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NASA Details Earthquake Effects on the Earth
Cuyamaca writes "
NASA
scientists, using data from the Indonesian earthquake
calculated it affected Earth's rotation, decreased the
length of day, slightly changed the planet's shape, and
shifted the North Pole by centimeters. The earthquake that
created the huge tsunami also changed the Earth's rotation." You now have 2.68 fewer microseconds each day to do whatever it is you do.
Let me guess, those are missing in the night, right?
At least that would explain my lack of sleep lately...
Bartender, another Fort Garry Dark, and hurry!
Trolling is a art,
You now have 2.68 fewer microseconds each day to do whatever it is you do.
;)
Damn! My project is already behind schedule, this is the last thing I need. Oh well, better stop reading so much slashdot
-dynamo
great, more time for people to do things like this
/* No Comment */
Now how am I supposed to find the time to get all those TPS reports done!
Here a Sig There a Sig Everywhere a Sig Sig...
You now have 2.68 fewer microseconds each day to do whatever it is you do.
Well, there goes my sex life.
calculated it affected Earth's rotation, decreased the length of day
Does this mean that NASA confirms that superman can indeed turn back time?
----
Squirrel
You now have 2.68 fewer microseconds each day to do whatever it is you do.
Yay! My first raise in pay since 2001!!
"If you think you have things under control, you're not going fast enough." --Mario Andretti
Wow, the Tsunami increased my life expectancy by 50,713.6 microseconds.
~~~
Click here, you know you wanna!
You now have 2.68 fewer microseconds each day to do whatever it is you do.
And I though sex couldn't get shorter...
Oh, don't flatter yourself. :)
2.68 fewer microseconds?
.0000784 fewer frames of Quake 3 each day!
Hell! That means I'll be able to render
A Call For A New Slashdot Moderation Level!
Well they do have daily 2.68 usec loss to deal with you know. Ease up man.
BSD is designed. Linux is grown. C++ libs
You now have 2.68 fewer microseconds each day to do whatever it is you do
Oddly enough, this is the exact length of a 30 minute sitcom minus commercials... I wonder which show this will force off the air?
--
Was it the sheep climbing onto the altar, or the cattle lowing to be slain,
or the Son of God hanging dead and bloodied on a cross that told me this was a world condemned, but loved and bought with blood.
. . the grass was greener, kids were polite to their elders and the day was longer!
I've submitted a kernel patch to adjust the 'gettimeofday' POSIX function to account for this 2.68 microseconds. Most of you wont notice a difference, but for real-time applications, this can be a significant interval. We probably need to add some additional 'daylight savings' flag adjustments for applications that do / don't want this adjustments.
Then again, I wish I had that much free time on my hands. OK which one of the guys is gonna re-adjust all those atomic clocks :P.
Ahh, so the earthquakes are just the earth way of resetting time.
Really, I didn't know Newton had a fourth law: "Objects in a new motion tend to return to a previous motion they are more used to".
You are right insofar as that the Earth will slow down again; But that's due to tidal drag, not because the post-earthquake is returning to "normal". There is no normal over a long period of time, since the Earth's rotation is constantly slowing (in the time of the dinosaurs it was ~23 hours per day).
Your working 2.68 microseconds less each day, but getting paid the same, so technically you got a raise! (provided you distribute thos 2.68 microseconds evenly among the hours your working and not playing WoW)
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
What about the effects on the earth's rotation, didn't NASA scientists find anything on that? And I also read that the earth's rotation was affected, as well as the rotation of the earth.
See, the reason the Earth is moving slower is because the average equatorial bulge grew a tiny bit, thus slightly reducing the gravitational attraction for those living on the equator. Therefore, due to general relativity, time will now move a little faster due to local weaking of the gravitational field except that this is exactly canceled out by time moving a little slower due to SR affects caused by moving a tad faster. (OK, I made up the exactly canceling out bit - but it might be true! And, I also made up the equatorial bulge bit, too. OK, I totally didn't RTFA, and am really just making most of this up.)
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
I honestly don't know, but I am curious.
Hmm, I guess it does. A bit of looking at the Straight Dope reveals:
Dear Cecil:
Is the earth getting heavier or lighter? After all, we've littered the cosmos with a lot of NASA stuff, which should shave off a few pounds, along with vapor escaping from the atmosphere. On the other hand, there's a lot more people and meteorites around than there was in 8011 BC. What do you think? --Edward M. Smith Jr., Los Angeles
Dear Edward: Puny humanoid, you think the pitiful efforts of mankind have appreciably altered the mass of the earth, reliably estimated at 6 sextillion, 588 quintillion tons? (And man, if you don't think it was a bitch getting that puppy on the scale...) If so, shed your illusions. It's believed the earth gains anywhere from several dozen to several hundred tons per day due to meteorites and meteoritic dust--10,000 to 100,000 tons a year. (Sorry, but estimates vary widely.) This far exceeds any losses. The weight of the people, incidentally, has increased the mass of the earth by zero, for the obvious reason that we are but dust, and unto dust we shall return. To put it another way, human cells are merely rearrangements of the compunds previously found (i.e., before dinner time) in plant cells and animal cells. Net change pound-wise, nada.
That means I'll be able to render .0000784 fewer frames of Quake 3 each day!
The world mourns your tragic daily loss of eight dozen pixels, but we mock your loss of a social life due to Quake 3 addiction.