Obviously I care enough to post, but beyond that? Frankly, I'd managed to put Star Wars entirely out of my mind until I saw a trailer for it in front of Blade 2.
Now, compare this to drooling in anticipation before Phantom Menace. Downloading the trailers the instant they became available online. Being hailed as a demi-god by the people I was living with for being the first to download the trailer and get it playing. Buying the soundtrack a week before the movie even appeared. In short, alot of faith from a relatively rational person.
This time, there's none of that. It's not that I really disliked Phantom Menace - I'll even defend Jar Jar to a point. The problem was that it didn't measure up to my (overly) high expectations, and didn't compare well with the other movies.
There's a bright side complementing the dark though. If it turns out to be a pile of festering shite, I've only wasted a few bucks, and there's no emotional attachment. If it holds its own against the originals, we can forgive George Lucas his mistake, and go off in perfect bliss knowing that all is right with the world again.
That's not exactly the real significance of the Sharpe case. I'll just fill in the details for the non-Canadian types.
This Sharpe guy was, frankly, a really sick bastard. He was charged with posession of child pornography, specifically filmed material and written material. He was found guilty on the charges related to film material, and justifiably so.
The Supreme Court basically found that the simple possession of the material in question was constitutionally protected, so long as the acts depicted in the photographs were not real. Furthermore, they held that the written material, penned by Sharpe himself, had artistic merit and he was consequently protected from prosecution.
As the judge stated, to forbid possession of this material would be one step away from censoring people's thoughts. Much as I hate to contemplate those thoughts, these people have a right to them, and a right to put them on paper. Goes back to not agreeing with what you say, but defending your right to say it.
The following link has some further info on this case.
http://cbc.ca/news/indepth/background/sharpe_por no graphy.html
My calculation was simply a comparison of total solar flux at a distance of 1 AU with the radiation emitted by SN 1987A. So, when I said bright, I really meant across all wavelengths.
(i) Umm... you've caught me there. I should have looked at a particular part of the spectrum for an accurate calculation. Compared normal cosmic ray flux to the gamma ray flux from the hypothetical supernova. That's what I get for making a back of a napkin calculation : )
(ii) Yes, I realise star groups move relative to the sun. I drew the figures I cited from Hipparcos data - which also included the relative motions of the relevant stars. I made the small, but not unreasonable assumption, that the solar neighbourhood (in terms of types and numbers of stars) has looked basically the same for the past several million years. In any case, I was only trying to show that the likelihood of a supernova in our backyard isn't spectacularly high.
I'd actually be very interested in seeing more accurate calculations of these two items. I myself, being an amateur astronomer, don't have all the relevant data at hand to make these calulcations.
I'd rather watch anything but more footage of the 9/11 WTC attack too. My reasons, however, are a touch different.
Personally, I'm sick of the moaning, wailing, and gnashing of teeth over the attack. It was a bad event, but the media are doing nothing more than exploiting several thousand personal tragedies.
Anyway, how are the deaths of those thousands any more tragic than the deaths of the thousands killed on American highways, or the thousands killed by an inane firearms policy? Scale?
If you want scale, let's look at Hiroshima. Nagaski. Civilians killed by American bombs. Let's look at Hamburg. Dresden. Essen. Duisberg. Tens of thousands of civilians slaughtered in massive firestorms, at the hands of Britons and Americans - and in case you're wondering, I'm among the former group.
All of these were "legitimate" acts of war right? America was attacked on American soil. Bad shit happens. Worse shit has happened to alot of other nations in the past, and they've done very well in the long run.
To America: quit blubbing about a tragedy which is pretty small in the scheme of things. By all means, do whatever is necessary (and legal) to bring those responsible to justice. Quit making out how hard done by you are. Get the job done with Osama and al-Qaeda, and put it behind you.
PS I daresay I'll be treated as a troll for this post. Whatever. It was an American who stated "I don't agree with what you say, but I'll defence to the death you're right to say it."
This all possible, yes, but it's also extremely unlikely.
First the possible. A quick, back of a napkin calculation shows that a supernovae at around 3 light years would appear roughly as bright as the sun (depending on the circumstances). A good opprtunity to work on your tan, for a few days anyway. Nothing to really worry about, but if you're skinned, slap on some SP-40.
Now, if it's much closer, you might have some problems. At ~1.5 light years, the supernova is 4 times as bright as the sun, and at ~1 light year, it's 9 times as bright. Hooray, we know what an inverse square law is.
The real problem is this: there aren't that many stars nearby. The closest, Proxima Centauri, is 4.2 light years away. And there's no chance of it ever going supernova - only comparatively massive stars manage that. Within 10 light years of us, there are only 12 stars (and that includes Sol). Of those there is only one that's ever going to go supernovae - Sirius, at a distance of 8.6 ly. And that's an exceptional case. You have to go to the 70th nearest star before you find another star in the same situation - Altair, at 16.8 ly.
Now, even with Sirius and Altair, they're going to be shining for millions of years to come. Now, what they're suggesting is that one of those really rare large stars just happened to be really close to us when it's lifetime of tens of millions of years came to a close. Right.
Time for those astronomers to come down from the mountain - the altitude seems to be having an effect.
All too true. Furthermore the document was intended to act as the basis for a systematic taxation system, updating the traditional Saxon system based on "hides" of land.
Notably, the Saxons, and their conquered nobility, were assessed more severely than William the Bastard's/Conqueror's transplanted Norman French nobility - an early example of racial discrimination, if you will. All rather interesting, since there are people today who can trace their families back to those in the book.
Incidentally, I've found reference to my own family in the book. They were, evidently, Saxon's, and were assessed rather harshly. Perhaps I can claim compensation:)
Let's not forget the extent to which "This Hour..." HAS managed to humiliate American leaders. The best example of this was the sight Rick Mercer speaking to then presidential candidate Bush. Dubya was completely oblivious to the fact that Canada's Prime Minister is not named Jean Poutine...
Anyway, the point is that government funding does not necessarily translate into government control. Ideally, government funding in a true liberal democracy will produce an unbiased media. In practice, the result won't be perfect - the question is whether it will lead to a better media than that produced through corporate funding.
I've always wanted to know where I could pick up a battle tank. That and enough equipment to equip an infantry company or two. I wonder if they take VISA.....
Being a B.C. resident, I had the opportunity to listen to a radio call-in programme which discussed this act of government. Two things were very much apparent. Firstly, the older the caller, the more they supported tighter control over game sales. Secondly, females were far more supportive of those controls. I'd say it's pretty likely those people have had little or no contact with video games of any description. Whereas they doubtlessly watched countless cowboys slay hordes of savage Indians in the cinema of their youth, they have little tolerance for similar violence in new media.
My suggestion? Rather than behave like a bunch of old woman, we as a society should encourage parents to be aware of the games their children play. Would a parent take a kid to see an NC-17 movie? No. Video games are little different. Caveat emptor.
The asteroid hypothesis has been around for years. I recall an aricle in Sky & Telescope several years ago which said much the same thing. The blast was caused by atmospheric disruption of a carbonaceous chondrite; a low density asteroid.
As for the lack of physical material, we shouldn't be particularly surprised about that. It took more than two decades for an expedition to reach the site, and it's a pretty swampy area as well. For comparison, a similar, though much smaller (basically just a fireball) event near Revelstoke in the 1960's left nothing to be found on the ground, even though people were in the area within hours. After twenty years, the chances of finding anything physical would be, pardon the pun, astronomical.
Anywho, back to my original point: -1 to the Italians for redundancy.
Cleopatra might not have intended to hand Egypt over to Rome, but she had the same effect. She got screwed, literally and figuratively.
She consorted with Julius Caesar during his stay in Egypt, and ended up giving birth to his son, Caesarion. This gained her and Egypt security, so long as G.J.C. remained alive.
Now, once the Ides of March had passed, and Octavian began to gain power in Rome, Cleopatra was in a completely untenable position. Caesarion could have acted as a focus for opposition to G.J.C.'s nepwhew, adopted son, and inheritor, Octavian (the future Augustus).
Now, to cut this long story short, Cleopatra aligned herself with Octavian's fellow triumvir, Marc Antony. With the collapse of the second triumvirate, Octavian/Augustus could hardly allow Rome's food supply to remain in Antony's hands. Moreover, attacking Egpyt gave him the opportunity to eliminate Cleopatra and Caesarion, along with Antony. At the battle of Actium, the Roman fleet pasted the Egyptians, and the rest as they say is history.
Now, just to keep things on topic, there are several thousand years worth of Egpyptian rulers to choose from. Akhenaten perhaps, or even Ptolemey. Just so long as they don't look like Nubians....
On a related note, an astronomer from the University of Manitoba was on the radio last week arguing that our picture of star formation isn't entirely complete. From the sound of things, Jeans collapse (insert pants joke here) isn't an entirely adequate explanation. Anywho, the link for that report is below. Scroll down to the September 22nd show, the report starts 39.5 minutes into the broadcast.
A few years ago, there was a resurgence in the number of cases of tuberculosis, which was supposed to have been pretty well eliminated in the Western world. The basic cause of this increase was the presence of a population of immune-compromised individuals - AIDS patients.
I'm not suggesting that we're likely to see a similar resurgence of bubonic plague; the mechanism of transmission is very different. My point is that conditions at some point in the future could allow a plague outbreak to occur.
Could an antibiotic resistant variant of bubonic plague appear? Could enviromental conditions increase the number of plague carrying rodents? The list goes on. While this research might not be a priority, it's certainly worthwhile.
Admittedly, I don't have a degree in classical literature, but you're well of the mark in comparing Homer and Virgil to Tolkein. The Iliad is a semi-historical account of the fall of Troy. The actions of the various gods and goddesses, what we consider mythology, were intimately related to the religion of the day. The Iliad did not "create" a universe as such; it simply represents the pinnacle of it's own literary tradition. The Odyssey can be treated in much the same way.
Now, when it comes to the Aeneid, Virgil was merely attempting to link the founding of Rome to the fall of Troy. This pseudo-historical was little more than Virgil endeavouring to glorify Rome from from its very beginning. In effect, it is a work of propaganda.
Tolkein, on the other hand, "created" a world from scratch, or at least from a couple of languages he developed (Sindarin & Quenya). While the basic laws of physics and biology appear to be the same, with a bit of magic thrown in, Middle Earth is an entirely fictional creation. That is where the originality, the brilliance, of Tolekein's work's lie.
So superior weaponry allowed the Muslims to throw the Crusaders out of the Holy Land...
Not true, at least not entirely. When the Crusaders initially invaded, the various Muslim powers of the region were divided. The consequence was that the a crew of large, smelly Western Europeans (hey, I'm one) managed to get a foothold in what was, at the time, the civilised world. Once the Muslims got their act together (and once Saladin came along) the Crusaders got clobbered (fall of Jerusalem, Battle of the Horns of Hattin, Fall of Acre, etc).
Sure weaponry played a part, but political unity, and superior strategy and tactics on the battlefield were of far greater significance.
Speaking of NASA and Canada... A couple of years ago, NASA refused to launch a Canadian firm's imaging satellite specifically because it was more advanced than its American counterparts (no insult intended). As I recall, they negotiated with the Chinese to get the thing into orbit...... Oh, and on another note, resolutions better than 1 m are definitely out there. Whatever images have been released, I imagine an order of magnitude superior resolution has been achieved, but that the technology is kept secret.
Why did they launch this thing from a submarine? Wouldn't it have been cheaper to launch it from land? I mean, the Russians are still using launch sites in Kazakhstan, so what's so different about this project that they wanted to launch from an SSBN?
Slashdot Mirror
Obviously I care enough to post, but beyond that? Frankly, I'd managed to put Star Wars entirely out of my mind until I saw a trailer for it in front of Blade 2.
Now, compare this to drooling in anticipation before Phantom Menace. Downloading the trailers the instant they became available online. Being hailed as a demi-god by the people I was living with for being the first to download the trailer and get it playing. Buying the soundtrack a week before the movie even appeared. In short, alot of faith from a relatively rational person.
This time, there's none of that. It's not that I really disliked Phantom Menace - I'll even defend Jar Jar to a point. The problem was that it didn't measure up to my (overly) high expectations, and didn't compare well with the other movies.
There's a bright side complementing the dark though. If it turns out to be a pile of festering shite, I've only wasted a few bucks, and there's no emotional attachment. If it holds its own against the originals, we can forgive George Lucas his mistake, and go off in perfect bliss knowing that all is right with the world again.
That's not exactly the real significance of the Sharpe case. I'll just fill in the details for the non-Canadian types.
r no graphy.html
This Sharpe guy was, frankly, a really sick bastard. He was charged with posession of child pornography, specifically filmed material and written material. He was found guilty on the charges related to film material, and justifiably so.
The Supreme Court basically found that the simple possession of the material in question was constitutionally protected, so long as the acts depicted in the photographs were not real. Furthermore, they held that the written material, penned by Sharpe himself, had artistic merit and he was consequently protected from prosecution.
As the judge stated, to forbid possession of this material would be one step away from censoring people's thoughts. Much as I hate to contemplate those thoughts, these people have a right to them, and a right to put them on paper. Goes back to not agreeing with what you say, but defending your right to say it.
The following link has some further info on this case.
http://cbc.ca/news/indepth/background/sharpe_po
My calculation was simply a comparison of total solar flux at a distance of 1 AU with the radiation emitted by SN 1987A. So, when I said bright, I really meant across all wavelengths.
(i) Umm... you've caught me there. I should have looked at a particular part of the spectrum for an accurate calculation. Compared normal cosmic ray flux to the gamma ray flux from the hypothetical supernova. That's what I get for making a back of a napkin calculation : )
(ii) Yes, I realise star groups move relative to the sun. I drew the figures I cited from Hipparcos data - which also included the relative motions of the relevant stars. I made the small, but not unreasonable assumption, that the solar neighbourhood (in terms of types and numbers of stars) has looked basically the same for the past several million years. In any case, I was only trying to show that the likelihood of a supernova in our backyard isn't spectacularly high.
I'd actually be very interested in seeing more accurate calculations of these two items. I myself, being an amateur astronomer, don't have all the relevant data at hand to make these calulcations.
I'd rather watch anything but more footage of the 9/11 WTC attack too. My reasons, however, are a touch different.
Personally, I'm sick of the moaning, wailing, and gnashing of teeth over the attack. It was a bad event, but the media are doing nothing more than exploiting several thousand personal tragedies.
Anyway, how are the deaths of those thousands any more tragic than the deaths of the thousands killed on American highways, or the thousands killed by an inane firearms policy? Scale?
If you want scale, let's look at Hiroshima. Nagaski. Civilians killed by American bombs. Let's look at Hamburg. Dresden. Essen. Duisberg. Tens of thousands of civilians slaughtered in massive firestorms, at the hands of Britons and Americans - and in case you're wondering, I'm among the former group.
All of these were "legitimate" acts of war right? America was attacked on American soil. Bad shit happens. Worse shit has happened to alot of other nations in the past, and they've done very well in the long run.
To America: quit blubbing about a tragedy which is pretty small in the scheme of things. By all means, do whatever is necessary (and legal) to bring those responsible to justice. Quit making out how hard done by you are. Get the job done with Osama and al-Qaeda, and put it behind you.
PS I daresay I'll be treated as a troll for this post. Whatever. It was an American who stated "I don't agree with what you say, but I'll defence to the death you're right to say it."
This all possible, yes, but it's also extremely unlikely.
First the possible. A quick, back of a napkin calculation shows that a supernovae at around 3 light years would appear roughly as bright as the sun (depending on the circumstances). A good opprtunity to work on your tan, for a few days anyway. Nothing to really worry about, but if you're skinned, slap on some SP-40.
Now, if it's much closer, you might have some problems. At ~1.5 light years, the supernova is 4 times as bright as the sun, and at ~1 light year, it's 9 times as bright. Hooray, we know what an inverse square law is.
The real problem is this: there aren't that many stars nearby. The closest, Proxima Centauri, is 4.2 light years away. And there's no chance of it ever going supernova - only comparatively massive stars manage that. Within 10 light years of us, there are only 12 stars (and that includes Sol). Of those there is only one that's ever going to go supernovae - Sirius, at a distance of 8.6 ly. And that's an exceptional case. You have to go to the 70th nearest star before you find another star in the same situation - Altair, at 16.8 ly.
Now, even with Sirius and Altair, they're going to be shining for millions of years to come. Now, what they're suggesting is that one of those really rare large stars just happened to be really close to us when it's lifetime of tens of millions of years came to a close. Right.
Time for those astronomers to come down from the mountain - the altitude seems to be having an effect.
All too true. Furthermore the document was intended to act as the basis for a systematic taxation system, updating the traditional Saxon system based on "hides" of land.
:)
Notably, the Saxons, and their conquered nobility, were assessed more severely than William the Bastard's/Conqueror's transplanted Norman French nobility - an early example of racial discrimination, if you will. All rather interesting, since there are people today who can trace their families back to those in the book.
Incidentally, I've found reference to my own family in the book. They were, evidently, Saxon's, and were assessed rather harshly. Perhaps I can claim compensation
Let's not forget the extent to which "This Hour..." HAS managed to humiliate American leaders. The best example of this was the sight Rick Mercer speaking to then presidential candidate Bush. Dubya was completely oblivious to the fact that Canada's Prime Minister is not named Jean Poutine...
Anyway, the point is that government funding does not necessarily translate into government control. Ideally, government funding in a true liberal democracy will produce an unbiased media. In practice, the result won't be perfect - the question is whether it will lead to a better media than that produced through corporate funding.
http://www.rusarm.ru/exprod.htm
I've always wanted to know where I could pick up a battle tank. That and enough equipment to equip an infantry company or two. I wonder if they take VISA.....
Per Ardua Ad Astra
Being a B.C. resident, I had the opportunity to listen to a radio call-in programme which discussed this act of government. Two things were very much apparent. Firstly, the older the caller, the more they supported tighter control over game sales. Secondly, females were far more supportive of those controls. I'd say it's pretty likely those people have had little or no contact with video games of any description. Whereas they doubtlessly watched countless cowboys slay hordes of savage Indians in the cinema of their youth, they have little tolerance for similar violence in new media.
My suggestion? Rather than behave like a bunch of old woman, we as a society should encourage parents to be aware of the games their children play. Would a parent take a kid to see an NC-17 movie? No. Video games are little different. Caveat emptor.
Per Ardua Ad Astra
The asteroid hypothesis has been around for years. I recall an aricle in Sky & Telescope several years ago which said much the same thing. The blast was caused by atmospheric disruption of a carbonaceous chondrite; a low density asteroid.
As for the lack of physical material, we shouldn't be particularly surprised about that. It took more than two decades for an expedition to reach the site, and it's a pretty swampy area as well. For comparison, a similar, though much smaller (basically just a fireball) event near Revelstoke in the 1960's left nothing to be found on the ground, even though people were in the area within hours. After twenty years, the chances of finding anything physical would be, pardon the pun, astronomical.
Anywho, back to my original point: -1 to the Italians for redundancy.
Per Ardua Ad Astra
Cleopatra might not have intended to hand Egypt over to Rome, but she had the same effect. She got screwed, literally and figuratively.
She consorted with Julius Caesar during his stay in Egypt, and ended up giving birth to his son, Caesarion. This gained her and Egypt security, so long as G.J.C. remained alive.
Now, once the Ides of March had passed, and Octavian began to gain power in Rome, Cleopatra was in a completely untenable position. Caesarion could have acted as a focus for opposition to G.J.C.'s nepwhew, adopted son, and inheritor, Octavian (the future Augustus).
Now, to cut this long story short, Cleopatra aligned herself with Octavian's fellow triumvir, Marc Antony. With the collapse of the second triumvirate, Octavian/Augustus could hardly allow Rome's food supply to remain in Antony's hands. Moreover, attacking Egpyt gave him the opportunity to eliminate Cleopatra and Caesarion, along with Antony. At the battle of Actium, the Roman fleet pasted the Egyptians, and the rest as they say is history.
Now, just to keep things on topic, there are several thousand years worth of Egpyptian rulers to choose from. Akhenaten perhaps, or even Ptolemey. Just so long as they don't look like Nubians....
Per Ardua Ad Astra
On a related note, an astronomer from the University of Manitoba was on the radio last week arguing that our picture of star formation isn't entirely complete. From the sound of things, Jeans collapse (insert pants joke here) isn't an entirely adequate explanation. Anywho, the link for that report is below. Scroll down to the September 22nd show, the report starts 39.5 minutes into the broadcast.
s .h tm
http://www.radio.cbc.ca/programs/quirks/archive
A few years ago, there was a resurgence in the number of cases of tuberculosis, which was supposed to have been pretty well eliminated in the Western world. The basic cause of this increase was the presence of a population of immune-compromised individuals - AIDS patients.
I'm not suggesting that we're likely to see a similar resurgence of bubonic plague; the mechanism of transmission is very different. My point is that conditions at some point in the future could allow a plague outbreak to occur.
Could an antibiotic resistant variant of bubonic plague appear? Could enviromental conditions increase the number of plague carrying rodents? The list goes on. While this research might not be a priority, it's certainly worthwhile.
Per Ardua Ad Astra
Admittedly, I don't have a degree in classical literature, but you're well of the mark in comparing Homer and Virgil to Tolkein. The Iliad is a semi-historical account of the fall of Troy. The actions of the various gods and goddesses, what we consider mythology, were intimately related to the religion of the day. The Iliad did not "create" a universe as such; it simply represents the pinnacle of it's own literary tradition. The Odyssey can be treated in much the same way.
Now, when it comes to the Aeneid, Virgil was merely attempting to link the founding of Rome to the fall of Troy. This pseudo-historical was little more than Virgil endeavouring to glorify Rome from from its very beginning. In effect, it is a work of propaganda.
Tolkein, on the other hand, "created" a world from scratch, or at least from a couple of languages he developed (Sindarin & Quenya). While the basic laws of physics and biology appear to be the same, with a bit of magic thrown in, Middle Earth is an entirely fictional creation. That is where the originality, the brilliance, of Tolekein's work's lie.
So superior weaponry allowed the Muslims to throw the Crusaders out of the Holy Land...
Not true, at least not entirely. When the Crusaders initially invaded, the various Muslim powers of the region were divided. The consequence was that the a crew of large, smelly Western Europeans (hey, I'm one) managed to get a foothold in what was, at the time, the civilised world. Once the Muslims got their act together (and once Saladin came along) the Crusaders got clobbered (fall of Jerusalem, Battle of the Horns of Hattin, Fall of Acre, etc).
Sure weaponry played a part, but political unity, and superior strategy and tactics on the battlefield were of far greater significance.
Speaking of NASA and Canada... A couple of years ago, NASA refused to launch a Canadian firm's imaging satellite specifically because it was more advanced than its American counterparts (no insult intended). As I recall, they negotiated with the Chinese to get the thing into orbit...... Oh, and on another note, resolutions better than 1 m are definitely out there. Whatever images have been released, I imagine an order of magnitude superior resolution has been achieved, but that the technology is kept secret.
Why did they launch this thing from a submarine? Wouldn't it have been cheaper to launch it from land? I mean, the Russians are still using launch sites in Kazakhstan, so what's so different about this project that they wanted to launch from an SSBN?