Somewhat Useful Facts Thread

[Senator]

Also, for those who thought cosmology was pretty much complete, and also have a good sense of scale. Today this:
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/080923-dark-flows.html

This. Is. So. Awesome.

[MLeo]

Very.

Multiple big bangs don't seem so farfetched as of yet (they are strengthend by this). ;)

[JimmyB76]

Eric Who?

In 2001 Richard Clarke, the government's senior counterterrorism expert when Dubya took office, urged the administration to get more aggressive with al Qaeda, which he viewed as the primary threat to American security.  Dubya's national security advisor, Condoleezza Rice, responded by downgrading his status and refusing to let him speak directly to the president or secretary of defense.  Clark resigned in 2003.

When General Eric Shinseki, four-star Army Chief of Staff, told the president he should double the number of troops in Iraq, Rumsfeld appointed the general's successor an unprecedented 14 months before the end of Shinseki's term.  Equally unprecedented, at Shinseki's resignation ceremony, customarily attended by the secretary of defense, no senior administration official was present.


_{116 Days Left!}

[limey BSc.]

Just discovered something. The longest war was actually between the Netherlands and the Isles of Scilly.
During the English Civil War, the Parliamentarians beat the Royalists further and further back, until they were forced to retreat to the Isles of Scilly. The Dutch, siding with the Parliamentarians, sent their Navy to attack the Isles. They were so badly beaten, they declared war on the Isles. Before they could do anything though, the Isles were retaken by the Parliamentairans and the Dutch simply forgot about the war! That was in 1651. In 1985, the Chairman of the Isles of Scilly Council (Roy Duncan) looked into rumours that they were still at war with the Dutch. He then invited the Dutch ambassador to sign the peace treaty, and thus, the 335 year war between them was ended!

EDIT:
Also, found something else. I was partially right

In the declaration of war with Russia in 1853 (ie The Crimean War), Queen Vic said:

"Victoria, Queen of Great Britain, Ireland, Berwick-upon-Tweed and the British Dominions beyond the sea."

But no mention of Berwick-upon-Tween was in The Treaty of Paris.

Berwick-upon-Tweed is a town on the north bank of the River Tweed. Up to 1482, the town had changed hands between England and Scotland 14 times! Before Scotland was defeated by England, the town was given the special status of being "of" the Kingdom of England, not "in" it.  Therefore, it needed to be mentioned in Royal proclamations. The peace treaty between Russia and Berwick-upon-Tweed was eventually signed in 1966. As the mayor said at the time: "You can tell the Russian people that they can now sleep peacefully in their beds"!

[MLeo]

Here is a suretell sign of a proud geek/nerd:
"I can't find a way to order by library, it's like defragmenting a harddrive without enough freespace."

And yes, in this case it's about a library of books. Say, more than 400 or so, in a small room.


Oh, and if you can see why the analogy is correct, be proud of it!

[Senator]

I was saying about the digital handycams that take pictures some time ago, but their quality apparently is a bit shit.

On the other hand, from the other side we now have the Digital Cameras that can take video, and HD video in fact. Eg,
Nikon D90, that can capture at 720p
And the Canon 5D Mark II, which can capture at 1080p

Which are very very interesting, because those are of cource, perfectly good and full DSLR cameras first, and so have a big lens, and in fact can have in front of them mounted any other lens, like telephoto, fish eye etc, and their quality, as I understand it, is awesome.

They only have two small problems:
A) Storage. Handycams now cam with 60 and 80GB internal storage, while digital cameras still rely on SD cards which are about 8ish or so.
B) If you have to ask how much they cost, you can't afford them. In fact you will probably be charged for the question alone.

[MLeo]

I think you would need a really big eye-fi card for video. And a bloody good wifi connection. ;)
The big eye-fi card for the cache.
And even then you could only take 10minutes at a time.

[Senator]

Not amazing news, but we (Europeans) just copycated the C130. Slightly updated in everything of cource. (Cargo, Range, Sexy Glass Cockpit with joysticks, can go 10,000ft higher etc)



Airbus Military, now you don't hear those words every day.
Silly nationalists might want to note that not only its a pan-European company making it. Just for the turboprops alone a whole new company was set up. (EuroProp) owned:
28% by the United Kingdom
28% by France
28% byGermany
16% by Spain

[Senator]

1.4 km.

The height Nakheel is rumored to want its new tower to have. That incidentally means that not only Dubai is going to have the first "kilometric" tower, but they have gone a bit overboard with it and is by far taller than the Burj Dubai.

Specifically:

That is Taipai 101 which is (or was, depenting at which stage the construction of Burj Dubai is), the tallest skyscraper in the world:



As you can see it suffers from the interesting effect of making the mere "tall" buildings around it look like little houses.

The Nakheel tower will be almost THREE times that.

[limey BSc.]

1.4 km.

The height Nakheel is rumored to want its new tower to have. That incidentally means that not only Dubai is going to have the first "kilometric" tower, but they have gone a bit overboard with it and is by far taller than the Burj Dubai.

Specifically:

That is Taipai 101 which is (or was, depenting at which stage the construction of Burj Dubai is), the tallest skyscraper in the world:



As you can see it suffers from the interesting effect of making the mere "tall" buildings around it look like little houses.

The Nakheel tower will be almost THREE times that.

It should be noted that that building is right next to an earthquake fault like and slap bang in the middle of Monsoon City, yet its perfectly safe!

[1DeadlySAMURAI]

Yeah, it has a giant BALL in the center of the building acting as a counterweight if the tower leans on one direction.

[Dante Leonhart]

Not amazing news, but we (Europeans) just copycated the C130. Slightly updated in everything of cource. (Cargo, Range, Sexy Glass Cockpit with joysticks, can go 10,000ft higher etc)



Airbus Military, now you don't hear those words every day.
Silly nationalists might want to note that not only its a pan-European company making it. Just for the turboprops alone a whole new company was set up. (EuroProp) owned:
28% by the United Kingdom
28% by France
28% byGermany
16% by Spain

What's this plane called?

[MLeo]

Not amazing news, but we (Europeans) just copycated the C130. Slightly updated in everything of cource. (Cargo, Range, Sexy Glass Cockpit with joysticks, can go 10,000ft higher etc)

Airbus Military, now you don't hear those words every day.
Silly nationalists might want to note that not only its a pan-European company making it. Just for the turboprops alone a whole new company was set up. (EuroProp) owned:
28% by the United Kingdom
28% by France
28% byGermany
16% by Spain

What's this plane called?

A400M?

[intrepid90]

[irony]very astute [/irony]
sry lol

[Of The Azure Star]

Rho Cassiopeiae is a yellow hypergiant star about 550,000 times the size of the sun, is about 11,650 light years away, and has a habitable zone of about 450 AU.  It is one of the most luminous stars in the night sky.

It can also dance.

 

[Senator]

A close up of Jupiter's atmosphere from Voyager:

[JimmyB76]

Our Favorite Articles Of Impeachment

"In violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) [50 U.S.C. Chapter 36], George Walker Bush did clandestinely direct the National Security Agency and various other intelligence agencies, in secret and outside lawful scope of their mandates, for purposes unrelated to any lawful function of his offices, to conduct electronic surveillance of citizens of the Unites States on U.S. soil without seeking to obtain, before or after, a judicial warrant, thereby circumventing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) courts established by Congress, whose express purpose is to check such abuses of executive power."

- From Article III of House Resolution 1106: Articles of Impeachment against George Walker Bush, President of the Unites States, introduced by Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) on December 8, 2006


_{106 Days Left!}

[JimmyB76]

yay double post

Secretary Of Defense Goodwrench

Among the many career army officers who were not impressed by former Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld's aggressive, can-do public persona was Lieutenant General David McKiernan, who commanded all U.S. ground troop in Iraq from 2002 to 2004.  "In lieu of an order or plan," McKiernan said, "you get a set of PowerPoint slides."
"To imagine that PowerPoint slides can substitute for (formal written orders)," said Colonel Andrew Bacevich, commander of an armored cavalry regiment, "is really the height of recklessness."
Military correspondent Thomas Ricks of The Washington Post likened Rumsfeld's approach to being a garage mechanic who uses a glossy sales brochure to figure out how to fix a car.


_{105 Days Left!}

[Senator]

Yay, new Mercury piccies!


http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/messenger/main/index.html

Looks a bit, moon-ish to say the truth. Also no stars which means that NASA is totally faking it.

[JimmyB76]

Oops.  Now We Have To Come Up With Another Lie To Keep The Middle Class Quiet.

Advocates of estate tax repeal claimed it would benefit all Americans, especially small business owners and farmers whose families were often forced to sell their property in order to pay the estate tax.
However, a report files by Public Citizen and United for a Fair Economy stated that "the American Farm Bureau was unable in 2001 to cite a single example of a family being forced to sell its farm because of estate tax liability."
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities calculated that the repeal of the death tax would save America's 4500 largest estates as much money as Bush's tax cuts gave to the 142 million lowest-income Americans combined.


_{102 Days Left!}