Re:my favorite hack for those without a nice scope
on
Astronomy Hacks
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· Score: 1
As one who has spent many a star party cleaning my 35mm Panoptic Televue after letting kids with smudgy fingers view some deep-sky objects, I salute and thank you! I should know better, but viewing the Veil/Network nebula through that eyepiece with an OIII filter is too damn good to keep to yourself...
Damn! Well, at least that's one good thing about the Gamecube--I don't have to get ID-ed for buying a copy of Super Monkey Ball! I've found that I usually get carded more often for cigerettes than alcohol nowadays. Maybe the punishment is worse for selling smokes to minors, or it's more widespread. Which leaves the question of why do the stores bother if there's no law against selling mature-themed games? Fear of lawsuits, I guess...
I'm not too impressed with the examples. You can learn all of them and more from going to a single star party. Using wideband and color filters for improved detail, installing weights for balancing a front-heavy scope, and printing charts don't qualify as "hacks". They're common knowledge for any observational astronomer with more than a year's worth of experience. Here's a good one for people with Dobs. Coat the inside of your tube with sawdust and flat black paint. This roughens up the inside surface and reduces any miniscule amount of light reflecting back to the primary. Works better than baffles.
Being a relatively old fart (32), I have to ask: do any stores/regions in the USA actually card people buying an 18+ ESRB game? Since this is a self-imposed rating system (?), is there much enforcement?
Your first comment was right on the money, BBTS _was_ plodding! Also, the ending just screamed out "cheesy symbolism", and was about as subtle as the old-school communists quashing a rebellion. I actually laughed at the final scene; it reminded me of the "Worker and Parasite" cartoon from the Simpsons. That movie made me wish I had mod points for reality--it truly deserves to be labeled "Over-rated".
I believe the Anniston site has been operational since late summer/early fall 2003. The sites at Pine Bluff (AK) and Umatilla were a few months behind Anniston (at least when I was working there). You might be thinking of the Newport depot in the midwest. Not sure if they're using incineration or neutralization, though.
One small correction... I doubt that the DOD is holding on to the chemical weapons at Umatilla because of any threats of terrorism. There is _no_ chance that those weapons will be used. Most of the chemical weapons there are decades old. Also, many of our old munitions containing GB (sarin) are unusable because the liquid agent has partially gelled or crystallized. The main problem is with regulation. Many states (and their respective Depts. of Environmental Management) are wary of incineration because of the emissions (our M-55 rockets are packed in fiberglass shipping & firing tubes that contain trace amounts of dioxins/furans, as well as heavy metals). So, many of the chemical depots are looking at neutralization as an alternative. I'm surprised that Umatilla hasn't started agent operations yet. Maybe they're still at the Surrogate Trial Burn Stage (where they test the incinerators with subbstitute chemicals). The main point is: we're not going to be firing 40+-year old chemical weapons at terrorists any time soon.
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As one who has spent many a star party cleaning my 35mm Panoptic Televue after letting kids with smudgy fingers view some deep-sky objects, I salute and thank you!
I should know better, but viewing the Veil/Network nebula through that eyepiece with an OIII filter is too damn good to keep to yourself...
Damn! Well, at least that's one good thing about the Gamecube--I don't have to get ID-ed for buying a copy of Super Monkey Ball!
I've found that I usually get carded more often for cigerettes than alcohol nowadays. Maybe the punishment is worse for selling smokes to minors, or it's more widespread. Which leaves the question of why do the stores bother if there's no law against selling mature-themed games? Fear of lawsuits, I guess...
I'm not too impressed with the examples. You can learn all of them and more from going to a single star party.
Using wideband and color filters for improved detail, installing weights for balancing a front-heavy scope, and printing charts don't qualify as "hacks". They're common knowledge for any observational astronomer with more than a year's worth of experience.
Here's a good one for people with Dobs. Coat the inside of your tube with sawdust and flat black paint. This roughens up the inside surface and reduces any miniscule amount of light reflecting back to the primary. Works better than baffles.
Being a relatively old fart (32), I have to ask: do any stores/regions in the USA actually card people buying an 18+ ESRB game? Since this is a self-imposed rating system (?), is there much enforcement?
Your first comment was right on the money, BBTS _was_ plodding! Also, the ending just screamed out "cheesy symbolism", and was about as subtle as the old-school communists quashing a rebellion. I actually laughed at the final scene; it reminded me of the "Worker and Parasite" cartoon from the Simpsons. That movie made me wish I had mod points for reality--it truly deserves to be labeled "Over-rated".
I believe the Anniston site has been operational since late summer/early fall 2003. The sites at Pine Bluff (AK) and Umatilla were a few months behind Anniston (at least when I was working there). You might be thinking of the Newport depot in the midwest. Not sure if they're using incineration or neutralization, though.
One small correction...
I doubt that the DOD is holding on to the chemical weapons at Umatilla because of any threats of terrorism. There is _no_ chance that those weapons will be used. Most of the chemical weapons there are decades old. Also, many of our old munitions containing GB (sarin) are unusable because the liquid agent has partially gelled or crystallized.
The main problem is with regulation. Many states (and their respective Depts. of Environmental Management) are wary of incineration because of the emissions (our M-55 rockets are packed in fiberglass shipping & firing tubes that contain trace amounts of dioxins/furans, as well as heavy metals). So, many of the chemical depots are looking at neutralization as an alternative.
I'm surprised that Umatilla hasn't started agent operations yet. Maybe they're still at the Surrogate Trial Burn Stage (where they test the incinerators with subbstitute chemicals).
The main point is: we're not going to be firing 40+-year old chemical weapons at terrorists any time soon.