Marc said about 2 hours later

I get the feeling you'll be exercising this new tag pretty frequently. :)

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GJ said about 15 hours later

Yeah, I'm heading into one of those intolerant phases. Batten down the hatches.

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Geoff said 2 days later

hahahaha

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Eric said 13 days later

This has nothing to do with intolerance. It has much to do with willful or learned ignorance on the part of bible-thumpers. People that can't accept science fact and hold on to their belief system are living life a bit too narrow-minded.

I think this tag could be used WAY to frequently, IMHO!

When did your last intolerant phase stop, by the way? I must have missed it. ;)

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GJ said 13 days later

Looks like October 2009 based on my blog postings. But then again, that's like a few hours in Eric time on the blog. :)

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Eric said 14 days later

Touché.

When I relpy 13 days later, I guess that's obvious.

I do check the blog more often then I post, though. I'm just not as talkative as y'all.

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GJ said 14 days later

I've gotten less talkative...and nobody has picked up the slack!

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GJ said 14 days later

Btw, any of you who haven't yet talked to me, call my cell when you see this.

Marc said about 5 hours later

That was really awesome! I gotta catch one of those space launches some day.

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Steve said about 7 hours later

This is the last year for the Space Shuttle. Parsla and I are going to go to one, probably the July launch (the second to last launch). We'll probably try to do Disney world at the same time. Want to join us?

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Marc said about 17 hours later

I'll have to see what my vacation schedule is like (I'm likely going to be using a fair amount for a honeymoon at some point :) ). Maybe we'll join you for the launch though, that would only be a couple days and a nice weekend in Florida. :)

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GJ said about 18 hours later

Comment deleted on 2/23/2010 at 10:24AM

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Steve said 1 day later

Only worry about going to see a launch....they get delayed, often. So we're planning to arrive in Florida the day before the launch, and spend 5 days at Disney World. If the launch gets delayed a couple days due to weather, we just switch out which days we go to Disney.

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Marc said 1 day later

Yea, I assume a late July launch might be the best chances for good weather. Who knows, it rains all the time in Florida. :)

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Geoff said 2 days later

Last year for space shuttle launches? What are you telling me we're giving up on space now? lol

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GJ said 4 days later

Do read the news once in a while, dear boy.

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Geoff said 4 days later

i see the headlines...must have missed it. I hear about Tiger all the time though. Priorities.

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Steve said 5 days later

Yea, our wonderful government sees no reason to look beyond our atmosphere to learn more. The shuttle is being replaced with a rocket that will take people into space at a much more reasonable cost, however the government is now canceling a lot of the missions planned for the future, even with that rocket. I kinda wish they'd make NASA private. Doesn't NASA bring in money by sending satellites up into orbit for communications companies? Or have they been doing that as a courtesy?

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GJ said 6 days later

No, our government is making a smart decision to stop sending people into space. Robotic craft do far better science, and for far less money. We've wasted an enormous amount of money on the shuttle program, and have very little to show for it. Far from abandoning space, we're just changing how we study it.

Program cancellations have more to do with the gigantic amount of debt we have and the fact the NASA does a piss poor job of educating the public about what they bring to the table. That and the wasteful shuttle program have combined to convince lawmakers to drain NASA's budget.

We do have private versions of NASA...SpaceX is a good example of one.

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GJ said 7 days later

That said, there is quite the conversation about this very topic over at Bad Astronomy. Check it out.

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Steve said 8 days later

The problem with making NASA private or relying on private companies to take over our space program - what incentive do they have to do space research? Think about it. Private companies are made to make money, and make money soon. Would the hubble space telescope have ever happened if space flight was done privately? Does it make any real money? Nope. How about the Mars rovers? Sure, you'd get some good press out of it, but have they made any discoveries that bring in money? Nope. Space flight is all about learning and exploring our universe. No one is likely to make discoveries anytime soon that will make them money. About the only way to make money in spaceflight is to ferry passengers up there for ridiculous prices - basically just catering to the rich. Space research should be a government run program - or at least, the government should direct and pay for private companies to do the work for them. And I'm not saying the US should go it alone - we should continue to work with Russia, France, Germany, and anyone else that wants in. We're not in a race to the moon. We as humans need and want to learn more about this amazing universe we live in. Look at the pictures from Hubble, and you'll be amazed at just how vast this universe is.

I agree with a lot of the comments from that link - our politicians messed up by not planning far enough in advance for space shuttle replacement or what we should be doing next. I agree with you - NASA has done a piss poor job of making public what they are learning. But there is stuff that we wouldn't have as soon as we have it without NASA. Things like satellite TV, GPS, google maps. We wouldn't be so far advanced in our military capability, with satellites capable of zooming in on the license plates of enemy vehicles on the other side of earth.

Somedays I wish I worked for NASA. Parsla has a couple friends that work for NASA, working on the International Space Station. Her friend Michelle often works mission control, talking with the astronauts and working with them while they are on the ISS. I love hearing their stories.

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GJ said 8 days later

What NASA does to service the satellites in orbit can and should be privatized. It's not just the government floating satellites up there these days. There is good money to be made doing that work, and SpaceX recognizes that. So do a few of their competitors.

NASA's original job was to win the space race. Science research was funding wholly by the military push at the time. Without that push, how are we going to justify doing science for science's sake with the incredible deficits we're running under at the federal level? I agree, we should be funding NASA, but we need to be fiscally responsible about it. To that end, manned space travel is illogical. It's prohibitively expensive due to the weight required for passengers and supplies, and for the most part, they can't do any better research than a robot. In many ways, a robot can do better. Best of all--something goes wrong, you lose the probe, not a human.

The other big problem with manned space travel are the huge distances involved. They sent a probe out to Pluto called New Horizons back in January 2006. It will arrive in April 2015. Not what I'd call a job for a human--and that's just traveling to the end of our known solar system. Space is a biiiig place, and we're only going to be able to explore it effectively with probes. The Shuttle, on the other hand, was supposed to be a less expensive alternative to shooting up rockets to deploy satellites and such. So much for that theory...SpaceX will be able to do much of what the Shuttle was responsible for and incur far less cost. I think you'll find the landscape of this part of our economy change drastically over the next twenty years.

Oh, btw, all those advances you mentioned above were military space applications. Take out the military from NASA, and you'd have gotten none of those things--as if NASA would have existed in the first place. We discover this kind of stuff when we pour tons of resources into these projects. I'm sure there's far more to discover, but are we as a nation willing to swallow those costs?

Anyhow, if you really like astronomy, Bad Astronomy isn't such a bad place to haunt, at least for starters. You'll find lots of good stuff there outside of his political postings (he's a big time skeptic too).

Marc said 38 minutes later

Ah the long goal. I haven't let one in past the red line, but my best story was a slapshot from the red line, I caught it, my glove came off and the whole thing went into the goal.

Bought my new glove the next day. :)

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Geoff said about 10 hours later

LOL that is even better hahahahahahahaha

Steve said about 12 hours later

why do they publish such garbage?

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GJ said about 22 hours later

There's always a sizable portion of the population that believes some wild crap.

Logic isn't a strong suit for these people. :)

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Geoff said about 22 hours later

I like the tag.

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GJ said about 24 hours later

Hard to tell I was a fan of That 70's Show, and Red was my favorite character.

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Geoff said about 24 hours later

hahaha

GJ said about 4 hours later

Good to see you staying gainfully employed...good luck!

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Steve said 1 day later

We'll see how the car turns out. If good, then I'll hopefully keep my job. If not, I may be the next guy in the unemployment line.

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Geoff said 1 day later

Why do they hate this car so much?

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Steve said 2 days later

Eh, take the comments for what they are - a bunch of people who've never even driven this car, drive crap box Toyotas that go really fast but don't stop, and eat tofu turkey burgers for lunch every day.

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GJ said 2 days later

Please show me a Toyota that goes fast. :) Think you're confusing them with Honda in that department.

They *used* to make a few fast cars. Not so much today.

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Steve said 3 days later

Lexus LF-A is pretty fast, but pretty ugly too. The Toyota Solaras I saw today were going 300 mph at the end of the quarter mile (sorry, 1000 feet, not 1/4 mile anymore), but there isn't much Toyota in them other than a sticker on the front of the funny car. I tell you what, I don't think I've ever heard anything louder than a Funny car. Two of them ripping down the track shake the ground like you wouldn't believe. Tomorrow I'll see if the Top Fuel cars are any louder. The Top fuel cars are typically a little faster, but they run the same motors in each.

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Steve said 3 days later

Scroll to the bottom of the page for photos of the Dodge Avenger we saw roll over.....at 200 mph.

http://www.nhra.com/story/2010/2/20/2010-phoenix-saturday/

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GJ said 3 days later

Yea, the lfa is fast, but it's no twin-turbo supra. :)

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Steve said 3 days later

Uh, it will blow away a twin turbo supra, but will cost 10x as much brand new to do so.

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GJ said 3 days later

Sorry, Steve, for some reason I was thinking of the Lexus IS-F, not the LF-A (which I wasn't aware of previously). The mid-90s modded supras would smack the IS-F around, but yeah, the LF-A is a supercar and likely eat a Supra for lunch.

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Steve said 4 days later

No worry. The LF-A is an overpriced, ugly supercar that hopefully you'll never have the displeasure of seeing. Leave it to Toyota to build a supercar that nobody wants.

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GJ said 4 days later

Out in Albany, I see maybe two Ferrari vehicles a year. Other than them and the low-rent Porsches, you don't see much in the way of a fun car.

That said, I found myself toe to toe with a Mercedes AMG something or other last night. Very aggressive factory-spec tires on that thing, I'm guessing based on the rubber that it was a 400+ hp vehicle. He wasn't into jumping off at the light to win the merge race, so I didn't get to see how bad he'd dust me.

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Geoff said 4 days later

He'd blow you away (and me too). I believe the coup is like 475hp. Definitely over 400 horses that's for sure. Manuf. spec rated the 0-60 in the low 4's. AMG's are the performance models and they are fast. I sat in one at a dealership when Jim was looking around for a new car. The models all range going up to 500+ I believe.

Though for a quarter of the price, you can pick up that G8 I showed you and blow them away...and probably get better gas mileage to boot :)

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GJ said 4 days later

Yeah, I'm sure he would have. But there are many versions of it and they don't all sport 475 horsies. I didn't catch the details, as it was night time and I didn't get much chance to look at it as I pulled up next to it.

But as much as I'd buy that G8, my car is still zooming right along for the moment so I'm staying put. You can pretty much bet that he'll sell car that a day before the tranny drops out of mine.

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Geoff said 4 days later

haha probably. I checked the AMG website. The slowest model (sedan) comes at 451. The coup's start at 515hp and work their way up :)

Coup is modestly priced at $140G. The sedan started in the upper 50's.

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GJ said 5 days later

yeah, the are way overpriced. :) in any case, I dusted him with my water bottle rocket (I'm sure he was greatly amused, but didn't give chase).

Steve said about 2 hours later

Wow. Just, wow.

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Steve said about 6 hours later

I'm always amazed at the true goodness in people's hearts. The news needs to find more of these stories. I think that as people see more stories like this, they will be inclined to help more.

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Geoff said 2 days later

I agree. I thought it was a very inspiring piece for an unfortunate situation.

Marc said about 4 hours later

Saw this the other day, pretty awesome!

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Geoff said 4 days later

Very well done. Lot of work and the result is superb. Good find.

Geoff said about 8 hours later

Holy smokes. You guys could beat us for snow this year! It's been pretty tame here. I did play some pond hockey yesterday and had to help shovel a pond in between "periods". What a workout that was (both shoveling and playing!)

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Abby said about 12 hours later

....can I have a few snow days? :'( BH-BL has only had about two snow days this year, and I can only remember one delay. That's a LOT less than we usually have. :0

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Marc said about 14 hours later

We saw a bunch (20" or more) last weekend, but nothing since. Ours was constantly turning our roads into ice rinks every morning for the rest of the week because sand does nothing but make the roads dirty for 6 months.

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GJ said about 20 hours later

We are going on two feet under average at this point. I've been able to see the grass for most of the winter, and worse, it's greener than it is in the summer.

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GJ said 2 days later

But will you survive....snowmaggeon?

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Kristen said 2 days later

You mean, Snowmagedon? I hope so. I have 4 fresh inches on the driveway just waiting for me, which will probably double over night. We had Mon and Tues off, and they just announced tomorrow and Thursday...and one of my co-workers happened to drive by my school and realized that a plow had not touched the parking lot yet, so friday is probably out too.
Boy, I prayed for a snow day on my birthday and I got a two week vacation! Well, I have spent an average of 2-3 hours per day shoveling so it's not a complete vaca. But I ain't complaining.

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Marc said 2 days later

Maybe I'll stay home from work the rest of the week. I wouldn't want to be caught in a flash flood should the snow melt in DC. Just trying to be safe. :)

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GJ said 3 days later

Sorry, meant Snowmaggedon. Lost a D along the way.

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Geoff said 3 days later

snow...what is this snow you are talking about?