"I'm looking for an astronomer..."
- Scott Alexander
- Special Map Cartographer
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"I'm looking for an astronomer..."
This will be meaningful to some people and not to others. I'm bound by Shireroth Ministry of Information regulations that prohibit me from explaining it for the next few weeks. However, please leave it here for that time period.
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You get 1 orbital mechanics program!!You walk into the office of Dr. Josh Spangle, one of Micras' most famous astronomers.
"I need to know about celestial mechanics," you tell him. "Can you help me? It's very important."
"How important?" he asks. "I'm currently filing budget requests for SEGI, the Search for Giess Intelligence. It's a Micronational Astronomy Society Project to determine whether intelligent life exists on Giess. We thought we found some last week, actually, but it turned out to be a false positive."
"Really?" you ask, temporarily intrigued.
"Yeah," he said "It was just Babkhans."
You snap out of it. "Yes this is important! The fate of the world might depend on it! I need to know celestial mechanics!"
"Well, all right," says a confused Spangle.
...
Two hours later, he finishes with "And that's why the squares of the orbital periods of planets are directly proportional to the cubes of the semi-major axes of their orbits."
"I'm sorry," you say. "But I didn't understand a word of that. Not one word, in two hours."
"Hmmm..." Spangle says. "Well, I don't have any time to explain it again. Got to fill out those budget requests. But tell you what. I've developed a computer program that can calculate the orbits of bodies automatically. Why don't you make a copy? Maybe that'll help you with whatever's so important?"
You copy Spangle's program to a CD and get out.
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Last edited by Scott Alexander on Sun Mar 30, 2008 2:51 am, edited 1 time in total.
- dr-spangle
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Ahh, one of the clues in the ...
Nah, can't say any more. I'll duitifully not read it till I need it ...
Nah, can't say any more. I'll duitifully not read it till I need it ...
Andreas
"He showed up three or four years ago and accidentally took over the micronational world by being way more competent and enthusiastic than everyone else. Now he sort of rules us all, but it's a benevolent sort of thing, as far as we know."
~Scott Alexander
"He showed up three or four years ago and accidentally took over the micronational world by being way more competent and enthusiastic than everyone else. Now he sort of rules us all, but it's a benevolent sort of thing, as far as we know."
~Scott Alexander
As you are leaving, a bespectacled man very nearly bumps into you.
"Excuse me, sir. Are you with the scavenger hunt?"
"Yes...", you answer with some consternation.
"My name is Anders Vilen, and I represent WebSolutions Incorporated. As part of our campaign to promote web-based software, we have reverse engineered the functionality of Dr. Spangle's orbital calculator. The Shirithian government has kindly agreed to temporarily host the web-based orbit calculator at http://shireroth.kuroshiro.net/orbit.php, and it is free for all scavenge hunters to use."
You quickly write the address down and thank the man. As you walk away, you hear him mumbling something about bytecode files and actually packaging the run-time system with them. He then shouts after you, seemingly as an afterthought: "Don't worry! Even if the competitor's program won't run, ours will!"
"Excuse me, sir. Are you with the scavenger hunt?"
"Yes...", you answer with some consternation.
"My name is Anders Vilen, and I represent WebSolutions Incorporated. As part of our campaign to promote web-based software, we have reverse engineered the functionality of Dr. Spangle's orbital calculator. The Shirithian government has kindly agreed to temporarily host the web-based orbit calculator at http://shireroth.kuroshiro.net/orbit.php, and it is free for all scavenge hunters to use."
You quickly write the address down and thank the man. As you walk away, you hear him mumbling something about bytecode files and actually packaging the run-time system with them. He then shouts after you, seemingly as an afterthought: "Don't worry! Even if the competitor's program won't run, ours will!"