That's not "War Kester", its "Wusster". No, really.
Really?
I would have said "wuz-TAAAAH," then gone tooling up and down Highland St. with my PHAT BASS pumping at 3:00 AM, hollering incoherently in drunken exultation.
No, I'm not bitter. No, I didn't live facing Frat Row for four years. Why d'ya ask?
In my neck of the woods (New England), the Hay Library at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island is well worth a visit. They have a bunch of unique MS collections ("manuscript," not "Microsoft"), including an unrivalled selection of H. P. Lovecraft. They also have a huge collection of comic books donated by a professor from my alma mater.
In Worcester, Massachusetts is the The Higgins Armory Museum, which features the collection of arms and armor accumulated by John Woodman Higgins. It is, as the curators will happily tell you, the only museum in the Western Hemisphere dedicated to arms and armor.
Also, probably not worth a visit, but interesting to note if you happen to be passing by, the Quabbin Reservoir in central Massachusetts was made by evacuating and flooding four towns. If you hear anyone talking about the Lost Towns, that's what they mean. Always creeps me out to drive past it.
And I suppose if you are wrong you'll have the good grace to blush.
I don't blush. I'm shameless.;)
Everything mankind does destroys the world as we know it.
My point, poorly phrased though it seems to be, is that, on the list of Stuff We Should Be Worried About, GM foods rank lower but get more press than a lot of other things.
The real issue is whether or not people want them, the next issue is if their reasons are valid to them, and then if they are valid to you. But valid or not, I hope the majority vote wins and if food labelling of GM ingredients is followed the market can decide without legislation or even formal vote.
As for labelling, it shouldn't be the province of the legislature or market forces, but of a regulatory body. I'm American, and I don't trust my elected representatives or the overwhelming majority of my fellow citizens to find their asses with both hands and written directions. Maybe the UK Parliament and populace are better, but I doubt it. Scientific decision-making is best left to those who understand it, and a majority vote means nothing in science.
It is important to separate legitimate concerns, such as Monsanto engineering a 'terminator' into their seeds, from tinfoil hat ravings about 'Frankenfood' causing cancer. There are moreworrisomethings happening in agriculture than pest-resistant strawberries or drought-resistant wheat.
Are there risks associated with GM organisms? Yes. Will GM orgamisms destroy the world as we know it? No.
Not a jab at your eating habits--but since you have a sedentary job (like I do), chances are you're taking in way more calories than you need, especially if you're an American. Cutting a couple hundred calories a day can do wonders for weight loss. Assuming you don't way overeat already, even skipping that daily candy bar can have an effect on your waistline. (I haven't come across an office-friendly way to put in a good 40 minutes of cardio every day--which is really what you want for some serious fat-burning.)
That said...consult a doctor or a personal trainer./. is a lousy place to go looking for advice on physical activity....;)
...means nothing if you can't afford to defend yourself against a corporation's lawyers. Why are corporate entities, extant only by legislation, afforded the same privileges in the judicial system as actual people? (Cynics need not reply, I already know the an$$$wer.)
Incidentally, I notice DirecTV is joining in the *AA's efforts to hijack the concept of "theft."
The sun provides negligable energy out past the orbit of Mars.
Not negligible, but solar intensity does fall off as 1/r^3. In Mars orbit, the solar radiation on a surface normal to the incipient light is about 60% of that in Earth orbit. This represents the fact that the photon are spreading out in a sphere from their source--though there are just as many as there were on the surface of the Sun, there's now a whole lot more space in between them.
I'm most familiar with this in the context of solar powered spacecraft. To operate a solar S/C near Mars, you need massive unwieldy solar arrays that are expensive to launch. The only other viable power source for space, currently, is thermoelectric conversion from the heat generated by nuclear decay (not a live reaction), and is only 6-7% efficient.
We still need someting like Prometheus in order get around and about in places where the sun doesn't shine brightly.
Agreed. The Nuclear Space Initiative is the only way we will ever get something sizeable to the outer planets--and back. Spaceflight requires too much power to be generated any other way, at least with the science we can do now.
The speed of sound is not constant. In the case of the atmosphere, it varies with temperature and altitude, or more generally, the energy of and mean free path between molecules. Mach numbers deal with this inconsistency by normalizing speeds. If we're talking about Mach 0.8, it always means 80% of the speed of sound in the medium--much more convenient, math-wise, than relating all your measurements to the arbitrary value of the speed of sound at sea level.
The Shuttle never actually leaves the atmosphere, but the gases are so rarified for the orbital part of its flight regime that ground speed makes more sense than Mach number. During reentry, however, the Orbiter descends quickly to altitudes where Mach number is meaningful. You're right insofar as Mach 20 at 100,000 feet is less than your intuition tells you it should be, but it's still blindlingly fast--'round about 13,500 mph. You can check a Standard Atmosphere table. (I would link to the one I used, but it's printed on the endpaper of my compressible flow textbook.)
Slashdot Mirror
That's not "War Kester", its "Wusster". No, really.
Really?
I would have said "wuz-TAAAAH," then gone tooling up and down Highland St. with my PHAT BASS pumping at 3:00 AM, hollering incoherently in drunken exultation.
No, I'm not bitter. No, I didn't live facing Frat Row for four years. Why d'ya ask?
-Carolyn
In my neck of the woods (New England), the Hay Library at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island is well worth a visit. They have a bunch of unique MS collections ("manuscript," not "Microsoft"), including an unrivalled selection of H. P. Lovecraft. They also have a huge collection of comic books donated by a professor from my alma mater.
In Worcester, Massachusetts is the The Higgins Armory Museum, which features the collection of arms and armor accumulated by John Woodman Higgins. It is, as the curators will happily tell you, the only museum in the Western Hemisphere dedicated to arms and armor.
Also, probably not worth a visit, but interesting to note if you happen to be passing by, the Quabbin Reservoir in central Massachusetts was made by evacuating and flooding four towns. If you hear anyone talking about the Lost Towns, that's what they mean. Always creeps me out to drive past it.
-Carolyn
And I suppose if you are wrong you'll have the good grace to blush.
;)
I don't blush. I'm shameless.
Everything mankind does destroys the world as we know it.
My point, poorly phrased though it seems to be, is that, on the list of Stuff We Should Be Worried About, GM foods rank lower but get more press than a lot of other things.
The real issue is whether or not people want them, the next issue is if their reasons are valid to them, and then if they are valid to you. But valid or not, I hope the majority vote wins and if food labelling of GM ingredients is followed the market can decide without legislation or even formal vote.
As for labelling, it shouldn't be the province of the legislature or market forces, but of a regulatory body. I'm American, and I don't trust my elected representatives or the overwhelming majority of my fellow citizens to find their asses with both hands and written directions. Maybe the UK Parliament and populace are better, but I doubt it. Scientific decision-making is best left to those who understand it, and a majority vote means nothing in science.
-Carolyn
Biotech has replaced nuclear power as a bogeyman.
It is important to separate legitimate concerns, such as Monsanto engineering a 'terminator' into their seeds, from tinfoil hat ravings about 'Frankenfood' causing cancer. There are more worrisome things happening in agriculture than pest-resistant strawberries or drought-resistant wheat.
Are there risks associated with GM organisms? Yes. Will GM orgamisms destroy the world as we know it? No.
-Carolyn
...but have you considered eating less?
/. is a lousy place to go looking for advice on physical activity.... ;)
Not a jab at your eating habits--but since you have a sedentary job (like I do), chances are you're taking in way more calories than you need, especially if you're an American. Cutting a couple hundred calories a day can do wonders for weight loss. Assuming you don't way overeat already, even skipping that daily candy bar can have an effect on your waistline. (I haven't come across an office-friendly way to put in a good 40 minutes of cardio every day--which is really what you want for some serious fat-burning.)
That said...consult a doctor or a personal trainer.
-Carolyn
...means nothing if you can't afford to defend yourself against a corporation's lawyers. Why are corporate entities, extant only by legislation, afforded the same privileges in the judicial system as actual people? (Cynics need not reply, I already know the an$$$wer.)
Incidentally, I notice DirecTV is joining in the *AA's efforts to hijack the concept of "theft."
-Carolyn
...and just in time for me to go home, too.
Here's a NASA page on Project Prometheus.
Have a good weekend, all.
-Carolyn
I dunno...I seem to recall that Magellan died in the Philippines. ;)
-C
Not entirely OT, but...
A friend of mine bought a cheapie Lexmark inkjet, with cartridges, for $45.
Replacements for both cartridges would cost $65.
-Carolyn
I should think the photon flux would fall off as 1/r^2.
Gah. You're right. I previewed, and I can't believe I missed that.
-C
The sun provides negligable energy out past the orbit of Mars.
Not negligible, but solar intensity does fall off as 1/r^3. In Mars orbit, the solar radiation on a surface normal to the incipient light is about 60% of that in Earth orbit. This represents the fact that the photon are spreading out in a sphere from their source--though there are just as many as there were on the surface of the Sun, there's now a whole lot more space in between them.
I'm most familiar with this in the context of solar powered spacecraft. To operate a solar S/C near Mars, you need massive unwieldy solar arrays that are expensive to launch. The only other viable power source for space, currently, is thermoelectric conversion from the heat generated by nuclear decay (not a live reaction), and is only 6-7% efficient.
We still need someting like Prometheus in order get around and about in places where the sun doesn't shine brightly.
Agreed. The Nuclear Space Initiative is the only way we will ever get something sizeable to the outer planets--and back. Spaceflight requires too much power to be generated any other way, at least with the science we can do now.
-Carolyn
Is it friction or ram pressure?
You are correct and I am guilty for dumbing it down.
-Carolyn
Buckle down; science ahead.
/. account)
The speed of sound is not constant. In the case of the atmosphere, it varies with temperature and altitude, or more generally, the energy of and mean free path between molecules. Mach numbers deal with this inconsistency by normalizing speeds. If we're talking about Mach 0.8, it always means 80% of the speed of sound in the medium--much more convenient, math-wise, than relating all your measurements to the arbitrary value of the speed of sound at sea level.
The Shuttle never actually leaves the atmosphere, but the gases are so rarified for the orbital part of its flight regime that ground speed makes more sense than Mach number. During reentry, however, the Orbiter descends quickly to altitudes where Mach number is meaningful. You're right insofar as Mach 20 at 100,000 feet is less than your intuition tells you it should be, but it's still blindlingly fast--'round about 13,500 mph. You can check a Standard Atmosphere table. (I would link to the one I used, but it's printed on the endpaper of my compressible flow textbook.)
-Carolyn (new and improved--now with