Reading a simple sci-fi space opera, humans against space spiders, mindless fun, and then ...
The protagonist's spaceship has to rendezvous with a space station orbiting Mercury. Fair enough. The narrator talks about how the station has to stay in the planet's shadow. OK, that makes sense. Summer's a bitch that close to good old Sol.
They then go on to say that Mercury is tidally-locked to the Sun. ARGH!
It's not. It's rotation period is ⅔ of it's orbit period (88 days), meaning the planet slowly turns to toast it's whole surface. That's been known since the 1960's. Frown.
Then, more egregiously, states that the station orbits at around 1,000 km from the planet's surface. WTAF?
A geostationary orbit for Mercury (needed to stay in shadow) given it's mass and rotation period, would be 240,420 km from the surface. Angry grimace.
Regarding the data breach involving clubs and venues in Australia:
A company called Outabox got a contract to do venue signin software. They contracted a Philoipines group to do the actual work, ensuring all data was stored outside of Australia. After 4 years they broke off the deal without payment and grabbed the gathered data and ran. The Australian running the scam has been arrested.
SOME of the venues where Outabox systems are installed:
Breakers Country Club
Bulahdelah Bowling Club
Central Coast Leagues Club
ClubMex Club Mayfield
RSLCity of Sydney RSL
DiggersEttalong diggers
East Maitland Bowling Club
East Cessnock Bowling Club
Fairfield RSL Club
Gwandalan Bowling Club
Halekulani Bowling Club
Hornsby RSL Club
Ingleburn RSL Club
Merivale
Club Old Bar
Club Terrigal
The Tradies Dickson
Erindale Vikings
West Tradies
The list of clubs I gave is not comprehensive, and I imagine the list of names the clubs are using for notification probably include people that don't appear in the data breached.
Basically, it's a case of if you are contacted, you are at risk.
@PeterLG@HardBeingGreen yes, I understand. I also understand that my data has got into this system somehow despite me not being a member or visitor at any of the affected clubs. I have asked the club for an explanation but do not expect much to come of that so I will be following this up with the OAIC.
I refuse to praise the "glory" of war, though understand its occasional need. I decry the utter waste of human life and potential in the pursuit of power or glory. I spit on the leaders, politicians, and diplomats who would rather stand on "honour" than seek peace. I revile the media, which publish stories of "glorious" battles and lie about reality to appease their political and financial masters. I hate, truly hate, the military financial machine that seeks profit from death. I weep in memory of those who died for another man's glory.
Those who fell are not our "glorious" dead; they simply are our dead. Nothing more. Lost to us through other men's folly and hate.
I praise the bravery of men and women placed in untenable situations by those who have the power to not do so. I praise the protesters who stand up for truth against the machinations of their country's powerful.
My daughter, T, rang to vent the other day. Her 5-year-old, C, had come home from public school pre-Easter and proceeded to tell T all about Jesus being persecuted and crucified, dying, and then being alive again.
Now, T takes after us; thoroughly atheist; to say that she was taken aback would be an understatement. In essence, C now believed in the resurrection and thought that anybody who died could come back to life. It took a weekq to convince her of the truth (dead is dead and the bible is a storybook), but as we know, that shit sticks.
The same afternoon as the revelation, before the steam had dissipated, T rang the school to enquire, mostly politely, 𝙒𝙏𝘼𝙁?? C had not been to any religion-based classes and should not have been exposed to this rubbish/nonsense/garbage. The school apologised and said they would look into it. Apparently, other parents had complained, too...
The teacher, in all innocence (apparently) had been telling the story of Easter from the Christian point of view without realising (apparently) that children are sponges, especially at that age and in a situation where they have been told repeatedly that 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘦𝘢𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘵𝘩.
Now, to my mind, any teacher who doesn't understand that shouldn't be a teacher. Or it was quite deliberate, in which case they shouldn't be a teacher in a government school.
The teacher apologised and the school closed the case but T is still dealing with the fallout, with C occasionally coming out with comments about people dying and coming back to life. Like I said, this shit sticks, often for life.
We're all born atheist; the real indoctrination is religion.
No matter what your thoughts on the Palestine/Israel conflict, I think we can all agree at this point that this strike was NOT an accident, taking into consideration that World Central Kitchen had publically complained 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘢𝘺 𝘣𝘦𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦 about IDF snipers targeting aid workers.
This smacks of retribution.
We have all, by now, seen what a small commercial drone "sees" when it is being flown as a weapon. This was a military drone. Israel is lying.
Pointless question time: Why do Americans pronounce "Arkansas" like "Ark-en-saw" instead of like "Ar-Kan-Zus"? I mean, "Kansas" is pronounced "Kan-Zus".
Alternately, since the name is derived from local Indigenous languages, why not spell it properly? Like "Arkensaw".
One woman in the Bronx; millions of lives changed.
Doctor Gottsman, once a Professor at Albert Einstein School of Medicine in the Bronx, now Chairperson of the Board of Trustees, inherited $1 billion from her husband, with the only stipulation being "Do what you think is right."
So she did. She set up a perpetual trust that will pay for ALL tuition for EVERY student attending the college from August this year. Forever. A tuition that runs to about $240,000 for the 4-year course.
Just think: one person has, in one step, changed the lives of tens of millions of people.
The students will study debt free.
They will graduate debt free.
They won't have to work stupid jobs just to pay off that debt.
They will be able to concentrate on their profession.
They'll be able to move into research.
They'll be able to take on further study.
They'll be able to work for clinics and community medicine.
"To control the future you need to erase the past. It is easier to seize land if you destroy evidence of the cultural links between a pesky population and their former home. We will remember, but will our children? And their children? These acts of desecration are to ensure the memory dies with us."
Australia does it, Canada does it, the USA does it, etc, etc.
Israel is just doing it blatantly and in real-time, streaming videos and sending out text messages to the rest of the world. A world that officially doesn't give much of a damn.
As for the shit-eating grins of those "soldiers" who are playing on the bikes of pre-teen Palestinian CHILDREN ...
The little rotorcraft that could, Ingenuity, has completed its last flight after an emergency landing caused damage to its rotors. 😥
Having far exceeded expectations—5 flights over 30 days turned into 72 flights over 3 years—it will now go down in history, albeit only the history remembered by space fans.
"Over an extended mission that lasted for almost 1,000 Martian days, more than 33 times longer than originally planned, Ingenuity was upgraded with the ability to autonomously choose landing sites in treacherous terrain, dealt with a dead sensor, cleaned itself after dust storms, operated from 48 different airfields, performed three emergency landings, and survived a frigid Martian winter."
what do you mean, not including any nasa costs? Ingenuity was a JPL Nasa project. Nasa quoted mission costs typically also don't include launch vehicles but testing (is that what you mean by certification? ) is included. And by excluding transport do you mean excluding the cost of Perseverence (and modding Percy to include Ingenuity? )
it was, as i understand it, a skunkworks tech demo project at jpl, not high cost or TRL or part of Percy's initial scope.
...skunkworks at JPL in collab with Lockheed and Nasa Ames and another company I believe. Almost all of the money for Ingenuity's development came from Nasa. That includes many the parts developed in the private sector, because project grants and tech development funds play a big part in the early dev process, and these are administered by Nasa and by its centers.
Tom Baker may not love everything about Doctor Who, he certainly knows how to BE The Doctor.
His cane is based on his sonic screwdriver - well, one of them - during his time on the show. Love the whole get up!
I wanna wander around a nursing home looking like this muttering about my TARDIS suddenly deciding to fix it's own chameleon circuit and now I can't find it 😂