/ˈbɑːltəkʊteɪ/. Knows some chemistry and piping stuff. TeXmacs user.

Website: reboil.com

Mastodon: baltakatei@twit.social

  • 1 Post
  • 65 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
Cake day: June 12th, 2023
  • baltakatei@sopuli.xyztoRPGMemes @ttrpg.network•Add this to your next human's repertoireEnglish
    4·
    2 months ago

    Elves can live over a thousand years (one dark elf we know of is blessed by their evil deity and is over 5,000), but dwarves only about 2-400 years (I think?) and half lings about 100-150ish, humans standard 80.

    After reading The Age of Em (2016) by Robin Hanson, I wish there were stories about races that went the other way, lifespan-wise: extremely small people who lived only 1 year, even smaller people who lived only 1 month, some very extremely small but very powerful ones that lived only a day, etc. The idea is that artificial people (emulated people, or Ems) could have subjectively similar characteristics and experiences to the larger physical entities (e.g. humans, but perhaps even dwarves, elves, and etc., since theyʼre just emulated minds), but their artificial emulated substrate allows their minds to develop and age orders of magnitude faster; they also could solve certain problems orders of magnitude faster but practical limitations on delays between thought and physical interactions (your mind would waste away if you had to wait a whole subjective hour between each physical step during a walk with a standard 1.5 meter body) require their bodies to be very small.

    To ems that are smaller and faster, sunlight seems dimmer and shows more noticeable diffraction patterns. Magnets, waveguides, and electrostatic motors are less useful. Surface tension makes it harder to escape from water. Friction is more often an obstacle, lubrication is harder to achieve, and random thermal disruptions to the speed of objects become more noticeable. It becomes easier to dissipate excess body heat, but harder to insulate against nearby heat or cold (Haldane 1926; Drexler 1992).

    A crude calculation using a simple conservative nano-computer design suggests that a matching faster-em brain might plausibly fit inside an android body 256 times smaller and faster than an ordinary human body (Hanson 1995).

    Compared with ordinary humans, to a fast em with a small body the Earth seems much larger, and takes much longer to travel around. To a kilo-em, for example, the Earth’s surface area seems a million times larger, a subway ride that takes 15 minutes in real time takes 10 subjective days, an 8-hour plane ride takes a subjective year, and a 1-month flight to Mars takes a subjective century. Sending a radio signal to the planet Saturn and back takes a subjective 4 months. Even super-sonic missiles seem slow. However, over modest distances lasers and directed energy weapons continue to seem very fast to a kilo-em.

    Call them speedlings, or some variant of sprite, but I think its an interesting world-building concept.

  • baltakatei@sopuli.xyztoMemes@sopuli.xyz•The problem with sleeper shipsEnglish
    1·
    3 months ago

    Imagine if a lost Spanish armada finally arrived at Florida, centuries late, musket-wielding conquistadors raiding a coastal naval academy while a prominent political VIP was giving a speech, taking them hostage like Hernán Cortés did with Moctezuma II (Aztec Empire) or Francisco Pizarro with Atahualpa (Inca Empire).

  • baltakatei@sopuli.xyztoMap Enthusiasts@sopuli.xyz•Public EV chargers c.1917English
    1·
    3 months ago

    In fact, electric vehicles have been common once before. In the early years of the twentieth century, there were three fundamentally different automobile technologies battling for supremacy, and electric cars held their own against competition from steam-and gasoline-powered alternatives, as they are mechanically much simpler and more reliable, as well as quiet and smokeless. In Chicago they even dominated the automobile market. At the peak of production of electric vehicles in 1912, 30,000 glided silently along the streets of the USA, and another 4,000 throughout Europe; in 1918 a fifth of Berlin’s motor taxis were electric.

    The drawback of electric cars with their own onboard batteries (rather than trains or trolleys taking a continuous feed from a power line over the track) is that even a large, heavy set cannot store a great deal of energy, and once depleted the battery takes a long time to recharge. The maximum range of these early electric vehicles was around a hundred miles, (Ironically, about 100 miles is still the maximum range for modern electric cars: technological improvements in battery storage and electric motors have been perfectly offset by an increase in car size and weight, and drivers of electric vehicles suffer from “charge anxiety.”) but this is farther than a horse and in an urban setting is more than adequate. The solution is, rather than waiting for the battery to be recharged, you can simply pull into a station for a quick battery pack exchange: Manhattan successfully operated a fleet of electric cabs in 1900, with a central station that rapidly swapped depleted batteries for a fresh tray.

    From The Knowledge (2014) by Lewis Dartnell, chapter 9 “Transport”. Cited works for the history of electric cars are:

  • baltakatei@sopuli.xyztoAnime@ani.social•THE NEW GATE - Episode 4 discussionEnglish
    1·
    4 months ago

    I am glad the author of the original light novel got their story animated. If this story had been published before either Overlord (2010) or Sword Art Online (2002), then the story would have been groundbreaking. However, the only main advantages this show has over other isekai is the lack of any spiciness, beyond the usual smattering of damsels in distress and a blushing pair of twins. Everyone seems chaste, honorable, and hard-working. No sign of any harem development in sight. There does not even seem to be any political antagonist or obvious grievances against the status quo. The most likely source of conflict seems to be MCʼs overpowered state, yet the author has made him successful in keeping that off the plot table for now. Instead of Overlord’s murderous menagerie of a sexually frustrated succubus, underage loli vampire, skin-harvesting demon, etc., we have an elf maid, an elf, and a fox. Nothing complicated.

    It feels like a television program designed by a public morals committee that I would show my conservative grandmother to fool her into allowing me to see more interesting shows.

    Edit: dropped the series as of episode 8. Animation did not get better.