The Official Good Ideas Thread™
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So, when will Australia start constructing a Dyson Sphere?
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Not before we need one.
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Ok, so I completely missed the point up there...
You and me both...until I followed his link:
I will say that I'm not a big fan of lots of decentralization of things like fusion reactors, since it throws away a lot of the advantages of scale.
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Not before we need one.
It is quite difficult to work up the motivation to keep talking to people who appear to believe that mobile phones are never going to take off because they cost too much and all the plans are really expensive so I guess we'll just be stuck with landlines forever.
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The rest of us really appreciate you early
overpayersadopters working out the kinks for us.
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OI! The official throw each others' arguments back at each other thread is :
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What's a radio-controlled turnout?
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What's a radio-controlled turnout?
A turnout that's radio-controlled, silly!
It appears to be some kind of railroad-related thing, which would make sense, given who used the term. Google suggests it's a track switch or perhaps a more-general class of thing, of which a track switch would be a member.
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Yep, "turnout" is simply another term for "switch".
Quick Railroad 101 tidbit:
Switches come in a few different varieties:
- hand throw -- stop, hop off the train, unlock the padlock (it's a special RR-specific padlock), grab the lever, flip it, padlock it, tell the engineer to run the train through it, then unlock the padlock again once the train , flip the lever back (you always leave hand-throws on the main lined for the main lest you divert the hotshot behind you into a #8 (slow speed turnout -- the higher the turnout number, the faster you can go through the thing when it's reversed and the longer/less sharply bent it is) to excepted industrial track = trainwreck), lock it back up, walk up to the headend, and hop back on. Bit of a pain in the arse on the mainline, but common in lightly traveled territory (track warrant control) and in yards and on industrial leads or for industrial spur access, where nobody's in a particular hurry to begin with and/or the switch just isn't used much. Don't forget to do the same to the other switch at the other end of the siding, lest you break it by trailing through it in the wrong position and get chewed out by the track gang that has to fix it!
- spring switch -- stop, hop off the train, unlock the padlock, grab the lever, flip it, padlock it, tell the engineer to run the train through it, unlock it again once the train's through, flip it back, lock it up again, and walk back to the headend to get back on. At least you don't have to repeat this at the other end of the siding! (Spring switches can be trailed through when in either position, but still have to be lined for a facing point move.)
- local control power (radio controlled) switch -- this is a motorized (power) switch hooked up to a radio receiver and DTMF decoder. The train crew pulls up to it, keys in a sequence on their radio, waits a bit, and the switch moves for them; they then key in another sequence once they are clear of it and it moves back.
- dual control power switch -- this is a motorized (power) switch hooked up to an interlocking (the railroad equivalent of a highway traffic signal controller); either it is controlled autonomously by automatic interlocking logic (often in a first-come, first-served fashion; if that doesn't work, it's a matter of the crew pushing buttons on a control box to tell the interlocking they're here), or it is controlled by a control operator or train dispatcher that may be many thousands of miles away via a telecommunications link called a "codeline". Of course, if the thing can't be moved on power (with the motor), it's possible to put the thing in manual mode and operate it that way, just like a hand-throw switch.
(I'm ignoring things like electric locks because they make life even more complicated. :P )
Originally, all the railroad had were hand-throw switches and the occasional spring switch (end of sidings in busy single tracks, or at the end of double track). Motorized (power) switches are very nice time savers and installing them is a major component of upgrading a territory to Centralized Traffic Control (CTC), but they are time-consuming and expensive to install as the entire switch panel must be changed out (rather like replacing a switch on a toy train set, just bigger :) ) for one that provides the proper mounting points for the switch machine (motor).
However, you really don't want to spend the money to upgrade a territory to CTC all at once, especially if you may or may not have enough traffic to justify it right now -- traffic predictions have a way of not panning out. So, instead of the old speedup trick of putting spring switches at the ends of sidings, you put radio-controlled switches in instead; that way, the power switch machine, interlocking controller, track circuits, absolute signals, and wiring are all already in place when you do decide to finish the CTC upgrade due to that new industrial complex that just put 8 more trains/day on the territory.
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hand throw -- stop, hop off the train, unlock the padlock (it's a special RR-specific padlock), grab the lever, flip it, padlock it, tell the engineer to run the train through it, then unlock the padlock again once the train , flip the lever back
Why don't you just wait there at the switch, so you don't have to go through all that?
Yes, I know why, I just thought it was funny.
There's an old disused siding near where I live--it's been defunct long enough that the ties are in really bad shape, although, oddly enough, a couple summers back they replaced a handful of them, including putting down new spikes. the siding has a switch that leads to a building that I guess doesn't need to accept trains any longer; they actually took up the switch and some--but not all!--of the rails (and then left about half the ones they took up right next to where they belonged) so that the place is actually a menace if a train managed to ever get on there. Although just a few feet past the last road the track crosses, they put in what is rather obviously (if you think about it) sort of a reverse boot on the track to keep anyone trying to drive a train up it.
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Good idea: making this video
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While that's interesting in a technical sense, it's not terribly fun to watch and I certainly wouldn't call it playing the game.
It's interesting to see how the level designers cut corners by, for example, not drawing sides of scenery you can't see without cheating.
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it's not terribly fun to watch
I disagree, but respect the fact that we can have different opinion of the same thing.
There were a few points in that video, like [spoiler]where they skip half of the game in less than a minute in one continuous motion, or where they throw a bomb across the map, land on the top of a pine tree, shoot two bullets, and kill two bosses, or when they win the race by lodging the car between D0G and the ground, or when they get the rocket stuck on a folding chair and then use it to fling Gordon onto the two Advisors and murder them and get back inbounds before the cutscene gets to the point where they can interact with it[/spoiler] that amazed me.
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Why don't you just wait there at the switch, so you don't have to go through all that?
For those who aren't as railroad-savvy as @FrostCat and I: the procedure keeps the points from being thrown or displaced out from under the train -- splitting the switch (one set of wheels go one way, the other set go the other way) is an automatic derailment. (It's also the solution to the trolley dilemma -- splitting the trolley with the switch and thus derailing it means that it likely hits nobody under the terms of the dilemma.)
There's an old disused siding near where I live--it's been defunct long enough that the ties are in really bad shape, although, oddly enough, a couple summers back they replaced a handful of them, including putting down new spikes.
It sounds like the siding isn't actually disused -- it's simply used rarely enough, and at low enough speeds, that track geometry isn't at all critical; trains are quite tolerant of track imperfections at slow speed.the siding has a switch that leads to a building that I guess doesn't need to accept trains any longer; they actually took up the switch and some--but not all!--of the rails (and then left about half the ones they took up right next to where they belonged) so that the place is actually a menace if a train managed to ever get on there.
I suspect that they took the points out, but left the frog and the fixed rails in, as well as removing the switchstand and rods; that way, there's nothing that can move inadvertently and derail, but they don't have to go through the expense of ripping out fixed rail, switch ties, etal. If you can buy, borrow, or rent a decent enough telephoto lens for your camera that you can get a good shot of it from off behind the right-of-way line, I'd like to see a photo of the arrangement, actually.(Also, they'll probably wind up either sending the unused rail back to the scrapyard, or to be checked out for reuse on some other yard or industrial track.)
Although just a few feet past the last road the track crosses, they put in what is rather obviously (if you think about it) sort of a reverse boot on the track to keep anyone trying to drive a train up it.
Is that on the ex-industrial track, or on the siding? Also, do you know which railroad owns it, if I may ask?
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It's also the solution to the trolley dilemma -- splitting the trolley with the switch and thus derailing it means that it likely hits nobody under the terms of the dilemma.
I wish I had come up with that idea when that came up in school.
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it's not terribly fun to watch
I see where you're coming from, but I think most of it is actually quite a bit of fun. I first saw the original HL2 Done Quick several years back and had no idea what was going on. But after reading about what they were actually doing, it suddenly became a lot more interesting to watch. (I think my favorite bit is skipping a trigger by getting out of the airboat, pushing it to the other side of the trigger, and getting back in.) And later, Portal came along and became a mini-obsession of mine, and largely because of it I know about almost all of the engine glitches they are using in that run and others they've done. (Not that I'm claiming I can pull off most of them with any competency.) So watching that lets me think about what they're doing to achieve it, etc.I don't know what your familiarity is with Orange Box engine speed runs, but if you're not very familiar with them that could be one reason you don't find it so interesting. Or maybe not; even I find out-of-bounds Portal runs kinda boring to be honest. (Even recent inbounds runs have a bit of that flavor now.)
Another thing I like is to see some of the stuff they do just for fun, like detonating a Magnusson device by landing on it, going bird hunting, or killing the Advisors. (I actually suspected while watching that punting the car over to dog with the gravity gun fell into this category, but that is apparently not the case and the car doesn't work then.)
when they win the race by lodging the car between D0G and the ground
That was about the hardest I've laughed in a while.
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splitting the switch (one set of wheels go one way, the other set go the other way) is an automatic derailment
And if you're really unlucky when that happens, you get(Basically a wheel rim broke and lodged itself in the floor of the car, touching the ground. It hit a switch and forced the switch to change positions, which put trailing cars onto a different track. The derailment caused one of the cars to hit a bridge support, the bridge then collapsed onto the train midway back, and the trailing cars then jacknifed into the bridge.)
So we're on the same page, this was not a Good Idea.
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Are rolling blackouts something that are a big problem in advanced / developed countries?
Given the Obama EPA's drive Forward to shut down coal-fired power plants without having an inexpensive baseload alternative ready to go, you'll see rolling blackouts soon enough here.Oh, and everyone's comparing the Powerwall to gas-fired plants and shit, but I've yet to see mention of existing lead-acid tech. We're not worried about weight in this application, so
? And where's the warranty text, hmm?
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Given the Obama EPA's drive Forward to shut down coal-fired power plants without having an inexpensive baseload alternative ready to go, you'll see rolling blackouts soon enough here.
OTOH, those coal plants were putting out a lot of pollution. Ignoring the whole CO2 business, the other stuff going up the chimney is pretty nasty. SO2, mercury, radioactives, other heavy metals, really foul stuff. (There won't be lots of CO or soot though; they both indicate inefficient plant operation.)
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OTOH, those coal plants were putting out a lot of pollution. Ignoring the whole CO2 business, the other stuff going up the chimney is pretty nasty. SO2, mercury, radioactives, other heavy metals, really foul stuff.
But I think modern scrubbers make that a much smaller problem, and the EPA IIRC has effectively been preventing older plants from installing new scrubbers because they're not really interested in just reducing pollution.
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the EPA IIRC has effectively been preventing older plants from installing new scrubbers because they're not really interested in just reducing pollution.
Huh. Different continent, different regulatory regime.
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My caring comes in a few forms:
No wait I guess I don't care at all.
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You should hook up with Kuro or whatever his name is here, he does like 2 Darksiders speedruns a day.
For some reason.
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I disagree, but respect the fact that we can have different opinion of the same thing.
Awwww.
I meant it's not fun in the way watching a Let's Play of someone actually playing the game is. It's certainly interesting from a technical perspective.
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Which means that stuff like AGDQ is doubly fun? (commentary AND skilled playing)
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that amazed me.
Yes, until you realize that a lot of that stuff was done with scripts, not a person at a keyboard, because it seems (or so I guess from what I read) to require extremely precise timing and maneuvering.
Computer plays computer game better than a person can isn't news.
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Those are always marked as TAS. They are always faster, sure, but frame-perfect speedruns are being done by humans - maybe not every bit is perfect (which a script can do, of course), but speedrunners keep trying over and over until they get most of them correctly. Or at least more than the previous record holder managed.
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the procedure keeps the points from being thrown or displaced out from under the train
I didn't even think of that! I assumed it was a procedural thing so you don't forget to throw the switch back afterwards, or, potentially worse, forget to relock it.
If you can buy, borrow, or rent a decent enough telephoto lens for your camera
It's not fenced or anything; I can walk on it. Most of it is probably technically still navigable at low speeds, but the last switch, I dunno about--I think one of the rails is gone entirely. Haven't been there in a year or two, though.
Is that on the ex-industrial track, or on the siding? Also, do you know which railroad owns it, if I may ask?
There's a still-active track, although I haven't seen a train on it in a long time. Right before it crosses a street, there's a switch to the side track. I may well have the track terminology wrong. That side track crosses the street, and has the boot right beyond the street. Then it does a 90 degree bend, runs for a few hundred yards before there's a second switch; the alternate track there runs right next to a building where there's about 3 loading docks, and stops. Then the "main" track of the siding jogs to continue along where the other track would have gone if it hadn't ended, runs parallel to another building, goes through a fence, and dead-ends. That second switch is the one that's been dismantled, and is the one that I think had one of the actual rails taken up.
I don't know how I'd be able to tell the railroad owner, but the main line is the one that parallels Arapaho Road in Addison. here's a Google maps link.
I like how the link shows up fine in preview, but not when discohalfbaked.
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@32.9563505,-96.8463505,17zIf you zoom out a bit you can see there's a crapload of spurs to industrial buildings. Bing doesn't show most of them, but Google does. If you flip to the sat view and zoom all the way in you can actually see the boot on the track to the left of Surveyor, about 50 feet from the road, on the inner rail of the curve. If you follow the spur north you can see it looks like there is actually a hunk of track missing at the second switch but I'll see if I can get a pic.
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here's a Google maps link
You're better off just posting the link; oneboxing Google Maps is fucked
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I don't know what your familiarity is with Orange Box engine speed runs
Up to yesterday, it was zero. I know what speed runs are, and have seen 'em, including the famous ancient SMB 3 one.
As I clarified in another post, I think speed runs are more interesting than fun per se. I did actually watch several minutes of the one linked above, but I would generally prefer to watch someone do a let's play, is all I really meant.
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That was about the hardest I've laughed in a while.
Huh, I'll have to go back and rewatch it. Like I said, I didn't find it uninteresting per se.
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Which means that stuff like AGDQ is doubly fun? (commentary AND skilled playing)
Having not seen it, I couldn't tell ya. Throw me a link, I'll watch.
It's not necessarily skilled playing per se, either. I don't watch a lot of Spoiler Warning, because the games don't always interest me, but their run of HL2 was hilarious, especially (for example) the way they accidentally threw an antlion at one point. I actually did that myself once.
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You're better off just posting the link; oneboxing Google Maps is fucked
Yes, so I see. The last time I put one in, it worked. Discoooourrrrse!
Here's the link: https://www.google.com/maps/@32.9563505,-96.8463505,17z
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Yes, until you realize that a lot of that stuff was done with scripts, not a person at a keyboard, because it seems (or so I guess from what I read) to require extremely precise timing and maneuvering.
So I wish their description was more transparent about what was scripted, but I don't think (or maybe "strongly doubt" would be a better word) that they have scripts to help with that per se. The scripts they mention at the top of their writeup sound like they are just emulating pressing a button more rapidly than you'd be able to do reliably otherwise; so most of the timing and maneuvering and such is probably "legit."A couple of the runners who helped with that but didn't actually have segments in the final version (probably helping with routing and planning) I've seen livestreams of as they were working on other runs (the slightly older Portal inbounds run and HL2 DWAHMOV), and they're not in there editing scripts and stuff, they're practicing and attempting the moves you actually see.
I think speed runs are more interesting than fun per se. I did actually watch several minutes of the one linked above, but I would generally prefer to watch someone do a let's play, is all I really meant.
Fair enough. If I have a hook to care about and understand the run I still think that "fun" is a fine descriptor for me, but that's a preference.Huh, I'll have to go back and rewatch it. Like I said, I didn't find it uninteresting per se.
Direct link to that part: https://youtu.be/pSe8RMcQHeY?t=7mHaving not seen [AGDQ], I couldn't tell ya. Throw me a link, I'll watch.
"Awesome Games Done Quick" is a yearly charity marathon drive (there's also "Summer Games Done Quick") where they get people to stream speedruns for several days in an organized fashion. So there's not really a link that I or @aliceif could give you; if you have some game you particularly enjoy or think you might want to see a speedrun of, just search YouTube and you may find something.That said, because I'm a Portal fanboy, here are Portal 1 and Portal 2:
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It's not fenced or anything; I can walk on it.
Most RR ROW isn't fenced (can you imagine how expensive fencing it all would be?). Don't walk on it anyway -- trains don't run on set schedules any longer, and are remarkably quiet in this day and age.
There's a still-active track, although I haven't seen a train on it in a long time.
Yeah -- it sees all its traffic at night (4 trains a night).Right before it crosses a street, there's a switch to the side track. I may well have the track terminology wrong.
Yeah, that track's purely an industry track -- there's no siding there.That side track crosses the street, and has the boot right beyond the street.
The 'boot' is actually a flop-over type derail -- it's there to keep any cars that decided to go on a roll down the industry track from making their way onto the mainline and causing much bigger problems. One of the train crew would simply walk over, unlock it, put it in the non-derailing position (either with a handle on the thing or with a switch-stand lever), and lock it in the non-derailing position before switching over it.I don't know how I'd be able to tell the railroad owner, but the main line is the one that parallels Arapaho Road in Addison.
That'd be the Dallas, Garland, and Northeastern shortline, by the way.
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the main line is the one that parallels Arapaho Road in Addison
I used to cross this line every day when I lived in Carrollton. Early one morning, traffic is stopped as a train is going by extremely slowly. While I'm stopped, I see a guy walk out of a gas station with two coffees and a bag of donuts. He runs onto the train and it speeds away. I guess even railroad engineers need their caffeine in the morning...
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just search YouTube and you may find something
I usually go to http://speeddemosarchive.com
Ugly as sin, but updated regularly with fresh records.
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That site's great for old 8- and 16-bit classics, but it kinda starts to peter out a bit the more modern you get. Still, it has a broad selection.
And yet it doesn't have a certain 2014 retro platformer starring a dragon-girl, a wildcat, and a basset hound…
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There are games that use more than 16 bits?
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I usually go to http://speeddemosarchive.com
Does that have AGDQ/SGDQ videos, or "just" the record runs? Live runs with commentary (A/SGDQ-style, for example) are probably better if you don't know the game or know the game but not the speedrun techinques, and specifically are more along the line of what we think FrostCat may find more fun to watch.Ugly as sin, but updated regularly with fresh records.
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Just runs. And usually an "article" by the speedrunner highligting bits of it.
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I think some videos have a commentary, but that's up to the submitter
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Most RR ROW isn't fenced (can you imagine how expensive fencing it all would be?). Don't walk on it anyway -- trains don't run on set schedules any longer, and are remarkably quiet in this day and age.
The siding is in a greenbelt used for powerlines. It's fairly-widely used, and there's a beaten footpath on the other side of the greenbelt, where people usually walk.
Yeah, that track's purely an industry track -- there's no siding there.
I was not previously aware of such a distinction.
That'd be the Dallas, Garland, and Northeastern shortline, by the way.
Neat. The longer stretch of spur is called out as part of the DG&N track. The busted-up one goes to the building labelled AER Manufacturing if you zoom in on that map.
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I used to cross this line every day when I lived in Carrollton. Early one morning, traffic is stopped as a train is going by extremely slowly. While I'm stopped, I see a guy walk out of a gas station
Damn, that's funny, although it wouldn't be if I were stopped waiting for it. Where was this, the Racetrac at Marsh?
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The siding is in a greenbelt used for powerlines. It's fairly-widely used, and there's a beaten footpath on the other side of the greenbelt, where people usually walk.
Yeah, I saw the powerline ROW. It sounds like you could get a good photo from off of railroad ROW, given the location.
I was not previously aware of such a distinction.
Sidings (loops for UK dwellers) connect to the main track at both ends, and are used for passing, train parking (say, to wait for a crew, interchange, or fuel without plugging up the mainline), and/or temporary car setouts (such as cuts of cars that are being interchanged between RRs, leaving a cut for the next train on the line, or for bad order cars that need a carman to come out and fix 'em before they can move again). An industry track, OTOH, often will only be connected at one end, and is used to park cars at industries for loading and unloading, as well as for switching sometimes when a train has to shuffle cars around, or perhaps for a bad order setout in a pinch.
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Damn, that's funny, although it wouldn't be if I were stopped waiting for it. Where was this, the Racetrac at Marsh?
Yes! I don't remember the name of the gas station (this was 15 years ago), but it was on Marsh just north of the tracks.
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It sounds like you could get a good photo from off of railroad ROW, given the location.
You absolutely could.
You could get a good photo from standing right on the tracks, too, because the RR ROW is not marked so I don't know how far back I would need to stand to not be on it. ;)
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Yes! I don't remember the name of the gas station (this was 15 years ago), but it was on Marsh just north of the tracks.
Hah. Well, there's a Racetrac there that's been there at least 6 years or so--I don't know how long it was there before I moved into the area. It's south of the tracks, though. North of them is a little strip mall with a phone store, hair salon, and a liquor store, and a hole in the concrete where they took down a building completely; from the shape, I'd've guessed it was a bank. Probably all the commercial buildings were different now. At some point before 2007, when I moved to the metroplex, they built a bridge over Midway and extended Arapaho to Marsh.
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North of them is a little strip mall with a phone store
That's definitely the location. I'm remembering it incorrectly as a gas station, it was actually a convenience store. Gimme a break, it was last century!
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That's definitely the location. I'm remembering it incorrectly as a gas station, it was actually a convenience store. Gimme a break, it was last century!
I wasn't actually trying to nitpick.
Anyway, as I said, it's now a liquor store, not a convenience store, so I sure hope it has changed since then. Also, that trains are on rails.
Eschede train disaster - Wikipedia
