Everything posted by pantone159
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the james webb telescope
This is awesome. This is just a test image, pretty much the first real image that the telescope took. But it is already full of galaxies!
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Русский корабль - иди нахуй
Chlorine is used industrially on a large scale, in applications that have nothing to do with chemical weapons. For one example, in water treatment.
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Gold bug / silver bug / numismatic / metals thread
It is not legal to melt US nickels, apparently. It is definitely possible to separate the copper and nickel, but I have no idea if it is economically worth it.
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Gold bug / silver bug / numismatic / metals thread
Hey nickel prices are going through the roof now! I do have some old Canadian coins that are pure nickel, maybe I will get a chance to sell them for their metal content.
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Русский корабль - иди нахуй
Deuterium does not decay, it will last forever. Tritium does decay with a half-life of about 12 years, so it needs occasional replacement. Another issue, is that as the plutonium decays, it forms new elements and isotopes, and so the composition of the metal core changes over time. The changed composition does not work as well, and in particular I think is prone to premature detonation with loss of a lot of yield. But that would not likely keep the weapon from going off in some form, which is enough unfortunately.
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Русский корабль - иди нахуй
It seems to be an identification symbol for the invasion force. Most of the Russian vehicles have a white Z crudely painted on them. It is a little odd in that the Cyrillic alphabet does not use Z. But I don't think it is supposed to have any ideological or symbolic meaning, it is just an arbitrary identifier.
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Русский корабль - иди нахуй
This would be very difficult to do well. Any satellites would be moving over the ground very fast. (You can make satellites stationary on the ground, but you have to put them 20,000 miles up to do that, and anything that far away is useless for lasers or photos.) There would be the whole atmosphere to lase through which will deflect the laser somewhat. So it would be really hard to get a good targeting marker.
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vacation buyout
Yep. 'Unlimited' actually means 'none guaranteed'. It would be a deal-breaker for me on accepting a job, and it it were imposed on me the ONLY option to consider is finding somewhere else to work.
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Русский корабль - иди нахуй
Yeah, Lindsay Graham needs to STFU. That is another line that we do not cross with a nuclear power, and we do not need Senators suggesting it.
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Русский корабль - иди нахуй
I suspect that this '40 mile long' convoy is gradually transforming into a 40 mile long obstacle course composed of broken down/wrecked/stalled vehicles. And since the mud is impassable for heavy vehicles, every single thing the Russians want to send towards Kyiv will need to make its way through these obstacles.
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Русский корабль - иди нахуй
Lulz at the asterisk.
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Русский корабль - иди нахуй
Both of them. The scenes before the war started of forces building up in Belgorod was very much reminiscent of WW2. A surprise attack that you thought you could get away with, attacking from Belgorod, has been tried before. It worked poorly.
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Русский корабль - иди нахуй
Yeah, it is pretty likely Putin is yelling at SOMEBODY.
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Rush Limbaugh's corpse continues to rot
Yes, that is where that rotten pile of refuse now lies. The cemetery has a self-guided tour, described by a brochure you can pick up there, that goes past many of the gravesites of famous people lying there. As of last Sep, the tour did not mention limbaugh. Possibly because his bloated corpse is a new addition, or possibly to prevent people from treating his gravesite as he deserves. But you can look up specific names from their website, so you ought to be able to find where in the cemetery it was buried. I did not try myself when I visited though. I went to pay my respects to William Clark (from Lewis and Clark), and it seemed like it would be disrespectful to Clark to take the opportunity to piss on limbaugh, so I let the corpse of that fat disgusting pig lie. At least that one time.
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Future of the Olympics
Well, K2 has been descended on skis once. (There is more video footage around somewhere but this link has a little taste). Unfortunately you can't get up to 11 gmph cuz then you could not control yourself going over the edge of a cliff. Ski descent of K2
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2021-2022 Texas Winter Weather Thread
Yeah. I go to the Scary HEB on South Congress, and it is picked so clean that it is about to be razed to the ground. I made one last attempt to get something from the bakery (the temp store lacks this) but I got chased away by the employees. I was kind of hoping to get the very last beer from there or something. And '2021 Hell Storm Flashback' and 'ERCOT mocked' are pretty much free squares.
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Coin Collecting Thread
That Australian florin is 92.5% sterling silver, so you have that at least. Maybe the India ones have some silver, they look kind of silvery, but I am not sure.
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Coin Collecting Thread
Also: Were any of them written on? It was pretty common for servicemen to save a note from each place they ended up, and get others e.g. in their unit to sign them. They would then get taped together into a long roll of notes. This was called a 'short shorter', as if you were out for drinks, and were challenged to show yours, and could not, then the drinks were on you. (Everybody else got a 'short snort' e.g. shot on your dime.) Occasionally these are signed by famous people, and those could be worth a lot. Mostly though, it is just extra history.
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Coin Collecting Thread
I don't think any of that will be worth a significant amount, especially the ones in especially poor condition. But they are interesting history! Some background on a few of them: The Japanese Government one shilling was occupation money issued by Japan for the areas they took over which had used British currency names, such as the Solomon Islands. The Japanese issued similar notes in other currencies in other places they occupied (e.g. dollars in Malaya, pesos in the Phillipines, rupees in Burma). The shilling ones are a lot scarcer than the other currencies, as they only were used in a few islands. But yours has a tear which would reduce the value. The blue/magenta 50 francs note was issued by the Allies to be used in France after it was re-occupied by the Allies. The French did not like those much since they were much uglier than the previous French money, which was generally pretty attractive. The 1 mark was a similar issue for Germany. In Germany, both the western allies and the USSR issued similar notes. The Russians took advantage by printing a huge amount of this currency. Yours is a Western Allies issued one though. I don't know anything about the Chinese note. It is possible it is some rare variety or something, so I would try and identify it better in case, but of course the odds are it is not rare.
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Русский корабль - иди нахуй
This is also relevant for understanding the thinking of Russia. Although the Soviet Union eventually won the war, the effects were overwhelming and catastrophic to the nation. Somewhere around 20-30 million died, something like 100x the number of US people who died in the war. And though the war ended in Germany, it was primarily fought in the USSR, with no shortage of horrible acts by the German occupiers, and the nation was in ruins afterward. These memories lived (and still live) and affect decisions and thoughts still, and are not always appreciated in this country. E.g. During the Cold War the Russian army was built for offense, with emphasis on armored vehicles to take the fight elsewhere. From the USA, it may have seemed like the Russians were looking to attack and were a threat, but from the Russian point of view, it was mainly that, given the memories of the leaders at the time, the Russians were EXTREMELY determined that, if there were another war, it would NOT be fought in Russia, and was not based in a threatening attitude. Russian concerns about NATO moving into Ukraine hit the same nerves.
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NASCAR shuts down "Let's Go Brandon!" sponsorship for Brandon Brown
PARLERCAR - Only RIGHT turns.
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Make A Guess On Cost To Repair This.
Owners manual ought to explain how to turn the alarm off.
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Abbott: Texas creating standards to shield kids from "pornography & obscene content" in public schools.
Here are a couple of documentaries as to how this all went. I suppose these will escape the burnings since they are biblically accurate. https://www.amazon.com/Taken-T-Rex-Dinosaur-Erotica-Christie-ebook/dp/B00FI9JFFO https://www.amazon.com/Ravished-Triceratops-Dinosaur-Erotica-Christie-ebook/dp/B00NXKATTQ
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the james webb telescope
The NASA blog is really good for following along as this gets unwrapped. It sounds like the first 'glitch' has happened and has been overcome: After releasing the covers for the sunscreen, some of the contact switches did not trigger, which could have meant that the release did not work properly. But after checking things, it seemed that the release was ok, the switches just did not signal right. So NASA took it slow in extending the sunshield booms, but that all worked fine, so all seems to be good still. https://blogs.nasa.gov/webb/2021/12/31/with-webbs-mid-booms-extended-sunshield-takes-shape/
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the james webb telescope
And MCC-1a is done, all seems fine. Nothing left in the deployment is time critical, so ground crew can monitor the spacecraft and tweak the unfolding process if needed. https://blogs.nasa.gov/webb/2021/12/25/the-first-mid-course-correction-burn/ The next step is putting the good antenna into place, then one more smaller burn to be right on track for L2. Merry Christmas, and thanks Santa!