JoeSchmuckatelli

It's not so much the discovery of Iron as the ability to produce it in quantity sufficient for it to become the basis of the economy / tools & weapons. Why the technology was limited to the Afro-EurAsian continent is quite interesting - especially given how simple it is.

Yep. Most of the world population was some form of hunter-gatherer or semi-nomadic in the year 1000. Or rather - outside the densely populated (Citified & static) Afro-EurAsian belts (Japan, China, India, Persia & Fertile Crescent, Mediterranean) & parts of Meso America - most people moved quite frequently; even agrarian societies like those in SEA and most of the Americas / most of Africa / Northern Europe & Asia would plant something then move around while it grew and come back for it later. The more advanced would intensively farm & hunt an area for about a decade until the land was useless then move several days walk away and start over. Advanced farming with improved plows arrived in Europe around this time, enabling food surpluses which in turn enabled cities and economic diversification. What is interesting to me about looking at Polynesian, Australian, Native American (etc) populations and why they never reached the Iron Age - the likely answer is lack of large domesticated animals. In the Americas, the largest was a Llama - which can carry 90 lbs (so can a human) and so we don't get wheeled carts and draft oxen / horses / mules pulling heavy loads or doing work. Those places stop tech at the 'high stone age' - which just works for them (so long as outside competition doesn't disrupt the show). The cool thing about humans, though, is that we have evidence of trade going back to Gobleki Tepe and Catalhoyuk. Certainly, if the Polynesians met up with other folks from the Americas they'd have traded with them. But to your point about American plants being found in the Pacific - the thesis of the above article is that it was Americans who first settled some of islands closest to SA and later met Polynesians. So it was likely Americans bringing plants into the Pacific rather than Polynesians landing in the Americas and bringing American plants back with them. Still - either would have worked; the smart folks are still arguing about the details!

Even Cylons sit

Coming back from 2017, I spent 2 hours trying to advance 2 exits to the next freeway. 5 hours back from a less than 2 hour drive out. Funz

I'd have to go back almost a year to find my original post - but I linked to the NOAA site showing 50% chance of clouds based on historic data. This was always going to be a coin flip. (for me) The surprise is Texas, etc. They have a much higher % chance of sun this time of year, IIRC.

Yep - there is evidence that the populations met in the Pacific archaeologist Paul Wallin, who provided peer review for the Nature study, traced human settlement across the Pacific and suggested that migration from Colombia went first to the South Marquesas Islands, and afterward arced south and east toward Palliser, Mangareva, and finally Easter Island. “The earliest genetic signal of Native Southern Americans found by the authors in Polynesia was from people of the Southern Marquesas Islands, and the authors argue that Colombians mixed with Polynesians there around 1150 AD,” he wrote. “This date is so early that it could even suggest South Americans reached there before Polynesians arrived.” In other words, it was not the Polynesians who sailed to South America but instead, as postulated by the Kon-Tiki, the South Americans who sailed west. https://www.idtdna.com/pages/community/blog/post/dna-links-prehistoric-polynesians-to-south-america#:~:text=“The earliest genetic signal of,1150 AD%2C” he wrote. There was speculation that around the time Scandinavian explorers were reaching Mayan areas that Pacific Islanders were reaching SA. More recent genetic studies have complicated that narrative. Still, it points to a global population able to expand to the farthest reaches of the world circa 1000AD. The climate studies (Medieval Warm Period, etc) suggest that the 'Anomaly' wasn't limited to just Europe but was a global change in climate warm enough to encourage Human population growth and migration. (this is somewhat controversial) Big thing about looking backwards in time is that warm weather coincides with population growth and technological expansion while cold weather coincides with contraction, disease and famine - both are drivers of migration and warfare - but dramatically different in character.

There is a section in that book I referred to above showing first wave immigration reached Samoa as early as 800 BC. Third Wave (Hawaii, New Zealand Rapa Nui) didn't happen until the 1200s (AD) - quite possibly due to technology innovation like the double canoe or changed climate (think extended El Nino that changes wind patterns) and likely increased population that would support /drive migration. Here's another resource https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1586/polynesian-navigation--settlement-of-the-pacific/

You see that projected gap in the cloud cover in Illinois? I've been watching that like a Hawk for days. Thankfully it's in driving range of my original chosen spot. Frustration for my wife is that she likes plans and I'm okay with being on the side of a farm road. Fingers crossed that there really is a gap. Strong possibility is that the 'gap' is just an area of thin high clouds between storms....

There are some interesting and early reports of the recovery of honey bee populations. The most interesting are pay walled. Why interesting: several years of bee-pocalypse reporting about the challenges of agriculture practices (pesticides, moniculture, etc) climate change, disease, parasites and loss of food sources /habitat. Why it matters: bees are for all intents and purposes a domesticated species critical to our food supply. Farmers and agribusiness responded to the crisis and developed multiple strategies to stabilize and protect bee populations. Washington Post

Them's fightin words, boyo! Vis Star Wars - I liked the first half of Empire but can't help seeing Jedi as an allegory for the Vietnam war.

So - you're right. I got to see a remarkable partial eclipse while in school from Los Angeles years and years ago. It stuck with me as a really cool experience. So cool, in fact, that I took my kids out of school for the last totality. And Was Blown Away. I'm taking them out again - because it is that cool. Don't go to Niagara. Pick a small town and go to the ballpark there. That is all you need! (and yeah, if you can't - do go outside, and remember to look at the shadows!)

It really will be worth driving into it. Corona is otherworldly - and photos /videos do not convey the experience.

I'm driving my wife nuts with shifting cloud cover predictions... One day I'm on Indiana, the next Illinois or Missouri. Whatever... I'm going! Come on High Pressure System!

Um... Some people should not be engaged - much less argued with. They're passionate about their misperception and committed to conspiracy. Can't win.

Minoan and BA Assyrian empires suggest this could be a viable strategy. Of note - being a 'neutral' / unaligned trading power in a post - globalization economic scenario is a possible success story (there is a lot of speculation of fragmentation of the current system - and economists speculating of what it looks like)

https://news.yale.edu/2020/07/24/globalization-began-early-1000-yale-historian-contends-book This book goes into some interesting details about the movement of population and trade back then - debunking 'China found America first' and 'Islam discovered America first' via some very credible explication of travel, trade and the impact of ocean currents and wind. Vis China - they certainly could have found America by following the coast north and then tracing the Alleutian Islands south... But she points out that like the Vikings (who did visit) they'd have found almost zero trade goods of interest. About the only thing the Vikings took was lumber. And casualties. Some slaves. There is a story about some Japanese sailors that got caught in a storm and survived 14 months at sea to wash up on the Washington coast - most died of Scurvy Go back and review the Japanese experience in WW1 and interwar period. The severe lack of 'modern' natural resources (coal, iron / steel, oil) almost precludes a Polynesian / Island (Japan) empire that does not conquer China / SEA first

Fun Fact: due to the Trade Winds in the South Pacific, 'sea level' is 1.5 feet higher in Indonesia than near Peru. https://www.weather.gov/source/zhu/ZHU_Training_Page/tropical_stuff/enso/enso2.htm This also is an explanation for the late colonization of New Zealand, Samoa, Hawaii, etc. etc. The combination of the currents and prevailing winds made it extremely difficult for anyone to go East of Indonesia. (Early Chinese maps had the equivalent of 'here there be monsters' for anything past the Indonesian archipelago.) ALSO... According to Phys.org, that is the comparison of all of the water on Earth and the planet itself (and they mean ALL - including vapor and the water in our bodies). https://phys.org/news/2012-05-earth.html

Yeah - the 'barely made orbit' was the plan for this flight.

I for one have never posted some whiskey-fueled nonsense that I regret. Nope. Never. Weird thing is that as I try to convince my students just how amazing it is that SX is propulsively landing spacecraft... they just shrug. Because for as long as they've paid attention - SX has been doing just that. I remember thinking the first PC I built was super powerful - and I'm pretty sure my phone has more power than it did. It's almost like we can't predict the future - and then once some amazing future is at hand - we take it for granted.

Side note: radar was initially developed for weather and adapted to the war effort.

Welcome to the club?

I haven't played for a while (waiting for 'Landed State" bug to be fixed) but IIRC your Kerbal actually has to touch the craft. I could be mistaken, however, as the game might require the Kerbal to be 'docked' (in a rumble seat or inside a cabin). That said - once one 'thing' has the science, anything that docks with it or separates from it has all the science until transmitted / delivered and then all have none (or whatever remains. c.f. data transmission vs sample delivery)

Goals. They have no obligations, just intentions. Ofc you know that.

(question abt the landing attempt) boost back /reentry looked great until I saw it wasn't slowing down much. Does it rely entirely on the landing burn to slow then stop?

Very late to the party - just watched with my students. Why was Booster so much above terminal so deep into the atmosphere? It was supersonic at 5km