> How would YOU like to be the hapless system > administrator getting woken up at 3am because > some idiot forgot to update his admin email > address and wants you to do it for him?
So you charge him $100 for emergency service as provided for in his contract.
I would have thought that a company like Panix would have a special $1000/year contract with a reliable registrar providing for things like 24hr support, telephone confirmation of changes, etc.
...They called themselves the International Earth Rotation Society. Made me visualize a group of Jules Verne characters regulating the rotation of the Earth with giant guns mounted on mountains on the equator.
It probably isn't revenge. Most mail servers reject messages from non-existent domains so the spammers forge a real one. They just happen to have chosen yours. They've also chosen mine. I send all bounces not addressed to a real user to/dev/null. I have Gnus sort the rest into my "bounces" folder, but there are so many now that I just delete them unread. Until something effective is done about forgery it would be better for admins to stop sending bounces at all.
Widespread adoption of SPF would solve this part of the spam problem.
> However, when it comes to actually diverting an > asteroid, an effort by a single large country > would probably be better than trying to cobble > together some sort of International Coalition to > Divert the Asteroid.
Better yet would be independent efforts by several large countries. Redundancy is good.
> first off, if thise thing hit the most densly > populate place on the planet, the death toll > might hit 8 figures.
That _might_ be possible given the worst possible ocean strike and no warning. However, the exact target is going to be public knowledge years in advance.
> I am pretty sure if the US started ramping up > the technology to help prevent these kinds of > disasters every other country would have a > hissy fit.
Detonating a nuke essentially in contact with the object would vaporize a substantial amount of mass from the object. The vaporized material would expand away from the object, imparting substantial momentum to it.
Unfortunately, it would probably also break it up in an unpredictable fashion.
> I doubt that very much. If one just detonate it > on the surface, it'd simply make a molten crater > on the surface...
It's most likely that these things are collections of loose stuff stuck together rather than solid rocks. Even the stony ones are probably fractured. Thus your bomb would be likely to bust it into an unknown number of pieces some of which would still have a chance of hitting Earth.
> in that kind of situation, a possible solution > might be to change the time at which it crosses > the earth's orbital path by speeding it up or > slowing it down (rather than trying to change > its orbit or blowing it up)?
"Speeding it up or slowing it down" _is_ changing its orbit.
> that seems a little more likely to me that this > object is in an eccentric orbit around the sun > that will bring it dangerously close to us
Yes, of course that is what it is. The way to deal with it is to change its momenetum very slightly when it is at a point in its orbit far from Earth. Any sufficiently large change will do, but of course there is an optimum direction in which to add momentum that will require the least effort.
> Landing on land, it would just make a big boom > and put a lot of dirt into the air, unless it > happened to land in a populated area.
In which case it would put a lot of dirt and buildings in the air. We will know _exactly_ where it is going to hit years in advance: plenty of time to evacuate.
The worst case is also the most likely: in the Pacific. Even with years of warning evacuating as many a several hundred million people would be challenging and severely disruptive.
Only if it hits land. If it hits at sea the tsunami could do significant damage thousands of miles away. Even if it hits land there will be world wide climactic effects.
> Do powerful countries will prefer to do nothing > to avert making a mistake that could possibly > send the asteroid on their head?
Since it is aimed at the eastern hemisphere no screwup could cause it to hit the US (though an ocean strike could damage the US). However, the climactic effects alone would probably cost the US more than the price of an intercept mission. Add in the PR value of a successful intercept and the US has a strong incentive to act.
> What could possibly do a small country in africa > if nobody wants to help them?
Slashdot Mirror
They don't do that for the same reason they don't operate telescopes hundreds of miles apart on Earth as arrays.
> Nowadays, we also know that having that much EMI
> around constantly will give you cancer in short
> order.
Bullshit. Nonionizing radiation has no effect on living tissue other than heating it up.
> What this company is probably doing is called
> inductive coupling.
Yes, of course. It's just a transformer.
Now, if they will just accept regular expressions.
> How would YOU like to be the hapless system
> administrator getting woken up at 3am because
> some idiot forgot to update his admin email
> address and wants you to do it for him?
So you charge him $100 for emergency service as provided for in his contract.
I would have thought that a company like Panix would have a special $1000/year contract with a reliable registrar providing for things like 24hr support, telephone confirmation of changes, etc.
> I used to hate the time standard, it should be
> fixed to the earths rotation in days...
The rate of rotation of the Earth is not constant.
...They called themselves the International Earth Rotation Society. Made me visualize a group of Jules Verne characters regulating the rotation of the Earth with giant guns mounted on mountains on the equator.
...I might be tempted to try to scrape together the money to subscribe.
You want to send balloons to Venus, not rovers.
...and then the transmission cuts off.
> Well, if you're going to observe a supernova in
> your lifetime then the event would have already
> happened.
Depends on how one chooses to define simultaneity.
> I'd even think that eliminating tabbed browsing
> is a good idea until a fix is released.
I'd even think that eliminating applets is a good idea until a fix is released.
> The first issue...
It isn't an "issue". It is a bug or a problem.
> As it is, they never send the messages from a
...so who cares if your replying to their spam
> valid address...
Yes they do. It just isn't their valid address.
>
> with your real address?
Me, when I receive your replies to the spams sent with my address forged.
NEVER REPLY TO SPAM
It probably isn't revenge. Most mail servers reject messages from non-existent domains so the spammers forge a real one. They just happen to have chosen yours. They've also chosen mine. I send all bounces not addressed to a real user to /dev/null. I have Gnus sort the rest into my "bounces" folder, but there are so many now that I just delete them unread. Until something effective is done about forgery it would be better for admins to stop sending bounces at all.
Widespread adoption of SPF would solve this part of the spam problem.
> But keep in mind that a decent-sized nuclear
> blast should be enough to fully vaporise that
> rock.
Sigh. Will you people please sit down and do some calculations before posting such nonsense?
> However, when it comes to actually diverting an
> asteroid, an effort by a single large country
> would probably be better than trying to cobble
> together some sort of International Coalition to
> Divert the Asteroid.
Better yet would be independent efforts by several large countries. Redundancy is good.
> In a huge hurry, a single thermonuclear warhead
> ought to be able to totally vaporise a 300m
> diameter asteroid...
Not a chance.
> first off, if thise thing hit the most densly
> populate place on the planet, the death toll
> might hit 8 figures.
That _might_ be possible given the worst possible ocean strike and no warning. However, the exact target is going to be public knowledge years in advance.
> I am pretty sure if the US started ramping up
> the technology to help prevent these kinds of
> disasters every other country would have a
> hissy fit.
Nonsense.
Detonating a nuke essentially in contact with the object would vaporize a substantial amount of mass from the object. The vaporized material would expand away from the object, imparting substantial momentum to it.
Unfortunately, it would probably also break it up in an unpredictable fashion.
> I doubt that very much. If one just detonate it
> on the surface, it'd simply make a molten crater
> on the surface...
It's most likely that these things are collections of loose stuff stuck together rather than solid rocks. Even the stony ones are probably fractured. Thus your bomb would be likely to bust it into an unknown number of pieces some of which would still have a chance of hitting Earth.
> I wonder if it could be (safely) bumped into a
> close enough orbit around earth to be useful?
That would require much, much, much, much more energy than would biffing it just enough to make it miss Earth.
> in that kind of situation, a possible solution
> might be to change the time at which it crosses
> the earth's orbital path by speeding it up or
> slowing it down (rather than trying to change
> its orbit or blowing it up)?
"Speeding it up or slowing it down" _is_ changing its orbit.
> that seems a little more likely to me that this
> object is in an eccentric orbit around the sun
> that will bring it dangerously close to us
Yes, of course that is what it is. The way to deal with it is to change its momenetum very slightly when it is at a point in its orbit far from Earth. Any sufficiently large change will do, but of course there is an optimum direction in which to add momentum that will require the least effort.
Radar also gives you the exact radial velocity.
> Landing on land, it would just make a big boom
> and put a lot of dirt into the air, unless it
> happened to land in a populated area.
In which case it would put a lot of dirt and buildings in the air. We will know _exactly_ where it is going to hit years in advance: plenty of time to evacuate.
The worst case is also the most likely: in the Pacific. Even with years of warning evacuating as many a several hundred million people would be challenging and severely disruptive.
> We know that damages will only be localized...
Only if it hits land. If it hits at sea the tsunami could do significant damage thousands of miles away. Even if it hits land there will be world wide climactic effects.
> Do powerful countries will prefer to do nothing
> to avert making a mistake that could possibly
> send the asteroid on their head?
Since it is aimed at the eastern hemisphere no screwup could cause it to hit the US (though an ocean strike could damage the US). However, the climactic effects alone would probably cost the US more than the price of an intercept mission. Add in the PR value of a successful intercept and the US has a strong incentive to act.
> What could possibly do a small country in africa
> if nobody wants to help them?
Evacuate.