After all, that is where there is bout a 25% chance of the next content delivery system being developed and patented. Another 25% for China. Another 25% for the USA. And the balance for Europe and the rest of the world. Allow around 10% uncertainty in those figures (predictions are difficult, particularly involving the future).
So . . . the influence of the US Congress on these other nuclear powers is... ?
LOL, I wonder just how many of us have installed it from floppies?
I tried, and what a pain it was. I kept on getting read errors. So I ended up getting a CD drive that could actually boot on my system (some weird VL-Bus thing with those early IDE controllers) to avoid the pile of floppies.
On the other hand, I pay a subscription to an ink-on-paper SF magazine with a 50-odd (sometimes downright peculiar) year history of publishing and encouraging novel authors to cut their teeth in the art of the short story and novella. Why? Because it takes time for any individual to learn to use the simple tools of word and non-word.
I'd expect it to take a lot longer to learn the more complex tools of the CGI movie. Particularly if it's not your day job.
So I'd say, "Quite well done, but you're not going to scare the professionals. Yet."
Citations, please, for your assertion that it is common to detail your references.
I thought that it was common to not post references to things which are common knowledge. Of course, your idea of "common knowledge" may differ from mine. I look at the site's byline ("news for nerds") and expect to be typing to nerds with a reasonable degree of knowledge about the sciences.
[SIGH] And you didn't see my other posting up-thread (or down-thread ; it's not clear on Slashdot's system) about why gaseous fluids would require far higher flow velocities and would therefore produce ventifacts rather than rounded pebbles.
Sorry, I wrote it once and referred to it at least once again ; I thought I'd referred to it for you as well. Search the thread for "ventifact" ; it's not a common word, but in this context it is somewhere between highly appropriate and unavoidable.
Your mechanism of "flashing" CO2 ice to vapour would produce an up-force. But how would you get a sufficiently rapid change of system properties to cause this to happen enough times to round off all faces of a pebble. One "flash" would propel the stone upwards, it'd land and chip off one projecting vertex. You'd need hundreds or thousands of "flashes" to produce a rounded pebble. Try running a "tumbler" for a while and see how long it takes to round off gravel and cobbles (technical terms). Your neighbours are likely to object because of the noise.
Romney and the like though are lunatic-extreme ultra-right wingers. La belle nutcase Palin included, and I wish she'd stand, to remove any lingering uncertainty.
I'm glad we don't have to deal with Septic politicians on a daily basis ; it's drive us to murder.
I don't understand why you don't believe men when they say there is little discrimination today and/or that they are now the ones discriminated against
Errrr, could it be because there is rampant male sexism almost everywhere, almost all the time. It's not as bad as it used to be (for example, we have laws here mandating equal pay for work of equal value), but it's still there (women often get fewer hours per week for a reduced pay packet, poorer pension options because they work fewer hours, and many other inhibitions to progressing in their careers and pay scales.
On the other hand, many of those issues are fundamentally a consequence of women (and perhaps some men, but I hear much less bleating from men on this point) desiring to have time at home with any children that they choose to have. So... a shit is not given.
The descriptions so far are a bit vague to give precise directions. Because comets are shedding appreciable mass, which can have a rocket effect on the trajectory, and they're typically tumbling irregularly, and they're warming up (irregularly, under the influence of both previous effects) then this early in an apparition, it's not really worthwhile making close predictions of the comet's path through the solar system, and thus of it's track across the night sky.
The current magnitude (18.8) is several million times too dim for naked-eye observation. The comet is predicted to become binocular-visible in August 2013, and maybe naked-eye visible from late September or early October for a month or two. I would take an industrial-scale pinch of salt with those figures.
Not possessing a telescope, I'd look at getting an updated ephemeris (listing of it's path on the plane of the sky) in July next year.
but I'll just go with Harry Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat, who eloquently asserted that interstellar war was a complete waste of effort, then goes on to write one book where (wait for it) a bunch of folks decide to wage interstellar war.
To complete the bits you left out, and spoil the story for those who might read it... they decided to wage interstellar ECONOMIC war in combination with political manoeuvring and installed a Quisling government, BEFORE staging what looked like an interstellar war. Which was the point of the story. Once a target planet had an effective guerilla resistance (a.k.a. "insurgent" in modern double-talk), the invasion from a long way away couldn't maintain it's huge expenditure on men, materiel and transport and the invasion failed with an economic collapse in the home country.
Harrison was writing in what - the late 60s or so? So he can't have been referring to this generation's long-distance wars. Perhaps he was referring to some other long-distance war of the 1960s which ended in a damaging defeat for the aggressor nation in the face of a determined guerilla war.
If you follow Ian Parson's work... that's a real possibility. Low likelihood, but not zero.
But the divots (a good golfing word ; Ian would like it!) are microscopic. Finely microscopic. He uses an electron microscope routinely. (Well, he did before he retired.)
I was stromatolite-fossil collecting a few weeks ago in the Scottish Highlands ; the fossils are fairly subtle, but once you "get your eye in", reasonably obvious.
But the good news is that these stromatolites appear to have been deposited (a billion years ago) in intermittent or ephemeral lakes in an inter-montane basin, interbedded on a large scale with coarse sands and conglomerates.
Which (the conglomerates) is what we're seeing here.
Saw a meteorite's suevite deposit too. Good weekend, well worth the effort.
I think I'll fire up my Cobra and make another attempt a finding a Thargoid fleet. (An Oolite reference for those benighted souls who don't know the game.)
Why would the oceans seep into the crust? Are you implying that there is significant porosity (holes in the rock) and permeability (connections between holes in the rock, allowing fluids to move) in all the rock types comprising the crust? Further, are you implying that that porosity is currently filled with fluid of lower density than (sea-)water - 1030 kg/m^3 ?
You're wrong on all 3 points.Only a few percent by volume of rocks have more than a percent or so of porosity ; anything with less than a percent of porosity has very low permeability ; most porosity is filled with salty water (density 1015 to 1050 kg/m^3).
In my industry, we search assiduously for those few rocks with porosity, permeability and a low-density (800 kg/m^3 and lower) pore-filling fluid. We call it "oil" or "gas" ; you may have heard of the industry and it's products.
Slashdot Mirror
So . . . the influence of the US Congress on these other nuclear powers is ... ?
I tried, and what a pain it was. I kept on getting read errors. So I ended up getting a CD drive that could actually boot on my system (some weird VL-Bus thing with those early IDE controllers) to avoid the pile of floppies.
On the other hand, I pay a subscription to an ink-on-paper SF magazine with a 50-odd (sometimes downright peculiar) year history of publishing and encouraging novel authors to cut their teeth in the art of the short story and novella. Why? Because it takes time for any individual to learn to use the simple tools of word and non-word.
I'd expect it to take a lot longer to learn the more complex tools of the CGI movie. Particularly if it's not your day job.
So I'd say, "Quite well done, but you're not going to scare the professionals. Yet."
Only one plague of standardised tests? A good (for certain meanings of "good") half dozen at least to go then.
I thought that it was common to not post references to things which are common knowledge. Of course, your idea of "common knowledge" may differ from mine. I look at the site's byline ("news for nerds") and expect to be typing to nerds with a reasonable degree of knowledge about the sciences.
Sorry, I wrote it once and referred to it at least once again ; I thought I'd referred to it for you as well. Search the thread for "ventifact" ; it's not a common word, but in this context it is somewhere between highly appropriate and unavoidable.
Your mechanism of "flashing" CO2 ice to vapour would produce an up-force. But how would you get a sufficiently rapid change of system properties to cause this to happen enough times to round off all faces of a pebble. One "flash" would propel the stone upwards, it'd land and chip off one projecting vertex. You'd need hundreds or thousands of "flashes" to produce a rounded pebble. Try running a "tumbler" for a while and see how long it takes to round off gravel and cobbles (technical terms). Your neighbours are likely to object because of the noise.
Ah, the joys of democracy. 50%+1 wins and the 50%-1 can go to the salt mines.
Romney and the like though are lunatic-extreme ultra-right wingers. La belle nutcase Palin included, and I wish she'd stand, to remove any lingering uncertainty.
I'm glad we don't have to deal with Septic politicians on a daily basis ; it's drive us to murder.
Perhaps that explains American gunophilia?
Errrr, could it be because there is rampant male sexism almost everywhere, almost all the time. It's not as bad as it used to be (for example, we have laws here mandating equal pay for work of equal value), but it's still there (women often get fewer hours per week for a reduced pay packet, poorer pension options because they work fewer hours, and many other inhibitions to progressing in their careers and pay scales.
On the other hand, many of those issues are fundamentally a consequence of women (and perhaps some men, but I hear much less bleating from men on this point) desiring to have time at home with any children that they choose to have. So ... a shit is not given.
s/pedophiles/paediatricians/
The current magnitude (18.8) is several million times too dim for naked-eye observation. The comet is predicted to become binocular-visible in August 2013, and maybe naked-eye visible from late September or early October for a month or two. I would take an industrial-scale pinch of salt with those figures.
Not possessing a telescope, I'd look at getting an updated ephemeris (listing of it's path on the plane of the sky) in July next year.
Yes, it'll be pretty cool. Not far above absolute zero, in fact.
No. The "it's notoriously hard to predict the brightness of new comets" meme predates Kohoutek by some few decades.
Which apparition were you referring to? The 1982 one or the 1909 one? Both are just about credible.
Why would you need a link to tell you about the Great Comet of 1680? Do you not consider yourself to be an educated person?
To complete the bits you left out, and spoil the story for those who might read it... they decided to wage interstellar ECONOMIC war in combination with political manoeuvring and installed a Quisling government, BEFORE staging what looked like an interstellar war. Which was the point of the story. Once a target planet had an effective guerilla resistance (a.k.a. "insurgent" in modern double-talk), the invasion from a long way away couldn't maintain it's huge expenditure on men, materiel and transport and the invasion failed with an economic collapse in the home country.
Harrison was writing in what - the late 60s or so? So he can't have been referring to this generation's long-distance wars. Perhaps he was referring to some other long-distance war of the 1960s which ended in a damaging defeat for the aggressor nation in the face of a determined guerilla war.
Read the posting I made earlier including the word "ventifact." There are not likely to be many other people using that word here.
But the divots (a good golfing word ; Ian would like it!) are microscopic. Finely microscopic. He uses an electron microscope routinely. (Well, he did before he retired.)
But the good news is that these stromatolites appear to have been deposited (a billion years ago) in intermittent or ephemeral lakes in an inter-montane basin, interbedded on a large scale with coarse sands and conglomerates.
Which (the conglomerates) is what we're seeing here.
Saw a meteorite's suevite deposit too. Good weekend, well worth the effort.
I think I'll fire up my Cobra and make another attempt a finding a Thargoid fleet. (An Oolite reference for those benighted souls who don't know the game.)
But I reluctantly have to say that the probability of seeing one is not high.
You're wrong on all 3 points.Only a few percent by volume of rocks have more than a percent or so of porosity ; anything with less than a percent of porosity has very low permeability ; most porosity is filled with salty water (density 1015 to 1050 kg/m^3).
In my industry, we search assiduously for those few rocks with porosity, permeability and a low-density (800 kg/m^3 and lower) pore-filling fluid. We call it "oil" or "gas" ; you may have heard of the industry and it's products.
[Counts] Seven, at least, though not all have wheels, and the majority are immobile and unresponsive, (and possibly fragmentary)
Speaking as a Martian, what have you got against Carthage?