Green Baron

I doubt that chimpanzees have "culture", but culture is a very soft expression and maybe a chimpanzee guy sees that totally different . A fully developed "culture" with art (cave art, stone paintings), adornment on body and clothes, music (flutes from the swabian alb), figurines (swabian alb as well) is usually connected to modern humans from roughly 45.000yrs on. Neandertals seemingly did not develop that diversity, but it is assumed that the latter were very few at that time, while modern humans spread out rather quickly (increasing number of find sites). Nevertheless i am a little fond of the Neandertals (maybe more than others) and thus expanded "culture" a little. When we see an ensemble of stone tools from late neandertal sites (mousterien, chatelperronien, aka late middle palaelothic) and early aurignacian (first modern humans in europe, aka early upper palaeolithic) it's usually quite clear to distinguish the one from the other. Though they lived side by side over a long period of time they left different "finger prints". Late find sites can suggest that neandertals were just beginning to start a "cultural" development, influenced by contact with modern humans. Why should it be a nightmare to meet an erectus (i lump them together, there are different forms) ? An erectus still had to duck and cover when a cave bear or lion was out hunting. My speculation is: we would probably not be able to communicate fluently but he/she would be able to learn basic things rather quickly, maybe including a complex language if physiology permits (i don't know). About "australos" and "pithecos": I'm 10 years behind now, that never had my interest as much as the ice age, but i think the basic classification hasn't changed much. "Lucy" is the most complete individual that exists from before 2.6my. But i fear the habit you discribe hasn't changed. If you're interested, a lot has been written and published ... :-)

A few weeks ago i read a text about a trinary star system, a binary couple very close to each other, like a few AE and a third one very far away (many hundrets AE) that seemed to be stable. In that case the couple might be assumed to have a single COM in respect to the far away star. Whether this is usable for smaller units with planet/moon sizes and distances, i don't know. Sun and Jupiter would probably disturb in our case. Another thing that comes to my mind: tidal forces brake the rotation due to friction, thus over time forcing the body with less mass into a lock (the bigger one will lock as well but much slower). The moon drifts slowly away from the earth, it startet much closer (well, on the surface :-)), i recall this is because of impulse preservation while braking the earths rotation over time. How would that effect influence a binary moon-system close to a planet ? Would the larger component drift away slower cause it brakes slower, thus loosing the smaller component which might be "flung out" rather quickly that way ? (see for example: http://sservi.nasa.gov/?question=moon-drifting-from-the-earth) Just playing with ideas ...

I found it fascinating how McNeice interpreted Baron Harkonnen. I just thought that Red Baron is worn-out, so i made it green.

I'm sorry, but it's 2:1for the moon :-) http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/kits/tides/tides06_variations.html But i have no idea what would happen if there were to bodies ... weather services probably had one more excuse if things wouldn't happen as predicted ...

So we're almost collegues :-) I studied prehistory and as sidesubjects palaeo-anthropology and palaeontology in the late 2000s, just for fun, i don't work in the field. Must admit that it's difficult to keep up-to-date since away from the resources of the university. Just bought a new bookshelf ... Yep, that wonders. There is/was a tendency to open up new species on the base of a single bone- or toothfragment, especially in forms pre-dating homo erectus. And not much was gained about the early forms since then. "Lucy" being probably the most important. The "Hobbits" have been newly datet and like some may have suspected are now much older than initially proclaimed :-) With Homo erectus it seems that finds become more numerous and things clearer. Am thinking of Atapuerca, Dmanisi, Tautavel ... and with the appearance of early modern humans in Africa and neandertals in Europe, that had a greater impact in the record, things are getting even better. Since the last warm-phase (OIS-5) finds are numerous enough to start a cultural/specieswise classification based on the make and form of stone- and later-on bonetools, so for homo sapiens and subspecies neandertal these assessments have been made, for earlier forms including Homo erectus not.

You can do so in a lifetime. Our behavior is not totally controlled by genes, it's also and much more dependent on cultur and tradition. It is not "built in" to kill each other, in fact most humans (i know) are pretty peaceful. You're judging from your perspective, and that is filled with terrible pictures, wars and since two decades intense terrorism, but it's money (resources), ideology and strive for power that produces these things (aka culture), it's not built into human beings by default. I tell you, that was not always the case, and this is the link to human origins :-) !! Speculation (there are only a few archaeological hints in cave-art) !!: Just try to imagine a different ideology, shamanism, that teaches a spirit in everything and a link between everything. Couldn't that be a ground for peaceful coexistence ? I am not preaching here, hope you get me right ;-) Peace, brother :-)

Ha ! Thinks you ! But you have no idea. There are people who have studied it, dug it out, counted the bones and tools, reconstructed the sites and the environments, even where the stone-knappers sat and what they made and how they did it, what grew in the vicinity and abroad, how people moved, how old they were when they died and, if possible, what they died from. Climate, environmental composition (animals and plants) are pretty well reconstructed. Finds, sites and knowledge about it are constantly discussed, compared and compiled. Sure there is some speculation involved but far less than you might think. And if there was more speculation involved be assured i'd tell you. You cannot compare todays hunter gatherers in barren reserves and with ongoing contact to modern life. Very few are left and they are strongly influenced and not to the best. They are more a mirror for ourselves than a window to the past.

Apes are no prehistoric hunter gatherers. I should be more specific, and this applies to palaeolithic / mesolithic groups in europe / asia before the arrival of the neolithic package: There is no proof of intraspecies violence, in contrary, we have evidence of care for the old and harmed even in neandertals that were badly handicapped, even crippled and unable to chew a steak on their own, and that for many years (La Chapelle-aux-Saints for example). Violence between modern humans and neandertals is disputed, but archaelogy doesn't deliver any proof. There is one suggested case but we can more likely assume that it was a hunting accident; almost every neandertal had hunting-related injuries (See: Trinkaus). Of course violence always sells better and those stories are more likely to deliver a message than a banal hunting accident (one of many). Your examples are most likely late neolthic / bronce age or younger, to me they sound medieval. Violence seems to be connected to social stratification and property, which did most probably not exist in "old world" palaeolithic hunter / gatherers. One word to population pressure: Birth control happens quite automatic in mobile groups (and those were highly mobile) because a baby must grow up a few years to be self-reliant before a woman can have the next child. There never was a pressure of population in palaeolithic peoples, in contrary they went through several genetic bottle necks. Pressure comes with the neolithic. Ah, this takes too much time here ;-)

Thanks, @Thor Wotansen. Life expectancy in first agricultural societies was way lower than in contemporary mesolithic hunter gatherers. As how forgiving or harsh life really was we can only deduct from climatic evidence and density of find-sites. It varied, but at the end of the ice age, before reforestation startet, it probably really was a paradise. A conference transcript dealing about the socalled solutreen, the 10-8.000 years before the last glacial maximum, was titled a little heroic "Hunters of the golden age" :-) But during the glacial maximum the environment could probably not bear more than a few hundred individuals in middle europe, between the scandinavian and the alpine glacier. Though i last (2 years ago) heard that there was probably no gap, people could live there without a hiatus (unpublished, from a former collegue). I know little about north american indigenous tribes, but as far as i recall they lived semi-settled or even settled, grew crops (maize ?), and there were fights between tribes. One must tale into account that humans, as settled as they were or are, never totally gave up hunting.

A, now i see. My usual monologue when it comes to prehistory ... Well, after all, i fear there is no way back. Only for a few, but i don't think rest will let them ;-)

I don't see your point ... you are talking about settled or semi-settled societies. And as i understand you mix them up with hunter / gatherers and the first societies that "invented" agriculture.

Errr, that's a rude simplification of hunter/gatherer societies. Read about the circumpolar tribes aka eskimos or the last hunter/gatherers in mid 20th century in africa, a lot has been written about them. First: we do not know how societies in the ice age worked. Respect, reputation, property, that all is just our (your) fantasy and is naturally strongly biased. There are, in fact, a lot of hints that all of these did not exist until maybe the late ice-age, the last hunters of the open cold-steppe called magdalenien (roughly 15.000 before now). They lived in a paradise, built yurts and (a little jokey) just where waiting for food to come home. Storage of food did not exist until the epipalaelothic - hunter/gatherer mobility and storage is grossly contradictory. "Dependants" did not exist, that implies social stratification which is just your fantasy but is not reflected in reality, neither in finds nor in historic observations. Hunter/gatherers lived in groups, sizes varied, but not in the hundreds individuals. "Loved ones die" ??? You mean murder ? Your fantasy plays tricks on you. There is no proof of violence in prehistoric hunter/gatherers. There is, in fact, proof of life without property and social stratification in last centuries hunter / gatherers. A successful hunter performed a ritual of diminishing himself before the group in order not to get the "nose too high". That'll be bad for everyone. "Invent Agriculture ?". There is no need for a hunter gatherer to do so. It took several 1000 years of climatic stability from picking up crops via simple storage to half-mobile living spaces and caught animals that had to be separated from the wild ones for several generations in order to have "household" lifestock. "Murder": murder is an invention of the last 10.000 years, after hunter / gatherers began to adopt a new lifestyle. Not before.

Well, there is a huge stack of books on "practical astronomy", i don't think you'll make a big mistake with just buying one. A good book that gives an overview covers the topics: what things are there to observe (how is the galaxy/universe composed), how are things mapped, (coordinate systems, measurements), our neighborhood, how to observe and document, optical/physical basics, instruments (which ones exist, how do they work), mountings (they are in some cases the most pricey part), technical hints. An extensive part is usually the orientation in the night sky (constellations). Don't let other's indoctrinate you like "only newton !", "only refractor !" or "only alt/az mounts". Such "tips" are usually useless. I spent a lot of money on useless nonsense until i got what i wanted. Though that's expensive. If you're caught by the hobby you'll probably end up with more than one telescope for different uses. Astrophotography is the second step, when you've had your first experiences, curses and frustrations :-) Depending on your possibilities (money) and the conditions under which you will be watching plus your personal attitude like "do i want to adjust on my own or just plant it and watch" influence your decision. I'm sure many here will help you if you have specific questions :-) Edit: if you want to do it right and money is the limiting factor then i'd say first read a book to get a feeling, then decide on spending money for a specific equipment. Furthermore i find that you'll have far more fun when joining others or letting others join you. Carrying 30kg out in the field in -5 degrees C needs enthusiasm. And warm gloves.

What's wrong ?

Hehe. like it, though i only watched the first 3 minutes. Calling us as a subspecies of homo sapiens, namely homo sapiens sapiens is on my "wavelength". That leaves room for other subspecies, like homo sapiens neandertalensis. All our so-called cultural achievements including intraspecies violence are just a few thousand years old.

This is the relevant information: "Researchers from Oxford University, working in Brazil, found ancient "nut-cracking tools" - 700-year-old stone hammers that capuchin monkeys used to open cashew nuts." Edit: quotation marks Edit 2: no pictures of the tools, no find circumstances, ....

Tool use by capuchin-monkeys is nothing new. Otters open mussels with stones. Raven poke with a stick to chase worms out of the bark. Vultures fly high with a small animal to ... well, you get the point. http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF02380877 What's uncertain is whether they understand what they are doing or just do it as part of a "program", an automatism. Though in this case i ask myself: how did they identify a stone as having been used by monkeys to open nuts 700 years ago. Unfortunatly there is no link to the original paper ... As to humans: as soon as tools have clearly been worked to perform a job (oldest very crude technique: oldovan) palaeoanthropoligists speak of tool use by humans. They are tool-making, not just using. How often do i have to repeat this ? :-) Edit: @Scotius, yes, it can be assumed that pre-humans like the australopithecines used tools as well, the capability is there, but as far as i know they didn't make tools. Tool use (possibly without understanding) is well documented in quite e few species.

I had the same idea, the orbit shape reminds of those kbo's used for the planet nine prediction. Where's is the AP of 2015 RR245 in comparison to Sedna and the others ? If that's similar 2015 RR245 might be another hint to planet nine ... http://www.findplanetnine.com/p/blog-page.html

Thanks, Camacha. One of the blinks in the first video indeed looks like the blinks i watch from time to time. I assume this was shot through a telephoto lens or small telescope and with the bare eye the movement would probably not be noticeable. Also blinks always happen at the edge of the fow ;-)

Can't be aircrafts here, nightly overflights are forbidden (island of La Palma -> big telescopes on the caldera rim) and in 2 years i never saw an aircraft at night. I first saw flashes when sailing, 2-3 years back. What's wrong with satellites ?

An assembly is, in fact, a language with syntax and mnemonics. The Assembler translates the human readable text into object code. It's closer to the hardware then c but it keeps programmers from calculating addresses or jumps on their own. Assembler is fast enough for most time critical applications (microcontrollers in everything) and the programs are small without any overhead (not the biggest factor today). Some processor may have specific instruction sets. I can't assemble, though it could be fun to learn it. btw: the Microsoft assembler is still maintained i read, and of course linuxers could use the assembler of the gcc-family. https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/X86_Assembly

Heh, typical beginners mistake. That's why you never work as root ... There are two sorts of people on the planet: those who have already done it and those who are yet looking forward to it :-)

On linux "objdump -D filename" disassembles, just in case you don't want to wait until that ide has startet ... :-)

I see these flashes too when the atmosphere is clear. Sky is very dark here. They last only maybe half a second, too short to detect movement. I can only assume that these come from high flying satellites, far enough away to be in the sun over the whole night, in polar, molniya or other highly inclined orbits.

There were a whole lot of civilizations before us. At least since the end of neolithic. Most of them have been investigated, are regionally and timely limited, they rose and fell. There are a few that still need some work but noone really has the time and money to do so.