Starship Asterisk*

• What if there's LITERALLY a tie? — Nate Silver (Twitter, 2012 Jan 04)

bystander wrote:Tie Vote

• What if there's LITERALLY a tie? — Nate Silver (Twitter, 2012 Jan 04)

For more on how elections work, see CGP Grey's videos:
[list]The Electoral College
Politics in the Animal Kingdom[/list][/i]

xkcd wrote:
If you’re in the US, don’t forget to vote—your vote could make or break a tie.

And if you’re voting in Florida, keep an eye on the sky.

emc wrote:

bystander wrote:BB Gun

• In Armageddon, a NASA guy comments that a plan to shoot a laser at the asteroid is like “shooting a b.b. gun at a freight train.”
  What would it take to stop an out-of-control freight train using only b.b. guns? — Charles James O'Keefe

Take an amount of BB guns to equal the weight of the train and melt them down into a large block then place the block on the track moving from the opposite direction toward the train at the same speed.

• If a meteor made out of diamond and 100 feet in diameter was traveling at the speed of light and hit the earth,
  what would happen to it? — Aidan Smith, Age 8, via his father Jeff

• Is it possible to build a jetpack using downward firing machine guns? — Rob B

2birds wrote:What if Microsoft didn't exist?

2birds wrote:What if Microsoft didn't exist?

• If you carry a penny in your coin tray, how long would it take for that penny to cost you more than a cent in extra gas? — Rob B

xkcd wrote:You’re welcome.

• If my printer could literally print out money, would it have that big an effect on the world? — Derek O'Brien
  
  What would happen if you exploded a nuclear bomb in the eye of a hurricane? Would
  the storm cell be immediately vaporized? — Rupert Bainbridge (and hundreds of others)
  
  If everyone put little turbine generators on the downspouts of their houses and businesses, how much power
  would we generate? Would we ever generate enough power to offset the cost of the generators? — Damien
  
  Using only pronounceable letter combinations, how long would names have to be
  to give each star in the universe a unique one word name? — Seamus Johnson
  
  I bike to class sometimes. It's annoying biking in the wintertime, because it's so cold. How fast
  would I have to bike for my skin to warm up the way a spacecraft heats up during reentry? — David Nai
  
  How much physical space does the internet take up? — Max L
  
  What if you strapped C4 to a boomerang? Could this be an effective weapon,
  or would it be as stupid as it sounds? — Chad Macziewski

Ann wrote:I love the idea of giving each star in the universe a unique pronounceable name about 24 characters long. And who can resist the name JoeBidenJoeBidenJoeBiden for a star?

What star is that?


Ann

• How many model rocket engines would it take to launch a real rocket into space? — Greg Schock, PA

• The story of the three wise men got me wondering: What if you did walk towards a star at a fixed speed?
  What path would you trace on the Earth? Does it converge to a fixed cycle? — N. Murdoch

• Every now and then we have to insert a leap second because the Earth’s rotation is slowing down.
  Could we speed up Earth’s rotation, so that we do not need Leap Seconds? — Anton (Berlin, Germany)

• If one randomly chosen extra person were to die each second somewhere on Earth,
  what impact would it have on the world population? — Guy Petzall

bystander wrote:Death Rates

• If one randomly chosen extra person were to die each second somewhere on Earth,
  what impact would it have on the world population? — Guy Petzall

• . http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php? ... 50#p190601
  
  If one randomly chosen idiot were to die each second somewhere on Earth,
  what impact would it have on YouTube videos?

neufer wrote:

• . http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php? ... 50#p190601
  
  If one randomly chosen idiot were to die each second somewhere on Earth,
  what impact would it have on YouTube videos?

• From what height would you need to drop a steak for it to be cooked when it hit the ground? — Alex Lahey

• What if I took a swim in a typical spent nuclear fuel pool? Would I need to dive to actually experience
  a fatal amount of radiation? How long could I stay safely at the surface? — Jonathan Bastien-Filiatrault