The Official First World Problems Thread™
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Left my work laptop charger at the office yesterday. Today is going to be a slow WFH day.
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Left my work laptop charger at the office yesterday.
so?
Today is going to be a slow WFH day.
.... oooh. you brought the laptop home.....
it's a bit late for today but i'll just leave this here. :-P
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I missed it somehow.
And now your complaining about it is a FWP shared by the rest of us.
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Good, see? I resolved another situation.
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You're so helpful sometimes.
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At home, my PC has 4GB of RAM. I had a 1.5GB VM I put the first public Win10 release on. Last night I tried to update. It downloaded the update, and then said it couldn't install it without at least 2GB of RAM. ORLY
Today I borrowed 2GB from an unused PC at work and bumped the VM up to 2.5GB. Now WIndows Update say my VM is up to date.
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I am very frightened of bees.
Bees are very attracted to my leave-in conditioner.
FML. FWP.
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After a much needed organization of my sock drawer:
Also FWP: red letter are hard to read.
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The 2GB you borrowed must have had the updated Windows files already installed to it.
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Maybe. Actually, I left it on overnight, and nothing happened, so I switched to slow track, then back to fast, and it immediately offered the download.
LIAR.
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FWP: My Minecraft chicken farm had one glitch: I placed the breeder machine incorrectly, broke it, and replaced it in the right direction. In that time, one got out. It took a minute to track him down and lure him back into his pit, and now he's breeding out of sync with all the others.
Oh, on the plus side, it just occurred to me that I can simply turn the machine off for longer than the breeding cycle.
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I dug out a great pool of lava that I'd quenched the top of earlier so that I could explore the cavern. I didn't want any more obsidian, only the mineral deposits that were bound to be underneath. I desperately need diamonds, and I'm trying to stockpile gold for an upcoming project.
Took me all evening. Boring as hell. Bats flying up my nose just as I uncover lava. Enderman hanging around behaving oddly and making me jumpy. Almost got killed by a witch that spawned in a dark corner when I wasn't paying attention.
Didn't find anything rare, at all. Little bit of redstone and a load of coal.
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Life is tough in Newcastle
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FWP: google maps won't show lines of latitude and longitude.
I really really need to see where the equator is.
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If you zoom out enough (2000km scale), you see both the equator and the International Date Line
…but they disappear as soon as you zoom in
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I really need to see where the equator is and what settlements are near it and how big they are, at the same time. I'm thinking people won't just build a spaceport randomly in the middle of a rainforest (I guess but the time my story takes place there might be rather less rainforest, but barren infertile wasteland doesn't seem much better. You'll want it near but not quite in a population centre.
Also I just remembered plate tectonics. F*cking plate tectonics.
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Had a look at Bing Maps; that doesn't show the equator at any zoom level
×2
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https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=ztme_gPTmoLw.kfh4X_RHs7cI&gl=us&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&msa=0 does this work?
Edit - Works for Africa, not SA
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Awesome, thank you.
I'm sure I'll work something out with South America, but in any case Africa is the important one for my story.
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*Bites Zecc's ankles*
I said see where it is, not know.
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Life is tough in Newcastle
Especially in Winter. We have to wrap up warm like these three people have...
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2010-01/07/xin_07201070721024213274952.jpg
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I'm thinking people won't just build a spaceport randomly in the middle of a rainforest
Kourou?
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Kourou
is near a town.
Also they have a handful of launches a year and they need uninhabited space where the rockets will fall. I'm after a site for a space elevator that gets used rather more than that.
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is near a town.
Which is in a tropical rainforest. Well, on the edge of one.
MapQuest shows the equator at a relatively close zoom level.
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Which is in a tropical rainforest.
But it's not randomly in the rainforest. There was some context to that sentence, in the OP, about settlements...
Going with Kampala (or possibly Kampala-Entebbe, like Leeds-Bradford) for the main Old World port. They'll want at least one secondary one, not sure where. Haven't looked at the New World yet. I reckon neither side built anything in Indonesia - they had a war over that.
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Goddamned just invent Star Trek impulse engines so shit can hover.
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You could always get the Baron's belt from Dune.
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Goddamned just invent Star Trek impulse engines so shit can hover.
But I like the idea that only regions in the third world have decent space access.
And the locations worked out really well for my existing idea about the world political situation, seeing as there's one region in the Old World and one in the New, and one in between the two.
Filed Under: I have no idea whether Indonesia is actually in Asia or Australasia
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But I like the idea that only regions in the third world have decent space access.
Yeah but if the space access is valuable they wouldn't be in the third world anymore. They'd be like the resorts in Cuba, rich zones basically surrounded by third-world slums on all sides.
Unless that's the point that the slums rebel and attach the rich spaceport zones, but the government would attempt to suppress that. Because those third-world governments need the tax revenue from the rich zones.
In any case, the US owns South Florida, and it's close enough to the equator to get 95% of the fuel economy boost. Good enough. (Russia's the one whose spaceports are way too far north. But since they're doing twice the launches as anybody else, it's not really hurting their bottom line, is it?)
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Yeah but if the space access is valuable they wouldn't be in the third world anymore.
Well yes, that's why it's interesting. The US and Russia and everywhere that we're used to leading space research, have to go begging to Uganda and Ecuador to get up there.
US owns South Florida, and it's close enough to the equator to get 95% of the fuel economy boost. Good enough.
I'm not talking about fuel economy boost for rockets. I'm talking about space elevators, Which need to be precisely on the equator.
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Well yes, that's why it's interesting. The US and Russia and everywhere that we're used to leading space research, have to go begging to Uganda and Ecuador to get up there.
The French didn't have to beg to find a launching site for their Arianes. They just signed a lease and paid some dough for the privilege.
Think about motivation here: why would it be in Uganda or Ecuador's best interest to have the US & Russia begging them for something? Especially since Uganda doesn't know that Ecuador might just sign the lease with no begging required and then lose the benefits-- it's like the opposite of a tragedy of the commons where each nation would want to be diplomatic and receptive because they don't know how diplomatic and receptive their competing nations would be.
I'm talking about space elevators, Which need to be precisely on the equator.
Oh. Well the above point still applies: hosting a space elevator is a huge economic boost, but neither Uganda or Ecuador have the $$$ to build one on their own. (Neither does the US or Russia for that matter, but we'll ignore that due to sci-fi.) A space elevator construction project would have to be like building The Machine in Contact: it'd take a bunch of governments and large corporate contractors working together, and involve constant squabbling over contracts. The physical location of it would be the LEAST cconcern, mostly because governments with suitable land would all be begging it to be built within their borders.
Frankly, impulse engines are more realistic.
French Ariane rocket, according to Google Image Search for "french ariane":
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That was hyperbole. The point is global politics would change because bits of the third world woulnd't be any more. Also the 'Uganda will sign the lease because otherwise they'll just go to Ecuador' isn't a factor given the particular political situation of this hypothetical future.
We're also not talking about a few launches a year of satellites and the occasional probe. We're talking putting major military power into space.
Oh. Well the above point still applies: hosting a space elevator is a huge economic boost, but neither Uganda or Ecuador have the $$$ to build one on their own.
No, they're not going to build it on their own. But it will be built there, the research will happen largely around there, the power base will be there. And again due to the situation in the future, it's not going to end up being Uganda renting a chunk of land to the Russians.
Frankly, impulse engines are more realistic.
I don't care, I want space elevators. I like space elevators.
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If you want Ecuador and Uganda being feared and respected, have them threaten to cut the space elevator down, like that one scene in the Mars Trilogy. That's power.
I don't care, I want space elevators. I like space elevators.
Have you done the math to work-out how long it would take for you to get into orbit using a space elevator compared to a rocket? Space elevators are slow and boring. Good for cargo maybe, not people.
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Have you done the math to work-out how long it would take for you to get into orbit using a space elevator
Assuming strong enough materials there's no hard limit on the speed is there? A fuckload of inertia, yeah, but it would be physically possible to accelerate a space elevator cabin at a similar rate to a rocket
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I think the majority of the interest in space elevators is due to the fact that once one is built, getting things to space will be much cheaper, which will cause more cool things to happen.
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A fuckload of inertia
Which is why Star Trek invented inertial dampers to make it a non-issue ;)
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How long would it take to ride to the top of a space elevator?
The question What is a “space elevator”? describes two key points about the length of a space elevator: equatorial geosynchronous orbit at 22,245 miles (35,800 km) above mean sea level, and an addi...
Every analysis I've seen has it in the realm of at least a couple days. Compared to maybe 30 minutes for a rocket. (Actually one of the other answers points-out a value of 36 minutes, but a respondant rightly adds, "if you could easily accelerate through thick air at 3Gs for 36 minutes, why even build a space elevator?" which is a good point. That's basically the impulse engine solution, just on a cable. Also note that solution has energy usage FAR greater than a rocket, although the elevator and cable would be more reusable.)
I mean this is all hypothetical, because if we have magical nano materials to build a space elevator maybe by then we'll have maglev faster than 600 km/h.
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Have you done the math to work-out how long it would take for you to get into orbit using a space elevator compared to a rocket? Space elevators are slow and boring. Good for cargo maybe, not people.
However, you don't actually have to blow up your vehicle and drop it in the sea as you go, with an elevator. And you have similar weight coming down the other side, so you're only putting in kinetic energy, little or no potential. And it's not as though people will be commuting up and down it every morning. There's a big space station at the top, it's much less of a big deal to get to and from the station than it would be with rockets (more time consuming for the actual journey, maybe), but you still don't pop down for a takeaway.
"if you could accelerate through thick air at 3Gs for 36 minutes, why even build a space elevator?" which is a good point. That's basically the impulse engine solution, just on a cable. Also note that solution has energy usage FAR greater than a rocket, although the elevator and cable would be more reusable.
The impulse engine has to gain a lot of gravitational potential. The elevator doesn't. The impulse engine on a cable doesn't either.
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That rocket's probably going to LEO though? Space elevators, by definition, go to geostationary.
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That rocket's probably going to LEO though? Space elevators, by definition, go to geostationary.
They go beyond it, by necessity, to keep the cable tensioned.
You put an X into orbit, what benefit is it to have X at geostationary over LEO? Unless X is a communication satellite that has to remain stationary to function, none. Space is space.
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And then even if you could somehow space elevator to LEO, all you've gained is altitude. You still need something to accelerate you laterally to gain orbital velocity, and that is not a small amount of energy.
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Well you know what?
I'm going to have space elevators anyway. Because we're talking about my universe, and I am God.
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The cable does that as you go up. You'd occasionally have to raise the endpoint's orbit, because each cargo going up would lower the orbit slightly.
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The cable can't be traveling at orbital velocity at LEO. It would be spiraling around the Earth if it did.
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Haha do what you like. Personally I think the magical material to make a space elevator work is more sci-fi than a Star Trek inertial dampener. Both can't exist according to the laws of physics as we know them.
Just call it "scrith", like the Ringworld magical material.
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There's definitely that. Another argument I've heard is that a space elevator will need extreme amounts of radiation shielding because it's going through the radiation belts way slower than a rocket would.
But if you're making a time argument on 'space elevator takes days, rocket takes half an hour' then you're not comparing apples to apples because I don't think a rocket can get to geostationary in 30 minutes.
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The cable can't be traveling at orbital velocity at LEO. It would be spiraling around the Earth if it did.
Oh I see what you mean. Yeah, you can't detach from the cable "early" as far as I'm aware, or you'd re-entry. You need to go all the way to the endpoint.
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French Ariane rocket, according to Google Image Search for "french ariane":
I approve.
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Oh hey, speaking of sci fi stuff, you mentioned liking airships before. Any thoughts on
How fuel-efficient are airships?
I'm putting together a steampunk novel, and I'm trying to plot out the course the main characters are taking. Let's say I have a small airship, meant for a crew of half a dozen to a dozen. Let's s...
I was looking for a back of the envelope calculation and the answers I got are widely varying (600km to 9,000km), so at this point I'm going to go with "they're as fuel efficient as the plot demands" and not show the math.
