totm Talk like Up-Goer Five

[Snark]

Talk like Up-Goer Five:  Express complex ideas using only very simple, common words.

For anyone who has somehow managed to miss it, a while back xkcd had an absolutely brilliant strip:  a schematic of the Saturn V, carefully labeled.... but with all terms restricted to only the thousand most common English words.  This is where the KSP community gets the term "you will not go to space today."

https://xkcd.com/1133/

This game is to talk like Up-Goer Five.  That is, you have to express complex ideas using only the most common English words.  Here are the rules:

1. The person before you ends their post with a brief paragraph of something reasonably complex to explain.
2. You need to take their post and re-word it using this tool (it lets you type what you want, and draws a red line under any "forbidden" words):
   • http://splasho.com/upgoer5/
3. You can paraphrase if need be (you'll probably need to).  The one really hard rule is, your "translation" has to fit in that tool's edit box with no red "forbidden words" underlines at all.
4. Post your translation inside a spoiler box, so that people reading your post have a chance to guess an answer first, if they want to.
5. Then provide a technical paragraph of your own for the next person to take a shot at.
6. You're not allowed to answer your own post; someone else has to.  But you're welcome to come back again after some other folks have had their turns. 

Guidelines for the "technical paragraph":

• Don't make it too long, please.  Just a sentence or two is plenty.  (Otherwise nobody will want to take the burden of "translating" it.)
• Don't make it so hard that nobody understands it.  It should be something that a typical KSP forum user can understand without having to go look stuff up.
• Ideally the post should be about KSP-relevant topics, e.g. spaceflight, astronomy, engineering, KSP game advice, etc., but that's not a strict requirement, just a suggested guideline.

(Props to @Deddly for pointing out the upgoer5 tool to me, which is what gave me the idea for this game.)

Just as an example, here's a sample technical paragraph:

SRBs are useful as boosters on the launchpad, because they're inexpensive and provide a lot of thrust.  However, they're less efficient as upper stages, due to having a low Isp.

Here's my stab at translation, using the above-linked tool to validate it:

Spoiler

There are things that use hard stuff inside them to make lots of really loud fire come out to make them go. When your flying space car needs to start going up from the ground very fast, these things are good because they don't need much money and they push really hard. But they are not so good for the parts of the flying space car that go up into space because they use up the burning stuff really fast and then you have to throw them away.

Fair 'nuff?  Okay, to get the ball rolling, here's a technical paragraph for someone to start with:

Building a SSTO spaceplane is challenging, because not only do you need to balance air-breathing engines with those that work in a vacuum, but also the ship needs to be aerodynamically stable at high velocity.

[goldenpeach]

Spoiler

There some space cars able to go in space without dropping stuff behind it but they are hard to build because not only do you need to make things that make flying car move and the things that make a lot of fire in space even, but also the flying car need to move like you want even when it goes really fast.

 

building a VTOL can be challenging because the center of mass move as you burn fuel which force you to design it so that the center of thrust remain aligned with the center of mass even when you burn a lot of fuel. Also, you need to be sure you have enough engine to lift the plane which can require a lot of power if you don't have a very powerful engine.

[0111narwhalz]

Making an air car to go straight up and straight down is hard because of lots of reasons. One of these is how the middle of stuff moves when the annoying pushing part makes fire come out. You have to make sure the middle of stuff is in the same place as the middle of pushing. Another one is how you need enough pushing to go away from the ground. To do this, you need a big annoying pushing part that makes a lot of fire come out.

If your pushing part is too small, you will not go to space today.

 

The first of these conditions represents the fundamental theorem of the gradient and is true for any vector field that is a gradient of a differentiable single valued scalar field P. The second condition is a requirement of F so that it can be expressed as the gradient of a scalar function. The third condition re-expresses the second condition in terms of the curl of F using the fundamental theorem of the curl. A vector field F that satisfies these conditions is said to be irrotational (Conservative).

[PB666]

Gravity - stuff that should rest has a tendency to wake up and run to other stuff.

Quantum mechanics. Small units of things don't obey rules and prefer to gamble their lives away. 

Relativity. We don't like too see things go too fast were they get funky. 

General relativity - stuff that should rest is actually resting only we don't see it because we have a warped point of view. 

deBroglie hypothesis - we all got the shakes. The bigger you are the faster you shake. 

Laser - electron and magnetism things whip atoms into shape like soldiers in a formation. 

Higgs boson - a wave  of nothing traveling nowhere that grabs at things and makes them feel all heavy. If mass was a woman Higgs would be her period. 

. 

[James Kerman]

Go juice same as very fast fatness many times.

E=mc²

[Dman979]

power = matter times the fast of light times the fast of light
 

Nearly eighty percent of our students receive some sort of financial assistance. This assistance, determined primarily by need, is comprised of federal and state grants, student loans, academic scholarships, and work study.

[Deddly]

Spoiler

Nearly four out of five of our students are given some kind of help with their money. How much they are helped is decided by their need. The help given can be money from the state, money they have to pay back later, money they get because they did well in school, and work study.

My SSTO spaceplane is unflyable because there is a bug that makes the landing gear explode on takeoff after skidding in random directions down the runway.

[0111narwhalz]

My one piece to space fly thing is hard to fly because the force computer has a broken part that makes the round ground things break after going the wrong way down the fly thing landing road.

You cannot preserve relativity and causality while still having faster-than-light travel.

[Andem]

You can't keep the force-stuff relationship and cause while still having faster-than-light flying.

 

---

 

The Fermi paradox or Fermi's paradox, named after physicist Enrico Fermi, is the apparent contradiction between the lack of evidence and high probability estimates, e.g. those given by the Drake equation, for the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations. The basic points of the argument, made by physicists Enrico Fermi and Michael H. Hart, are:

There are billions of stars in the galaxy that are similar to the Sun, many of which are billions of years older than Earth.

With high probability, some of these stars will have Earth-like planets, and if the Earth is typical, some might develop intelligent life.

Some of these civilizations might develop interstellar travel, a step the Earth is investigating now.

Even at the slow pace of currently envisioned interstellar travel, the Milky Way galaxy could be completely traversed in about a million years.

 

According to this line of thinking, the Earth should have already been visited by extraterrestrial aliens. In an informal conversation, Fermi noted no convincing evidence of this, leading him to ask, "Where is everybody?"

There have been many attempts to explain the Fermi paradox, primarily suggesting either that intelligent extraterrestrial life is extremely rare, or proposing reasons that such civilizations have not contacted or visited Earth.

[Deddly]

Spoiler

There was a man who had good ideas, and one of these ideas is named after him and it doesn't make sense because what we see doesn't match what the computer says it should be. To make the point, let's think about people living on other worlds:

There are lots and lots of stars in our star group that look like the Sun. Many of these stars will have worlds like the ours, and if our world is normal, some might have people living on them.

Some of these people might learn how to go from one star to another, which is what some people on our world would like to do and are trying.

Even if it takes a long time to go from one star to another one using the ideas some people have, you could go across our star group in about a hundred, hundred, hundred, hundred years.

If that is true, our world should already have been visited by people from another world. The man with the ideas once said, when he was relaxed and talking to others, that he can't see any signs of this, so he asked, "Where is everyone?"

Lots of people have tried to explain the idea that doesn't make sense, usually saying that other worlds with people living on them are not usual at all, or they might give reasons why people on other worlds haven't spoken to us or visited us.

KSP is a game where the players create and manage their own space program. Build spacecraft, fly them, and try to help the Kerbals to fulfill their ultimate mission of conquering space.

[cubinator]

Spoiler

Green People Make an Up-Goer: The Game is a game where you can make an up-goer with parts that take money to get. Make an up-goer, fly it, and try to help the little green people take over space!

 

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...

STAR WARS

It is a period of civil war. Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire.

During the battle, Rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the Empire's ultimate weapon, the DEATH STAR, an armored space station with enough power to destroy an entire planet.

Pursued by the Empire's sinister agents, Princess Leia races home aboard her starship, custodian of the stolen plans that can save her people and restore freedom to the galaxy... 

Edited September 8, 2016 by cubinator
removed giant image and replaced it with normal, but appropriately-colored text

[Snark]

Spoiler

A long time ago in a place with many, many stars far, far away...

STAR FIGHTING
It is a time of people fighting the people who tell them what to do. The flying space cars of the ones who don't want to do what they're told, attacking from a hidden place, for the first time have come out on top in a fight against the Big Team of Really Bad Guys.

During the fight, the good guys who try to find out hidden stuff managed to take plans that weren't supposed to be found out. The plans are for the Bad Team's really big thing for killing people, the DEATH STAR, a big space building that's really hard to hurt, with enough power to kill an entire world.

Chased by the bad people who help the Bad Team, the lady with the funny hair races home on her flying space car, carrying the the plans they took that can save her people and let people in many many places do whatever they want to do...

Spaceships use reaction wheels to stabilize their orientation while in orbit.  Despite the common misconception that placement matters (e.g. that a reaction wheel placed closer to the center of mass is more effective), this is actually not the case.  Conservation of angular momentum means that the reaction wheels are equally effective no matter where they are located, as long as they are rigidly attached to the frame of the craft.

[quasarrgames]

Some space cars use fast turning round things so they keep pointing in a direction. some people think that the fast turning round things need to be put in the middle of the space car to work, but that is wrong. fast turning round things work no matter where they are put, as long as they are put in a strong place.

 

"A few short years ago, automotive enthusiast Paul Elio sized up the prevailing status quo of personal transportation. He saw the soaring costs of the vehicles we drive. He saw fuel prices spike to record highs almost daily. He saw Americans struggling with an economy that was taking too much and giving back too little. Paul Elio decided that the world was ready for something radically new. The result? A three-wheeled masterpiece of automotive brilliance that bears his name."

 

[njmksr]

A few short years ago, a guy took a look at cars. He saw that cars need a lot of money to stay working. He saw that car-go fire water needed a lot of money to buy too. He saw people struggling with the fact that they don't have enough money. The guy decided that the world was ready for something really new. He came up with a car with three turning-go-things and named it after himself.

 

Explain the plot of Breaking Bad.

[Guest]

Spoiler

A teacher guy with no hair makes clear rock that people like to do things with.

"The chemical of ATP is interesting in the fact that it has three phosphate groups, but they are so unstable that they instantly break apart into ADP.  The extra phosphate group can then bind to other molecules to aid in chemical reactions.  This is essential to respiration."

[0111narwhalz]

13 minutes ago, njmksr said:

car-go fire water

So we're in Russia now, eh?

A kind of life stuff in cells is interesting because it has three bits of stuff stuck to it. Sometimes one of the stuff-bits breaks off and makes it warm. The stuff-bit goes to other stuff in other places in the cell and makes them work. It is important that it does this so your cells can breathe.

Although, I'm pretty sure the third phosphate doesn't catalyze anything, but I could be wrong.

"Staging is important to rocketry because, as a rocket becomes larger, it approaches a certain /\ V as an asymptotic limit. Without staging, this limit would prevent rockets from exceeding a certain /\ V and thus kneecap the space program. However, staging circumvents this by dropping dead weight, thus increasing the effective mass ratio."

[Snark]

Spoiler

When you want to go into space, you have to throw away each part as soon as it can't help you go fast anymore. This is because when the flying space car gets big and heavy, it's hard to push it to go faster, and it's really fast to use up all the stuff that makes it go. This means it can't go as fast as you want it to. If you didn't throw away the heavy stuff that's not making it go faster, it would keep everyone from putting their flying space cars in space because they couldn't go fast enough. But throwing stuff away as soon as you can gets around this, by dropping heavy stuff that's not helping you. This means that you can go faster because the only parts that are left are the ones that help you go faster.

Software is very difficult to debug, because it's so complex that effectively there are an infinite number of possible interactions between the various components of the program; this requires lots of testing.  One way that Kerbal Space Program attempts to solve this difficulty is by shipping a pre-release for a new version, thus allowing the large community of KSP players to find and report bugs before the version's official release.  This strategy helps to drive up the quality of the release, despite Squad being a small company with a limited QA staff.

[Matuchkin]

Spoiler

The stuff that turns on when you go to a sign on your computer is very hard to fix, because it's so hard to understand that there are a very big number of possible things the many parts of the stuff can do with each other; this means we need to use the stuff many times to see what happens. One way that Space Game attempts to fix this hard problem is by starting another time, but before it becomes newer, allowing the people who play Space Game to find and tell on problems before the game becomes newer. This helps to make the game better, even though there aren't many people who made the game.

Quasars or quasi-stellar radio sources are the most energetic and distant members of a class of objects called active galactic nuclei (AGN). Quasars are extremely luminous and were first identified as being high redshift sources of electromagnetic energy, including radio waves and visible light, that appeared to be similar to stars, rather than extended sources similar to galaxies.

Edited October 1, 2016 by Matuchkin

[Deddly]

Ninjad by @Matuchkin, but here's another version of @Snark's text:

Spoiler

It is really hard to find wrong bits when writing computer games or other things for computers. It's not simple at all because there is practically a never-ending number of possible different ways that the different parts of the game can deal with each other, so you have to try it lots of times to see if it works. One way that our best space game tries to get around that problem is to let people try it when it's not quite ready. People who try it can tell the people making the game if they find anything that doesn't work like it should. That means that, when the people making it say the game is done and it's time to let everyone get it, it will be much better and won't have so many problems - even though it's such a small group of people who are making it and checking it.

Edit: And here's the translation for @Matuchkin's quasars:

Spoiler

Great Big Space Balls are really big and bright. They are in the middle of star groups very, very far away. They were first found because the red light (and other things we could see from them) shifted in a weird way that looked more like what you would expect to see in stars, rather than things like star groups.

 

 

I'm new to KSP and I want to get to the Mun. I tried flying straight up until I got to about 20k altitude like I saw in Scott Manley's tutorial and then turn to 45 degrees, but my rocket immediately flipped over. I can't even get to orbit around the stupid planet. Any tips?

[Andem]

Spoiler

I'm new to this space game and I want to get to the closest space ball to home. I tried flying straight up until I was up very high like I saw in a guy's computer-class and then turn to , but my space car immediately flipped over. I can't even get to a space around the stupid home rock. Any help?

The V-1 was developed at Peenemünde Army Research Center by the pedant German Luftwaffe during the Second World War. During initial development it was known by the codename "Cherry Stone". The first of the so-called Vergeltungswaffen series designed for terror bombing of London, the V-1 was fired from launch facilities along the French (Pas-de-Calais) and Dutch coasts. The first V-1 was launched at London on 13 June 1944[6]), one week after (and prompted by) the successful Allied landings in Europe. At its peak, more than one hundred V-1s a day were fired at south-east England, 9,521 in total, decreasing in number as sites were overrun until October 1944, when the last V-1 site in range of Britain was overrun byAllied forces. After this, the V-1s were directed at the port of Antwerp and other targets in Belgium, with 2,448 V-1s being launched. The attacks stopped when the last launch site was overrun on 29 March 1945.

[spacebrick3]

Spoiler

A new up goer for the second big fight was made at at a place to look at new stuff for hurting people by a person. When it was being made it was called a different name. This was the first up goer made for making people scared in a different place, and it went up from places by a big body of water. They started to be sent up after some other people came into a place where the people there did not want them to be there, and after a while there were a hundred a day being sent up towards the people in the other place. This number went down as the places they were being sent up from had the people from the other places come in and make them stop sending them up. After that, they were sent up at other places that the people sending them up did not like, until the other people made them stop sending those ones up too.

On 6 August 2014, the spacecraft reached the comet and performed a series of manoeuvres to be captured in its orbit. On 12 November, the lander module performed the first successful landing on a comet, though its battery power ran out two days later. Communications with Philae were briefly restored in June and July 2015, but due to diminishing solar power, Rosetta's communications module with the lander was turned off on 27 July 2016. On 30 September 2016, the Rosetta spacecraft ended its mission by landing on the comet in its Ma'at region.

[MDZhB]

Spoiler

On the number six day of the number two after six month, in the number ten and four year, a space car got to a big cold ball in space. It did many cool things to go around the cold ball. After that, the ground part of the space car went to the ground on the cold thing, but the power ran out two days after. Talking to it happened for a short time. But because the power ran out again, it was turned off. After that, the space car ran into the cold ball and died.

 

The Image Algorithm Drive, the hallmark of fifth generation spacecraft, operates by mathematically changing the spacecraft's position in space, utilizing a reality altering field provided by a series of physics cancellers. The reality altering field, though useful in this regard, multiplies the unstable effects of the degenerative fuel, Ice II, used in power generation and Tannheuser gate manipulation. Thus, in order to ensure stability in warp and normal flight, (and to avoid total structural failure,) the spacecraft makes use of cybernetically modified psychic dolphins as navigators. Due to their precognitive abilities, they also serve an auxiliary role in combat shielding, manipulating the reality altering fields to write projectiles and beams out of existence, before they hit the hull.

[Deddly]

Spoiler

The Picture Numbers Drive, used to power space cars we haven't made yet, uses numbers to move the space car around by changing what is real around the car. Although that's a good thing, it's not so good for the drink it uses because it makes it shake. So to stop it shaking when flying really fast or during every-day flying (to stop it all falling to bits), the space car has some powered water animals that can use their minds to tell the space car where to go. They can also see what is going to happen later, so they can also help in fights by changing what is real around the car and making the bad people's guns disappear before they can do anything.

Aircraft in KSP can sometimes act in unintuitive ways. A lot of new users get frustrated because their planes skid around on the runway or refuse to rotate and take off. A great deal of blame has been placed on the new wheel physics for this, but although there are undeniably some serious problems with the wheel code at this point, there are also some simple tweaks that we can implement to minimise the issues we're experiencing.

[TheDestroyer111]

On 8/31/2016 at 0:22 AM, Snark said:

Talk like Up-Goer Five:  Express complex ideas using only very simple, common words.

Wait... Every time I hear "TEN hundred" I somehow think like you're saying ONE hundred, and then I think that the words you used are more than 100 and think that one thousand is a good number for the words you used, and then I find out you said TEN hundred which is approximately one THOUSAND. I think this is because although I'm used to hear people say "NINE hundred" or "ELEVEN hundred", I'm definitely not used to hear "TEN hundred" 

OKAY. My try... Wait... I wanted to explain something far more complex than this, but now I need SOMEONE to explain a "boat"! Because apparently no boat-related terms are in the 1k most used words  ... OK, I got a stupid but working definition of a boat. But why does http://splasho.com/upgoer5/ not recognize "cannot"? Is "cannot" really not on the 1k most used words list, while "can't" is?

An "aircraft carrier" is a very big water thing that carries lots of flying things. It is often used to kill people with not big but not small flying things dropping smaller, badder flying things. Sometimes it is instead used to spot small flying things with bigger flying things that make light that we can't see. It has lots of guns and small flying things that can fly and hit other flying things.

(Typing in the ten hundred most used words is very hard, and now I know why it is ten hundred instead of one thousand)

[Deddly]

Nice description of an aircraft carrier, @TheDestroyer111, but you're supposed to translate the post above you and then leave a new post for someone else to translate into "Upgoer" language.