Klingonmike

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Posts posted by Klingonmike


  1. I pretty well never watch TV with reality TV and variety shows being two of the main reasons why, with the exception of Ent. and the news, the latter of which I don't really consider TV since I could get the same effect by checking the Net or reading the newspaper.  There are so many more interesting and/or practical things I can do with own time.

     

    I'm working on a theory that as the amount of TV someone watches increases, their IQ decreases proportionately.

    I resemble that statement! ;)


  2. I found this interesting, hope you do to:

     

     

    By Robert Roy Britt

    Senior science writer

     

    Updated: 4:35 p.m. ET Feb. 20, 2004Recent Hubble Space Telescope images of distant exploding stars add further confirmation to the permanence of a mysterious, repulsive force called dark energy that appears to dominate the universe.

     

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    While scientists are not ready to close the case, they said today that dark energy, which is thought to permeate the cosmos and work in opposition to gravity, does appear to be a constant presence as predicted.

     

    The results bolster a theory that the universe won't end soon. But they leave researchers no more informed about the actual nature of dark energy.

     

    "We still have almost no clue what it is," said study leader Adam Riess of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore.

     

    Dark energy was conjured to explain a phenomenal discovery in 1998: Nearly all galaxies in the universe are receding from each other at an ever-faster pace.

     

    Gravity is losing some unknown battle, cosmologists admit. They theorize that about 70 percent of the universe is made up of dark energy, while most of the rest is another mysterious thing called dark matter and only a small fraction is real matter like stars, planets and living entities.

     

    Albert Einstein was the first to consider something similar, which he called a cosmological constant. He said even the emptiest space would have some of this strange stuff in it.

     

    But when Edwin Hubble discovered the expansion of the universe in the 1920s, Einstein called his cosmological constant his greatest blunder.

     

    Einstein is back

    With the more recent finding that the expansion is accelerating, Einstein's idea was revived.

     

    The new findings support Einstein's cosmological constant, which modern cosmologists say implies that dark energy should not characteristically change over time. If that's right, the universe will continue to expand at an accelerating forever.

     

    The new results suggest that even if Einstein and modern dark energy theory are both wrong, dark energy will not destroy the universe for at least 30 billion years, Riess and his colleagues say.

     

    "Right now we're about twice as confident than before that Einstein's cosmological constant is real, or at least dark energy does not appear to be changing fast enough, if at all, to cause an end to the universe anytime soon," Riess said.

     

    The universe is presently 13.7 billion years old.

     

    Riess' team uses Hubble to find stars that exploded when the universe was about half its present age. A certain type of these supernovas, as they are called, shine with a known brightness. So examining the light that reaches Hubble tells astronomers how far away each one is and the rate at which the universe was expanding when that star exploded.

     

    That rate of expansion has changed over time, other studies have shown. The initial expansion, after a theoretical Big Bang, was the most rapid and was called inflation. Then things leveled off before another round of acceleration, which is apparently underway now.

     

    Riess' team has now observed 42 of the very distant supernovas -- including 16 in the new work -- in its Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey (GOODS) program.

     

    The data was first presented last fall but has only now been fully analyzed. The results were discussed in a teleconference with reporters Friday and will be published in the Astrophysical Journal.

     

    What's going on

    There are two main ideas for the source of dark energy. It might percolate from empty space, as Einstein theorized, and is unchanging and of a fixed strength. The other holds that dark energy is associated with a changing energy field called "quintessence," something akin to a magnetic field. In that scenario, the field causes the current acceleration of the universe.

     

    Another research team recently theorized that if the repulsion from dark energy gets stronger than Einstein's prediction, the universe could expand so incredibly that it would end in a Big Rip. All matter — galaxies, then stars, then planets, and everything right down to the atomic level — would be torn apart.

     

    If dark energy can change, it might also one day reverse course and pull the universe back together in a Big Crunch. "This looks like the least likely scenario at present," Riess said.

     

    There are two initial questions scientists are trying to answer: What is the strength of dark energy today, and does it grow or decay with time?

     

    The new data show that if the repulsive force is changing, "it is not changing very rapidly," Riess said.

     

    There is a lot of work ahead.

     

    "Determining these two properties still leaves us very, very far from understanding what dark energy is," said Mario Livio, a theorist who heads the science division at the STScI. But until these first two parameters are determined, a fundamental understanding of the cosmos will remain elusive. It remains possible, for example, that our understanding of gravity "is completely lacking," Livio said.

     

    There are other methods for probing dark energy, but none are as developed as the supernova observations. So in the near term, progress toward understanding dark energy will rely heavily on more observations of exploded stars that are even farther away and deeper in time.

     

    Astronomers worry, however, that if Hubble stops working by around 2007, which would be the case under NASA's current plan, they would lose their primary tool in the hunt for distant supernovas.

     

    And with NASA's new human spaceflight plans, other useful projects are in jeopardy. Many missions under NASA's Beyond Einstein initiative, including proposed missions to study dark energy, have taken a budgetary back seat to programs that will help get humans back on the Moon and on to Mars.

     

    Whatever methods are applied, Anne Kinney, director of NASA's Astronomy and Physics Division, cautioned that final answers on the nature of dark energy will not likely come for a very long time. Science can sometimes be much like art, she said: "You approach, you don't arrive."

     

    © 2004 Space.com.


  3. Of course they are decieving, they are suppose to be.

    I don't like being decieved. ;)

    Then you feel the same way about Stargates deceiving promos?

    The SG-1 promos I see in syndication aren't deceptive, they promo the plot without giving squat away. ;)

    I guess you did not see Stargates promo's from this week, it was very decieving and made me want to see it even more!


  4. Part of being entertained for me, is to be able to believe in the premise of whatever is being shown. For me, if a premise is unbelievable then it's a waste of time watching. Part of believing in the premise which is to become a show which is part of a near 40 year old franchise, I have to believe that the show really is part of the same universe that the other shows are set in. this means that continuity is paramount (no pun ;) ) in this case.

     

    Even in a fictitious work, there are rules and for a spin-off the primary rule is inter-series continuity. I believe Enterprise has simply either broken too many of them, or simply ignored following them in the first place. This simple decision by B&B undermine the believability of the premise, no matter what is done with it.

    What has Enterprise done that is off continuity? Give some examples please.

    I personally have seen very little continuity issues.


  5. Emen, Mike, and thank you.

     

     

     

     

    Ya know, if you had joined the Navy, you probably wouldn't have had to load shells (I think the Autoloaders were already standard equipment by 1975). and you could have driven something alot bigger than a tank. but, Nonetheless, the Army is just as good a place as any to serve. and you posted in another forum that the french are rude to Americans, explain to them that if it wasn't for you and your buddies, they'd be speaking Russian.

    So true! We've had to save the french twice now. Next time their country is overrun I say leave them to their own problems. Maybe they might learn to appreciate what we have done for them then


  6. 1. Why did you join the Military?There are a couple of reasons,one was I had grown up in the mountains of Virginia and I wanted to see more but my family didn't have alot of money for traveling, two I had dropped out of high school and was washing dishes at a resturaunt when it hit me ' I don't want to do this the rest of my life' I need to get more education and joining the military I could get a GED and money for collage (My family could not afford to send me to collage) and the third reason came when I chatted with a recuiter who told me that I could sign up and go anywhere in the world I wanted and could do any job I choose. This was early 1975, America was pulling out completely form Vietnam and the Army was desperate to get soldiers.

    I told them I wanted to drive a tank and I wanted to live in Germany. So I signed up and less than a year later I was in Germany and a crewman on a tank (They don't let you drive the tank at first, you start out as a loader which involves loading the shells into the cannon,eventually I became the driver once I was promoted to Spec.4

     

     

    2. Was it what you expected? Yes it was, Boot Camp was hell (Fort Jackson, S.C.)Which I expected. A.I.T. was great (Advanced Individual Training) and my permenant duty station in Germany was awesome.

     

    3. Did you make it a career? if yes, why? No I did not make a career, although sometimes I wish I had, but I did my time and got what I need towards my education.

     

     

     

    4. What is the most rewarding thing to you about your service? Being able to serve my country and protect the freedoms we still enjoy today, and being able to travel around Europe which I never would have been able to do if I stayed in the Mountains back home. Also getting the education I needed so that I never had to wash dishes in a resturant again.

     

    Well thats about it for me. I'm proud to be a veteren, I'm proud of the men and women that serve this country today and I support them 100% in whatever misson they are involved in. I may seem very liberal to some of you but its because of the military protecting my freedoms that I can be who I am today. I'm very proud also of my fellow veterens on this board, we may not see eye to eye on some issues but I would still lay my life on the line for anyone of them if it was needed as I know they would do the same for me.


  7. Of course they are decieving, they are suppose to be.They show little snippets that are out of context and when youn think you know what its about you watch the show and its nothing like you thought. It makes me want to watch the show more.

    Its like the recent promo for Stargate where they show Samantha Carter presiding at a memorial service right after they show Col. O'Neill getting shot in the chest by a staff weapon. This whole week I thought " Man did they kill Jack?"

    The promos make me want to watch more to see whats really going on.


  8. I think continuity is important especially in Star Trek. There has been a whole history created about the Star Trek universe and to disregard that history is just not right.

    Now I hear people complan that Enterprise has messed up the continuity of Star Trek but I personally have yet to see it. Enterprise has done a fine job in keeping the continuity intact.


  9. I always wondered why the Trills on TNG looked so different than the Trills on DS9, the ones on TNG had no spots and high eyebrows, unlike Jadzia and Ezri who look mostly human except for the spots.

    The Klingon change I can understand, but not the look of the Trills.