Nifl
Poster
Posts: 35
World: Nexus
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Post by Nifl on May 5, 2015 19:24:58 GMT
I'm curious what everyone's local manifestations of the forum are.
I want to start off by describing my own, but I'm not used to communicating with such a potentially varied audience and I'm having trouble finding a good balance between explaining too much and explaining too little. Is there anyone out there who doesn't have this problem and would like to share?
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Post by Andrew on May 5, 2015 20:12:34 GMT
I think I have this problem, but I’ll still give it a go.
I actually have two manifestations of this forum: a Usenet newsgroup, and a World Wide Web “site”. It appears the second has more features (such as images associated with each person), so I will be using that from now on. Both Usenet and the World Wide Web are part of something called the “Internet”, which is a network of computers. I’ll being this explanation with computers. If you know what computers, the Internet, Usenet, and the World Wide Web are, then this probably will not have new information.
A computer is technological machine (similar to clockwork, but much more advanced) which can perform calculations on large numbers (hence the name) and which can store text and sometimes images and sound. It is possible to connect multiple computers together (usually over telephone lines, which were originally intended just for sending sound between two distant people to enable long-distance conversations); this is called a “network”. The Internet is a network of a large number of computers; at first this was primarily computers of educational and military institutions, but individual people have also been connecting to the Internet in recent years.
When computers are connected, they can send their numbers, text, images, sound, etc. to each other. Usenet is a collection of newsgroups, and in each newsgroup people can create “posts” which are sent to the other computers on the newsgroup, allowing people to read them. The World Wide Web is similar, in that people create things on their computers which other people can access on other computers. However, it uses “pages” and “sites” (collections of pages). Each page can contain “hypertext”, which is formatted text, images, and links to other pages. Unlike Usenet discussions, pages are (usually) kept the same once created. However, it is apparently possible to change pages based on what people submit, as this forum is doing in this manifestation.
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Post by Dispersive Prism on May 5, 2015 20:13:53 GMT
I mean, I don't really have a good idea of what I'm comparing it to? But my er, 'local manifestation of the forum' is over the crystal network. It looks like, um, a forum? With different sections and names and everything is really blue? Compared to how things look over the crystal network, it's kind of drab, actually, usually things aren't this blue.
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Post by Gray Librarian on May 5, 2015 20:19:20 GMT
I am receiving a print periodical by mail on a daily schedule. The Library sometimes receives unsolicited subscriptions to journals, newspapers, and magazines, and this arrived in the usual manner for such materials. A return address for reader responses is included in each issue. The dates and times associated with the messages suggest an irregular time dilation factor between six and fifty.
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Nifl
Poster
Posts: 35
World: Nexus
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Post by Nifl on May 5, 2015 20:24:49 GMT
Everything is definitely very blue.
I think my interface is probably best described as a local variant of Andrew's Internet. My world has computers and associated networks as well, although the details differ.
In my local manifestation, there is an option to change the forum's appearance, but only one possible appearance in the list. That implies that it might be possible for the providers of the forum to add more, so we could all choose our own preferred colour scheme where applicable.
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Post by Dispersive Prism on May 5, 2015 20:42:48 GMT
Okay, reading through this thread I ssssort of have an idea of what I'm comparing things to. Kind of. So I'll try to explain. I'm not an expert in crystal craft, though, so I can't explain the theory behind it or anything. Just like, practical application.
So it doesn't work like clockwork at all! Is the first thing. I don't really know what kinds of things to compare mine to, though, if you don't have anything like it. I have a sheet of quartz that is spelled for interaction with network crystals. Different crystals network to different things - I've got a few, the one I'm have is for networking to forums. It's got a lot of word purity and color fidelity and it was actually kind of expensive if this forum breaks my forum crystal because it is weird and otherworldly I am reporting it to the Ministry. Anyway! There are other network crystals - bigger businesses tend to have their own for businessy stuff, I guess. But there are also news crystals and ones for school work and funny cat videos and cooking recipes. Just about everything!
I can only have one crystal in at a time, though, so I can't look at multiple crystals on the same quartz sheet. But the emergency one is spelled to ping when there is a new message relevant to my area, and I check them all for stuff I missed daily. It's all pretty neat and tidy, and last month I got my apartment spelled for - I don't actually know the technical term for it? Something something velocity dampener field? If I drop a crystal it won't shatter into a million pieces, and if I slip and fall I won't hurt myself. That sort of thing. Really useful, and my expensive forum crystal is safe from shattery doom.
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Post by Fortunomancer on May 5, 2015 23:07:16 GMT
The forum manifested itself as a letter in my letterbox. The letter included a return address. When I wrote my first reply to said address and placed it in my letterbox, it disappeared immediately, instead of remaining there until the nightly postal summon. It is not blue.
I do not know who else in my world has access to the forum. I trust that any of the other members of the Guild of Master Spellcrafters would have informed me immediately if they received such a letter.
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Post by Leaf on May 5, 2015 23:21:15 GMT
Tally me up as another "Internet variant", I guess. Although computing technology has improved considerably since 1995. Should I even be assuming that Andrew's 1995 has the same level of technological development that mine did? Probably not, although I can't detect any differences from my limited perspective.
And, yes, it's all very blue. Sort of turquoise, to be specific.
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Post by Andrew on May 6, 2015 0:05:20 GMT
Fortunomancer, does that mean you also informed the other members of the Guild about this forum? I haven’t told anybody else yet, but I’m considering telling some of my daeva friends. It would make my job a lot easier if we could communicate without me summoning them, and the Internet does not go between my Earth and the concordant worlds (nor would anybody really want it to, with the secrecy). I’m fairly sure they could find this if they knew how to look, though, and as I understand it they could access it even if they didn’t have the rest of the Internet.
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Post by Leaf on May 6, 2015 0:11:15 GMT
Yeah, come to think of it, my universe also has some problems with communication delays that this place could solve really well; the turnaround time on messages seems to be way higher than between any two given planets...
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Post by Fortunomancer on May 6, 2015 0:15:50 GMT
Andrew:
I have, in fact, informed the other members of the Guild that this forum exists. Thus far, none of them have expressed an interest in participating in any discussions. We're holding a meeting tomorrow to decide whether or not to publicize the information. I'm not getting any strongly negative premonitions about the possibility of publicizing the information, so I don't believe that doing so would cause lasting harm, but I think it would be wise to wait for a more convenient time.
I don't believe it's been made clear why the existence of daeva is kept secret in your world. Would you care to elaborate?
-The Fortunomancer
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Post by Gray Librarian on May 6, 2015 0:19:19 GMT
The copies that I receive appear to have been mimeographed. They are in blue text on white paper.
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Post by Leaf on May 6, 2015 0:32:30 GMT
What format did the materials you asked for in that other thread come across in, Librarian?
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Post by Gray Librarian on May 6, 2015 1:21:27 GMT
They were included as part of the newsletter. They were also mimeographed.
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Post by Leaf on May 6, 2015 1:25:31 GMT
That can't have improved the legibility of the Voynich Manuscript any. I hope you manage to get a higher-quality copy from another source.
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