> Funny how this 20 million year old spider species exists in identical form today. It must be a perfectly adapted design; why else would it not have changed in all that time?
TFA mentions that it's a new species. I.e., not identical to any known spider.
(Presumably "new species" means "newly discovered", since the specimen is rather old.)
> I have to wonder about the authenticity of carbon dating proceedures in general. I'm sure lots of scientists believe in them wholeheartedly, but I'm of a more humble seed. If they say this is a 20mil yr old spider, then I would agree under the stipulation that it's 20mil yrs in relation to everything else we've carbon dated.;-)
FYI, carbon dating is only good for the past 50,000 years.
Also, notice that TFA doesn't mention carbon dating.
> Once the city council backed the mayor to withdraw support, the monoral project was forced to put a measure on the upcoming November ballot so Seattle citizens can vote a fifth time on the monorail project.
It seems that SOP for light rail systems is to put it up for a vote every year until it finally gets approved. I've never figured out who's behind it, but no matter how badly it gets trounced, it's always back on the ballot next time.
> The taxation never drops because many people in your area must not have the balls to stand up and say, "Motherfuckers, I have had enough of this taxation!" Like your Founding Fathers showed time and time again, the only way for the citizenry to avoid the greed of government is to take a stand and demand that the taxation be reduced.
Dress up like Arabs and throw the monorail cars into the bay?
> English has roots in ancient Saxon. Its vocabulary is largely from Latin via French. The grammar is still largely based on Saxon though.
Au contraire, modern English sentence structure is far more like French than like its own ancestral forms.
Also, our core vocablulary is still mostly Germanic (pronouns, articles, prepositions, names for relatives, etc.), and for other words we have so many lexical borrowings from French and Latin that we essentially have a dual vocabulary system.
Sorry to say, but you have it almost exactly backwards.
> Even in England, different regions use different words and pronunciations (which could count as different words). But we all use the same grammar. It's easy to change the sounds of a sentence, but to change the structure requires hefty evolution, and hence a separation of culture.
All the same, the various Indo-European languages vary greatly in grammar, and we might never have recognized the family's existence if grammar was all we looked at.
How many hijackings have there been since 9/11? My naive expectation is that hijackers would now have a short life expectancy, no matter how they're armed.
> ...the orbiter shows that the climate on Mars is heating up at the same rate as Earth's?
That would in fact be surprising, since Mars is a smaller, cooler planet with no oceans and a thinner atmosphere. Even if you applied the same stress to the two systems, you wouldn't expect to get the same results.
> From what I understand hurricanes are caused when you have warm water and cooler air. Generally this is caused by quick temperature drops in the air. This is why most hurricanes happen in september, when air is starting to cool
Hurricane season peaks in September, but we still get a darn lot in June-July-August, when there's not a heck of a lot of cooling going on in the tropics of the northern hemisphere.
I think a more accurate description is that you need hot water+air at the surface and cooler air way up high, so that seawater will evaporate, the hot damp air will rise, and the water will condense out of the air when it gets high enough to cool down.
> It seems to me, and I could be wrong, but global warming would cause warmer air, and possibly cooler water as less of the suns rays would hit the water.
FYI, global warming shouldn't be visualized as "everything's warmer", but rather as "more thermal energy in the atmosphere and oceans". It will not necessarily be spread evenly (it never has been), and uneven spread is probably a recipe for more storms - especially heat engines like hurricanes, but also more winter storms and other things you wouldn't expect from a naive understanding of what "global warming" means.
> So, what exactly is the point of going to the moon, staying a week and then coming back? There must be one but I don't know it. America gave up for lack of interest last time 30 years ago, so why is that not going to happen this time? What's different?
Bush needs a positive legacy, and he's figured out that it ain't going to be Iraq.
> Perhaps we've moved a bit beyond this stuff, though NASA hasn't yet gotten the message or is worried about its future funding.
NASA is on the Moon/Mars bandwagon at GWB's behest. Presumably in order to provide himself with a legacy.
As for funding...
> The US is financially overstretched as it is.
The proposed Moon/Mars missions will never happen. Since Bush took office our public policy has been "cut taxes, increase spending". And that doesn't even include unfunded stuff like the Iraq war and the Katrina cleanup, which together will probably cost of half a trillion dollars.
Something's gotta give. NASA, never very popular in certain circles even between the high-profile screwups, will probably have to give more, proportionately, than most other programs do.
The only hope these missions have is if other nations' announcements of plans to visit the Moon and Mars trigger another Sputnik response. But these days I think the public is more interested in tax cuts than in expensive displays of national pride.
Re: Back to where they begun?
on
NASA's New Shuttle
·
· Score: 2, Informative
> I must say, it is interesting to notice that NASA has, in fact, finally opted to return to the old, well-tried capsule approach, as opposed to reusable reentry vehicles such as Shuttle.
FYI, the new capsule is supposed to be reusable as well, although with a limit of ~10 trips.
Slashdot Mirror
> Funny how this 20 million year old spider species exists in identical form today. It must be a perfectly adapted design; why else would it not have changed in all that time?
TFA mentions that it's a new species. I.e., not identical to any known spider.
(Presumably "new species" means "newly discovered", since the specimen is rather old.)
> I have to wonder about the authenticity of carbon dating proceedures in general. I'm sure lots of scientists believe in them wholeheartedly, but I'm of a more humble seed. If they say this is a 20mil yr old spider, then I would agree under the stipulation that it's 20mil yrs in relation to everything else we've carbon dated. ;-)
FYI, carbon dating is only good for the past 50,000 years.
Also, notice that TFA doesn't mention carbon dating.
> Once the city council backed the mayor to withdraw support, the monoral project was forced to put a measure on the upcoming November ballot so Seattle citizens can vote a fifth time on the monorail project.
It seems that SOP for light rail systems is to put it up for a vote every year until it finally gets approved. I've never figured out who's behind it, but no matter how badly it gets trounced, it's always back on the ballot next time.
> The taxation never drops because many people in your area must not have the balls to stand up and say, "Motherfuckers, I have had enough of this taxation!" Like your Founding Fathers showed time and time again, the only way for the citizenry to avoid the greed of government is to take a stand and demand that the taxation be reduced.
Dress up like Arabs and throw the monorail cars into the bay?
> English has roots in ancient Saxon. Its vocabulary is largely from Latin via French. The grammar is still largely based on Saxon though.
Au contraire, modern English sentence structure is far more like French than like its own ancestral forms.
Also, our core vocablulary is still mostly Germanic (pronouns, articles, prepositions, names for relatives, etc.), and for other words we have so many lexical borrowings from French and Latin that we essentially have a dual vocabulary system.
Sorry to say, but you have it almost exactly backwards.
> Even in England, different regions use different words and pronunciations (which could count as different words). But we all use the same grammar. It's easy to change the sounds of a sentence, but to change the structure requires hefty evolution, and hence a separation of culture.
All the same, the various Indo-European languages vary greatly in grammar, and we might never have recognized the family's existence if grammar was all we looked at.
How many hijackings have there been since 9/11? My naive expectation is that hijackers would now have a short life expectancy, no matter how they're armed.
We're nowhere near ready to start manufacturing tubes suitable for use in an elevator cable. (Maybe you've noticed their lack of use elsewhere.)
> But no need to go hide in a cave just yet, we've still got about 3 billion years.
Might want to avoid buying 5 billion year treasury bonds, though.
To rule them all,
And in the Darkness bind them.
>
That would in fact be surprising, since Mars is a smaller, cooler planet with no oceans and a thinner atmosphere. Even if you applied the same stress to the two systems, you wouldn't expect to get the same results.
> From what I understand hurricanes are caused when you have warm water and cooler air. Generally this is caused by quick temperature drops in the air. This is why most hurricanes happen in september, when air is starting to cool
Hurricane season peaks in September, but we still get a darn lot in June-July-August, when there's not a heck of a lot of cooling going on in the tropics of the northern hemisphere.
I think a more accurate description is that you need hot water+air at the surface and cooler air way up high, so that seawater will evaporate, the hot damp air will rise, and the water will condense out of the air when it gets high enough to cool down.
> It seems to me, and I could be wrong, but global warming would cause warmer air, and possibly cooler water as less of the suns rays would hit the water.
FYI, global warming shouldn't be visualized as "everything's warmer", but rather as "more thermal energy in the atmosphere and oceans". It will not necessarily be spread evenly (it never has been), and uneven spread is probably a recipe for more storms - especially heat engines like hurricanes, but also more winter storms and other things you wouldn't expect from a naive understanding of what "global warming" means.
> Use the Chinese alphabet. If you have a year where you run out, it's all just one big hurricane.
Or FEMA could just stall and clean up two at a time, so we'd only need half as many names.
> What's the point in using the Greek alphabet, since all the US media is going to use English/Roman letters to report the names?
I suppose they could use numerals: 0liver, 1ouanne, 2ebulun, 3lizabeth, 4arry, 5andy, 6ob, 7erri, 8???, 9ale, 10uis,
What's the point in using the Greek alphabet, since all the US media is going to use English/Roman letters to report the names?
> Is it just me, or does the artist's conception up there look like the Apollo command module and lander?
Maybe they're recycling the artwork along with the basic plan.
> So, what exactly is the point of going to the moon, staying a week and then coming back? There must be one but I don't know it. America gave up for lack of interest last time 30 years ago, so why is that not going to happen this time? What's different?
Bush needs a positive legacy, and he's figured out that it ain't going to be Iraq.
> How can we spend a 180billion a year in Iraq when we have been there 3 years and haven't even spent 180billion yet?
Turn on JavaScript and visit costofwar.com, then visit their explanation of the number.
Or dismiss them as liberal commie socialist democrats, if you prefer.
> Perhaps we've moved a bit beyond this stuff, though NASA hasn't yet gotten the message or is worried about its future funding.
NASA is on the Moon/Mars bandwagon at GWB's behest. Presumably in order to provide himself with a legacy.
As for funding...
> The US is financially overstretched as it is.
The proposed Moon/Mars missions will never happen. Since Bush took office our public policy has been "cut taxes, increase spending". And that doesn't even include unfunded stuff like the Iraq war and the Katrina cleanup, which together will probably cost of half a trillion dollars.
Something's gotta give. NASA, never very popular in certain circles even between the high-profile screwups, will probably have to give more, proportionately, than most other programs do.
The only hope these missions have is if other nations' announcements of plans to visit the Moon and Mars trigger another Sputnik response. But these days I think the public is more interested in tax cuts than in expensive displays of national pride.
> I must say, it is interesting to notice that NASA has, in fact, finally opted to return to the old, well-tried capsule approach, as opposed to reusable reentry vehicles such as Shuttle.
FYI, the new capsule is supposed to be reusable as well, although with a limit of ~10 trips.
I wonder if trolls are going to vandalize it by inserting useful information into the articles.
Except you get voted off the planet instead of an island.
> Then again, what do you expect from a bunch of flannel-wearing, pot-smoking, heroin-junkie hippies?
Don't lumberjacks wear flannel shirts?
Aren't all
> Ewww!!!! Oh I misread... Whoops...
You can tell they're not marketing to us dyslexic types.