StrandedonEarth

It seems I killed this thread last year, so I guess I should revive it. Yeah, there's a more current "Terrible Jokes" thread, but this one is quite good so it really doesn't belong there. I apologize if it seems slightly risque, but I defend it on the grounds that it's not lewd, rude, or crude; it's just anatomy. My wife found it on Facebook. So here goes: A woman applied for a job at the factory where they make "Tickle Me Elmo" dolls. The personnel manager told her she could start the next day at 8 am. At 8:30 the next morning the the plant manager was in the personnel manager's office, saying the new hire was way too slow and the production line was getting backed up. So the personnel manager heads down to the shop and sure enough, Elmo's are backed up all over the place. The production line was jammed with them. Then he looks at what the woman is doing and bursts out laughing. She has a swatch of the red furry material that covers Elmo, and a bag of marbles. She'd make a little pouch of the material, put two marbles in it, and sew the package between Elmo's legs. He goes up to her and says "No, no, no. I told you to give each Elmo two test tickles!"

Getting a fourth dump of snow, in a region where there's usually a max of two dumps, if any at all! The drivers here are never prepared, and it tends to be a wetter, icier snow than areas that always get a lot of snow, so it always makes a mess of traffic.

Shame for never making a flying plane!

You found an anomaly! You definitely need to check it out!

"After the parachute deployed when the engines ignited, we reverted back to launch and reprogrammed the staging sequence, after which we had a successful mission. However, the next time we launched this model of rocket, we forgot to change the staging in the VAB. So this time we reverted back to the VAB and fixed it permanently."

I'm surprised no one mentioned it before. Now I can't change my vote. Oh well, no big deal, just static in the statistic

Edit whoops, didn't see the next page... I bet there's some gold in that supernova...

I've been trying to avoid this thread, as I thought this should have been settled long ago. I also didn't like the wording of the question. I don't know if it was a typo, or a English-as-a-second-language issue, but I didn't want to touch it. But since I'm bored, I figured I'd weigh in. I took the question literally, so I answered no, I do not agree that people have landed in the Moon. But I firmly believe that humanity has landed on the Moon. Every bit of so-called evidence the conspiracy people presented has been thoroughly debunked, and some of it I knew to be wrong anyways before it was explained. If it was faked, it would have involved far too many people to keep it secret for this long, and the Soviets would have also known from their own data and exposed it. Well, my no vote is garbage as I took the question literally. I was typing my explanation as you replied.

That's Fantastic! Nice Job!

I have a hard time picking a favorite aircraft, because in my book anything that can get off the ground and stay in the air under its own power is awesome. All of the aircraft listed in this thread have their own features that make them uniquely awesome, but I admit I have a soft spot for MOAR POWAH! That would include birds like the Concorde, Blackbird, and all those ground-shaking jet-powered warbirds. In that vein, one thing that I note is missing from this thread is the eight(!)-engined B-52 Stratofortress. Ah, that brings back the memories. As a kid, I would visit my dad in/on a tiny little mining town/island called Tasu, in the Queen Charlotte Islands Haida Gwaii. The only way in was by boat or float plane, usually a Beaver but sometimes its big brother, the DHC-3 Otter (initially called the King Beaver). In the Clive Cussler book Shock Wave, Dirk PittTM does some fancy flying in a Beaver over the Queen Charlottes trying to evade some bad guys in a civilian chopper. Pitt rocks, even if his death-defying gets a little excessive sometimes.

Didja hear the joke about the broken pencil? Never mind, it's pointless. (Credit to my 9yo son, who told it as a knock-knock joke)

My idea was to crack it into an (hopefully safer) intermediate product for transport, and be further refined into the desired products at the destination. But as usual, that is easier said than done. Bitumen has a more restricted market than other petroproducts, since a refinery needs a coker to handle it. Bitumen is also worth less per barrel. Bitumen in particular concerns me because if it spills (and a spill should be considered inevitable, IMO, just like earthquakes in fault zones) in water, it would sink and be much more difficult to clean up. It would be out of sight and the company responsible would hope it would be forgotten. However, as others pointed out in this thread, it wouldn't be spread as far and wide by wind and wave action, compared to lighter oils. There is currently a crude oil pipeline running through my 'hood. Closer to the terminal in Vancouver, it was punctured by a backhoe a few years ago, making a mess in that area. It will soon be expanded to nearly triple its capacity, and will carry dilbit. It will ship out from the Port of Vancouver (less than one hundred miles from here) and will wind its way through the windy Salish Sea. Never mind spills, environmentalists are concerned about the effects of increased ship traffic and noise on orcas and other sea life. But that's beyond my point here. After more research (see the links in my last post) I decided that it may it not be as bad as I first thought, and that China can deal with the mess of refining it.

Gotcher power right here!

Correctomundo! @JPLRepo?

I've used strandedonearth as a user name in many places for years now. The occasional time it's already taken (looking at you, Yahoo) I add "since1970," which is the year I was born (a very good year, as I think @adsii1970 would agree). I use it since I've always been fascinated by space and wanted to be an astronaut, but that didn't happen cuz reasons. So I seem to be stuck here. The friendly little fellow in my avatar is Kzanol, a thrint that has also been stranded on Earth for some 2 billion years. Read Larry Niven's World of Ptaavs if you wish to know his story. It seemed very fitting to use him (it?) as my avatar. Maybe as many as three forum users have figured that out.

I had that joystick and I agree, it was a great stick. Good Luck!

At 20 psi pure oxygen, you don't really need an ignition source as some things could spontaneously combust, especially oils. That's why you never use oil on the oxygen fittings of an oxyacetylene rig, or any pressurized oxygen fittings for that matter.

This thread is shame-full. You should all be ashamed of yourselves. E: You know, I really wanted to find a gif of Felipe from Three's Company saying "Shame, shame, shame..." but I couldn't. I'm so ashamed....

I didn't suggest to ship by rail instead of pipe. I suggested pumping something lighter through the pipeline, and customers who want the actual bitumen instead of lighter fractions can get it by rail. Hmm, I tried to look some of that up, but the short answer appears to be that no one really knows: http://globalnews.ca/news/1808065/10-things-we-dont-know-about-bitumen-toxicity/ Well, I wasn't referring to just tankers, but spills from any form of transport, anywhere. I focused more on water spills because that's what the opposition groups make the most noise about. At any rate, it seems I'm not the only one thinking of shipping refined product instead of raw bitumen, although this Globe&Mail article listed a proposal to refine bitumen on the coast after piping it across BC, to the ire of aboriginal groups. It also lists the price of a bitumen-to-diesel refinery at $8-$20 billion. Another article (desmog.ca) listed the price of adding a coker unit (for upgrading bitumen) to an existing refinery at $2 billion. You did give me some good points to ponder, that maybe a marine bitumen spill wouldn't be as bad as I feared. It shouldn't spread as far as conventional crude and foul coastlines. I suppose it would mound on the seafloor instead of spreading across it. The highly flammable diluents (naptha or benzene seem to be the most common, from what I read) would quickly evaporate, although the vapors would still be hazardous to local populations in the event of a land spill. I recalled the Kalamazoo, Michigan pipeline spill (wiki) , including the part that most of the spill was caused by human error, trying to restart the pipeline after it had ruptured and they didn't know it. I didn't realize it was also a dilbit spill until I looked it up again after my OP. 25 miles of the river was closed for two years, and the cleanup cost over $1.2 billion. The river had to be dredged three years after the spill. The above desmog.ca article also mentions a byproduct of bitumen refining called "pet coke," which is basically dirty coal that power plants love because it's cheap. Asia has an advantage in refining bitumen because of cheaper labor and costs. So in the end, when I think about all these different factors, okay, sure, pipe and tanker the stuff over to China. They can deal with the mess. Oh, and "data, data, data" reminds me of when my brother was taken to court by his ex. Paper, paper, paper. He had it and she didn't. Guess who won?