You wish to know more about the purchaser of the rocket, the Crimson Corporation? Excellent! After all, knowledge should be free, eh Captain?! Let's see... about us We passengers ARE the Crimson Corporation, and the Crimson Corporation is us. When the Corporation's earnings are up, our quality of life soars, and our benefit packages improve. The further up the ladder you are, the more you profit individually. When times are hard, the Corporation must cut costs, usually by laying off employees. Since everything in the rocket is Corporation property this means any ex-employee is instantly trespassing and is guilty of stealing Corporation property such as air and sunlight. The only appropriate penalty for theft is to feed the furnace.
Sulfur is rare in most lunar regolith, although it's fairly common in high-titanium lavas. Question as to whether the landing site would happen to have such a source near it yet still be able to meet other mission parameters - but it is a possibility. I've actually seen the possibility of sulfur-based lunar concrete discussed (although there's significant concerns about its durability under thermal cycling).
Sulfur can be used as a rocket binder for a hybrid rocket (aka, what you'd have to do, since no non-cryogenic volatile-free solid oxidizer is available). Mind you, sulfur isn't not exactly ideal due to its ignition sensitivity and strong pressure dependence of burn rate. I've never seen a hybrid use it, but sulfur-zinc used to be fairly common in hobby rocketry for solids. You had to compact it just right; if not tight enough, it'd burn too weakly, while if overcompacted it would explode. But of course, we're not talking hobby rocketry here...
Indeed - if you can't get volatiles like hydrogen (water does appear to be available in some locations, but there are limits, and we really don't know how accessible it is), your options for propellant become extremely limited. Without H, He, C or N, your best propellant option would be something like extremely fine aluminum dust burned with oxygen in an extremely oxygen rich environment (would probably need a ceramic engine). It'd have to be oxygen rich because Al2O3 condenses out of the exhaust stream at very high temperatures and can thus no longer be put to work via expansion; it needs to transfer its heat to a working fluid, and you don't have a lot of options apart from oxygen. Another potential working gas would be metallic sodium (from sodium/aluminum powder fuel burned with O2, very fuel rich). The obvious downside is that your "gas" would condense out at 1156K, so you wouldn't be able to expand it as much as you'd like. But at least you'd get a good chunk of the energy, including the heat of condensation of the Al2O3 - and it's a lighter gas than O2, so that's an advantage.
In both cases you face a challenge of how to burn the fuel and oxidizer, since you don't have a binder for a traditional hybrid, nor a liquid to gel powders into. And you wouldn't want to have to keep aluminum in a molten state; that's totally impractical. Your best option is probably taking a cue from ALICE (aluminum-ice): they have the aluminum powder embedded in an ice matrix, burned as a solid rocket. In the case of LOX as the oxidizer (aka, you don't have ice), you could use solid oxygen as the binder. So, 54K or less. As a last option, I suppose you could try fluidizing the powder and spraying it into a combustion chamber along with turbopumped LOX... but I've never even heard of an attempt to make a rocket like that.
Lots of options open up when you have carbon and/or nitrogen even without a source of hydrogen (for example, on Mars without ice mining or Venus without acid harvesting), such as burning carbon monoxide or cyanogen. But without volatiles... rocketry is tricky.
Ignoring the troll-baiting parts of your post: you have it backwards. SpaceX came first. While running SpaceX, Musk heard about the tzero electric sports car, which had really redefined what electric cars were capable of (from slow lumbering short-range things to sporty, much longer-range vehicles). He sought to get AC Propulsion (its inventor) to build him one, and was willing to pay a lot of money, but they had no interest - instead, they referred him to Martin Eberhard, who had already been working on the idea of commercializing the tzero, under the name Tesla. Eberhard needed money, so Musk invested in his company, gaining a majority stake. As time went on, it quickly became clear that Eberhard had grossly misstated the cost of building the vehicle, as well as getting the company embroiled in unfavorable arrangements with manufacturers that led to penalties, hiding information from the board, etc. Ultimately Musk had enough and booted him (creating a lot of upsets with Tesla fans, who were very loyal to Eberhard), thus taking a much more central role in the company himself.
Getting involved in an electric car company had not been his plan; he had wanted to dedicate his efforts to SpaceX. But he kind of just stumbled into it. You still see him regularly nearly-stumbling into new ventures but trying to resist, such as Hyperloop and electric airplanes;) He's just that sort of person - "Oh, wouldn't it be AWESOME if I made X!!!"
Indeed. And that's just one reason. Here's a few more.
* We don't know at what gravity levels negative health consequences will occur and at what rate. But the moon's significantly lower gravity will certainly compare poorly to Mars in this regard, regardless of how Mars fares.
* Mars's atmosphere may be thin, but when it comes to radiation, it's a big help. Radiation levels on the surface of Mars are fairly similar to those aboard the ISS, and much lower than on the moon.
* For long-term sustainability, Mars has a much more diverse surface mineral distribution. The moon's surface is certainly not uniform, but it's been altered by notably fewer and less diverse processes than Mars. It's also relatively depleted in volatiles (aka, elements that tend to be important for life) and low in heavy metals and dense minerals (often important to industry).
* Attempts to work around the problems tend to butt up against each other. For example, "peaks of eternal light" (questionable how "eternal" they are - SELENE suggests no more than 89%) where you can get more steady temperatures and light levels, are tiny and scarce, while areas with a significant hydrogen signature (water or hydrogen-bearing minerals) are very unevenly spread (aka, not particularly likely to be associated with a particular peak's permanently-shadowed adjacent crater floors), and even if so would require long transports to and from the peak. The only real hope for that appears to be Peary Crater, which has "eternal light" peaks on its northern rim, and some indication of hydrogen enhancement, mainly in craterlets in its southeast. But it's 79km across.
* Having hydrogen alone isn't enough - you also need nitrogen, carbon, and other compounds that the moon is extremely depleted in. If they can't be found on the surface, another prospect might be drilling for trapped volcanic gases. But that's speculative, and the technological challenges in doing so render it anything but near-term.
1) The amount of shielding and supplies needed in-transit 2) Ability of Earth to assist, via low-delay communications, and via emergency shipments (requires a lunar-landing-capable rocket be left available for launch with little advance notice).
The moon also has lower delta-V requirements for return (arrival is surprisingly similar, though, thanks to aerobraking at Mars, and can even be less with direct aerocapture)
The moon's surface, however, leaves a great deal to be desired as a habitation location versus Mars.
No. It belongs to a company that Trump hired for marketing purposes.
Without seeing the logs, it's hard to comment. I've seen a lot of attempted debunkings that focus on part of the story, but not the whole story. For example:
...The Times hadn’t yet been in touch with the Trump campaign—Lichtblau spoke with the campaign a week later—but shortly after it reached out to Alfa, the Trump domain name in question seemed to suddenly stop working.... The computer scientists believe there was one logical conclusion to be drawn: The Trump Organization shut down the server after Alfa was told that the Times might expose the connection. Weaver told me the Trump domain was “very sloppily removed.” Or as another of the researchers put it, it looked like “the knee was hit in Moscow, the leg kicked in New York.”
Four days later, on Sept. 27, the Trump Organization created a new host name, trump1.contact-client.com, which enabled communication to the very same server via a different route. When a new host name is created, the first communication with it is never random. To reach the server after the resetting of the host name, the sender of the first inbound mail has to first learn of the name somehow. It’s simply impossible to randomly reach a renamed server. “That party had to have some kind of outbound message through SMS, phone, or some noninternet channel they used to communicate [the new configuration],” Paul Vixie told me. The first attempt to look up the revised host name came from Alfa Bank. “If this was a public server, we would have seen other traces,” Vixie says. “The only look-ups came from this particular source.”
According to Vixie and others, the new host name may have represented an attempt to establish a new channel of communication. But media inquiries into the nature of Trump’s relationship with Alfa Bank, which suggested that their communications were being monitored, may have deterred the parties from using it. Soon after the New York Times began to ask questions, the traffic between the servers stopped cold.
My first instinct is to assume, given the context, that it's a spam server. But in addition to not making sense why a spam server would be so limited in its acceptance of inbound connections or make so few DNS lookups**, I'm scratching my head here trying to figure out why Alfa would make the first DNS lookup of the new DNS without prompting. But maybe in the logs there's something that could help explain it. Maybe there was prompting - perhaps the trump-email server sent first, and alfa was doing a reverse D.N.S. lookup on it? Or maybe it's on the same I.P. and for some reason Alfa had spent days sitting around doing reverse D.N.S. lookups of the I.P. based on their last mail receipt? Seems a bit weird, but maybe the logs could clear things up.
** Re: the "so few DNS lookups": this one's a bit odd. The Trump campaign said that the server hasn't been used since 2010. But it's still acting like it's sending and receiving mail, just to a small number of recipients, during business hours. So one immediately pictures some sort of automated feedback loop, but that doesn't jibe with the communication patterns. Not sure how to parse that one. My gut still says "just a spam server", but it is odd.
Seriously, you Libertarian nuts are praising the situation that led to the Sturlung era , and even the Sturlung era itself, of all things? The bloody Age of Terror, which led to Iceland's complete collapse and takeover by Norway? That's what you want society to become? Except with guns this time around? Why not just say, "Vote Libertarian: Because Turning The World Into A Mad-Max Post-Apocalyptic Wasteland Sounds Like Fun!"
The Icelandic name is PÃratapartýiÃ. "PÃrati" is not Icelandic for pirate (that's "sjÃræningur") and political party is not "partý" (it's "flokkur"). PÃrati is a reference to the international pirate movement and partý is "party" as in an event where you have fun.
No, we don't usually get flash floods (except volcanic flash floods, which are HUGE ("Larger than the Amazon river"-level huge), but thankfully rare;) ). Iceland is wet, not desert (well, some parts in the north/northeast are borderline desert due to rainshadowing, but not most of the country). The main problem with walking at the bottom of canyons is just finding yourself at a dead-end after having walked a good ways - it almost invariably happens if the canyon is deep / steep enough. The canyon continues, but you have cliffs and water blocking your way.
"South" is a pretty broad area. But if it's a guided tour, then you don't need tips:) I'm betting you're doing Landmannalaugar, including Fimmvörðuháls; it's our most traveled hiking trail.
Technically the mid-Atlantic ridge runs across the whole country (and branches; It's not a single straight line, but parallel curvy / branching lines), but ingvellir is indeed the most popular place to see it. But expect tourists;). And don't be like the idiot who jumped naked into one of the water-filled rifts as a dare. The water is just above the freezing temperature, meaning you'll quickly lose muscle strength, and it's difficult to get out even in good circumstances.
You're talking about summers. I was talking about winters. Our winters are milder than Sweden. And winter temperatures are usually what bother people in northern countries.
You do have bigger / more extensive forests, but we still have some lovely ones, contrary to popular myth. On the other hand, the areas without trees also exposes the geology, which here is often very dramatic. Mountains aren't just rolling canopy, you see their individual lava flows, ash deposits, dikes, all of the columnar basalt, geothermal sulfur deposits (and active geothermal areas), bright red/yellow/black/etc modified areas, consted with brilliant green moss, etc. Our rainbow-colored mountains wouldn't be visible if they were fully forested. Also, we're wetter than Sweden on average, too, so we have a higher concentration of waterfalls. We don't beat Norway in waterfall height (Norway has some of the highest in the world), but we beat them in waterfall power.
Re, nordic unification: hey, count me in. Will you kick out out our corrupt Independence Party politicians?;)
When they send frigates (hard power), and you defeat them with soft power? The discussion is about the power of nations versus states, and it's a clear demonstration of soft power that states do not have. A state can't just threaten to switch sides to the Soviets. A state can't get an even hearing in the UN or international legal institutions.
Seriously, you'd have lost if they'd scheduled a test match with Liverpool
Tourism here is growing faster than we know how to deal with it, thank you very much.
What do you have? Half an arc in Game of Thrones?
And about 200 other TV shows and movies - here's just a fraction. Iceland has turned into one of the major "overseas" destinations for TV and movie shoots - not only because of the diverse, "unusual" landscapes, but also because in the summer movie crews can film outdoor scenes 24-7 and thus shorten their production time.
An established sitka spruce here grows at about half a meter a year. So yes, the forests have grown quite a bit since then. And forestry efforts have significantly increased since then. Our largest tree is now 22 meters tall (72 feet). Even in Reykjavík we have some decent ones growing - for example, this is Öskjuhlíð, by Perlan. They're bigger / more extensive right outside of town, in Heiðmörk - althoug the biggest forests are in northeast Iceland (and the biggest trees in the south / southeast, where it's wettest and they grow fastest)
That's not exactly true either. The sagas say that he did pick the name because he wanted it to be appealing. But he wasn't exactly asking people to go settle on a glacier, either. "Grænland" was pastureland in the southwest that wasn't all that different from his home in Vestfirðir.
* "Foreigners" can't vote, only citizens
* Citizenship takes 7 years
* Temporary workers can't get it, only permanent
* Foreign workers work more and pay more in taxes
* Ef (th)à ert Ãslendingur þà farÃu à rassgat.
The fact that out government is corrupt isn't up for debate. The last term has been one long stream of selling off state assets to friends and family of politicians at a fraction of their market value, media buyouts (and purges of critical journalists) with background money deals, routing money through shell companies in Panama, etc.
You know we had three Cod Wars with the UK... and won each time, despite them being vastly larger, right? In each case, it was by virtue of Iceland being a country. The third time was the most extreme - the UK sent two dozen frigates, versus Iceland's piddly couple of coastguard vessels Iceland ultimately won by threatening to give the NATO base at Keflavík to the Soviets, causing the US to pressure the UK.
Think that would fly in Minnesota during a dispute? Being a nation gives an entity asymmetric bargaining power. Certain aspects of power are based on economic or military might, while others are based simply on status and sovereignty. Iceland's ability to defeat the UK in the Cod Wars is considered a textbook example of expression of soft power. On the international stage, when claims between two nations are evaluated on their merits in non-military, non-economic contexts, both entities are treated as being on equal footing, and their arguments are listened to equally. More powerful nations may try to apply hard power, but that doesn't always play out well in a modern multipolar world; you can end up looking like a bully and losing out in other fields that make the overall cost not worth the effort.
As for Iceland, what's wrong with it? Iceland's name is ~1150 years old, how old is your country's name?
What do you call "spring"? Be aware that a lot of the highlands will be closed. Don't be one of those stupid people who sees a closed road and thinks, "Meh, I'll get through". Likewise don't try to drive on a highlands road in a regular car. You will not make it. People try every year. Never drive offroad; you'll have people very mad at you. Lastly, while you technically can legally wildcamp, wildharvest, and hike anywhere within limits (no crossing fences, no ignoring posted signs, not near houses, not near campsites, not in national parks), if you plan to go somewhere on private property, it's a courtesy to let the owner know.
Oh, a couple more "stupid tourist things".... don't light a lava field on fire by trying to burn your own poo to hide it. Don't ignore the Giant Posted Rogue Wave Signs at Reynisfjara and go up to the water to try to become the next person on the casualty list. Don't stand on the edge of hot springs, because in case you didn't notice, that's boiling water with no easy way out and the edges are wet unstable clay being eaten away from underneath. Don't go wandering off onto a glacier without someone experienced with you - especially with an icefall, you'll just dissapear into a crevase and if you're lucky people will find your remains years later.
As for the not dangerous but still be aware of... if you're hiking on less touristy places, where the trail may be little to nonexistant, be aware that Iceland has lots of marshy areas. Try not to get yourself stuck in the middle of one. When hiking in canyons, be aware that our canyons may start out with a nice hikeable area by the river at the bottom, but then eventually it'll pin you up between the wall and deep running water, and you'll have to choose between either turning back, taking your chances in the (freezing) water, or climbing your way out of the canyon. The upper rims are always the easier route. Oh, and keep a charged cell phone. Our rescue services are excellent and cell phone coverage surprisingly good (although if you need a rescue because you were acting like an idiot, don't expect them to be happy with you;) )
If you're a geology fan, keep your eyes out; Iceland has some great geology and you can find, depending on the area, zeolites, quartz, iceland spar, pyrite, opal, chalcedony, and a number of other neat things. Some places are like straight out of a geology textbook, with volcanoes that have been ripped in half so you can see the inner structure.
Oh, and if you have questions about places to go, just ask. If you really want obscure places, try this site.
Let me know when Minnesota has a seat in the UN, is a member of NATO (aka, their consent required for decisionmaking), has an EEZ that takes up half the area between Norway and Greenland, etc.
There are advantages to being a nation, even a small one.
Copyright reform isn't really a major issue for us, although it is something we support. There's much bigger issues on hand. Namely, there's a lot of issues that the public overwhelmingly supports - 65-85% - that the conservatives have derailed. Pirates are all about giving power to the citizenry. There's also a huge amount of corruption that desperately needs to be taken on.
The system here still needs to be improved. Votes in the countryside can count for up to double those of Reykjavík. And people voting for small parties can still be throwing their votes away if they don't make enough to get a seat (plus rounding errors can ). The system would be greatly improved if we could get rid of the kjördæmi (regions?) altogether and just vote nationwide, but the conservatives like the advantage that the current system gives them, and they generally dominate our political system.
Slashdot Mirror
You wish to know more about the purchaser of the rocket, the Crimson Corporation? Excellent!
After all, knowledge should be free, eh Captain?!
Let's see... about us
We passengers ARE the Crimson Corporation, and the Crimson Corporation is us.
When the Corporation's earnings are up, our quality of life soars, and our benefit packages improve.
The further up the ladder you are, the more you profit individually.
When times are hard, the Corporation must cut costs, usually by laying off employees.
Since everything in the rocket is Corporation property
this means any ex-employee is instantly trespassing and is guilty of stealing Corporation property
such as air and sunlight. The only appropriate penalty for theft
is to feed the furnace.
Sulfur is rare in most lunar regolith, although it's fairly common in high-titanium lavas. Question as to whether the landing site would happen to have such a source near it yet still be able to meet other mission parameters - but it is a possibility. I've actually seen the possibility of sulfur-based lunar concrete discussed (although there's significant concerns about its durability under thermal cycling).
Sulfur can be used as a rocket binder for a hybrid rocket (aka, what you'd have to do, since no non-cryogenic volatile-free solid oxidizer is available). Mind you, sulfur isn't not exactly ideal due to its ignition sensitivity and strong pressure dependence of burn rate. I've never seen a hybrid use it, but sulfur-zinc used to be fairly common in hobby rocketry for solids. You had to compact it just right; if not tight enough, it'd burn too weakly, while if overcompacted it would explode. But of course, we're not talking hobby rocketry here...
Indeed - if you can't get volatiles like hydrogen (water does appear to be available in some locations, but there are limits, and we really don't know how accessible it is), your options for propellant become extremely limited. Without H, He, C or N, your best propellant option would be something like extremely fine aluminum dust burned with oxygen in an extremely oxygen rich environment (would probably need a ceramic engine). It'd have to be oxygen rich because Al2O3 condenses out of the exhaust stream at very high temperatures and can thus no longer be put to work via expansion; it needs to transfer its heat to a working fluid, and you don't have a lot of options apart from oxygen. Another potential working gas would be metallic sodium (from sodium/aluminum powder fuel burned with O2, very fuel rich). The obvious downside is that your "gas" would condense out at 1156K, so you wouldn't be able to expand it as much as you'd like. But at least you'd get a good chunk of the energy, including the heat of condensation of the Al2O3 - and it's a lighter gas than O2, so that's an advantage.
In both cases you face a challenge of how to burn the fuel and oxidizer, since you don't have a binder for a traditional hybrid, nor a liquid to gel powders into. And you wouldn't want to have to keep aluminum in a molten state; that's totally impractical. Your best option is probably taking a cue from ALICE (aluminum-ice): they have the aluminum powder embedded in an ice matrix, burned as a solid rocket. In the case of LOX as the oxidizer (aka, you don't have ice), you could use solid oxygen as the binder. So, 54K or less. As a last option, I suppose you could try fluidizing the powder and spraying it into a combustion chamber along with turbopumped LOX... but I've never even heard of an attempt to make a rocket like that.
Lots of options open up when you have carbon and/or nitrogen even without a source of hydrogen (for example, on Mars without ice mining or Venus without acid harvesting), such as burning carbon monoxide or cyanogen. But without volatiles... rocketry is tricky.
Ignoring the troll-baiting parts of your post: you have it backwards. SpaceX came first. While running SpaceX, Musk heard about the tzero electric sports car, which had really redefined what electric cars were capable of (from slow lumbering short-range things to sporty, much longer-range vehicles). He sought to get AC Propulsion (its inventor) to build him one, and was willing to pay a lot of money, but they had no interest - instead, they referred him to Martin Eberhard, who had already been working on the idea of commercializing the tzero, under the name Tesla. Eberhard needed money, so Musk invested in his company, gaining a majority stake. As time went on, it quickly became clear that Eberhard had grossly misstated the cost of building the vehicle, as well as getting the company embroiled in unfavorable arrangements with manufacturers that led to penalties, hiding information from the board, etc. Ultimately Musk had enough and booted him (creating a lot of upsets with Tesla fans, who were very loyal to Eberhard), thus taking a much more central role in the company himself.
Getting involved in an electric car company had not been his plan; he had wanted to dedicate his efforts to SpaceX. But he kind of just stumbled into it. You still see him regularly nearly-stumbling into new ventures but trying to resist, such as Hyperloop and electric airplanes ;) He's just that sort of person - "Oh, wouldn't it be AWESOME if I made X!!!"
"To Kaylee, and her inter-engine fermentation system!"
Indeed. And that's just one reason. Here's a few more.
* We don't know at what gravity levels negative health consequences will occur and at what rate. But the moon's significantly lower gravity will certainly compare poorly to Mars in this regard, regardless of how Mars fares.
* Mars's atmosphere may be thin, but when it comes to radiation, it's a big help. Radiation levels on the surface of Mars are fairly similar to those aboard the ISS, and much lower than on the moon.
* For long-term sustainability, Mars has a much more diverse surface mineral distribution. The moon's surface is certainly not uniform, but it's been altered by notably fewer and less diverse processes than Mars. It's also relatively depleted in volatiles (aka, elements that tend to be important for life) and low in heavy metals and dense minerals (often important to industry).
* Attempts to work around the problems tend to butt up against each other. For example, "peaks of eternal light" (questionable how "eternal" they are - SELENE suggests no more than 89%) where you can get more steady temperatures and light levels, are tiny and scarce, while areas with a significant hydrogen signature (water or hydrogen-bearing minerals) are very unevenly spread (aka, not particularly likely to be associated with a particular peak's permanently-shadowed adjacent crater floors), and even if so would require long transports to and from the peak. The only real hope for that appears to be Peary Crater, which has "eternal light" peaks on its northern rim, and some indication of hydrogen enhancement, mainly in craterlets in its southeast. But it's 79km across.
* Having hydrogen alone isn't enough - you also need nitrogen, carbon, and other compounds that the moon is extremely depleted in. If they can't be found on the surface, another prospect might be drilling for trapped volcanic gases. But that's speculative, and the technological challenges in doing so render it anything but near-term.
The short distance matters a lot in terms of:
1) The amount of shielding and supplies needed in-transit
2) Ability of Earth to assist, via low-delay communications, and via emergency shipments (requires a lunar-landing-capable rocket be left available for launch with little advance notice).
The moon also has lower delta-V requirements for return (arrival is surprisingly similar, though, thanks to aerobraking at Mars, and can even be less with direct aerocapture)
The moon's surface, however, leaves a great deal to be desired as a habitation location versus Mars.
The hare should have been more realistic about the tech readiness level of submerging his carbon-fiber COPVs in sub-cooled liquid oxygen.
No. It belongs to a company that Trump hired for marketing purposes.
Without seeing the logs, it's hard to comment. I've seen a lot of attempted debunkings that focus on part of the story, but not the whole story. For example:
My first instinct is to assume, given the context, that it's a spam server. But in addition to not making sense why a spam server would be so limited in its acceptance of inbound connections or make so few DNS lookups**, I'm scratching my head here trying to figure out why Alfa would make the first DNS lookup of the new DNS without prompting. But maybe in the logs there's something that could help explain it. Maybe there was prompting - perhaps the trump-email server sent first, and alfa was doing a reverse D.N.S. lookup on it? Or maybe it's on the same I.P. and for some reason Alfa had spent days sitting around doing reverse D.N.S. lookups of the I.P. based on their last mail receipt? Seems a bit weird, but maybe the logs could clear things up.
** Re: the "so few DNS lookups": this one's a bit odd. The Trump campaign said that the server hasn't been used since 2010. But it's still acting like it's sending and receiving mail, just to a small number of recipients, during business hours. So one immediately pictures some sort of automated feedback loop, but that doesn't jibe with the communication patterns. Not sure how to parse that one. My gut still says "just a spam server", but it is odd.
Seriously, you Libertarian nuts are praising the situation that led to the Sturlung era , and even the Sturlung era itself, of all things? The bloody Age of Terror, which led to Iceland's complete collapse and takeover by Norway? That's what you want society to become? Except with guns this time around? Why not just say, "Vote Libertarian: Because Turning The World Into A Mad-Max Post-Apocalyptic Wasteland Sounds Like Fun!"
The Icelandic name is PÃratapartýiÃ. "PÃrati" is not Icelandic for pirate (that's "sjÃræningur") and political party is not "partý" (it's "flokkur"). PÃrati is a reference to the international pirate movement and partý is "party" as in an event where you have fun.
No, we don't usually get flash floods (except volcanic flash floods, which are HUGE ("Larger than the Amazon river"-level huge), but thankfully rare ;) ). Iceland is wet, not desert (well, some parts in the north/northeast are borderline desert due to rainshadowing, but not most of the country). The main problem with walking at the bottom of canyons is just finding yourself at a dead-end after having walked a good ways - it almost invariably happens if the canyon is deep / steep enough. The canyon continues, but you have cliffs and water blocking your way.
"South" is a pretty broad area. But if it's a guided tour, then you don't need tips :) I'm betting you're doing Landmannalaugar, including Fimmvörðuháls; it's our most traveled hiking trail.
Technically the mid-Atlantic ridge runs across the whole country (and branches; It's not a single straight line, but parallel curvy / branching lines), but ingvellir is indeed the most popular place to see it. But expect tourists ;). And don't be like the idiot who jumped naked into one of the water-filled rifts as a dare. The water is just above the freezing temperature, meaning you'll quickly lose muscle strength, and it's difficult to get out even in good circumstances.
You're talking about summers. I was talking about winters. Our winters are milder than Sweden. And winter temperatures are usually what bother people in northern countries.
You do have bigger / more extensive forests, but we still have some lovely ones, contrary to popular myth. On the other hand, the areas without trees also exposes the geology, which here is often very dramatic. Mountains aren't just rolling canopy, you see their individual lava flows, ash deposits, dikes, all of the columnar basalt, geothermal sulfur deposits (and active geothermal areas), bright red/yellow/black/etc modified areas, consted with brilliant green moss, etc. Our rainbow-colored mountains wouldn't be visible if they were fully forested. Also, we're wetter than Sweden on average, too, so we have a higher concentration of waterfalls. We don't beat Norway in waterfall height (Norway has some of the highest in the world), but we beat them in waterfall power.
Re, nordic unification: hey, count me in. Will you kick out out our corrupt Independence Party politicians? ;)
When they send frigates (hard power), and you defeat them with soft power? The discussion is about the power of nations versus states, and it's a clear demonstration of soft power that states do not have. A state can't just threaten to switch sides to the Soviets. A state can't get an even hearing in the UN or international legal institutions.
Ahem.
Tourism here is growing faster than we know how to deal with it, thank you very much.
And about 200 other TV shows and movies - here's just a fraction. Iceland has turned into one of the major "overseas" destinations for TV and movie shoots - not only because of the diverse, "unusual" landscapes, but also because in the summer movie crews can film outdoor scenes 24-7 and thus shorten their production time.
An established sitka spruce here grows at about half a meter a year. So yes, the forests have grown quite a bit since then. And forestry efforts have significantly increased since then. Our largest tree is now 22 meters tall (72 feet). Even in Reykjavík we have some decent ones growing - for example, this is Öskjuhlíð, by Perlan. They're bigger / more extensive right outside of town, in Heiðmörk - althoug the biggest forests are in northeast Iceland (and the biggest trees in the south / southeast, where it's wettest and they grow fastest)
That's not exactly true either. The sagas say that he did pick the name because he wanted it to be appealing. But he wasn't exactly asking people to go settle on a glacier, either. "Grænland" was pastureland in the southwest that wasn't all that different from his home in Vestfirðir.
Wow, where to even start?
* "Foreigners" can't vote, only citizens
* Citizenship takes 7 years
* Temporary workers can't get it, only permanent
* Foreign workers work more and pay more in taxes
* Ef (th)à ert Ãslendingur þà farÃu à rassgat.
Huh? Winters in Iceland are milder than in Sweden, what are you talking about?
The fact that out government is corrupt isn't up for debate. The last term has been one long stream of selling off state assets to friends and family of politicians at a fraction of their market value, media buyouts (and purges of critical journalists) with background money deals, routing money through shell companies in Panama, etc.
We've got no shortage of ice either ;)
You know we had three Cod Wars with the UK... and won each time, despite them being vastly larger, right? In each case, it was by virtue of Iceland being a country. The third time was the most extreme - the UK sent two dozen frigates, versus Iceland's piddly couple of coastguard vessels Iceland ultimately won by threatening to give the NATO base at Keflavík to the Soviets, causing the US to pressure the UK.
Think that would fly in Minnesota during a dispute? Being a nation gives an entity asymmetric bargaining power. Certain aspects of power are based on economic or military might, while others are based simply on status and sovereignty. Iceland's ability to defeat the UK in the Cod Wars is considered a textbook example of expression of soft power. On the international stage, when claims between two nations are evaluated on their merits in non-military, non-economic contexts, both entities are treated as being on equal footing, and their arguments are listened to equally. More powerful nations may try to apply hard power, but that doesn't always play out well in a modern multipolar world; you can end up looking like a bully and losing out in other fields that make the overall cost not worth the effort.
As for Iceland, what's wrong with it? Iceland's name is ~1150 years old, how old is your country's name?
What do you call "spring"? Be aware that a lot of the highlands will be closed. Don't be one of those stupid people who sees a closed road and thinks, "Meh, I'll get through". Likewise don't try to drive on a highlands road in a regular car. You will not make it. People try every year. Never drive offroad; you'll have people very mad at you. Lastly, while you technically can legally wildcamp, wildharvest, and hike anywhere within limits (no crossing fences, no ignoring posted signs, not near houses, not near campsites, not in national parks), if you plan to go somewhere on private property, it's a courtesy to let the owner know.
Oh, a couple more "stupid tourist things".... don't light a lava field on fire by trying to burn your own poo to hide it. Don't ignore the Giant Posted Rogue Wave Signs at Reynisfjara and go up to the water to try to become the next person on the casualty list. Don't stand on the edge of hot springs, because in case you didn't notice, that's boiling water with no easy way out and the edges are wet unstable clay being eaten away from underneath. Don't go wandering off onto a glacier without someone experienced with you - especially with an icefall, you'll just dissapear into a crevase and if you're lucky people will find your remains years later.
As for the not dangerous but still be aware of... if you're hiking on less touristy places, where the trail may be little to nonexistant, be aware that Iceland has lots of marshy areas. Try not to get yourself stuck in the middle of one. When hiking in canyons, be aware that our canyons may start out with a nice hikeable area by the river at the bottom, but then eventually it'll pin you up between the wall and deep running water, and you'll have to choose between either turning back, taking your chances in the (freezing) water, or climbing your way out of the canyon. The upper rims are always the easier route. Oh, and keep a charged cell phone. Our rescue services are excellent and cell phone coverage surprisingly good (although if you need a rescue because you were acting like an idiot, don't expect them to be happy with you ;) )
If you're a geology fan, keep your eyes out; Iceland has some great geology and you can find, depending on the area, zeolites, quartz, iceland spar, pyrite, opal, chalcedony, and a number of other neat things. Some places are like straight out of a geology textbook, with volcanoes that have been ripped in half so you can see the inner structure.
Oh, and if you have questions about places to go, just ask. If you really want obscure places, try this site.
Let me know when Minnesota has a seat in the UN, is a member of NATO (aka, their consent required for decisionmaking), has an EEZ that takes up half the area between Norway and Greenland, etc.
There are advantages to being a nation, even a small one.
Copyright reform isn't really a major issue for us, although it is something we support. There's much bigger issues on hand. Namely, there's a lot of issues that the public overwhelmingly supports - 65-85% - that the conservatives have derailed. Pirates are all about giving power to the citizenry. There's also a huge amount of corruption that desperately needs to be taken on.
The system here still needs to be improved. Votes in the countryside can count for up to double those of Reykjavík. And people voting for small parties can still be throwing their votes away if they don't make enough to get a seat (plus rounding errors can ). The system would be greatly improved if we could get rid of the kjördæmi (regions?) altogether and just vote nationwide, but the conservatives like the advantage that the current system gives them, and they generally dominate our political system.