Author Topic: Dragons of the Future  (Read 7870 times)

Offline Kindler

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Re: Dragons of the Future
« Reply #15 on: April 05, 2018, 08:12:04 PM »
hehe, More prolific at it maybe.  Better?  ::)

Sure. We've been able to make greater changes to the surrounding environment with each generation, starting with agriculture, to the present, when we can build freaking islands off the coast of Dubai.

Offline Quantus

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Re: Dragons of the Future
« Reply #16 on: April 06, 2018, 12:18:38 PM »
Sure. We've been able to make greater changes to the surrounding environment with each generation, starting with agriculture, to the present, when we can build freaking islands off the coast of Dubai.
The engineering is impressive I fully agree.  But...



(NOTE: This is intended as a light joke, not an environmentalist soapbox or anything 8))
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Offline Kindler

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Re: Dragons of the Future
« Reply #17 on: April 06, 2018, 12:44:46 PM »
Nah, I knew what you were getting at. And I agree to an extent. I'm chuckling, I just don't emote well in text  ;D

Can't help but wonder whether or not the technology behind the artificial islands might be usable to combat some of the damage done to the planet, like beach erosion and so on.

Anyway, the point is that we don't really need Dragons anymore. We can redirect rivers on our own. Hell, a hundred years ago we built the Panama Canal and the Hoover Dam. The concrete is still curing inside the Hoover Dam, by the way.

I'm sure there's a Tower of Babel-type parable in there somewhere about the Hubris of Man.

Offline Quantus

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Re: Dragons of the Future
« Reply #18 on: April 06, 2018, 05:51:07 PM »
Nah, I knew what you were getting at. And I agree to an extent. I'm chuckling, I just don't emote well in text  ;D

Can't help but wonder whether or not the technology behind the artificial islands might be usable to combat some of the damage done to the planet, like beach erosion and so on.

Anyway, the point is that we don't really need Dragons anymore. We can redirect rivers on our own. Hell, a hundred years ago we built the Panama Canal and the Hoover Dam. The concrete is still curing inside the Hoover Dam, by the way.

I'm sure there's a Tower of Babel-type parable in there somewhere about the Hubris of Man.
We added a literal "Off Button" to Niagara Falls; it only flows as much as it does now at a given day and time because of international tourism treaties between the US and Canada.  They dial it down at night, to feed more flow to the hydroelectric generators. 

I worked with an old structural engineer that was involved in some of the 1960's work on it
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“We’re all imaginary friends to one another."

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Offline Kindler

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Re: Dragons of the Future
« Reply #19 on: April 06, 2018, 07:43:16 PM »
Wish I could add an off button to the freakin' woodpeckers outside my window every morning.

On a more serious note, engineering is equally awe-inspiring and terrifying to me; we've been able to do things that defy layman understanding. It's pretty cool that you got to be a part of it, even if just by hanging around an old hand.

Offline Quantus

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Re: Dragons of the Future
« Reply #20 on: April 06, 2018, 07:52:59 PM »
Wish I could add an off button to the freakin' woodpeckers outside my window every morning.

On a more serious note, engineering is equally awe-inspiring and terrifying to me; we've been able to do things that defy layman understanding. It's pretty cool that you got to be a part of it, even if just by hanging around an old hand.
Oh I get to do some of the fun stuff, I give these things braaiiiinsssss.
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Offline peregrine

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Re: Dragons of the Future
« Reply #21 on: April 06, 2018, 11:55:11 PM »
Wish I could add an off button to the freakin' woodpeckers outside my window every morning.
Pour a systemic insecticide around the trees.  Kills off the bugs in the trees, woodpeckers have no food source, no reason hammer into the trees.

Offline TheJrade

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Re: Dragons of the Future
« Reply #22 on: April 11, 2018, 04:26:55 AM »
Possibly unrelated, but my personal headcanon is that True Dragons are multidimensional beings who regard our entire reality not entirely differently from how we might regard 2-dimensional beings on a printed page.