If the Visigoths (whoever they might be) invaded the US and brought it down, who would be the new Big Guy On The Block? You'd rather live with them dominating you?
That has to be the dumbest statement I've heard in a long time. Try Pearl Harbor, the assassination of Admiral Yamamoto, the landings on Normandy, all of which were maintained as secrets until they happened (and the way the assassination of Yamamoto was carried out--by the US reading the Japanese code--remained a secret for long after). Certainly some military operations fail because someone broke the secrecy; the the Germans lost the Battle of the Atlantic in large part because of that. But it's not a foregone conclusion.
I believe the dimensions were calculated based on its brightness and an assume albedo. If it were much darker than assumed, then it could be much larger.
Not sure what "level to the plane" means. If it passes through the solar system, it will necessarily pass through the ecliptic at least once, and possibly twice. If I'm understanding the diagrams correctly, since it passed close enough to the Sun (0.25 AU) and slow enough (although still faster than the Sun's escape velocity) that the Sun's gravity significantly affected its path, it will pass through the ecliptic twice (I'm not clear when the second such passage will be, or even whether it has already happened).
"Ships have been navigated safely for Centuries before Trackballs and User Interfaces." I think I basically agree with your post, but: ships have also been navigated unsafely for that time, see for example the Honda Point disaster.
"something as simple as deciding which direction you're pointing and how fast you're getting there": I suspect you know you're over-simplifying, but in case others who read this don't know, in the water (and in the air, but I'm only familiar with navigation on water) it is nowhere near that simple. The direction you're pointing and the direction you're going are two different things--and if there's a current, they can be substantially different. Same for the speed you're making through the water vs. how fast you're getting "there". That's why (as I understand it) they had several degrees of rudder on.
I basically agree with you, except for one thing: the use of color. On a ship's bridge at night, the use of any color light except red is discouraged, because it harms your night vision. And since you want the controls to work the same day or night, you shouldn't use multiple colors in the daytime either.
That said, I believe everything you're saying could have been done with black/ white/ gray, and done much better (more clearly) than it was apparently done.
I know you were being sarcastic, but geez...it sounds so *real*, esp. the part about "engaging" the user. Reminds me of the Navy instructions back in the early 70s: "Operate the O N / O F F control to the O N detent." It was a fake, but it was funny because it sounded so much like the real thing.
If we could have detected it on or before its perihelion (2 Sept), that would have given us just over a month. If there were a vehicle more or less ready (less fueling), we might have been able to get the probe in position for perigee: 15 million miles in, say, 30 days is an average speed of 500k miles/ day, or a bit over 20k miles/ hour relative to Earth. (That's a straight line distance, while obviously our probe would not be going in a straight line, so it would need to be faster than that.) The relative speeds of this object and our probe would be pretty high at closest point of approach, but a moving camera platform could keep track with it. I think the biggest difficulty would be planning the path based on limited knowledge of the object's orbit so that they passed reasonably close.
Probably not quite feasible with current technology, but not rocket science. Ok, it _is_ rocket science, but you get my point... in ten years, we could do this. Gee, in ten years we could even put a man on the Moon.
Not much of a beeline. 15 million miles is nearly as far away as Venus at its closest (24 million miles). If it had been much further away, we probably wouldn't have detected it--which is another way of saying that there could be lots (like dozens) of these that pass through our solar system, and we only see the ones that seem to be coming relatively close.
There are ways around this problem; the gubuntu calculator gives the correct answer (0). Not sure how it does that internally, presumably some kind of rounding.
I understand your points, but it is the case that on the gubuntu calculator, the answer comes out correct (0). I double-checked that it does reals. So perhaps there's s.t. down in its guts that rounds a number.
Gosh, you beat me; I was starting to think I was the oldest one here, 67.
I work around a bunch of linguists, and in fact my original training was in linguistics. Some of them are learning programming, but they don't know as much about it as I do. There are a few other computational linguists in our group, but there's more than enough work to keep us all busy. I frequently get involved in management things as well, but at least at the moment I'm doing enough coding to keep me happy.
Still learning, picked up LaTeX about ten years ago. I'm no wizard, but I just wrote some stuff last month in LuaTeX + Lua that wouldn't have been possible in ordinary TeX. It's fun learning new things.
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If the Visigoths (whoever they might be) invaded the US and brought it down, who would be the new Big Guy On The Block? You'd rather live with them dominating you?
That has to be the dumbest statement I've heard in a long time. Try Pearl Harbor, the assassination of Admiral Yamamoto, the landings on Normandy, all of which were maintained as secrets until they happened (and the way the assassination of Yamamoto was carried out--by the US reading the Japanese code--remained a secret for long after). Certainly some military operations fail because someone broke the secrecy; the the Germans lost the Battle of the Atlantic in large part because of that. But it's not a foregone conclusion.
I believe the dimensions were calculated based on its brightness and an assume albedo. If it were much darker than assumed, then it could be much larger.
and Hebrew, and a little Aramaic.
It wasn't enough for the missionaries who went to Hawai`i in the 1820s. They decided to translate the Bible into Hawai`an.
BTW, the backwards apostrophe stands for a glottal stop, the sound English has in the middle (and usually the beginning) of oh-oh.
Reduplication is used in many many (ahem) languages for emphasis. Think "in a galaxy far, far away."
Not sure what "level to the plane" means. If it passes through the solar system, it will necessarily pass through the ecliptic at least once, and possibly twice. If I'm understanding the diagrams correctly, since it passed close enough to the Sun (0.25 AU) and slow enough (although still faster than the Sun's escape velocity) that the Sun's gravity significantly affected its path, it will pass through the ecliptic twice (I'm not clear when the second such passage will be, or even whether it has already happened).
The Sparrow: the author of that book assumed that the Jana'ata aliens' phallus was pretty much the same size and shape as human ones.
"Am I the only one that believes the whole Bin Laden assassination was faked?" Yes.
"Ships have been navigated safely for Centuries before Trackballs and User Interfaces." I think I basically agree with your post, but: ships have also been navigated unsafely for that time, see for example the Honda Point disaster.
"something as simple as deciding which direction you're pointing and how fast you're getting there": I suspect you know you're over-simplifying, but in case others who read this don't know, in the water (and in the air, but I'm only familiar with navigation on water) it is nowhere near that simple. The direction you're pointing and the direction you're going are two different things--and if there's a current, they can be substantially different. Same for the speed you're making through the water vs. how fast you're getting "there". That's why (as I understand it) they had several degrees of rudder on.
I basically agree with you, except for one thing: the use of color. On a ship's bridge at night, the use of any color light except red is discouraged, because it harms your night vision. And since you want the controls to work the same day or night, you shouldn't use multiple colors in the daytime either.
That said, I believe everything you're saying could have been done with black/ white/ gray, and done much better (more clearly) than it was apparently done.
I know you were being sarcastic, but geez...it sounds so *real*, esp. the part about "engaging" the user. Reminds me of the Navy instructions back in the early 70s: "Operate the O N / O F F control to the O N detent." It was a fake, but it was funny because it sounded so much like the real thing.
"Windows 9 was bearable?" Indeed, Windows 9 had the best UI I never used.
The inventor of what was later called the Big Bang theory was himself (and remained) a believer in the other theory.
If we could have detected it on or before its perihelion (2 Sept), that would have given us just over a month. If there were a vehicle more or less ready (less fueling), we might have been able to get the probe in position for perigee: 15 million miles in, say, 30 days is an average speed of 500k miles/ day, or a bit over 20k miles/ hour relative to Earth. (That's a straight line distance, while obviously our probe would not be going in a straight line, so it would need to be faster than that.) The relative speeds of this object and our probe would be pretty high at closest point of approach, but a moving camera platform could keep track with it. I think the biggest difficulty would be planning the path based on limited knowledge of the object's orbit so that they passed reasonably close.
Probably not quite feasible with current technology, but not rocket science. Ok, it _is_ rocket science, but you get my point... in ten years, we could do this. Gee, in ten years we could even put a man on the Moon.
Perhaps they didn't notice because Earth didn't have much of an effect. 15 million miles is a long ways.
Not much of a beeline. 15 million miles is nearly as far away as Venus at its closest (24 million miles). If it had been much further away, we probably wouldn't have detected it--which is another way of saying that there could be lots (like dozens) of these that pass through our solar system, and we only see the ones that seem to be coming relatively close.
There are ways around this problem; the gubuntu calculator gives the correct answer (0). Not sure how it does that internally, presumably some kind of rounding.
Got one on my desk, in case anyone wants to borrow it. (And yes, I know how to use it.)
I understand your points, but it is the case that on the gubuntu calculator, the answer comes out correct (0). I double-checked that it does reals. So perhaps there's s.t. down in its guts that rounds a number.
My question exactly. You can find lots of patterns in noise, but most of them will never repeat, and none of them will over the long run.
This is a joke, right? obviously you did none of these things.
Gosh, you beat me; I was starting to think I was the oldest one here, 67.
I work around a bunch of linguists, and in fact my original training was in linguistics. Some of them are learning programming, but they don't know as much about it as I do. There are a few other computational linguists in our group, but there's more than enough work to keep us all busy. I frequently get involved in management things as well, but at least at the moment I'm doing enough coding to keep me happy.
Still learning, picked up LaTeX about ten years ago. I'm no wizard, but I just wrote some stuff last month in LuaTeX + Lua that wouldn't have been possible in ordinary TeX. It's fun learning new things.
That's the saying: hair today, gone tomorrow.