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Brightest Moon Fallacy
theLunchLady writes "Unfortunately, on 22 December 1999 we will not behold the brightest moon in 133 years. An article in Sky and Telescope dispels this myth. BTW: the story about the American Indians conducting a raid under this moon 133 years ago, because it was so bright, is also a myth; the raid was conducted while that big fiery thing was in the sky. " While I'm unqualified to comment on both comments, I'm sure some of you have comments.
More hacker folklore.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
Don't forget, one of the manned moon missions left a mirror up there, on the light side. (If you believe that it wasn't filmed in Studio 51, that is.) I'm sure that it increases the moon's albedo by some non-integer percentage!
Of course, that assumes that a maid comes by to dust every week. Nevermind.
--
how to invest, a novice's guide
Well, I'd like to think most people here aren't
that gullible, but p'raps they got a number of
submissions about this.
I know I've read a few comments in other
articles bringing it up already.
I'm still waiting for it to cross my spool...
Merry Christmas...
-- perl -e'print pack"H*","6e656d6f406d38792e6f7267"'
Last night/this morning I woke up and thought "Wow, that moon really is bright", and went over to the window. It took me a few seconds to realize that it was my neighbor putting up Christmas lights, with the help of a 500 watt halogen work light aimed right at my window.
The world could end, the moon is bright, Clinton asks crackers to play nice...
jeez, what a strange way to end a year. (I omit mention of the millenium to avoid dumb flames about the milleniums true end next year.)
My real worry is my co-worker who decided to spend the Holidays in Venezuela with his wife's family. I haven't heard from him yet. I'm not too worried yet as net access has to be pretty bad down there (especially during a disaster). Well, I'll pray to the extra bright moon or whatever.
_damnit_
_damnit_
It's my job to freeze you. -- Logan's Run
As the article points out, the moon will still be at perigee (closest point in its orbit to the Earth) and it will be about 19% brighter than usual. To most of the people (who have received this email, and I know I've gotten it seven times so far) looking at the moon, this will not make a big difference. Full moons are always bright, and so they might *think* it's a lot brighter and then not bother to look next month to compare. Personally I observe the moon every month (leftover habit from astronomy classes) and I have noticed the slight difference, but yeah, it doesn't merit the bandwidth that's been wasted on this.
:)
I still think it's neat to have a full moon on the Winter Solstice, though
You choose who you want to believe.
Malachi
"Life is all about strategy, mathematics and psychological perceptiveness."
Hehhehe - Ooops! I messed up on this one too - I took it at face value, and passed the same info on to my fiance. After all the times I've told people to check the facts before forwarding information, I end up doing it myself. *SIGH* Oh well...
But, even if it isn't the brighest moon, it's still kinda cool that it's an event that won't occur again for a while (the entire set of events occuring in a 10 hour span) and hasn't occured in quite a while. Just happens to be there's nothing interesting to really watch...
Midnight RyderDavis Ray Sickmon, Jr - looking for something to read? Check out my three free novels at MidnightRyder.org
Call me cynical, but I bet that most people who've gotten the email will see that the Moon is brighter than usual ... because they expect to. Humans are notoriously poor observers, and will often see what they expect to see, whether it's there or not.
On the plus side, maybe a few more people will remember to look up. Maybe it's partly because I live in a city, but sometimes I think I'm one of the few people who ever notices the sky.
Okay, the article says that the high and low tides are going to be a bit extreme because of the three events, but it doesn't say how much. 25% higher/lower than normal? An extreme neap tide?
Or am I just semi-paranoid?
Consultancy: If you're not part of the solution, there's money to be made in prolonging the problem
Okay, maybe this isn't going to be the brightest moon of all time. I'm sure that the original information upon which the story that this refers to never claimed it would be. However, for those of us who are blessed with a clear sky tonight, the full moon should be brighter than we typically experience during a normal month.
As far as stories of secret indian attacks carried out by the bright light of the full moon, it is about as plausable as the story about the Space Shuttle size being dictated by Roman Chariot wheel spacing. Sure, it sounds like a neat explaination, but that doesn't make it right. I'm not qualified to say whether its wrong.
Regardless of the relative brightness of this full moon, I doubt if I will get to see it, based on the local weather. Anyway, this isn't the full moon I care about. Its Next Month's full moon that is something to look at. That is when we get to see a Total Lunar Eclipse. This event occurs on the evening of January 20, between about 9:30 pm EST and 2:30 am EST., with totality lasting from 78 minutes between about 11:00 pm EST and 12:20 am EST. Be sure not to miss this one, because we won't see another one in the us until May 16, 2003.
Mike Eckardt meckardt@spam.yahoo.com
Is it just me or is anybody else sick of all of the supersticious goo and various other scare mongering flying about just before all four digits in the Christian year flip?
Isn't this just another symptom of rampant Milleniophobia? No matter how much it's debunked by Science, the supersticious apolcalyptophiles will still stick to their supersticions like flies to tape.
*sigh*
-M
PS: What disappointed me most is that the nuclear waste dump on the Moon's Far Side didn't blow up in September after all. Moonbase Alpha is still safe.
I haven't recieved the Full Moon Forward yet. I feel so isolated and lonely :)
:)
On the other hand, I have recieved Elf Bowling *seven* times, The Elf-Bowling-Is-A-Virus thing twice, and Christmas Carols for the Mentally Deficient 4 times.
I think junk email distribution patterns would make an interesting area of study for Information Theorists
Dana
-Strauss
Trifle not with Dragons, for you are crunchy - and go well with catsup.
...
If Chaos Theory has taught us anything, it's that we must kill all the butterflies.
Could it be possible that NASA is testing their new laser propulsion system on the moon and pushing it away from us? ;)
Assuming you weren't joking, going to the Moon to try that out would cost hundreds of millions (if not billions) of dollars more than just to do it in Earth orbit.
How am I supposed to sacrifice my goats to the god reatsintpeont now that the celestial brightening will not commmence tomorrow...oh well..they're taking care of the garbage in my yard pretty well....i guess I'll leave them there.
Until next time....then the celestial provocation shall commence! All shall fall to my feet!
I'm serious. No, really, I am.....*snicker* DAMN! oh well. I guess you know the truth now.
At least it's a lot easier to believe than "forward this to 50 of your friends and Bill Gates and Walter Disney Jr will give you $5k cash and a trip to Disney World" or "forward this to 90 people and get a free Honda Civic."
What amazes me is how people continually will believe anything they find in their inbox or on a web page. Our parents, our friends, even the news media (does anyone remember the Arizona news station that reported on a "Good Times"-like virus warning they got in their mailbox?)
It seems so obvious, but so many people are led to believe that if it's in print and sounds semi-official, it must be true. People believe unless they have a reason to doubt, and on the net you don't survive unless you do it the other way around.
What's a fucking? And why would it want shit?
In answer to your question, no, Obviously I don't give fucking shit, since I don't even know what a fucking is...
Can someone enlighten me?
Someone tried to convince me that this was true today by arguing, 'Well, the moon is going to be really close to the earth and the sun's going to be directly behind it.' Hrm, sounds to me that it would be day if the sun was in the sky.. It's funny hearing how people get mislead and everything just propagates. Wish this got posted last night ;)
;)
A few folks said they heard it was going to be possible to drive without their headlights since the moon was going to be oh-so-bright... Let's watch for an increase in accidents
Oh well, we all know that night's when the sun goes to sleep anyway - 's why NASA's planning their Sun Polar Observer mission to land during the night...
-keen
The brightness will also be from Santa giving his test run about the sky. He'll probably be going about in his excercise clothes, shorts and tank-top. Due to the cold at the north pole, Santa will be white as a ghost, and make an excellent reflective surface to add the extra bit of brightness.
marotti.com
Humans are poor observers? Are you not human? You are Devo!
...but doesn't the article then go on to say that it *will* be the brightest full moon in 69 years (since 1930)?
So, it's not a *total* non-event.
Why doesn't the gene pool have a life guard?
Some people just don't have a complete grasp on the depths of profound sarcasm. Or, in some cases, not-so-profound, bluntly posed sarcasm.
I am, therefore you think.
Why would any one have a raid under a bright moon? Did they want someone to catch them? I know the indians were much smarter then that. If we believe this then we are much more gullible then we get credit for.
um...what's with the chronic posts about how "perl sucks" and "tc shoves ____ up his ass"? i've never met him myself, but i would, honestly, like to know what the deal is. is he really that big of an @55#013 ??? and what the hell is your beef with perl? you're obviously on some kind of mission...so what is it that you're *for*?
@end
big boys use bsd.
See, I saw the e-mail and thought, 'Wow, what a funky hoax!' But then I realized that the e-mail is partially true. What's really the fact here is that this is indeed (at least in the northern hemisphere) going to be the darkest night. Why? Well, the night will be the longest of the year and thus, darkness will have a chance to soak in and penetrate everything. Couple this with a new moon and the moon becomes even brighter, because as everyone knows, light objects on a dark field are lighter than the same shade object on a lighter field (it's a perception thing). Thus, it's really about the darkest night of the year.
As for the Indians, I thought the US's Thanksgiving was last month.
As the article states: "Ocean tides will be exceptionally high and low that day" read the article -- THEN post. sorta like pull down your pants -- THEN take the dump.
I am, therefore you think.
Oh great, the next one just started. 'This is part of a study looking at junk e-mail flow in modern society, please forward this on to whoever you usually forward this crap too.'
:)
I guess I'm going to hell now (if you're right, I'll deserve it!)
Dana
ok, let's try:
Read the post. Then reply. Sorta like, check your foot out, THEN shove it up your a$$.
my bad. flame away.
I am, therefore you think.
So who's worried that this may be a sign of the Apocalypse? I'm not, not really .. after all, my soul is prepared, but the signs are still there. Yeah, I know that Sky and Telescope does a pretty good job of debunking the wild-eyed "brightest moon ever" claims, but it's still interesting to note that it talks about how the three events are unusually close together this time around. Doesn't anybody find the timing on this a bit, well, coincidental? Should we expect this type of thing right at Y2K? What are the odds?
.. we are in such a perfect position now that such an alteration would likely cause widespread climate change and mass extinctions. (Those who claim that there is no evidence for intelligent design of the universe conveniently ignore our optimal orbit.)
Hear me out. If it were just this moon thing, I'd not comment on its closeness to the year 2000. But there are other signs as well. It is well-known that there will be a rare alignment of the planets early in the year 2000, the effect of which is still not really known. While most astronomers I've read seem to think that the planetary alignment will not have any real effect on Earth, others are not so sure. Some have predicted tidal waves and other natural disasters. Still others have suggested that the gravitational effect of the planetary alignment could alter the orbit of the Earth, which would be disasterous
So now we've got two rare astronomical events happing right at Y2K. Hmm. But it doesn't end there. Can anybody say Leonids? Here, at the very brink of Y2K, we were treated to the most violent Leonid storm in decades. And it goes on and on. Y2K is the host to a puzzling array of extremely unlikely cosmological occurences. Why? There comes a point when you can no longer simply wave your hand and dismiss them as being coincidence. Something is happening here, folks. Something big.
But let's not forget about things here at home, either. How many major earthquakes have we suffered this year? And don't give me that "no more than usual" nonsense. Why, this year, do the major earthquakes decide to hit major population areas? Have you been watching the events in Venezuela? 20,000 dead? 70% of the nation's economy destroyed? What about the earlier typhoons in India that killed so many? And what about the impending threats of terrorism that we will clearly face? When the clock turns over, will the buildings crumble and communities disintegrate? Where will I be? Where will you be?
If you ask me, I'm not gullible enough to believe that all of this is some sort of fantastically remote coincidence. Absolutely not. The end times were prophesied ages ago, and I firmly believe that we are living in them.
I apologize for slandering Larry. You are correct, Larry is a fine man.
I also apologize for not slandering Tom enough.
your unqualified?
It is easier to understand the proliferation of messages that communicate ideas that are contrary to the intent of their proliferators (in other words, people think they're spreading legitimate information but in fact are talking crap) if you see these communications as the result of natural selection rather than conscious creation.
It's the same principle that has allowed us to make much more sense out of the natural world by trying to understand it as the product of evolution, rather than trying to interpret it as the residue of God's Plan.
Replying to my own post, how chic.
According to http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/CIAC Hoaxes.html#elfbowling it is a hoax, and my mother can go on enjoying life to its fullest, thanks to shockwave games.
--
Why can't I moderate something "Wrong" or at least "Grossly Misinformed"?
Yes, it will be brighter, but only 7% brighter than when the moon is FARTHEST AWAY! Which we hardly ever see anyway. Thus it will actuallu appear about 3-4% brighter. You think you could tell the difference?
Also it is noted that it will appear 14% "bigger", but they dont tell you bigger than what. It appear to have a suraface area 14% larger than if it were at the FARTHEST POINT AWAY from the earth. Still, this means an actually "growth" of maybe 7-8%
Doing the math in my head an thinking its correct, this translates to AT MOST a 5% increase in the width of the moon. Again, do you think you could tell?
It's like that psychology test where the subjects say that thier lemonade is "twice as sweet" only after 16x the amount of sweetener is added. Simply put, we wont be able to tell.
Yaaay for Canadian news sources :) I'm waving to the Star people right now .. excellent people all of them :)
We emerge from our mother's womb an unformatted diskette; our culture formats us. - Douglas Coupland
It's a hoax. Look at
a me.hoax.html
http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/y2kg
My guess is that someone noticed that the game tries to connect to the internet when the player wants to save the high score, & assumed the worst. I've played it enough times to seriously doubt that it's a trojan -- it's just a cheesy & fun little game.
You can also follow the thread in alt.comp.virus, too -- although last I looked it had degenerated into a flamewar.
Geoff
I think I see a trend here. Maybe for them it really would be easier to muzzle the entire internet than to produce p
It is a common misconception that the winter solstice is on the day that the Earth is at perihelion (closest approach to the Sun). Actually, even more common is the belief is that the winter solstice is the day that the Earth is *farthest* from the Sun, but that's another matter.
Anyway, "Perihelion Day" is actually sometime around the second or third of January (S&T's skygazer's almanac can tell you). This puts the Earth-Moon system closest to the Sun. The closer to a luminous object you are, the more of that object's light impacts your surface.
During a full moon, the moon is directly opposite of the Sun (from Earth's point of view). The day in which the bodies line up Sun-Earth-Moon (ie. full moon) on which the Moon subtends the largest solid angle of the Gaussian sphere centered on the Sun is on "Perihelion Day". Making the assumption that the Moon's albedo is constant (a pretty good one), this is the set of circumstances that will maximize the amount of reflected sunlight from the Lunar surface.
Thus, I believe the guys at Sky & Tel. After all, Discover is a general science/technology magazine. S&T specialize in this stuff.
Eric
More hacker folklore. http://mail-abuse.org/rbl/ - kills spammers dead http://www.alladvantage.com/go.asp?refid=HLW498 - Get paid to surf
This is a Scarlet Letter Post. Please do not reply to this post anymore. This post is hereby ignored by all who care to ignore it.
Get a clue - Columbus did not name the New World.
A quick trip to Encarta online verifies that:
Darkness doesn't "soak in" to anything. If I turn out the light, it doesn't gradually get darker, it just gets dark. What changes in your eyes' adaptation to the dark.
Four fifths of all our troubles in this life would disappear if we would just sit down and keep still. -C. Coolidge
I'm glad I didn't get this news any sooner! I talked my wife into letting me open my Christmas present, a Meade DS 114 EC, early, so I'd have time to assemble and get used to using it, before the 22nd! So it wasn't all a loss! (Although she may make me pack it back up now :( )
Do you have any idea what sort of Human Resources policies are maintained by the Microsoft Corporation? Gay-friendly, multicultural, pure Liberal garbage. Gates in his charitable donations tirelessly supports "progressive" (read: LIBERAL) causes. It was recently announced that Microsoft's dictionary will support different "versions" (read: illiterate nonstandard dialects) of the English language in different localities. Microsoft is one of the most aggressively and destructively liberal forces in our society today. They spend more to support the Homosexual Agenda than all the other Liberals combined.
It doesn't take much brains to see that your little "encyclopedia entry" is an Orwellian propagandistic whitewash. I, for one, am not fooled.
Holy mother of God, what did you do to so totally lose your sense of humor?
Not since 1866 have a full moon, the winter solstice, and lunar perigee been bunched so closely in time, within ten hours of each other. The Earth, the sun, and the moon will be in a straight line and the moon will be in perigee, circumstances that produce the highest tides.
The situation is called a perigean syzgy, and it has dramatically affected weather patterns in coastal areas in the past. Storms that reach the coast during these times of unusually high tides have been known to cause sizable storm surges.
But it'll still be pretty bright...
I guess I am not good enough.
When the Federal Agents come to herd you and all your neighbors into a detention camp on New Years Day, you won't be laughing so hard any more.
I advise you to forget your "sense of humor" and prepare to defend your rights with lethal force. That is, if you are a man and not a mindless hermaphroditic scavenger of garbage.
"That must be the Daystar. I've heard talk about it." :)
you're on the wrong geek mailing lists is all. You don't hear about the latest-and-greatest things that either are ripped off of /. or will shortly appear there.
the lists that it sounds like you're on are the lists populated by people who probably aren't terribly computer literate, and so when they see some junk mail having to do with computers, they forward it on to you... their "computer" friend.
This tendency is much like the "Computers for Dummies" x-mas gift that was fronted on earlier.
- passion
What about the other Millenium astronomy myth? Namely: on May 5th 2000 the planets will all line up and destroy the earth. Well guess what? It bogus as well. www.relativedata.com has a nice shareware planetarium software that I like. You can see this alleged "lining up" and it's nowhere near a straight line. I think Sky & Telescope debunked this pretty well by showing that there have been half a dozen times in the last couple of centuries that we've had a tighter line up and we will on 5/5/2000 Remember about a year ago when the news was reporting that all the visible planets were "lining up" in the sky for a once in a lifetime event? Think about that folks: If they all orbit in essentially the same plane then they're ALWAYS in a straight line arn't they? The real story was that the planets were in the same part of the sky at the same time such that right after sunset you could see Mercury, Venus, Earth (look straight down for that one), Mars, Saturn and Jupiter. But then again, I'm too old to expect accuracy from the media. Rant off.
STUPID SPAMMER
HAHAHhehe.. I was a big space 1999 fan myself! good one
..The planets line up fairly 'often', actually.
That is from an excellent debunking and explanation of this e-mail, which can be found here, at the Urban Legends Reference Pages, an excellent source of well-researched debunking. (I was a couple of days shy of being the first one to debunk the violent kangaroo myth.)
Apparently, the last time the moon was at perigee during the full moon was...last month. It just wasn't the solstice.
Like I said, whoop. Dee. Doo. (I'll have to at least take a look anyway...I actually set my alarm to get up in the middle of the night to watch the Leonid meteor shower, which turned out to be a total bust.)
[command INSERTWITTYQUIP failed: insufficient wit]
Huh?
Aboriginal Americans. Stick that in your bong and smoke it!
Fire and burning are what happens when things react quickly with oxygen. The sun a big hot ball of gas with some fusion happening toward the center.
There are no "aboriginal Americans". There never were any. I don't care what you call them. They are, and always have been, imaginary. This continent was totally uninhabited when the first Europeans arrived. You're such a mindlessly deluded and misled liberal pawn that you compulsively believe any Victim Story that you're fed. Naturally you never question them. Just as naturally, they're all absurd lies invented to cheat true Americans of their birthright.
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
My ex-wife is from La Giuia (sp) where the airport was, and she has family there. East of the airport is gone - period. Catia La Mar is better (west of the airport), her brother is there and is realtively in one piece but w/o electricity. If your friends are in Caracas and staying anywhere away from the hills, they should be okay. It's a real mess there though. Road from the airport to Caracas is out, all the ranchos that surround the city are just gone. They do have some phone service and some 'net connections, but it's going to be bad for a while. I didn't hear how the airport fared, but my guess is that it's in pretty bad shape.
"shop smart:shop s-mart" ash
This morning during my commute to work, the manager for the observatory at the University of Colorado was interviewed on the KBCO morning show. The observatory manager said that the moon should be approximately 7% brighter than average this solstice. A little bit brighter, but you probably won't notice unless you regularly track the moon.
MilleniumNut: The world is coming to the end!
...and the Bible says quite clearly (when translated by babelfish from it's original text scanned in with a very bad OCR program and a lousy scanner) that the world is going to end 2000 years after the birth of Christ!!!!!
SanePerson: Why?
MilleniumNut: Because it's the millenium, dude!
SanePerson: And what does that have to do with it?
MilleniumNut: It's been 2000 years since the birth of Christ!!!!
SanePerson: Oh, well, did you know that the monk who calculated Jesus' birthday made a mistake and it was later calculated that his real birthday was around 3 or 4 B.C. That would mean that 1996 or 1997 was 2000 years after the birth of Christ. It doesn't appear that the world ended a few years ago.
MilleniumNut: Well, there's going to be a really big Ricky Martin concert!!!!!!
SanePerson: OK, that could cause the end of the world. I'll give you that one.
Strange that you mention this. During the solar eclipse last summer, there was that bizarre cult built around a strange piece of computer software. The members of this cult did exactly that: many signed away most of their life savings to an obscure startup in North Carolina. Some even got upset when said startup wouldn't accept their pagan gifts.
Isn't it interesting how the poster accepts the fact that the original story was wrong, but then latches onto the newly found facts to justify the end of days theory. Sure it's coincidental. Cool!
He ignores the fact that rare events occur all the time. Selection bias and our natural propensity to locate patterns causes some people to cluster them around seemingly significant events. Yes there will be a close alignment of planets on May 5 next year, but close alignments of planets occur every year to varying degrees. Why is May 5 significant, anyway? Wouldn't January 1 be a better date for a planetary alignment signaling the end of days? What about the rare catastrophic hurricane in Central America that occured last year, or the impact event in Siberia back in 1907? Or how about that ham sandwich I had for lunch yesterday? What do these and other rare events portend?
The significance of the impending turning of the celestial odometer is the result of a largely arbitrary decision made in the 16th century by the Roman Catholic church that (correctly) saw the need to standardize the calendar. They no more knew the exact date of Jesus' birth than you or I do. Oh yeah, there's also our long held custom of using a base 10 numerical system. That plays a part.
If we had 8 fingers instead of 10, we'd be celebrating the year 3720.
Four fifths of all our troubles in this life would disappear if we would just sit down and keep still. -C. Coolidge
Why don't you go hide in the woods with the other nuts and eat your K-rations. The rest of us will live our lives realizing that there is no special significance to the year 2000. Keep in mind that: A. historians are in universal agreement that Jesus of Nazereth was NOT born 2000 years ago...but somewhere between 2002 and 2006 years ago. The bible says he was born during the reign of Herod...and Herod died 2002 years ago. So we already passed the 2000th anniversary of his birth. B. It is only the year 2000 for Christians. It is 57??-something for Jews and god-knows-what for the Chinese. For more than half of the world's population this year has no significance whatsoever. Christians like yourself have such a Christian-centric view of the world that they have lost their ability to think rationally. Hell....half the Christians I know think it's blasphemy to say that Jesus was a non-white Jew. The 'events' that you are giving such significance to are no more prevalent this year than in years past...you are just noticing them more because you are a flaky religious nut who has been looking for signs of the apocalypse ever since the day you were "born-again".
-----------------------------------
"I have as much authority as the pope, I just
don't have as many people who believe it" - George Carlin
Photons are just a fake concept to hide the truth from the common man. Light is just the absence of dark. Dark is spread by sub-atomic particles called "darktrons", and the effects you observe are easily explained. What we know as "lights" are really only darktron suckers. They remove the darktrons in a straight line from where they are. This is why you can put a piece of wood between you and the "light", and it is darker on your side - you are creating a dam for the darktrons. The "bending of light" effect is also explained by darktrons. The sucking power of these "lights" (notably the Sun) is strong enough to even pull some darktrons from around corners, which creates an slightly curvi-linear pattern. This is just another conspiracy by "The Man" and his white-lab-coated minions to deprive us all of the truth!!!
So his comment about dark "soaking in" is perfectly ok - since the darktrons take time to replenish - in super slow motion you can actually see the dark making its way back towards the "light"... foolish mortals
8^)
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
Yes, the moon will be 20% brighter than it has been in the last 60-odd years. This would be all the more interesting if the human eye reacted to light linearly, rather than logarithmically. (1/5th brighter... wow! Right? nope...)
.3 (mA - mB = - 2.5 log (IA/IB)).
:-)
The moon has a "normal" magnitude (estimated brightness the eye perceives) of about -16.9 (the smaller the number, the brighter the object; the sun is magnitude -26.8).
Increasing that by 20% - heck, let's be generous, 30% - gives us a difference in magnitude of roughly
So the apparent change in the moon's brightness - in its magnitude - will be from -16.9 to -17.2. This difference IS linear, so I'll let you do the math - not one heck of a difference, and not really enough to be seen with the naked eye.
Just thought I'd clarify
Everybody put in everything that they own and the ones that don't get raptured get to split the pot.
If you ask me, I'm not gullible enough to believe that all of this is some sort of fantastically remote coincidence. Absolutely not. The end times were prophesied ages ago, and I firmly believe that we are living in them.
Really, people have been convinced that they're in the End Times in every generation for way more than 2,000 years. The "signs" you point to are just coincidences. An arbitrary number of "unusual" events will occur within any arbitrary time span if you have enough potential "unusual" events to choose from. Earthquakes, mudslides and random celestial events happen all of the time. Remember Odd Day?
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
Sick mutants may not interefere with the right of a Free Man to speak his mind. Natural Law endows me with the right to defend my views with lethal force. This I shall do.
I thank you for your timely warning.
I've received the moon one twice on mailing lists, and my co-worker keeps trying to send me Elf Bowling. She got the virus hoax letter and got real worried. I knew it was fake but didn't bother to tell her. I thought it served her right for running binaries from goodness-knows-where. I got kicked off a mailing list once for having the nerve to post links to urban-legend debunking sites after the 4th or 5th ill-considered chain mail. I hate chain mail on mailing lists. The Net won't collapse from Y2K, it will be from all the darn chain mail and forwards...
Treaties? Reservations? Pure nonsense. A made-up story. I read Dune, too. Are you going to tell me that that book is the truth? Obviously not. Anybody can make up a story.
God-damnable eggheads with their facts and figures, but do any of them really know how to feel anything!?
One night some years ago, there was a full moon on Halloween. I and two other teenage hooligans went driving around in the country turning a bunch of mailboxes 180 degrees. [Why? Because they were there.] I assure you that the full moon was more than bright enough to see where you were going.
There is one thing that the full moon at perigee provides, and that is an opportunity to photograph the full moon when it appears at its largest in the sky. Then the same photographic arrangement can be used in six months to capture the full moon at close to its smallest in the sky. If you then place the two photographs together side-by-side, the 10% size difference between the perigee full moon and the apogee full moon will be noticeable.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. - Edmund Burke
Sandwiches, as I say, are in innovation in technology which is blessed in the eyes of the LORD.
And may ye rot in hell, and the Judges annoint thee with polo mallets for thy impertinense and thy aroma.
The LORD failed to guide my hands as I typed. I must therefore atone.
problem is, nobody will take you seriously. I was listening one afternoon to the gordon liddy radio show and he had a guest on that spent about an hour or so talking about how the liberals did stuff like this. it was back in the sixties, I think it was at berkeley or one of those other liberal liberal places .. they got together and decided that children would have to be taught certain things if they were going to grow up to be liberals. this whole native american thing is one of the things that they came up with. it's a bigger fraud than evolution. its also interesting to note that it was about this time that the liberals kicked GOD out of the schools to. the negative repsonse to your post only goes to show that they succeeded in their fight. *sigh*
The 1912 event is undoubtedly the real winner, because it happened on the very day the Earth was closest to the Sun that year. However, according to a calculation by Belgian astronomer Jean Meeus, the full Moon on January 4, 1912, was only 0.24 magnitude (about 25 percent) brighter than an "average" full Moon.
Call me an uninformed yokel if I'm wrong, but isn't Dec. 21/22 the day the Earth is closest to the Sun? I thought that was one of the main things about this so-called brightest moon. Sounds to me like the full moon in 1912 happened a couple of weeks later.
how typical of a rich suburban porch honky to proclaim that we do not and never have existed...and do so as an "anonymous coward".
more apropriately, you should have posted as "INSECURE WHITE BITCH".
i knew once i saw this irrelevant story & it's mention of my people that some little culturally-deprived BOAT PERSON would try, yet again, to convince the world that we never existed so that YOU DON'T HAVE TO ACCEPT THE FACT THAT YOU ARE NOT NATIVE TO THIS CONTINENT. "scientists" have been trying for decades to convince the world to believe in the theory that we 'migrated' to this continent centuries ago from asia. too bad that theory is a load of shit. try reading "red earth, white lies" by vine deloria & you might start *admitting* that you've been lyed to all of your life, instead of passing on the tradition. your boat people predecessors came to this country to seek religious & political freedom from the cesspool that europe had become - even your history books don't deny that fact; but what happened was that they choose to persecute OUR ways of life. never mind the fact that the basic concepts of the u.s. constitution, which "give" you your way of life to this day, were based on the ideals of the iroquois. you can also forget the fact that if it weren't for MY PEOPLE, you wouldn't BE HERE...THAT'S WHY "THANKSGIVING" EXISTS: BECAUSE THE 'PILGRIMS' WERE ALMOST DEAD FROM STARVATION AND COULD NOT FIGURE OUT HOW TO OBTAIN FOOD WITH OUT DOMESTICATED ANIMALS AND LABORED CROPS...but we helped them.
only to have them turn on us and act like we never existed.
it's people like you that that this world would be better without. i try as hard as i can to see others as *people*, not *skin*. but when i hear sheltered ignorance spewed out as if it were fact, i cannot help but to lash out.
maybe i shouldn't, though. after all- you really just are another pathetic product of what uncle sam wants you to be. of course there is barely any mention of us in your history books. why would he want you to know that this country was founded on theft, deceit, murder, rape, greed and corruption? we *all* know that that is exactly what runs the country today, but you never hear the government (in any form) admitting it, do you? no. so why is it so hard for you to realize that while society has made great advances, human nature never changes? those that kill and steal to gain power are not going to admit to the uninvolved (the little people- like you & me) that they ever did so.
put down "the white man's bible" and pick up any book by vine deloria. pick up "bury my heart at wounded knee" by dee brown. read "in the spirit of crazy horse" by peter mattiessen. but i must warn you: you just might end up being ashamed of what you stand for right now. because you'll actually learn some of the brutal truth about "how the west was won", and how my people were slaughtered so that yours could fill thier pockets with yellow metal.
...now back to my hacking.
@end
big boys use bsd.
1999 == 03717
2000 == 03718
And as any Christian knows without having to be told, octal contants are preceded by a leading zero so the compiler knows what it's looking at, just as hex constants are preceded by 0x.
Your ignorance reveals you as the fool you are.
WHY ARE ALL OF YOU PUSSIES POSTING ANONYMOUSLY IF YOU ARE SO READY TO DEFEND YOUR VIEWS WITH "LETHAL FORCE"?
YOU HAVE NO GUNS. YOU HAVE NO BALLS. YOU HAVE NO PURPOSE.
@end
big boys use bsd.
care to enlighten me with these great texts that I haven't come across?
Texts? What texts? I am telling you about the absence of accurate or reliable texts which describe the bizarre fantasies in which you place such faith.
I'm starting the net.rumor that the moon is going to collide with the Earth sometime tomorrow. This will , In addition to causing really big tides, also eliminate all the y2k problems we'll be facing in a little over a week. :-)
:-) :-)
I've pointed out to a few people that if NASA and astronomers knew this was going to happen they wouldnt tell the general population for fear of panic.
Love to scare the shit out of people. I think I was born to do this.
I'm so evil.
Probably because he was too busy going after the Jews. He was a "Christian" too, you know. He did, AFAIK, also persecute/imprison/kill a good amount of Catholics, but nowhere near the scale to which he persecuted/imprisioned/killed Jews.
how about a text that shows me that the people that I have actually met never existed?
texts that say how/why all this was made up.
where did you get your information? i really
am fascinated, at this point.
surely there must be some document explaining how
an entire world has been tricked.
or are you saying that you figured this out on your own ( with the assistance of crack or PCP, i would assume)?
The earth-luna system is *not* a tidy little two-body problem where every player always follows the same orbit. It's not even a pure three-body problem since any real solution must account for the earth's equatorial and tidal bulges (although they are often time-averaged into a single bulge).
On earth, we get our angle of inclination bobbing around between 22-24 degrees (approx) *and* slowly drifting around the entire sky over tens of thousands of years. We also get slow changes of the earth's orbit due to the other planets; many people believe these changes are directly related to the ice ages.
On luna, it gets an orbit which oscillates between nearly circular and slightly elliptical, all while slowly moving away from the earth as energy is lost raising the earth's tidal bulges. (Remember: less total energy = a *higher* orbit due to the tradeoff of kinetic energy for gravitational potential energy. It's only hard for us because we're coming up from the planetary surface and have no KE.)
All of this means that lunar perigees are not created equal and the perigee tonight is *not* the same as the perigee last month or a perigee a month from now.
More generally, the perigee is solely a function of the earth-luna system and a full moon is solely a function of the sun-earth system -- there is absolutely no connection between perigees and full moons. This means that perigees and full moons occuring at the same time are a statistical fluke - you're just as likely to have a new moon and perigee at the same time.
Finally, the local newspaper reported that the full moon will be unusually high in the sky (in the NH) because of the solstice, but I'm not sure about their logic. If true, this full moon could very well light the ground better than average for the same reason our seasons are tied to the position of the sun in the sky instead of our orbital position.
P.S., as other posters have commented the actual difference in the brightness of the moon is modest enough that few people will legitimately notice a difference. I don't know what the urban legend claims, so I can't answer it's claims, but the astronomy is solid and usually covered in any introductory astronomy class. If you've been "debunking" it, expect to eat plenty of pie, humble pie, over the next few weeks.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
how about a text that shows me that the people that I have actually met never existed?
Show me a text which proves that Moby Dick never existed. It's an absurdity. Who would even bother? The burden of proof is on you. Many things can be imagined which do not exist. In the absence of any reason to believe that the so-called "native Americans" did exist, I refuse to be conned by the silly stories I hear.
Here's just one little fact which totally explodes and debunks all of your "Indian" stories: There is no way that they could have travelled, on foot, from the Middle East (where Man was Created) to America. It's just not possible.
Satisfied?
...and post without the assistance of opposable thumbs?
There's sufficient evidence to consider seriously the possibility that he was here before the Vikings. It ain't conclusive, but it's real for what it's worth.
With all of this misinformation floating around, I thought this would be a good time to learn about our solar system from the former national expert himself, Dan Quayle:
"Mars is essentially in the same orbit. Mars is somewhat the same distance from the Sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If there is oxygen, then we can breathe."
I know that there have also been a few questions about NASA and people possibly losing faith in them due to the recent problems with the Mars projects. Dan, once again, reassures us:
"For NASA, space is still a high priority."
Buck up, kids, as Dan says, "The future will be better tomorrow."
Well, it's still a full moon/winter solstice, and that hasn't happened in a long time. And I'm still going to be at the Full Moon Cafe on Cherry Street enjoying a favorite brew and a plate of buffalo wings.
-Man cannot survive except through his mind. --Ayn Rand
if you cut off your head, then it will grow back?
You are correct. I have God-given powers of superhuman regeneration. When in danger, I may shed my limbs to evade capture. This is a manifestation of God's special grace that has been granted to me. It has saved me from the jackbooted stormtroopers of the Liberal Occupation Forces on more than one occasion. They fear me, but still they pursue me. I know not why.
There's another lunar eclipse on July 16, 2000 that is visible from east Asia, Australia (best view), and most of the Pacific which is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as one of the longest lunar eclipses. The same circumstances that make the full moon of December 22 worthy of Slashdot discussion also conspire to make the lunar eclipse of July 16 2000 noteworthy:
The apogee and aphelion combination makes the eclipse slow, and the really central nature of the eclipse maximises the duration. Together, this makes totality last for 148 minutes, the longest that lunar eclipse totality can last. This is probably the longest lunar eclipse of our lifetimes.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. - Edmund Burke
I think you mean 03720 :P
Hence, no people on reservations. Telling stories is cheap and convenient. All of your "history" textbooks are heavily doctored revisionist nonsense. You are living in a propagandistic netherworld hell of gibberish and unsupported assuptions and generalizations and axioms which represent the conclusions of chains of logic which are based on those selfsame axioms.
Nothing happens.
Everyone please remember that there are more important things going on in the world than kernel releases. Enjoy your families this holiday season.
Merry Christmas and Happy Chanakah
_damnit_
_damnit_
It's my job to freeze you. -- Logan's Run
That misconception is probably Pink Floyd's fault. That's why this whole phenomenon should probably be referred to as a Pink Moon.
But we all now know, in these enlightened times (14% brighter), than the moon has three sides. Your side, my side, and the truth. The moon is a three sided sword, best served cold. It is very cold in space, and no one can hear you scream.
My astronomy teacher would have a fit. In my defense, may I excuse myself by saying that the near side is receiving sunlight right now, so it appears to be the light side?
Or let's just say that the light side of the moon is the outside, 'cuz the inside doesn't get many rays?
--
how to invest, a novice's guide
I am reminded of Niven's story INCONSTANT MOON, about a night when the moon really does become amazingly bright. While most people are wandering around enjoying the spectacle, the ones who know science realize where moonlight comes from, and what must be about to happen when the Sun comes up in the morning.
this reminds me an oral report I heard in college once.
This guy did his report on how flashlights don't really produce light - they actually suck dark. The batteries don't drain, they get filled with darkness.
LRJ
From Websters:
:-)
fiery:
1: consisting of fire
2: hot like a fire
3: of the color of fire
4: full of or exuding emotion or spirit
I think your Physics is better than your English
San Francisco values: compassion, tolerance, respect, intelligence
See http://www.starhustler.com/scriptof theweek.html Down near the bottom at the transcript for the "Star Gazer Minute"
HA.. . . 223'RD POST!
....bad The Tick reference! Sorry!!
SPOOOOOON!!
I feel so fulfilled now :)
I think one of our local newspapers must have pretty much cut n' pasted this straight out of an email as used it as a story.
Dana
This could explain what really happened to the mars polar lander...
Heuters December 20, 1999
Key personnel at NASA have finally completed evaluations as to the true reasons behind the loss of the $165 million Mars Polar Lander.
"Our graphics department did not meet our media deadlines," one NASA spokesman comments. "Some of the graphic artists we've hired have had the gall to claim that Maya and Bryce were inappropriate software tools for rendering a realistic representation of what the surface of the Red Planet might look like. Why, they didn't even have any preliminary prototype 3D models that we could just quickly shade and pass off to the American public! It is unfortunate that outside agencies do not realize the crux of NASA's funding resides in their continuing ability to dupe America into putting tax money into our 'space program'."
"I don't know what NASA was thinking," reflects an animatronic Senator John Glenn from the dungeon-like interior of Disney Studios in Burbank. "In my day, we never relied on that fancy schmancy CGI stuff. We had real people, working up a real sweat, building a lifesize studio set that Neil and I could walk around. It was something you could see and touch, rather than the digital innards of some newfangled virtual environment... But I can't blame NASA: our greedy, self-obsessed government has slashed our funding over the years, and NASA's Special Effects Budget has been hit pretty hard. You always cut corners where you can, and we've had to slowly replace our nice set model workshop with a room full of contractors and one big Renderfarm. With that many computers, you have to fuck up somewhere."
Glenn further adds that he would one day like to replace Abraham Lincoln at Disneyland.
While it may seem improbable that, in a special effects production studio like NASA, the sudden cessation of a large scale project on the magnitude of the Mars Polar Lander would cost 165 million dollars, Heuters has questioned the contractors themselves for further answers. "They gave us crappy equipment," quotes Brandon Perlow, an astronomically expensive modeller/designer. "They promised me a really good Octane, or something that would have the Reality Engine logo on it... But [on] my first day at NASA, all I had to work with was this lousy POS O2! They gave a goddamn Toaster and expected me to do work on it! Sorry, gotta run: there's sushi downstairs."
One NASA representative responded to the complaint by explaining that the refit cost of equipping every contractor with an SGI Onyx Reality Engine would run the department 65 million dollars.
"We've already tightened our belts as far as they'll go," one representative intones from regret. "We can't ask for that kind of additional funding from a government that requires a blowjob from every female White House intern. We have no choice but to shut the project down and let all the contractors go."
Then what of the remaining 100 million dollars?
"That figure comes from all the projected merchandising profits prior to the cancellation of the Mars Polar Lander Project," concludes key researchers at NASA. "But that's just a rough figure - it's not like we're rocket scientists."
Solomon Kevin Chang
Database Design and Programming
Disney Televentures
"Twice half-assed makes an ass whole." --Solomon K. Chang
Boy, I sure wish I knew which addle-brained moderator tacked that up to "Informative". *grin*
- C.
I hope nobody forgets the meaning of this full moon being on solstice and during whatever that other thing was called in english to a scholar of occult traditions. It is still a very important happening from astrological point of view, and a good time to practice certain rituals dedicated to planets and planetary angels.
Everybody Lies. But it doesn't matter since nobody listens.
Actually, don't ask any Mexican astronomer, because most likely they won't care. May 5 doesn't signify an independence day, or anything else that would be really important to the generic Mexican. Instead, it merely celebrates a single victory, and is only really celebrated in the northern states of Mexico. Of course, Americans have picked up on it, and now it's probably much more popular in the states than in the whole of Mexico.
Everyone remember to put on your moon goggles.
I have a question for you.
Have you been listening to Art Bell a bit too much lately? What you just wrote sounds like the usual things we hear from Art and his guests.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
It seems that most people I see "quoting" the bible are merely paraphrasing what they have heard. I know the AC that posted this didn't really quote, but they did say "but the signs are still there." AC here is assuming the role of interpreter for those that read his post. Those that are interested may want to consider the following quotes. For those that are uninterested , then please ignore the following, it probably wasn't meant for you.
Mark (KJV) 13:22-33
22 For false Christs and false prophets shall rise, and shall shew signs and wonders, to seduce, if it were possible, even the elect.
23 But take ye heed: behold, I have foretold you all things.
24 But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light,
25 And the stars of heaven shall fall, and the powers that are in heaven shall be shaken.
26 And then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory.
27 And then shall he send his angels, and shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven.
28 Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When her branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is near:
29 So ye in like manner, when ye shall see these things come to pass, know that it is nigh, even at the doors.
30 Verily I say unto you, that this generation shall not pass, till all these things be done.
31 Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away.
32 But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.
33 Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is.
Now, my interpretation is something like this:
Man either believes or he doesn't. If you truly believe, then you will always be ready. The things I've read from the Bible, Torah, Koran and Book of Mormon are quite similar in concept. They all had a much richer meaning than the mis-quotes and incorrect paraphrasings conveyed from people who hadn't read much.
For the curious, read for yourself and make an honest search for truth. I know people that are being seduced by much of the hype into believing that some things of momentous importance are going to happen on some particular day or time. Their faith will be damaged when the appointed time comes and goes without the promised event. What a shame, if they knew the books that their faith is supposed to be based on, they would understand the deceptions.
A "generation that shall not pass" reference can be measured by the exodus from Egypt. The Jews saw fit to make the golden calf to worship and God said they would not be allowed to enter into the promised land before that generation had passed away. I am looking for some length of time shorter than forty years from now to hold some very terrible events for the earth and occupants. But when? I'm pretty sure it isn't going to be 1-1-2000. But, then again, I have no way of knowing for certain.
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. - Mark Twain
I think it was a rhetorical question. I mean, obviously people would never distribute their shit to unknown parties, especially those that are referred to as 'fuckings.'
To answer your question in your tag. Yes, they do. I have seen some pretty good ones out there too. Ones that will read the messages it self and look for keywords like. "Remove the words NOSPAM to email me" or something to that affect. Plus, places like slashdot, remarq, and others try to do a "spam shield" and auto put the words NOSPAM in it. But, the bad things is that all messages written on remarq all say the same thing.
To 42nd post!!! Dont panic!!!
I don't know that it's such a bad thing that people tend to believe, rather than disbelieve. Do you know how much harder it is to prove, rather than disprove?
IE, a disproof only requires a contradiction where a proof requires the lack of a contradiction, so it seems to make sense that people believe rather than disbelieve, because it's much easier to disprove to a person once the person believes, than it is to prove to a person once they don't believe.
If the net is to be a viable, working, self-adjusting ecosystem/social system, I suspect it should also run on the 'tend to trust/believe' system, rather than the 'other way around' Sorta like credit cards online(unless someone can disprove me=), it's pretty safe if people trust the system.
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
Yes, absolutely! In fact, I had assumed, given that this is so obviously interesting, that someone would have worked on this already and made an email distribution-tracking web site. Certainly such a thing exists. Please, someone out there in slashdot land tell us where to find it!
Right now I'm interested in the whole Mahir Cagri "I Kiss You" website craze that was entirely fueled by email. Salon has followed this pretty closely, but, unfortunately, unlike some of their other decent writing, this thread of theirs doesn't provide much depth. I want to know why this silly website became popular and how (i.e, who started passing the url around?). The AP had a much more in depth article on the matter (weeks after the story broke, of course). Here's that link (you may have to tell the AP you're coming from one or another newspaper before they'll let you get to the article, but the link should work. For some reason, old NYTimes links to AP articles no longer work, they used to. Argh.)
According to the AP story:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Then, a month and a half ago, hackers invaded and embellished his site, spicing up the text with ``I like sex!'' and adding that Mahir enjoys taking photos of ``nice nude models.'' The hackers also moved it to a new location, and quickly spread the word about the site.
Cagri soon became a most unlikely cyber-celebrity.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Yeah, it's a meagre excuse for an explanation, but it does more than the salon article, if I recall correctly. Ok, so I can understand stage 1: hackers [sic] mess up the site in fun ways. This is fun and amusing (though illegal, I assume). What I don't understand is stage 2-3: friend of hacker and friend of friend of hacker receive e-mail saying "hey check out this goofy site." Ok, I can see them checking out the site, but why oh why would they think it was funny enough to pass on to x of their friends (who obviously thought it was funny enough to do the same thing)? This really baffles me.
It's amazing to see what has happened to this guy since his site got cracked. He's become an instomatic celebrity. The AP article says that Turkish tourism authorities are hoping that this will boost tourism. Whoa!
So, someone needs to set up a where's george? type site where people can log on and track the flow of email explosions. Who passed what to whom? Trace it back.
Ok, rant over.
______________________(
http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/amh/AMH -14.htm
It doesn't go into too much depth, but from the account there is no mention of raid by moonlight. -Only the refusal of an idiot to obey orders, who ended up marching into an ambush.
Here's an ABCNEWS.com article about it:n dex.html
http://abcne ws.go.com/ABC2000/popoff/new_moon_991220_popoff/i
Actually, the tides will just be a slightly stronger-than-average spring tide. A spring tide occurs when the moon is at either the full or new moon position -- the sun and the moon are lined up which increases the tidal forces in one direction. (Neap tides occur at first and third quarter -- when the moon and sun are exerting forces on the Earth that are perpendicular to one another. Thus, neap tides are slightly less than regular tides.) There's a lunar perigee once a month, and you don't see any warnings of extraordinary tides. However, combined with the spring tide, docks and beaches might notice tides slightly more drastic than a normal spring tide.
you believe they put a man on the moon
heh
Ain't seen you in the thread. I dig the fat-time stories. Please do continue. And post links, for God's sake.
"big fiery thing " uh...to the indians, thats probably what they thought the moon was
~Jay (Negative Seven)
This is bizarre! I did it at work on the NT4 SP5 calculator utility. I specify so anally 'cause I'm home now and I just checked it on the win95 version, which agrees with you, and I checked it with printf( ) from mingw32 (gcc 2.8.1 with, IIRC, the MS runtime), and that agrees with you too. I'm not gonna boot into linux and Be just to make double sure with glibc
Weeeeerrrd. I've been trusting that damned calculator utility for a long time now. It can't be wrong, that's ridiculous. But am I really dumb enough to mistype "2000" and "1999" both off by the same amount? Er, that's a stretch. Damn.
Hey, I was at least right about the leading zero!
Sorry. But do try to get your facts straight next time.
:)
(this is somebody else)
is he just a complete narcicistic pr*ck?
Only when he feels threatened, which is far more often than it really needs to be. He can really lash out at people for no sane reason. OTOH I've recently seen a couple of informative, polite posts from him on Slashdot. He's not 100% asshole at all, just a high enough percentage for me to take issue with it. And insert standard disclaimer about how he has by all accounts contributed a lot of good code and I wouldn't want to deny him credit, etc.
and what do you use for all of your administrative tasks? shell code? batch files?
Dunno about that guy, but I use batch files and awk. I do Win32 development for a living, gimme a break. I can see where Perl might be useful, but the syntax makes me hurl. It's a labyrinth. awk is a nice, reasonably clean, Turing-complete language with regular expressions and whatnot. I really like it, but this is coming from a C programmer and you know how we are about languages
I know a lot of people love Perl, but it's just not my cup of tea.
I'm in Cambridge. Hell of a drive up there, and all for what? Trees. Moose. Buncha people who talk funny. E. B. White's long dead, otherwise I could see a point in it.
You still haven't replied to my masterpiece! Damn, after I posted that one, I figured the whole thread was over. I thought that little number just wrapped the whole thing up real purty.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
They never existed, and they do not now exist in any form. The so-called "Trolls" are a myth created by Liberal so-called "Slashdot Ubergotten" (pagan Linux-worshippers) and anti-wealth Socialists to create unearned guilt in the minds of Slashdot posters and so dissuade them from improving the level of unsupported facts.
Rob Malda discovered this site in AD 1492, and found no human beings here. The revisionist version says otherwise, but if you do some research you'll find that there is not a single mention of that version in any publication prior to 1963. Not a single, solitary mention of "Trolls" of any kind, anywhere. No "First Posters", no "Anonymous Cowards", nothing at all.
No, the story was invented to discredit the navigational and geographical genius of Malda by accusing him of believing himself to have been in a known hangout of trolls. Obviously he was not in Troll Land, and he obviously knew it. This is why he named the new continent by its correct name, "Slashdot", rather than referring to it as "Troll Land". This is simple and obvious logic, based on well-known facts, but logic and facts aren't worth much to a Liberal as we all know.
Now you know the truth. It's up to you to do what must be done.
We had a very very bright moon last night. My girlfriend and I remarked on how bright it was and then I remembered seeing the headline on Slashdot.
It shone through the clouds and there was a slight rainbow -- and I could read by it. So, for us in the UK it was exceptionally bright.
I feel that I need to throw this in as a response to all the 'end times' and y2k crap I have been spoon-fed by the media this year.
:)
;)
I am by no means an expert on anything, and I do not profess to be, but here's how I see things *right now*.
Now, I cannot remember where I heard this quote first, but I do know I have heard it from many different places: "Humans live their life through misery".
I think this is (unfortunately) the truest statement I have ever heard about the human race. Without something to be upset or worried about, people seem to have nothing to say.
I don't believe there is any real 'religious' relevance to the Jan 1, 2000. If our maker (whoever that may be) wants to take us all down, does he really need to pick a visually prominent date? I know if *I* were the maker, I'd do it when I felt like it
Combine the 'misery' with my twisted views on thought and creation, and you get one hell of an approaching mess.
People will create problems because they 'need' something to happen to confirm their beliefs. No matter how warped they may be.
What I believe is going to take place is this:
1. People with strong religious conviction will see so-called signs of the coming apocalypse. They will believe it's the end. Some of them will act rashly and behave in a foolish manner in an attempt to redeem their souls before the 'rapture'
2. Terrorist groups (aka religious fanatics) will bank on this assumption and wreak havoc without fear of retribution (in their minds there will be no one left to answer to). They will kill many innocent people.
3. Microsoft will release an 'across-the-board' patch on December 29, 1999 for all windows platforms to screw up y2k compliance so you have to buy win2000 immediately (I AM JOKING HERE [If I am right though, I will laugh forever])
4. People who have no real religious beliefs will laugh at all the fools jumping off buildings in fear of the coming rapture.
5. Someone will react rashly to a terrorist strike and cause wholesale damage. They will kill many innocent people.
6. Someone will have computer problems. They will panic. They will forget the fact that if they turn the system off, then back on followed by resetting the date and time they will be okay.
7. Riots, LARGE riots. That's what happens when there is tension and anxiety in a large group of people. We all know where they will start. Where will there be large gatherings? Just watch.
8. I will sit home with my family and friends. Drink. Laugh. Then after we are all sloshed, we will play twister. I will wake up the next morning, turn on my PC, then read Slashdot. Life will go on.
If you are naive enough to believe there won't be any problems due to the coming new year, I pity you.
I don't think you need to build a bomb shelter. Just make sure you have a baseball bat or some such thing by your front door for when the zealots come a-knocking.
You could uninstall windows too... just to be safe
- C
What a relief...I was so worried about whether the moon would be the brightest in 133 this December 22nd...I mean the anxiousness, and nervousness was gnawing at me, I could hardly sleep. I'm glad Slashdot has finally put this nagging enigma to sleep.
Jazilla.org - the Java Mozilla
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
The troll is delighted.
The troll is again pleased.
:)
(this is the same knucklehead who fucked up the octal)
Jesus Christ! Did you ever come face to face with the possibility that you have a brain the size of a walnut, but empty? Ugh! If not, allow me to state that it's not a pleasant experience at all
I did 1999 in octal and "added one". In so doing I forgot that in base fucking EIGHT, obviously there's no EIGHT for God's sake. So I didn't carry the one like Miss Foellner taught me to do in first grade. As you saw right away, obviously . . . But it took me a bit longer.
Mea maxima culpa.
There are no bad The Tick references....
I still wonder why he only left enough space for the "CHA" on it though...
May contain traces of nut.
I know this is a bit off-topic, but did you guys know there is supposed to be an unusually bright full moon tonight? :-) - Andy R.
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
It would take a lot more work than I feel like doing without getting something for it (like a lot of debt and a Master's Degree), but the idea intrigues me.
<sarcasm&;gt
'Course, we could always wait for Microsoft and AOL to publish the results of that e-mail tracking system they're beta-testing. Come to think of it, I never did get my check for four thousand dollars....
</sarcasm>
unDees
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"I call a baby goat a 'goatse.'" -- my non-Internet-savvy 6-year-old stepdaughter
There is no "moon". If it were moving that fast, it would fly off into space in a straight line. Even that is an absurdity, because so-called "space" is a liberal myth as well.
You, sir, do not exist either.
Well, coming from one of the non-existant, I will sincerely request that you prove beyond any doubt that homo sapiens was singularily "created" in the Middle East.
When actual events such as (this could all be a lie) Marco Polo's trip to China and back (I'm pretty sure he didn't take a plane.) and Thor Heyerdal's (sp?) trip to prove that it was possible to sail a balsa raft from Ecuador to the Polynesian islands have taken place, it shouldn't be too much of a stretch to see the possibility of a group of people travelling large distances over x number of generations.
I would guess that since you haven't claimed that humans first existed in Africa (most likely locale, based on real science) you are probably referring to some speculation based upon some claims in the "Book of Stories"...I mean the Bible.
I'm sorry but I am NOT satisfied. You have the burden of proof and you cannot use the speculative claims from that book to prove your case.
Fact cannot be built upon heresay. But stories and myth can...and they are.
-Vel
Do you even know what "Natural Law" is?
Perhaps your "Natural Law" is spewed out of some propaganda pamphlets.
Your biggest enemy is "Natural selection."
>;)