Starship Asterisk*

by **anon** » Tue Nov 23, 2010 9:25 am

In regard to the Y2K scare; the fear was caused because of a hard-coded clock design in IBM systems that could not accept dates beyond 12/31/1999; that issue was avoided by a combination of physical and logical upgrades to the systems that were affected by this limited thinking design.
Any assumption is just that, an assumption; and to do so can cause people to be poorly prepared for the future. If someone poses a question about what could happen if the sun were to cross a powerful magnetic band; it would be best to answer the scientific question with a scientific reply. There are many possibilities of things that could happen if such an event were to occur, and no living person has all of the answers. Perhaps such an event could cause the earth's poles to swap, or perhaps there would simply be a slight increase or decrease in the earth's gravitational pull. It is more about the process of considering all of the possibilities than debating the proposed event. This is the essence of science itself, to postulate the "what if" and propose all of the possible results.

by **neufer** » Thu Sep 02, 2010 9:56 pm

owlice wrote:
neufer wrote:I don't comment on colors...that's Ann's job.
She's dyeing you?!?

Well, then, you'll be blue!

[list]Finnegans Wake: Page 185

He shall produce nichthemerically from his unheavenly body a no
uncertain quantity of obscene matter not protected by copriright
in the United Stars of Ourania or bedeed and bedood and bedang
and bedung to him, with this double dye, brought to blood heat,
gallic acid on iron ore, through the bowels of his misery, flashly,
faithly, nastily, appropriately, this Esuan Menschavik and the first
till last alshemist wrote over every square inch of the only foolscap
available, his own body, till by its corrosive sublimation one
continuous present tense integument slowly unfolded all
marryvoising moodmoulded cyclewheeling history (thereby, he
said, reflecting from his own individual person life unlivable,
transaccidentated through the slow fires of consciousness into a
dividual chaos, perilous, potent, common to allflesh, human only,
mortal) but with each word that would not pass away the
squidself which he had squirtscreened from the crystalline world
waned chagreenold and doriangrayer in its dudhud. This exists
that isits after having been said we know.[/size][/color][/list]

by **neufer** » Wed Sep 01, 2010 9:51 pm

Henning Makholm wrote:
I'm not sure that your point (1) should be assumed to hold. One can imagine that passage in and out of the spiral arms give rise to a systematic variation in radial velocity that the stars in our neighborhood would all share.

Ann's poster gives us an answer:

: Swinging Motion onward-backward the galactic center: 15-20 km/s. Swinging Motion North-South from the galactic plane: 5-7 km/s.

by **owlice** » Mon Aug 30, 2010 8:30 pm

neufer wrote:I don't comment on colors...that's Ann's job.

She's dyeing you?!?

Well, then, you'll be blue!

by **neufer** » Mon Aug 30, 2010 7:19 pm

owlice wrote:
neufer wrote:
I requeft that you refpect my dyeing remarkf.
I'm trying to, but I need to know what color (or colors) I'm respecting to make this work!

I don't comment on colors...that's Ann's job.

by **owlice** » Mon Aug 30, 2010 7:13 pm

neufer wrote:I requeft that you refpect my dyeing remarkf.

I'm trying to, but I need to know what color (or colors) I'm respecting to make this work!

by **neufer** » Mon Aug 30, 2010 7:09 pm

owlice wrote:
neufer wrote:
Art Neuendorffer
(written before his death and publifhed at his dyeing requeft)
Ah! What color did you request? Yellow? Purple, so that you might dispense with the sweatshirt? Or are you hoping to join Blue Man Group?

Perhaps you requested to be tie-dyed! (I can see the headline now: Neufer in Knots. Ouch!!)

Do tell, do tell!

I requeft that you refpect my dyeing remarkf.

----------------------------------------------------------------
___ "The Vicar of Dibley" Songs of Praise (1994)
................................................................
Alice Tinker: [on TV show] The lesson is taken from the sixth
chapter of the Song of Solomon, beginning at the second verse.

Alice Tinker: [reading from the newly presented Bible] Ye are
the fault of the earth and fainted... sainted. God shall feel...
seal your endeavours until ye fit on his right hand. Therefore
fight the good fight, for his... fake, and he shall be thy fu...

Geraldine Granger: *Succour!* He shall be thy succour.

Alice Tinker: ...thy succour.
------------------------------------------------

by **owlice** » Mon Aug 30, 2010 5:21 pm

neufer wrote:Art Neuendorffer
(written before his death and publifhed at his dyeing requeft)

Ah! What color did you request? Yellow? Purple, so that you might dispense with the sweatshirt? Or are you hoping to join Blue Man Group?

Perhaps you requested to be tie-dyed!

(I can see the headline now: Neufer in Knots. Ouch!!)

Do tell, do tell!

by **Sam** » Mon Aug 30, 2010 5:04 pm

Brythonic fluff

---

King Lear 2.2

KENT
Sir, in good sooth, in sincere verity,
Under the allowance of your great aspect,
Whose influence, like the wreath of radiant fire
On flickering Phoebus' front,--

CORNWALL
What mean'st by this?

---

by **neufer** » Mon Aug 30, 2010 2:17 pm

owlice wrote:
Is it fluff? Is it stuff?
Can you stuff it in a drawer?
Can you possibly make more?
We like stuff! We like fluff!
Let us stuff it in a neufer!
Let us make him much more flufer!
Flufer neufer, he's our man;
if he can't do it, no one can!

----------------------------------------------------

Flufenacet treatment phenocopies fiddlehead

http://www.bartleby.com/81/6088.html wrote:
A REBEC face (French, visage de rebec).
An ugly, grotesque face, like that which used to be cut
on the upper part of a REBEC or three-stringed fiddle.

"Dead is the noble Badebec,
Who had a face like a REBEC."
____________ -- _Pantagruel_, Rabelais

Art Neuendorffer
(written before his death and publifhed at his dyeing requeft)

by **DavidLeodis** » Mon Aug 30, 2010 1:49 pm

Your replies neufer and owlice made me

by **owlice** » Mon Aug 30, 2010 1:33 pm

Is it fluff? Is it stuff?
Can you stuff it in a drawer?
Can you possibly make more?
We like stuff! We like fluff!
Let us stuff it in a neufer!
Let us make him much more flufer!
Flufer neufer, he's our man;
if he can't do it, no one can!

Yes, yes, I'm going to my room this instant..... you don't have to push...!

by **neufer** » Mon Aug 30, 2010 1:22 pm

DavidLeodis wrote:
I wonder what time Doomsday occurs on December 21 2012 as I don't want to be in bed and miss it.

At winter solstice: 6:12 AM EST [rise & shine

]

DavidLeodis wrote:
It's probably just my sense of humour (or lack of it!) but I found it funny that this APOD has a L Huff reporting on L Fluff.

Linda Huff is no powder puff
She is rough, tough & gruff
and was unwilling to bluff
about all that Fluff stuff.

by **DavidLeodis** » Mon Aug 30, 2010 10:59 am

I wonder what time Doomsday occurs on December 21 2012 as I don't want to be in bed and miss it.

It's probably just my sense of humour (or lack of it!) but I found it funny that this APOD has a L Huff reporting on L Fluff.

by **Otto Oblande** » Mon Aug 30, 2010 3:39 am

beyond wrote:
"Many years ago i caught the end of a PBS program that was showing a really ancient chinese calendar that had spikes on it that correlated with events that happened on the Earth. The biggest spike was at the time of Krakatoa. The calendar ended in 12/2012. Then the program ended"

I remember something like that as well. I believe it was the "Time Wave Zero" w/ Terrence Mckenna correlating the I-ching in a way to levels of novelty in culture.

by **neufer** » Mon Aug 30, 2010 2:21 am

Q: Why did the man punch the fortune teller when she laughed?

[spoiler]A: He wanted to strike a happy medium.[/spoiler]

by **Ann** » Mon Aug 30, 2010 1:57 am

From the Free Dictionary:

me·di·um (md-m)
n. pl. me·di·a (-d-) or me·di·ums
1. Something, such as an intermediate course of action, that occupies a position or represents a condition midway between extremes.
2. An intervening substance through which something else is transmitted or carried on.
3. An agency by which something is accomplished, conveyed, or transferred: The train was the usual medium of transportation in those days.
4. pl. media Usage Problem
a. A means of mass communication, such as newpapers, magazines, radio, or television.
b. media (used with a sing. or pl. verb) The group of journalists and others who constitute the communications industry and profession.
5. pl. media Computer Science An object or device, such as a disk, on which data is stored.
6. pl. mediums A person thought to have the power to communicate with the spirits of the dead or with agents of another world or dimension. Also called psychic.

An interstellar medium with a broken tool.

Ann

by **neufer** » Sun Aug 29, 2010 11:56 pm

Henning Makholm wrote:
I'm not sure that your point (1) should be assumed to hold. One can imagine that passage in and out of the spiral arms give rise to a systematic variation in radial velocity that the stars in our neighborhood would all share.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_Standard_of_Rest wrote:
<<In astronomy, the local standard of rest or LSR follows the mean motion of material in the Milky Way in the neighborhood of the Sun. The path of this material is not precisely circular. The Sun follows the solar circle (eccentricity e < 0.1 ) at a speed of about 220 km/s in a clockwise direction when viewed from the galactic north pole at a radius of ≈ 8 kpc about the center of the galaxy near Sgr A*, and has only a slight motion, towards the Solar apex, relative to the LSR. The LSR velocity is anywhere from 202–241 km/s.>>

A solar eccentricity e < 0.1 means that:
the minor axis is nor more than 0.5% smaller than the major axis.
That comes pretty damn close to being a circle.

by **Beyond** » Sun Aug 29, 2010 11:27 pm

Gee, i wouldn't have thought that a discussion about "Fluff" would bring so much doom and gloom.
But just to throw my two cents worth in, i just heard someone on TV mention that Saturn would be leaving the house of Jupiter around the end of 2012.
Many years ago i caught the end of a PBS program that was showing a really ancient chinese calendar that had spikes on it that correlated with events that happened on the Earth. The biggest spike was at the time of Krakatoa. The calendar ended in 12/2012. Then the program ended.
I listened intently to hear what the program was or when it would play again, but there was no mention. I checked PBS carefully for the next couple of weeks, but could not find any program anywhere that listed anything about an ancient Chinese calendar. So for me--THAT is a big mystery.

by **Beyond** » Sun Aug 29, 2010 11:13 pm

ajeadie18 wrote:There are billion of stars; we only have one in our Solar System: the name of our star is Sun - surely it deserves an uppercase "S"?

ajeadie18

I thought the name of OUR star was SOL.

by **ajeadie18** » Sun Aug 29, 2010 9:10 pm

There are billion of stars; we only have one in our Solar System: the name of our star is Sun - surely it deserves an uppercase "S"?

ajeadie18

by **neufer** » Sun Aug 29, 2010 9:04 pm

Sam wrote:I have trouble comprehending how the ISM can have such low density yet still have such a high temperature. The same thing is true of the Earth's thermosphere: very hot, but would be "felt" as very cold because it's so rarefied. Wouldn't the heat of an isolated hydrogen atom radiate away very quickly into empty space if there are no other atoms nearby to insulate it?

The temperature of these ground state hydrogen atoms is defined by their random velocities (~5 km/s). They lack a mechanism to radiate even if they collided with one another at their mild energies of a half an electron volt (which is highly unlikely in any event).

Black bodies radiate away their energy but transparent bodies DO NOT.

Even the earth's troposphere is full of gases that are highly transparent in both the visible and the infrared (e.g., nitrogen, oxygen, & argon). The troposphere can thermally radiate ONLY through the intermediary of trace greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, water and methane.

Sam wrote:What would the "temperature" be of the empty part of the cubic centimeter, the part that does not have an atom in it?

What would it's color be? What would it's smell be? What would it's taste be?[

What is the sound of no hands clapping?

by **Sam** » Sun Aug 29, 2010 8:20 pm

I have trouble comprehending how the ISM can have such low density yet still have such a high temperature. The same thing is true of the Earth's thermosphere: very hot, but would be "felt" as very cold because it's so rarefied. Wouldn't the heat of an isolated hydrogen atom radiate away very quickly into empty space if there are no other atoms nearby to insulate it? What would the "temperature" be of the empty part of the cubic centimeter, the part that does not have an atom in it?

_________
Sam Rudy

by **neufer** » Sun Aug 29, 2010 7:39 pm

celestemekent wrote:
Is there some reason why we dont call all that fluff what it really is, Plasma, the 5th state of matter.

"Local Fluff" contains a wispy mixture of hydrogen and helium atoms at a temperature of ~6000 K.

Hence, these atoms have a thermal energy kT of ~ 0.5 eV. [k ~ (1 eV/12,000 K)]

It takes 13.6 eV (~ 27 kT) to ionize a hydrogen atom (and much more to ionize helium).

celestemekent wrote:
Anytime there is movement within such an electrified cloud there will be an electrical current.

Plasmas are electrically neutral overall.

However, movement through a magnetic field will induce currents.

by **orin stepanek** » Sun Aug 29, 2010 7:36 pm

Chris Peterson wrote:
orin stepanek wrote:I wonder where ideas like 2012 doomsday come from? it's as bad as 'all the computers are going to crash at the end of the 20th century'. They didn't crash and we can't predict doomsday either.
There was rational reason to be worried about computers crashing at the end of the 20th century. That they didn't was some combination of miscalculation, careful preparation, and luck. But there is no rational reason at all to think that doomsday will come in 2012. The funny thing is, even the Mayans didn't think that! It's just the New Age kooks misunderstanding the Mayan calendar.

You may be right Chris; but I never did buy into the millennium computer scare. I figured it would pass; and it did. So maybe I was just lucky.

Any way; I get tired of hearing about all the doomsday and end of world prophesies.

Starship Asterisk*

APOD: The Local Fluff (2010 Aug 29)

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