The Gaming Den

hyzmarca wrote:How fast, relative to the Earth, would a one kilogram iron sphere of uniform density have to be traveling such that it's contact with Earth's atmosphere releases enough energy to destroy all matter in the observable universe, not accounting for the constant expansion of space-time?

It's been a while since I took physics. I think the problem with this is the earth has only so much potential energy, at a certain point the iron sphere can't make the earth explode any harder. Also the sphere if travelling fast enough might just shoot a whole straight through the earth. That impact could destroy all life but wouldn't destroy the universe.

Very close to lightspeed. Like extremely close. xkcd: what-if did some calculations involving a 100-ft diameter diamond, and even an impact with Earth at 0.9999999999999999999999951c did not meaningfully affect the sun or compromise the structure of nearby planets.

How sad would Earth be after such a collision?

And as for crack, I did imply it needs to be legal and also not have short-term harm. I'm fairly sure that rules crack out. I think Ant might have said so, and Ant is a clever invertebrate.

Whipstitch wrote:But really, that's all beside the point, because everyone really ought to take care of their health. Because with modern medicine being what it is today, odds are you will make it past 50 and probably into your 60s. But if you don't take care of yourself on the way there you can find yourself with debilitating issues in your late 40s pretty easily. Do not want.

Okay, I've been wrong about this so many times with predictions of my lifespan, but if we include the probabilities of cancer, drug overdose, suicide, other people driving while shitfaced, and being horrifically murdered because I'm in South Australia... actually especially with that last one, I should hurry on finishing Bakuhatsu High because I could be killed and left in a barrel at any moment.

Maybe I need to get my antidepressants upped again, though they don't make them in higher dosage pills - I'd have to get two prescriptions, which is kind of a pain to organise and everything.

Meanwhile I'll laugh at Essence for his stupid advice. Thinking about things that are good and right and happy doesn't take five minutes, I could do it over the course of two seconds. Actually three seconds, I've added "mocking Essence is fun" to that.

Koumei wrote:How sad would Earth be after such a collision?

Well, the good news is that it wouldn't be sad. You need to exist to be sad.

I'd at least look into it rather than smoke cigarettes. Maybe you won't get lung cancer from smoking, but it'll certainly harm your circulatory health and vascular issues make it extremely hard to treat all kinds of stuff--smokers have higher rates of infection and other complications after surgery than the rest of the population, for example. Personally, my self-medication mostly comes in the form of exercise, spicy foods and dark chocolate these days.

Whipstitch wrote:Personally, my self-medication mostly comes in the form of exercise, spicy foods and dark chocolate these days.

Well, I walk/jog a little more than the "average recommended amount" (typically 12-15 thousand steps as opposed to the basic 10 thousand), but that's just part of my walking to and from work, the walking about as part of work and walking the dog - it isn't entertaining in any way.

Spices... my mouth can handle them, but I get the shits often enough without spicy foods. If anything I should be taking opiates just to cancel that out.

And I'll stick with milk or white chocolate. Dark chocolate tastes like someone already ate it.

hyzmarca wrote:How fast, relative to the Earth, would a one kilogram iron sphere of uniform density have to be traveling such that it's contact with Earth's atmosphere releases enough energy to destroy all matter in the observable universe, not accounting for the constant expansion of space-time?

Well, I'm not sure how much energy it takes to destroy some amount of matter, but it's certainly enough that the one kilogram iron sphere will have a mass greater than that of the Milky Way.

I lift weights and listen to death metal when I am upset. I dont know if that is applicable to your situation though. My depression manifests as blinding rage.

Koumei wrote: Meanwhile I'll laugh at Essence for his stupid advice. Thinking about things that are good and right and happy doesn't take five minutes, I could do it over the course of two seconds. Actually three seconds, I've added "mocking Essence is fun" to that.

Go for it -- just keep in mind that the duration you spend being grateful isn't arbitrary. It's actually important that you spend a decent amount of time at it, or you're not going to get any of the biochemical effects from it.

Kaelik wrote:

Prak_Anima wrote:On the cigarettes being addictive thing, it depends on genetics a little bit, I think. I've been smoking for 7 years, and can make a pack last a month. Which is really how I can afford to smoke at all.

Yeah, and I could totally stop being an abrasive dick if I wanted to!

Shut up Prak, you are too addicted.

I didn't say I wasn't addicted. I said that addiction depends on genetics and I can make a pack of cigarettes last at least a month. I haven't smoked since last Wednesday. I certainly get cravings, and random desires to smoke, but most of the time it's "Man, I kinda want a cigarette. *four hours later* huh, never had that cigarette." That's assuming I even have cigarettes on me, most days I just don't carry them, and I'm none the worse for wear.

To try and minimize serious harmful effects, Koumei, you can try cigarettes with little to no additives (can you get American Spirits in Australia?) or electronic cigarettes which are just sucking down nicotine in water vapor (though apparently there was no oversight when making them at first and they could seriously have fucking formaldehyde or whatever). Baring in mind that nicotine itself is still fucking toxic, and all you're really doing is saying "I prefer my poisonous carcinogens to be unadulterated, damnit!"

Koumei wrote:Likewise when there are 20 odd people at the house all making noise, there isn't really anywhere I can just wander off to - this isn't like when I was in Melbourne and totally could just go to a cafe at 10PM, or wander the city for a bit or visit any number of friends.

Is that basically the norm? If I can't get a quiet moment to myself every now and then with no environmental distractions/demands for my attention, I have trouble winding down and relaxing. After a week of being stuck around people who won't leave me the hell alone at least occasionally, I will be ready to stab them, even if I otherwise like those people and find their company pleasant.

Essence wrote:I hate to be reasonable and humane in a place like this, but one of the best proven ways to overcome stress is with gratitude. Take 5 minutes out upon waking and then before bed to think about all of the things that are good and right and happy in your life, and be grateful to the people or circumstances or powers that make them part of your life.

Science has studied over and over again the power of being grateful to reduce stress and improve overall health -- as well as your general attitude toward life. It's weird, getting in the habit of deliberate gratefulness, but it works wonders.

Are you sure that's causal? Seems like it could easily be that people who have things to be positive about are less likely to be stressed and/or depressed, while people who can't find things to be positive about are more likely to be stressed and/or depressed? If I woke up tomorrow with ALL THE MONIES, much of my stress would go away, and I would be pretty appreciative. But the stress would be going away because of all the monies, and the gratefulness would also be because of all the monies, and without all the monies I would neither be stress-free nor grateful.

Juton wrote:I think the problem with this is the earth has only so much potential energy, at a certain point the iron sphere can't make the earth explode any harder.

It takes an infinite amount of energy to accelerate something with mass to lightspeed. Every finite amount of energy (including "amount required to destroy everything everywhere, for some definition of destroy that is currently unclear") is passed and exceeded on an objects acceleration up to lightspeed. Hyzmarca is asking how fast that ball has to be travelling (how much energy it is storing) such that its collision with the earth's atmosphere will release enough of that energy to saturate the observable universe in enough energy to destroy it. For some definition of destroy that is somewhat unclear to me.

But yeah, you'd basically work backwards on this one. Define how much energy it takes to destroy anything that could exist at a given point. Pick the farthest point from Earth in the observable universe. Using the desired energy at that point and its distance from Earth, calculate backwards to find out how much energy would have to be released at Earth (assume energy of the collision radiates equally in all directions). Now you have the desired energy released. Use whatever equations describe atmospheric entry/atmospheric collision, get speed. If you think space isn't quite empty enough (for example, the sun is probably going to cast a very large "shadow" in your universe-vaporizing explosion), you might want to multiply by expected number of objects any given segment of your energy explosion will pass through.

This number will be much, much higher than the amount of energy would be needed to destroy the universe with targeted/direct applications of that energy, because so much of that energy is just going to pass through empty space without ever hitting/destroying anything.

Are you sure that's causal?

http://ijpcp.tums.ac.ir/browse.php?a_co ... g=en&sid=1

http://www.pagepress.org/journals/index ... /view/2888

http://www.msmonographs.org/article.asp ... 28;aulast="


I'm done Googling for you. If you need more evidence, look it up yourself -- there's plenty out there.

Ted: my depression manifests as being miserable and getting easily frustrated and giving up on stuff, but lately actual stress and anger have been the issue. The last time I've noticed it as such a problem was in high school, where choking people out is acceptable when they piss you off.

DSMatticus wrote:Is that basically the norm? If I can't get a quiet moment to myself every now and then with no environmental distractions/demands for my attention, I have trouble winding down and relaxing. After a week of being stuck around people who won't leave me the hell alone at least occasionally, I will be ready to stab them, even if I otherwise like those people and find their company pleasant.

Every fucking weekend. Friday afternoon + evening. And most of Saturday. And most of Sunday. They don't spend the night here (some of the kids do), but they're always around, and talking, and the kids are shrieking in the pool. Mainly it's because we have a pool. I have a plan, though, and it involves buying box jellyfish.

I am not prepared to argue this point, but I've read articles that said that if you pretend that things aren't bad when things are bad, that's worse.

I try to strike a balance. Be optimistic, but be realistic. And don't pretend that something isn't complete ass because people tell you that it isn't.

Also, if you don't think you shouldn't be happy because Bill Gates is happier than you, then don't think you shouldn't be sad because some people have it worse.

Ted the Flayer wrote:I lift weights and listen to death metal when I am upset. I dont know if that is applicable to your situation though. My depression manifests as blinding rage.

I drink a lot. I'm a Wild Turkey man.

Game On,
fbmf

Wild Turkey is too sweet for me. I am a Jameson man.

I prefer "girly drinks" (cruisers), polar bears (rum and coke), vodka+milkshake, and absinthe. Much as I hate every grape wine I've ever tried, I do like the Asian raspberry/plum wines, which are sweet and actually taste like the fruit in question, not "like sour alcohol". Or making cocktails, like the Venusaur or Charizard. But they're way more fun at nerd parties because I can share them with girls I've just met and then share my other skills with them.

Also, I choose to read "I'm a Wild Turkey man" not as "I am a man who likes Wild Turkey" but as "I am a turkey-man hybrid, and wild at that!"

Both are correct.

Koumei wrote:I have a plan, though, and it involves buying box jellyfish.

Buy a pair of noise-canceling headphones instead. It sounds like a joke, I know, but those things seriously work. It's uncanny. If you need some solitude, the quiet is amazing.

Koumei wrote: Spices... my mouth can handle them, but I get the shits often enough without spicy foods.
And I'll stick with milk or white chocolate. Dark chocolate tastes like someone already ate it.

Yeah, but dark chocolate's got a higher concentration of mood boosters if you can handle it too. I actually have a spicy hot chocolate drink I mix up sometimes but I do that mostly for the mood booster combo than the taste.


Also, if this thread is about booze now I must admit that I'm not a classy person-- I like whiskey sours and tequila shots.

Koumei wrote:Every fucking weekend. Friday afternoon + evening. And most of Saturday. And most of Sunday. They don't spend the night here (some of the kids do), but they're always around, and talking, and the kids are shrieking in the pool. Mainly it's because we have a pool. I have a plan, though, and it involves buying box jellyfish.

Well, if you can't find a way to get out of the house for the noisiest part of the weekend and do something relaxing (or because there's nothing you'd consider relaxing to do outside your house because you live in bumfuck nowhere), have you tried just fighting the noise? Like Whatever said, noise-cancelling headphones are great, but barring that (or in conjunction with that, if necessary) you could just move to a quieter corner of the house, throw up some heavy blankets against wherever the noise is coming from (no, really; it's not perfect by any means, but it can sometimes be the tipping point from distracting to harmless), slap on ordinary headphones and listen to some music while doing whatever. That's pretty much how I handled dorm life.

Or, you know, aim the speakers at the noise source and crank death metal.

I don't always drink, but when I do, I prefer heavily mixed or alcopop drinks.

Surprised no one made a The Most Interesting Man in the World reference, so I had to fix that.

Whipstitch wrote:

Koumei wrote: Spices... my mouth can handle them, but I get the shits often enough without spicy foods.
And I'll stick with milk or white chocolate. Dark chocolate tastes like someone already ate it.

Yeah, but dark chocolate's got a higher concentration of mood boosters if you can handle it too. I actually have a spicy hot chocolate drink I mix up sometimes but I do that mostly for the mood booster combo than the taste.


Also, if this thread is about booze now I must admit that I'm not a classy person-- I like whiskey sours and tequila shots.

There is nothing classier than a Whiskey Sour.

Basically, here's how you're supposed to drink: If Frank Sinatra or Steve McQueen wouldn't beat your ass after seeing you drink it, it's fine to drink.

Brown Liquor is good, but if you want to be classy mix it with something either sour or bitter. That's how to drink.

that's good, because i didn't intend to stop on account of whiskey sours being fucking delicious