Posts by Wzrd1 2268 publicly visible posts • joined 7 Dec 2012
"I think the Iranian solution is the only permanent one - The world's Glow-in-the-Dark glass car park..."
Two problems there.
First, Iran is a bit of a haul from Israel, let alone where the wine residue was found.
Second, civilized people do not advocate for genocide.
"Electric and magnetic fields are much better at producing gamma rays, as is demonstrated by lightning bolts, from which gamma rays have been detected."
OK, why don't you hang out over the rotational pole of Sag A* and tell us all about it when that gas cloud hits in a few years.
For Betelgeuse, very little. It's rotational axis is away from Earth, so a GRB won't hit us.
It *would* be brighter than the full moon and visible during daylight.
However, its shell would eventually reach our solar system, collapsing the solar magnetopause, possibly to Earth.
That would render space travel pretty much impossible.
That said, the shell of protons and assorted other particles wouldn't reach the solar system until around 100000 years after the supernova.
As for VY Canis Majoris, too far away to do anything to us beyond giving a nice show.
And perhaps, fracture some more theories. ;)
"But I've learned from experience - if its still functioning, don't try and fix it."
But, *do* diagnose it. If movement of the arm, for example, in one direction or specific position is causing the issue, then they can avoid that particular movement.
"Reminds me of my old Humber Sceptre - it might have been more rust than bodywork and more filler than either - and have an interior mostly built of vynide & cardboard but it was indestructible"
Sounds like my old first car, a 1967 Chevelle. The floorboards were quite literally 2x6 boards laid over the rusted through floor.
Was a great little runabout. It'd run about a block, then you'd push it.
Later, I got a 1969 Runsony. Runs only down hill.
It was literally well over a decade before I had a car that didn't have a wire coat hanger holding up the exhaust system. The damned things outlasted the regular exhaust system hanging gear!
"Mostly Vikings, mostly got the pants beat off them by the Americans."
Actually, losing Vineland (now called Greenland) as a way station due to glacier growth and colder climate sent them packing.
Remember, they needed lines of communication back home to send church tithes.
The Roman Catholic church actually proved Viking colonization of Greenland via the tithe ledgers.
"Wasn't there some kind of (still debated) evidence that the mysterious Clovis culture might have come from somewhere in the Northern France during the Ice Age? There are a number of pretty well done BBC, Nova and other nice documentaries on this out there."
I'll have to look for those. Never heard that one before.
Stranger things have happened in human history.
All of these pathetic attempts.
Not a single one of them could stand up halfway in quality with my dear, departed Dutch Shepherd.
Strong, best nose I ever saw in a dog and so smart he did my taxes.
When I was audited, he stood beside me and convinced the auditor that my deductions were quite fine, thank you. ;)
OK, maybe not the taxes, but he was the smartest dog I've ever met. Learned new tasks in under five minutes.
Try doing *that* with a robot!
"Much easier to argue about Pluto not being a planet instead of figuring out a way to get there and have a look."
Because astronomers and astrogeologists design rockets when they're not working on astronomy or astrogeology, right?
I bet in your world, network engineers design nuclear reactors too.
"Well, if our current crop of so-called "scientists" could get their collective finger out and do some proper science..."
So, astronomers and astrogeologists need to design rockets now?
That nonsense is as bad as a new discovery about insects being griped about because the entomologist didn't research the cure for cancer.
"I'm sure that in a pinch I could use it to start a camp fire, but I think it'd be quicker to use one of the friction methods of fire building I know."
Know the same methods. Used them, am reasonably proficient with them.
I'll stick with a match or lighter.
The fiber optic cable coming to my home is laser driven. As it's two way, there is a laser driving this very traffic to you.
Twice, as I also ran fiber between switches in my house.
My drives, of course. I have measurement devices that use lasers to indicate alignment.
I have a saw guide that is laser.
I have a laser sight for my pistol sitting in the drawer (my dot scope is better than that laser, so it was retired).
I have laser pointers for meetings.
That is for starters.
"Generalised symptoms of nausea, vomiting, headache and agitation may also occur"
Sounds like the morning after the night before.
If it was a rather eventful night before, one would also have pain around an appendage, which may or may not travel up further...
Or do what I did when in Black Widow country, lift the seat, clean it out with a stick or some other object that is not a part of your body or your apparel, settle down to business.
One of our men didn't do that, ended up with a scrotum the size of a grapefruit and increasing before the medivac got him to the hospital.
"But then the air getting to your lungs has been neither filtered (nasal hair and mucous membranes) or warmed."
Not quite accurate. It's *less* filtered. There still is the mucosa of the trachea and bronchial system. The same is true of heating as well.
It's just far less effective and coarse objects, such as small insects, aren't filtered so well by one's mouth and trachea.
More likely, the outer core is more in a plastic state than fluid state. That would halt the currents that would create the dynamo effect.
It would also account for the apparent thick lithosphere. It just cooled off a bit quicker, less mass and all.
And of course, one less impact than Earth had, which tended to melt everything all over again.
That's OK, I love the media statement spurring hope, that the comet may be reacting to increased solar wind from a CME.
In spite of a dearth of CME activity of late in that direction.
The best of late that Sol has been doing has been the usual coronal holes, with their higher winds that are predictable in their comings and goings around any region of space and a handful of x-ray events.
Pity you never studied legal requirements, as every information security professional has to.
Regulatory requirements include backup of data, retention of said data for specific amounts of time for certain data items (such as e-mail and other messaging). They also include court orders and mandatory compliance of IT workers retrieving the data ordered by the court.
I personally handled a few such orders, from both sides of the IT and security aisle for criminal cases. One, I personally handled fully, signing into the chain of custody and all, but that one was a service member stealing credit card information from a service member who was on R&R at our base, literally robbing the poor kid to his credit limit.
Then, the kid learned, there is more than one BOFH in this world. :)
Come to think of it, that kid should be getting out of prison soon.
I wish him well in a more law abiding career.
"I won't be surprised if MI6 is tagged next for spying on everyone in the UK"
It wouldn't be the first time, nor the last time. I recall a rather interesting habituation during WWII...
Want a small hint? *Every* nation is doing it to various degrees. The leadership of said nations know quite well who is doing what to whom.
Any objections are largely weak or procedure filled in order to provide bread and circuses for the populace, who have absolutely no clue about what happens in the real world.
It means precisely what it says.
First, consider this: How much effort would it take for federal agents to locate the files/messages of a particular user of a system they never saw before?
Meanwhile, the warrant directs the data provider owner to submit the information.
So, no agent has physically entered the data centers. No need to.
Only the management offices to present the warrant.
"I want to reiterate what we have said in the past: Yahoo has never given access to our data centers to the NSA or to any other government agency. Ever."
Quite correct. The warrant is served and Yahoo submits the data. Makes sense, as agents would have zero clue where what is stored and how. Meanwhile, Yahoo admins can trivially copy down the data as needed, install network monitors, etc.
All without any agent of any agency doing more than process serving the warrant.
Just more panem et circenses. Bread and circuses.
Or to use the US vernacular, as most have no clue what the above means, throwing the dog a bone.
Regrettably, a bare, worn out and weathered bone.
Bleh. First, I won't use Yahoo. If I can't use my own, advertisement free client, it's not a mail/messaging service for me.
I use gmail. I also routinely encrypt much of my traffic, even if I'm only sending e-mail to my wife.
For "intercom", I have my own jabber server running in house.
My video camera system is all in house and isolated from the internet (I have a father who suffers from dementia, so I installed those cameras and zoneminder to keep an eye on him).
For crying out loud! Is GPG too expensive? Is running your own software too expensive? Is setting a keyserver up suddenly rocket science to IT professionals?
NASA had supply problems from day one with hurdles created by the NRC limiting Plutonium acquisition.
Of course, the NRC is rather picky about anything that glows in the dark...
As for Afghanistan, my cousin died on the 84th floor of the south tower. His grave is empty, as no remains were found of him.
I'll not go into idiots who suggested nuking Iraq in retaliation for 9-11, then when they figured out that Afghanistan wasn't inside of Iraq, wanted to nuke both and the entire Middle East.
Or how many Americans *still* think that Afghanistan is in the Middle East...
But then, I recall another nation doing something similar with China. Does the Opium Wars ring any bells?
But, you do have a point. The US is most certainly going places. Straight to hell in a hand basket.
Largely not due to "a permafailtrain of formaldehyde-laden FEMA trailers full of bad decision making and of non-decision making by a bunch of well-moneyed bipartisan controlfreaks", but due to idiocracy.
Here's a better one:
http://www.cbo.gov/topics/national-security
20% of the US federal budget spent on the military. Far more than the top half dozen allies she has.
Meanwhile, meatheads bitch about Social Security, which is something paid for over one's lifetime as a retirement system that is woefully inadequate.
They bitch about food and medicine for poor children.
They bitch about being made to get health care insurance.
Shit, they bitch when they're not allowed to starve large groups of people to death.
"More folks sit on their asses and take government tax money than work in this country & I place that right on Obama's doorstep - He (and his little buddies) have disabled fraud protections and have made it easier to lie for your Obamaphone, SNAP, and actual cash disbursements. That is where an increasing majority of the Fed cash is spent.
<snip from blather>
* note he killed the Space Shuttle too.?
What a fucking inbred moron!
Let's start with the space shuttle. The one BUSH THE LESSER killed. The program ended, buy order of Bush the Lesser, during the Obama administration.
How *horrible* The Emperor should have shat out money to support a closed down program, order upon pain of death, the reopening of vendors who owned the patents on components of the shuttle, but closed their doors in retirement!
Meanwhile, the fucktard commenter forgot the lions share of the federal budget, the military. With *most* federal tax dollars going down that naked singularity.
All the while embracing that Romney bullshit, which matched no real numbers save what he pulled out of his ass. Especially as the *real* number is much higher!
How *dare* those progressives stop child labor, permit seniors to collect their pensions in retirement and not starve the disabled to death?!
Some people are so god damned stupid, they should not be permitted to procreate!
"We need things like this for our kid's future and he's doing his best to eliminate it. Between the borrowing, the Fed deficit, and Obamacare - we're screwed."
So much fucking stupid, I'm convinced that the Athenians had the right of it in not permitting idiots to vote. Only the well educated professional could vote.
Apparently, our good village idiot here forgot that the US isn't an empire, the emperor doesn't make a budget up and it's law. Congress approves a budget and programs, the President then signs it into law or vetoes it (Congress can then override that veto by a 2/3 supermajority, which is rather uncommon largely because it's hard to get 2/3 of Congress to even agree on when to break for lunch (or even the necessity of respiring)).
The United States of America. Not a democracy, a republic in name, an idiocracy in reality.
"The New Horizons craft has a nuclear power plant. It was launched in 2006 and has flown past Jupiter and will reach Pluto in 2015."
Wrong.
New Horizons has one 250 watt radioisotope thermal generator. 250 watt, 30 volt unit. By the time it reaches Pluto, it'll be down to 200 watts.
That particular RTG holds 10.9 kg (24 lb) of Plutonium-238.
A 250 watt nuclear reactor would be quite a sight to see, as you'd need a self-sustaining fission reaction with far, far, far, far less fissionables than the laws of physics allow.
"Seriously: a radio-isotope power source is as "hot" as it will ever be at launch. If the launch fails, some fairly short-lived really horribly radioactive crap gets showered into the atmosphere or the ocean."
Erm, Plutonium is embarrassingly long lived. Well, embarrassing to your point, that is.
Pu-238 has a half life of 87.74 years.
The current thermoelectric generators operate off of the decay heat of that Plutonium.
Plutonium also has the distinction of being one of the most toxic of artificial radioisotopes.
Now, a reactor uses far more uranium (plutonium can be used, but it's not really practical due to expense. Thorium can be used, but there is currently no microgravity rated design to separate out various "poisoning" isotopes that would halt a reactor) than an RTG though. Many, many kilograms more.
Plus really nasty, toxic metals.
Now, think of the last few Russian fireworks displays that were supposed to be orbital shots. Think of a handful of tons of really nasty metals and hundreds at a minimum of kilograms of uranium raining from the sky.
Compared to a few pounds of that PU-238. In a hardened, small and survivable unit (note the design in the video, including the aeroshell).
I'll go with the RTG. Less chance of a loss of containment in a launch accident than a reactor.
I rather suspect it was a parallel development.
The rate of spread of any development, be it a new stone tool, bow and arrow or domestication of an animal would have been glacial.
It wasn't until the beginning of the bronze age that communication of new technologies moved at the rate of snail mail.
"Science doesn't really know what's within our own solar system and nobody has the faintest idea about what's out even further. I wish we knew more."
As a US citizen that is rather well self-educated, I consider your view horrifically uneducated.
We DO have a lot of knowledge about our solar system. It's not immense. It's not even tolerable. But, it's decent enough to know what the hell is orbiting our sun.
You obviously missed the recent news of Hubble.
Oops, that is really ancient news.
Are you *really* from Earth?
Your comments suggest either being from the Tea Party or from another stellar system and didn't learn much yet.
"It will start turning into a red giant in approx 5.4 billion years, and will eventually become a white dwarf which will continue for trillions of years before fading to black."
Recheck your numbers. It'll go red giant far sooner. Fade to black about the same time.
At one billion years, the planet will be barren.
Not a lot of time for humans, as so many technological obstacles remain to literally survive and hopefully thrive.
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