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Non-weapons of war, weapons of war

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Re: Non-weapons of war, weapons of war
Post by SWM   » Wed Apr 30, 2014 8:15 am

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Tenshinai wrote:
SWM wrote:They already do that. Messages are sent in coded shorthand.


No, two different things. Encoding means you reduce the amount of "ticks" you have to send before you send(don´t forget you add latency into the system by having to encode messages in this shorthand as well), what i proposed was adding complexity to each "tick" to stretch the amount of data they each can potentially convey and thereby improve speed additionally.

Shorthand is good but have limits, what i said is only really limited by how much training you want to give operators and how many common words or syllables you can cover, and how much they cover in each message.

After that it´s pretty much just doubling up that is left.

Are you suggesting adding more arms to the devices, or something like that? I suppose that would multiply the possible values of the encoding scheme, but would increase the potential for errors. It would help, but it wouldn't be a giant leap.
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Re: Non-weapons of war, weapons of war
Post by ChronicRder   » Wed Apr 30, 2014 9:42 am

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I remember reading something that the Japanese used to use in the late 1800s concerning a mirror. They would take a regular hand held mirror and put a design/message on the medal under the glass. The glass would be cut slightly thinner to allow light, from a certain angle, to hit the design/message and project it on something close. However, since the message could only be delivered at a certain angle, the mirror would very easily pass most inspections even if confiscated. The only sure way was to break the system was to...break the mirror. Bear in mind, mirrors were commodities back then.
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Re: Non-weapons of war, weapons of war
Post by ChronicRder   » Wed Apr 30, 2014 9:48 am

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Has there been any talk of developing using the steam engines they're developing to make balloons or blimps? I know we have to tread lightly on electricity, but could they test the waters with that? I'm not 100% whether the OBS would react to simply the development of electricity or certain kinds of electricity as in the development of fossil fuels, beginning development of computers etc.

Also, what about developing typewriters? That would spark boons not merely for military memos but the private sector as well. I assume they already have printing presses...
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Re: Non-weapons of war, weapons of war
Post by DrakBibliophile   » Wed Apr 30, 2014 10:20 am

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Safehold does have printing presses. "Old fashion" manual typewriters are possible and might already exist on Safehold.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typewriter

ChronicRder wrote:Has there been any talk of developing using the steam engines they're developing to make balloons or blimps? I know we have to tread lightly on electricity, but could they test the waters with that? I'm not 100% whether the OBS would react to simply the development of electricity or certain kinds of electricity as in the development of fossil fuels, beginning development of computers etc.

Also, what about developing typewriters? That would spark boons not merely for military memos but the private sector as well. I assume they already have printing presses...
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Re: Non-weapons of war, weapons of war
Post by Tenshinai   » Wed Apr 30, 2014 1:37 pm

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SWM wrote:Are you suggesting adding more arms to the devices, or something like that? I suppose that would multiply the possible values of the encoding scheme, but would increase the potential for errors. It would help, but it wouldn't be a giant leap.


Yup, pretty much spot on. As i said, it requires the operators to be better trained and have very high requirements on them, but schemes like this has been tested to work (effectively), it just never caught on historically before the telegraph became the norm.
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Re: Non-weapons of war, weapons of war
Post by Hildum   » Wed Apr 30, 2014 3:54 pm

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Rather than a generic slide rule, I think something along the lines of the military slide rules here would be quite useful: http://sliderulemuseum.com/Military.htm
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Re: Non-weapons of war, weapons of war
Post by Weird Harold   » Wed Apr 30, 2014 5:10 pm

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Hildum wrote:Rather than a generic slide rule, I think something along the lines of the military slide rules here would be quite useful: http://sliderulemuseum.com/Military.htm


Useful indeed, but the generic version would/should come first and let enterprising Charisians invent the specialized versions as the see a need.
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Answers! I got lots of answers!

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Re: Non-weapons of war, weapons of war
Post by Randomiser   » Thu May 01, 2014 6:18 pm

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Tenshinai wrote:
SWM wrote:Are you suggesting adding more arms to the devices, or something like that? I suppose that would multiply the possible values of the encoding scheme, but would increase the potential for errors. It would help, but it wouldn't be a giant leap.


Yup, pretty much spot on. As i said, it requires the operators to be better trained and have very high requirements on them, but schemes like this has been tested to work (effectively), it just never caught on historically before the telegraph became the norm.


Have you read the info dump on church communications here?
http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/entry/Safehold/229/1
Seems to me RFC has been there before you and much of what you suggest is already implemented.
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Re: Non-weapons of war, weapons of war
Post by MWadwell   » Fri May 02, 2014 6:31 am

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ChronicRder wrote:Has there been any talk of developing using the steam engines they're developing to make balloons or blimps? I know we have to tread lightly on electricity, but could they test the waters with that? I'm not 100% whether the OBS would react to simply the development of electricity or certain kinds of electricity as in the development of fossil fuels, beginning development of computers etc.

(SNIP)


RFC has already stated that "flight is exclusively for angels" - and as a result any powered flight (even balloons) are forbidden.
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Re: Non-weapons of war, weapons of war
Post by Tenshinai   » Fri May 02, 2014 2:11 pm

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Randomiser wrote:
Have you read the info dump on church communications here?
http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/entry/Safehold/229/1
Seems to me RFC has been there before you and much of what you suggest is already implemented.


Ah well, no i had not seen that so i guess i was too late.
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