Minecraft Forums

I haven't used this site since September but decided to come back when my temper cooled and I regained interest. I read the rules and I do not think that updating a thread with a bunch of new, relevant information is considered bumping it. I also avoided controversial and mature topics. I hope to have an active discussion in this thread about all the cool scientific and technological progress going on.

Otherwise, I will leave again.

--Ocram

EDIT: I would much rather have a Pebble Time Steel than an Apple Watch. The Pebble has everything I want and I'd not overpriced. However, my financial situation is uncertain as I am moving to transfer to a University in a small college town. That means that I will wait until reviews come in and I have money.

I taught myself more programming with Khan Academy and Codecademy than I did from actual classes that I had to pay for tuition and text books (and ended up withdrawing from to avoid a failing grade) at college. I would certainly recommend them.

--Ocram

I wanted to share exciting scientific and technological breakthroughs here but it seems that no one here was interested and there was a bit of a controversy for a while. Anyway, after 8 month hiatus playing other games and talking about other stuff (mostly the other games, as well as technology) on other sites (I am not hard to find), I decided to see if things have changed here enough that we can start to have a meaningful discussion on scientific and technological advancements where we can all post really cool articles (and summarize them). I must admit that I do not know if 8 month bumping is allowed but I have a bunch of new articles I want to share.

1. Update on supercapacitors: They exist, they will soon be used in hybrid vehicles, they are getting better (in the lab).

2. New fad in science: Quantum Dots, also known as nanocrystals. The technology has been around for a long time, the technology is becoming less expensive and more environmentally friendly, and the technology is seeing an expansion in uses. Eventually, quantum dots that have no heavy metals or other toxic substances will be ubiquitous in many types of labs and factories. I am particularly interested in quantum dots used for imaging of biological samples (though I am a Chemical Engineering/Biochemistry undergraduate who will shortly complete his math minor and already has 3 associates degrees, I won't go into a medical field...) including biopsies of various tissues of various animals (even humans eventually).

OLED screens that use quantum dots for the light emission would have theoretically the same color gamut and contrast as lasers (which are perfect but expensive). LCD screens with approximately the same picture quality as OLED screens today (while being cheaper to make and stronger to boot) is one of the main bonuses to consumers in the short term.

In case you have not heard, all the high end LCD screens since CES 2015 have used Blue LED (usually edge lit) with red and green quantum dots (sometimes as small tubes on the edges, near the blue LED, sometimes right behind the LCD, first is cheaper, second is higher quality) as the back light. The Liquid Crystals have not changed much but local dimming (which can be done precisely with full array blue LED + red and green quantum dots and done cheaper with lower quality with edge lit blue LED with small tubes full of quantum dots right next to them) plus pure Red, Green and Blue primaries has increased precision and accuracy enough that normal IPS LCD technology can now have extremely dark blacks, vibrant colors, and bright (natural looking) whites. One problem is that people perceive color differently (for example the blue dress with black lace that looks like a white dress with gold lace to a large portion of the populace, myself included) so there is only so much that can be done before high quality pictures start to diverge in perceived picture quality to different individuals with supposedly "normal" vision. Most of the quantum dot screens available on the market today are overpriced and curved and are better suited for recreation rooms and living rooms and some are only suited for home theaters.

3. The world's "only" coloratura soprano whale. This is the only blue whale ever known (it might be a hybrid) that has most of its song audible to humans. Nowadays, most blue whales have songs that have notes too low for humans to hear. I say nowadays because whale song has been getting deeper every season.

4. Microbiologists are programming yeast to make fragrances on the cheap. These volatile chemicals need to be purified to eliminate the fungal scent. They can program the yeast to make the fragrance of any flower (or spice) to ever exist (that genetic code can be found), even wildflowers from the last ice age!

5. Quantum computers have existed for a while but they are getting better all the time. Here is an article that shows that errors can be corrected now that could not have been in the past. I hope that quantum computers will help bring about advances to make it possible to colonize exoplanets.

As you can probably tell, I am most interested in technology I plan on using as well as fields related to what I am studying. I hope you found these topics and articles interesting and I look forward to seeing more people sharing exciting discoveries they came across while browsing the internet.

--Ocram

That looks very promising! I don't understand why you chose to make the world height over 16 million blocks but the fact that you accomplished this is quite a feat in and of itself. The earth itself is less than 20,000 meters from the bottom of the Mariana Trench to the top of Mt. Everest but maybe someone will make some sort of mod built off your mod that includes the underworld and space, LOL.



Keep up the great work!

--Ocram

Quote from Chameleonred5»

VSync, I believe, is one of the bugged features that will actually disable your FPS. You should turn that off and use the FPS limiter slider instead.

Thank you very much for the input! I have not played minecraft for a couple of months and never noticed VSync before. Now that I disabled it, I am experiencing permanent 60 fps.

@everyone with lag issues: make sure that Vsync is turned off and the "max FPS" is set the the refresh rate of your screen. It might help to allocate more RAM but it was laggy with a lot of RAM and VSync on and became perfect after I turned VSync off.

--Ocram

I do not experience crashes on my game. The only time that ever happened was in Beta when playing around with Millenaire on my old computer.

However, the frame rate is much worse in 1.8 vanilla on a superflat peaceful world (no water) than modded 1.7 world with plenty of water, even after allocating 5x the amount of RAM I previously allocated. I use VSync so I don't waste electricity rendering faster than 60fps but my game rarely hits 60fps. I am fine with 10 fps (though I don't like it), I can tolerate 2 fps when not fighting, but I can NOT tolerate the game freezing for 20 seconds while digging a 3 block deep, 64x64 area hole, taking me 9 minecraft days over the course many hours over 3 real life days.

If Minecraft is not playable by the end of this week, I will just give up here!

In the past, I allocated a mere GB to Minecraft, even with mods. Now, I allocate 4 GB for 1.8 vanilla and its performance is much worse.



--Ocram

The performance seems to improve slightly when I allocate more memory to the game and routinely de spawn the entities. I might need to allocate more than 4G of RAM.



--Ocram

Minecraft 1.7 worked very well for me. Now, I can hardly turn around let alone move, kill mobs, mine, or build in 1.8!



--Ocram

Supercapacitors - almost ready for the market

A capacitor, much like a battery, can hold an electric charge; unlike a battery, it can charge and discharge rapidly. There are ways to control the rate of discharge in order to make capacitors useful as replacements to batteries for powering electronics but until recently (a year or so ago), lithium-ion batteries had a far higher energy density than any capacitor could dream to have. However, graphene (and now hemp fibres) have emerged as the agents of change to set off a new technological revolution. Supercapacitors made with graphene (or hemp fibres) can be used to power an electric vehicle and are best suited (far better than batteries) to store energy from braking. Brakes can either work through friction or as a special kind of generator.

Here is the first article: http://gizmodo.com/these-new-graphene-supercapacitors-could-finally-power-1463259679

Here is the second article (published the same day): http://www.technologyreview.com/view/521651/graphene-supercapacitors-ready-for-electric-vehicle-energy-storage-say-korean-engineers/

Here is the third article (published in the past day): http://phys.org/news/2014-08-hemp-nanosheets-topple-graphene-ideal.html



What do you all think of these breakthroughs?



--Ocram

That seems like an improvement, given the circumstances and recent changes.



--Ocram

As the Global Moderator of Planet Random (my pen-pal from the East Coast is the Administrator), I suggest that PPNS regulars join Planet Random. It was at one point a vibrant community but activity has died down a little bit recently. We even have a section devoted to Philosophy and Current Events! Here: http://planetrandom.freeforums.org/philosophy-and-current-events-f21.html

Our main focus was on video games and we still maintain a section for video games as well as technology, TV shows, and movies as well as an off-topic section. We have more lax rules than here since most users (including all the staff) are adults now but we still do not allow links to bad things. Our rules are similar to Mod The Sims. Still there have been a couple of trollers and spammers so I had to deal with them.

I hope that we can all cooperate together and make both Minecraft Forum and Planet Random better communities.



--Ocram

OK, good! I am glad that you understand the importance of the cornerstone of civilization. Discussion of politics and philosophy can quickly degrade into bickering, insults, derailing, and flame wars so I completely understand why a kiddie forum for a kiddie game would want to put a blanket censor on a volatile subject. I expect to continue contributing valuable, positive, productive, meaningful, and polite posts on MCF for the foreseeable future.



I still play Minecraft from time to time despite being busy with undergraduate science courses and I appreciate the continued development on this game and I enjoy some of the new features.



Thank you,



--Ocram

I read the sticky thread in PPNS but I thought that since there is the technology section and at one point it also included science, it would be fine. Of course, if this thread is locked because "science is not welcome here," I will stop contributing valuable, positive, productive, meaningful, and polite posts on MCF. Science is very important and without the scientific method, computers (and most of modern society) would not exist. I will not stand for anti-intellectualism and censorship of science. As a scientist (undergraduate student), I am offended that a major website would want to remove all mentions of science!

Getting rid of discussions of politics and philosophy makes sense for certain demographics but a gaming website depends on science.

My suggestion is that the "Computers & Technology" include science. Discussion of technology is impossible without science.



--Ocram

This thread is to be dedicated to news about Science and Technology. Post your articles and summaries of scientific breakthroughs and technological advancements.



I will test the waters and wait until this thread drops to the second page before posting articles.



Thank you for reading,



--Ocram