Thousands of cosmic rays do not pass through our bodies every day... They are stopped by the atmosphere.
While the atmosphere does stop the majority of cosmic rays, a fair number do get through. As an optical astronomer, cosmic ray hits on CCD cameras are a constant source of noise in my data. Fortunately, they are easy to remove during image processing provided you take more than one image of the field. Just do a google search for 'cosmic ray' and 'ccd' and you'll find a host of webpages discussing this topic.
You could be a tad bit less of a jackass about it (it works on so many levels!), but YMMV. You haven't 'proven' anything other than the fact that there is a large amount of variability from one poll to the next.
You're right, my comment was a bit harsh. I was going to apologize, but first I dug a little deeper and decided to check out your claim before retracting my statment calling you dishonest.
I found this webpage that shows a variety of polls one week before the 2000 Presidential election.
Here it is in brief: CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll (October 28-30, 2000): Bush 47%, Gore 44% CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll (October 25-30, 2000): Bush 48%, Gore 43% ABC News: Bush 48%, Gore 45% Washington Post: Bush 48%, Gore 45% Reuters/MSNBC/Zogby poll: Bush 46%, Gore 41% Actual election a week later: Gore 48%, Bush 48%
If you change the 10/31 in the URL to 11/2, or 11/5, you can see how Bush remains consistently in the lead until just 2 days before the election.
When was the Reuters/MSNBC/Zogby poll you quote taken? What is the source of your quote? If the poll was taken after the Democratic convention, then I would expect Gore to be beating Bush in the polls, but if you want to see if the polls are biased, you have to compare them as close to the election as possible. I called you dishonest because you made a glaringly incorrect, sweeping generalization about how the polls are consistantly biased to the left, and I've proved again that your comment is just wrong. If anything, they are biased towards the right.
The other funny thing is that the last several elections have offered polls which tended CONSISTENTLY several points to the left of reality. I'm talking off by 5-10 points just before the election - and always to the left.
Funny, when I looked at the CNN/Time poll taken a few days before the 2000 election, I see that they predict Bush with a comfortable lead (49% to 43%).
This article claims to be in agreement with a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll that showed an even larger lead for Bush (52% to 39%). A few days later Gore received the majority of the popular vote, so both of these polls were garbage. They leaned way to far to the right, not left as you claim.
I wonder what makes them automatically overlook Kerry's lies?
I don't know about Kerry's lies, but yours were easy to disprove...
If UV spectrascopy was a requirement for JWST the capability would be there. IR requirements apparently superceded it.
The poster you quote never claimed that UV spectroscopy was a requirement for the JWST. He stressed that Hubble alone covers this unique and interesting energy regime. When it is gone, so is the ability to examine the physics accessable in the ultraviolet.
Is the UV capability worth a $1G shuttle flight?
This has been said many times, but apparently it needs repeating. The money for the HST upgrade was allocated, and much of it has already been spent. The money has been spent on the instruments that need replacing. They are finished and now won't collect photons but instead will collect dust. The money to train the shuttle crew has been spent, and they have already begun training for the replacement mission before the Columbia disaster. Not going to the Hubble to install these instruments would be a bigger waste of money and effort than simply spending the rest of the already allocated funds to upgrade Hubble.
Hubble is used by a large community of scientists whose interests are entrenched. Whether the physics is worth the continuing investment is debatable.
What the hell does this mean? Any U.S. astronomer can apply for Hubble time. Yes, astronomers would like to retain and upgrade an excellent observatory that offers a unique window to the universe. Why do you consider astronomers who want to continue to use a telescope 'entrenched'?
Hubble is currently in the 14th year of a 10 year mission.
Hubble's original lifetime may have been 10 years, but the beauty of Hubble is that it can be upgraded. Even after 14 years it is still a workhorse in the astronomy community. Do you throw away a perfectly good printer just because it lived longer than its 'mean time before failure' estimate? Do you toss unused batteries that are beyond their 'best if used by' date?
Completely wrong. Upgrading Hubble is expensive, but the money was already allocated out of NASA's budget. In fact, most of it was spent already. There are two replacement instruments sitting on the ground, built and payed for, ready to be put into Hubble. By cancelling the servicing mission you throw these expensive instruments in the trash. In case you were wondering, they cannot be used at another telescope.
For several years now there has been a diminishing of Hubble science.
While the press has been less active in informing the public of the science being done with Hubble, I have seen no let up in the scientific progress being made with Hubble in the academic journals. Just because USA Today isn't putting out NASA's latest Hubble PR image doesn't mean that science isn't being done. Hubble is still one of the most in-demand instruments in astronomy and wonderful science is still being done.
The recent release of the Ultra Deep Field will yield no greater insights than the original. Worse, the release of UDF data was clearly staged to garner political support.
The Ultra Deep Field was proposed more than a year ago. The data were recently taken, and NASA sent out the PR when it was finished. How is this 'clearly staged'? Yes, the release of the UHDF roused political support. It shows that, unlike your ignorant claim that "There is not much more to be got out of it", the general public, along with the astronomy community, considers Hubble to be valuable and should not be needlessly discarded.
The real shame for the astronomical community is the delay and poor planning for the Hubble successor. That can hardly be blamed on O'Keefe or President Bush.
Bad planning? Hubble's successor, the James Webb Space Telescope, was planned to be launched before Hubble was de-orbited. O'Keefe's decision, based in part on Bush's initiative, prematurely kills Hubble. How is this the astronomer's fault? It takes decades to design and build a space telescope. The instrumentation is one-of-a-kind, as is almost all of the hardware. I don't believe NASA is directing additional money towards shortening the JWST timeline now that Hubble is being prematurely ended.
I just tinker with linux, and before Mandrake 9.2 I was completely unable to get linux installed on my new system, which has SATA hard drives. I wasn't very hopeful when Mandrake 9.2 was released, but I thought I would give it a try. Fortunately, Mandrake 9.2 recognized my hard drives immediately and I had no problems installing it.
Slashdot Mirror
While the atmosphere does stop the majority of cosmic rays, a fair number do get through. As an optical astronomer, cosmic ray hits on CCD cameras are a constant source of noise in my data. Fortunately, they are easy to remove during image processing provided you take more than one image of the field. Just do a google search for 'cosmic ray' and 'ccd' and you'll find a host of webpages discussing this topic.
You could be a tad bit less of a jackass about it (it works on so many levels!), but YMMV. You haven't 'proven' anything other than the fact that there is a large amount of variability from one poll to the next.
/ tracking.poll/
You're right, my comment was a bit harsh. I was going to apologize, but first I dug a little deeper and decided to check out your claim before retracting my statment calling you dishonest.
I found this webpage that shows a variety of polls one week before the 2000 Presidential election.
http://www.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/10/31
Here it is in brief:
CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll (October 28-30, 2000): Bush 47%, Gore 44%
CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll (October 25-30, 2000): Bush 48%, Gore 43%
ABC News: Bush 48%, Gore 45%
Washington Post: Bush 48%, Gore 45%
Reuters/MSNBC/Zogby poll: Bush 46%, Gore 41%
Actual election a week later: Gore 48%, Bush 48%
If you change the 10/31 in the URL to 11/2, or 11/5, you can see how Bush remains consistently in the lead until just 2 days before the election.
When was the Reuters/MSNBC/Zogby poll you quote taken? What is the source of your quote? If the poll was taken after the Democratic convention, then I would expect Gore to be beating Bush in the polls, but if you want to see if the polls are biased, you have to compare them as close to the election as possible. I called you dishonest because you made a glaringly incorrect, sweeping generalization about how the polls are consistantly biased to the left, and I've proved again that your comment is just wrong. If anything, they are biased towards the right.
The other funny thing is that the last several elections have offered polls which tended CONSISTENTLY several points to the left of reality. I'm talking off by 5-10 points just before the election - and always to the left.
/ cnntime.poll/index.html
Funny, when I looked at the CNN/Time poll taken a few days before the 2000 election, I see that they predict Bush with a comfortable lead (49% to 43%).
http://www.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/10/27
This article claims to be in agreement with a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll that showed an even larger lead for Bush (52% to 39%). A few days later Gore received the majority of the popular vote, so both of these polls were garbage. They leaned way to far to the right, not left as you claim.
I wonder what makes them automatically overlook Kerry's lies?
I don't know about Kerry's lies, but yours were easy to disprove...
If UV spectrascopy was a requirement for JWST the capability would be there. IR requirements apparently superceded it.
The poster you quote never claimed that UV spectroscopy was a requirement for the JWST. He stressed that Hubble alone covers this unique and interesting energy regime. When it is gone, so is the ability to examine the physics accessable in the ultraviolet.
Is the UV capability worth a $1G shuttle flight?
This has been said many times, but apparently it needs repeating. The money for the HST upgrade was allocated, and much of it has already been spent. The money has been spent on the instruments that need replacing. They are finished and now won't collect photons but instead will collect dust. The money to train the shuttle crew has been spent, and they have already begun training for the replacement mission before the Columbia disaster. Not going to the Hubble to install these instruments would be a bigger waste of money and effort than simply spending the rest of the already allocated funds to upgrade Hubble.
Hubble is used by a large community of scientists whose interests are entrenched. Whether the physics is worth the continuing investment is debatable.
What the hell does this mean? Any U.S. astronomer can apply for Hubble time. Yes, astronomers would like to retain and upgrade an excellent observatory that offers a unique window to the universe. Why do you consider astronomers who want to continue to use a telescope 'entrenched'?
Hubble is currently in the 14th year of a 10 year mission.
Hubble's original lifetime may have been 10 years, but the beauty of Hubble is that it can be upgraded. Even after 14 years it is still a workhorse in the astronomy community. Do you throw away a perfectly good printer just because it lived longer than its 'mean time before failure' estimate? Do you toss unused batteries that are beyond their 'best if used by' date?
Completely wrong. Upgrading Hubble is expensive, but the money was already allocated out of NASA's budget. In fact, most of it was spent already. There are two replacement instruments sitting on the ground, built and payed for, ready to be put into Hubble. By cancelling the servicing mission you throw these expensive instruments in the trash. In case you were wondering, they cannot be used at another telescope.
the Earth is littering Mars with spacecraft debris. Mars just wants a little payback.
I just tinker with linux, and before Mandrake 9.2 I was completely unable to get linux installed on my new system, which has SATA hard drives. I wasn't very hopeful when Mandrake 9.2 was released, but I thought I would give it a try. Fortunately, Mandrake 9.2 recognized my hard drives immediately and I had no problems installing it.