From: "Bob Webster" <bob@upperspace.com>
Subject: More Junkmail from Bob!e
Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2004 00:19:21 -0600
More Junkmail from Bob!
Wednesday, March 10, 2004
Important Stuff.
For the web version, go to http://xpda.com/junkmail?issue=153
It's much prettier.
Privacy Policy: http://xpda.com/junkmail/privacy.htm
----------------------------------
Chernobyl
18 years ago a nuclear reactor at the Chernobyl Power Plant had a
meltdown or explosion or some sort of major failure. It released a
lot of radiation, and ended up killing a lot of people, maybe
80,000-120,000, depending on who you ask.
Chernobyl is north of Kiev, in Ukraine.
http://xpda.com/junkmail/junk153/chernobylmap.png
Here's a great photo-tour of Pripyat, a ghost town near Chernobyl.
The 25-year-old daughter of a nuclear physicist who worked in
Chernobyl rode her Kawasaki ZZR 1100 through the area and took some
great photos. The commentary is good too. She was seven when
Chernobyl blew.
http://www.angelfire.com/extreme4/kiddofspeed
Here's a mirror site in case that one is unavailable:
http://xpda.com/junkmail/junk153/chernobyl
----------------------------------
Exodus
Phone centers are leaving the country. Between the national no-call
list and cheap international communication rates, a lot of companies
are moving their call centers and telephone tech support to places
like India, the Philippines, Cost Rica, and China.
http://www.myinky.com/ecp/gleaner_news/article/0,1626,ECP_4476_2660202,00.html
Last week I called SBC to ask them why I couldn't use their smtp
(outgoing) email server. Smpt.sbcglobal.net told me I was not
authorized. It hasn't worked for months, but I thought I might want
to use it some day when I'm traveling. So I talked to someone in
India for 20 or 30 minutes, and then I had to leave. I called back
later and talked to someone else in India. It's a large country.
I was elevated to the next level of tech support, which I believe is
just under the Brahman level. The girl there told me I was a
brainless insect, except she was very polite about it. I was going
to point out that insects do, in fact, have brains, albeit small
ones, but I was afraid she wouldn't understand the nuances of Okie
Speak. She didn't quite grasp the full meaning of phrases like "this
sucker's just busted" unless I spoke slowly and paraphrased.
Anyway, she explained that she could send mail using
smtp.sbcglobal.net with my user ID and password, and that if I had a
problem with it must be a reflection on my computing ability
specifically and my manhood in general. Well, she didn't come right
out and say that, but I think that's what she meant.
She finally agreed to have a technician in Oklahoma come repair my
DSL, even though I explained that my DSL is not broken, I just
needed an smtp server that worked with my user ID and password. She
said the technician was coming and if he could send an email I would
have to pay for a service call. I said OK, but if he can't send an
email, then you have to pay me, right? This caused considerable
confusion and a long discussion.
Anyway, Jan the technician showed up the next morning. She found out
pretty quick that smtp.sbcglobal.net didn't work and told me to use
mail.swbell.net instead. I lived happily ever after, and SBC wasted
a bunch of money because the scripts their call center people in
India were using didn't have a fork in the decision tree for
mail.swbell.net. Later on I figured out that SBC's Indian DNS and
Oklahoman DNS must be pointing to different IP addresses for
smtp.sbcglobal.net.
I won the bet, but I haven't been paid yet.
----------------------------------
Kodak Goes Litigal
Kodak announced a few months ago that they were getting out of the
film business and into the digital camera business. How does a
company like Kodak get into the digital camera business? Sue! On
Monday Kodak sued Sony for violating 10 patents.
http://www.quicken.com/investments/news_center/story/?story=NewsStory/dowJones/20040309/ON200403091547000925.var&column=P0DFP
----------------------------------
Indian Wars
There is an Indian tribe in Louisiana called the Coushatta Tribe.
They have about 800 members. They take in hundreds of millions of
dollars every year from their casino. That sounds like a pretty good
deal!
http://www.gccoushatta.com/about_us/
There are a lot of casinos now owned by Indian tribes that I never
heard of. It seems that lots of people are wanting to start or join
tribes in order to get into the gambling business.
The Miwok Indians in California had about 70 members 2001. Now they
have 535. None of the new members is related to the original 70. The
regional Bureau of Indian Affairs forced the original tribe to join
up with a couple of other small tribes in the area, and now they
plan to get into the gambling business.
The really odd coincidence is that several BIA employees and dozens
of their relatives are now in the new Miwok tribe. The federal
officials oversaw an election that replaced the original Miwok
leaders with a pro-casino group. Now the tribe plans to open a
casino with 2000 slot machines that will bring in $185,000,000 per
year. Tired of government work? Take over tribe!
http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/West/02/23/tribes.casinos.ap/index.html
How can all these no-name tribes open giant casinos? It's easy. They
pay millions of dollars to politicians, lawyers, and lobbyists.
House Majority Leader Tom used to have an aide named Jack. Now Jack
is a lobbyist. Four small tribes (Michigan Saginaw Chippewas, Agua
Caliente of California, Mississippi Choctaws, and Louisiana
Coushattas) have paid politicians $2.9 million in the past three
years. Jack's lobbying and law firm got $15 million, and a PR guy
named Michael got $31 million. I think those Indians got rooked. But
then, I'm not raking in hundreds of millions of dollars a year from
casinos.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60906-2004Feb21.html
It's funny that in most states, only Indians can open casinos. I
thought there was a law against racial discrimination.
The Washington Post requires some kind of short registration. When I
signed up, I might have made a couple of errors in the form. Now the
ads I see in the Washington Post site are targeted toward young
women. All in all, I think the ads for women are less offensive.
----------------------------------
Rosetta's Off!
Europe's Rosetta spacecraft took off March 2. In 10 years, after 3
flybys of Earth and one of Mars, Rosetta will orbit a comet and drop
a lander onto the comet nucleus.
http://xpda.com/junkmail/junk153/KOU01-182614-pih.jpeg
http://www.esa.int/export/SPECIALS/Rosetta/SEMBPJ2PGQD_0.html
----------------------------------
Opportunity
Here's a picture of a rock the Mars rover Opportunity ground into.
http://xpda.com/junkmail/junk153/1P131384947EFF0504P2531LM1.jpeg
The NASA caption:
"This hole was made by the rover's rock abrasion tool, located on
its instrument deployment device, or "arm." The hole is located on a
target called 'McKittrick' at the 'El Capitan' region of the
Meridiani Planum, Mars, rock outcrop. It was made on the 30th
martian day, or sol, of Opportunity's journey.
"The grinding process at has generated a significant amount of
reddish dust. Color and spectral properties of the dust show that it
may contain some fine-grained crystalline red hematite."
The color image was made using Photo Mud to combine 5 grayscale
images from various visible light wavelengths. As a dedicated, or at
least tolerant, Junkmail reader you are entitled to your very own
free copy of Photo Mud. Here's the final, unrestricted version 3.0
(if there ever is a final version):
http://xpda.com/photomudsetup.exe
Let me know if you have any suggestions for version 4.
----------------------------------
Personal ID
Dudley is a 59-year-old rancher outside the scenic boomtown of
Winnemucca, Nevada. One day he was parked on the side of the road in
his pickup, enjoying some domestic disturbance with his daughter
Mimi. Someone called the police. The sheriff's deputy showed up and
asked Dudley for some ID. Dudley refused, and kept on refusing 10
more times when asked for ID by the deputy.
So the deputy arrested Dudley and charged him with impeding a police
officer. Dudley had to pay a fine of $250 and pick up the pile of
garbage that was on top of an envelope with his name on it. Or maybe
that garbage part was another story. Mimi was arrested too.
Anyway, Dudley doesn't think he needs to show an ID to anybody as
long as he's not driving his pickup. So he took the case to the U.S.
Supreme Court, who will hear the case in a couple of weeks and
decide something in a few months.
A lot of privacy fans (Cato Institute, the American Civil Liberties
Union, the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty and the
Electronic Frontier Foundation, for example) are behind Dudley, and
a lot of law enforcement people (Solicitor General's Office,
National Association of Police Organizations, and Criminal Justice
Legal Foundation, for example) are against him.
http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,62438-2,00.html
Speaking of IDs, an Amish guy is stranded in Canada because he
doesn't have a photo ID. It's against his religion. He went to
Canada in December to visit his sick father, and now he can't get
back to his wife and kids because of new U.S. terrorism rules. I
understand that the Amish are notoriously violent people, but I
don't think it would to major damage to the national security if we
let this guy go home.
http://www.heraldnet.com/Stories/04/3/6/18298884.cfm
----------------------------------
Mad Tea Party
Michael Eisner, Disney boss, has been in the news lately. A lot of
Disney shareholders (43%) tried to oust him from the board of
directors. Michael was demoted from chairman of the board to just a
board member, but he's still CEO of Disney.
I'm pretty sure all this came about because they tightened the
screws on the teacups on the Mad Tea Party ride in Disneyland so now
they won't spin fast. The ride has been doing just find since 1955,
but now the lawyers are afraid it's too dangerous.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/state/la-me-teacups29feb29,1,1721406.story
http://www.sacbee.com/state_wire/story/8363183p-9292913c.html
----------------------------------
Fast Web Sites
PDAs and cell phones can browse the web over wireless connections.
But these connections are usually slow, and the display size is a
little limited on a device you hold in one hand. Some web sites now
have PDA or Palmtop versions that are targeted for a small display
and slow connection. For example,
http://www.google.com/palm
http://wired.com/news_drop/palmpilot
I may have to start using these sites whenever I use a dialup
internet connection. Some web sites have gotten so bloated it's
ridiculous. I just loaded http://weatherchannel.com. It loaded 225K.
http://buy.com -- 374K. http://doonesbury.com -- 2.5 megabytes!
On the other hand, the beautifully artistic site http://xpda.com
only loaded 1K.
----------------------------------
Facts is Facts
Can I own a fact and charge you money for knowing it? If this law
passes, I can:
http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=5021
It's a law to drum up lawsuits for lawyers, as near as I can tell.
The way it's written now, Google would have to shut down because
they present too many facts.
http://wired.com/news/business/0,1367,62500,00.html
It should all be fine, though, because the diligent U.S. Patent and
Trademark Office would be in charge of the Facts.
I think someone must have paid off Congressman Howard
(http://www.house.gov/coble) to come up with this gem.
----------------------------------
Don't Walk. Run.
Usually when I walk across the street, there doesn't happen to be a
crosswalk where I walk. But sometimes in a big town with cars and
traffic lights and people and stuff, I have to wait on a light to
tell me when to walk. They have buttons on the traffic light poles I
can press to tell the light I want to walk.
I treat these buttons with great respect, as I do my mouse button,
and only hit them about 7 times, or maybe 12 times if I'm
particularly energetic. The traffic light buttons seem to ignore me,
just as my mouse button does. So, being a very fair person, I feel
obligated to ignore the traffic lights.
I was very surprised to read that many traffic lights don't have it
in for me personally. They ignore everybody. In New York City, for
example, most of the traffic light buttons have been disconnected.
The City of New York just forgot to mention it to pedestrians.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/03/01/1078117368203.html
----------------------------------
Macomb Sheriff's Department
In Macomb, Michigan, there was a popular web site for the sheriff's
department, http://www.macombsheriff.com. It's currently off the
air. A guy named Patrick built the site and ran it for two or three
years, free of charge.
Patrick got apparently got tired of the freebie web work and decided
he needed some money from Macomb County. Macomb County didn't want
to pay. Somewhere along the line, Patrick said he wanted $300,000 or
he'd shut down his web site. He owned the site, so this seems
reasonable even if the price isn't. Macomb County wouldn't pay,
which seems prudent. $300,000 is a little steep for a web site.
But Patrick was messing around with the Sheriff's department. They
arrested Patrick and charged him with extortion and three other
felonies when he shut down the web site. That doesn't seem
reasonable to me. If it is Patrick's site, Patrick should be able to
shut it down and quit working on it any time he wants. They
abolished slavery in the U.S. quite some time ago.
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=11065695&BRD=988&PAG=461
I looked up the domain name macombsheriff.com, and it's registered
to a guy named Michael in Virginia. I'm not sure what Michael's
connection is to Patrick.
----------------------------------
Email Stamps
Bill Gates wants to require stamps for email, in order to stop spam.
The federal anti-spam law went into effect January 1, but Bill
apparently thinks, possibly correctly, that the government is
incapable of enforcing a law that requires a little bit of technical
knowledge.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/internet/03/05/spam.charge.ap/index.html
http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/03/05/HNcalleridpatents_1.html
Why would Microsoft want to charge people for sending email? That's
easy. Microsoft went to Washington and got a bunch of patents that
they can apply to email stamps. If Bill's plan goes through,
Microsoft will get royalties on every email stamp -- not much per
stamp, but there will be billions of stamps.
But there is a potential benefit. When and if Microsoft starts
taxing email, I'll stop sending out Junkmail.
I called the Department of Justice (Heather Cutchens at 202 532-5403
in Public Relations) and asked if anybody had been prosecuted under
the Can-Spam act. She said she'd have someone call me back. Nobody
called me back. Those bums.
I don't think anybody has been prosecuted by the government, but Bob
Vila got sued by an ISP because he used an illegal spammer to send
out his advertisements.
http://wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,62559,00.html
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/36059.html
Yesterday six big spammers were sued by Microsoft, America Online,
EarthLink, and Yahoo. In one, Microsoft asked for $1000 per email
for millions of emails. That might even make more money that eMail
stamps! Yahoo showed that Eric and Barry, the people they sued,
used their unsubscribe site to collect names and send to other
spammers.
http://wired.com/news/business/0,1367,62606,00.html
Here are the suits:
http://xpda.com/junkmail/junk153/aoldoes30904cmp.pdf
http://xpda.com/junkmail/junk153/aolhawke30904cmp.pdf
http://xpda.com/junkmail/junk153/msjdo30904cmp.pdf
http://xpda.com/junkmail/junk153/mssprviag30904cmp.pdf
http://xpda.com/junkmail/junk153/elnkdoes30904cmp.pdf
http://xpda.com/junkmail/junk153/yahoohead30904cmp.pdf
----------------------------------
FreeCell
FreeCell was first implemented as a computer game in 1978. Microsoft
has been giving away FreeCell since 1992, with Entertainment Pack 2,
and with Windows since Windows for Workgroups. Similar card games
have been around for at least 50 years.
You can find FreeCell under Games under the Start menu of Windows.
Here some vitally important FreeCell Facts:
1. Games 11982, 146692, 186216, 455889, 495505, 512118, 517776, and
781948 are unwinnable.
2. You can win them anyway by pressing Ctrl-Shift-F10 and then Abort.
3. Games -1 and -2 are simple examples of unwinnable games.
http://home.earthlink.net/~fomalhaut/fcfaq.html
----------------------------------
SCO and Microsoft?
SCO is the company that's suing Linux users for patent infringement.
According to some, a substantial portion of SCO's capital was
recently funded by Microsoft. That makes sense -- sue the Linux
users and scare people into using Windows.
http://www.opensource.org/halloween/halloween10.html
----------------------------------
Watergate
You don't need to break into office complexes any more to steal
political secrets. Just copy their files over the net. Orrin Hatch
was smart enough just to say "shame on you" instead of trying to
cover up document theft by his staffers.
http://news.com.com/2100-1029_3-5170987.html
----------------------------------
Virus Protection
Need a place to store a trojan? With Windows XP or 2000 you can put
it in this folder:
c:\System Volume Information\catalog.wci\
Virus scanners and anti-spyware programs don't scan there because
they don't have access to the parent folder:
c:\System Volume Information\
----------------------------------
North Pole-32
Severny Polus-32 was a Russian research station on the Arctic ice
cap. A dozen Russian researchers had been floating around the North
Pole since last April. They'd gone about 3000 km, and were about 400
miles from the North Pole. They were also about 400 miles from the
nearest land.
They were planning to close down the station on March 20, but they
had to hurry it up a bit when the ice fell apart. Last Wednesday, a
"giant wall of ice" slowly smashed their station, and 4 of their 6
buildings were carried away or sunk or vaporized or something.
On Saturday the 12 researchers were rescued by helicopter and returned home.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2004/03/10/018.html
Here they are on the ice:
http://xpda.com/junkmail/junk153/83_4.jpeg
http://xpda.com/junkmail/junk153/83_6.jpeg
http://xpda.com/junkmail/junk153/83_7.jpeg
http://xpda.com/junkmail/junk153/83_8.jpeg
----------------------------------
Conservation of calories
The CDC and AMA announced that poor diet and physical inactivity
will soon surpass tobacco as the leading actual cause of death in
the U.S.
http://xpda.com/junkmail/junk153/lcod2000lg.jpeg
They say this is because too many people are obese, and they
consider obesity a self-inflicted ailment kind of like tobacco
problems. Actually, they said it in nicer words than that.
http://www.cdc.gov/od/oc/media/pressrel/fs040309.htm
Yesterday I happened to look the bestsellers at the Amazon, and 4
out of the top 25 are diet books.
Since I'm always into the latest fad, I decided to lose some of my
winter fat a few weeks ago. I figured out a long time ago that the
only way to lose weight is to output more than you input.
I considered using the Roman way of overeating and induced
regurgitation, but the last half of that didn't sound like much fun.
So I've been eating less and exercising more. And I don't like the
part about eating less.
Anyway, that's just about the only way to lose weight according to
Richard at MIT. There are lots of other factors, but when you come
down to it, if you eat more food than you use or otherwise dispose
of, you will grow fat. If you eat less, then you'll lose weight.
It's the law.
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/wo_muller111403.asp
I eat health food from just about any drive-thru you can imagine.
It's a little hard to find out how many calories in some dru-thru
menu times. The fast food web sites usually have the information,
but they're usually pretty cumbersome.
McDonalds is one of the worst. After going through 3 pages, I
searched for "nutrition" and got a list of links that didn't work.
So I tried a Google search for McDonalds and nutrition, and found
it. That page is pretty bad, too.
Eventually I found this site that has calories, fat, and et ceteras
for just about any food you can imagine, including the world famous
Taco Bell Bean Burrito (370 calories, 108 from fat).
http://www.dietfacts.com/search.asp
----------------------------------
Fly National
Last week a Boeing 727 flew from South Africa to Zimbabwe. The
flight was a little unusual. They supposedly departed from a
domestic airport in South Africa, which is not legal. You're
supposed to depart from an international airport.
When they got to Zimbabwe, the said that there were 3 people on
board. There were really 64. Zimbabwe police got a little riled up
over this, and claimed they were mercenaries.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,113826,00.html
All this may not be too unusual for Africa, however.
The 727 is a U.S. registered plane, and was sold only last week.
Dodson Aviation, the dealer who sold the plane to a quasi-phantom
company called Logo Logistics (or something like that), bought the
727 from the U.S. Air Force in 2002.
The 727 was built in 1980 and operated by National Airlines.
National was later purchased by Pan Am. The U.S. Air Force bought
the 727 from Pan Am in about 1985.
Here's a picture of the plane that was seized, in its earlier life
as an airliner:
http://www.airliners.net/open.file/359642/L/
Here's a similar but newer 727 for sale by Dodson Aviation:
http://www.dodson.com/727_191rd_specs.html
Here's a DC3 with turbine engines for sale by Dodson Aviation,
configured for paratroopers. I think Dodson Aviation bought it from
the South African Air Force, either directly or indirectly.
http://www.dodson.com/dc_tp_specs_photos.html
Dodson Aviation sells a lot of interesting planes. They also do
aircraft salvage and parts sales.
http://www.dodson.com/parts_classified_ads.html
----------------------------------
Space Elevators
Space elevators have appeared in science fiction for a lot of years.
If you'd like to read something with one, try the Rama series. It's
good. (Rendezvous with Rama, Rama II, Garden of Rama and Rama
Revealed, by Arthur C. Clark)
Suppose I was sitting in geosynchronous orbit about 22,241 miles
directly over Locust Grove or Ecuador or somewhere. I have two big
balls of really strong string. One spool, I unroll up away from
earth. The other spool, I unroll down toward earth at the same rate.
The centrifugal pulls the outgoing string out, and the earth's
gravity pulls the downgoing string down. This happens because the
earth's gravity is proportional to the distance squared, and
centrifugal force is proportional to the distance to the earth.
These forced are equal in a stabilized circular orbit, which is
where I'm sitting. Or flying. The geosynchronous orbit is a circular
orbit where the satellite (me) stays over the same place on the
equator because the period of revolution is the same as the period
of rotation of the earth, 24 hours.
After I roll out enough string, the bottom end hits earth (it's a
really calm day) and the upper end extends out another 22,241 miles,
after they stop wiggling from the coriolas effect. After my string
runs out, I'll use it to pull out a long rope, then a cable, and
eventually I can build a 44,482-mile-high space elevator that goes
from Ecuador up into space.
This has all been out of the question because nothing is strong
enough to withstand the forces of gravity and centrifugal force. Now
carbon nanotubes are getting into the ballpark. When they are 2-3
times stronger, 1000 times less expensive, and it's possible to
manufacture and weave super long strands, the raw material part of
the problem should be solved. In theory. There are still things like
storms, radiation decay, oscillation, and gremlins to contend with,
not to mention money and politics.
It's an interesting idea, but I doubt if I ever get to see one.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/space/spaceelevator.html
In celebration of the space elevator, NEC got a bunch of patents on
carbon nanotubes and has started threatening lawsuits.
http://eetimes.com/at/news/OEG20040303S0019
----------------------------------
NASA Pictures
I included the long captions from NASA with these pictures.
A long line of Saharan dust swept across Mali, Mauritania, and
Western Sahara and out over the Canary Islands on March 3 and 4,
2004. The dust appears to have originated in Algeria. Winter and
spring dust storms are common in Western Africa when the sirocco
winds - hot, dry, dust-laden winds - blow north and northwest out of
the Sahara Desert. These images were taken by the Terra MODIS
instrument.
http://xpda.com/junkmail/junk153/image03052004_250m.jpeg
http://xpda.com/junkmail/junk153/Canary_tmo_2004064_lrg.jpg
The striking land use pattern, seen through a high magnification
lens and highlighted by winter snow and low Sun angles, produces a
unique view of the village of Argudan near the north slopes of the
Greater Caucasus Mountains. The image was taken with a handheld
camera from the International Space Station in the early afternoon
of December 20, 2003. This rural, agricultural community sits
astride the main highway about 15 km east-southeast of the city of
Nalchik. Shadows from a line of trees planted as a windbreak near
the highway give the road a ragged appearance. A small stream
flowing northeastward exits heavily forested foothills through the
village and fields of intensely cultivated croplands on the plains.
Snow falls through the vegetation, making the woodlands appear
extremely dark compared to the snow-covered fields. Earth Sciences
and Image Analysis, NASA-Johnson Space Center. 3 Mar. 2004.
http://xpda.com/junkmail/junk153/ESC_large_ISS008_ISS008-E-9603.jpg
Vast stretches of sea ice link Alaska's Aleutian Islands in this
true-color Terra MODIS image from January 3, 2004. This chain of
volcanic islands stretches in an arc over 1200 miles long from the
Alaskan Peninsula almost to Russia's Komanorski Islands. They
separate the Bering Sea from the northern Pacific Ocean, and are
almost all part of the Aleutian National Wildlife Reserve.
Phytoplankton clouds line the northern edges of the sea ice,
creating a bluish-green halo.
http://xpda.com/junkmail/junk153/ev26245_Alaska.A2004003.2210.250m.jpeg
Cloud streets streak across the Bering Sea and the Gulf of Alaska in
this MODIS image. Over the ocean, clouds will often become aligned
with the direction of a low-level wind, producing parallel rows, or
streets, of clouds. The Aleutian Islands interrupt the airflow,
leaving a sort of wake as can be seen on the right edge of the
image. The Aqua satellite captured this true-color image on March
14, 2003.
http://xpda.com/junkmail/junk153/ev25961_Alaska.A2003073.2345.250m.jpeg
The Terra MODIS instrument captured this true-color image of
Tropical Cyclone Monty on February 28, 2004. It is located 165
kilometers north-west of Karratha. At the time of this image, Monty
was travelling down the western Australian coast at 12 kilometers an
hour. A category 4 storm, communities from Onslow to Barrow Island
were on "blue alert" as they were in the path of predicted
destructive winds with gusts of up to 240 kilometers an hour.
In this image, Monty swirls in a clockwise spiral that draws clouds
toward its eye in streaks. Were Monty in the Northern Hemisphere, it
would be spinning in a counter-clockwise direction.
http://xpda.com/junkmail/junk153/image03032004_250m.jpeg
Snow paints the land of the northern central United States and
southern central Canada in shades of gray and white and brings the
texture of the landscape into view, while bright white ice clogs the
shores and large portions of the surfaces of the Great Lakes. The
deep blue-black water of the Lakes stands out in stark contrast
against the ice, which floats in large chunks along the shorelines
of Superior (top), Michigan (center left), and Huron (center right).
Lake Ontario, on the right side of the image, also features clear
deep waters, though almost no ice floats on its surface. By far,
Erie is the most ice-covered of the five, and its waters swirl with
clouds of blue-green.
Erie is the shallowest of the lakes (64m deep), and the only one
whose floor is above sea level. Because it is usually icebound
during the winter, it's usually closed to navigation from
mid-December to the end of March, despite it being part of the Great
Lakes - St. Lawrence Seaway System. This true-color Terra MODIS
image was acquired on February 26, 2004.
http://xpda.com/junkmail/junk153/image03042004_250m.jpeg
A beautifully-formed low-pressure system swirls off the southeastern
coast of Greenland, illustrating the maxim that "nature abhors a
vacuum." The vacuum in this case would be a region of low
atmospheric pressure. In order to fill this void, air from a nearby
high-pressure system moves in, in this case bringing clouds along
for the ride. And because this low-pressure system occurred in the
Northern Hemisphere, the winds spun in toward the center of the
low-pressure system in a counter-clockwise direction; a phenomenon
known as the Coriolis force (in the Southern Hemisphere, the
Coriolis force would be manifested in a clockwise direction of
movement).
The clouds in the image resembled pulled cotton and lace as they
spun in a lazy hurricane-like pattern. This huge system swirled over
the Denmark Strait in between Greenland and Iceland. The image was
taken by the Aqua MODIS instrument on September 4, 2003.
http://xpda.com/junkmail/junk153/ev26276_Iceland.A2003247.1410.250m.jpeg
From a vantage point about 360 km (225 miles) over the Earth, Space
Station crewmembers photographed the crescent moon through the
upper layers of Earth's atmosphere. At the bottom of the image, a
closed deck of clouds is probably at about 6 km (3 miles). The
shades of blue grading to black are caused by the scatter of light
as it strikes gas molecules of the very low density upper
atmosphere.
Models predict that emissions of carbon dioxide are causing the
upper atmosphere to cool and contract, and therefore reduce the
density of gases in the layer spanning from 90 to 649 km (60 to 400
miles) above the surface-known as the thermosphere. According to a
study by the Naval Research Laboratory, the density of the
thermosphere has decreased about 10 percent over the last 35 years.
These findings are important both for space science and for Earth
science. Spacecraft in orbit, such as the International Space
Station, experience less drag and need fewer boosts to maintain
their orbit. At the same time, space debris also remains in orbit
longer, which increases hazards to spacecraft. Most importantly, the
study validates models of the "greenhouse effect" of increased
carbon dioxide release on the dynamics of the atmosphere. Earth
Sciences and Image Analysis, NASA-Johnson Space Center. 3 Mar. 2004.
http://xpda.com/junkmail/junk153/ESC_large_ISS008_ISS008-E-8951.jpg
This view of nearly 10,000 galaxies is the deepest visible-light
image of the cosmos. Called the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, this
galaxy-studded view represents a "deep" core sample of the universe,
cutting across billions of light-years.
The snapshot includes galaxies of various ages, sizes, shapes, and
colors. The smallest, reddest galaxies, about 100, may be among the
most distant known, existing when the universe was just 800 million
years old. The nearest galaxies - the larger, brighter, well-defined
spirals and ellipticals - thrived about 1 billion years ago, when
the cosmos was 13 billion years old.
In vibrant contrast to the rich harvest of classic spiral and
elliptical galaxies, there is a zoo of oddball galaxies littering
the field. Some look like toothpicks; others like links on a
bracelet. A few appear to be interacting. These oddball galaxies
chronicle a period when the universe was younger and more chaotic.
Order and structure were just beginning to emerge.
The Ultra Deep Field observations, taken by the Advanced Camera for
Surveys, represent a narrow, deep view of the cosmos. Peering into
the Ultra Deep Field is like looking through an eight-foot-long soda
straw.
In ground-based photographs, the patch of sky in which the galaxies
reside (just one-tenth the diameter of the full Moon) is largely
empty. Located in the constellation Fornax, the region is so empty
that only a handful of stars within the Milky Way galaxy can be seen
in the image.
In this image, blue and green correspond to colors that can be seen
by the human eye, such as hot, young, blue stars and the glow of
Sun-like stars in the disks of galaxies. Red represents
near-infrared light, which is invisible to the human eye, such as
the red glow of dust-enshrouded galaxies.
The image required 800 exposures taken over the course of 400 Hubble
orbits around Earth. The total amount of exposure time was 11.3
days, taken between Sept. 24, 2003 and Jan. 16, 2004. Credit: NASA,
ESA, S. Beckwith (STScI) and the HUDF Team.
http://xpda.com/junkmail/junk153/STScI-PRC2004-07a.jpeg
----------------------------------
Other Pictures of Today...
Mercury Nevada. They won't let me drive to that town. I don't think
they'll let me land an airplane there either, although I haven't
asked.
http://xpda.com/junkmail/junk153/PICT1105.jpg
I believe this is Bishop, CA on the left, and Boundary Peak, the
highest point in Nevada, on the right. At any rate, it's a nice
looking valley.
http://xpda.com/junkmail/junk153/PICT1135.jpg
Some desert mountains in western Nevada. And a PC12 wing. The probe
sticking out of the wing is the angle of attack probe.
http://xpda.com/junkmail/junk153/PICT1113.jpg
Snowy Mountains, northwest of Twin Lakes, Colorado.
http://xpda.com/junkmail/junk153/PICT1677.jpg
http://xpda.com/junkmail/junk153/PICT1679.jpg
----------------------------------
(~) 1978, no rites observed. Copy the heck out of this thing!
If you'd like to sign up for Junkmail or search the archives, go to
http://xpda.com/junkmail
If you'd like to stop getting Junkmail, please select any or all of
the following easy to use options:
1. Take your computer to Pripyat.
2. Get a new email address.
3. Use Eric Matthew and Barry Head for your email service.
4. Send me an email with "kangerlussuaq" as the subject.
5. Click here:
http://xpda.com/junkmail/getmeouttahere.asp?off=spaf@cerias.purdue.edu
I'm Bob Webster and I live at bob@upperspace.com
Have a good day!