Perpetual rain machine

Was looking at stuff about phase transitions and wondered about glass. Without using many polysylabilistic words. If you cool something down quick enough and its viscosity reduces in a uniform manner if should become a glass. Glass then is like a single crystal, but without any sharp edges. It will still look like it is a fluid because the outside edges are defined by its surface tension when it was a liquid. In all respects it will appear as a liquid that has been frozen in time.

So possibly this will be a phenomenon that occurs at the same time as when trying to make cold light.



It seems glass isn’t a proper state of matter, it’s an Amorphous Solid, like jelly and kind of stuck in between being a liquid and a solid. Apparently it’s a dynamic thing and depends on the pressure and how fast the cooling rate was. In the end glass should be solid, brittle and have no internal diffraction surfaces (ie. can see through it). Apparently if you cool it enough it will have to shatter to for crystals because they are more stable at lower temperatures, eventually the stability difference will be enough to break the glass.



Then I was wondering what would it be if you got stuck between a liquid and a gas? I suppose it would depend on the vapour pressure. Imagining a Kg of H2O, that is neither fully evaporated into steam, nor is it cooled into water. The temperature and pressure would have to be uniform and precisely controlled. I suppose it would look like a mist or rain that doesn’t fall. The steam would condense into raindrops, but then evaporate before gravity takes hold.



Hmm, I wonder if anybody has tried to make a rain machine like that? It would have to be tall to allow for a temperature difference to occur. The sides would have to be clear to see what is happening and hydrophobic to stop the water precipitation on the sides. Would need some sort of heater on the bottom to boil the water and a freezer on the top to remove heat from there. The whole vessel would have to be pretty tall.

So then at the bottom the water would be boiled to steam and disappear. Probably have to be an electric element that can be turned off automatically when there is no liquid.

Then the invisible steam will travel up to the top with all the heat from the heater. At the top there may be too much heat for the steam to precipitate so a cooling device may be required. But the vapour mustn’t freeze on the walls. Then when droplets form they would fall down towards the heater as far as the heat will allow them to.

What Generation am I?

Curiously I had a look, according to Wikipedia Generation Y covers 1983-2010 very roughly. Some things accurately describe me and some do not at all. For example I'm less likely to practice organized religion, False. and also skeptical of religion, True.

Apparently we learnt from the mistakes of our parents and are setting about to trial lots of jobs to find the right one, so that we are happy in our chosen career. And same same but different we are specifically avoiding the possibility of divorce, having known kids whose parents went through all that turmoil.

Also there was a restructuring of the “coming of age” ceremonies with the advent of teenagers, a new age bracket with spending money that advertisers have newly acquired in this generation. For me I still enjoy being a “youth” at youth groups and things, for example ~5years ago we were visiting my grandparents church and they said

“can the children come forward for the children’s chat” I couldn’t see anybody else without grey hair so I supposed that hey meant me. It turned out that there was two families with tiny tots sitting in the back pew and they came forward as well. For me I think I stopped being a boy when a random stranger in the supermarket told her daughter to move out of the way and referred to me as a man.

My generation apparently prefers to live at home, for economic stability and therefore has a strong relationship with their parents. Well I’ve done that and seen that and the reason I’m alone at home now is that my parents left town. Personally though I have never had any issued in getting a job to do. Which is good because I cant stomach having nothing to do when I get up in the morning. There must be some challenge for me to face.

Some people refer to this as the “Trophy Generation” because we like to compete in things and get graded on whatever we do. But the main thing is to participate in these events. After all only one person can win a tournament. It’s a bit sad when you came second in a marathon and then have to tell people that there were only three entrants.




I’m actually surprised at how accurate some of what I found out is, the more I researched this the more interesting it became. I defiantly go against the flow in some areas but in others that is the normal thing to expect. Also the Strauss-Howe theory of a four generation cycle sounds very much like the repetitions of a community development theory. It goes like this:

1 High: expand & stabilize the organized community

2 Awakening: understand and rebel

3 Unraveling: We are all individuals, join us

4 Crises: establish and define new community

So I was born and grew up in an unraveling cycle, will be one of the leaders of the organization and in my old age will criticize all the rebels. Sounds like I was destined to be a Rotarian. I’m also given the title Hero in this theory, I like that.


Overall though this is just a label by which marketing executives can pigeonhole people and the media can form stereotypes. Just like that being Australian means that I wear boardies, own a Drizabone, and hang out with my mates at the local drinking schooners.

What is a a better term than LAN to describe what we do?

At a “LAN Party” we generally transpose a digital manifestation of our soul into the alternate reality of the chosen game.

Is there some sort of extra planar entity in a rougelike monster compendium that we can model ourselves after. Something that can transplant its soul into different world. that can reset reality when bad things happen. we fear the blue screen of death. We can easily adapt to new surroundings and shapechange from Mario to Chell to a tynanid hivemind.

Escapism comes to mind. We are able to transplant our selves into the new world and participate within its rigid set of rules. with level ups and only completing tasks if they are defined within quests or recorded as achievements.

So when we participate in a LAN we travel together cooperatively in to an alternate reality in which we overcome conflict. While in this reality we posses one of the locals, call them a protagonist and mold them to our will, evolving them as we see fit. At times treating them like lemmings, sometimes 
 developing a relationship.

Does “Astral travel” kind of fit what happens? no not really it seems to involve a passive physical body. But our fingers in particular are definitely not passive when gaming.

The mindcrafter in ADOM sort of fits. I thought he could posses critters as well, but that isn't the case. maybe it was TOME where I did that.

Hard to tell, the new tome is rather small as they are remaking the game. But I did find an old TOME that could be good for LAN, I think the loremasters had Symbiotic powers that allowed them to inhabit recently vacated corpses. Posessor was the class I was looking for. This requires some research. Found the old files here.