Starship Asterisk*

bystander wrote:To celebrate the occasion, the crew of the Starship Asterisk* have assembled...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloomsday wrote:
<<Bloomsday is a commemoration and celebration of the life of Irish writer James Joyce during which the events of his novel Ulysses (which is set on 16 June 1904) are relived. It is observed annually on 16 June in Dublin and elsewhere. Joyce chose the date as it was the date of his first outing with his wife-to-be, Nora Barnacle; they walked to the Dublin suburb of Ringsend. The name derives from Leopold Bloom, the protagonist of Ulysses.

..............................................................................................................
Bloomsday begins at Dublin sunrise (3:33 LMT) Thursday June 16, 1904 (= 17 x 112).
& ends at Dublin sunset (-3:33 LMT)
2 x 17 years after Charles Dickens's Thursday June 16, 1870 (= 17 x 110) burial.
...............................................................................................

Bloomsday (a term Joyce himself did not employ) was invented in 1954, on the 50th anniversary of the events in the novel, when John Ryan (artist, critic, publican and founder of Envoy magazine) and the novelist Flann O'Brien organised what was to be a daylong pilgrimage along the Ulysses route. They were joined by Patrick Kavanagh, Anthony Cronin, Tom Joyce (a dentist who, as Joyce's cousin, represented the family interest) and AJ Leventhal (Registrar of Trinity College, Dublin). Ryan had engaged two horse drawn cabs, of the old-fashioned kind, which in Ulysses Mr. Bloom and his friends drive to poor Paddy Dignam's funeral. The party were assigned roles from the novel. They planned to travel round the city through the day, visiting in turn the scenes of the novel, ending at night in what had once been the brothel quarter of the city, the area which Joyce had called Nighttown. The pilgrimage was abandoned halfway through, when the weary Lestrygonians succumbed to inebriation and rancour at the Bailey pub in the city centre, which Ryan then owned, and at which, in 1967, he installed the door to No. 7 Eccles Street (Leopold Bloom’s front door), having rescued it from demolition.>>

http://www.meteorite-times.com/Back_Links/2008/july/Accretion_Desk.htm wrote:

[b][color=#0000FF]Mr. Gaffney found that the stone had gone through the roof, penetrated three thicknesses of shingles and a hemlock board about 1 inch thick; then, about 4 feet below this, passed through a 7/8th inch hemlock board forming the floor of a hayloft. Having a hardness of about one-third of that as Maple, Hemlock has the oxymoronic distinction of being the hardest of the softwoods. It's list of undesirable qualities as a construction wood seems rather long, and its Janka hardness of 500 ranks it near the bottom of wood species used in flooring. [size=125]For the meteorite, it was a good thing the wood was not Brazilian Walnut, a species with a Janka hardness of 3684[/size] :!: [/color][/b]

---

An Article In Meteorite Times Magazine
Martin Horejsi's Meteorite and Tektite Books

<<[A] meteorite fell June 16, 1911, at about 5:20 p.m., on the farm of William Gaffney, 7.5 miles northeast of Kilbourn, Wisconsin. Mr. Gaffney states that at the time of the fall he was in his hay field about 20 rods from his barn. While there he heard a rumbling noise similar to that produced by a heavy wagon passing over a stony road. The noise, he states, was much louder than thunder. The day was close and muggy with no breeze and no sign of a local thunderstorm. The noise lasted about three or four minutes. While many heard the sound of the fall, the lone witness to the impact reported that the sound stopped at the same time he entered the barn.

While it was going on Mr. Gaffney walked towards the barn and when he entered it the sound ceased. When he had been in the barn about a minute he heard a loud report like that of a cannon and saw a small stone strike the manger about 10 feet from where he was standing, rebound, strike the stone foundation of the barn, and then bury itself to a depth of 2.5 inches in the hard-packed clay soil which formed the floor of the barn.

Mr. Gaffney picked up the stone, but found it so warm he could hold it only for a second or so. It remained warm nearly three hours. When first picked up it had a straw color on its surface, but gradually assumed a black color. Neighbors of Mr. Gaffney within a radius of three miles heard both a rumbling noise and a report when the stone struck the barn. Fishermen at Lake Mason, near Briggsville, Marquette County, Wisconsin, about five miles east of Mr. Gaffney's place, also heard a rumbling noise.

The hole said to have been made by the meteorite is about 4 inches long by 2 inches wide, and is about the size and shape that such a projectile would have made. The shape of the hole indicates that the meteorite was moving in the direction of its longest axis and not broadside when it penetrated the board. It does not seem to be possible to determine positively from the shape of the opening which end of the meteorite was in front, although the indications are that it was the pointed end. The meteorite fits the opening in the board a little better in this position, yet the opposite end of the meteorite shows abrasion and removal of the crust in several places, in a manner that might have been caused by the striking of this end against boards. The penetrated board has the brittleness peculiar to hemlock and hence might offer less resistance to a falling body than some other kinds of wood.The barn stands in a north and south direction with the roof sloping east and west. The stone fell upon the east slope of the roof and appears to have come from a direction a little south of east.

The stone is comparable in size and shape to a man's fist. It weighed a little less than 2 pounds, the exact weight being 27.5 ounces, or 772 grams. The specific gravity of the stone as a whole was 3.43. Its length was 4.5 inches (11.5 cm.), width 3 inches (8 cm.) and height 2.5 inches (6 cm.).

• "The small meteorite which fell in Kilbourn, Wisconsin, in 1911, and passed through a board in the roof of a barn, sold as high as seven dollars a gram, largely on this account, as it was a stone of a common chondritic type. Obviously a meteorite has no actual value and these prices are not only wholly artificial and unscientific, but silly. It should be added that this condition is due largely to the mere collector rather than to the serious student. Ambitious heads of departments in our public museums are, however, by no means blameless." - Merrill & Foshag's 1929 book titled Minerals from Earth and Sky>>