How to automate the process easily
on
Listen To The Leonids
·
· Score: 2, Informative
With a cheap male-male earphone cord from Radio Shack, you can connect the earphone jack of a
cheap transistor radio to the input jack of your
sound card.
Now you can tune the radio to a weak station a
few hundred miles away (getting just static),
and let the computer do the listening all night
long.
In the morning, you can drop the data into Excel
and graph it.
The sound card will record quiet, interrupted by
loud signals that show up as peaks in the graph.
In my area (Silicon Valley) there are lots of
stations to the south-southwest (Los Angeles)
in the low part of the FM band.
You can use this site to find them:
Kodis
It lists the power as well as the frequency for
each station.
A radio with a digital tuner makes it easy to set
the frequency even when the station cannot be heard. A rotatable TV antenna is not required,
but it would help by listening only in one
direction, and by picking up weaker signals.
If your TV has an earphone output (or you have
a adapter plug for your VCR's output jack) you
can use the TV in the same way.
It seems suspicious to me that the curve seems
to follow the use of fossil fuels, the economy
of the northern hemisphere, the population of the
world, and the progress of deforestation.
Saying that there is little we can do seems to
fly in the face of a correlation with things we
have done.
If four variables make it hard to undo, why
didn't it make it hard to do in the first place?
If the goal was simply to protect the earth, then
you would be right.
But consider the effects on humans if we continue
to change the world we evolved to live in. Our
crops might survive, and we might not starve due
to lack of enough food to feed billions. But as
the heat expands the oceans like the liquid in a
thermometer, our coastal cities become threatened.
And whole island nations in the Pacific can be
inundated.
The earth will survive. But I rather like it the
way it is. I have an economic stake in preserving
it.
So far, the change has been gradual enough that
we can cope -- indeed we hardly notice. But there
are positive feedback elements in global warming
that cause the pace to accelerate. At some point,
our abilities to cope will be overwhelmed.
While some of that carbon was emitted as soot
and other particles that will eventually come
out of the air, that's still a lot of carbon
dioxide added to the atmosphere.
That is in addition to what started the problem,
which was using fire to clear land for farming.
It was recently noted that the planting of forests
to be carbon sinks is actually detrimental for
the first 10 years, as disturbing the soil to do
the planting released 10 years worth of carbon
dioxide into the air.
Add to this the push to use more coal in the U.S.
as part of the national energy policy (coal is
nearly pure carbon, and thus releases more
greenhouse gas than, say, natural gas, which has
hydrogen as a major energy contributor).
It seems like the problems are going to get worse
before they get better. We need to put a lot of
effort into clean and renewable energy -- make it
affordable, instead of relying on the altruism of
those who run their cars on biodiesel or
solar electricity and install compact fluorescent
lights. It's one thing to try to legislate a
solution -- but using economics to solve the
problems is more likely to work.
If the daf-2 gene has the same effects in fruit
flies and mice (and presumably humans), and it
controls two separate pathways (reproduction
and longevity) in all those organisms, there
may be a good reason why the linkage between
the two systems is preserved across millions
of years of evolution.
Suppose longevity is limited in order to make
room in the ecosystem for the next generation,
so that older critters (with damaged DNA, or
an inability to reproduce) don't crowd out the
young?
If only a few young survive, then there may not
be enough to perpetuate the species.
Perhaps the two systems are linked because when
the link is lost, the species dies out, because
there are not enough resources to support both an
aged population and a large enough reservoir of
young reproductively active critters to ensure
against decline?
That planet had a 7 year orbit, was about the size
of Jupiter, and was about as far away from its
sun as our ateroid belt is from our sun.
Epsilon Eridani is about a billion years old, so
the dust has not had a lot of time to be
collected by planets, but it is possible that
the level of bombardment by comets has settled
down to where bacteria-like life could exist on
a planet closer to the star.
The authors of the paper linked above speculated
on a second planet based on dust ring evidence:
Asymmetric, primordial dust rings made up of 1-mm-size particles extend 60 AU from Epsilon Eridani. The irregular shape of this ring may be due to another, undiscovered planet. "If there is indeed a second planet, the asymmetry of the disk would suggest that the planet is orbiting just inside the ring, at a distance of 30 AU -- much farther out than the planet we have found and with a much longer orbital period than the one we've discovered," according to Hatzes. "Thus, it might also be responsible for the possible overall slope in our velocity measurements. And where there's one planet, there may be more."
The discovery of the planet around Epsilon Eridani raises the likelihood of detecting planets with longer orbital periods and multiplanet systems like our own. "Given its close proximity to Earth, a one-arcsecond separation between the planet and its central star, and the relatively large degree of perturbation -- about 1.4 milli-arcseconds -- of the star from its orbiting planet mean that we could very likely resolve the true mass of this planet, using both direct imaging and space-based astrometric measurements with Hubble Space Telescope," Cochran noted.
It would seem to me that the super-absorbent
gell that is used in diapers, tampons, and as
a soil replacement/enhancer would do the same
thing, perhaps better.
But the potato extract may be more quickly biodegradable.
I wonder if the MPH would be useful
in any of those other products?
Solar cell producers have to pay for the power
it takes to build the solar cell. They wouldn't
sell me a solar panel for less than it cost them
in power.
Solar panels have 25 year warrantees. A 4
megawatt-hour system fits on my roof easily (24
panels) and generates $935 per year at current
California energy prices.
The cost is under $12,000 before the 50% rebate
and the tax deductions. The payback period is
5 to 7 years.
And there are no hidden costs of pollution, or
armies to guarantee cheap oil.
Here's how to do it without the superconductor:
"http://scitoys.com/scitoys/scitoys/magnets/pyroly tic_graphite.html"
Simple, inexpensive, no cryogenics needed.
You should see the "Plastic Hydrogen Bomb"
on the same site:
"http://scitoys.com/scitoys/scitoys/echem/echem.ht ml#bomb";-)
[Author of the Gauss Gun page, and the page touted above]
I've gotten some weird email from people who actually think I'm teaching kids how to make
thermonuclear weapons.
Simon Quellen Field
Slashdot Mirror
While that hasn't been my experience, all you really need is a way to tell the difference.
If the static goes away and the radio gets quieter for a moment, that is still a fine indication of the meteor.
And of course you can simply invert thr graph to make these look like peaks instead of notches.
I'll post my results at the Scitoys message board.
With a cheap male-male earphone cord from Radio Shack, you can connect the earphone jack of a cheap transistor radio to the input jack of your sound card.
Now you can tune the radio to a weak station a few hundred miles away (getting just static), and let the computer do the listening all night long.
In the morning, you can drop the data into Excel and graph it.
The sound card will record quiet, interrupted by loud signals that show up as peaks in the graph.
In my area (Silicon Valley) there are lots of stations to the south-southwest (Los Angeles) in the low part of the FM band.
You can use this site to find them: Kodis
It lists the power as well as the frequency for each station.
A radio with a digital tuner makes it easy to set the frequency even when the station cannot be heard. A rotatable TV antenna is not required, but it would help by listening only in one direction, and by picking up weaker signals.
If your TV has an earphone output (or you have a adapter plug for your VCR's output jack) you can use the TV in the same way.
It seems suspicious to me that the curve seems to follow the use of fossil fuels, the economy of the northern hemisphere, the population of the world, and the progress of deforestation.
Saying that there is little we can do seems to fly in the face of a correlation with things we have done.
If four variables make it hard to undo, why didn't it make it hard to do in the first place?
If the goal was simply to protect the earth, then you would be right.
But consider the effects on humans if we continue to change the world we evolved to live in. Our crops might survive, and we might not starve due to lack of enough food to feed billions. But as the heat expands the oceans like the liquid in a thermometer, our coastal cities become threatened. And whole island nations in the Pacific can be inundated.
The earth will survive. But I rather like it the way it is. I have an economic stake in preserving it.
So far, the change has been gradual enough that we can cope -- indeed we hardly notice. But there are positive feedback elements in global warming that cause the pace to accelerate. At some point, our abilities to cope will be overwhelmed.
While some of that carbon was emitted as soot and other particles that will eventually come out of the air, that's still a lot of carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere.
That is in addition to what started the problem, which was using fire to clear land for farming.
It was recently noted that the planting of forests to be carbon sinks is actually detrimental for the first 10 years, as disturbing the soil to do the planting released 10 years worth of carbon dioxide into the air.
Add to this the push to use more coal in the U.S. as part of the national energy policy (coal is nearly pure carbon, and thus releases more greenhouse gas than, say, natural gas, which has hydrogen as a major energy contributor).
It seems like the problems are going to get worse before they get better. We need to put a lot of effort into clean and renewable energy -- make it affordable, instead of relying on the altruism of those who run their cars on biodiesel or solar electricity and install compact fluorescent lights. It's one thing to try to legislate a solution -- but using economics to solve the problems is more likely to work.
In an egg-laying species, is there really more of an investment by the female in making large males?
Are male eggs larger than female eggs?
It seems to me that in this species, the burden of making a large male falls entirely on that male, who may never see his mother.
But this still only looks at half of the question.
Is there a benefit to producing small or weak females?
What is the evolutionary payoff in making females out of the sperm of the scrawny males?
Selecting the best males to make males seems to make sense. But why not make females from these males as well, instead of the scrawny ones?
Is there some reason to believe that males with the best real estate make better females than the males with the best biceps?
Any theories?
If the daf-2 gene has the same effects in fruit flies and mice (and presumably humans), and it controls two separate pathways (reproduction and longevity) in all those organisms, there may be a good reason why the linkage between the two systems is preserved across millions of years of evolution.
Suppose longevity is limited in order to make room in the ecosystem for the next generation, so that older critters (with damaged DNA, or an inability to reproduce) don't crowd out the young?
If only a few young survive, then there may not be enough to perpetuate the species.
Perhaps the two systems are linked because when the link is lost, the species dies out, because there are not enough resources to support both an aged population and a large enough reservoir of young reproductively active critters to ensure against decline?
Is this the whimper that T. S. Eliot wrote about?
There were earlier reports of a "Jupiter-like" planet around this star (see "http://stardate.utexas.edu/pr/pages/20000807.html ").
That planet had a 7 year orbit, was about the size of Jupiter, and was about as far away from its sun as our ateroid belt is from our sun.
Epsilon Eridani is about a billion years old, so the dust has not had a lot of time to be collected by planets, but it is possible that the level of bombardment by comets has settled down to where bacteria-like life could exist on a planet closer to the star.
The authors of the paper linked above speculated on a second planet based on dust ring evidence:
Another good source of more information is: http://www.solstation.com/stars/eps-erid.htm.
It would seem to me that the super-absorbent gell that is used in diapers, tampons, and as a soil replacement/enhancer would do the same thing, perhaps better.
But the potato extract may be more quickly biodegradable.
I wonder if the MPH would be useful in any of those other products?
Solar cell producers have to pay for the power it takes to build the solar cell. They wouldn't sell me a solar panel for less than it cost them in power.
Solar panels have 25 year warrantees. A 4 megawatt-hour system fits on my roof easily (24 panels) and generates $935 per year at current California energy prices.
The cost is under $12,000 before the 50% rebate and the tax deductions. The payback period is 5 to 7 years.
And there are no hidden costs of pollution, or armies to guarantee cheap oil.
Check out http://www.akeena.net/Content/What_Size_System.htm for a nice discussion of all this.
Here's how to do it without the superconductor: "http://scitoys.com/scitoys/scitoys/magnets/pyroly tic_graphite.html"
Simple, inexpensive, no cryogenics needed.
You should see the "Plastic Hydrogen Bomb" on the same site: "http://scitoys.com/scitoys/scitoys/echem/echem.ht ml#bomb" ;-)
[Author of the Gauss Gun page, and the page touted above]
I've gotten some weird email from people who actually think I'm teaching kids how to make
thermonuclear weapons.
Simon Quellen Field