choice wikipedia stuffs

Photo

Sun, 31 Jan 2010 17:45:03 -0500

The Appalachian National Scenic Trail, generally known as the...

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 18:23:43 -0500

The Appalachian National Scenic Trail, generally known as the Appalachian Trail or simply The A.T., is a marked hiking trail in the eastern United States, extending between Springer Mountain in Georgia and Mount Katahdin in Maine. It is approximately 2,178 miles long. The path is maintained by thirty trail clubs and multiple partnerships. The majority of the trail is in wilderness, although some portions do traverse towns and roads, and cross rivers.

This is a handbill circulated on November 21, 1963, in Dallas...

Tue, 19 Jan 2010 22:32:28 -0500

This is a handbill circulated on November 21, 1963, in Dallas one day before the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Early reconstruction of Stegosaurus with plates lying flat along...

Tue, 19 Jan 2010 22:14:42 -0500

Early reconstruction of Stegosaurus with plates lying flat along the back and tail spikes evenly distributed all over the body.

The Chicxulub Crater at the tip of the Yucatán Peninsula; the...

Tue, 19 Jan 2010 22:10:08 -0500

The Chicxulub Crater at the tip of the Yucatán Peninsula; the impactor that formed this crater may have caused the dinosaur extinction.

Operation Cornflakes was a World War II Office of Strategic...

Tue, 19 Jan 2010 22:02:34 -0500

Operation Cornflakes was a World War II Office of Strategic Services PSYOP mission in 1944 and 1945 which involved tricking the German postal service Deutsche Reichspost into inadvertently delivering anti-Nazi propaganda to German citizens through mail.

IT IS TIME FOR LISTS

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 14:31:33 -0500

List of Crayola Crayon Colors

List of Countries That Can Be Considered the Greatest

List of Endangered Languages

List of American Gladiator Events

List of Countries by Norternmost Point

List of Places Named After Stalin

List of Hydropower Stations in Africa

List of Premature Obituaries

List of Countries that Drive on the Left or Right

List of Jewish Anarchists

List of Mammals of Saskatchewan

List of PlayStation 1 Games

List of Countries Whose Capital is Not Their Largest City

List of United States Tornadoes in April 2009

List of Messiah Claimants

List of Books Relating to The Simpsons

List of Countries with McDonald’s Franchises

List of Statues of New Zealand (1800-1979)

List of Extinct Animals of Britain

List of People Who Have Disappeared Mysteriously

List of Professional Cyclists Who Died During A Race

List of People Known as “The Great”

List of People With the Word “The” in their Name

List of Magicians

List of Countries by Carbon Dioxide Emissions

List of LGBT Characters in Film, Radio, and TV Fiction

List of Governments in Exile

List of Defunct Social Networking Sites

Lists of Star Trek Planets

List of Linyphiidae Species (Q-Z)

List of Former Bulgarian Military Aircraft

List of CSI: Miami Characters

List of Flags of the Republic of Ireland

List of News Websites in Sudan

List of Mountains on Venus

List of City Nicknames in the United States

List of Chemical Elements Named After People

List of Foods Named After People

List of Countries by Apple Production

List of Strippers

AND NOW

THE MOTHER

OF ALL LISTS

List of Lists

Galileo plasma wave observations at Jupiter’s moon,...

Sun, 10 Jan 2010 15:23:50 -0500

Galileo plasma wave observations at Jupiter’s moon, Ganymede, June 27th 1996, using electrical dipole antenna. Approx 45 minutes compressed to 60 seconds. Colour indicates wave intensity (red- strong wave, blue- weak wave), Time indicated to the right, frequency vertically. Pitch reduced by a factor of 9 from the measured frequency. Entrance into Ganymede’s Magnetosphere marked by a strong burst of noise 6-10 seconds into the recording. This discovery marked Ganymede as not only the largest moon in our solar system, but also the only one known with its own internally-generated magnetic field.

American Bison skull heap

Thu, 07 Jan 2010 10:20:37 -0500

American Bison skull heap

The Narcissism of small differences is a term coined by Sigmund...

Tue, 05 Jan 2010 21:56:00 -0500

The Narcissism of small differences is a term coined by Sigmund Freud in 1917, based on the earlier work of British anthropologist Ernest Crawley. The term describes the manner in which our negative feelings are sometimes directed at people who resemble us, while we take pride from the “small differences” that distinguish us from them

Merry Christmas everybody

Sun, 20 Dec 2009 21:52:32 -0500

Merry Christmas everybody

The Homing Overlay Experiment (HOE) was the first system tested...

Sat, 19 Dec 2009 18:02:32 -0500

The Homing Overlay Experiment (HOE) was the first system tested by the Army that employed hit-to-kill. Given concerns about the previous programs using nuclear tipped interceptors, in the 1980s the U.S. Army began studies about the feasibility of hit-to-kill vehicles, where an interceptor missile would destroy an incoming ballistic missile just by colliding with it head-on.

An artist’s concept of the interception and destruction of...

Sat, 19 Dec 2009 17:59:00 -0500

An artist’s concept of the interception and destruction of nuclear-armed re-entry vehicles by a space-based electromagnetic railgun.

The Outer Space Treaty represents the basic legal framework of...

Sat, 19 Dec 2009 17:54:23 -0500

The Outer Space Treaty represents the basic legal framework of international space law. Among its principles, it bars States Parties to the Treaty from placing nuclear weapons or any other weapons of mass destruction in orbit of Earth, installing them on the Moon or any other celestial body, or to otherwise station them in outer space. It exclusively limits the use of the Moon and other celestial bodies to peaceful purposes and expressly prohibits their use for testing weapons of any kind, conducting military maneuvers, or establishing military bases, installations, and fortifications (Art.IV). However, the Treaty does not prohibit the placement of conventional weapons in orbit.

The treaty explicitly forbids any government from claiming a celestial resource such as the Moon or a planet, since they are the Common heritage of mankind. Art. II of the Treaty states that “outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means”. However, the State that launches a space object retains jurisdiction and control over that object. According to Manfred Lachs, jurisdiction and control is the means for a State to conduct a mission of space exploration.

Countries in green have signed and ratified the treaty; countries in yellow have only signed

1986 Defense Intelligence Agency artwork showing their best...

Sat, 19 Dec 2009 17:43:33 -0500

1986 Defense Intelligence Agency artwork showing their best guess at the layout of the Soviet IS anti-satellite weapon.

HAPPY GALACTIC WARFARE AWARENESS DAY

Sat, 19 Dec 2009 17:33:00 -0500

HAPPY GALACTIC WARFARE AWARENESS DAY

self-portrait by Goya

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 16:04:48 -0500

self-portrait by Goya

New Hubble images! “Just in time for the holidays: a...

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 21:07:33 -0500

New Hubble images!

“Just in time for the holidays: a Hubble Space Telescope picture postcard of hundreds of brilliant blue stars wreathed by warm, glowing clouds. The festive portrait is the most detailed view of the largest stellar nursery in our local galactic neighborhood.

The massive, young stellar grouping, called R136, is only a few million years old and resides in the 30 Doradus Nebula, a turbulent star-birth region in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way. There is no known star-forming region in our galaxy as large or as prolific as 30 Doradus.

Many of the diamond-like icy blue stars are among the most massive stars known. Several of them are over 100 times more massive than our Sun. These hefty stars are destined to pop off, like a string of firecrackers, as supernovas in a few million years.

The image, taken in ultraviolet, visible, and red light by Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3, spans about 100 light-years. The nebula is close enough to Earth that Hubble can resolve individual stars, giving astronomers important information about the stars’ birth and evolution.

The brilliant stars are carving deep cavities in the surrounding material by unleashing a torrent of ultraviolet light, and hurricane-force stellar winds (streams of charged particles), which are etching away the enveloping hydrogen gas cloud in which the stars were born. The image reveals a fantasy landscape of pillars, ridges, and valleys, as well as a dark region in the center that roughly looks like the outline of a holiday tree. Besides sculpting the gaseous terrain, the brilliant stars can also help create a successive generation of offspring. When the winds hit dense walls of gas, they create shocks, which may be generating a new wave of star birth.

The movement of the LMC around the Milky Way may have triggered the massive cluster’s formation in several ways. The gravitational tug of the Milky Way and the companion Small Magellanic Cloud may have compressed gas in the LMC. Also, the pressure resulting from the LMC plowing through the Milky Way’s halo may have compressed gas in the satellite. The cluster is a rare, nearby example of the many super star clusters that formed in the distant, early universe, when star birth and galaxy interactions were more frequent. Previous Hubble observations have shown astronomers that super star clusters in faraway galaxies are ubiquitous.

The LMC is located 170,000 light-years away and is a member of the Local Group of Galaxies, which also includes the Milky Way.

The Hubble observations were taken Oct. 20-27, 2009. The blue color is light from the hottest, most massive stars; the green from the glow of oxygen; and the red from fluorescing hydrogen.”

Photo

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 20:48:44 -0500

More of the Stanford torus Sunlight is provided to the interior...

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 20:45:36 -0500

More of the Stanford torus

Sunlight is provided to the interior of the torus by a system of mirrors. The ring is connected to a hub via a number of “spokes”, which serve as conduits for people and materials travelling to and from the hub. Since the hub is at the rotational axis of the station, it experiences the least artificial gravity and is the easiest location for spacecraft to dock. Zero-gravity industry is performed in a non-rotating module attached to the hub’s axis.