Hubble Discovers Dark Spot on Uranus

TheDawgLives writes "Just as we near the end of the hurricane season in the Atlantic Ocean, winds whirl and clouds churn 2 billion miles away in the atmosphere of Uranus, forming a dark vortex large enough to engulf two-thirds of the United States."

Comments

Dark Spot on Uranus?

[Kimos]

Must... resist... bad... jokes...

Re:Dark Spot on Uranus?

[tehcyder]

Must... resist... bad... jokes...

Truly, a voice crying in the wilderness.

Re:Dark Spot on Uranus?

[Lazerf4rt]

I challenge anybody to post a +5 Insightful comment about this story. It can't be done!

Re:Dark Spot on Uranus?

[strider44]

Don't worry, your post will get there. I admit I burst out laughing as soon as I read the headline but if you want something mildly insightful I might as well fill in something while I have the time.

Is it any surprise that there's a dark spot on Uranus? Jupiter has a couple of huge cyclones raging on in there, so does Saturn. Both the planet's black spots are bigger than Uranus' anyway. Uranus is a gas giant, since there's going to be some wind going on there I'm not exactly shocked that huge cyclones have formed.

Enormous cyclones I think are just a side-effect of gas giants. I don't think it's anything to get excited about.

Re:Dark Spot on Uranus?

[fatmacman]

Let the rim shots begin!

Re:Dark Spot on Uranus?

[Directrix1]

"forming a dark vortex large enough to engulf two-thirds of the United States" ... tub girl ... 'nuff said. Now on to the insightful posts...

Re:Dark Spot on Uranus?

[Hoi Polloi]

It is impressive that even with the feeble solar energy it receives there is still enough to power massive cyclones.

Re:Dark Spot on Uranus?

[Directrix1]

or actually I suppose goatse.cx would be the better candidate now that I think about it.

Re:Dark Spot on Uranus?

[HiVizDiver]

Uranus is a gas giant

I do admit to being slightly lactose-intolerant...

Yes, socially I am 5 years old, but I couldn't resist. :)

Re:Dark Spot on Uranus?

[woxingma]

The reason this is so eventful is because when Voyager 2 swept passed Uranus, there was a whole lot of nothing going on. It is only recently that we've seen glipses of the atmosphere kicking up a bit and these are the first good visible (vs. infrared) images that show a storm. The key is trying to understand why this global climatic change occurs. (It most likely has to do with the huge tilt of Uranus's rotation axis.)

Re:Dark Spot on Uranus?

[bsgk]

Well, according to Al Gore, it has a lot more to do with Global Warming than the tilt of the axis.

Re:Dark Spot on Uranus?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, you're saying that there's gas giants on Uranus?

Re:Dark Spot on Uranus?

[Anonymous Coward]

Uranus is a gas giant, since there's going to be some wind going on there

Boy, I'll say! I think I should have passed on that 3rd chili dog at Der Wienerschnitzel.

Re:Dark Spot on Uranus?

[sherms]

The title says it all! I loved the wording it was changed to on /. .

Re:Dark Spot on Uranus?

[robertjw]

Yeah. Stupid global warming!

Re:Dark Spot on Uranus?

[hcdejong]

Has anyone noticed the size of that dark spot? It's 3000 km wide, and all we have is a 20x20 pixel image.
1. Considering Uranus is 2x10E9 km away, it's amazing we even have this much.
2. Why don't we know more? All we have in terms of 'nearby observation' is one of the Voyagers passing by.

Re:Dark Spot on Uranus?

[kmhebert]

Ha, I didn't even consider the scientific implications of this. My mind went RIGHT for the "your anus" jokes. It's just how I am I guess. I imagine there are giant gas storms on Saturn and maybe Neptune also, probably due solely to gravitational effects since the sun is too weak to really cause big storms there (unlike on Earth and Venus, where solar effects are by far the greatest influence on atmospheric change). But science goes right out the window when it comes time to discuss the gas storms of Uranus.

Re:Dark Spot on Uranus?

[Anonymous Coward]

it's like a billion nerds cried out the same joke - and were suddenly silenced.

Re:Dark Spot on Uranus?

[draxredd]

are you implying that the sun don't shine on Uranus ?

Re:Dark Spot on Uranus?

[mazarin5]

Planets that large are still very warm from their initial gravitational collapse and minor nuclear processes. For instance, the moons of Jupiter and Saturn receive more heat from their planet than from the Sun.

Re:Dark Spot on Uranus?

[einnar2000]

"Enormous cyclones I think are just a side-effect of gas"

Fixed your statement.

Re:Dark Spot on Uranus?

[Jugalator]

Must... resist... bad... jokes...

Hmm, I wonder if X marks the spot here too? :-o

Re:Dark Spot on Uranus?

[Lazarian]

Uranus is different from the other planets in the fact its axis is tilted almost ninety degrees - for two periods of its 84 year orbit one half of the planet is always pointed away from the sun. From the picture it looks like right now its equator is perpendicular towards sunward. Even though its distance means it would recieve little solar heat, it does have a large surface area. I would think that right now any heat would be more or less evenly distributed because of its rotation. But it would be interesting to see if heat transport would make the atmosphere more violent when one side of the planet is always bathed in sunlight while the other is in the dark, about twenty years from now. Maybe Uranus might have violent/calm /violent phases as it travels around the sun during its "year".

Re:Dark Spot on Uranus?

[rjstegbauer]

I nominate this as the best Uranus joke in this thread.

Good Work!

Re:Dark Spot on Uranus?

[chris_mahan]

nice sig, cubicle-mentat

Re:Dark Spot on Uranus?

[argStyopa]

Is it solar input, or is Uranus generating its own heat internally?

I can't even type that with a straight face.

Re:Dark Spot on Uranus?

[Anonymous Coward]

winds whirl and ... churn ... in ... Uranus,
Never good when you have winds and churning in Uranus.

Re:Dark Spot on Uranus?

[roseblood]

Gravitational heating left over from the formation of the planets and radioactive decay both provide for heat in the cores of the planets in our solar system. For alot of detail on this subject you can look here

Re:Dark Spot on Uranus?

[chucumite_mutante]

That's why it should be renamed to urectum

Re:Dark Spot on Uranus?

[linuxguy1454]

OK, time to salvage this from all the jokes.

From the image, it looks like the spot could be 19.5 degrees north of the equator. Years ago, I read a paper by Richard C. Hoagland, author of The Monuments of Mars: A City on the Edge of Forever (1987). Although a lot of his paper seemed like wild speculation to me, I remember one "message" he deduced from the so-called area near the "face on Mars." There is a characteristic of planetary dynamics which produces an anomoly at 19.5 degrees north or south lattitude, depending on the magnetic pole of the planet. This is related to the rotating molten core of the planet.

Jupiter's famous red spot is a 19.5 deg. south lattitude. Hoagland predicted a spot on Neptune at 19.5 degrees lattitude before the Voyager discovered it. On earth, Hawaii's Mona Loa volcano, the world's largest and continuously active volcano, is at 19.5 deg. north lattitude. (The Hawaiian islands were all made by passing over the spot where Mona Loa is now.) Olympus Mons, the largest volcano in the solar system, is at 19.5 deg lattitude. The "face on Mars" is 1/3 of the way around from Olympus Mons, at 19.5 deg. lattitude.

So the spot on Uranus (not on mine!) has nothing to do with solar energy. It is an artifact of planetary dynamics.

As an additional note- if you place a tetrahedron (a triangular pyramid) inside a shpere so that it's tip touches the north pole and it's 3 base points touch the insides of the sphere, they touch at 19.5 degrees south lattitude.

Re:Dark Spot on Uranus?

[Convector]

Even more odd is the fact that Uranus seems to lack any significant internal heat generation like the other gas giants have. I don't know if the reason for that has ever been resolved.

Re:Dark Spot on Uranus?

[Walt Dismal]

Joke? Joke? You think that was a joke? THIS is a joke: These two Uranuses walk into a bar, see... and one of them was.. assaulted..peanut.....

Herr Commandant - nobody laughed! (shoots self in dismay).

Re:Dark Spot on Uranus?

[ParrotDroppings]

My guess is that Voyager kicked up a dustcloud from passing too close and the resulting whirlwinds are now thought to be cyclones....

eeehm...

Re:Dark Spot on Uranus?

[c_woolley]

Very cool statements. The last one needs a little qualification though. The angles of the tetrahedron must be stated. Otherwise, you could place a short, wide tetrahedron into a sphere and it could still be placed in the northern hemisphere. Nonetheless, I still found your article interesting.

Re:Dark Spot on Uranus?

[pyce]

Hmmm... Hoagland, Hoagland... Is that the guy who claimed Mars is green?

Re:Dark Spot on Uranus?

[DohnJoe]

Nonetheless, I still found your article interesting

and maybe you wish to subscribe to his newsletter?

Re:Dark Spot on Uranus?

[gstoddart]

So the spot on Uranus (not on mine!) has nothing to do with solar energy. It is an artifact of planetary dynamics.

As an additional note- if you place a tetrahedron (a triangular pyramid) inside a shpere so that it's tip touches the north pole and it's 3 base points touch the insides of the sphere, they touch at 19.5 degrees south lattitude.

I'm not refuting you, since I'm not qualified to. But it absolutely bakes my noodle that planetary features would always occur at 19.5 degrees south lattitude. What forces could possibly be happening to make planets all end up with significant features at the same point?

And, how does the pyramid come into play? Does this mean we need to start listening to all of the looney people talking about pyramid power and chrystals?

Your post sounds as if you know what you're talking about, but for me it just opens up a bunch of other questions that make my head hurt. :-P

Cheers

Re:Dark Spot on Uranus?

[TeknoHog]

As a grammar-national socialist I'm implying that the Sun doesn't shine on Uranus.

Re:Dark Spot on Uranus?

[CheshireCatCO]

Holy too much sig. fig., Batman! None of the Great Red Spot,the Great Dark Spot, and the Great White Spot are at 19.5 degrees south latitude on their respective planets. Their latitudes vary around 20 degrees south, but 19.5 is putting way too much precision on it. (If Hoagland insists on being that precise, then you have to accept that the numbers disagree with the data.) Plus, the Great Dark Spot disappeared a while ago. How does that fit in with the theories? And how does he base his prediction on the existence of Sunspots at 19.5 degrees latitude (they exist everywhere up to ~ +/-30 degrees on the Sun) and the "great dark spot" of Uranus which didn't even exist when he claimed to be basing his predictions off of it. (Voyager looked. The planet was basically featureless at that time.)

Really, if you want to go looking at around 19.5 degrees latitude (north or south, which is it?), you're going to find stuff. Especially when you go looking for storms which tend to form in the tropics and when you consider that the majority of the area of the planet lies between + and - 30 degrees latitude.

Hoagland is a crackpot, pure and simple. I invite anyone to go to his site and read his stuff, you'll quickly see what I mean. (He thinks that Iapateus is a dodecaheadron and will split apart, for example.) But he does do fascinating things with Photoshop.

Re:Dark Spot on Uranus?

[RealGrouchy]

I'm not refuting you, since I'm not qualified to. But it absolutely bakes my noodle that planetary features would always occur at 19.5 degrees south lattitude. What forces could possibly be happening to make planets all end up with significant features at the same point?

First, he said 19.5 degrees north or south.

Second, 19.5 degrees is not a point, it's a line/locus. He's not saying that Slartybartfarst always signs on the same point on the canvas.

Third, I find your "I can't think of an explanation for these facts, therefore we would do best to ignore them" argument to be scientifically insulting. PP mentioned a geometric phenomenon that is potentially significant (astronomy is closely tied with geometry).

When you say "I'm not refuting you, but..." you reall mean to say "this is fud, but..."

A better refutation would have been to ask the following questions:

- Is this just a selective set of planetary features? (I doubt it, since these are the most prominent ones on various planets, earth excluded)

- Has our observation of planets been selective to this latitude? (We've known about Jupiter's spot for a long time, and we've scoured Mars, and we know lots about Earth)

- Are the facts presented by the parent--namely, are these features at the latitudes specified--true? (I'm too lazy to check)

Pay attention to what has been said, then ask questions, then look for the answers. How well you have done that determines whether the tingling in your head feels like pain, or like knowledge.

- RG>

Re:Dark Spot on Uranus?

[CheshireCatCO]

Well, there are mitigating factors, no? Since it's spent a lot of the past few decades with a pole aimed at the Sun, one hemisphere was getting baked decently. Plus, there are no surface features to slow the winds down. Now that the other hemisphere is getting light for the first time in a while, it's also not surprising that disturbances are getting kicked up. On the original hand, Uranus does not have the source of internal heat that the other three giants have. (Well, source*s* most likely.)

Re:Dark Spot on Uranus?

[linuxguy1454]

Hoagland doesn't explain the 19.5 degree thing, he basically says that it seems to be a result of unexplained planetary dynamics for which nobody seems to have a theory for. What is more weird than the 19.5 thing is how he claims to have figured it out, be we won't go into that. The pyramid thing is just an attempt by him to provide some sort of mathematical law expressed in geometric terms that appears to be related to these unknown planetary dynamics. Like using geometric principals to explain Keplar's orbit theory. There are lots of physical phenomena that are defined by mathamatics. Why does E = M * C^2? Why F = M * a? It's just the way Mother Nature made it. It's that way so that the universe all fits together, I guess.

Re:Dark Spot on Uranus?

[linuxguy1454]

If I remember correctly, it was an equilateral pyramid. Just one of thos mysteries of the universe.

Re:Dark Spot on Uranus?

[aztektum]

Must... resist... "Uranus is a gas giant..." jokes

Re:Dark Spot on Uranus?

[gstoddart]

Second, 19.5 degrees is not a point, it's a line/locus. He's not saying that Slartybartfarst always signs on the same point on the canvas.

Yes, I know it's not a point. It happens at a given lattitude. That part I got. The bigger context, however, completely eluded me.

Third, I find your "I can't think of an explanation for these facts, therefore we would do best to ignore them" argument to be scientifically insulting. PP mentioned a geometric phenomenon that is potentially significant (astronomy is closely tied with geometry).

Where the hell do I say that? I was asking because I was genuinely interested in what the mechanics which drive this could possibly be. I'm intrigued, but I have neither a sufficient math not astronomy background to actually know enough about the topic, so I asked a question -- hell, he was rated at +5, he might have actually known a little more on the topic. I said "I don't have a clue how that would work, can anyone explain?". Very different things. I find your attitude of "if you weren't such a dumb-fuck, you'd know by now" to be insulting, so we're even.

When you say "I'm not refuting you, but..." you reall mean to say "this is fud, but..."

A better refutation would have been to ask the following questions:

No, I didn't mean to say this is FUD, and you're just making stuff up now. What I said was to the effect of "wow, that's amazing, can you or anyone shed more light on this mind-spinning phenomena ... I'm not disputing you, I'd like to know more". I even explicitly said "I'm not refuting you, since I'm not qualified to" -- you know, being ever-so-polite like we Canadians are want to be. And, since I was neither refuting him nor am I qualified to, I pointed that out so as to explicitly not appear as a flame to the poster. You, apparently, have decided to defend the poster's honour on the assumption that I was in fact flaming him, or dismissing what he said.

Pay attention to what has been said, then ask questions, then look for the answers. How well you have done that determines whether the tingling in your head feels like pain, or like knowledge.

Not to put too fine of a point on it, but I could suggest you do the same thing. I asked the question because it seemed so amazing that such a mechanism was at play. I did pay attention to what was being said, I did in fact ask questions, and I did in fact hope for answers. It's called discourse, something which slashdot has precious little of nowadays, what with all of the Uranus jokes going around.

Don't confuse a tongue in cheek reference to chrystals and pyramids to have been an attempt to cast aspersions on the poster. And, stop telling people what they said, especially when you're so blatantly wrong, it's rude. =)

Cheers

Re:Dark Spot on Uranus?

[gstoddart]

The pyramid thing is just an attempt by him to provide some sort of mathematical law expressed in geometric terms that appears to be related to these unknown planetary dynamics. Like using geometric principals to explain Keplar's orbit theory. There are lots of physical phenomena that are defined by mathamatics.

Thank you. That puts it into terms I can grok. =)

Cheers

Re:Dark Spot on Uranus?

[g-doo]

I wish the article would mention what the dark cloud implies. Do scientists think it's a storm? Does it suggest water or life?

Re:Dark Spot on Uranus?

[StalinsNotDead]

I think you meant "we Canadians are wont to be."

Re:Dark Spot on Uranus?

[g-doo]

Joke? Joke? You think that was a joke? THIS is a joke: These two Uranuses walk into a bar, see... and one of them was.. assaulted..peanut.....

Here's one. Two planets walk into a bar. Ouch.

Re:Dark Spot on Uranus?

[sdsichero]

It's "Mauna Loa" not "Mona Loa"

Re:Dark Spot on Uranus?

[merchant_x]

I think his version is correct. I've never considered Candians to be a polite people.

Re:Dark Spot on Uranus?

[jc42]

I wish the article would mention what the dark cloud implies. Do scientists think it's a storm? Does it suggest water or life?

Well, if you look at the blow-up of the storm, you can see that it's maybe about 30 pixels. Not a whole lot of information to go on.

But we can expect a few other telescopes will be aimed at it. We might hear a few more bits of information in a few months.

Re:Dark Spot on Uranus?

[davidsyes]

There is an ANNUlar confinement beam at work, hidden in the backdrop. Maybe somebody can squeeze a Dyson's Sphere out of Uranus?

Re:Dark Spot on Uranus?

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't put a non-equilateral pyramid in a sphere so that all the corners touch. :P

Re:Dark Spot on Uranus?

[famebait]

- Is this just a selective set of planetary features? (I doubt it, since these are the most prominent ones on various planets, earth excluded)

-and excluding the face on mars, which is just a fairly typical martian mountain except that is shadow patterns look a bit weird when viewed from a specific angle in a specific light using really fuzzy photography.

Re:Dark Spot on Uranus?

[Anonymous Coward]

Say what, crazy man?

Grab a tennis ball, put a finger on one spot, then three others anywhere on the ball equidistant from that first finger. Infinite non-equilateral pyramids.

Re:Dark Spot on Uranus?

[jigyasubalak]

So the spot on Uranus (not on mine!) has nothing to do with solar energy. It is an artifact of planetary dynamics. Say, the spot on Urranus has to do with what, then?

Re:Dark Spot on Uranus?

[Hoi Polloi]

Actually the sun shines out of mine and the earth revolves around me.

"Dark Spot on Uranus"

[joe_n_bloe]

Holy Cow, Beavis and Butthead never had such a straight line.

Re: "Dark Spot on Uranus"

[joe_n_bloe]

OMG, what did that take, like 30 seconds?

Hehehe

[coop247]

Dark spot on Uranus

Come on, its just too easy sometimes.

oblig.

[Kreigaffe]

Insert butt joke [here]

(insert insert joke [here])

any way to forecast this?

[jeffs72]

"forming a dark vortex large enough to engulf two-thirds of the United States."

I'd like to know when this will happen so I can move to, say, Canada.

Re:any way to forecast this?

[LaughingCoder]

The rest of the world would like to know too, so we can have some appropriate form of celebration

Nice. You know you'll miss "US" when we're gone. Who is going to buy all your products?

Re:any way to forecast this?

[diamondsw]

"forming a dark vortex large enough to engulf two-thirds of the United States."
I'd like to know when this will happen so I can move to, say, Canada.

I'd get a move on, since it's already engulfed 50% of the US as of 2004...

Re:any way to forecast this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who is going to buy all your products?

Who cares? We'll be too enthustiastic about the spontanious fuckfests in celebration of world peace to care about economics.

Re:any way to forecast this?

[orasio]

I wouldn't want the US or any other country to dissapear, but in the hypothesis where a storm were to wipe the US from the globe, most other parts of the world would probably end up winning.

Latin America, for example, that is the reality I know the most, has as a main problem its foreign debt, and most of it is owned by the US, or at least valued in dollars.

If you have a big region that produces more than it can consume, and doesn't have much foreign debt to worry about, then you wouldn't need to care about finding good markets for your products, you could care about the inside, and sell to Asia the remains, for less money than now and still have a good balance.

Right now, all the LA countries that try to focus on Latin America, have problems with the fact that they arer trading in local money, but they need dollars to pay debt.

Re:any way to forecast this?

[mr_mischief]

Hey, if you can get the people and governments all over the world to forgive U.S. debts, then maybe the U.S. can talk about forgiving yours.

How many countries aren't in debt, really? The U.S. can't even negotiate to end most of its debt, because it's privately held by parties large and small all over the world. At least we've forgiven the debts of some countries when they really needed it.

Oh, and I don't see companies in L.A. countries pouring billions of dollars in research, development, equipment, and labor into huge operations in the U.S. just to see those operations nationalized by the U.S. If you really want capitalism to work in Latin America, your countries need to honor land ownership, leases, and license rights. Nationalizing or threatening to nationalize huge foreign investments does not exactly encourage people to invest more money in your countries. Your specific country may not be doing this, but you lumped Latin America into a group and didn't make clear a specific country to debate.

The U.S. is not responsible for the entire world's economy. We do what we can for us. You need to do what you can for yourselves. That's the way trade works. Yes, we have a huge infrastructure here in the U.S., but we've built that. No other country came in and built the Roosevelt Interstate System. No other country came in and built the nationwide electric grid. No other country invented the assembly line, the microprocessor, and the airplane. Despite the fact that Hollywood studios make some really awful movies and on the whole aren't very artistic, they do invest the money into production, advertising, and distribution that makes American films the most widely watched in the world. No other country built our Atlantic to Pacific railway. No other country is the founding place and headquarters of Coca-Cola, Microsoft, or General Motors.

In order to have the economic advantages of a strong economy and solid infrastructure, you must invest in a strong economy and solid infrastructure. This is not just investment of money. It also involves laws, education, and taxes geared towards letting people make money. Our education system in the U.S. is not as good as it should be, and unfortunately doesn't show signs of improvement in the short term. However, there is still the right mix of influences to make the U.S. competitive if not to keep us in the top spot economically. Your government and the people in your country may have different priorities. In the U.S., where money is the primary tool to solve problems, a strong economy is a priority that ranks soon after national security. If your country has some other priorities that come before developing the economy that take a back seat to the economy in the U.S. and you've acheived those priorities, then you're just as successful as we are. It's about priorities.

In the U.S., socialism scares us, not because it's inherently bad but because it takes away on of the the greatest hopes we have -- that we'll be able to make enough money to take care of most of our problems. The U.S. was founded on a distrust of government to serve the needs of the people. Unfortunately, too many Americans these days don't understand that. If a socialist country really can serve the needs of its people well enough and isn't oppressive like many have been, then it wouldn't be so bad for people who could trust it to stay that way.

Re:any way to forecast this?

[Wooster_UK]

Well, someone can't be in debt, or everyone'd be in hock to everyone else and we'd be back where we started.

Re:any way to forecast this?

[who's got my nicknam]

Socialism isn't the only that scares the US - the mere thought that the Euro might become the currency of choice for trading oil (and naturally, other commodities), scares the bejezus out of the Americans. So I call Bullsh*t on the statement that the US is not responsible for the (entire) world's economy. Think about it - if we quit buying Dollars to pay our debts and import our OPEC oil, the USA would crumble in a big hurry. So in reality, it's the entire world that is responsible for the US economy. 'Struth. But this is getting WAY off topic, which is the anus jokes!

Re:any way to forecast this?

[codemachine]

> No other country built our Atlantic to Pacific railway.

Actually, I believe Canada built that before the USA did. Though our methods of getting through the Rocky Mountains isn't exactly the proudest moment for this country (lots of Chinese immigrants setting of dynamite - a number of whom died doing this rather dangerous job).

>It also involves laws, education, and taxes geared towards letting people make money. Our education system in the U.S. is not as good as it should be, and unfortunately doesn't show signs of improvement in the short term.

I wonder how long it takes for the combination of bad laws and a poor education system to bring down an economic giant like the USA. Right now a lot of the important R & D still takes place in the US. But if that starts moving offshore, along with everything else that requires cheap labour, what does that leave? Will it just be MBAs and lawyers left?

Re:any way to forecast this?

[Fnagaton]

I'd like to know when this will happen so I can move my servers! :)

Re:any way to forecast this?

[gb506]

Actually, I believe Canada built that before the USA did.

Wrong, the Canadian Pacific Railway project didn't even begin until three years after the American Transcontinental was finished.

Re:any way to forecast this?

[inKubus]

Actually, the EU is in the top spot economically. But the U.S. is a powerhouse, and united under one federal government. The problem is this government is corrupt (there, I said it) and is giving out favors to friends. It's not legal, it's not ethical, and it's causing problems we haven't even begun to see. Luckly, policially we are kindof an unstable country and who knows what the next decade will hold.

The problem with all those things you mentioned is simple: 1, the power grid is aging and needs to be updated, 2, our communications infrastructure is lagging behind (but is not horrible), the highway system is ok but manufacturing is falling behind here, and we import a shitload of oil at inflated prices. Most of our infrastructure was last updated in the 70's when we had a monopoly over the communications system, a cold war to justify deficit spending (and jumping off the gold standard), oh, and massive inflation. To reupdate the systems is going to require a similar sacrifice from today's generation, which policially is going to be difficult to achieve. To do that, we the people need to have a larger fear (like the soviet union posed) to seem like the reason for the economic problems. Someone to blame, if you will.

Re:any way to forecast this?

[LaughingCoder]

The problem is this government is corrupt (there, I said it) and is giving out favors to friends.

Get out! Governments give out favors to friends? I live in the patronage-laden bastion of democracy called Massachusetts (one party state), so claiming there is such a thing as government kickbacks and favoritism is not exactly a revelation to me - I've been living in such an environment for a long time. That said, I can attest that ascribing this (corrupt) behavior uniquely to the Bush administration is monumentally naive. The old axiom is true: Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Re:any way to forecast this?

[ncc74656]

Minor nitpick:

Yes, we have a huge infrastructure here in the U.S., but we've built that. No other country came in and built the Roosevelt Interstate System.

Nobody built the "Roosevelt Interstate System." It doesn't exist. The interstates were Eisenhower's idea.

Re:any way to forecast this?

[LaughingCoder]

... in celebration of world peace

Yeah, it was a real love-fest back before the US became a world power.

Re:any way to forecast this?

[SaidinUnleashed]

Old news... Happened in October of 1979.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoon_Tip

Re:any way to forecast this?

[Anonymous Coward]

What are you talking about? Way more than 50% of people still think it's a good idea to vote for one of the major parties, and it's been that way since before 2004...

Re:any way to forecast this?

[orasio]

Wrong thread.

Here you come, and talk about socialism, and US infrastructure, and why you deserve whatever you have.

I told the original poster that were the US to just dissapear, there would be a beneficial effect on most parts of the world, if only because debt is generally in dollars, and dollars would become nothing. Period.

I don't really care that much about your country, I don't want you to condone any debt. I was making an statement about an hypothetical situation that another poster was talking about. All the other stuff you talked about was uncalled for.

The issue was: would the US be missed if they dissapeared?
The guy said: yes! you would need our consumers.
I said: We wouldn't, because we wouldn't have as much debt, so we could sell cheaper.

About me, I would miss lots of stuff if the US actually dissapeared, there would be no slashdot, and the stali^Wmao^fidel castr^W^Whugo chavez would turn my country into a communist dictatorship, and they would force me to work in the oil plants of Venezuela. Or the terrorists will have already won, and they would make me wear a towel on my head (because we all know that terrorist=muslim). You see? I can produce off topic rants, too.

Re:any way to forecast this?

[codemachine]

Ah, my confusion was from the fact that CPR was the first company to own such a railway. The USA had one, but it was in fragments owned by different companies.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcontinental_rail road

I knew I should have looked it up before posting.

Re:any way to forecast this?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's already happened. Obviously you missed the last imperial^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hpresidential election.

Re:any way to forecast this?

[mr_mischief]

I stand corrected.

Still, no one came in and built it for the U.S. -- it had to be done within the U.S. by the U.S. from taxes raised in the U.S., or it wasn't getting done.

Re:any way to forecast this?

[inKubus]

When I said "this government", I meant this "system", and necessarily include those people within it. Ethics, what happened to ethics? But then again, what is ethical anyway?

Terrorists!

[Anonymous Coward]

>>forming a dark vortex large enough to engulf two-thirds of the United States

We can't allow the dark vortex to engulf America. We must freedomize Uranus or the dark vortex terrorists will win.

Re:Terrorists!

[voice_of_all_reason]

Protip: If the terr'ists learn how to cast "dark vortex" and "magic missile," they win. Hands down.

Re:Terrorists!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do the Klingons hate America?

Re:Terrorists!

[Megane]

Protip: If the terr'ists learn how to cast "dark vortex" and "magic missile," they win. Hands down.

Our only hope is to cast TILTOWAIT back at them to counter their Wizardry of Mass Destruction.

(note: unintentional pun was only noticed about five seconds after I typed it)

Re:Terrorists!

[DRAGONWEEZEL]

Wizardry Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord rocked!

I had that game for NES, and named all my characters after the X-men. One day I accidentally kicked the nintendo and my guys gained a LARGE HEXEDECIMAL VALUE for experience. They were all max lvl spec 1 then converted to NINJA. Of course they aged to 60, but it didn't matter.

In the end you got an [epic] ^tm item to boot!

OMG

[turnipsatemybaby]

They've found Klingons on Uranus!

Re:OMG

[n2art2]

reminds me of a favorite joke. . .

What does Captin Kirk and toliet paper have in common???

They both circle Urans in search of Klingons.

White gloves

[TheGreatOrangePeel]

Haha. Uranus has a polyp.

Not news

[MECC]

"Hubble Discovers Dark Spot on Uranus"

That's not news.

"a dark vortex large enough to engulf two-thirds of the United States" Oh yeah? Well Yo' mamma...

Re:Not news

[gEvil (beta)]

Hey now, leave Goatse out of this...

Re:Not news

[Anonymous Coward]

This comes back to the 'Yo moma' and pluto jokes about a month ago. I overheard a young teenager telling his peer one of these rude, and untasteful jokes. He spouted "Yo moma so fat, they took Pluto's planetary status away and gave it to her."

Let the humor continue.

the possiblities are endless

[anti-human 1]

I can't decide wether to go with an asinine comment about FEMA, or something off-color about colon cancer.

You're right. "Uranus" jokes are terribly overused.

--so--

Hey, I wonder if FEMA will fuck this one up too?

Phew!

[dbolger]

As long as my Plutons are ok!

In Related News....

[w3weasel]

Due to the decades of jokes involving the name of this planet, and in light of the fact that a change in pronunciation during the 80's did nothing to curb the lowbrow humor, the same panel of scientists who removed Pluto from our solar system, have deciced to rename Uranus. Henceforth, this planet shall be referred to as Urectum.

Re:In Related News....

[TrebleJunkie]

  Urectum?!?! Shit, you damn near killed 'um!

Re:In Related News....

[Bob Cat - NYMPHS]

Isaac Asimov pointed out that the pronunciation 'urinous' is not really an improvemnet.

Re:In Related News....

[kfg]

Isaac Asimov pointed out that the pronunciation 'urinous' is not really an improvemnet.

Yeah, well, I piss on his grave.

KFG

Re:In Related News....

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it should be pronouced like,

  oorAnoos

U sounds line oo not you. Like moo, goo, poo :) not like in opera or other.

Re:In Related News....

[iron-kurton]

I always knew the Uranians were up to no good

Another Futurama reference...

[celardore]

You're right. "Uranus" jokes are terribly overused.

We renamed that planet centuries ago to stop all the silly jokes.
What did you call it?
Urectum.

BTW...

[Anonymous Coward]

The parent is the obiligitory Futureama quote.

In related news...

[Hollyfeld]

Astronomers will hold a conference to name the vortex - current frontruners include dirty penny and brown starfish.....

Re:In related news...

[Nimey]

ObJoke: Why don't Congressmen use bookmarks?

Because they prefer their pages bent over.

Re:In related news...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ouch, very timely comment! :-)

Re:Big deal

[Anonymous Coward]

A dark wpot on your anus could be cancerous.

Did I mispell Uranus ?

Re:I see it..

[Rob T Firefly]

Is not a tumor! </ahnold>

Hurricane season

[OakDragon]

A little off-topic, but since the posting does mention it...

Just as we near the end of the hurricane season in the Atlantic Ocean

The National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration still has this headline on their front page:

NOAA Continues to Predict Above-normal Hurricane Season

So what kind of hurricane season have we had?

• Tropical Storm Alberto
• Tropical Storm Beryl
• Tropical Storm Chris
• Tropical Storm Debby
• Hurricane Ernesto
• Hurricane Florence
• Hurricane Gordon
• Hurricane Helene
• Hurricane Isaac

Four named storms and 5 hurricanes. Not shabby, but way short of the (revised, even ) forecast: 12 to 15 named storms, 7-9 hurricanes, and 3-4 major hurricanes.

And thank goodness they were so wrong. Some of those hurricanes were pretty stiff, but fortunately none made landfall.

Re:Hurricane season

[stupidfoo]

Clearly, global warming is causing this lack of hurricanes and major storms.

Why not? It gets blamed for everything else.

Re:Hurricane season

[UbuntuDupe]

It's alright though, if one year there aren't many hurricanes, we can just delete it from the evidence when proving that ExxonMobil is causing natural disasters.

Re:Hurricane season

[Raistlin77]

Last I checked, hurricanes were named storms.

Re:Hurricane season

[OakDragon]

Oops, sorry. You are correct, of course. It should be pointed out, in the spirit of your correction, that the 12 to 15 named storms include the hurricanes & major hurricanes. I know that's obvious to most, but...

Re:Hurricane season

[ronanbear]

The pirates are working, praise be to his noodly appendage!

Re:Hurricane season

[Cyberax]

Heatwaves?

Re:Hurricane season

[LMacG]

Although we are closer to the end of the season than the beginning, it does officially last until November 30, so there is a chance of more activity.

However, there have been reports that a developing El Nino has reduced the likelihood of hurricane formation.

Re:Hurricane season

[radtea]

The National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration still has this headline on their front page:

All weather organizations everywhere are incredibly biased toward reporting their predictions rather than reality, as if their predictions were either newsworthy or remotely accurate.

There was a case in Winnipeg a few years ago where a major storm hit the city and yet Environment Canada continued to report "possibility of snow flurries" twelve hours after the whole city had shut down due to heavy snowfall. The idiot from the local weather office was interviewed on local TV and appeared to simply not understand the question, "Why did you keep reporting the possibility of light snowfall for half a day after there was over 30 cm of snow on the ground?" They instead talked about how storms sometimes change course unexpectedly. I have never seen such a stupid person on television, and that's including the newscasters who report every interesting weather event as evidence of global climate change.

Weather prediction and climate prediction don't have much in common with each other, however. It is a fact that doubling the C02 concentration in the atmosphere changes the tropospheric heat flux by about 4 W/m**2 on a total mean insolation of 240 W/m**2 at the top of the troposphere. Changing the effective insolation by almost 2% is a very large perturbation, and while no one knows what the effects will be in detail, the claim that there will not be an effect is equivalent to claiming that insulating my roof will have no effect on the energy balance in my home. That change may appear in the form of differing temperatures, or in other effects, but to claim that it is possible to hit the system with such a large perturbation and have no effect whatsoever, which is what climate-change-deniers say, is simply not on.

Re:Hurricane season

[SETIGuy]

Four named storms and 5 hurricanes.

Isn't that 9 named storms and 5 hurricanes? A named storm doesn't stop being a named storm when it becomes a hurricane.

Re:Hurricane season

[Anonymous Coward]

The pirates are working, praise be to his noodly appendage!

I am posting anonymously because I work for NOAA. This is more true than you know. Under the cover of "talk like a Pirate" day, surplus weather ships have been deployed to key hotspots in the Caribbean, and are currently waving their swords at passing storms, warding off landfall. The recent Johnny Depp sequel contained coded messages to deploy, they can be read by looking at the fifth pirate's hat in the first boat scene and factoring the $(@FNDSK%$$##OW NO CARRIER

Re:Hurricane season

[ArtStone]

Not Global Warming - Global Climate Change!

Get with the program...

That way no matter what happpens, the research scientists (and politicians) are going to right, and we know how important that is.

Did I hear that the Ozone Hole got bigger this year even with CFCs being outlawed?
http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7005070041

Revised estimates are that ozone levels won't be back to "normal" over Antartica until 2065.

The reason the hole appears to have grown to a record size this season was unusually *cold* tempereratures in the stratosphere this winter (winter in the Southern Hemisphere, that is). Surely a cold stratosphere is proof of the existance of man made global warming!

http://www.ghcc.msfc.nasa.gov/MSU/msusci.html

Now this information puts forth the idea that cooler strophosphere temperatures are *due* to ozone depletion, not caused by it... and that CO2 levels are also responsible. Ignore the two big red spikes when major volcanic eruptions occurred. Data points like that are not relevant to computing average values or trends - they just tend to make computer models produce strange predictions.

Or try this reasearch:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2004-11/uow -std112904.php

That the esimates in the models were off by 40 to 70% of what would happen to the temperature of the trophosphere because of "contamination" of the data from the strophosphere data.

Can I go back to eating my transfats now?

Keep The Bad Jokes Coming, Folks

[ettlz]

Let's send up some bog roll on a rocket.

We're going for the fucking record here!

Re:Keep The Bad Jokes Coming, Folks

[Skippyboy]

I only have one thing to say... GOATSE

ob

[Anonymous Coward]

Fry: Did you build the Smelloscope?

Professor Hubert Farnsworth: No, I remembered that I'd built one last year. Go ahead, try it. You'll find that every heavenly body has its own particular scent. Here, I'll point it at Jupiter.

Fry: Smells like strawberries.

Professor Hubert Farnsworth: Exactly. And now, now Saturn.

Fry: Pine needles. Oh, man, this is great... hey, as long as you don't make me smell Uranus.

Leela: I don't get it.

Professor Hubert Farnsworth: I'm sorry, Fry, but astronomers renamed Uranus in 2620 to end that stupid joke once and for all.

Fry: Oh. What's it called now?

Professor Hubert Farnsworth: Urrectum. Here, let me locate it for you.

Damn global warming!

[chocho99]

Oh wait...

Found a what on the what now?

[0xdeadbeef]

Farnsworth: I'm sorry, Fry, but astronomers renamed Uranus in 2620 to end that stupid joke once and for all.

Fry: Oh. What's it called now?

Farnsworth: Urrectum. Here, let me locate it for you.

Re:Found a what on the what now?

[Anonymous Coward]

must... retain... composure...

awww fuck it

And in other news, NASA has named their newest vessel "Space Shuttle Asscream".

Re:Found a what on the what now?

[jpetts]

Bah, old hat! Dedicated fans of Spitting Image will remember the Spitting Image sketch from the 80s in the UK when they had Sir Alistair Burnett do a spot where it was announced that the planet would be called Bumhole (pronounced Byoomhoelay).

Re:Found a what on the what now?

[XV-745]

Coincidentally, the image credit includes a P. Fry... (seriously).

well...

[jimstapleton]

I guess it didn't loosten it's asteroid belt fast enough when it got to the big dipper...

Please lay off the Uranus jokes

[theskipper]

It just makes you look desperate for a +5 funny.

The poor planet has been the butt of far too many attempts at humor.

Re:Please lay off the Uranus jokes

[Anonymous Coward]

Absolutely. You're reaching to the bottom of the barrel with such jokes.

Re:Please lay off the Uranus jokes

[Stupidfat]

Hopefully we can get past all this and everything will come out alright in the end.

Re:Please lay off the Uranus jokes

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd have to be a real butthole to keep making jokes about Uranus.

Re:Please lay off the Uranus jokes

[Hoi Polloi]

Someday we'll wipe away all of these blemishes on Uranus.

Re:Please lay off the Uranus jokes

[Anonymous Coward]

Now that's something I can get behind..

No need to get all uptight about it..

The end is near...

Re:Please lay off the Uranus jokes

[Anonymous Coward]

Relax. It's not like we're talking about your anus. Are you with the lobby to pronounce it "Urine-Us"?

Re:Please lay off the Uranus jokes

[nacturation]

The poor planet has been the butt of far too many attempts at humor.

No shit.

Re:Please lay off the Uranus jokes

[Timeburn]

...including this one...

Re:Please lay off the Uranus jokes

[Anonymous Coward]

Q: Why is the starship enterprise like toilet paper?

A: Because both circle uranus wiping out klingons!

(Thanks... I'll be here all week)

Planetary dingleberries?

[frodo527]

Planetary dingleberries?

Re:Planetary dingleberries?

[goofyspouse]

Oh, for some mod points today!

hurricane in uranus

[somersault]

now that's a bad case of wind..

Re:Big deal

[Anonymous Coward]

Not sure, but is "wpot" not supposed to have two t's?

this coming mere days before

[jimstapleton]

attempting to cover the problem of the jokes about the name "Uranus" by renaming the planet to "Urknickers"...

Obvious suspect.

[PHAEDRU5]

Global warming. Right?

In related news...

[Billosaur]

...the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA have announced they will be sending aid to Uranus as quickly as possible, though there are already calls for an investigation into the slow government response, since the image in question came at the end of August.

NASA Can Fix it with this?

[dthomas731]

Send a space shuttle full of this. That should take care of it.

I got moderator points and then *this* showed up

[mykepredko]

So, I went and used them on the 10 geek wallets article.

myke

star trek joke

[scharkalvin]

"How is the USS Enterprise like a roll of toilet paper?"

"They both go round Uranus looking for Klingons"

Re:star trek joke

[Jehosephat2k]

Q: Why is the Starship Enterprise like a roll of toilet paper? A: It wiped out the Klingons around Uranus. (bada-bing)

Bad rectal jokes aside...

[Beefslaya]

I'm totally amazed by the photos take with the Hubble. (I've had several desktops with them :) )

Wasn't the Hubble "injured" last week?

I can't wait for the next telescope, especially with all the latest digital photo advances.

Hubble is a success, no matter how many times it breaks.

So what if it has to take naps between shots?

Re:Bad rectal jokes aside...

[Anonymous Coward]

Dang! The Hubble is a remarkable scientific instrument, doing excellent work in exploring our universe despite the insecure funding situation. The Hubble program needs interest, approval and support from the public - But what kind of slashdotting does it get? Bleah.

Re:Bad rectal jokes aside...

[ParrotDroppings]

Noooooooo,
Please not be slashdotting Hubble!
It is difficult enough as it is that Hubble be taking sleep after new shots.

eeehm...

Good Heavens...

[certain death]

I have been sitting here for about 20 minutes trying to come up with something serious to say about this...I give up!!!!!!!!!!!! Once you have read all the comments with the jokes, it is impossible to think of anything else...must be some kinda mind control.

Re:Good Heavens...

[Ant P.]

It's called "groupthink".

in other news..

[mottie]

One camp of scientists believe the dark spot is raised in elevation and are thus vying to name it "the turtlehead" whereas another group believes that it is actually a hole, and is fighting to name the spot "puckered starfish". More to follow.

Hubble Discovers Dark Spot on Uranus

[Rik Sweeney]

Too many jokes...

Head explodes

A dark spot...

[MrNaz]

...on my what?

Re:A dark spot...

[MrNaz]

Dammit I should have read the other posts first. Scratch that, I really should have PREDICTED the other posts and not made a joke that was bound to have been made once for every meter between here and Uranus.

Tee hee!

Only Two Thirds?

[Anonymous Coward]

Two thirds of the United States is already engulfed by its own anus.

I saw the topic....

[Churla]

And I knew.. there would not be ONE serious discussion on the topic. People asking for a cessation of rectal humor are basically.. well.. fartin in the wind.

Re:I saw the topic....

[LittleGuy]

I blame Mister Tony.

I can't even look at a Linux thread without breaking out into the Penguin Dance.

dark spot news...

[Sfing_ter]

if only the universe had been taught to wipe...

In other news, noxious gases found emanating from dark spot on uranus... news at 11.

In more other news, Wyeth Pharmecuticals reports triple earnings for this quarter after getting contract with US Gov for giant tube of Preperation-H...

ahem... must stop, but the jokes KEEP HAPPENING!!!!

A dark spot that covers 2/3's of the USA?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mexicans?

I'll bet anyone $10...

[Diordna]

that Ze Frank is going to cover this today under "Dirty Space News."

In the future...

[Anonymous Coward]

...there will be no jokes about Uranus, they will change the name of the planet to Urectum.

Typical slashdot

[Pao|o]

This is such a shitty topic

The end of another RECORD BREAKING....

[Anonymous Coward]

hurricane season caused by GLOBAL WARMING and- what? It was a very mild season? Oops. Ummm... Ah! Don't you see? GLOBAL WARMING suppressed the hurricane activity! If you disagree with me, you are evil and hate kittens!

On a more serious note

[noigmn]

On a more serious note there is a dark spot somewhere near the pole in Uranus which is creating a dark vortex large enough to engulf two-thirds of the United States. Should we be worried. And is this any danger to the planet?

Who would've thought...

[helfom]

Who would've thought that mooning the HST would be news worthy?

Uranus is a gas giant...

[Anonymous Coward]

and it has a dark spot... I wish I could say I am mature enough not to laugh, but I'm not.

Re:Uranus is a gas giant...

[metamatic]

It's true, Uranus really is full of methane gas. Look it up.

Re:Uranus is a gas giant...

[DesertWolf0132]

So not only are you laughing about Uranus having a dark spot (that probably requires a biopsy), you think it is funny to call it giant and infer that it farts alot? That is just plain mean. Wait, we are talking planets...very well, carry on...nothing to see here...

Re:Uranus is a gas giant...

[JohnnyLocust]

I hope the Futurama prophecy comes true, and they rename that damn planet to Urectum. These childish jokes just aren't very becoming.

Re:Uranus is a gas giant...

[toadlife]

"It's true, Uranus really is full of methane gas. Look it up."

Perhaps the gas on uranus originates from the dark spot?

wtf how did this get slashdotted?

[halgorithm]

C'mon people - this was on Fark A WEEK ago...

Slashdot used to be cool, but now full of bumbling idiots that think their oh so funny with their fart and butt jokes. Keep it up; makes me looks smrt.

Re:wtf how did this get slashdotted?

[KillerBob]

This was on my Hubble Site block at the upper-right corner of my Slashdot page 2 weeks ago.... Really on the ball on this one. Truly.

Re:wtf how did this get slashdotted?

[Jondor]

Slashdot, stuff that mattered..

Re:wtf how did this get slashdotted?

[Anonymous Coward]

hahahahahaha

Re:wtf how did this get slashdotted?

[ParrotDroppings]

SlashNot
Stuff that Splattered

eeehm...

Yup, definately my anus

[gatkinso]

easily could engulf the US AND Canada.

That's no moon!

[stinkyweezelteets]

At least it wasn't an ass joke.

I thought the Gays caused the Hurricanes?

[FatSean]

The Gays, Hugo Chavez, and the terrists.

Two-thirds of the United States?!

[Yvan256]

[...] a dark vortex large enough to engulf two-thirds of the United States.

How big is that in libraries of congress?

Uh Oh... This can only mean one thing...

[commisaro]

But I for one welcome our new Uranean, vortex-wielding overlords.

That's it, I'm M2'ing anyone who -1's the humor

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll "unfair" meta-moderate anyone who -1/offtopics any of the funny Uranus posts in this thread.

Yeah, I know this post is offtopic but I had to rant.

Colbert Show Fodder

[25PercentScanline]

It's fantastic stories like this that keep Stephen Colbert swimming in massive amounts of ill-gotten lucre. I'm taking bets that his annoying deadpan, O-Reilly style comedy show shall be all about Uranus tonight, and all about Hisanus later.

Can't control it

[Hoi Polloi]

Must...not...make...obvious...jokes...about...Uran us!

I can't resist...

"Today thousands of Slashdot readers injured their backs trying to see the dark spot on Uranus they were told existed"

Oh god, my brain!

[Channard]

Thanks, Slashdot. Just when I'd forgotten about the 'anal bleaching' procedure shown on Channel 5 a while back, this topic title brought all the horror flooding back.

Re:Oh god, my brain!

[gstoddart]

Thanks, Slashdot. Just when I'd forgotten about the 'anal bleaching' procedure shown on Channel 5 a while back, this topic title brought all the horror flooding back.

Oh, sure, now the rest of us have to know there is such thing as anal bleaching. Thanks. Now I have that concept indelibly etched into my brain.

I mean, WTF would you need to even do that for? Losing out on all of those lucrative ass-modelling jobs because it's a little too dark down there? It's not like whitening your teeth; I mean, who the hell is even gonna know?

I can see the commercials now .... "I used to have low self-esteem due to an overly dark anus, but with new laser butt-whitening, I feel good about myself again."

Man, people do the stupidest things.

Cheers

We should have signed

[Mainusch]

I just know some whacko left-wingers are going to blame this on Republicans for rejecting Kyoto, and me personally for using an aerosol can twenty years ago.

Re:We should have signed

[Anonymous Coward]

I know the lobotomized Republican legislature and administration is will not cut NASA funding, if NASA asks for money building a search and destroy robot to hunt for Al-Qaeda bases on Mars and start a lunar penal colony for pedophiles. You are welcome to send up Republican congressman Mark Foley up first. While we're on the science category, its interesting to note that gubernatorial challenger Dick DeVos is trying to bring intelligent design into Michigan classrooms. What the hell is wrong with the right wing ideological Republicans? By trying to mess up the US science educational curriculum? Earth to Republicans! We don't want the US to become some ass backward hick country where religion is constantly attacking science and technology. Thanks for the partisian commentary it was nice to have this exchange of the minds. Of course in your case you've lobotomized by watching Faux News.

Re:We should have signed

[Anonymous Coward]

You're a fucking moron and you're off topic as well.

It's a Klingon

[Ranger]

*da* *bump* *bump*. Thank you very much. I'll be here all week.

Heck, I didn't need the hubble to tell me that!

[insanarchist]

*ducks*

One Word!!

[Skippyboy]

GOATSE!

boss's orders

[helfom]

Boss: "I want you to take the first definitive images of the dark spot on Uranus."
Ass-tronomer: "You want me to do what?"

Five minutes later he hands a xerox to his boss...

Ass-tronomer: "Here, but I don't want this to become public..."

)MFG RTFM - and you find

[Sfing_ter]

One of the people credited with the photograph/story is P. Fry... hey wait a minute....

Is this really a joke?

[BattleHawk]

Futurama reference?

Photo Credit: Credit: NASA, ESA, L. Sromovsky and P. Fry (University of Wisconsin), H. Hammel (Space Science Institute), and K. Rages (SETI Institute)

Re:Is this really a joke?

[Dachannien]

Yes, but is that the P. Fry from Earth, or the P. Fry from Hovering Squid World 97-A?

Re:Big deal

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL! Where are moderation points when you need them!

Dark Spot on Uranus

[kbox]

.. That's nothing, You should see the pimple on urscrotum.

Event Horizon

[sieb]

Could it be where the Event Horizon sucked itself into a black hole? Or was that Neptune?

I dont' care..

[GmAz]

I don't care what you say, I'm not going to the doctor!

Unless, of course, you're wearing a speedo!

[insanarchist]

*ducks again*

Re:Unless, of course, you're wearing a speedo!

[Anonymous Coward]

God damn!! I hate when people attempt a joke and then are the first one to *laugh* at it.

Your name wouldn't happen to be Omar, would it?

*geese*

Re:Unless, of course, you're wearing a speedo!

[insanarchist]

Huh?

Wrong planet

[Anonymous Coward]

I, for one, welcome our new... wait! They targeted the wrong planet! It's supposed to be Jupiter!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010:_Odyssey_Two
http://www.futurevisions.net/pchen/digital/04_Jupi ter-2010.jpeg

BBC analogies

[suv4x4]

forming a dark vortex large enough to engulf two-thirds of the United States.

Last time I looked for it US was still on Earth! But who cares, let's delve into curious, if pointless, analogies.

Did you know that if I print my hard drive on paper as hexadecimal Arial 14pt, the stack will reach the moon?

The number of connections possible in my brain are more than the atoms in the universe! Of course most of us in practise sport a lot less connections, since apparently atoms are in defficit.

At least, with IPv6, every atom on *earth* can have their own IP!

A dark hole that could engulf 2/3 of the US . . .

[mmell]

Isn't that called the Democratic party? *smiles politely*

Easy on the flames - it started out as an Oprah joke!

Maybe...

[d3m0nCr4t]

Hemorrhoids ?

Can't... resist...

[93 Escort Wagon]

Isn't the Hubble supposed to be pointing away from Earth?

Avoiding the obvious toilet jokes for a sci-fi one

[Comboman]

The dark spot appears to be comprised of thousands of black monoliths that are increasing at a geometric rate and look something like this.

Re:You iAnsensiti7e clod!

[Anonymous Coward]

Foolish goatse troll, in your attempt to flood the slashtubes, you've inadvertently posted something related to the topic! Feel the burning sting of relevancy!

(you still gotta do something about that cat walking on your keyboard, though.)

On Uranus or in Uranus?

[SanderDJ]

English isn't my first language, you know...

Re:On Uranus or in Uranus?

[BigCheese]

With this story you should be thankful for that.

YAUJ (Yet Another Uranus Joke)

[Anonymous Coward]

Valentine: Beef jerky?
Coleman: No.. thank you.. it gives me the wind something terrible.

All these worlds are yours except Uranus

[smitty97]

My God! It's full of stars!

Re:All these worlds are yours except Uranus

[Anonymous Coward]

That is mine.

my turn, my turn, my turn...

[trianglecat]

bum bum. Poopie, poopie, bum bum.

phew, thought I would miss my chance to get in on this.

Uranus is now Urectum, remember?

[Gothmolly]

Geesh, you young whippersnappers. Everyone knows its called Urectum now.

Same?

[Cisko Kid]

I wonder if this is the same type of phenomenon that causes spots on Neptune and Jupiter.

a dark spot on my anus?

[dummkopf]

whoa!

See....

[Anonymous Coward]

Global warming is TOTALLY out of control!

Global Warming

[SnarfQuest]

This is just further proof that global warming exists, and is caused by SUV's.

Planetary Pun, Trial #1

[Phoenix666]

Well, that's now how the story goes the way I heard it.

What I heard happened was that you took a trip to Europa and wound up at a party where you were trying to pick up this chick Phoebe and her friend Miranda. They blew you off so you started drinking way too much Ganymede. Before you knew it, you were so blasted that some leatherman who was built like Atlas and hung like a Titan packed you into his Saturn, lowered your Kuiper belt and violated your I/O protocols. Then you released an Oort cloud. Somehow you wound up back in your hotel. But the next day you discovered you had the dark spot on Uranus.

At least that's how I heard it. Sucks, dude.

Hubblesite.org's headline is funnier...

[StressGuy]

To be honest, I was avoiding this thread because the headline was just begging for a flood or "uranus" jokes. Then I thought, "I bet the actual article is not such an obvious straight line". Well,

"Hubble Discovers Dark Cloud in the Atmosphere of Uranus"

I stand corrected.

Re:You iAnsensiti7e clod!

[pile0nades]

Who the hell keeps doing these crap posts?

So we've found the problem...

[ArAgost]

So they managed to track down what is Hubble's current problem. Just send someone to clean the sensor, and the dark spot will be gone forever.

Let Me Get A Mirror...

[littlewink]

My Gawd! You're right! How...???

Media spin in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ...

[tbone1]

Just more proof that Bush hates Uranians.

Uranus should be renamed to Digg.com

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL that would be funny.

I have the answer for that....

[Metroid72]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anal_bleaching

So that's what they use Hubble for these days

[Knutsi]

Nudists be warned! Ok, the story was interesting. Seriously,

Re:oh noes

[CarnivoreMan]

I prefer to call them dingle-berries

smelloscope

[helfom]

Quick! Follow up with Farnsworth's smelloscope!

And in a follow up segment...

[hurting now]

The dark spot shall be now know as, the ass hole vortex.

Personally, this story is full of crap.

Dark Spot on Uranus?

[Ruvim]

Did the show it to a doctor?

Uranus: Ass of the Solar System

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, this just proves my theory that uranus is the anus of sol. We should start seeing asteroids flying away from the sun from uranus soon. Probably in the future a new spatial material will be detected (some kind of 'hyper-space') around a million km past uranus, forming a bubble of regular 'space' around the solar system.

Aha!

[Aqua_boy17]

So...the goatse guy is finally unveiled!

Sadly though, your sig belies your claim.

Corrections & Context

[maggard]

No other country came in and built the Roosevelt Interstate System.

Neither did the US.

It's the Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways.

No other country invented the assembly line, the microprocessor, and the airplane.

Neither did the US.

Look up the history of the assembly line and airplanes. As to the microprocessor, it was indeed a US invention but like the other examples it was also product of an international community of research & development in microelectronics.

There's nothing wrong with nationalistic pride, but let's not imagine these achievements occured ab novo or uniquely in the US.

Re:Corrections & Context

[maggard]

No other country came in and built the Roosevelt Interstate System.

Neither did the US.

It's the Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways.

Oh, and the US Interstate Highway System was inspired by the German's Autobahn. And of course a national roadway system is famously an invention of the Romans.

Re:Corrections & Context

[susano_otter]

You do make some valuable corrections to the parent post, but you seem to have missed its point: That no other nation came in and gave America the benefits of these things. Americans had to build these things themselves, for themselves. Likewise, other nations that wish to enjoy the benefits of these things will have to build these things themselves, for themselves. And they will have to pay the price for these benefits, just like America has.

Re:Corrections & Context

[mr_mischief]

Thanks for the correction on the interstate system.

As for airplanes, balloons, blimps, and kites are not airplanes. A glider is not an airplane. A powered, heavier than air contraption that is not controllable is not a working airplane. No one schedules 75 passenegrs for a flight departing from Chicago and arriving at some random place at some random time, if at all. The Wikipedia entry you cite lists the Wright brothers as attaining the first heavier-than-air, powered, controlled flight. I didn't say "flying machine". I very specifically said "airplane". The Chinese invented black powder, but a German still invented trinitrotoluene.

As for the assembly line, the wikipedia entry you cite states that Whitney, Olds, and Ford were the main bearers of that idea. Yes, other ideas led up to it. It was an American, whether Olds or Ford, that combined the ideas successfully.

Combining multiple ideas in new ways to make something new is what most inventions are. Radios and telephones existed before the cellular telephone. Wireless home phones, local non-cellular radio mobile phones, and cellular radio networks for other purposes already existed, in fact. I'm sure someone gets credit as the inventor of the cellular phone. The camera phone combines cellular radio networking, telephone features, and digital photography which all existed before. It's still considered an invention because it was a novel concept to put them all together -- successfully -- even after cellular phones existed.

Saying that the Wrights didn't invent the airplane is kind of like saying Benz didn't invent the gasoline-powered automobile because carts (even prototypes of ones powered by other means) and internal combustion engines already existed (or maybe because Marcus's hand cart with a gasoline engine counts as an "automobile" by some definition with which most people would disagree). It's kind of like saying that Tim Berners-Lee didn't invent the Web because Archie, Gopher, WAIS, Telnet, UUCP, SMTP, and FTP already existed and he just combined ideas in a new way and got it to work. It's kind of like saying the television wasn't an invention because moving pictures and radios already existed.

How to avoid some of the stupid jokes....

[FreakerSFX]

Dark spot found on PLANET Uranus.....would it be so hard to have put the planet in there to reduce the number of people making the base, utterly stupid jokes that this thread is no doubt full of.

I mean the header as written is total pun-fodder. This at least would have made the jokes even less amusing and therefore would have dissuaded at least some of the more intelligent people from making.....what the fuck am I saying? Anyone making these jokes wouldn't fit into that category anyway.

Nothing to see here....

Re:How to avoid some of the stupid jokes....

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds to me, like you really need to get laid

Well what do you expect

[pavon]

It is a Giant Gas planet after all.

Uranus Pun Charge

[thorkyl]

Ok folks,
      Everyone put a quarter in the pun jar

--
Well i checked and its not on mine so it must be on uranus

sorry but I am forced to say

[ElephanTS]

That is going to need a lot of cream.

A marvelous discovery

[Anonymous Coward]

This is wonderful. Scientists have finally located "the place where the sun don't shine".

I thought Republicans caused hurricanes

[contrar1an]

How can there be a hurricane where there are no Republicans?

i say

[jaimz22]

I say it's going to turn out to be a huge marketing ploy by charmin toilet paper!

Dark Vortex

[AnyThingButWindows]

I thought it was called a 'Fry Hole'. But Steven Hawking wanted to call it a 'Hawking Hole'.

is there no privacy?

[wardk]

damn, how did they spot that? note to self: no more naked hot tubbing in daylight

Um, no...

[spun]

No, no, no. I am not going to look up Uranus to see if it is full of methane gas. I'm not falling for that one again.

Re:Um, no...

[nschubach]

Well played!

Re:Um, no...

[operagost]

Oh, ok. But could you pull my finger, before you go? Got a little cramp in it.

Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares...?

Cancer?

[cartel]

Maybe it's cancer. Better get that checked out...

Dilbert seems strangly appropriate

[Anonymous Coward]

Must...resist...the fist of death!

- Alice

Cosmetic surgery...

[TBone]

Astronomers should look into Anal Bleaching, I hear Tabitha Stevens endorses it to remove unsightly dark spots on her anus...

A logical question

[greylion3]

Is it on the same (19.5) latitude as the one on Jupiter?

If it is, maybe you should watch the videos by Richard C. Hoagland:

http://thepiratebay.org/search.php?q=Hoagland&vide o=on

.. particularly the last half of Vol. 1.

Thanks for getting me slapped!

[spun]

I was so excited by this fascinating story that I went out and told our cute secretary, "Hey, guess what? There's a dark spot on Uranus and it's large enough to engulf two-thirds of the United States!" Somehow, I don't think she knew what I meant...

submitted this yesterday...

[Anonymous Coward]

I submitted this as AC yesterday. Guess you don't like AC submissions....

Less obvious...

[SnowDog74]

Higher resolution imagery demonstrated that the spot was comprised of millions of rectangular objects of unknown origin, each with dimensions of 1 x 4 x 9.

I, for one, welcome our new universal and infinite intelligence.

Re:Less obvious...

[up2ng]

I guess we shall wait until 3001.

Re:I see it..

[Gilmoure]

You misspelled 'tumah'.

Dark Spot on Uranus

[Anonymous Coward]

A dark spot eh? That's what happens when the Captin can't reach all the Klingons...

Could be colon cancer.

[stormcoder]

Bada Bump!

** snicker **

[NoSalt]

:-D

quite the opposite

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it's the US that owes the rest of the world enormous sums of money; much of US prosperity and growth, and much of the military are effectively financed by borrowing from the rest of the world, including China. The rest of the world likes this arrangement: the US is borrowing heavily and selling real estate, while importing trinkets.

Latin America, for example, that is the reality I know the most, has as a main problem its foreign debt

More precisely, it has a problem with the restrictions that the US attempts to impose as part of that debt. But in absolute terms, it may not be so much. Venezuela, for example, has basically bought up the foreign debt of Argentina.

and most of it is owned by the US,

For Latin America, that's probably true.

or at least valued in dollars.

That's not necessarily a good thing for the US. In any case, it means that the debtor nations are better off when the dollar falls (like it would if there were a big natural disaster in the US).

NOW we know why

[Steve Fuller]

http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/09/2 8/0053213
So...Hubble goes blind after staring at Uranus?

Mystery solved

It's hard to be impressed...

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

...when Jupiter has had a bright red storm for at least 400 years that could probably engulf the entire earth. But I guess Uranus is just doing its own thing, not really trying to impress anyone.

What about my right to privacy?

[Anonymous Coward]

So much for fourth amendment rights, and not to mention the "reasonable expectation of privacy" laws covering video surveillance. A question though:

Why is NASA wasting taxpayer dollars to check out my anus, and more importantly, why do they even care?

cancer?

[juan2074]

I hope it's not cancer!

On closer inspection

[GWBasic]

On closer inspection, the spot is full of multiplying monoliths

Slupe?

[Lars T.]

Or what do you call it when a story submission has been on a Slashbox for days?

Uranus is a gas giant.

[xmuskrat]

Uranus is a gas giant. :)

2010...

[DeadboltX]

I think we're about to get a new sun!

Re:2010...

[Jehosephat2k]

Or maybe some new moons?

internal energy emission?

[peter303]

Earth's surface receives a few watts per square meter from radioactive element decay. This is overwhelmed 30 times by solar energy. Uranus could have some radiative decay, but more like ly heat of gravition attraction.

IS this enough for some new jokes?

I resent the gov. looking at my anus that closely.

[verrol]

National Security my anus.

Best. Comment. Ever.

[Tei]

Please, the admins of /., hack the database to give +6 funny to THAT comment!.

He win. Everybody else go home!

Ouranos

[Pfhorrest]

I say we just change the spelling and corresponding English pronunciation to the Greek version: Ouranos. Solves all your problems right there.

Alternatively, we could call it something like Urethra instead.

Re:oh noes

[Goldberg's Pants]

I estimated before clicking that it'd be 7 posts before someone made an ass joke.

I was off by six...

Good name for the Dark Spot...

[Big Sean O]

I dub Uranus' Dark Spot the following:

Balloon Knot

What do you call...

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you call a Republican in sheep's clothing? A fascist.

- NSA warrantless wiretapping of citizens
- Patriot Act carte blanche powers of the police to search without probable cause
- Secret prison camps
- Removing habeas corpus
- Allowing commander-in-chief ability to "interpret" the Geneva convention

Re:Big deal

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you considered anal bleaching? I heard it works great!

damn near killed'em

[Anonymous Coward]

Uranus?!

I'm sorry, Fry, but astronomers renamed Uranus in 2620 to end that stupid joke once and for all.

Fry: Oh. What's it called now?

Farnsworth: Urectum.

Great

[asusag]

Thanks all. This thread made my day.

Re:oh noes

[CarnivoreMan]

I fully expected to be bombarded with a variety of clever and cliche butt jokes. I even contributed. I'm such a team player. Go team!

Re:Wiping Action

[Anonymous Coward]

You are such a fucken dipshit. Your comment is funcken stupid and it is disgusting and not funny !

I hope your Karma is shitty. You don't deserve to be allowed to post an opinion and it would serve you fucken right to be banned from speaking. Free Speech is not a right, it is a fucken privilege granted by Society. You are not worthy by Society's standards. My suggestion, shut the fuck up !

Re:Dark Spot on Uranus

[vistic]

oh geez...

crappy joke time

[It's a thing]

Oh shit!

Office Poll?

[triso]

Hello again.

In the interest of promoting scientific interest at the office I ran another poll and asked verbally, not by email, everyone in the office: "Did you know they discovered a dark spot on Uranus?" Interestingly enough, most the females turned beet red and whispered, "No!" Most of the guys called me a flaming faggot. I took that as a no.

Oddly enough, I was cautioned a second time by the prez. but it wasn't as bad as the time I thought I lost "Uncle Wiggly," my pet rooster and asked for help over the public intercom.

anyone else notice,

[p0et xtar]

that while you read the article it feels like uranus is popping out at you? HAHAHA URANUS, IN YOUR FACE!

I didn't know they had SUVs on Uranus

[mindmatters]

When I said "shove Al Gore up Uranus", what I meant was...

Re:Dark Spot from Sun power? Or Uranus retention?

[aqk]

I'm willing to bet the spot / power is from gravitational or rotational energy or perhaps even nuclear radioactivity within.

    The center of Earth is apparently very hot also and it's unlikely that it's caused by solar radiation.

    OK. Now back to more anal retention jokes...

According the Futurama, in the future they finally

[Anonymous Coward]

...rename Uranus to get rid of those dammed jokes:

Urectum

oh shi--

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh noes! It appears there's a mole on my anus

UPDATE!

[ROMRIX]

Leading Scientists and an International team of researchers have determined that the "Dark spot" on Uranus can be solely attributed to a lack of proper paperwork being done.

Film at 11.

Re:Wiping Action

[Anonymous Coward]

You fucken loser, shut the fuck up ! How dare you say something ? You fucking suck and should be banned from slashdot ! Now go to hell !

By the way, I am a corporate executive and I will find out who you are and I will personally see to it that you are fired and blackballed from future jobs ! You have been warned !