It's very hard to determine the exact age of a tree that old, especially while its still alive.
There's also debate about what constitutes a tree. For example, Pando is a clonal colony of quaking aspen. While the individual trees (or stems if you want to get into the biology) may only live for a century or so, the colony itself is estimated around 80,000 years old. Clonal colonies like this could be considered biologically immortal.
My best guess is that it would be a localized wind pattern caused by a hill, valley, etc or even buildings if its anywhere near a city. it doesn't take much. Combine it with exceptionally dry air and it wouldn't take much for static electricity to start arcing. If there's any source of flammable gases such as hydrogen or methane beign stuck in the tree, it would take that much less of a spark to ignite.
However, I'm still betting on lighting or a stray cigarette.
"(anyone here know off-hand where the other 4 older trees are?)"
Methuselah, believed to be about 4,800 years old. It's a species of pine tree somewhere in California. The exact location is kept a secret. This is believed to be the oldest tree still alive. Most of the other oldest trees still living are giant sequoia scattered around California. I think Canada, Australia and Chile also have a few trees that were centuries old when Greek democracy was new.
MegaUpload: Some people love it, some people hate it. Most of their damage (much of it alleged) is limited to a single industry and affects a tiny percentage of their bottom line
Global Botnets: Universally hated with very real damage caused in terms of time spent, infrastructure upgrades, spam filtering, etc, plus I'm sure a lot of that spam is also used for phishing and other activities that cause further damage. It affects pretty much every company and individual with any sort of online presence. I don't have any numbers, but I imagine the cost of spam botnets cause damage that's at least an order of magnitude greater than what copyright infringement is even claimed to be (nevermind the smaller amount it actually is).
But hey, glad we took down the one that also served legal uses.
I think the idea is that most of the atoms we're made up of originate from before our solar system was formed. During the creation of our solar system, the matter was compressed, condensed, ignited or otherwise changed from how it existed as an interstellar gas and so doesn't exist in the same way anymore. It's not so much that we're interested in the individual atoms as we are in the collection of the interstellar material.
It won a prize? Can anybody enter a bomb? Does it need to be a bomb or just something extremely destructive? Can I enter my intestine destroying meatloaf of doom?
NASA's most well known location is in Florida, but they're also in California (JPL, ARC), Alabama (MSFC), Australia (CDSCC), Virginia (LaRC), and Texas (JSC). Oh, and their headquarters is, of course, in Washington DC. You'd think it would come up in other places where NASA is huge.
It all works out in the end. Orson Scott Card foretold of this and how it will lead to us defeating the Buggers, which opens up the galaxy to Human colonization.
The point is that some customers get a 99.48% discount for buying in bulk. How many other places offer that extreme of a discount? Should I get two McDoubles for a penny if I go to McDonalds every day?
Utilities and the like seem to like to do crazy things with billing based on usage. My gas/electric company reads the meter every other month and estimates for the months they don't read based on past usage. I've had a number of months in the past year estimated gas use so high that they mark it as 0 use the next month when they read the meter (which means I'm still paying for gas I don't use because I really doubt it comes to exactly even every time). However, even on months where they bill me for 0 gas use, I still get a nice plump "delivery charge". Isn't this like FedEx sending you a bill because they could have delivered a package even though they didn't?
Slashdot Mirror
It's very hard to determine the exact age of a tree that old, especially while its still alive.
There's also debate about what constitutes a tree. For example, Pando is a clonal colony of quaking aspen. While the individual trees (or stems if you want to get into the biology) may only live for a century or so, the colony itself is estimated around 80,000 years old. Clonal colonies like this could be considered biologically immortal.
My best guess is that it would be a localized wind pattern caused by a hill, valley, etc or even buildings if its anywhere near a city. it doesn't take much. Combine it with exceptionally dry air and it wouldn't take much for static electricity to start arcing. If there's any source of flammable gases such as hydrogen or methane beign stuck in the tree, it would take that much less of a spark to ignite.
However, I'm still betting on lighting or a stray cigarette.
If a person were to die in a naturally caused forest fire, it's generally not attributed to natural causes. It's attributed to burning in a fire.
"(anyone here know off-hand where the other 4 older trees are?)"
Methuselah, believed to be about 4,800 years old. It's a species of pine tree somewhere in California. The exact location is kept a secret. This is believed to be the oldest tree still alive.
Most of the other oldest trees still living are giant sequoia scattered around California. I think Canada, Australia and Chile also have a few trees that were centuries old when Greek democracy was new.
MegaUpload: Some people love it, some people hate it. Most of their damage (much of it alleged) is limited to a single industry and affects a tiny percentage of their bottom line
Global Botnets: Universally hated with very real damage caused in terms of time spent, infrastructure upgrades, spam filtering, etc, plus I'm sure a lot of that spam is also used for phishing and other activities that cause further damage. It affects pretty much every company and individual with any sort of online presence. I don't have any numbers, but I imagine the cost of spam botnets cause damage that's at least an order of magnitude greater than what copyright infringement is even claimed to be (nevermind the smaller amount it actually is).
But hey, glad we took down the one that also served legal uses.
I think the idea is that most of the atoms we're made up of originate from before our solar system was formed. During the creation of our solar system, the matter was compressed, condensed, ignited or otherwise changed from how it existed as an interstellar gas and so doesn't exist in the same way anymore. It's not so much that we're interested in the individual atoms as we are in the collection of the interstellar material.
It has been tested as vaporizing 3 mile thick sheets of unobtainium
It won a prize? Can anybody enter a bomb? Does it need to be a bomb or just something extremely destructive? Can I enter my intestine destroying meatloaf of doom?
But what if you don't know its a hallucination? By God, man, what if those flying pink ponies are real!?
Wouldn't the takedown of MegaUpload show that existing laws are already adequate? After all, the site was taken down...
NASA's most well known location is in Florida, but they're also in California (JPL, ARC), Alabama (MSFC), Australia (CDSCC), Virginia (LaRC), and Texas (JSC). Oh, and their headquarters is, of course, in Washington DC. You'd think it would come up in other places where NASA is huge.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_facilities
No, it's like downloading the Kama Sutra and getting slapped with a paternity suit. Or whatever it is that tells the Catholics that condoms are bad.
I hadn't even noticed he had an arabic sounding name until you pointed it out. I fail as an American.
Well, it's based on transporter technology so once we master that it should be no problem...
Either the summary changed or Brucelet neglected to read the summary where it says the asteroid is 11 meters wide.
It all works out in the end. Orson Scott Card foretold of this and how it will lead to us defeating the Buggers, which opens up the galaxy to Human colonization.
"countries and their citizens are largely powerless to resist"
They need a nation-sized Rape-aXe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-rape_device#Rape-aXe
It has an SD card slot and networking... no hard drive or memory stick needed
No, I'm just happy to see you.
That's why most real writers drink liquor, not coffee. Just ask Ernest Hemingway, Jack Kerouac, Jack London or Edgar Allan Poe,
Pretty sure that's why it's DRM-free. For the sake of the Universe.
I would do that, but it's a townhome complex with the meters not accessible to residents.
Wow, if only I didn't live in an apartment complex where the meters are not easily accessible to me. Otherwise I would do that.
The point is that some customers get a 99.48% discount for buying in bulk. How many other places offer that extreme of a discount? Should I get two McDoubles for a penny if I go to McDonalds every day?
Utilities and the like seem to like to do crazy things with billing based on usage. My gas/electric company reads the meter every other month and estimates for the months they don't read based on past usage. I've had a number of months in the past year estimated gas use so high that they mark it as 0 use the next month when they read the meter (which means I'm still paying for gas I don't use because I really doubt it comes to exactly even every time). However, even on months where they bill me for 0 gas use, I still get a nice plump "delivery charge". Isn't this like FedEx sending you a bill because they could have delivered a package even though they didn't?