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This is so old-hat it has fungus on it!

Seti farms have been doing this since they started - here are a few pictures:

http://bhs.broo.k12.wv.us/homepage/staff/seti/farm s.htm

Tell us something new!

How about SETI@Home stacks? Several people are building clusters of various sorts for SETI, and probably other distributed projects as well. There are some great images at http://bhs.broo.k12.wv.us/homepage/staff/seti/farm s.htm.

I'd probably want something as efficient as possible, perhaps provide some redundancy, etc., but there are probably situations where space is a problem, etc.

Different strokes, people. Choice is a Good Thing.

http://bhs.broo.k12.wv.us/homepage/staff/seti/stac k.htm

Some plywood, a power supply powering multiple motherboards.. crunching seti.

Life is good.

My first impulse was to guess "camera artifact." But some people who are knowledgeable about digital cameras who have posted here seem to doubt that it is; so let's assume that it is not.

It has already been speculated that microscopic black holes sometimes intersect the orbit of the earth, passing through the earth and/or its atmosphere in a few micro or milliseconds.

If the picture's only artifact had been the dark streak, my guess would have been that we were seeing exactly that: the trail created by a microscopic black hole traveling through the atmosphere. This would explain how an object traveling through the atmosphere at high speed could do so without creating great heat (and an atmospheric glow): rather than displacing atmospheric molecules (consequently imparting kinetic energy and creating heat), a black hole would be _absorbing_ them, leaving a partial vacuum in its wake. This vacuum would be visible as the dark streak.

But we also have the flash to contend with. Not just the flash, but also the fact that the flash occurs in a location very near a streetlamp in the picture. For the moment, let's assume that this indicates that the object in question hit the streetlamp.

Let's describe the flash. In addition to the bright region just to the right of the top of the lamppost, there is a dimmer region that is roughly the shape of a squat "T". (This may be a lens artifact, but it may not.) The "top stroke" of the T extends perpendicular to the dark streak, about 3 times the width of the bright part of the flash on either side. The "down stroke" of the T is a halo-ish circular glow just beyond the bright part of the flash along the path of the dark streak.

I do not think that a black hole would explode or decay on impact with matter slightly more dense than the atmosphere. I don't have science to back up this guess, it's just my instinct. Also, while I don't know what a decaying black hole would look like, for some reason I don't think it would look the way this flash does.

So if we need an object with strong gravity to explain the dark path, but we can't use a black hole, what does that leave us? I am going to theorize the existence of something I will call a "Purple Hole." (I just Googled the term, and I don't see that it has been used in astronomy or physics. Apologizes if that turns out to be wrong. Apologizes also to http://ghs.ming.k12.wv.us/Purple_Hole/Gilbert High School.)

A black hole, while exhibiting extreme gravitational effects, is made up of ordinary matter. So the physics used to analyze black holes, and to predict when and under what circumstances they might decay, and what the products might be if they do decay, are based on models where the amount and density of matter is extraordinary, but the matter is not.

But what if the object in question were a mixture containing, in addition to ordinary matter, dark matter and possibly dark energy? We might have an object whose gravitational effects were similar to those of a black hole, but whose behaviors in terms of decay were quite different.

In particular, it is possible that the decay of the object would produce mainly weakly interactive particles. These particles would mostly pass through ordinary matter showing little or no macroscopic effect. This would explain the lack of visible damage to the street light. It might also help to explain the fact that the object decayed at all (whether it struck the streetlamp or not). A microscopic examination of parts of the streetlamp might show paths left by decay particles.

OK, maybe this is silly. But it's fun. Thanks for reading this long post.

The folded Newtonian is nothing new, though the design described here is a bit odd, to say the least. Here's an example of a similarly designed scope with much better construction.

There are more ways to fold telescope optical paths than most people imagine as shown here.

That said, the referenced article is filled with inaccuracies and I almost wonder if it's intended as some kind of practical joke. For example, it describes the "tracking accuracy" of Schmidt Cassegrains, Newtonians, and Folded Newtonians as "poor", "poor", and "very high" respectively. That's bunk. The tracking accuracy is determined by the mounting and drive. In the case of his scope, it's on an altazimuth (Dobsonian, to be specific) mount with no apparent drive at all, so it doesn't track anything! The author mispells Cassegrain repeatedly throughout the article, which I would hardly expect from someone knowledgeable about telescope optics. He describes the mount of a conventional Newtonian primary mirror as "fussy" while describing the mount of the primary in the folded Newtonian as "robust." There is no difference. The folding of the light path at the other end of the tube has nothing to do with how the primary is mounted. He describes the "weight" of Cassegrains and Newtonians as "heavy" and classifies the Folded Newtonian as "Very Light", yet there is no evidence that his folded Newtonian is any lighter than a conventional Newtonian -- and it's probably heavier due to the larger secondary, larger secondary mount, and the baffled tube that holds the focuser. He says that the "Field Width" of Schmidt Cassegrains, Newtonians, and his Folded Newtonian are "Narrow", "Wide", and "Very Wide" respectively. That's simply wrong and illogical -- as anyone with a reasonable knowledge of telescope optics can tell you. The tilt of the secondary mirror has no effect on real or apparent field width. In fact, because he is advocating a longer focal ratio (f8), he will have a narrower real field of view than a typical Dobsonian Newtonian (typically f4-f6) with the same eyepiece.

He makes absurd claims like "So the only real advantage of a small diagonal in a large telescope is a tiny improvement in contrast/resolution that can easily be recaptured with image processing." Anyone who knows anything about telescope construction can tell you that the secondary obstruction causes light loss and that's a serious concern. Also, image processing implies astrophotography. Astrophotography implies long exposure times and that necessitates an equatorially mounted telescope -- which his is not.

I don't find the article to be at all credible.

Contracting one of those tiny fish parasites that swims up your stream of urine if you're peeing into the Amazon and lays eggs in your joystick.

Oh God, I wouldn't wish that upon my worst enemy.

There are many many uses I can think of for old machines such as those you describe...

Something I've wondered for a while... what's up with the points coming off the stars?

As was mentioned in another post, those are diffraction spikes from the supports for the secondary mirror.

Newtonian reflectors and classical Cassegrain telescopes support their secondary mirror with "spiders" that produce diffraction spikes. There have been various efforts over the years to eliminate these from that type of telescope. One method is to seal the tube with an optical flat (a flat piece of optical glass) which supports the mirror. The trade-offs include longer times for the scopes to reach temperature equilibrium, distortion from imperfections in the optical figure of the flat, and slight light loss. Other attempts have included the use of spiders with curved support arms, which reduce or eliminates spikes at the cost of slightly degraded overall image contrast.

Other telescope types, such as refractors, Maksutovs, Schmidt-Cassegrains, and Yolo reflectors have no diffraction spikes, but they are all more optically complex (Yolos, for instance, require toroidal mirrors) and are more difficult to produce as a result. Refractors have the added problem of chromatic abberation, which is the fringing of color on the edge of bright objects. Various complex, multi-element objectives have been developed to reduce, or even practically eliminate, this problem. The problems are optical complexity, cost, and light loss. Figuring a 3-element objective lens for a refractor means grinding six optical surfaces with precise curves. Compare that to a Newtonian which has a single parabolic primary mirror and a flat optical secondary.

There are many other telescope types than the few popular types I mentioned here and each have their proponents. Most designs that have survived the test of time can be made to perform well, but each has trade-offs.

The trip to the moon was totally faked... in 1902! This French dude did it! George Méliès was his name, and he ripped off Jules Verne in the process!

Here is proof!

Some might remember the Smashing Pumpkins bravely revealed the moon landing hoax in 1995 with the video for their song "Tonight, Tonight" from their album "Mellon Collie & the Infinite Sadness."

Shocking lack of imagination for NASA to rip these artists off. Call the DMCA! Call the RIAA! These conspiracy theorists are on to something here... a lack of imagination! ;-P

Hm.
I'm always wary of these sites. They show all this electricity zapping round, and guys with electrofingers.

Only problem is this: Unless a tesla coil is specifically built for this purpose, the skin effect does not work on telsa coils. You actually cook your organs.

I think it's highly irresponsible to blaze things like tesla coils.

I've built one, I've used one, and had an enjoyable time, but safety must be the first priority, not pretty pictures.

For more information about the dangers of tesla coils, Here[Chip Atkinson's Safety sheets]

I would recommend you start with a large bucket of Duplos. They're extra-large Legos made for younger kids with less fine-motor skills, but they are quite sturdy, they hold together better than tiny Legos, and they interconnect with the standard-size Legos. Then you could have fun like these kids.

Moms like Duplos because they are less likely to step on them in the dark and say bad words.