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[MaxTheFox]

Who here would be interested in a thread (in Creative Projects) about my mostly-hard-SF worldbuild?

Here it is.

[Great Order]

Is the Earth slowly getting more land?

I'm asking because the Earth used to have basically nothing, way back ye olde days (ie a few billion years ago) so I'm wondering if the landmasses are steadily expanding or if they've reached an equilibrium.

[Il Palazzo]

What?

[Frumple]

It... outside of space dust or whatever and asteroids I don't think we're getting more material from somewhere? Geographic features are changing for all sorts of reasons, though, even if you ignore warming and rising waters. Volcanoes erupt, sinkholes happen, so on and so forth. Some places sink under the waves, other places dry up. Mostly it's slow as hell though, without encouragement global scale geologic change doesn't generally happen in the scale of human lifetime.

Anyway, dunno if it's changed more recently, but a quick eyeball suggests at least one study back in 2016 that had found the world had gained net landmass (surface stuff above water) to the tune of about 1 lake michigan since the 80s, which on the scale of the earth is pretty peanuts (like 1/8750th or something). So maybe some, during a certain period of time? If we actually start gaining it at rates we'd have reason to care about, we'd probably notice real easy, heh.

[scriver]

Scandinavia is still rising out of the Baltic Sea from not being weighted down by a huge glacier since the end of the latest ice age, slowly but steadily

[delphonso]

Yeah, certain areas were compressed by glacier that we have melted. Alaska will become higher, and some land will no longer be under sea. On the opposite, much of the areas near the equator will be sunk and lose land to the sea.

I think we'll see 'more land' over the next century or so, but mostly in the form of evaporated lakes, etc.

[Great Order]

What?

Landmass. The first supercontinent was the size of Greenland roughly, from what I recall. It counts as a supercontinent because it contained the majority of the planet's dry surface, which is the criteria rather than size.

I was wondering if it's at 30% because it's steadily growing and reached 30% of the world's surface area, or if it's at 30% because that's some natural plate-tectonic-and-ocean induced equilibrium point.

This isn't insane ramblings, it's just something that popped into my head.

[hector13]

Yeah, certain areas were compressed by glacier that we have melted. Alaska will become higher, and some land will no longer be under sea. On the opposite, much of the areas near the equator will be sunk and lose land to the sea.

I think we'll see 'more land' over the next century or so, but mostly in the form of evaporated lakes, etc.

Possibly balanced out by rising sea levels from melted polar ice caps.

[Il Palazzo]

Question:
What pc games would you recommend for a six year old? Reading, or even spoken instructions, is out of the question. Everything during the gameplay has to be purely visual.
All I can think of that I have in my library is Super Meat Boy or Luftrausers. But they both seem too hard by design.

[Egan_BW]

I feel like a fairly wide range of games could work, depending on the level of adult assistance. Maybe try games which use a gamepad so that on screen instructions are easier to follow and there's fewer buttons to try.

[Il Palazzo]

Any concrete suggestions? Preferably based on some practical evidence with young kids.

[dragdeler]

ghk

[EuchreJack]

Question:
What pc games would you recommend for a six year old? Reading, or even spoken instructions, is out of the question. Everything during the gameplay has to be purely visual.
All I can think of that I have in my library is Super Meat Boy or Luftrausers. But they both seem too hard by design.

I think you might be seriously underestimating six-year olds in general.  I was reading like a boss at six.

But I assume you know your target audience.

Moon Hunters by Kitfox Games has so little relevant written text, and so much pure intuitive button mashing et all that it should work.
Hm, maybe I'll boot it up, now that I'm thinking about it...

Shattered Planet, also by Kitfox, has some written stuff, but you can just click on items and squares for a good while, if you don't mind dying.  I mean, those of us that can actually read and understand still die plenty, as that is the only way most playthroughs end.

[Vector]

Question:
What pc games would you recommend for a six year old? Reading, or even spoken instructions, is out of the question. Everything during the gameplay has to be purely visual.
All I can think of that I have in my library is Super Meat Boy or Luftrausers. But they both seem too hard by design.

Puttputt, Bomberman, Tetris, Mario.

They aren't PC games generally, ... yaharr.

[bloop_bleep]

You must train your young relative from birth to be a competitive Tetris player.