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#101 Re: New Mars Articles » Ares Express - info thread » 2005-01-02 02:36:11
I'll be putting together #7 over the next couple of days, if anyone has anything they'll like included or links for it please either post it here or PM/email them to me.
Graeme
#102 Re: Science, Technology, and Astronomy » Comet Machholz - New Comet » 2005-01-01 09:37:17
The following link was posted to uk.sci.astronomy which I visit the image from 31/12/04 shows two tails. http://www.digitalsky.org.uk/comets/machholz.html]Link
Graeme
#103 Re: Science, Technology, and Astronomy » Heliopolis » 2004-12-31 04:48:36
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/htmltest/gi … rv.html]An Interview with Sol
*Have some humor with your science.
I must have missed this one 
AM: When did you decide to have planets?
Sol: Very early in life, although I'm not exactly sure when - that part of my life was very nebulous. I didn't really plan to have planets because I never had a steady companion. They just sort of spun off of my care-free early life style.
Graeme
#104 Re: Not So Free Chat » Political Potpourri II - Continued from previous » 2004-12-31 04:20:51
In 1945, who would have bet a dime on Germany and France teaming to build Europe ?
True but the Greek/Turk divide is deeper and goes back a lot longer.
Graeme
#105 Re: Not So Free Chat » Tsunami in Asia » 2004-12-31 03:55:47
To remind how SHAMEFULLY MEAN are the US, French and generally all the other indutrial countries governmental help,
20 millions $ is what french government allocated to repair the Chateau de Versailles and its park when 10000 trees had fallen following the violent tempest Europe had suffer in year 2000.
The British government spent 750 million on the millennium dome which had the sole purpose of being a exhibition centre for the year 2000. If the public show enough concern the governments will give more aid - once the public stops watching the aid slows to a trickle from governments and is often left to the charity workers (etc.) to finish the mopping up.
Graeme
#106 Re: Human missions » Ordinary people...? » 2004-12-31 03:47:52
Just look through history though, at one point we'd have said only rich people would own cars, now most families have one or two (or four cough) sitting outside their houses.
Just because at the moment space is limited to the multimillionaires does not mean that it will always be limited in that way. One percent now may equal fifty percent in thirty years.
Graeme
#107 Re: Unmanned probes » Cassini-Huygens *2* - ...more Saturn/Titan... » 2004-12-31 03:42:13
Nice little article http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2004 … 90714]here
Radio signals from Saturn take 1 hour and 8 minutes to reach Earth. "We can't wait to get the data," says McEwen
I think I can echo that comment.
Graeme
#108 Re: Not So Free Chat » Political Potpourri II - Continued from previous » 2004-12-31 03:31:37
I've been to Greece a few times, and the Greeks I spoke to did not look to kindly on the Turks. Despite any similarities they would not make for happy partners in the EU.
Graeme
#109 Re: Science, Technology, and Astronomy » New Discoveries *4* - ...Solar System, Deep Space, cont'd » 2004-12-31 03:27:08
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap041231.html]Fitting Image to end 2004 on I think.
Graeme
#110 Re: Not So Free Chat » Tsunami in Asia » 2004-12-31 02:18:57
You can now make a donation through Amazon to the Red Cross - you don't even have to go outside :;):
Graeme
#111 Re: Not So Free Chat » Hey Guys, I'm going to be taking a break... - Taking a break from the internet. » 2004-12-31 01:22:10
I just wanted to say hey, I'm going to be taking a break from the internet for an indeterminate amount of time. I don't really have anything special to say, except that I've enjoyed my time here at New Mars. I've been posting here since the beginning, I still recall the old Mars Society forums and the banter that went on there, always posting anonymously, until New Mars was set up as the Mars Society official forums (I actually recall New Mars existing as a journal before then, and recall reading that old article written by that young female Mars Society member, it was great, I wonder what she's up to these days, maybe someone could get up with her).
I hope its just a short break
clark, the bet still stands, I'm not avoiding it. Don't be a big baby troll, while I'm gone, okay?
I'm sure plenty of people here will remind him the bet is still on.
GraemeSkinner, I like that you've taken on the job of doing monthly updates of New Mars, and I hope you leave this post out of the next one, because it's not all that important, and I will be back eventually.
It'll be left out if thats what you wish, no problem.
Take care Josh, come back soon.
Graeme
#112 Re: Science, Technology, and Astronomy » Comet Machholz - New Comet » 2004-12-30 22:36:39
Success! Finally found the little bugger half an hour ago ... and a lot of luck was involved (of course I also reviewed the updated sky map posted in my Dec. 29th post). A neighbor flipped on their outdoor holiday lights just as I stepped outdoors with my 'scope, so I figured I'd have absolutely zero luck, but might as well try. After only 2 star-hopping attempts and a bit of sweeping (less than 3 minutes total), I found it.
Is mostly gray, even on highest mag, but with use of peripheral vision the light spreads out of course and I detect a barely green tinge.
My husband stepped outdoors to see it as well. He seemed somewhat interested to know the comet will steadily brighten a bit over the coming weeks.
Of course my telescope can't come remotely near to producing the stunning images big 'scopes can, but there's still something about tracking down and finding an object yourself, seeing it through an eyepiece attached to an instrument you're guiding yourself. This is the only sort of hunting I'll ever enjoy.
Is anyone else observing the comet with binoculars or telescope?
I'll be hunting it with my small scope, which is unguided too I'm happy to say - its part of the fun tracking an object yourself, I always carry binoculars with me for when I'm out and about so I'll be trying those too. Would be nice to have a motorized scope for better astrophotos, but that can wait. If the comet brightens enough I'll be using an unguided camera with 150mm lens to photograph the comet.
I've put together the next couple of weeks positions for Machholz for anyone thats interested.
Graeme
#113 Re: Not So Free Chat » Tsunami in Asia » 2004-12-30 05:16:54
Just seen on the news that coastal areas are being cleared due to fears from an aftershock this AM. Estimated to be around 5.7 on the richter scale they don't think it will cause a Tsunami though they are warning people just in case. The problem is, with the temperatures they have down there the more they stop clearing away the dead the more disease will take hold by the time they return - not a job I'd want!
Graeme
#114 Re: Pictures of Mars » Favorite Sci-Fi Movie? - Blade Runner for me. . . » 2004-12-30 02:52:42
http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2002/1 … _brin/]JRR Tolkien, Enemy of Progress
Were any orcs or "dark men" offered coalition positions in King Aragorn's cabinet, at the end of the War of the Ring? Was Mordor given a benign Marshall Plan?
I think not.
The question is why would you offer a cabinet position to a private from a defeated army? Thats all orcs and dark men were. Sauron was the only enemy with suitable wisdom that could have joined the cabinet, and he was a crazed evil spirit (well Saruman could have joined, though I don't think his mind was the same since he started communicating with Mordor).
Mordor was utterly destroyed why would anyone want to do anything with it?
Graeme
#115 Re: Science, Technology, and Astronomy » Comet Machholz - New Comet » 2004-12-30 02:26:21
Looking forward to Machholz near the Pleiades, I'm hoping it'll be nice a bright with a good tail by then. The tail is forming all the time, I've not seen the tail myself, but I just managed my first naked eye viewing last night returning from work along a dark back road the clouds cleared enough to give me 10 mins viewing.
If there's a visible tail and its next to the Pleiades it'll be the perfect start to the year.
Graeme
#116 Re: Meta New Mars » Posting Images - ...especially *large* ones » 2004-12-28 22:36:00
Hmm, I doubt they'd allow the threads to collapse, and I just realized something, that you can make a post with 65kB of text, that's huge, that's like a friggin novel. It is true that there seems to be a correlation between long posts and threads collapsing. I'm contemplating turning that 65kB post length limit down a bit, but I don't know what it would do to the posts that we already have in the database. (We seriously need to switch to MySQL Adrian, heh.)
Anyway, being with dialup has its problems, I hate picture loading threads (though I tolerate them because they prove interesting). There doesn't seem to be a way to limit the size/resolution of the images, though. The only way I can think is for mods to go in and edit the images down, but that honestly is a bit excessive.
An alternative is to post sized down images on ImageShack (which I do for some people whose icons are huge), but then that comes with its own copyright problems and I don't even want to think about it.
But nah, to answer the question, it shouldn't affect the database or anything, the images are hosted offsite. The load times are due to the images being big probably. Try loading a picture intensive page on dialup!
Hope that answers your question.
With the right compression you can manage fairly quick loading images that are fairly small a 640 x 480 image I posted to http://www.newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=209]this thread was only 44kb in size and it did not drop too much in getting the file size down so far.
However I have to agree that image heavy threads can be a pain to load on dial up, thats one of the reasons I stopped posting as much to New Mars. My dial up was so slow the early Spirit & Opp thread pages could take an age to load, thankfully the dial up has gone and I can view the pages quickly on ADSL.
If it becomes a problem with images dragging down the threads, I'm quite happy using a low res small image with my posts and placing a link to a higher res one.
Graeme
#117 Re: Science, Technology, and Astronomy » Current ISS Location Tracker » 2004-12-28 22:20:20
http://www.heavens-above.com]I Like This Site
for tracking the ISS and other satellites.
Graeme
#118 Re: Science, Technology, and Astronomy » Swift & JMEX » 2004-12-24 01:56:04
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap041224.html]APOD for 24th Dec, animation
Shows separation from the rocket.
Graeme
#119 Re: Unmanned probes » Cassini-Huygens *2* - ...more Saturn/Titan... » 2004-12-23 22:24:21
Lets hope its a happy separation day :band:
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/news/press-r … D=516]Link
image from NASAs website, ne credit for the artwork showing Huygens separating.
Graeme
#120 Re: Unmanned probes » Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) - rover » 2004-12-23 22:05:03
http://www.marstoday.com/viewpr.html?pid=15767]Four Cornell space researchers named to instrument teams for NASA's next Mars rover mission in 2009
Graeme
#121 Re: Unmanned probes » MER search for dust devils - hoping for a rover's eye view... » 2004-12-23 21:53:05
I still can't convince myself that the difference in appearance isn't largely to do with different lighting or filters or some other treatment of the images. I'm just looking for evidence of physical obscuration of detail by a layer of dust - and I'm not finding much consistent visual evidence for that.
The area of the image that convined me was lower right. Surely NASA can tell from its data if they are receiving less power from the solar cells on Spirit.
Graeme
#122 Re: Science, Technology, and Astronomy » Large Brown Cloud » 2004-12-23 21:36:37
This is getting too political for a science and technology thread - my fault I think, sorry. I won't keep arguing the case for the environment, some people either don't care about it or are convinced man has no influence over it, thats fine for them. I'm happy knowing that although man is affecting the environment, there is little I can really do to change that on a global scale, and I live on a hill side if the tide does suddenly start to rise so I won't get my toes wet...
We know little about the environment/climate as modelling it is difficult, and therefore predicting what effect different scenarios would have upon it is difficult as well. Sticking our head in the sand does not help anyone however.
Graeme
#123 Re: Science, Technology, and Astronomy » Large Brown Cloud » 2004-12-23 14:27:02
Climate change is caused overwhelmingly by natural factors, not people in industrialized countries driving too much. the Kyoto protocol is first, foremost and primarily about punishing the US economically for its success.
Its funny how many people saw the Kyoto treaty not about punishing the US, but about the environment, perhaps if the US had come up with the idea first it would have got through 
Climate change is natural for our planet, we're coming out of a minor ice age, of course temperatures have risen in the last century or so. Go back 200 years it was colder. Go back 600 it was warmer. It's not us.
Some fluctuations are natural the past couple of hundred years have seen unnatural growth that most admit is caused by humans.
Graeme
#124 Re: Science, Technology, and Astronomy » Large Brown Cloud » 2004-12-23 14:20:34
So we sit back and do nothing, until the evidence is hitting us in the face and suddenly its too late to do anything about it. Yes, the environment is heavily influenced by natural events, but man is sure not helping the issue. I don't think we'll see the sky falling down, I don't go in for knee jerk reactionary statements like that.
The IPCC still stood behind the Kyoto treatment however much bad press went before it.
Graeme
#125 Re: Science, Technology, and Astronomy » Large Brown Cloud » 2004-12-23 14:14:48
Oh, we can certainly affect it.
I spent a good while this year looking at data for climate and CO2 levels both from accurate recent data and more long term applied data. Man is a major problem in the climate equation, its just a pity the Kyoto treaty came up against so many objections.
Graeme