In my experience, so true, so true...

[owlice]

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[Beyond]

Ok, so much for small bugs. Now, where do the the BIG ones hit you :insert 'ouch' icon here:

[owlice]

All the same places, beyond, all the same places! I got hit by a bat a few weeks ago; that (fortunately!) was not in the eyes or mouth, but on my right thigh. I brushed him off. I've been buzzed by bats before, but that's the first time (and I hope the last!) that one has actually run into me. Last night, I had numerous fireflies landing on my high-visibility vest; they eventually flew off.

A couple of summers ago, I did a solo bike tour of the C&O Canal towpath (which is 184.5 miles long), and found that the average C&O Canal Towpath spider which drapes a web line across the towpath likes a certain height, because 98.9% (or more!) of the spider webs I rode through hit me in the upper lip. This is not true of the paved paths I usually ride; the height is much more varied on my usual trails. But on the towpath... upper lip. It was uncanny.

[orin stepanek]

When I'm working in my yard the darn bugs like to fly under my glasses! and the mosquitoes bite me anyplace they can!

[Beyond]

All the same places, beyond, all the same places! I got hit by a bat a few weeks ago; that (fortunately!) was not in the eyes or mouth, but on my right thigh. I brushed him off. I've been buzzed by bats before, but that's the first time (and I hope the last!) that one has actually run into me. Last night, I had numerous fireflies landing on my high-visibility vest; they eventually flew off.

A couple of summers ago, I did a solo bike tour of the C&O Canal towpath (which is 184.5 miles long), and found that the average C&O Canal Towpath spider which drapes a web line across the towpath likes a certain height, because 98.9% (or more!) of the spider webs I rode through hit me in the upper lip. This is not true of the paved paths I usually ride; the height is much more varied on my usual trails. But on the towpath... upper lip. It was uncanny.

Hmm... upper lip, on the towpath, huh? Tell me, do you by chance 'sing' whilst rolling along the towpath

[owlice]

Sometimes, yes. Sometimes I sing the cyclist's tune I have bugs in my teeth from smiling while I'm riding. Other times, it might be Pedal, pedal, 'round they go/Riding bikes, we can't feel low or Push, push, push the pedals round and round to go/Merrily merrily merrily merrily, beats having a lawn to mow. Or Broadway tunes or Mozart or whatever pops into my head.

[rstevenson]

Sometimes, yes. Sometimes I sing the cyclist's tune I have bugs in my teeth from smiling while I'm riding. Other times, it might be Pedal, pedal, 'round they go/Riding bikes, we can't feel low or Push, push, push the pedals round and round to go/Merrily merrily merrily merrily, beats having a lawn to mow. Or Broadway tunes or Mozart or whatever pops into my head.

Which probably explains riding solo for 185 miles.

Rob (who kept his mouth firmly shut while riding this afternoon)

[owlice]

lol!!

I did meet up with someone from my biking forum for some miles on one day of the trip, and not only was it very nice meeting her, she gave me a lift to my hotel, which I didn't know when I booked it was up a very very very very very long and steep hill. I would have been a most unhappy cyclist had I had to ride up that hill after nearly five hours in the saddle. Or after any or no time; it was a long long long and steep hill, and I just do not do hills well.

I'm planning to ride the Great Allegheny Passage (the GAP) for my next tour, though I may do an overnight on the Northern Central Railroad Trail/York Heritage Trail before then.

[rstevenson]

Wow! And I was just congratulating myself for doing 11 km today.

Rob

[owlice]

As well you should, Rob!

And please note that I did not ride the C&O Canal Towpath in one day (though some people do); it took me days to do it!

[neufer]

At what speed does the interstellar medium become lethal to high speed flight?

<<We do not really know what the interstellar medium looks like up close and personal. If it is just stray hydrogen atoms you will just experience a head-on flow of 'cosmic rays' that will collide with your spacecraft and probably generate secondary radiation in the skin of your ship. This can be annoying, but it can be shielded so long as the particles are not ultra-relativistic. At speeds of 50-90% the speed of light, these particles are not likely to be a real problem. At speeds just below the speed of light, the particles are ultra-relativistic and would generate a very large x-ray and gamma-ray background in the skin of your ship.

As it turns out, our solar system is inside a region called the Local Bubble where the density of hydrogen atoms is about 100 times lower that in the general interstellar medium. This Bubble, produced by an ancient supernova, extends about 300 light years from the Sun but has an irregular shape. There are thousands of stars within this region which is enough to keep us very busy exploring safely.

Interstellar space also contains a few microscopic dust grains (micron-sized is common) in a region about a few meters on a side. At their expected densities you are probably in for a rough ride, but it really depends on your speed. The space shuttle, encountering flecks of paint traveling at 28,000 mph (about 6 miles/second or 0.005% the speed of light) is pitted and pierced by these fast moving particles, but dust grains have masses a thousand times smaller than the smallest paint fleck, so at 0.005% light speed, they will not be a problem.

At 50% the speed of light which is the minimum for interstellar travel you will cover enough distance in a short amount of time, that your liklihood of encountering a large interstellar dust grain becomes significant. Only one such impact would be enough to cause severe spacecraft damage given the kinetic energy involved.

A large dust grain might have a mass of a few milligrams. Traveling at 50% the speed of light, its kinetic energy is given non-relativistically by 1/2 mv² so E = .5 (0.001 grams) x (0.5 x 3 x 10¹⁰ cm/sec) = 1.1 x 10¹⁷ ergs. This, equals the kinetic energy of a 10 gram bullet traveling at a speed of 1500 kilometers per second, or the energy of a 100 pound person traveling at 13 miles per second! The point is that at these speeds, even a dust grain would explode like a pinpoint bomb, forming an intense fireball that would melt through the skin like a hot poker melts a block of cheese.

The dust grains at interstellar speeds become lethal interstellar 'BB shots' pummeling your spacecraft like rain. They puncture your ship, exploding in a brief fireball at the instant of contact.

Your likelihood of encountering a deadly dust grain is simply dependent on the volume of space your spacecraft sweeps out. The speed at which you do this only determines how often you will encounter the dust grain in your journey. At 10,000 times the space shuttle's speed, the collision vaporizes the particles and a fair depth of the spacecraft bulkhead along the path of travel.

But the situation could well be worse than this if the interstellar medium contains lots of ice globules from ancient comets and other things we cannot begin to detect in interstellar space. These impacts even at 0.1c would be fatal...we just don't know what the 'size spectrum' of matter is between interstellar 'micron-sized' dust grains, and small stars, in interstellar space.

My gut feeling is that interstellar space is rather filthy, and this would make interstellar, relativistic travel, not only technically difficult but impossible to boot! Safe speeds for current technology would be only slightly higher that space shuttle speeds especially if interstellar space contains chunks of comet ice.

This is an issue that no one in the science fiction world has even bothered to explore! The only possible exception is in Star Trek where the Enterprise is equipped with a forward-directed 'Brussard Deflector' (that big gold dish just below the main saucer) which is supposed to sweep away particles before they arrive at the ship. This is very dubious technology because hydrogen atoms are not the main problems a ship like that would have to worry about, especially traveling inside a planetary system at sub-light speeds.>>

[owlice]

neufer, are you suggesting that it boils down to... the bug that hits me and doesn't kill me only makes me stronger? (But what if it tastes really nasty?!)

[Star*Hopper]

Sometimes, yes. Sometimes I sing the cyclist's tune I have bugs in my teeth from smiling while I'm riding. Other times, it might be Pedal, pedal, 'round they go/Riding bikes, we can't feel low or Push, push, push the pedals round and round to go/Merrily merrily merrily merrily, beats having a lawn to mow. Or Broadway tunes or Mozart or whatever pops into my head.

But, some of the things that pop out of your head....

Anyway, lemme share some 'fun/not so' bugstrike experiences.
Fun: Amorous firefly landing on your corrector plate.
Not so: Motorcycle, wasp, shirt pocket :: big nipple.

(Done there, been that!)

[neufer]

neufer, are you suggesting that it boils down to...
the bug that hits me and doesn't kill me only makes me stronger?
(But what if it tastes really nasty?!)

I am suggesting that you:

• 1) obtain a Brussard Bike Bug Deflector or
  2) slow down or
  3) keep your trap shut.

[owlice]

Slow down? Slow down??? Sometimes I'm so slow I'm in danger of going backwards!

And I do, mostly, keep my trap shut, but trail courtesy requires I let people know I'm passing them, so sometimes, I have to open it to call out. (These are people who are either standing still or nearly so, I point out. The only cyclists I pass are under four feet tall and have four, rather than two, wheels.)

I was going to respond to Star*Hopper with something about not needing pockets for an insect scoop when one has cleavage, but think I'd best skip that for now.

[neufer]

Brussard Bike Bug Deflector

---

Slow down? Slow down???
Sometimes I'm so slow I'm in danger of going backwards!

When I'm going backward on my bicycle I don't need pockets
for an insect scoop since I sport cleavage.

And I do, mostly, keep my trap shut, but trail courtesy requires I let people know I'm passing them, so sometimes, I have to open it to call out. (These are people who are either standing still or nearly so, I point out. The only cyclists I pass are under four feet tall and have four, rather than two, wheels.)

You might consider then also letting insects know that you're passing them.

Or else: purchase for yourself a combination bike bugle/blood black bug collector:

---

[Star*Hopper]

-I was going to respond to Star*Hopper with something about not needing pockets for an insect scoop when one has cleavage, but think I'd best skip that for now.

Well then, I s'pose you know why biker chicks wear panty hose.

[Ann]

When I was a kid, I once read that the female of one species of bird or another would "start feeding her young meat, for example earthworm".

Gaaahhh!!! The "yuck" factor of thinking of earthworms as "meat", that, on top of the general barf-worthiness of the whole concept, your mother fed you by forcing it down your throat, almost made me throw up.

But why not let this be a valuable a lesson to you, Owlice? (As Mr Pendansky in the movie Holes would have said.) Small bugs aren't nearly as yucky as earthworms. So whenever a small bug flies into your mouth when you are out cycling, think of it as Nature's way of supplying you with a fresh helping of protein and offering you a relatively non-yucky free meal!

(And it took me two days to think of this reply. That's one of the reasons why I'm not Neufer.)

Ann

[neufer]

When I was a kid, I once read that the female of one species of bird or another would "start feeding her young meat, for example earthworm".

Gaaahhh!!! The "yuck" factor of thinking of earthworms as "meat" almost made me throw up.

But why not let this be a valuable a lesson to you, Owlice? (As Mr Pendansky in the movie Holes would have said.) Small bugs aren't nearly as yucky as earthworms. So whenever a small bug flies into your mouth when you are out cycling, think of it as Nature's way of supplying you with a fresh helping of protein and offering you a relatively non-yucky free meal!

(And it took me two days to think of this reply.
That's one of the reasons why I'm not Neufer.)

I take it there is more than one reason.

The "Blagojevich" factor of eating a large bug as "meat" for her young.

[Chris Peterson]

Gaaahhh!!! The "yuck" factor of thinking of earthworms as "meat", that, on top of the general barf-worthiness of the whole concept, your mother fed you by forcing it down your throat, almost made me throw up.

I don't know. Earthworm flour is good in cookies. Fried crickets are delicious, as are tarantula abdomens. And of course, there's not much difference between pillbugs and other crustaceans like shrimp and crawdads. You can't beat a snail if you use enough garlic and butter. You need to open up your mind to other protein sources.

(And it took me two days to think of this reply. That's one of the reasons why I'm not Neufer.)

I'm still trying to decide if his earlier references to Brussard deflectors represent an error or some subtle pun or obscure reference that is escaping me.

[orin stepanek]

Last night at my Grandson's ball game the mosquitoes got so bad === Anyway
http://www.cc.gatech.edu/fac/Spencer.Ru ... s/bugs.txt

[Ann]

Chris Peterson wrote:

I don't know. Earthworm flour is good in cookies. Fried crickets are delicious, as are tarantula abdomens. And of course, there's not much difference between pillbugs and other crustaceans like shrimp and crawdads. You can't beat a snail if you use enough garlic and butter. You need to open up your mind to other protein sources.

Reminds me of something else I read about as a kid (well, I was probably in my late teens). I guess it was in the early seventies. In my hometown of Malmö, a really weird and exotic delicatessen shop had opened, and my local newspaper sent a reporter there to try some of the treats.

The reporter brought some friends with him, probably to fortify him. They all agreed to eat whatever the reporter ate. So everone feasted on chocolate-covered ants. I'll never forget the reporter's verdict:

The chocolate was good, but no one could figure out what the über-crispy little creepy crawly things were doing in it.

Ann

[neufer]

(And it took me two days to think of this reply. That's one of the reasons why I'm not Neufer.)

I'm still trying to decide if his earlier references to Brussard deflectors represent
an error or some subtle pun or obscure reference that is escaping me.

[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/nationalzoo/5853881255/]A cute pair of little bustards.[/url]

---

[Chris Peterson]

The reporter brought some friends with him, probably to fortify him. They all agreed to eat whatever the reporter ate. So everone feasted on chocolate-covered ants. I'll never forget the reporter's verdict:

The chocolate was good, but no one could figure out what the über-crispy little creepy crawly things were doing in it.

I had some sugar coated ants once. They tasted like sugar. Just like the snails... pencil erasers with butter and garlic. But with butter and garlic, I've no objection at all to pencil erasers!

(All the other things I mentioned have their own flavors, though, outside of what they are served in.)

[Beyond]

When I was a kid, I once read that the female of one species of bird or another would "start feeding her young meat, for example earthworm".

Gaaahhh!!! The "yuck" factor of thinking of earthworms as "meat", that, on top of the general barf-worthiness of the whole concept, your mother fed you by forcing it down your throat, almost made me throw up.

But why not let this be a valuable a lesson to you, Owlice? (As Mr Pendansky in the movie Holes would have said.) Small bugs aren't nearly as yucky as earthworms. So whenever a small bug flies into your mouth when you are out cycling, think of it as Nature's way of supplying you with a fresh helping of protein and offering you a relatively non-yucky free meal!

(And it took me two days to think of this reply. That's one of the reasons why I'm not Neufer.)

Ann

Ann, Art is an art unto himself. NO one else could be like him even if they tried.Thank Goodness!!