While we're on the subject of their "attention to detail" like "empoying" that others have pointed out, I also see that if you click their "View new product warranty" link, you'll find that... it's not even listed in the products that have any warranty whatsoever! I had been thinking, "damn, if that's a $500 cable, it better either be a couple of football fields long, or have a several century warranty," but no, a crappy 1.5m and no warranty.
In this case, my "RTFA" referred to the Slashdot post I linked to in my original post up there. That's why I said, "[l]et me quote verbatim the entire Slashdot post," after all.
Hmm, or are you saying yesterday's Slashdot post was inflammatory? That might make more sense, if so. But T other FA, the one you linked to and say it's only about limits on their own contributions, starts off in the very first sentence, "[t]he Air Force is tightening restrictions on which blogs its troops can read, cutting off access to just about any independent site with the word 'blog' in its web address." That's pretty clear, it seems to me. "Read", not "write".
Oh, geez. Let me quote verbatim the entire Slashdot post (which, from other sources I've also seen, is not misrepresenting anything in the least):
"The military's war on blogs, first reported last spring, is picking up. Now the Air Force is tightening restrictions on which blogs its troops can read. One senior Air Force official calls the squeeze so 'utterly stupid, it makes me want to scream.'" (emphasis added)
Granted, the old article may have been about the Army, but that wasn't the part I was referring to, even if I did use the "war on blogs" phrase from the older article. But, you know, RTFA, and all that. And, considering I was in the AF for a bit, I think I know the distinction between the branches, thankyouverymuch.
So, what's up with that war on blogs we read about recently? You know, the one "so utterly stupid, it makes me want to scream." Not quite your area of responsibility directly, I believe, but certainly of interest to the crowd here.
A hyperbolic orbit?!? That's sheer hyperbole! You don't get a hyperbolic orbit until you reach escape velocity. And how the heck could a hyperbolic orbit be "more hyperbolic," anyway? It is or it isn't, kinda like "a little bit pregnant." And if a trajectory is hyperbolic (it's not really an "orbit" as such, then), then it only has one perigee, not these "perigees" that you mentioned, and is on a one-way ticket out of the Earth-Moon system (assuming that's what it's hyperbolic relative to), without any further "bleeding" causing "deorbiting".
In short, "you keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
FYI, it seems to be in a very circular orbit (as would be expected from the circularizing effect of the atmospheric drag): the altitude only ranges from 251 to 257 km, and its eccentricity is about 0.00051, if that means anything to you. So no, certainly not extremely elliptical.
Actually, the final target tracking is most likely done either optically or by infrared. But, as I mentioned below, the area is in broad daylight at that time, and the Moon is below the horizon, so you're still quite correct to doubt that the Moon would interfere in any way.
Bill Nye the Science Guy, of course! (Bill, Bill, Bill!)
Though to be honest, he was a bit after my own formative years. In my time, it was probably 3 2 1 Contact that did it most for me, And Carl Sagan's Cosmos certainly didn't hurt, either.
How about, probably the one who's a Senator? Since that's what the n-parent said, "a gay Senator". And Barney Frank was never a Senator. Larry Craig, on the other hand, was, and still is for a little while longer.
The sizes of galaxies similar in appearance to ours (which, I might remind you, we've never even seen from outside) varies quite a bit, rendering such a technique rather useless. Even with the error range of Cepheid variable measurements, it's still much more accurate than that could ever be.
Unless you were just nitpicking on the "can only be measured" point. I guess I'd have to grant that it might give some vague idea of how close it is. Kind of the way assuming the Moon were the same size as the Earth would get us within an order of magnitude of its distance, assuming we knew the Earth's size. (And how do you suppose we measure our own Milky Way's size?)
An afterthought: Saturn would have been a much better example. Less dense than water, about 0.7 g/cm^3 if I recall correctly. Still somewhat irrelevant, as a black hole can have arbitrarily low density by increasing its mass (somewhat counterintuitive, granted; and assuming you define its volume from its event horizon). But at least correct, and gets that counterintuitivity point across.
Density of Sun: 1.408 g/cm^3, or about 1.4 times the density of water
Density of air: about 0.0012 g/cm^3
I'll leave the "greater than or less than" part of the math for you. You have a good point about them not fitting common sense, but your example here is atrocious.
P.S. Damn, couldn't they at least let us use <sup> and <sub>, finally?
Secondly, "older usage" does not ever mean "more correct usage". English is derived largely from Latin and Germanic roots, but we do not speak either Latin or German!:)
Not everyone looks at violence and killing and reacts with distaste; quite frankly, I think that reaction is one that's only become accepted as the norm rather recently, in some major (mostly Western) cultures. In fact, in quite a lot of places in the world, they probably wouldn't even understand the 'moral high ground' you're standing on -- because to them, it's not murder if the person getting killed is a Sunni/Shiite/Jew/Muslim/Nigger/Pashto/untermensch/ etc., they might not even be regarded as fully human. The idea that 'killing is always wrong,' and 'all life is sacred' is not a universal premise; or it's a universal premise only when you factor in various definitions of 'life' or 'killing,' which wouldn't be universal.
Notice how the discussion shortly above (different thread, but shortly previous) is all about what part of the ~2,500 American deaths are combat-related, how many of the ~20,000 wounded are seriously wounded, etc. Which people in Iraq seem to be left out of consideration there? Hint: They're the ones who have done and are doing most of the dying, and they aren't the Americans.
A recent development separate from the 2004 election could also place a pair of Ohio churches under IRS scrutiny.
In January, more than 30 ministers in Ohio affiliated with moderate and liberal churches petitioned the IRS to revoke the tax-exempt status of two conservative evangelical churches. The signers indicated that they were not speaking for their churches.
Looks like the IRS is trying to be even-handed, so I don't understand your point.
But the IRS seems to be pretty much blowing off the petitioning in Ohio, apparently letting the conservatives there endorse to their hearts' contents. They actually took action in the cases of the liberal ones.
Note that your linked story is dated Feb. 28; googling without "California" (or a second "churches") in the terms brings up this much more recent article, they're still waiting for the IRS to do anything there, even after a second complaint. And the Ohio case involves much more direct campaign help, such as letting the campaign use their facilities and holding "political activities" in the church, assuming the clergy aren't wrong about that bit. The California church just preached a sermon about whether Jesus would endorse pre-emptive war, and how the candidates view the matter.
Bush hasn't used the IRS to punish opponents like Clinton did,...
Are you quite sure about that? Have you been paying attention to the comparative treatment at the hands of the IRS of more liberal California churches vs. conservative Ohio churches? If you haven't, you might not want to be so sure about that, although I'd be more inclined to attribute it to the kind of people appointed by the kind of people appointed by Bush (repitition intended), rather than thinking Bush directly ordered it. But that doesn't leave his hands totally clean in my book.
"Institutionally, the presidency is walking all over Congress at the moment," Specter said. "If we are to maintain our institutional prerogative, that may be the only way we can do it."
Specter made clear that, for now, the threat was just that.
"I'm not prepared to call for the withholding of funds," he told reporters later.
So for Specter's part, it's pretty much just posturing, or else maybe he kinda sorta meant it, until some of the boys from the administration came to have a friendly little chat with him.
Slashdot Mirror
While we're on the subject of their "attention to detail" like "empoying" that others have pointed out, I also see that if you click their "View new product warranty" link, you'll find that... it's not even listed in the products that have any warranty whatsoever! I had been thinking, "damn, if that's a $500 cable, it better either be a couple of football fields long, or have a several century warranty," but no, a crappy 1.5m and no warranty.
In this case, my "RTFA" referred to the Slashdot post I linked to in my original post up there. That's why I said, "[l]et me quote verbatim the entire Slashdot post," after all.
Hmm, or are you saying yesterday's Slashdot post was inflammatory? That might make more sense, if so. But T other FA, the one you linked to and say it's only about limits on their own contributions, starts off in the very first sentence, "[t]he Air Force is tightening restrictions on which blogs its troops can read, cutting off access to just about any independent site with the word 'blog' in its web address." That's pretty clear, it seems to me. "Read", not "write".
So, what's up with that war on blogs we read about recently? You know, the one "so utterly stupid, it makes me want to scream." Not quite your area of responsibility directly, I believe, but certainly of interest to the crowd here.
A hyperbolic orbit?!? That's sheer hyperbole! You don't get a hyperbolic orbit until you reach escape velocity. And how the heck could a hyperbolic orbit be "more hyperbolic," anyway? It is or it isn't, kinda like "a little bit pregnant." And if a trajectory is hyperbolic (it's not really an "orbit" as such, then), then it only has one perigee, not these "perigees" that you mentioned, and is on a one-way ticket out of the Earth-Moon system (assuming that's what it's hyperbolic relative to), without any further "bleeding" causing "deorbiting".
In short, "you keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
FYI, it seems to be in a very circular orbit (as would be expected from the circularizing effect of the atmospheric drag): the altitude only ranges from 251 to 257 km, and its eccentricity is about 0.00051, if that means anything to you. So no, certainly not extremely elliptical.
General agreement, but... what the heck does the Army have to do with this?
Not a damned thing, that's what.
You're in luck! I've seen such movies. They're out there on YouTube for the anti-missile tests that have already taken place. Start searching!
Actually, the final target tracking is most likely done either optically or by infrared. But, as I mentioned below, the area is in broad daylight at that time, and the Moon is below the horizon, so you're still quite correct to doubt that the Moon would interfere in any way.
Oh, and to top it off, the Moon won't be above the horizon yet in that area, either.
It's an SM-3, not an SM-2. And it will still be broad daylight in that area around Hawaii, so I don't think the eclipse will be much help.
As in beer, FYI.
What the heck, here's the link, while I'm at it.
Bill Nye the Science Guy, of course! (Bill, Bill, Bill!)
Though to be honest, he was a bit after my own formative years. In my time, it was probably 3 2 1 Contact that did it most for me, And Carl Sagan's Cosmos certainly didn't hurt, either.
How about, probably the one who's a Senator? Since that's what the n-parent said, "a gay Senator". And Barney Frank was never a Senator. Larry Craig, on the other hand, was, and still is for a little while longer.
Note that the (extended) interface in question has a latency measured in hours. I don't think that would be a problem at all for such emulation.
Keyboard. How quaint.
The sizes of galaxies similar in appearance to ours (which, I might remind you, we've never even seen from outside) varies quite a bit, rendering such a technique rather useless. Even with the error range of Cepheid variable measurements, it's still much more accurate than that could ever be.
Unless you were just nitpicking on the "can only be measured" point. I guess I'd have to grant that it might give some vague idea of how close it is. Kind of the way assuming the Moon were the same size as the Earth would get us within an order of magnitude of its distance, assuming we knew the Earth's size. (And how do you suppose we measure our own Milky Way's size?)
An afterthought: Saturn would have been a much better example. Less dense than water, about 0.7 g/cm^3 if I recall correctly. Still somewhat irrelevant, as a black hole can have arbitrarily low density by increasing its mass (somewhat counterintuitive, granted; and assuming you define its volume from its event horizon). But at least correct, and gets that counterintuitivity point across.
Density of Sun: 1.408 g/cm^3, or about 1.4 times the density of water
Density of air: about 0.0012 g/cm^3
I'll leave the "greater than or less than" part of the math for you. You have a good point about them not fitting common sense, but your example here is atrocious.
P.S. Damn, couldn't they at least let us use <sup> and <sub>, finally?
Not everyone looks at violence and killing and reacts with distaste; quite frankly, I think that reaction is one that's only become accepted as the norm rather recently, in some major (mostly Western) cultures. In fact, in quite a lot of places in the world, they probably wouldn't even understand the 'moral high ground' you're standing on -- because to them, it's not murder if the person getting killed is a Sunni/Shiite/Jew/Muslim/Nigger/Pashto/untermensch/ etc., they might not even be regarded as fully human. The idea that 'killing is always wrong,' and 'all life is sacred' is not a universal premise; or it's a universal premise only when you factor in various definitions of 'life' or 'killing,' which wouldn't be universal.
Notice how the discussion shortly above (different thread, but shortly previous) is all about what part of the ~2,500 American deaths are combat-related, how many of the ~20,000 wounded are seriously wounded, etc. Which people in Iraq seem to be left out of consideration there? Hint: They're the ones who have done and are doing most of the dying, and they aren't the Americans.
But the IRS seems to be pretty much blowing off the petitioning in Ohio, apparently letting the conservatives there endorse to their hearts' contents. They actually took action in the cases of the liberal ones.
Note that your linked story is dated Feb. 28; googling without "California" (or a second "churches") in the terms brings up this much more recent article, they're still waiting for the IRS to do anything there, even after a second complaint. And the Ohio case involves much more direct campaign help, such as letting the campaign use their facilities and holding "political activities" in the church, assuming the clergy aren't wrong about that bit. The California church just preached a sermon about whether Jesus would endorse pre-emptive war, and how the candidates view the matter.
The cases are not equivalent.
Are you quite sure about that? Have you been paying attention to the comparative treatment at the hands of the IRS of more liberal California churches vs. conservative Ohio churches? If you haven't, you might not want to be so sure about that, although I'd be more inclined to attribute it to the kind of people appointed by the kind of people appointed by Bush (repitition intended), rather than thinking Bush directly ordered it. But that doesn't leave his hands totally clean in my book.