necessary to achieve some objectives.

Except that the energy requirements are ridiculously easy to bypass. Energy cost scales with mass and by the square of the distance, correct? So when targeting a live creature, you put a grain of sand in their brain. Negligible mass means it's cheap even at a few hundred meters, and it goes through any armor, can't be dodged, and probably doesn't even show on the autopsy. Going to blow up a vehicle or a bunker? Put it on an ordinary rocket, and pack just enough gems for a one meter hop; teleport goes off when the nose touches the target, and the payload skips the armor for less than 1/250,000th of the energy you used to launch it 500m.

I thought these up in seconds. Do you really think that an entire military development team couldn't over the course of an entire war?

When your story requires every supposedly intelligent character to be dumber than me in order to not break everything down, I usually no longer consider it a good story. If I were in the Harry Potter universe as it's written, I'd own the economy in a day and disable every named villain inside two weeks (and that's without abuse of time travel), so it's very irritating to me that none of those "brilliant" people ever did anything clever. Star Trek is even worse; give me a single transporter and a single fabricator and I'd have a fleet larger and more powerful than anything that universe had seen before breakfast. One of the big reasons I like Project Horizons is because things work. They don't force me to stop thinking, or punish me for being smarter than the "geniuses" involved. On the rare occasions that something is practical and hasn't been done, it's because the characters have good reason to not have thought of it. And that's great because I really like thinking, and it's hard for me to stop.

[Harmony Ltd.]

Hmmm... I was going with the idea that the actual device used to produce the teleportation field was bulky, and that the mass / volume it could displace was inferior to its own mass / size. This and that it required costly components that you wouldn't want to sacrifice with each launch.

Also, one of the prime motivation behind the design of that weapon would be to fire undetected. Firing a missile is kind of the antithesis of that.

To detect a launch you'd need to have some kind of purpose-built apparatus designed to detect spikes of magical energy and triangulate their source. Which on the battlefield of a war in the magical land of Equestria could be useful, but after some time you'd get so many spikes coming from all the magic around that you'd end up not paying attention anymore (at least if the thing isn't hooked to some sort of algorithm to discriminate between the different kind of magic spike signatures).



Really, it's just that we have different assumptions about teleportation.

[Sindri]

Hmmm... I was going with the idea that the actual device used to produce the teleportation field was bulky, and that the mass / volume it could displace was inferior to its own mass / size. This and that it required costly components that you wouldn't want to sacrifice with each launch.

Also, one of the prime motivation behind the design of that weapon would be to fire undetected. Firing a missile is kind of the antithesis of that.

To detect a launch you'd need to have some kind of purpose-built apparatus designed to detect spikes of magical energy and triangulate their source. Which on the battlefield of a war in the magical land of Equestria could be useful, but after some time you'd get so many spikes coming from all the magic around that you'd end up not paying attention anymore (at least if the thing isn't hooked to some sort of algorithm to discriminate between the different kind of magic spike signatures).



Really, it's just that we have different assumptions about teleportation.

Components too costly to launch? Want to remain undetected? Fine. Hook it to a detection system from a pipbuck, the one that puts red bars on your EFS through walls (or any other barrier penetrating sensor; thermal, sonic, life detection, whatever). Fire one grain of sand into the brain of every red bar inside a kilometer. The magical discharge per shot is so tiny as to be entirely undetectable against the background, the cause of death is virtually impossible to find, and every enemy within a set range of your position, regardless of defenses, dies of a stroke. And the only thing expended is a hoof of sand and enough gems to teleport a couple grams of material. The enemy bunker is irrelevant because everyone you don't like is already dead and the system is practically free to use.

[Harmony Ltd.]

The problem wasn't energy requirements (never really was - a kilogram of gems is still just a kilogram of gems). It was targeting : in my view, magic is something that is really "fluid", not mechanical / deterministic (at least from a macro-scale point of view), and there's a lot of variables to take into account for such a spell. If you just used the device without a targeting computer to monitor and constantly correct / re-adjust the spell matrix / focusing crystals / [technobabble], with the same user input (distance and direction) your canister could end up in radically different places, simply because of random flukes in the magic flow.

And the more distance increased, the more these flukes added exponentially, requiring more and more sensory datas and computing power to counter.

[Sindri]

The problem wasn't energy requirements (never really was - a kilogram of gems is still just a kilogram of gems). It was targeting : in my view, magic is something that is really "fluid", not mechanical / deterministic (at least from a macro-scale point of view), and there's a lot of variables to take into account for such a spell. If you just used the device without a targeting computer to monitor and constantly correct / re-adjust the spell matrix / focusing crystals / [technobabble], with the same user input (distance and direction) your canister could end up in radically different places, simply because of random flukes in the magic flow.

And the more distance increased, the more these flukes added exponentially, requiring more and more sensory datas and computing power to counter.

Well, if energy isn't very limited, ammunition is free, the weapon is undetectable, there's absolutely nothing to stop you from shooting again and again until you hit. Let's see... you named CEP as between 2-5m at 500, 10m at 600, 30m at 700, and called the error growth exponential? Sounds like it's roughtly tripling with every hundred meters distance? So at 400m, you're got 1.11m. At 300, 37cm. At 200m, the CEP is 12.3cm and almost half your grains are going into targets' brains. At 100m, more than the distance of a football field, the CEP is 4.11 centimeters and every shot is a kill no matter what's between you and them. The firing is silent, the targeting is automatic though high priority personnel can be prioritized, the magical discharge is negligible. Now give the pony carrying this sandblaster a stealth buck. They simply walk up to the enemy base and by the time they knock on the door everything is dead, with no trace left behind, for pennies.

[O. Hinds]

Okay, I've been given the Hamiltonian H(q,p)=((p^2)/2m)+(pA(q))+(B(q)) where p is the conjugate/canonical/generalized momentum of q. They want me to find the velocity, but ∂H/∂p=qdot+A(q), as far as I can tell.

What is this math for?

My Mechanics II homework. I've still not been able to finish that question, by the way, and am now planning to ask the professor about it tomorrow. This is annoying, as I'd hoped to have this section finished today.

[O. Hinds]

New question: is ∂L/∂p=0? A peer and I think so, but we've not yet found a source.
edit: Oh, sorry for not specifying: that's the Lagrangian, not the angular momentum.

[O. Hinds]

Okay, we're now pretty sure that the answer's "yes", having looked in more detail at Hamilton's equation for qdot.

[Harmony Ltd.]

RE sand blaster :

That could work. If it was made by Equestrians and if there had been more time before everything went to shit.

IIRC, the ones who made it didn't have at the time technologies comparable to the stealthbuck or SATS (they tried mounting a targeting computer on a sniper rifle, but it kept crashing at the worst moment).

At the time of the War (in which they weren't involved themselves), their computers / "cybernetics" (so to speak) was lagging a decade or two behind what Equestria and the Zebra produced. So computing was a hard limit for them (see comment above on the sniper rifle).

The obstacles to the sand blaster idea in this case would be :

1 - Detecting the people and determining the position of their head
2 - Targeting their heads
3 - Doing it quickly enough


1/ no magical detection spell, so detecting people behind walls is going to be hard,
2/ let alone determining the emplacement of their head.
3/ and computing all that will take time, and given the computing constraints will have difficulties working on moving targets. And the teleporter itself takes a few seconds to load the energy, calibrate all the [technobabble] and shoot - with the "rocket launcher" it takes something like 10 seconds between the launch order and the launch itself. By the way, that's why shooting with this weapon on vehicles is only really feasible either when they are parked or idling, or following a VERY predictable course (like a train or a boat, for example).

[Harmony Ltd.]

@ Hinds : I'm sorry, but I fear I cannot be of any help.

[StoneSlinger88]

Hmm... What if you took the EFS data and had the weapon teleport multiple grains of sand in a three-dimensional pattern to ensure maximum chance of hitting the target?

[Harmony Ltd.]

Well, we'd have to decide if, when teleporting something, it need to be in one whole piece or not. Personally I'd go with the former, which would tend to exclude your idea, but that's just my opinion - if it works in your story, it works in your story.


If you want to be effective, replace the grain of sand by a grain of material which explode / burns on contact with living tissues, and coat it into a thin protective layer which will dissolve once it comes into contact with living tissues. That way the system could be lethal even when it miss the brain and end up somewhere else inside the target's body.

Less discreet than the sand grain at autopsy time, but on the other hand let's not kid ourselves, if a whole military base where to be slayed like that they would discover sooner or later what the cause of death is.

[O. Hinds]

Well, we'd have to decide if, when teleporting something, it need to be in one whole piece or not. Personally I'd go with the former, which would tend to exclude your idea, but that's just my opinion - if it works in your story, it works in your story.


If you want to be effective, replace the grain of sand by a grain of material which explode / burns on contact with living tissues, and coat it into a thin protective layer which will dissolve once it comes into contact with living tissues. That way the system could be lethal even when it miss the brain and end up somewhere else inside the target's body.

Less discreet than the sand grain at autopsy time, but on the other hand let's not kid ourselves, if a whole military base where to be slayed like that they would discover sooner or later what the cause of death is.

How would "one whole piece" be defined?

Oh, and I believe that it's "slain", not "slayed".

[StoneSlinger88]

Peasants please.

It's "slayeth".

[Valikdu]

I will distract you! Anemones everywhere!

My little Brood War, my little Brood War, la la la la...

Spoiler:

[Sindri]

So I started playing Kerbal Space Program. After a couple of failures to launch, I got to where I could reliably fire off a rocket and retrieve the crew. Then to where I could make orbit in a single stage. Then I passed the Mun's orbit with a two stage rocket, though the timing was off to actually loop it, and came back... and then accidentally left the pod on the way in. I proceeded to slowly figure out the controls for the personal thrust packs, run out of fuel trying to get back to the pod, and (one decaying orbit later) reenter the atmosphere in nothing but a suit. And then land, in nothing but a suit, and keep walking around. My current mission is to build a plane to cross a third of the globe and retrieve that heroic kerbal from the next continent over.

Planes are hard. I've lost a dozen good men and not yet made it into the air.

[Ironmonger]

All I ever did was send mine into the sun.

That honestly sounds like something I would do out of boredom. Then I'd laugh in morbid glee as they fly to their demise.

[Sindri]

So apparently the kerbals took all the money that clearly didn't go to flight computers or competent pilots of engineers who had any idea what they fuck they were doing and put it into really good spacesuits. Anything that lets you reenter at orbital velocity and then land with a bounce and walk away?

[Harmony Ltd.]

How would "one whole piece" be defined?

Hmmm... Quickly, like that, I'd say one "continuous" object, with the exact form of the object not mattering as long as every constitutive pieces are in contact with each other (ponies just need to hold hooves to be teleported together IIRC).

Oh, and I believe that it's "slain", not "slayed".

Thanks. Irregular verbs are a pain in the ass sometimes.

[Kippershy]

So apparently the kerbals took all the money that clearly didn't go to flight computers or competent pilots of engineers who had any idea what they fuck they were doing and put it into really good spacesuits. Anything that lets you reenter at orbital velocity and then land with a bounce and walk away?

Oh god, I had this happen once.
I don't even know -how- I managed to do it, I just did. Crazy.

[O. Hinds]

How would "one whole piece" be defined?

Hmmm... Quickly, like that, I'd say one "continuous" object, with the exact form of the object not mattering as long as every constitutive pieces are in contact with each other (ponies just need to hold hooves to be teleported together IIRC).

But how is "continuous" defined?

Oh, and I believe that it's "slain", not "slayed".

Thanks. Irregular verbs are a pain in the ass sometimes.

Aye.

[Harmony Ltd.]

That one's for Frost :

http://9gag.com/gag/6910582

[Harmony Ltd.]

But how is "continuous" defined?

(ponies just need to hold hooves to be teleported together IIRC).

I guess that'd mean that two people holding hands would be considered as one continuous object from the point of view of the teleportation spell.

So as long as two objects are in contact with one another ("contact" to be defined), it can be considered as one continuous object.

Of course, there would be some amount of selection as to what is part of the "teleport group" and what isn't, because otherwise a pony standing on the ground would also tend to teleport the ground he's standing on and everything that's standing on said ground...

[Frost]

That one's for Frost :

http://9gag.com/gag/6910582

That reminds me: I'm busy at the moment, but remind me later to rant about unfair regulations on self-defence machetes

[iLateralGX]

Steam Keys for KSP are up Kip. (and anybody else who bought it)

http://kerbaldevteam.tumblr.com/post/46431820897/steam-keys-are-up

[CamoBadger]

Okay, let's play the music game with the new track from Les Friction (an amazing group with some of the greatest songs I've ever heard. I love them so much). Track is called Firewall, and it is so fucking amazing. I look forward to seeing where people think it will fit.

[Frost]

I just had the greatest idea ever pop into my head

You've got a good kingdom in D&D, right? And everyone's all law-abiding, peace-loving, ect ect ect ect little bitches who can't deal with the rape-happy orcs marauding through them

Solution: Cast Smite Evil on their Vaginas, assholes, and mouths. That way, normal, day-to-day filthy rutting will harm no one, but when the rape-train rolls in, it will learn the hard way that the rape train does, indeed, have breaks

[Meleagridis]

Solution: Cast Smite Evil

A) Eugh.
B) I'm pretty sure that Smite Evil has to be an attack, right? So... they would have to actively seek out the criminals and... well... they'd have to be pre-emptive.
B) Eugh.

[Valikdu]

Solution: Cast Smite Evil

So... they would have to actively seek out the criminals and... well... they'd have to be pre-emptive.

I think that he meant to enchant the... parts... to apply Smite Evil on contact.

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