Posts Made By: George Blahun

Dave Snope said:

Here is one way to feel "connected".

Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson was asked during an interview for Time magazine what he though was the most astounding fact he could share about the universe.

http://youtu.be/9D05ej8u-gU

Dave, we often disagree on many diverse topics, but not this time. Thanks for posting this.

George

Gerry, I don't think you can rule out Zerodur, which has been around since the late 60s. I've never seen Pyrex with that tint. In any case it should make a nice mirror.

George

Rod Kaufman said:

http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/29/world/meast/saudi-arabia-women-driving-cleric/index.html?hpt=hp_t2
He must be basing this on the latest research...

I think he left out the part about it only being true if women are in a head on collision at high speed.

George

David, I've used many different binoculars over the years, up to 100mm diameter. I can't imagine using the difficult viewing angles an equatorial mount would present. By far my favorite binocular mount is a parallelogram style.

George

Since this is a small portion of the Q and A, my guess is it's hyperbole to make a point. If the subject is algebra with multiple steps and all the correct procedure is there but a calculation is wrong, why should zero credit be given? Of course the correct answer is important, but so is the procedure. Obviously, if the question is simply 3+4=?, there is only one correct answer and no work is shown because it's based on memory. I don't believe that is what the woman was saying. There are certainly a lot of problems with education, but this isn't one of them.

George

I object to any surveillance without a signed warrant. The process for obtaining one is now very lenient and can be obtained "after the fact", OK I can live with that. But all governments throughout history have demonstrated that the powers they have will eventually be abused. No, I don't want it easy for terrorists to hurt us, but this country is no longer the land of the free. It's still the best country on earth, but I belong to and contribute to organizations that fight these abuses. If we don't insist on the rights we have, we'll loose them. If anyone objects to the NSA techniques they should contribute to organizations which seek to curb the abuses.

George

I think prohibitions in general and especially for naturally occurring plants and substances are destined to fail. People have the right to put in their bodies whatever substance they choose. They don't, however, have the right to drive or fly or in any way endanger others around them. We have laws to prohibit these excesses and they should continue to be enforced. Here in CT, if you are pulled over for erratic driving, it doesn't matter whether you are drunk, stoned or texting, you'll get a fine and may loose your right to drive. You don't have to go to the trouble of buying a bag of pot to get stoned. Anyone dead set on getting high can huff gasoline or paint, pick up mushrooms from a pile of cow shit, or go to the spice rack in the kitchen and extract safrole, piperanol etc. from a host legal plants. A growing problem is now synthetic marijuana(s), which are more dangerous and easier to obtain. Drug use, whether legal or not, is primarily a medical and educational issue. Law enforcement has failed and will never be effective. I don't think anyone should be in jail for simply using drugs. I'd rather see money spent for treatment programs which are less expensive than incarceration for non violent offenders. Pot is no more dangerous than alcohol or tobacco. Legalize it and start allowing farmers to grow hemp again. There will never be a perfect solution to abuse, but prohibition has been a dismal failure and unfairly targets minorities. The rate of use for pot is pretty even amongst the races, but convictions are heavily concentrated on minority populations.
If the driver in front of me is weaving back and forth, I don't care what the reason is, I'm calling the the police. But whatever a person consumes in their own home is none of the government's business.

George

Louis, I realize both you and Ms. Prodan are sincere. However, I find her assessment of Socialism and Capitalism to be naive and simplistic. Ms. Prodan is not lamenting the defects of socialism, she is speaking of Totalitarian Communism.
Personally, I don't buy into the God/deity myth, but I'm completely OK (as a liberal) with letting others pray away the gay, bow to Mecca, take communion etc. all they want. If you or she thinks this country back in the 50s was somehow open to freedom of speech, you weren't paying attention. They were still hanging innocent blacks in the south, schools would throw male students out for having hair over their collars, Lenny Bruce went to jail for performing what the government called obscene material in night clubs, and the list goes on (and it's along list). Maybe she'd like this country to return to a day when coal miners had to be paid in miner dollars or when Ayn Rand made the greedy rich think they should somehow have a free shot at exploiting others, but that revisionist history is not going to happen as long as their are enough of us around who actually remember that unbridled racist capitalism had millions of victims.
Tell the people whose water is poisoned by greedy corporations or the victims of asbestosis they shouldn't care about restrictions on what big companies do in the name of capitalism. We stole this country from Native Americans and now give them a few casinos to call it even. We forced slaves to build our budding economy and now wonder why those pesky blacks can't seem to let bygones be bygones. Maybe Ms. Prodan has an excuse because she wasn't born here and didn't live through some of the downside of capitalism, but you have no excuse. Before FDR, if you weren't wealthy you lived a few years past retirement and either died from lack of care or existed in poverty with no one to help you but yourself.
If you buy into Ms Prodans word, fine, but to me it's mostly uniformed bullshit.

George

Dave:
The Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, receives gobs of money from the Oil and Gas Companies as well as conservative think tanks. Their declared income went from about 25K in 2005 to hundreds of thousands currently. The head of the organization receives a monthly stipend from Heartland. The accusation by those supporting AGW is "The Center for..." are the ones who cherry picked the data and manipulated stats to be consistent with their preconceived views of the medieval "warm period". They are certainly not an objective group when money from the Kochs is funneled into their bank account.

George

Mark:
You bring up an interesting scenario, one which I have been dealing with as well. I have enjoyed my TEC140 for a few years and am currently looking to go a bit larger with a TEC160. But neither of those scopes shows the brightness of a larger optic. I am currently polishing a quartz mirror of 12.5 inches at f/3.6 for inclusion in a Dob. When I look at the line up of scopes at our club observing nights, I don't see any really dramatic increase in light grasp over the 5 inch refractors until I look through the C11s or 10 to 12 inch reflectors. The CATs are not usually set up in 15 or 20 minutes, but the 10 to 14 inch Dobs are ready to go in 10 to 15, except for cool down. Without tracking, the SCT, Mak, etc. will require constant moving to keep your target centered. I'd go with a 10 to 14 inch reflector on a Dob mount.

George