| --- Log opened Sun Nov 08 00:00:16 2009 |
| 00:07 | < gnolam> | Ahhh! |
| 00:07 | | * gnolam realizes why he seemed to get so much done in so little time today. |
| 00:07 | < gnolam> | The clock had stopped. |
| 00:09 | < simon`> | hehe |
| 00:10 | < simon`> | Rhamphoryncus, what are dice strings? |
| 00:10 | < Rhamphoryncus> | sorry, dice rolling commands |
| 00:11 | < simon`> | ah, I understood it then |
| 00:11 | < simon`> | do you know the Troll program? |
| 00:11 | < Rhamphoryncus> | no |
| 00:12 | < simon`> | http://www.diku.dk/hjemmesider/ansatte/torbenm/Troll/ |
| 00:13 | < simon`> | apparently, White Wolf used it when trying to balance the dice rolls in their New WoD system. |
| 00:13 | < Rhamphoryncus> | ahh cool |
| 00:13 | < Rhamphoryncus> | Although I've done some of that math myself |
| 00:14 | < Rhamphoryncus> | I *might* have cheated and used shell scripting + grep for some.. |
| 00:14 | < simon`> | http://topps.diku.dk/torbenm/troll.msp <- this is Troll in a web-based interface |
| 00:14 | < simon`> | made with ML Server Pages *sigh* :) |
| 00:15 | < simon`> | it's pretty neat for a high-latency brain like mine when I'm playing pen&paper and just want some grasp of how likely something *really* is to happen. |
| 00:16 | < Rhamphoryncus> | yeah |
| 00:18 | < Rhamphoryncus> | bookmarked now |
| 00:19 | < simon`> | Torben Mogensen is my compilers professor. |
| 00:19 | < Rhamphoryncus> | Who's that? |
| 00:19 | | You're now known as TheWatcher[T-2] |
| 00:20 | < McMartin> | Developed Troll, it seems. |
| 00:20 | < Rhamphoryncus> | ahh |
| 00:22 | < McMartin> | He looks like my kind of compilers guy. |
| 00:23 | < McMartin> | (Compilers and program analysis were nominally my focus in grad school.) |
| 00:26 | | You're now known as TheWatcher[zZzZ] |
| 01:46 | < gnolam> | Bad Google Sites, bad! |
| 01:46 | < gnolam> | You don't have to notify /me/ of every change /I/ made. |
| 01:47 | < gnolam> | No treat! |
| 01:47 | <@Derakon> | Ehh, I don't mind having it for my records. |
| 01:48 | < gnolam> | And it's just a matter of time until someone will try to clear the comment log again. Leading to about 50 separate "A comment has been deleted" mails. |
| 01:49 | <@Derakon> | Oh. That's a different matter. |
| 02:10 | < dmlandrum> | They must've handed that one to the intern. |
| 03:26 | | Attilla [The.Attilla@FBC920.81F6E9.75B9E8.9A3898] has quit [[NS] Quit: ] |
| 03:31 | | * Derakon eyes his computer, wonders why he was allowed to copy something into /Library/Components without providing a password. |
| 03:43 | | gnolam [lenin@Nightstar-38637aa0.priv.bahnhof.se] has quit [[NS] Quit: Z?] |
| 04:26 | < dmlandrum> | Off topic, I know, but there's some smarts in this here room, so I ask: if you wanted to kill off an under-fresh-water-dwelling race of humans, how would you go about it? (This is for a movie I'm trying to plot out.) |
| 04:29 | < dmlandrum> | The idea is for the good guys to thwart this, by the way. |
| 04:29 | < McMartin> | We've got all kinds of wonderful, water-destroying toxins. |
| 04:29 | < McMartin> | Dumping a year's worth of agricultural runoff into the lake would probably do it. |
| 04:29 | < dmlandrum> | Ahh, good one. I really like the idea of taking a low-tech solution. |
| 04:30 | <@Derakon> | Just use it as a toilet. |
| 04:30 | < dmlandrum> | Well, it's not stagnant water. |
| 04:31 | < dmlandrum> | It has to be an all-at-once proposition. |
| 04:31 | <@Derakon> | Still, if you put a decent-sized city upstream, they're going to suffer. |
| 04:31 | <@Derakon> | Ah. |
| 04:31 | <@Derakon> | Yeah, for low-tech you're basically looking at pollution-based approaches. |
| 04:31 | < dmlandrum> | Hmm... |
| 04:32 | < McMartin> | silt |
| 04:32 | < McMartin> | Mine runoff works too |
| 04:32 | < dmlandrum> | It's a steampunk-ish world, so the reason I like a low-tech approach is it's the one you don't expect from a bunch of mad scientist-types. |
| 04:32 | < McMartin> | Actually, look for Superfund sites that involve lakes getting completely killed. |
| 04:32 | < McMartin> | Most of those are going to be high-tech versions of things with low-tech equivlanets. |
| 04:33 | <@Derakon> | Other approaches could include trying to acidify the water, but that sounds a bit too science-y. |
| 04:33 | < McMartin> | I think they're even called "fishkill". |
| 04:33 | < McMartin> | ... |
| 04:33 | < McMartin> | CARBONATE IT |
| 04:33 | < dmlandrum> | Ha! |
| 04:33 | < dmlandrum> | How about something that *could* look accidental? |
| 04:33 | < McMartin> | If it's a careless thing, they're doing carbon sequestration. |
| 04:33 | <@Derakon> | ...lakes are big. |
| 04:33 | <@Derakon> | Accidentally destroying one is gonna be tricky. |
| 04:34 | < McMartin> | Unless you're storing a year's worth of mine tailings right next door. |
| 04:34 | <@Derakon> | Especially if the existence of the race there is well-known. |
| 04:34 | < dmlandrum> | It's steampunk. We can go on a flight of fancy here. :-) |
| 04:34 | < McMartin> | Then someone could blow up a channel that connects them. |
| 04:34 | <@Derakon> | That'd work. |
| 04:34 | <@Derakon> | Oh, hey, actually... |
| 04:34 | <@Derakon> | Louisiana had a problem where they accidentally connected a massive salt mine to a lake. |
| 04:34 | < McMartin> | The "mine tailings next door leak and kill everything" happened in West Virginia last year. |
| 04:34 | < dmlandrum> | Ooh, I like that. |
| 04:34 | <@Derakon> | Drained the lake completely, ran the runoff flows to the ocean backwards. |
| 04:35 | < McMartin> | I think researching Superfund sites really is going to be your best bet here |
| 04:35 | < dmlandrum> | Doing something to render the lake salty was something already on my mind. |
| 04:35 | <@Derakon> | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Peigneur |
| 04:35 | < McMartin> | It'll give you all sorts of morbid details. |
| 04:35 | <@Derakon> | This is more than just making the lake salty... |
| 04:36 | < McMartin> | The mine absorbed the lake entirely? |
| 04:36 | <@Derakon> | Yeah. |
| 04:36 | <@Derakon> | It was only 10' deep. |
| 04:36 | <@Derakon> | (The lake, that is) |
| 04:36 | < dmlandrum> | But I also need this plot to be something that can be spotted based upon shipments to and from this country. |
| 04:36 | < McMartin> | Hey, remember when that lake in Peru vanished overnight? |
| 04:36 | < McMartin> | Did we ever figure out what caused that? |
| 04:36 | <@Derakon> | No? |
| 04:36 | < dmlandrum> | The twist of the plot is one of our main characters puts a two and two together based upon what he's been shipping to them. |
| 04:36 | < McMartin> | I remember it because everybody was Totally Original about this and my LJ friendspage was nothing but pictures of Carmen Sandiego~ |
| 04:37 | < dmlandrum> | Oh, and this race of people CAN live out of water, but they need to keep hydrates. |
| 04:37 | <@Derakon> | Hee. |
| 04:37 | < dmlandrum> | Err, hydrated. |
| 04:37 | <@Derakon> | Well, are you looking to kill them, or just destroy their home? |
| 04:37 | < McMartin> | (Seriously, though, who else makes lakes disappear entirely~) |
| 04:37 | <@Derakon> | Killing would probably require a subtle toxin so by the time they realize something's wrong, they're already dead. |
| 04:37 | < dmlandrum> | The idea is to kill them. I need to give some cultural background as to why. |
| 04:38 | < dmlandrum> | Basically, they're a created race, from some time ago (think along the lines of the Geisterdamen or Jaegermonsters in Girl Genius), and there is legal contention over whether they have a right to existence. |
| 04:39 | < dmlandrum> | Most of the world (and it's an all made-up world, not an alternate history like GG) recognize them as having basic rights, but one part doesn't really go in for that. |
| 04:40 | < simon`> | speaking of underwater feces: http://chuckpalahniuk.net/features/shorts/guts |
| 04:42 | < dmlandrum> | To be honest, a lot of my plot is still baking. I'm trying to find a way to gel it all together. |
| 04:43 | < simon`> | dmlandrum, try an invisible carrot. |
| 04:43 | < dmlandrum> | Hrm? |
| 04:44 | < simon`> | it's a device from just mentioned article. |
| 04:47 | < dmlandrum> | I'm not sure how this is helping me. It just seems a typical Pahlinukian story. |
| 04:49 | < dmlandrum> | Oh, okay, maybe I see now what you're getting at. |
| 04:49 | < simon`> | I haven't read anything of his before. |
| 04:49 | < simon`> | s/haven't/hadn't/ |
| 04:51 | < simon`> | actually, my advice didn't apply to your context, since it seems you want some kind of plot device that'll work for a bunch of people, and the carrot is pretty much a feeling that appeals to the individual. |
| 04:53 | < simon`> | I'm not sure if cinematography can be expected to be a strong side of any of us here, but it seems to me that finding a specific excuse for racism isn't what's going to make that plot work. |
| 04:53 | < dmlandrum> | Well... |
| 04:53 | < dmlandrum> | Not racism, per se. |
| 04:53 | < dmlandrum> | The people wanting to do the genocide are fundamentalist types. |
| 04:54 | < dmlandrum> | And the underwater dwellers were created to be, well, sex slaves, and even though they are now free, they remain quite luscivious, and there's something of a tourism around it. |
| 04:54 | < simon`> | I'm pretty sure wanting to kill a people because of their race is called racism. =P do they have alternate motives? aquaphobia? |
| 04:55 | < dmlandrum> | So there's a "purity of thoughts/elimination of evil temptation" thing going on. |
| 04:55 | < simon`> | ah |
| 04:55 | < dmlandrum> | These people don't wear clothes, you see. They live in water. |
| 04:56 | < simon`> | it's not a comedy, is it? because that'd make a good punchline. |
| 04:56 | < dmlandrum> | No, not really. |
| 04:56 | < simon`> | sorry, tired. :) |
| 04:56 | < dmlandrum> | We actually meet one of these "waterkin" early on. |
| 04:57 | < dmlandrum> | A female, because I'd prefer seeing a naked female throughout my movie. Yes, I'm a sexist pig. |
| 04:57 | < dmlandrum> | Actually, that's not really the reason, but that's what people believe of me, so I let them have it. |
| 04:58 | < simon`> | hey, preferences are preferences. |
| 05:00 | < dmlandrum> | It has more to do with audiences being more sympathetic towards female characters. So, it's the audience's sexism that I'm playing on. :-) |
| 05:03 | < dmlandrum> | A few other notes: Waterkin can't speak in air, as their vocal cords can't really handle it (remember, water). So, these are all essentially mute people from our POV. |
| 05:06 | < dmlandrum> | You know, one other tack I could take is to have it common knowledge that this country wants to kill them all, and have embargoes in place and all, and have the big reveal be that my main character (an airship freighter pilot) was unwittingly shipping things to them the whole time. |
| 05:06 | < dmlandrum> | Well, he's not really the MAIN main character. |
| 05:07 | < dmlandrum> | That still leaves open the question of the method they would try. |
| 05:08 | < simon`> | what was the argument against feces, again? |
| 05:08 | < dmlandrum> | But there's other stuff I haven't told any of you yet. |
| 05:08 | < dmlandrum> | Oh, no argument against, really. That was back from when I was saying "make it look accidental." Now I'm saying it doesn't. |
| 05:10 | < dmlandrum> | Oh, hold on... |
| 05:10 | < dmlandrum> | I think I might have an idea. |
| 05:10 | < dmlandrum> | Okay, political machinations time. |
| 05:10 | < dmlandrum> | Small, non-powerful country, being embargoed... |
| 05:11 | < dmlandrum> | They want to destroy the waterkin. Why? Religious reasons, ostensibly. But... |
| 05:11 | < dmlandrum> | The waterkin sometimes get traded on the black market as "pets", because they make such terrific sex slaves (they were designed for it after all). |
| 05:11 | < dmlandrum> | So... |
| 05:12 | < dmlandrum> | Small country destroys the waterkin, but not really. They keep a small (but large enough) group in reserve, secretly, which is now the only available breeding stock for the black market. |
| 05:12 | < dmlandrum> | Result, small, supposedly-religious country gets very rich, very quickly. |
| 05:13 | < dmlandrum> | So, what they would need is a way to destroy the "wild" waterkin, as well as all the other "breeding stocks" out there. |
| 05:15 | < dmlandrum> | I just gave the entire ending twist away, to let you know. |
| 05:16 | < dmlandrum> | So if I ever make this movie, you lot would end up bored. |
| 05:16 | < dmlandrum> | :-P |
| 05:20 | < dmlandrum> | Though there's still plenty of room for cleverness in the method used for the genocide. And that's why I'm here talking about it, because I'm not very clever. |
| 05:25 | < dmlandrum> | Ha! |
| 05:25 | < dmlandrum> | Okay, I need to run off and look for anything that can be dumped in the water that might make people sterile. |
| 05:48 | < Alek> | ahahaha |
| 05:53 | < Namegduf> | D&D manuals. |
| 05:55 | < dmlandrum> | Besides D&D manuals. |
| 05:56 | < Namegduf> | Computer Science literature? |
| 05:56 | < dmlandrum> | It would have to be the strong stuff, like operating system kernels. |
| 06:01 | < dmlandrum> | The likely candidate appears to be oestrogen receptor blockers. |
| 06:07 | < dmlandrum> | My Google search history is going to look weird now. |
| 07:09 | | Derakon is now known as Derakon[AFK] |
| 07:17 | < Pinkhair> | parasites work very well |
| 07:17 | < Pinkhair> | since you already have people who can create tailored organisms |
| 07:18 | < Pinkhair> | and that has the advantage that you can clean out any you want kept alive more easily than toxins |
| 08:55 | | Rhamphoryncus [rhamph@Nightstar-a62bd960.abhsia.telus.net] has quit [Client exited] |
| 09:40 | | You're now known as TheWatcher |
| 10:08 | | Thaqui [Thaqui@27B34E.D54D49.F53FA1.6A113C] has quit [Client closed the connection] |
| 10:14 | | gnolam [lenin@Nightstar-38637aa0.priv.bahnhof.se] has joined #code |
| 10:36 | < dmlandrum> | A tailored organism would be easy to spot, though, especially for a problem that's been on the radar for the last generation or so. A chemical reaction leading to estrogen blockers (essentially a form of forced birth control, from what I can tell) might be more subtle and harder to spot. |
| 11:12 | | AnnoDomini [farkoff@Nightstar-b1da080a.adsl.tpnet.pl] has quit [Ping timeout: 121 seconds] |
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| 11:45 | | You're now known as TheWatcher[afk] |
| 11:56 | < Pinkhair> | the real question is what sort of magic the aggressors have |
| 11:57 | < Pinkhair> | because thats pretty much a total wildcard |
| 12:48 | | Attilla [The.Attilla@FBC920.81F6E9.75B9E8.9A3898] has joined #code |
| 12:48 | | mode/#code [+o Attilla] by ChanServ |
| 13:02 | < dmlandrum> | The magic of awesome steam-powered mad science! |
| 13:05 | | You're now known as TheWatcher |
| 13:10 | < gnolam> | So what's being discussed? |
| 14:00 | | You're now known as TheWatcher[afk] |
| 14:22 | <@Attilla> | I'm guessing Steam. |
| 14:38 | < Pinkhair> | Vorn... He tasks me. |
| 14:38 | < Pinkhair> | He... TASKS me. |
| 14:44 | <@Attilla> | Is it to do with learning how to squeak Vorn? |
| 14:46 | < Pinkhair> | bah, trifles |
| 14:53 | | You're now known as TheWatcher |
| 16:17 | | Tarinaky [Tarinaky@Nightstar-b4b74c4b.adsl.virginmedia.net] has quit [Ping timeout: 121 seconds] |
| 16:31 | | Tarinaky [Tarinaky@Nightstar-f74e51b1.adsl.virginmedia.net] has joined #code |
| 17:06 | | Derakon[AFK] is now known as Derakon |
| 17:28 | | Rhamphoryncus [rhamph@Nightstar-a62bd960.abhsia.telus.net] has joined #code |
| 17:32 | | You're now known as TheWatcher[afk] |
| 17:45 | < Vornicus> | No, I did not task you. You sought information. |
| 17:45 | < Vornicus> | Therefore, have information |
| 17:54 | < Pinkhair> | buried ALIVE! |
| 17:54 | < Pinkhair> | buried ALIVE! |
| 17:55 | | * gnolam covers Pinkhair in The Most Evil Humus. |
| 18:02 | < Pinkhair> | ew |
| 18:02 | < Pinkhair> | I loathe chickpeas |
| 18:03 | < Pinkhair> | no matter how much garlic you add |
| 18:03 | < gnolam> | ... humus, not hummus. |
| 18:04 | | * gnolam buries Pinkhair in some nearby podzol. |
| 18:43 | | You're now known as TheWatcher |
| 20:26 | < gnolam> | In other news, C64 Orchestra's version of "Monty on the Run" is awesome. |
| 20:27 | < gnolam> | http://www.myspace.com/c64orchestra (Yes, Myspace, I know) |
| 20:28 | < SmithKurosaki> | I have also dubbed hummus rather gross |
| 20:38 | < dmlandrum> | I make my own hummus, and it's good. |
| 21:10 | < SmithKurosaki> | Hmm |
| 21:11 | < SmithKurosaki> | You will have to bring some here and feed it to the artsy kids and see what they say |
| 21:53 | | Rhamphoryncus [rhamph@Nightstar-a62bd960.abhsia.telus.net] has quit [Client exited] |
| 22:59 | | Derakon is now known as Derakon[AFK] |
| 23:04 | < dmlandrum> | Screw them. I make what I like. |
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| 23:52 | | AnnoDomini [farkoff@Nightstar-160ae8df.adsl.tpnet.pl] has quit [[NS] Quit: Do not burn the candle at both ends, as it leads to the life of a hairdresser.] |
| 23:55 | | Derakon[AFK] is now known as Derakon |
| --- Log closed Mon Nov 09 00:00:30 2009 |