Friday, December 18, 2015

earth

3 comments:

  1. "Cheese"
    Much nicer than one of those old maps of the world I used to see in school where the world was flattened out making Greenland look a super continent. Remember those?
    If you stay up at night until passed 1AM, actually in your case past 2AM, because the Oakland Hills will be in your way, if you look dead east, out of the top right of your eye you will see a very bright star - far brighter than anything else in that part of the sky. I've got to find out what it is.

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    1. So, Laurie and I were driving by a neighbors tag sale and we decided to stop to see if we could score some books, or whatever.

      Laurie noticed a set of golf clubs in reasonably good condition and, as she has over recent months taken up the sport, decided to purchase them.

      I noticed the telescope.

      It is basically one of those cheap Wallmart reflectors that they constantly warn you away from when you start looking into the literature and reading the astronomy sites. I bought it for next to nothing, used it for a few months, and then took it apart to see exactly how the thing functions.

      But I did get my first real glimpse at the moon through it and I was hooked!

      What really blew my mind, tho, was the recognition that the technology sitting in my living room is structurally identical to what Isaac Newtown came up with in 1668.

      Shortly after that purchase we went up to Chabot for the first time and I was sort-of wandering around the ground floor with all these people, and all these kids, when I noticed a case set against a wall with an old refractor in it. So, I went and I looked and the placard said, "Einstein's telescope."

      Einstein's telescope?!

      Are you f**king kidding me?!

      But there it was, Einstein's personal telescope.

      I ran and grabbed Laurie and dragged her over and then pointed at the thing with trembling fingers and said, "Look! Look! That's Einstein's actual telescope!"

      :O)

      I am not sure that she was quite as impressed as I was, but my mind was blown.

      Einstein's telescope.

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  2. A primer on the history of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program including a new second strike submarine based capability

    http://www.israeldefense.co.il/en/content/pakistan-%E2%80%93-quiet-nuclear-threat

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