OT - A Poll and a place to Chat.

[General_W]

Well - there is the Aquarius off the coast of Florida.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquarius_%28laboratory)



Used by NOAA and NASA for a facility... not really a "base" in the terms you were thinking... but I guess some pretty good science comes out of there.

 

[peter grimes]

I think you're referring to NOAA (pronounced noah ), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

 

[General_W]

well... you know what I meant!

 

[fe3333au]

Thanks for that ... I'd never heard of NOAA before.

Another related experiment was the construction of a biodome where researchers would be locked away from the outside environment for a period of time, inside was to be a complete ecosystem with flora and fauna. This idea I heard in the late 80's.

Does anyone know if it was ever constructed?

 

[General_W]

yeah - called BioSphere II - built in Arizona... my grandparents visited and sent us pictures.

It wasn't a great success though... but did teach us some interesting things. Pretty cool really.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosphere_2

 

[peter grimes]

Oh yes, it was constructed! In fact, they did two separate experiments! Curiously, things didn't work out quite how the designers of the experiment expected

Tho' I loathe this sort of instant reliance on Wikipedia as a first-source, that site probably has a pretty good synthesis of the results. I'll just say this much: The experiments both had to be cut short, if memory serves.

EDIT: xpost w/ General_W.... and my complaint about Wiki had nothing to do with his link. Really.

 

[fe3333au]

Thanks guys ... very interesting.

 

[fe3333au]

We are close to seeing the tail end of the year of the Dog.

Happy year of the Pig everyone

 

[peter grimes]

Mmmmmm.... pig

 

[Paul#42]

Hmmm... Miss Piggy....

 

[Niklas]

Just so you know, pi is wrong: http://www.math.utah.edu/~palais/pi.html

 

[General_W]

What a FASCINATING read Niklas… who would have though?!?

If this gets out, I wonder what all those nerds who have memorized Pi to a thousand places will do…

P.S. The term "Nerd" is used affectionately by me… not only am I member of that club, I'm also the president

 

[Niklas]

The most fascinating thing to me is that he's so obviously right. I felt stupid reading it, why didn't I think of that? I'll never use pi again...

 

[peter grimes]

Hey Zyxy - what does Hoek mean in Dutch?

The neighborhood I live in was settled by the Dutch (well, after the Native Americans moved, naturally), and there's a bar called Dominie's Hoek. No one at the bar has any idea why it's called that

 

[zyxy]

hoek = corner (or angle, but in this case probably corner).

btw, dominie is not a dutch name, afaik.

 

[peter grimes]

Interesting

I believe that the name of the bar references that particular area of the neighborhood, but I'm not sure. I have a book at home that talks about it a little bit.

 

[General_W]

I’m home sick today…

So, in the tradition of really interesting news stories, this one hit on a subject I’ve never really considered before… A Kilogram is a bar in Pairs?!? Read on …

Roundest Sphere to Measure Kilogram


And as long as I was at it… I just can’t resist sharing this news story I saw yesterday… just for the headline!
Maybe I’m twisted, but I found it hilarious…

Squirrel goes on rampage, injures 3

Beware! The Squirrel uprising is near!!

 

[Niklas]

You didn't know? How else would a kilogram be defined?

Seriously though, I truly thought that definition was outdated. Why don't they define it relative to a dm³ of water?

 

[Paul#42]

And as long as I was at it… I just can’t resist sharing this news story I saw yesterday… just for the headline!
Maybe I’m twisted, but I found it hilarious…

Squirrel goes on rampage, injures 3

Beware! The Squirrel uprising is near!!

Puh, it's Bavaria. Far away from the civilised north where I live...

You didn't know? How else would a kilogram be defined?

You did not expect an American to know the derivation of our european kilogramm...

Of course the General could tell us immediately how the pound is determined

(In Germany the pound was officially banned in 1884)

 

[tomasjj]

Today is....Constitution day in South Korea!

At least that is what Wiki told me.