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ScottS

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Posts posted by ScottS

  1. Did not see this posted anywhere else so SIAP.

    https://theconversation.com/did-a-giant-radio-telescope-in-china-just-discover-aliens-not-so-fast-185165

    Quote

    “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”
    Carl Sagan (Cosmos, 1980)

    This phrase is the standard that astronomers will be applying to a curious signal captured with China’s “Sky Eye” telescope that might be a transmission from alien technology.

    An article reporting the signal was posted on the website of China’s state-backed Science and Technology Daily newspaper, but was later removed. So have astronomers finally found evidence of intelligent found life beyond Earth? And is it being hushed up?

    We should be intrigued, but not too excited (yet). An interesting signal has to go through a lot of tests to check whether it truly carries the signature of extraterrestrial technology or is just the result of an unexpected source of terrestrial interference.

    And as for the deletion: media releases are normally timed for simultaneous release with peer-reviewed results – which are not yet available – so it was likely just released a bit early by mistake.

    An eye on the sky

    Sky Eye, which is offically known as the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST), is the the largest and most sensitive single-dish radio telescope in the world. A engineering marvel, its gargantuan structure is built inside a natural basin in the mountains of Guizhou, China.

    The telescope is so huge it can’t be physically tilted, but it can be pointed in a direction by thousands of actuators that deform the telescope’s reflective surface. By deforming the surface, the location of the telescope’s focal point changes, and the telescope can look at a different part of the sky.

    FAST detects radiation at radio wavelengths (up to 10 cm) and is used for astronomical research in a wide range of areas. One area is the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, or SETI.

    SETI observations are mainly done in “piggy-back” mode, which means they are taken while the telescope is also running its primary science programs. In this way, large swaths of the sky can be scanned for signs of alien technology – or “technosignatures” – without getting in the way of other science operations. For special targets like nearby exoplanets, dedicated SETI observations are still carried out.

    The hunt for alien technology

    Technosignature searches have been ongoing since the 1960s, when the American astronomer Frank Drake pointed the 26-metre Tatel telescope toward two nearby Sun-like stars and scanned them for signs of technology.

    Over the years, technosignature searches have become far more rigorous and sensitive. The systems in place at FAST are also able to process billions of times more of the radio spectrum than Drake’s experiment.

    Despite these advances, we haven’t yet found any evidence of life beyond Earth.

    FAST sifts through enormous amounts of data. The telescope feeds 38 billion samples a second into a cluster of high-performance computers, which then produces exquisitely detailed charts of incoming radio signals. These charts are then searched for signals that look like technosignatures.

    With such a large collecting area, FAST can pick up incredibly faint signals. It is about 20 times more sensitive than Australia’s Murriyang telescope at the Parkes Radio Observatory. FAST could easily detect a transmitter on a nearby exoplanet with a similar output power to radar systems we have here on Earth.

    The trouble with sensitivity

    The trouble with being so sensitive is that you can uncover radio interference that would otherwise be too faint to detect. We SETI researchers have had this problem before.

    Last year, using Murriyang, we detected an extremely interesting signal we called BLC1.

    However, it turned out to be very strange interference (not aliens). To uncover its true nature, we had to develop a new verification framework.

    With BLC1, it took about a year from when it was initially reported to when peer-reviewed analysis was published. Similarly, we may need to wait a while for the FAST signal to be analysed in depth.

    Professor Zhang Tongjie, chief scientist for the China Extraterrestrial Civilization Research Group, acknowledged this in the Science & Technology Daily report:

    The possibility that the suspicious signal is some kind of radio interference is also very high, and it needs to be further confirmed and ruled out. This may be a long process.

    And we may need to get used to a gap between finding candidate signals and verifying them. FAST and other telescopes are likely to find many more signals of interest.

    Most of these will turn out to be interference, but some may be new astrophysical phenomena, and some may be bona fide technosignatures.

    Stay intrigued

    Will FAST’s extraordinary signals meet the burden of extraordinary evidence? Until their work is reviewed and published, it’s still too early to say, but it’s encouraging that their SETI search algorithms are finding curious signals.

    Between FAST, the Breakthrough Listen initiative, and the SETI Institute’s COSMIC program, the SETI field is seeing a lot of interest and activity. And it’s not just radio waves: searches are also underway using optical and infrared light.

    As for right now: stay intrigued, but don’t get too excited.

     

  2. On 5/4/2022 at 11:16 PM, ScottS said:

    Any of you NYC area posters attending the John Hinckley Jr. concert on July 8th in Brooklyn at the Market Hotel?  No idea if Jodie Foster is planning on attending.

    https://www.markethotel.org/calendar/2022/6/17/scenic-presents-voivod-63h9y

    image.png.75cc0762f96d6a91062236d2c47ebbfd.png

    I am loathe to quote myself, but if anyone was thinking about making the John Hinckley Jr. Concert at the Market Hotel, well, you are out of luck.

    https://deadline.com/2022/06/john-hinckley-jr-brooklyn-concert-canceled-market-hotel-1235046409/

    Quote

    John Hinckley Jr.’s  planned Brooklyn concert was actually the third stop on his so-called Redemption Tour to cancel, says the singer-songrwriter who attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan in 1981.

    “I’ve had 3 concerts cancelled – Chicago, Connecticut and now Brooklyn,” Hinckley tweeted this afternoon. “The promoter is looking for another venue.”

    Concerts at Chicago’s Logan Square Auditorium, which had been planned for July 23, and a New Year’s Eve concert at the Space Ballroom in Hamden, Connecticut, apparently were canceled prior to the announcement by the Brooklyn venue Market Hotel yesterday.

    In an email sent by the Market Hotel to ticketholders yesterday, the venue said that Scenic Events NYC, Hinckley’s promoter, was seeking a replacement venue for the concert. “If a new location is secured, you will be contacted via this email address in advance of the date, with the new location information,” the message states. “If the organizers are unable to secure a new venue for the concert, then the purchase price of your ticket(s) will be refunded within 3 days of the scheduled event date.”

     
    hinckley-1.jpg?w=681&h=383&crop=1
    John Hinckley John Hinckley YouTube

    John Hinckley Jr.’s  planned Brooklyn concert was actually the third stop on his so-called Redemption Tour to cancel, says the singer-songrwriter who attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan in 1981.

    “I’ve had 3 concerts cancelled – Chicago, Connecticut and now Brooklyn,” Hinckley tweeted this afternoon. “The promoter is looking for another venue.”

    Concerts at Chicago’s Logan Square Auditorium, which had been planned for July 23, and a New Year’s Eve concert at the Space Ballroom in Hamden, Connecticut, apparently were canceled prior to the announcement by the Brooklyn venue Market Hotel yesterday.

    In an email sent by the Market Hotel to ticketholders yesterday, the venue said that Scenic Events NYC, Hinckley’s promoter, was seeking a replacement venue for the concert. “If a new location is secured, you will be contacted via this email address in advance of the date, with the new location information,” the message states. “If the organizers are unable to secure a new venue for the concert, then the purchase price of your ticket(s) will be refunded within 3 days of the scheduled event date.”

    On its Twitter page, Scenic Presents describes itself as a “Brooklyn based shadowy organization fighting faux-indie, boring, corporate chain rock shows since the new millennium.”

    Hinckley was released from court supervision Wednesday 41 years after his attempted assassination in 1981 of Reagan. The long-planned concert at the hip venue in Brooklyn’s Bushwick neighborhood was canceled out of safety concerns, the venue operators said yesterday.

    Hinckley, a singer-songwriter who has released his music on streaming sites and a YouTube channel, was set to have made his first post-release concert appearance at the Market Hotel venue on July 8. The show, which quickly sold out in recent weeks, was canceled by the venue today for what the proprietors said was, in part, concern “for the safety of our vulnerable communities…”

    Though the venue operators defended the initial decision to open the club to Hinckley, noting that the 67-year-old singer-guitarist’s planned concert tour “sends a message that mental health issues and a criminal past can be recovered from and atoned for, after serving one’s debt to society and getting real treatment” – ultimately the security risks weren’t worth the gamble.

    “If we were going to host an event for the principle, and potentially put others at risk in doing so, it shouldn’t be for some stunt booking — no offense to the artist,” the venue said in a statement on its Instagram page.  “We might feel differently if we believed the music was important and transcended the infamy, but that’s just not the case here.”

    All restrictions on Hinckley’s freedom were lifted today in a move that has been expected since last fall, when U.S. District Court Judge Paul L. Friedman said he’d free Hinckley if he remained mentally stable and residing in the Virginia community where he has lived under supervision since 2016.

    “After 41 years 2 months and 15 days, FREEDOM AT LAST!!!, ” Hinckley tweeted just after midnight today.

    Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity after shooting Reagan on March 30, 1981, wounding the president as well as police officer Thomas Delahanty and Secret Service agent Tim McCarthy. More seriously wounded was Reagan’s Press Secretary James Brady, who was permanently disabled and died from his injuries 33 years later. Hinckley would later claim that he carried out the attempted assassination to garner the attention of actress Jodie Foster.

    In yesterday’s statement from the Market Hotel, the venue operators say that the event came to the Hotel through “a third-party promoter, and we approved it because it sounded like an interesting gathering and a memorable night. Hosting provocative happenings for its own sake is valid, and should be part of any venue’s reason to exist.

    “There was a time when a place could host a thing like this, maybe a little offensive, and the reaction would be ‘it’s just a guy playing a show, who does it hurt — it’s a free country.’ We aren’t living in that kind of free country anymore, for better or for worse.”

    Here is the venue’s full statement:

    After a lot of serious consideration, we are canceling the scheduled event at Market Hotel with John Hinckley.

    This even came to Market Hotel through a third-party promoter, and we approved it because it sounded like an interesting gathering and a memorable night. Hosting provocative happenings for its own sake is valid, and should be part of any venue’s reason to exist. The tour also sends a message that mental health issues and a criminal past can be recovered from and atoned for, after serving one’s debt to society and getting real treatment.

    There was a time when a place could host a thing like this, maybe a little offensive, and the reaction would be “it’s just a guy playing a show, who does it hurt — it’s a free country.” We aren’t living in that kind of free country anymore, for better or for worse.

    It’s worth reiterating that this guy performing harms no one in any practical way. This is a sexagenarian with an acoustic guitar. All the outrage and concern are entirely about the quote message it sends unquote. Make no mistake: canceling this concert will not deter future assassins and will have no effect on mass shootings, and it certainly won’t reverse the awfulness of what Hinckley did 40 years ago. It’s also ludicrous to claim allowing the show might inspire some future killer — “I wanna be like Hinckley — he got to play Market Hotel.” We’re a little room and it’s just a concert. It does not “matter” — beyond the strong emotions it has been used to stoke.

    We do believe that ex-cons and people will mental illness can recover, and that we should want them to maintain hope that they can better themselves and earn a chance to fully rejoin society… but we are living in dangerous times, and after being presented with and reflecting on some very real and worsening threats and hate facing our vulnerable communities — our family here in nightlife — and after seeing the nature of who this booking has antagonized, and who and what else those same folks are upset about: we don’t see the need to allow someone who did something awful to skip the line and play even our middle size independent community stage — and in doing so put our vulnerable communities at risk (without their consent) — especially if that artist wouldn’t have sold the tickets without the story of who they are and the violent thing they did.

    If we were going to host an event for the principle, and potentially put others at risk in doing so, it shouldn’t be for some stunt booking — no offense to the artist. We might feel differently if we believed the music was important and transcended the infamy, but that’s just not the case here (though any artist can get there — even someone who committed awful crimes and suffered mental illness).

    It is not worth the gamble on the safety of our vulnerable communities to give a guy a microphone and a paycheck from his art who hasn’t had to earn it, who we don’t care about on an artistic level, and who upsets people in a dangerously radicalized, reactionary climate.
    – love, MARKET HOTEL

     

  3. Clemson hires Erik Bakich from Michigan to be its new head baseball coach.

    https://theclemsoninsider.com/2022/06/14/clemson-has-its-next-baseball-coach-erik-bakich/

    I thought I would check out what MGoBlog had to say about the move. This part of the post about Bakich leaving has me scratching my head:

    Quote

    But such is life for a school in a conference that doesn't care about the sport. Over the last 30 years, an alliance of big and small schools in the South have pushed the baseball and softball seasons deeper into winter, forcing northern teams to play tournaments in Florida, Arizona, and California in January, February, and March, before trying to squeeze in a conference schedule in April and half of May. They've also allowed the NCAA to limit schools to 12 scholarships (which can be divvied up in fractions) per sport. It's an arrangement that's great for Southeastern power schools, which no longer have to compete with the moneyed programs, better degrees, and richer baseball histories of the North for top talent, and have always supplemented the meager scholarship restrictions by other means. It's also perfect for small southern programs, which often get to host those tournaments, and don't have to divert funds from football to be reasonably competitive. Talk of the Big Ten joining with other northern conferences to stem this tide, either by threatening to leave the NCAA, doing so, or hosting a second season over the summer, has thus far only amounted to that.

    While I do not know all of the ins and outs of how college baseball programs work with regards to schedules and scholarships, I feel confident in my belief that scholarship limits in baseball are not a result of big, bad, dumb southern schools.  I also seem to recall several years ago the northern schools forcing a later start to the baseball season.  Am I remembering that wrong?

    Also, what baseball programs in the north have rich baseball histories?  I know Michigan, Minnesota, and Ohio State have some CWS appearances and a few national titles but I would not put those histories up against Southern Cal, the Arizona Schools, Texas, Fullerton, Stanford, or any other of about half a dozen southern or western schools.

  4. 9 hours ago, Mileslong said:

    USGA doing bits, look who’s lockers are side by side, lulz

    3e0870545a49cce98f5b87ba15e0a92c.jpg

    Must be the 2020s version of the Prick Pairing.

    Quote

    The groupings for the US Open have long been a source of amusement for golf insiders.

    As revealed in John Feinstein’s book Open, former USGA executive directors Frank Hannigan and David Fay instigated a number of traditions, including putting three players together who were generally disliked by fellow golfers, known informally as the “prick pairing”.

    At the 1998 US Open, born-again Christians Tom Lehman, Bernhard Langer and Steve Jones were grouped together, nicknaming themselves the “God squad”, while golfers who were known to enjoy the nightlife were routinely assigned the earliest start times in the morning.

    According to Feinstein, Fay decided he’d gone too far one year at the US Women’s Open when he grouped three players together because they’d all been in therapy.

    “That was over the top,” Fay said.

     

  5. According to ESPN, one of the Marines that perished in this crash was the son of Dodgers legend Steve Sax.

    https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/34075356/son-ex-los-angeles-dodgers-player-steve-sax-five-marines-killed-training-flight-crash

    Quote

    LOS ANGELES -- Former Dodgers player Steve Sax says his 33-year-old son, who had always dreamed of being a pilot, was among five U.S. Marines killed during a training flight crash earlier this week in the California desert.

    Capt. John J. Sax was among the aircrew of an Osprey tiltrotor aircraft that went down during training in a remote area in Imperial County, about 115 miles east of San Diego and about 50 miles from Yuma, Arizona.

    "It is with complete devastation that I announce that my precious son, Johnny was one of the five US Marines that perished on Wednesday, June 8, in the Osprey Military crash near San Diego," Steve Sax said in a statement published Saturday by CBSLA-TV. "For those of you that knew Johnny, you saw his huge smile, bright light, his love for his family, the Marines, the joy of flying airplanes and defending our country! He was my hero and the best man I know, there was no better person to defend our country."

    Sax said his son had wanted to be a pilot since he was young and would talk about the types of planes that were flying overhead while playing in the outfield in Little League baseball.

    "There was never any doubt from a young age that Johnny would be a pilot and his passion was to fly!" Steve Sax said. "This loss will change my life forever and is a loss to not only the Marines but this world!"

    Steve Sax played in the major leagues from 1981 to 1994, winning two World Series during his seven years as a second baseman with the Dodgers. Fans and the team offered condolences on social media.

    "The Los Angeles Dodgers are saddened to hear about the passing of Steve Sax's son, John, and the five Marines who lost their lives in this week's tragic helicopter accident. Our thoughts and condolences go out to their families and friends," the Dodgers said in a tweet Saturday.

    John J. Sax, of Placer, California, was one of two pilots killed in the crash, along with Capt. Nicholas P. Losapio, 31, of Rockingham, New Hampshire.

    Also killed were three tiltrotor crew chiefs: Cpl. Nathan E. Carlson, 21, of Winnebago, Illinois; Cpl. Seth D. Rasmuson, 21, of Johnson, Wyoming; and Lance Cpl. Evan A. Strickland, 19, of Valencia, New Mexico.

    The Marines were based at Camp Pendleton and assigned to Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 364 of Marine Aircraft Group 39, part of the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing headquartered at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego.

    The Osprey, a hybrid airplane and helicopter, flew in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but has been criticized by some as unsafe. It is designed to take off like a helicopter, rotate its propellers to a horizontal position and cruise like an airplane.

    The cause of the crash was under investigation.

     

    • Like 4
  6. On 6/10/2022 at 2:52 PM, Blotto said:

    No idea how to embed the video from the GD page, buy they posted the same video on their youtube page:

     

    Showing my age.  I really never think to look on YouTube for something like this.

  7. James Webb Telescope hit by micrometeoroid just months into flight.

    Quote

    NASA's next-generation space observatory has sustained its first noticeable micrometeoroid impact less than six months after launch, but the agency isn't too concerned.

    The James Webb Space Telescope, also known as Webb or JWST, launched on Dec. 25, 2021. It has spent the intervening months trekking out to its deep-space post and preparing for science observations, a complicated process that has gone remarkably smoothly; recently, NASA said it expects to unveil the first science-quality images from the telescope on July 12.

     

    Now, the agency announced(opens in new tab) on Wednesday (June 8) that the observatory has experienced its first few impacts from tiny pieces of space debris called micrometeoroids. But don't panic: Neither the observatory's schedule nor its scientific legacy is expected to suffer.

    "With Webb's mirrors exposed to space, we expected that occasional micrometeoroid impacts would gracefully degrade telescope performance over time," Lee Feinberg, Webb optical telescope element manager at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, said in the statement. "Since launch, we have had four smaller measurable micrometeoroid strikes that were consistent with expectations, and this one more recently that is larger than our degradation predictions assumed."

    The most serious of the impacts occurred between May 23 and May 25 and affected the C3 segment of the 18-piece gold-plated hexagonal primary mirror, according to the statement.

    All spacecraft are expected to experience and designed to withstand micrometeoroid impacts, and JWST is no different. The observatory's engineers even subjected mirror samples to real impacts to understand how such events might affect the mission's science.
     
    However, the recent impact was larger than those that mission personnel had modeled or could test on the ground, according to the statement.
    Despite the impact coming so early in the observatory's tenure, NASA officials are confident that the $10 billion telescope will still perform adequately.
     
    "We always knew that Webb would have to weather the space environment, which includes harsh ultraviolet light and charged particles from the sun, cosmic rays from exotic sources in the galaxy, and occasional strikes by micrometeoroids within our solar system," Paul Geithner, technical deputy project manager at NASA Goddard, said in the statement. "We designed and built Webb with performance margin — optical, thermal, electrical, mechanical — to ensure it can perform its ambitious science mission even after many years in space."

    In addition, JWST launched with its optics in even better shape than the agency bargained for, officials noted in the statement.

    Some micrometeoroid impacts can be predicted, officials wrote. For example, when the spacecraft is set to fly through known meteor showers, personnel can maneuver JWST's optical systems into safety for these events. However, the recent impact was not part of such a meteor shower and the statement classified it as "an unavoidable chance event."
     
    After an impact occurs, engineers can individually adjust the 18 primary mirror segments on the observatory to keep the mirror as a whole finely tuned.
     

    As the JWST team continues to evaluate the impact, NASA is focused on better understanding both the particular event and the environment that the observatory will experience throughout its mission. The telescope is orbiting what scientists call the Earth-sun Lagrange point 2, located nearly 1 million miles (1.5 million kilometers) away from Earth in the direction opposite the sun.

    "We will use this flight data to update our analysis of performance over time and also develop operational approaches to assure we maximize the imaging performance of Webb to the best extent possible for many years to come," Feinberg said.

     

  8. God I hope they did not fuck this up like whomever did the American Assassin adaptation fucked that all up.  I have liked what Amazon did with the Jack Reacher series and staying about as true to that book as possible, so I am cautiously optimistic that this will be at the very least above average. 

    • Hook 'Em 1
  9. Follow-up to the Adrian Alaniz post above:  Sinton defeated Celina 9-0 in the 4A semifinal and is playing Argyle in the 4A state championship game at the Disch tonight.

    Edit:  right now, Sinton is up 9-0 on Argyle in the bottom of the 6th.

    • Hook 'Em 1
  10. 5 minutes ago, Nueces River Rat said:

    Put them on the non conference football schedule. I’d love to see us rotate all three of the academies on our non conference as we enter the SEC.  All three branches have a presence within a few hours of Austin too. 

    Texas is winless all-time against the Air Force Academy.  They have played a grand total of 1 game against each other, but still.  (It was the 1985 Bluebonnet Bowl and Air Force won 24-16 in case you were wondering.)  I want to schedule them if for no other reason than to eliminate that goose egg from the record.

    Texas is 1-0-0 against Army and 2-0-0 against Navy for the record.  I am frankly surprised that Texas has not played more games against Army and Navy.  I would have thought back in the early 20th century they would have played a few times.

    Anyway, do not mean to thread-jack.  Congrats to the baseball team for its regional championship tonight.

    • Hook 'Em 2
  11. Not exactly on topic but did not see a better thread in which to post this.  Adrian Alaniz's Sinton Pirates defeated Corpus Christi Calallen in the 4A regional final at Whataburger Field last night and are headed to the state tournament for the second year in a row.  I have to think at some point he will get either a bigger high school job or land on a college staff somewhere.

    • Hook 'Em 4
  12. Clemson fires its baseball coach.

    https://www.espn.com/college-sports/story/_/id/34015654/clemson-fires-baseball-coach-monte-lee-missing-ncaa-tournament

    Quote

    CLEMSON, S.C. -- Clemson has fired baseball coach Monte Lee after his team missed its second straight NCAA tournament.

    First-year athletic director Graham Neff announced the move Tuesday. Lee had spent seven seasons with the Tigers. He made the NCAA tournament in each of his first four seasons to extend the program's run of 32 straight postseason appearances.

    The NCAA tournament was canceled due to coronavirus pandemic in 2020, and Clemson's streak ended the next year. The Tigers went 35-23 (13-16 ACC) this season. Their season finished last week with two losses at the ACC tournament.

    "The expectations for Clemson baseball are very high," Neff said in a statement. "The team's recent on-field performance has not met those of our administration, our coaching staff, our student athletes or our loyal fanbase."

    Neff said the university is committed returning to where it had been -- Clemson reached the College World Series six times from 1995 through 2010 -- and would conduct a national search for Lee's successor.

    Lee went 242-136 overall with the Tigers and 102-86 in ACC play. This year's team featured power-hitter Max Wagner, who had 27 home runs to tie the program record and was named the ACC Player of the Year.

    Assistant Bradley LeCroy and director of operations Brad Owens will oversee the program while the search is conducted.

     

  13. I really hope Virginia Tech eliminates the Gators tomorrow and the vaunted SEC is shut out of the WCWS.  No matter the sport I get more than a little tired of hearing about the supposed depth of the conference and how week in and week out the SEC schedule is a gauntlet.  Make what the ladies did today in Fayettenam just that much more awesome.

    • Hook 'Em 3
  14. 27 minutes ago, tbone_ said:

    Didn’t they win the big 12 one year by upsetting kstate in the champ game? Or have I lost my mind

    aggy won the Big XII more than once. That is what their wall says, so it must be true.

    image.jpeg.92bd052e1a0059581cb123a267d49e93.jpeg

    • Haha 3
  15. So I am browsing Super 70s Sports for amusement and there is a tweet with this image:

    image.jpeg.02e219021d8c79797c8da9e8d5dc0253.jpeg

     

    Out of sheer morbid curiosity, I search "anal chaos" on YouTube.  The results are...well, let's use the word interesting.

    First result:

    The second result is from a group called Hybrid Viscery.  The song titles from their album "Redneck Abomination" include:

    • Vomit Breakfast
    • Anal Chaos
    • Grind My Dick
    • Eviscerate Pussy
    • Prostate Destruction

    The YouTube search results only get better as one scrolls down.  At least to someone like me who is not into heavy metal, death metal, grindcore, or whatever other labels can be applied to the style of music that predominates this search.

  16. 14 hours ago, Helobious said:

    The moon looked slightly reddish last night. Wow so cool. 

     

    14 hours ago, Cheeseweasel said:

    I'm sure if we lived 1000 years ago, virgins would have been sacrificed, so I guess it's an improvement?

    It was a blood moon, which happens when the moon is in a total lunar eclipse.

    According to this article, Christopher Columbus used a blood moon to get over on some natives.

    Quote

    Columbus and his crew were stranded on an island now known as Jamaica. At first the Arawak people who lived there were welcoming, but over time, Columbus' crew grew restless and murdered or robbed some of the natives. Understandably, the native people weren't eager to help the crew search for food, and Columbus realized famine was drawing near. 

    Columbus had an almanac with him foretelling when the next lunar eclipse would take place. Armed with this information, he told the Arawak that the Christian god was unhappy that Columbus and his crew received no food. God would turn the moon red as a symbol of his anger, Columbus said. As the event took place, frightened people "with great howling and lamentation came running from every direction to the ships laden with provisions, praying to the Admiral to intercede with his god on their behalf," according to an account by Columbus' son Ferdinand.

     

  17. 1 minute ago, Patricio Swayze said:


    I don’t know who you are Scott, but thanks for putting in the minimal amount of work (which is more than most of us have done). Don’t forget to fill out your top ten favorite albums.

    The secret of life is low expectations.  You cannot be disappointed in me if you don't expect jack shit out of me.

    • Hook 'Em 1
    • Haha 2
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