Random humor for your enjoyment! (for earlier posts, type “random humor” or “humor” into the Search box on my home page)
Filed under Humor and Observations
…reveals the etymological roots, or original meanings, of the familiar terms on today’s maps…
For instance, where you would normally expect to see the Sahara indicated, the Atlas gives you “The Tawny One”, derived from Arab. es-sahra “the fawn coloured, desert”….
Update: There is now a more in-depth version specifically for the United States.
(via Weasel King)
Filed under Humor and Observations
A giant solar sail is unfurled in this artist’s conception of the Sunjammer, with planet Earth retreating in the background. (Space Services Holdings, Inc.)
The Sunjammer’s solar sail, with a handful of researchers beneath it for context. (Space Services Holdings, Inc.)
A giant solar sail is unfurled in this artist’s conception of the Sunjammer, with planet Earth retreating in the background. (Space Services Holdings, Inc.)
The moon and the Earth are reflected in the giant reflective mirror of a solar sail. (Space Services Holdings, Inc.)
Though the author of “2001: A Space Odyssey” died in 2008 in Sri Lanka, scientists from NASA today announced plans to send his DNA into orbit around the sun in 2014 aboard the Sunjammer, an astonishing solar-powered spacecraft.
Called the Sunjammer Cosmic Archive (SCA), the flying time capsule is a first in the history of space travel, carrying digital files of human DNA including Clarke’s aboard the sun-powered space ship.
‘Clarke certainly imagined himself going to space someday, and that day is finally arriving.’
– Stephen Eisele, vice president of Space Services, Inc.
The DNA is to be contained in a “BioFile.” Other so-called MindFiles, including images, music, voice recordings, and the like, provided by people all around the globe, will also be included in the cosmic archive for future generations — or perhaps other civilizations — to see.
“Clarke certainly imagined himself going to space someday, and that day is finally arriving,” said Stephen Eisele, vice president of Space Services, Inc., a NASA contractor on the project. The name Sunjammer comes from the writings of Clarke, but the goal is all-encompassing.
“The Sunjammer Cosmic Archive
enables all of us to go to outer space,” he said.
The archive is one part of an amazing new NASA mission based on a vision outlined by astronomer Johannes Kepler, in a letter to Galileo in 1610: deployment of a technology that harnesses the light of the sun to propel spaceships.
”Provide ships or sails adapted to the heavenly breezes, and there will be some who will brave even that void,” Kepler wrote to Galileo.
In interviews during the days before the Thursday announcement, developers outlined for FoxNews.com the overall scope of the Sunjammer project, which NASA’s mission manager Ron Unger, at the Marshall Space Flight Center, described as a “game changing technology” that could alter mankind’s approach to space travel.
Simply put, the technology is a “solar sail” that gathers light from the sun and turns it into a propulsion source for a spacecraft, Unger said. It seems like something out of Clarke’s sci-fi writings, which is one reason that his DNA, which he left to science upon his death, is the payload for the mission, Eisele said.
This NASA-funded technology demonstration is designed to highlight the efficacy of solar sails for space propulsion applications; it’s now being built by Sunjammer team leader L’Garde, Inc., based in Tustin, Calif.
According to Nathan Barnes, president of L’Garde, the ship will launch in the fall of 2014 on a 1.9-million mile voyage to the sun from Cape Canaveral, Fla.
The diminutive spacecraft — it’s literally the size of a standard kitchen dishwasher — will be carried as a secondary spacecraft aboard a Falcon rocket 932,000 miles from Earth, where it will be released into space.
For NASA, Sunjammer will demonstrate deployment and navigation of the solar sail technology at nearly a million miles from Earth. Solar sails, sometimes called light sails or photon sails, are a form of spacecraft propulsion using the radiation pressure of a combination of light and high-speed gasses ejected from the Sun to push large, ultra-thin mirrors to high speeds.
These spacecraft offer NASA the possibility of low-cost operations with lengthy operating lifetimes. They have few moving parts and use no propellant, and they can potentially be used many times for delivery of different payloads.
“Sunjammer will morph — much like a butterfly – into a Space Shuttle-sized ship capable of maneuvering solely by riding the photonic pressure of the Sun,” Barnes tells FoxNews.com. “Such propellant-less space travel has been the subject of human dreams since at least the time of Galileo, and holds great promise.
Here’s the physics of how it works, in a simplified form: Solar radiation creates a pressure on the sail due to reflection and a small fraction that is absorbed, and this absorbed energy heats the sail, which re-radiates that energy from the front and rear surfaces.
The first formal design of a solar sail was conducted in the 1970s, at the height of Sir Clarke’s fame as a sci-fi writer and futurist, at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. A conference on solar sails was held just last month in the U.K., and researchers from NASA, a number of leading British universities, and L’Garde were present, discussing the potential of the Clarke-ian technology.
But now the technology is finally moving toward deployment on a major mission as a result of President Obama’s reorganization of NASA during his first term, and the agency’s search for technologies that can rapidly be commercialized, Eisele told FoxNews.com.
In addition to the payload including the DNA of Sir Clarke, scientific experiments will be conducted, once this craft is in space to demonstrate the use of solar sails in monitoring space weather, for example, which could provide early warnings of potentially dangerous solar storms.
To be sure, Clarke would have approved of that additional mission as well, Eisele told FoxNews.com.
Filed under Humor and Observations
By Rossella Lorenzi
Published June 17, 2013
This is the corrected imagery of the anomaly. The straight line against the sea floor suggests a manmade object, which has similar dimensions to Earhart’s plane. (TIGHAR)
Is this the Electra? A grainy sonar image captured off an uninhabited tropical island in the southwestern Pacific republic of Kiribati might represent the remains of Amelia Earhart’s plane. (TIGHAR)
A red dot square in the middle of the Pacific Ocean locates the island of Nikumaroro, where Amelia Earhart’s plane is believed to have crash landed. (FoxNews.com / Google)
Nikumaroro (formerly Gardner Island) looking southeastward at low tide. Note the broad, dry reef-flat which surrounds the atoll. The rusting remains of the steamer S.S. Norwich City can be seen on the reef edge at right center. This photo was taken in 1978. (TIGHAR / Geomarix)
Examined by Oceanic Imaging Consultants, Inc. (OIC) of Honolulu, Hawaii, the new data processing showed that the imagery released last month by The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR), was incomplete and somewhat misleading because of “ping drops.”
May 29, 2013: Sifting through data, group finds sonar image that may be Earhart’s plane.
July 22, 2012: Underwater search for Earhart plane called off.
June 1, 2012: Dozens of previously dismissed radio signals may have been transmissions from Earhart, study says.
May 31, 2012: A small cosmetic jar offers more circumstantial evidence that Earhart died on uninhabited island.
Mar 20, 2012: Enhanced analysis of photo taken months after Earhart’s plane vanished leads salvagers back to the island.
Dec. 17, 2010: Bone fragments and artifacts turn up on a deserted South Pacific island.
Basically, sonar pings that were not continuously recorded by the intake system, due to a number of technical deficiencies, created the illusion of a break in the linear nature of the anomaly.
“The good news is that, when corrected, the imagery of the anomaly — although less complete — looks even more interesting than it did in the initial distorted version,” Ric Gillespie, executive director of TIGHAR, said in a statement.
“It’s looking more and more like it might be the Electra,” he told Discovery News.
Last month TIGHAR, which has long been investigating Earhart’s last, fateful flight, released a grainy image of an “anomaly” resting at a depth of about 600 feet in the waters off Nikumaroro island, an uninhabited tropical atoll in the southwestern Pacific republic of Kiribati which was the target of TIGHAR’s underwater search in 2012.
Located distinctly apart from the debris field of the SS Norwich City, a British steamer that went aground on the island’s reef in 1929, the anomaly appeared to fit TIGHAR’s theory about where the Electra may have come to rest.
‘It’s looking more and more like it might be the Electra.’
– Ric Gillespie, executive director of TIGHAR
The legendary aviator was piloting this two-engine aircraft when she vanished on July 2, 1937 in a record attempt to fly around the world at the equator.
A number of artifacts recovered by TIGHAR during 10 expeditions have suggested that Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, made a forced landing on the island’s smooth, flat coral reef.
Gillespie and his team believe the two became castaways and eventually died on the island, which is some 350 miles southeast of Earhart’s target destination, Howland Island.
The anomaly is made up of two features — an object that is high enough to be casting a shadow, and a “tail” of what might be either skid marks or scattered debris.
In the corrected sonar imagery, the object that is casting a shadow is estimated to be at least 34 feet long and arrow-straight.
“Long straight lines are rare in nature and especially in coral. The probability that we have a man-made object has gone up significantly,” Gillespie said.
Filed under Humor and Observations
Italian beachgoers ignore dead bodies on shores
Just another day at the beach for some people in Italy.
Two foreigners died Monday on beaches in Italy, but beachgoers appeared unfazed at the sight of the dead bodies, which were covered with sheets before being taken by emergency services, The Telegraph reports.
In the resort region of Formia, outside Naples, 78-year-old Russian Valentina Rausman died in the water after a suspected heart attack. Beachgoers were seen afterwards playing with balls and reading newspapers a few yards from her body.
In Calabria, Abdur Abdurhaman, a 19-year-old Moroccan, drowned at sea, The Telegraph reports. A group of teenagers was seen playing soccer in the background.
“The people who behaved like that should be ashamed of themselves,” said Sandro Bartolomeo, the mayor of the Formia region.
My comments – How jaded and cynical have we become that a fellow human lies dead next to us on the beach and we just keep playing? Wow.
Filed under Humor and Observations
As a writer, it is important to “show not tell.” Every author gets tired of that over simplified mantra uttered endlessly in coffee shops across the world. Still, it is better to show than to tell.
For instance – Which of the following is better:
1) He looked amused.
2) His eyebrows lifted and his lips curled up slightly at the ends.
The first is telling. The narrator (if not written in first person) is telling you they “look amused” which may or may not bring a mental picture to you the reader. In any case, it is an opinion of the character by the narrator.
The second tells you as a reader what you actually see. It lets you determine why, if they are amused, interested, whatever. It lets you as the reader discover what is going on without too much work.
I found a resource that helps with these small descriptions of emotion and facial features. So odd the things you can find at random on the web. By using the link below, you can match common facial features with the emotions they represent so you can show your reader instead of telling them. Enjoy!
Filed under Writing
As an author, I always try to look at regular photos differently. One of my occasional post categories is “Evil Bases”. For more, type that into the search box on my home page. For your enjoyment, more evil bases to choose from for your evil archvillains.
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This luxury dog vacation package includes surfing lessons for your pet. (VeryFirstTo.com)
This trip is really for the dogs.
A U.K. website has put together the world’s most expensive vacation package for one very lucky pooch that includes a two-week stay at the luxury Paw Seasons Hotel — near Bristol, England, limousine transfers, spa treatments –and even one psychiatry session by an animal behavior expert Stan Rawlinson.
Pet owners have be be prepared to plunk down a whopping $74,000 for the deal, which also comes with a personal chef who will prepare Fido’s every meal and movie screenings of pooch-friendly flicks like “101 Dalmatians and Lassie” (and yes, dog popcorn will be served).
And if this all sounds too good to be true, other perks include surfing lesson (for the dog) and a solid bronze car mascot of the dog and portrait by artist Jo Chambers.
“Being the leaders in luxury breaks for dogs, we wanted to be the first to offer the most spectacular luxury holiday a dog could wish for,” Paw Seasons founder Jenny Hytner-Marriott said in a press release.
The package is offered through the luxury site VeryFirstTo.com, which recently sold the world’s most expensive human holiday. That trip included a stop to every World Heritage site over two years (that 150 countries) going for $1.2 million per couple.
Sadly, owners won’t be allowed on this holiday, but they able to get updates on their pet’s activities via Facebook and YouTube that will be provided by the Paw Season’s staff.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/travel/2013/06/18/pooch-package-gives-your-dog-74000-vacation/#ixzz2WdY5wM8P
Filed under Animals, Humor and Observations
The ‘Silian 3’ stone was discovered by chance alongside a stream in the Welsh village of Silian. (Nikki Vousden/ RCAHMW)
Nikki Vousden points to the spot where she and Roderick Bale stumbled upon the Silian 3 stone. (Nikki Vousden)
Aerial photograph of St Sulien’s Church where the Silian 3 stone is on display. (Crown Copyright: Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales)
Nancy Edwards and others examine the rock’s engravings. (Nikki Vousden)
It took a late night in the library and a call with an expert to realize they had discovered a long-lost medieval stone with religious significance.
“We were going for a stroll in the evening and we sort of noticed the stone, half sticking out of the stream,” Vousden of the of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales told FoxNews.com. It had been raining and the water made the carvings stand out, causing Vousden and Bale of the University of Wales to further investigate.
The Silian 3 stone is thought to be an ecclesiastical monument, possibly used as a boundary or grave marker.
They quickly called Nancy Edwards, an expert in ancient and medieval history, and described to her the linear Latin cross within a lozenge-shaped ring that appeared on the rock. Edwards confirmed it as the Silian 3 stone, an artifact she had been searching for since labeling it with a question mark in her book A Corpus of Early Medieval Inscribed Stones and Stone Sculpture in Wales.
All three were excited to discover the stone, one of 28 missing early Christian monuments in the south-west Wales area. “There are 216 known inscribed stones and stone crosses,” Vousden explained. “Twenty-eight of them are missing, (now) excluding Silian 3.”
“One of the most exciting things was to go to the library and see the cast (in Edward’s book) and realize it was real,” Bale told FoxNews.com.
The Silian 3 stone, which is thought to be an ecclesiastical monument, possibly used as a boundary or grave marker, is one of three known stones in Wales that have the same cross in lozenge design; the Llanllawer 3 from St David’s Church and the Llandecwyn 1 from St Tecwyn’s Church have the same pattern.
The Silian 3 stone is unique, however. Measuring approximately 30 inches by 15 inches, it has been missing for centuries, aside from a mysterious plastic cast commissioned by the National Museum of Wales in 1914.
“We only know that the National Museum (of Wales) had a program of commissioning plastic casts to make a national archive,” Vousden said. The program ended in 1914 and the cast is thought to be made by a W. Clakre Llandaff.
It was this cast that Edwards included in her book and besides the mold, there is no record of the Silian 3 stone before or after the cast was produced.
According to Vousden, no one in the village has any prior recollection of the stone, which dates back to the 9th or 10th century, or any idea why it was carelessly tossed away into the woods.
The stone, now on display at the Saint Sulien’s Church, is the first step in discovering more about the rich history of the small village of Silian, which dates back to the 5th or 6th century.
“It’s a really amazing find and it’s generating a lot of interest locally as it makes people think what else there might be to find,” Bale said. “Every day we go for a walk down there and you never know, you might be lucky and find something.”
Considering the stone was found near the church which has been in use for nearly 1,500 years, it is likely that there is a lot more left to discover in the village of Silian.
“Documentary sources and landscape evidence indicate that Silian was once a place of significance with an important early Christian ecclesiastical site,” said Vousden, who lives in Silian and completed her undergraduate dissertation on the village from a landscape and archeological perspective, including a chapter on the Saint Sulien’s Church.
The community is small, consisting of only 300 members, and both Vousden and Bale hope the discovery of the Silian 3 stone will help bring more awareness “of the historic value of small out-of-the-way villages like Silian.”
Vousden plans to apply for funding in order to display the medieval monument in the church which has caused much excitement in the village.
“We also plan to apply for funding to carry out a community excavation,” she said. “This will hopefully inform us in more detail about the age of the site and how it has evolved into what we see today. It is hoped that having the chance to engage with the history of the village (we) will help the people of Silian regain a sense of ownership of their village and a sense of belonging to a community.”
Filed under Humor and Observations
This still from a NASA video shows the New Year’s Eve sun eruption of Dec. 31, 2012, to kick off the New Year. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured the video. (NASA/SDO via Camilla Corona SDO)
This image shows the Earth to scale with a colossal solar filament eruption from the sun on Aug. 31, 2012 as seen by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory spacecraft. Note: the Earth is not this close to the sun, this image is for scale purposes on (NASA/SDO/GSFC)
A large enough pulse (EMP) could destroy the electric grid, notably the rare and very expensive transformers that form the grid’s backbone. Without them and the power they deliver, a vast swath of American technology and every system that relies upon it would go dark for months or even years, some fear — essentially sending the country back to the stone age.
And we’re utterly unprepared for this potentially catastrophic threat, said Frank Gaffney, president of the Center for Security Policy and former assistant secretary of defense under Ronald Reagan.
‘[Cities] become dead zones in a matter of weeks or at most months.’
– Frank Gaffney, president of the Center for Security Policy
“A pre-industrial society, which is what we would be reduced to, would not have the ability to sustain itself as we do today,” he told FoxNews.com.
A 2004 panel bluntly described the effects of a “Carrington Event,” named for the largest solar storm in history, an 1859 solar blast that shook the planet. Bill Graham, chairman of the panel, said as many as 9 out of 10 of could be killed in the aftermath, Gaffney said.
“Think of people in cities with no access to food or water, no sewage, no access to transport to get out of there … those become dead zones in a matter of weeks or at most months. And the population living off the land elsewhere may be able to sustain itself, but nowhere like what we have at the moment,” Gaffney said.
“It’s really grim,” he told FoxNews.com.
To address this threat, Congressman Trent Franks and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich introduced a bill Tuesday to protect the grid. Called the SHIELD Act, or the Secure High-voltage Infrastructure for Electricity from Lethal Damage, the bill would push the federal government to install grid-saving devices, surge protectors that could save the transformers and power system from EMPs.
The main source of these wicked pulses are storms on the surface of the sun — giant, rope-like strands of plasma hundreds of thousands of miles long that have been rolling off the surface of that boiling star overhead in increasing numbers. The sun hurls these gas and magnetic fields millions of miles across space, disrupting satellite communications, navigation and power, explained NASA head Charlie Bolden at a conference on space weather June 4.
“Space weather impacts can be seen throughout the solar system,” Bolden said. “Given the growing importance of space to our Nation’s economic well-being and security, it is of increasing importance … to understand and predict space weather events.”
In other words, the sun sneezes and the economy shatters, as one article recently put it.
It’s no idle threat, either: in March 1989, the power grid in Quebec went from normal to shutdown in 92 seconds during a huge magnetic storm, according to a recent report by insurance giant Lloyds of London. It took 9 hours to restore normal operations, during which time five million people were without electricity. Total cost: about $2 billion.
The bill centers on protecting modern high-voltage transformers, which can weigh up to 400 tons, cost millions of dollars, and are made in only a handful of facilities in the U.S. A June 2012 report a June 2012 report by the Dept. of Energy called them a key failure point in the grid, citing volatile raw-material pricing – copper and electrical steel – and a lead time for manufacturing that can stretch to 20 months.
“It’s critical that we protect our major transformers from cascading destruction. The SHIELD Act encourages industry to develop standards necessary to protect our electric infrastructure against both natural and man-made EMP events,” Franks said, according to the Washington Examiner.
Franks has been pursuing the bill since early 2011, when he first introduced H.R. 668. At the time, he called it “the single greatest asymmetric capability that could fall into the hands of America’s enemies.”
Gaffney agrees, noting that anyone aware of the system understands it’s something we need to take action on.
“If we can at least insure that the backbone of the electric grid survives — these transformers — you have a basis upon which to rebuild the rest of the country. If you lose those, you’re toast,” he told FoxNews.com.
Filed under Humor and Observations
Michael Bradley - Time Traveler 
