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Guess When Mir Will Splash
Guess When Mir Will Come Down
I've been irritated with Mir for a while. It's up. It's down. It's up. It's down. It's saved. It's dead. It's broken. It's fixed. It's broken again. It's fixed again. Weeks ago, I started putting notes on Mir story submissions that came in, which said, "No more Mir stories until pieces start falling!". I even promised that we wouldn't post any more about Mir's troubles. But here I am, breaking that promise. Mir needs to be put down.
Guess when Mir hits the water and win a t-shirt from yours truly. Here are the rules:
1) Use ISO format in a comment submitted to this story - don't e-mail me. ISO format is 'YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS'. Thus, a prediction for the afternoon of March 13 would be '2001-03-13 14:23:07'. All times are Eastern Standard Time in the United States, unless Mir makes it until we go on Daylight Savings Time. Your time prediction can be anywhere in a comment submitted to this story. Note that Slashdot stops allowing new comments on a story a few days after it is posted, so if you don't make your guess now, you won't get a chance later. Use ISO format so I can find it with my browser's find function later on. Closest guess wins.
2) Mir's splash time will be judged by reading the first reports submitted by the major fast-response news networks - CNN, AP and Reuters, in that order. I'm looking for a sentence like, "The first pieces of Mir hit the water at [time]." If none of them mentions a time when the first chunks of Mir hit the water (or land, as the case may be) I'll look for a time mentioned when Mir enters the atmosphere. If we still don't have a time (unlikely, I think) I'll resort to other major news sources, NASA, etc.
3) Cunning readers will note that Mir's ephemeris is publicly available and limits the likely splashdown times to various windows. You could probably substantially improve your chances of winning by doing a lot of research and calculations, not that that would be very time-efficient for a $15 t-shirt.
4) One entry per person, please. I'll contact you through the e-mail address you used when you signed up for an account.
5) Winners will be judged as soon as possible after Mir splashes. I'm the sole judge. There is no appeal. Void where prohibited. If you know me you can't win. However, if you have influence over Mir's trajectory and can influence the thing to come down at the time you picked, you win two t-shirts. No cash value. Contest prize consists of a t-shirt from Thinkgeek or Copyleft, winner's choice, provided by me and not Slashdot, VA Linux or anyone else.
I think this will be the time:
2001-03-15 22:20:37
-jfedor
A few hours after the first story "Mir Splashes Down" (which will contain 800 comments, most of which say 'Hey, Mir didn't really crash yet, you guys are lame', and most of the rest containing 'can you immagine a beowulf cluster of the pieces?'), another story will appear - "Mir REALLY Splashes Down".
Only a guess.
I wonder how the mechanism works if there's a little mistake and Mir starts coming down somewhere it wasn't expected. Considering how many planes are in the air over many parts of the world at any one time, how do all of the effected flights get redirected?
Evan - needs to hit preview before submitting
Strange, the stupid lamer filter accused me of using all caps with a post that's all numbers (which is why I'm adding this line). I'd fire off a bug report to the slash guys, but god (er, linus) knows if they'd ever get around to fixing it. . .
-- Imagine how much more advanced our technology would be if we had eight fingers per hand.
my bet
------
Let me give you the lowdown
Tell me what makes you so afraid
Of all those people you say you hate
2000-03-15 14:08:17 Beware the ides of march
Unfortunately, "between New Zealand and Chile" is where Easter Island is. Anyone put pillows on the Heads?
Mir will be brought down on: 2001-03-16 14:00:00 to commemorate the historical significance of:
The first man to give dreams of reaching the stars a glimpse of reality was Dr. Robert H. Goddard, who launched the first liquid-fueled rocket to an altitude of 41 feet on this day in 1926. The test occurred shortly before Charles Lindbergh's flight across the Atlantic and never received the headlines that Lindbergh did, but the historic significance was staggering.
I donate all spillover Karma to the charity of my choice... Ada was still a babe despite what people may say...
Well, it's a guess... The probability of winning that T-Shirt is extremely low, oh well it's the participating that counts anyway ;-)
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
2001-03-16 13:12:01 be my guess, oh yes
2001-03-19 06:20:00
Ad the only reason I picked this date is that it's my sister's b-day.
Since her mood has a tendency of crashing down... I thought... maybe...
Karma karma karma karma karmeleon: it comes and goes, it comes and goes.
I think a good Irish wake would be in order. Mir's already green, what with all the various fungi that's infecting it...
Mr. Ska
I slit a sheet
A sheet I slit
Mr. Ska
What does this mean for airplanes and boats? Aren't they supposed to know when this is going to happen so they can either a)change their route that day or b) delay their departures?
;)
I seriously hope so! I'll be returning from Oz in mid-march and would definatly disapprove of being torn apart in mid-air by a rotten, russian space station.
(Actually though, I'll be heading in the other direction.
2001-04-03 05:22:35
(Um, why does Slashdot think a post with nothing but number is using too many caps?)
2001-03-14 01:59:26
So I had to throw in the 0 for effect.
As x approaches total apathy I couldn't care less.
Girlfriends birthday and her favourite number. And *no*, I did not just give away my password or PIN. ;-)
Surely using the format described in RFC2550 would be a more sensible way to represent the date? Particularly if they keep delaying it. :-)
2001-11-31 - 12:00:03 :)
The problem with capped Karma is it only goes down...
SIG: HUP
Dumaju, shto eto budiet' 2001-03-29 01:00:15 . Pochemu ja tak dumaju? Vot, vsio w vostochnoj Jevropie zanimajet bolshe vremieni chem na Zapadie.. Celaja eta istoria eto kak jebat' tigru: i smeshno, i strashno...
January (nu, ja nie Russkij, ja Poliak...)
...the date when Mir comes flaming down. Maybe they will give her a tiny boost in between to gain a bit of time for fruitless discussions. So I guess it will take a bit - let's assume april (with the boost).
2001-04-16 19:47:13
Rough guess on time - visibility estimated from parameters.
Oh I would not worry about it, the Russians will file a NOTAM (Notice to Airmen) with the ATC folks to make sure everyone is out of the way.
I don't think its posible to fly an airliner more than 2 hrs without a NOTAM about *SOMETHING*.
Erlang Developer and podcaster
There is still some sort of corruption issue with the users table.
That might explain the weirdness that's been going on with my account today. Apparently, I've got a karma of 31337, and I've also got access to several other features I haven't seen before.
Could someone explain what happened, before I click on this 'promote Anonymous Coward posts to +5' button by accident?
Ford Prefect, posting at +1 (instead of +10) so as to remain inconspicuous.
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
2001-03-14 17:35:00
/. member wears size L or smaller. (^_^)
Size XLT or XL t-shirt please.
As if any
144l. ph34r my 133t l3g4l 5k1lz!
They're probably on different orbits, and I'm sure it would be a real pain in the butt to change one orbit to match another. That's why the shuttle launches for ISS have a 5-minute window. (I'm sure there are actually lots of 5-minute windows, spaced about 90 minutes apart.) Even then, the shuttle spends a whole day catching up. And ISS is probably in a higher orbit now that the shuttle has been boosting it. It would probably be easier to try to crash Mir on the moon than to have it dock with ISS.
Besides, I'm sure that Mir stinks inside. 15 years of sweaty astronauts has got to be as bad as an athlete's sweatsocks and jockstrap combined. And there's the nice toasty smell of burnt wire insulation from the fires they've had.
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
That was what seemed to be the second significant outage in the last week. I don't think I'm alone when I say that I think the readers deserve to have such events posted as a news article to the main page.
I appreciate your being forthcoming here, Michael, but a reply posted to an offtopic post (no offense to the parent poster) in a story completely unrelated to the outages isn't exactly keeping us informed.
But as we've all heard before a million times, Slashdot is all Rob's, he'd continue to do it even if he and Jeff were the only ones to read it, he's not in it for the money (obviously), etc., so who are we to ask?
-tf
Hi, I'm a pretentious cock who will make some gay comment about ignoring AC posts here.
2001-03-16 12:34:56, for example
__
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
2001-08-16-14:30:00
/."
'Course I've never heard whether the MIR has a penchant for fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches...
"I'm not a bitch, I just play one on
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
I was born on 1978-03-19 00:31:?? so I will guess: 2001-03-19 00:31:00 Dan
Doh!
Beware the Ides of March.
Also... I'd like to take ithis moment to meditate on the possibly deadly repurcussions of combining a) the home-video news-coverage craze, and b) A space station-cum-meteor-cum-meteorite. ;)
-Omar@I fall to pices (da da da) each time I enter your atmosphere...
2001-03-14 15:09:26
As close to pi as I could render, ignoring the year and the inserted zero in the minutes column.
[
2001-04-04 04:04:04 and here's some text to avoid the "lameness filter."
Gerv
I guarantee a win on my part...
Why? We'll, let's just say I'm going to make sure it happens at that time. You see, back in the '60's I developed a satellite shooting machine, which was in essence a sophisticated heat beam which we called a "laser". Using these "lasers", we punch a hole in the protective layer around the Mir Space Station...
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
My guess for MIR splashdown is above. Too bad Mir and Alpha are probably too far apart to dock together because that would be a cool use of the extra hardware. It seems like a waste, to me, to not figure out a use for this stuff. It can't be all bad stuff. I guess it woul dprobably be too much of a logistical nightmare to get them to re-use these modules.
Gorkman
Besides, Mir's got the Fungus From Outer Space, and who wants that crap on ISS anyhow? Yes, I know ISS will probably end up with its own fungal infection, but Mir's been up there 15 years, so it could be a decade before ISS has fungus problems.
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
Quoted from article:
Maybe the /. saga of MIR postings will stop once the leftover "chunks" (weighing up to 700kg/1500lb) hit the bottom of the ocean halfway between New Zealand and Chile
Okay. I'm taking orders right now.
Send me $50, and I'll send you a 1"x1" square of scorched iron and weird exotic alloys, cut from the side of a burned 1982 Ford F-150 that has already been through the car crusher.
For only $4000, you can have a "MIR guidance computer", made by putting a junked microwave oven timer board through a pottery kiln. Only two available.
Check out my other online sales: Used Berlin Wall chunks, recycled from the little precast concrete curbs that are put into parking lots. (Shhh! It's recycling!)
Limited quantity available. Act now.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
Tactical guess: 2000-02-20 01:01:01 At least I'll know soon that I did not win ;-)
In Murphy We Turst
I need a new sig...
"The quality of life is determined by its activites."--Aristotle
2001-03-16 11:04:51
That is EXACTLY one month from now. Go team. =)
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CitizenC
My guess for atmospheric contact is the subject.
I also guess...that it will never hit ground, and that Russia will somehow manage to bounce it off the atmosphere back into space.
Don't ask me how; it can't be that hard to slow something down enough to crash it...now, controlling the crash, that's a bitch.
It would be just their luck that the Progress would go haywire, spin the station around a bit, end up pushing it forward instead of down, speed it up enough to skim off the atmosphere, and suddenly we have our first habitable craft heading off into deep space...never mind that it remains unmanned, or that you couldn't get me into that thing, or that I doubt the Progress has enough fuel or power to speed up Mir enough, but with the luck Russia's had lately...
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
You can keep up-to-date with MIR's location here.
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Moderator's essentials
Good Idea:
2001-03-18 07:34:21
CokeBear
(and whazzup with that lameness filter? it treats numbers as caps? now *thats* lameness.)
Reality has a liberal bias
"So let's recap: you've taken a perfectly helpful and pleasant response to a useless question, and posted an inflammatory and insulting reply to it."
1) The OP wasn't a question, it was a joke.
2) Your response was pleasant, but not especially helpful. Remember that the original joke wasn't just talking about last night's outage, but about outages in general. Your response then was too specific to be helpful.
3) I've read and re-read tristan's response and I fail to find anything even mildly insulting. On the contrary, he praises Rob and Jeff for continuing to run the site when they clearly aren't making much money for it. Are you insulted that you weren't included?
As for inflammatory--you may well be inflamed by the response, but that's a feature, not a bug. We (the readers) are pretty tired of unexplained (even unremarked on) outages and we are starting to ask WTF is going on. Can you blame us?
--
Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
(Hey Ryan! Here's your proof!)
2001-03-17 06:23:21 i've got this one dicked. i called my psychic.
"I hope I don't make a mistake and manage to remain a virgin." - Britney Spears
"I hope I don't make a mistake and manage to remain a virgin." - Britney Spears
yeah. uh. fnord and stuff. fisfhcuerk.
I've got a couple of ideas for fun contests that we can all play, and they're relevent for the /. community as well!
Firstly, we have How long will /. stay up?. Each of us can guess exactly how long (in hours) /. will be up for before it inexplicably dies with no response from the site admins. For bonus points, guess how long it'll take them to get it running again.
Secondly, Why did it go down?. We can all have fun here guessing why /. went down again. Was it a DDoS? Corrupted database? Someone tripped and pulled the power cord out? My guess for the latest one is the fact that there's now over a billion user accounts here...
2001-04-21 01:30:00
If it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet.
The stars are crossed against you, Mir. That's my guess (let's say noon GMT, Ides of March).
2001-04-01 11:59:59 - The point being I reckon a "Mir went down" story will appear as an April Fools. Of course it will never come down. They probably don't know how to bring it down, never mind when. :-)
2001-03-26 08:23:46
Of course this is just a guess. Its not like I have a working suborbital ascent vehicle that could forcibly eject that piece of floating refuse from the heavens or something. Right?
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
2001-03-26 13:14:00 is my guess.
2001-03-14 12:52:29 - that's my guess.
--
Preventive War is like committing suicide for fear of death. - Otto Von Bismarck
Jealous Americans? I think so!
The uncertainty in the Mir splashdown date is actually posing a fair problem for me.
I like Mir a lot, and have always been impressed with its performance and long life, and I want to properly honor its passing. How to do, how to do..
Of course! A wake!
But you've got to schedule parties. You've got to order the vodka (unless you want crap vodka) and other assorted things. These changing dates are making my life hell! :)
Hey, it gotta come down someday... Why not on my birthday...
--
All browsers' default homepage should read: Don't Panic...
All browsers' default homepage should read: Don't Panic...
If so, I guess 0000-01-01 00:00:00!
First they ignore you.
Then they laugh at you.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
give it a few extra days.
sulli
RTFJ.
I'll bring the weenies to roast when it hits that Yahoo! guy in Quasi, Australia. 2001-03-09 22:51:37
==
how will you deal with duplicate entries? hopefully you have some code to pick only the first one, right?
2001-04-01 7:00:00
Would be quite an april fool's joke, eh?
The reporting on all this has been that they miscalculated the date that they would deorbit it. Well the truth of the matter is, it was requested that they reschedule it due to the upcoming Shuttle launch that would take most of the tracking resources in the early March timeframe.
2001-04-01 13:01:01
How ironic that it would be called a "lameness" filter--it can't tell numbers from caps.
--
Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
(Hey Ryan! Here's your proof!)
(That's my guess in UTC. EST is this minus 5 hours. I run in UTC. Sorry if it flips yer noodle.)
Anyways.. An interesting note I read in the Chicago Sun-Times a few days ago:
(Heavily edited)
"Is there anywhere safe from a potential MIR drop?"
A call was placed to the Russian Space Agency.
"Is there any city that's safe from an accidental MIR drop?"
"Moscow. There's no chance any MIR debris will hit Moscow."
How thoughtful.
The reason? The potential MIR drop point can be anywhere between 50 degrees north and 50 degrees south.
I thought it was funny.
Ruling The World, One Moron At A Time(tm)
"As Kosher As A Bacon-Cheeseburger"(tmp)
I used to be someone else. Now I'm someone better.
Real life is underrated.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/21/science/21ap-mir .html
sulli
RTFJ.