PakledHostage

Not 0xC0FFEE, ~0xC0FFEE!

-4 + 1 = -3

eÀi = -1

1000

dark brown is ~0xC0FFEE

I like #C0FFEE

Yup, they used to say we'd get 10 months of winter and 2 months of poor sledding. Sleds weren't much use for going to school though because you had to go uphill both ways.

Further south on the west coast of Canada, the cherry trees are already blossoming, the first leaves are starting to flush on some of the trees & shrubs and there are crocus and other early bulbs blooming in the gardens.

Just curious: Am I the only one who thinks these Kerbals look like Maggie Thatcher?

Before and after photos? After

What ever happened to their mission that was going to launch a Persian cat into orbit? (I am not making that up.)

Benzman owns a jag? Why not a 'Benz?

I realize that this is an old necro'd thread but I'll bite... Who can resist the McLaren P1. Its as much an engineer's car as a driver's car. And it looks great too! But in the spirit of some posts in this thread, I'd have to say that my favorite car is my old Datsun B110, long may you run. It was my first car and it was older than I was. Its body was in good shape and I eventually sold it to a guy who converted it into a dragster. He showed it to me when it was nearing completion. It was street legal but really funny looking. As far as I know, it is still going.

I think you may have misunderstood my point. When I used the term "scientific literacy", I wasn't restricting it to knowledge about space flight or suggesting that every hair dresser should be an expert in all things science. I am talking about basic critical thinking coupled with some recollection of what should have been learned in grade school. Many of the arguments that the moon landings were a hoax (not to mention arguments that evolution is a lie, etc) are transparently bovine excrement to anyone with only those basics.

That's an odd attitude to have... I don't think anyone would brag or even just be so open about being illiterate, yet your mom is basically saying she's just that and doesn't care. Scientific illiteracy isn't something to be nonchalant about.

I agree. Sometimes playing with people's gullability is entering. (Fun fact: did you know that the word "gullible" isn't in the Oxford dictionary?) YECs and moon landing deniers, on the other hand, are tiresome.

If you really want to do something, you've just got to do it and don't care what other people think. To paraphrase Pink Floyd, there will always be myriad small creatures who will try to tie you to the ground. Just make sure you look at the credentials of some real life astronauts and work towards obtaining those types of credentials yourself.

I agree, he's a very classy guy. Understated and humble. His book is easily the best astronaut autobiography/biography out there. He's also extremely likeable in the documentary "In the Shadow of the Moon". I am not that surprised to see him in films. IIRC, his daughter is an actress.

Pot calling the kettle black? I don't think the original point of the thread was to complain. The point was to discuss whether or not encouraging children to learn other languages as well as English (for children who's first language is English) would enable them to learn English, and particularly English spelling, more readily.

OK, thanks. I was under the impression that the Falcon's second stage put DSCOVR into its current 170 km x 1.37 million km transfer orbit and was therefore also in that orbit. I unferstood that DSCOVR's own thrusters would merely bump it from the transfer orbit into "orbit" around Earth-Sun L1.

On a lighter note, someone once told me that you can tell how far south you are in the US by how many e's there are between the h and the i in the four letter word for "excrement"...

This was a major plot device in The Garden of Rama, by Arthur C. Clarke, wherein criminals are sent to "colonize Mars" in exchange for their freedom. I don't think I give too much away to say that it doesn't go well...

It can also be done without any fine-tuning at all... At the risk of being accused of shameless self promotion, here's a link to a forum challenge that I completed back in January 2012, long before MechJeb or the patched conics trajectory projection system even existed: free-return trajectory. Per the challenge, I jettisoned everything but the command pod and parachute immediately after completing my TMI burn. I had no way to adjust my trajectory after that but the boys still made it home on the first try.

No need to apologise. Beautiful shot!

Erm? Did they have movies in 1779? And how is it that you aren't, er, "pining for the fjords" by now?