Real-Life Weirdness

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Loukas

One of the world's biggest nuclear reactors shot down by mass invasion of jellyfish https://sverigesradio.se/sida/artike...rtikel=5662615

This is obviously a followup to their assault on the Diablo Canyon reactor in the US back in April, 2012.

Edit: Not to mention the incident of July 27, 2006, when the nuclear aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan was stopped by a horde of jellyfish. But luckily, scientists and engineers at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology are working on a solution. They've prototyped JEROS, a robotic system to hunt down and (of course) terminate the enemy.

Originally Posted by KAIST

The research team led by Prof. Hyeon Myeong began developing an unmanned automated system capable of eradicating jellyfish in in 2009, and has since completed field-tests last year with success.

An unmanned aquatic robot JEROS with a mountable grinding part is buoyed by two cylindrical bodies that utilizes propulsion motors to move forward and reverse, as well as rotate 360 degrees. Furthermore, GIS (geographic information system)-based map data is used to specify the region for jellyfish extermination, which automatically calculates the path for the task. JEROS then navigates autonomously using a GPS (Global Positioning System) receiver and an INS(inertial navigation system).

The assembly robots maintain a set formation pattern, while calculating its course to perform jellyfish extermination. The advantage of this method is that there is no need for individual control of the robots.

JEROS uses its propulsion speed to capture jellyfish into the grinding part on the bottom, which then suctions the jellyfish toward the propeller to be exterminated.

The field test results show that three assembly robots operating at 4 knots (7.2km/h) disposes jellyfish at the rate of about 900kg/h.

The full article

The advantage is that there's no need to control the extermination bots. Of course, this system still suffers from the disadvantage that we have to build fleets of the things. It sure would be simpler if we could just make them build themselves, so we could just turn a few prototypes loose and let 'em rip. What could possibly go wrong?

[tantric]

Reading a recent xkcd reminded me of something that happened to me many years ago. This is not something I talk to people about in the RW because the only logical conclusion is that I'm mad as a box of worms. Nevertheless, it did happen and I'm not making this up.

I was working as a night shift cashier at Kroger. One night, this lady came through and bought a bunch of frozen fish. I noticed the label said "Batter Dipt Fish", which I thought was odd, as 5-MeO-DiPT is a drug* that was going around then. A few days latter I was stocking in the frozen section and saw the label again - and I saw another label for a different brand of fish with "dipped" spelled "dipt". I thought that was off, so when I got home I looked in my dictionary, which told me in no uncertain terms that the *only* correct past participle of "dip" was "dipt". I remember very clearly the wash of existential terror as my stomach fell through the floor. I didn't say anything about it, because the only explanation was that I had some brain dysfunction. Now here's the kicker - about a week later IT CHANGED BACK. I swear this, by the Buddha, the Samgha and the Dharma.

Now, the thing is, this is very similar to what happened to the universe jumping characters in the novel "the Number of the Beast" where they found an alternate universe that didn't use the letter "J". It was like someone was playing games with me.

One more thing - in the universe I was born in, Bill Clinton appointed George Stephanopolis to be his press secretary, but George was drummed out of the White House for being openly gay. I was heavily into gay politics then and fully remember discussing this with friends. Now George has a wife and kids. Lovely.

I'd just like to go on records as saying THIS CRAP IS NOT FUNNY PLEASE DON'T EVER DO IT AGAIN. Thank you.

*The only drug I was taking at that time was lorazepam, which is not known to cause hallucinations.

[William]

My mother and brother have fond memories of our family trip to Disney World when my brother and I were around 5 and 6.

I and my father don't remember any such trip at all, and I distinctly remember being excited about my first trip to Disney World in high school with our band.

I don't remember George Stephanopoulos being gay though.

Perhaps this one's a more subtle Banestorm world?

ETA: Gah, now there's a horrible philosophical problem. Two timelines, mostly similar, start collapsing in on each other. The histories appear to be fairly randomly spliced, so neither world seems to have a "dominant" claim on reality. What does humanity do when the pace starts accelerating and hundreds or thousands of people per day are having doubles show up and claim ownership of the same set of assets?

Me, I'm single and have a large enough house, and small enough financial assets and debts, that for right now it would be a tight squeeze but I could survive one of me showing up. (More than two timelines and this problem rapidly gets impossible of course.) The biggest question would be who gets my current job. For a lot of people, though, this would just be a killing issue.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by tantric

One more thing - in the universe I was born in, Bill Clinton appointed George Stephanopolis to be his press secretary, but George was drummed out of the White House for being openly gay.

Why would President Kerrey's Secretary of State have needed a press secretary? And it is really likely that Archbishop Stephanopoulos would have stepped down from the Orthodox church just to take that job?

[Ze'Manel Cunha]

Originally Posted by William

ETA: Gah, now there's a horrible philosophical problem. Two timelines, mostly similar, start collapsing in on each other. The histories appear to be fairly randomly spliced, so neither world seems to have a "dominant" claim on reality. What does humanity do when the pace starts accelerating and hundreds or thousands of people per day are having doubles show up and claim ownership of the same set of assets?

You may want to read The Shadow Men by Christopher Golden & Tim Lebbon, you've pretty much described something that happens in it.

[tantric]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

Why would President Kerrey's Secretary of State have needed a press secretary? And it is really likely that Archbishop Stephanopoulos would have stepped down from the Orthodox church just to take that job?

Haha not. That was when I was trying to disengage from Coincidence Control Central* (hey, DMT Elves, take your shiny tesseract and shove it where the sun don't shine!) and I'm fairly sure it was them. I permanently lost SAN from that, and that's not something I have to spare. The only thing I can compare it to is being in a car crash when your car is spinning out of control. Then again, the lost SAN translated into Unfazeable - I just go with now.

"Cosmic Love is absolutely Ruthless and Highly Indifferent:
it teaches its lessons whether you like/dislike them or not."

*You're not cleared to know that, though I'm pretty sure most of the elite at SJG are agents. Or counteragents.

[Anders]

Critical success on Animal Handling.

He can sue for discrimination, though.

[Luke Bunyip]

Originally Posted by Asta Kask

Critical success on Animal Handling.

He can sue for discrimination, though.

Possibly the bear was under age...

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Luke Bunyip

Possibly the bear was under age...

From reading service workers' forums, I posit that the bear simply "left his I.D. in the car, and will be right back with it."

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

From reading service workers' forums, I posit that the bear simply "left his I.D. in the car, and will be right back with it."

At least the Bear didn't scream at her and call her a "racist" or a "terrorist". Which happened to me in that situation at least weekly when I had that job...