Thursday, August 23, 2007
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
The Death of a Legend...
I spoke to the owner today and Thomas said that he hopes that the site is only down temporally, i have known him for many years of being on the KLF Mailing list. His site was legendary in the KLF community and it will be missed while it is down.
From His Site:
THIS IS A KLF ONLINE COMMUNICATION...
Whenever questioned about THE MANUAL, Bill Drummond replied that its essence was that, whenever you want to start something, you should not wait for someone to come along and tell you to do it. Just do it. I think this also applies to putting things to a rest.
From the days when I joined Daniel, Jens and Torsten to work on KLF ONLINE, our website has grown larger with every year, having seen various changes, added features and layouts. I say "our website" cause although I was not part of the initial list of members, after putting about five years of work into it, I adopted it as my child just like everyone of us.
The ever-growing list of added features, however, is one of the reasons I am writing these lines now. Both the code and the interal database structures have gone through so many incarnations that large parts of it are still patchworked into the (not anymore) current website, while other parts seem to never see the finish line.
Another reason is that content management currently is a pain. Most things happen directly in the database, making it impossible for others to add, update or delete parts when needed. I had added some things to change this, but they only add up to the clutter which the source code had become lately.
That is why, in my opinion, the whole website needs a fresh start. Tear it down and start rebuilding it from the grounds up. So much for the technical side of things.
On a more personal note - well, life moves on. There are many other things on my to-do list which just do not seem to happen due to the fact that, even after great time management, a day still has only 24 hours. And while being able to contribute to one of the few remaining KLF websites was a priviledge at first, it slowly has become a duty which seems to consume more and more time. Time which I would rather invest in different things nowadays.
There are some website projects waiting inside my mind to get out for... well, years. Things I know I would absolutely love to create and of which I hope will be interesting for others as well. But in order to get these things started, KLF ONLINE has to move down on my priority list.
This is no complete departure from this page, though. It just means that, as I wrote before, things have to be started from scratch again, not repeating the mistakes that have been made. A new version of KLF ONLINE will eventually grow and prosper again. Hey, someone has to do it, right? ;-)
This is not the end. There WILL BE further communications.
Cheers, Thomas
(c) 1999-2007 KLF ONLINE
What is your opinion?
From His Site:
THIS IS A KLF ONLINE COMMUNICATION...
Whenever questioned about THE MANUAL, Bill Drummond replied that its essence was that, whenever you want to start something, you should not wait for someone to come along and tell you to do it. Just do it. I think this also applies to putting things to a rest.
From the days when I joined Daniel, Jens and Torsten to work on KLF ONLINE, our website has grown larger with every year, having seen various changes, added features and layouts. I say "our website" cause although I was not part of the initial list of members, after putting about five years of work into it, I adopted it as my child just like everyone of us.
The ever-growing list of added features, however, is one of the reasons I am writing these lines now. Both the code and the interal database structures have gone through so many incarnations that large parts of it are still patchworked into the (not anymore) current website, while other parts seem to never see the finish line.
Another reason is that content management currently is a pain. Most things happen directly in the database, making it impossible for others to add, update or delete parts when needed. I had added some things to change this, but they only add up to the clutter which the source code had become lately.
That is why, in my opinion, the whole website needs a fresh start. Tear it down and start rebuilding it from the grounds up. So much for the technical side of things.
On a more personal note - well, life moves on. There are many other things on my to-do list which just do not seem to happen due to the fact that, even after great time management, a day still has only 24 hours. And while being able to contribute to one of the few remaining KLF websites was a priviledge at first, it slowly has become a duty which seems to consume more and more time. Time which I would rather invest in different things nowadays.
There are some website projects waiting inside my mind to get out for... well, years. Things I know I would absolutely love to create and of which I hope will be interesting for others as well. But in order to get these things started, KLF ONLINE has to move down on my priority list.
This is no complete departure from this page, though. It just means that, as I wrote before, things have to be started from scratch again, not repeating the mistakes that have been made. A new version of KLF ONLINE will eventually grow and prosper again. Hey, someone has to do it, right? ;-)
This is not the end. There WILL BE further communications.
Cheers, Thomas
(c) 1999-2007 KLF ONLINE
What is your opinion?
More roses are blooming...
I cut all my roses back several weeks ago and now, after the rain, they have started to bloom again!
What is going on?
It has been a crazy few days and i am very tired. I wanted to get up at 12.30pm today but i just could not. Tomorrow i am taking my daughter and her friend back to Busch Gardens for a marathon roller coaster ridding cession!! IT should be fun!
What is your opinion?
What is your opinion?
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Hurricane Dean Pictures...
Texas-Sized Powerful Hurricane Dean Hits Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula
Dean came ashore as a Category 5 hurricane, packing maximum sustained winds of 165 mph.
This image of Hurricane Dean was created with data from Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES-12), which is operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The image was created on August 21 at 9:10 a.m. EDT (13:10 UTC) by NASA's GOES Project, located at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
S118-E-07918 (18 Aug. 2007) --- A still photo close-up of the eye of Category 4 Hurricane Dean. Crewmembers on the Space Shuttle Endeavour captured this image around Noon CDT of Hurricane Dean in the Caribbean. At the time the shuttle and International Space Station passed overhead, the Category 4 storm was moving westerly at 17 mph nearing Jamaica carrying sustained winds of 150 mph.
S118-E-07920 (18 Aug. 2007) --- Crewmembers on the Space Shuttle Endeavour captured this image around Noon CDT of Hurricane Dean in the Caribbean. At the time the shuttle and International Space Station passed overhead, the Category 4 storm was moving westerly at 17 mph nearing Jamaica carrying sustained winds of 150 mph.
What is your opinion?
Dean came ashore as a Category 5 hurricane, packing maximum sustained winds of 165 mph.
This image of Hurricane Dean was created with data from Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES-12), which is operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The image was created on August 21 at 9:10 a.m. EDT (13:10 UTC) by NASA's GOES Project, located at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
S118-E-07918 (18 Aug. 2007) --- A still photo close-up of the eye of Category 4 Hurricane Dean. Crewmembers on the Space Shuttle Endeavour captured this image around Noon CDT of Hurricane Dean in the Caribbean. At the time the shuttle and International Space Station passed overhead, the Category 4 storm was moving westerly at 17 mph nearing Jamaica carrying sustained winds of 150 mph.
S118-E-07920 (18 Aug. 2007) --- Crewmembers on the Space Shuttle Endeavour captured this image around Noon CDT of Hurricane Dean in the Caribbean. At the time the shuttle and International Space Station passed overhead, the Category 4 storm was moving westerly at 17 mph nearing Jamaica carrying sustained winds of 150 mph.
What is your opinion?
Bit Torrent and Comcast
According to the latest reports, Comcast is hindering Bit Torrent traffic and doing packet shaping. Their method of "throttling" torrent traffic is sending RST packets.
These are the ports that will be affected: (Brian's BitTorrent FAQ and Guide)
Prior to version 3.2, BitTorrent by default uses ports in the range of 6881-6889. As of 3.2 and later, the range has been extended to 6881-6999. (These are all TCP ports, BitTorrent does not use UDP.)
Intrusion detection
"A standard transmission control protocol (TCP) connection is established by sending a SYN packet to the destination computer. If the destination is waiting for a connection on the specified port, it responds with a SYN/ACK packet. The initial sender replies with an ACK packet, and the connection is established. If the destination computer is not waiting for a connection on the specified port, it responds with an RST packet.
Most system logs do not log completed connections until the final ACK packet is received from the source. Sending an RST(Reset) packet instead of the final ACK results in the connection never actually being established."
INFO: Winsock TCP Connection Performance to Unused Ports
"Upon receiving the ACK/RST client from the target host, the client determines that there is indeed no service listening there. In the Microsoft Winsock implementation of TCP, a pending connection will keep attempting to issue SYN packets until a maximum retry value is reached (set in the registry, this value defaults to 3 extra times).
Since an ACK/RST was received from the target host, the TCP layer knows that the target host is indeed reachable and will not double the time-out value in the packet's IP header, as is standard during connection attempts with unacknowledged SYNs. Instead, the pending connection will wait for the base connection's time-out value and reissue another SYN packet to initiate a connection. As long as an ACK/RST packet from an unused port is received, the time-out value will not increase and the process will repeat until the maximum retry value is reached."
So perhaps a way around this is to not use the normal ports that are associated with regular Bit Torrent Protocols as I am sure that they are being monitored. If this is done to all ports then people will start to complain about their service being disrupted on a wide range scale.
What is your opinion?
These are the ports that will be affected: (Brian's BitTorrent FAQ and Guide)
Prior to version 3.2, BitTorrent by default uses ports in the range of 6881-6889. As of 3.2 and later, the range has been extended to 6881-6999. (These are all TCP ports, BitTorrent does not use UDP.)
Intrusion detection
"A standard transmission control protocol (TCP) connection is established by sending a SYN packet to the destination computer. If the destination is waiting for a connection on the specified port, it responds with a SYN/ACK packet. The initial sender replies with an ACK packet, and the connection is established. If the destination computer is not waiting for a connection on the specified port, it responds with an RST packet.
Most system logs do not log completed connections until the final ACK packet is received from the source. Sending an RST(Reset) packet instead of the final ACK results in the connection never actually being established."
INFO: Winsock TCP Connection Performance to Unused Ports
"Upon receiving the ACK/RST client from the target host, the client determines that there is indeed no service listening there. In the Microsoft Winsock implementation of TCP, a pending connection will keep attempting to issue SYN packets until a maximum retry value is reached (set in the registry, this value defaults to 3 extra times).
Since an ACK/RST was received from the target host, the TCP layer knows that the target host is indeed reachable and will not double the time-out value in the packet's IP header, as is standard during connection attempts with unacknowledged SYNs. Instead, the pending connection will wait for the base connection's time-out value and reissue another SYN packet to initiate a connection. As long as an ACK/RST packet from an unused port is received, the time-out value will not increase and the process will repeat until the maximum retry value is reached."
So perhaps a way around this is to not use the normal ports that are associated with regular Bit Torrent Protocols as I am sure that they are being monitored. If this is done to all ports then people will start to complain about their service being disrupted on a wide range scale.
What is your opinion?
Monday, August 20, 2007
Michael Vick will plead guilty to federal dogfighting conspiracy charges.
What a thug... He had it all, the power, the money, and the endorsements from his football career and he will loose most of it if not all of it over what? A dog fighting ring. A mere $20,000 dollars for literally millions of dollars from his athletic ability. He could have been a force for good in these times with all that he did do for the community, but the thug came out and ruined everything. Perhaps in time, people will forget about the dogs and he will go back to professional sports and people will care more for what he can do instead of what he did…
This from the news today:
By Andy Jenks, NBC12 News
NFL star Michael Vick will plead guilty to federal dogfighting conspiracy charges. Word of the plea agreement came late Monday afternoon at the federal courthouse.Vick had almost nowhere to run. Three former co-defendants all pleaded guilty. Now Vick, the multimillion-dollar NFL superstar has been left with no choice but to admit to his role in illegal dogfighting.
Vick will plead guilty next week for participating in an illegal dogfighting conspiracy that began in 2001 at a home in Surry County. In a statement to the media, U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson confirmed the agreement but would not offer specifics.Published reports indicate that Vick will agree to a prison term of 18 to 36 months. The resurrection of his NFL career remains in question. The plea agreement means Vick knowingly and willfully funded and participated in Bad Newz Kennels and in the brutal killing of pit bulls that did not perform well in fights.
Word of Vick’s plea agreement comes following guilty pleas by three former co-defendants, all of whom implicated Vick in the illegal conspiracy.Calls to Vick’s attorneys and the U.S. Attorney’s office for comment were not immediately returned.The sentence that Vick will receive is not clear. That will be up to the judge later this year. The dogfighting charge he’ll plead guilty to carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
What is your opinion?
This from the news today:
By Andy Jenks, NBC12 News
NFL star Michael Vick will plead guilty to federal dogfighting conspiracy charges. Word of the plea agreement came late Monday afternoon at the federal courthouse.Vick had almost nowhere to run. Three former co-defendants all pleaded guilty. Now Vick, the multimillion-dollar NFL superstar has been left with no choice but to admit to his role in illegal dogfighting.
Vick will plead guilty next week for participating in an illegal dogfighting conspiracy that began in 2001 at a home in Surry County. In a statement to the media, U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson confirmed the agreement but would not offer specifics.Published reports indicate that Vick will agree to a prison term of 18 to 36 months. The resurrection of his NFL career remains in question. The plea agreement means Vick knowingly and willfully funded and participated in Bad Newz Kennels and in the brutal killing of pit bulls that did not perform well in fights.
Word of Vick’s plea agreement comes following guilty pleas by three former co-defendants, all of whom implicated Vick in the illegal conspiracy.Calls to Vick’s attorneys and the U.S. Attorney’s office for comment were not immediately returned.The sentence that Vick will receive is not clear. That will be up to the judge later this year. The dogfighting charge he’ll plead guilty to carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
What is your opinion?
Mack: On Reporting Hurricanes
Thanks to Mack Hall for letting me publish this. My family as well as Mack Went through Rita and the Southeast Texas area was hit incredible and all you ever still hear about it Katrina…
Secret National Press Guide for Reporting Hurricanes
1. Remember: hurricane reporting is always about Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans.
2. If you simply can't avoid mentioning the fact that a hurricane destroyed large parts of Mexico, Texas, western Louisiana, or Mississippi, skip over it lightly and get back to talking about existential angst in New Orleans.
3. Showing pictures of the dead in Jamaica is acceptable only if you make a New Orleans connection
4. Employ lots and lots of hyperbole and personification: "Mother Nature's Fateful Wrath of Hell-Storm Dean Bearing Down on Doomed Island Leaving a Swath of Destruction in His Wake" is good. Also remember that storms are always poising, bearing down, aiming, plowing, blasting, raking, tracking, thrashing, lashing, slashing, slamming, churning, and cutting swaths (whatever a swath is). Be sure to talk about people bearing brunts, which they never otherwise bear (and just what is a brunt, anyway, and why must it be borne?). Oh, yeah – say that every bit of litter looks like a war zone. War zone sounds cool, though no one who has ever been in a war says it.
5. Never, never, never publish a photograph of a lineman working to restore electricity, of a fireman rescuing folks from floods, or of a police officer patrolling in 100+ heat; instead, show a picture of some guy squatting in the gutter and playing a saxophone or harmonica. Use an artsy sepia filter for this.
6. Always imply that evil President Bush is responsible for any scene of sorrow. After all, we never had hurricanes until the bad man seized power through the machinations of his evil elves. And while blaming global warming for this mess we don't need to mention that President Clinton did not sign the Kyoto Protocols.
7. When interviewing His Honor Mayor Negin of New Orleans, never reveal that the interview is in the safety of his getaway home near Dallas.
8. FEMA trailers are all about the preservatives (found in all new wood products, all new furniture, and all new carpets, but we don't mention that, okay?). Never suggest that the residents might want to show a little gratitude for having a place to live and might want to clean up after themselves.
9. Never interview positive individuals who are repairing and cleaning and solving problems on their own. Find the professional victims; they have the time to indulge you, they're much better actors, and they enjoy posturing for the cameras.
10. Always find some whining twit with a baby but with no diapers, no baby food, and no formula to complain loudly that "(President) Bush shoulda been better prepared for this! This is ridiculous! This is ridiculous!" Never suggest that, with almost two weeks of warnings she might have made some effort herself.
11. Fill in dead air time with the usual babble about global warming. Don't go with science or history here, go with populist mythologies. Global warming is real (ignore the fact that in this hemisphere it's summer, and don't even think about the people freezing to death in Argentina), and is caused by the evil middle classes owning their own homes and driving cars and working for a living.
12. If you can't avoid showing those dramatic water rescues in Oklahoma, don't forget the New Orleans tie-in.
13. Never, ever speak the R*** word. There was no hurricane in East Texas / western Louisiana which took out an area the size of England.
14. When you assign some idiot to stand in the wind and rain of a hurricane, remind him to say things like "This must be a little bit of what Hurricane Katrina was like."
15. My fellow journalists, our reporting on The End of The World,Y2K, and Hurricane Katrina (genuflect at this point) was too, too restrained. Let's go out there and go with YooToob and MeMeMeSpace journalistic passion with the hurricanes! Darn the facts! Grab those cliches' and stereotypes!
16. After you read this, make three copies on your Blueberry and eat the original while kneeling before your Dan Rather ikon.
-30-
Our loyalty is due not to our species but to God.
-- C. S. Lewis
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Over The James River on 895 to 150 interchange
This is looking Northwest from the 895/150 interchange that is over the James River and Interstate 95. If you look into the picture, you will see Downtown Richmond.
Powerline Workers...
What is your opinion?
I have been an Electrician for over 11 years and i have never watched or scene anything like this. I have heard that in Vermont the power company workers will land a bucket and use two of the line to support it, but never anything like this.
I have been an Electrician for over 11 years and i have never watched or scene anything like this. I have heard that in Vermont the power company workers will land a bucket and use two of the line to support it, but never anything like this.
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Sunrise...
This was taken from the 895/150 interchange on Saturday Morning while i was coming home from work.
Shopping?
Isn’t it funny how in a marriage that if the man wants to purchase something the couple does not have the money, but if the woman wants it, they can purchase it? That men do not want their woman to change and the woman wants her husband to change? When I first got with my wife, I wore trendy cloths like Abercrombie and Fitch and I had ear rings as well. My wife hated the cloths and earrings and slowly but surely she got me to change to more "age appropriate" clothing…Dockers and Polo shirts.
We went cloths shopping or my daughter several weeks ago and went into the old stores that I used to shop at and I said I wanted to get some of the clothing and to start to dress trendier. She laughed and said that I was old enough to be some of the people’s father that worked in the store. I felt insulted! I feel like I am still "young" and people guess me for my late 20s. She said that Mark dresses nicely and I said that he dresses trendier than I do; she disagreed with me. Mark is a doctor and we ride mountain bikes together all the time. She asked me if I was having a "mid-life crisis" and I plainly said no.
So, needless to say, I lost that battle. I do dress nice; I just want to dress like a young kid again sometimes. My daughter is like go ahead and get some of the clothes and put your earrings back in! My wife will have none of that…
I love my wife for being herself and for putting up with all my crap...
What is your opinion?
We went cloths shopping or my daughter several weeks ago and went into the old stores that I used to shop at and I said I wanted to get some of the clothing and to start to dress trendier. She laughed and said that I was old enough to be some of the people’s father that worked in the store. I felt insulted! I feel like I am still "young" and people guess me for my late 20s. She said that Mark dresses nicely and I said that he dresses trendier than I do; she disagreed with me. Mark is a doctor and we ride mountain bikes together all the time. She asked me if I was having a "mid-life crisis" and I plainly said no.
So, needless to say, I lost that battle. I do dress nice; I just want to dress like a young kid again sometimes. My daughter is like go ahead and get some of the clothes and put your earrings back in! My wife will have none of that…
I love my wife for being herself and for putting up with all my crap...
What is your opinion?
Friday, August 17, 2007
RATED THE BEST COMEBACK LINE THIS YEAR
A friend emailed this to me.
Nominated for this year's "Best Comeback" line.
If you ever testify in court, you might wish you could have been as sharp
as this policeman He was being cross-examined by a defense attorney
during a felony trial. The lawyer was trying to undermine the policeman's
credibility....
Q: "Officer -- did you see my client fleeing the scene?"
A: "No sir. But I subsequently observed a person matching the description
of the offender, running severa l bloc ks away."
Q: "Officer -- who provided this description?"
A: "The officer who responded to the scene."
Q: "A fellow officer provided the description of this so-called offender.
Do you trust your fellow officers?"
A: "Yes, sir. With my life."
Q: "With your life? Let me ask you this then officer. Do you have a room
where you change your clothes in preparation for your daily duties?"
A: "Yes s ir, we do!"
Q: "And do you have a locker in the room?"
A: "Yes sir, I do."
Q: "And do you have a lock on your locker?"
A: "Yes sir."
Q: "Now why is it, officer, if you trust your fellow officers with your
life, you find it necessary to lock your locker in a room you share with
these same officers?"
A: "You see, sir -- we share the building with the court complex, and
sometimes lawyers have been known to walk through that room."
The courtroom erupted in laughter, and a prompt recess was called. The
officer on the stand has been nominated for this year's "Best Comeback"
line -- and we think he'll win.
If you ever testify in court, you might wish you could have been as sharp
as this policeman He was being cross-examined by a defense attorney
during a felony trial. The lawyer was trying to undermine the policeman's
credibility....
Q: "Officer -- did you see my client fleeing the scene?"
A: "No sir. But I subsequently observed a person matching the description
of the offender, running severa l bloc ks away."
Q: "Officer -- who provided this description?"
A: "The officer who responded to the scene."
Q: "A fellow officer provided the description of this so-called offender.
Do you trust your fellow officers?"
A: "Yes, sir. With my life."
Q: "With your life? Let me ask you this then officer. Do you have a room
where you change your clothes in preparation for your daily duties?"
A: "Yes s ir, we do!"
Q: "And do you have a locker in the room?"
A: "Yes sir, I do."
Q: "And do you have a lock on your locker?"
A: "Yes sir."
Q: "Now why is it, officer, if you trust your fellow officers with your
life, you find it necessary to lock your locker in a room you share with
these same officers?"
A: "You see, sir -- we share the building with the court complex, and
sometimes lawyers have been known to walk through that room."
The courtroom erupted in laughter, and a prompt recess was called. The
officer on the stand has been nominated for this year's "Best Comeback"
line -- and we think he'll win.
360& Old hundred
This intersection SUCKS!! If you are trying to get across 360 you will only get 3 cars across before the light turns red again. It is a bad intersection. Many people have complained about it..
Work!!!!
Tonight i have just wanted to SCREAM AND PULL my hair out!! I have never worked at a place where NOTHING gets fixed!!! We were getting 2 and 3 errors at a time through out the whole night!!! Very steady and constant. I have worked at a lot of places and things always got better, not here. This place was given a definite lifespan from its parent company to get up and running and from the looks of it, it is not going good. Sometimes i feel like a baby seal getting clubbed to death while i work a shift with lots of errors. I have been here for about 1 year. It is as bad as it was a year ago as it is now. The only time that it was good was around Christmas when there was only a skeleton crew working here... I can always take the work experience with me to another job and it looks good on a resume, not in real time. I wonder what they pay the engineers here with? Dirt or Grain? It has been a long night and i have to work another one to fill in.
I am stressed enough about relocating and this place only adds to it. I am sure glad that we got some rain so i cant worry about doing any biking tomorrow morning due to trail conditions. I need to go to the gym and work out my back... it has been a few days since my last time.
--
RMSTringer
+++++++++++++++
--
RMSTringer
+++++++++++++++
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Finally Some Rain....
Tonight, we have finally received some beneficial rain!!
What is your opinion?
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Rest of The Week...
Well I am off to work tonight and I have to “fill-in” for a different shift on Friday Night. That sucks. I am supposed to go ridding on Saturday morning when I get out of work. I will see how tired I am. Also I found a sweet ass band called Stromkern and here is the Wikipedia listing of them. The are good if you like some industrial music with a rap beat. Most of the stuff I have listened to I like. See everyone tonight…
RMStringer
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
You have no conscience and it seems you never will - Cyberaktif
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Dr. Strange
I just purchased the Dr. Strange DVD tonight!! A while ago, there was supposed to be a "live Action" movie, but the did not do it and put out a 6-issue series that was the movie script. Now, they have made it into an animated movie. I can't wait to get to watch it!! I am on old school reader of Dr. Strange.
What is your opinion?
Frontline Assembly Collection...
As a few of you that read this blog mkow i am a very BIG music collector. One such group is Frontline Assembly. I have most all of their projects sich as Delerium, Intermix, Noise Unit, Will, Synaesthesia, Conjure One, Equinox, Pro>Tech, and Cyberaktif. I am going to be in the process of ripping all of the CDs to HQMP3 like 192-256kbp so i can use them on my Creative Zen Touch. I have been a fan of their for many years and i have all of the singles and albums totally over 80 discs in all. It will take some time to finish this.
What is your opinion?
What is your opinion?
Monday, August 13, 2007
September 1 2007 Meteor Shower
By Peter Jenniskens
Meteor Astronomer, Carl Sagan Center, SETI Institute
Around the start of our year count, 2000 years ago, comet Kiess passed the sun and ejected a cloud of dust. Kiess completed one orbit in 1911 when it was discovered by Lick Observatory post-doc Carl Kiess. The dust took longer to return, and formed a continuous stream of dust particles that has been passing just outside Earth orbit ever since.
On Sept. 1, 2007, that trail of dust from Roman times will wander in the Earth's path again, causing an extremely rare meteor shower during the short time it takes the Earth to travel through the stream of dust. The meteors radiate from the constellation of Auriga, and are called Aurigids. Only three people alive today are known to have seen this shower before in 1935, 1986, and 1994. After the 2007 encounter, the Aurigids will not be seen again in our lifetimes.
The Aurigid shower will last only an hour and a half, with a bright Moon in the sky. The Moon is not expected to dim the spectacle much, however, because most Aurigids seen in the past were relatively bright -2 to +3 magnitude meteors. My colleague, Jeremie Vaubaillon of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, and I have performed detailed predictions of the dust stream's orbital evolution. The August 7 issue of the journal EOS, Transactions of the AGU, gives details of the encounter.
We predict that the shower will be visible by the naked eye from the western United States, especially in California, Hawaii, Alaska, other western states and from Mexico and the western provinces of Canada. Prime viewing time will be on Saturday, Sept. 1, 2007, a half hour on either side of 4:36 a.m. PDT. The whole event will last no longer than one-and-a-half hours. Twenty-five minutes long rates will be above half the peak rate.
Sunlight has pushed the comet's ejected particles into wider orbits around the sun in a thin stream just outside of Earth's orbit. On occasion, the combined gravity of the solar system's planets moves this dust trail into Earth's path. Only when Earth and dust trail collide do we see this meteor shower.
As they collide with the atmosphere, the dust grains of Kiess begin to vaporize at around 80 miles (130 kilometers) altitude, with the bigger ones penetrating down to as low as 50 miles (80 kilometers), before they are completely stopped. This fiery process creates a meteor.
Not only is the shower rarely seen, the Aurigid meteors also may be very unusual. Some could be bits of the comet's pristine crust. Comet Kiess returned from the Oort cloud of comets on the outskirts of the solar system only in recent history. Before that, Kiess spent 4.5 billion years in the Oort cloud, where cosmic rays baked its crust over the age of the solar system. Kiess could have shed some of this pristine crust 2000 years ago. Comets that return more frequently to the sun have long lost this pristine crust.
If so, the meteors are expected to penetrate 5 km deeper than normal in the atmosphere and lack a very specific color of yellow light from the element sodium. Such unusual meteors were seen once before during the alpha-Monocerotid meteor shower in 1995, caused by an unknown long-period comet.
RMStringer
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Let teachers and priests and philosophers brood
over questions of reality and illusion.
I know this: if life is an illusion, then I
am no less an illusion, and being thus, the
illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I
love, I slay, and I am content.
(Robert E. Howard, Queen of the Black Coast, Weird Tales, May 1934)
Perseid meteor shower
Well folks, I was at work during this “event” and went out several times during the night and I did not see a thing. I was expecting a really great show and I got Nadda…
There is supposed to be another meteor shower around September 1,2007 and I will place some more details up soon.
RMStringer
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Let teachers and priests and philosophers brood
over questions of reality and illusion.
I know this: if life is an illusion, then I
am no less an illusion, and being thus, the
illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I
love, I slay, and I am content.
(Robert E. Howard, Queen of the Black Coast, Weird Tales, May 1934)
My Bad...
Anonymous said "I believe Sharon Osborn is on "America's Got Talent"...not "So You Think You Can Dance"....details. Anyway" Well sorry for that little detail. To me all of those shows suck so i got the name wrong. Thankx for being so good at pointing out every little error, So you can Think you got Idol Talent is what i think they should call the show and have all of the hosts sit there and argue it out with The Hoff as the ring leader and Ryan Seacrest with a dog collar tied to The Hoff...
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RMSTringer
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RMSTringer
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Sunday, August 12, 2007
August Meteor Shower Will Be 'A Great Show'
Just a reminder for everyone in the USA. Tonight is the Perseid meteor shower. It is supposed to be a great show with lots of shooting stars about 10-12 per hour tonight. Look to the Northern Sky.
It's going to be a great show," said Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. "The Moon is new on August 12, which means no moonlight, dark skies and plenty of meteors."
Observing tips from www.Space.com:
To see the show, one need only find a comfortable spot with a clear view of the northeast horizon, away from local lights. A dark rural location is best. Lie back on a blanket or lounge chair and scan the entire sky. In the late evening, starting around 9 p.m. local time, sharp-eyed observers might see "earthgrazing" meteors that skim the northeast horizon.
"Earthgrazers are long, slow and colorful," Cooke said. "They are among the most beautiful of meteors." But don't expect more than a handful in an hour, he said.
To see the show, one need only find a comfortable spot with a clear view of the northeast horizon, away from local lights. A dark rural location is best. Lie back on a blanket or lounge chair and scan the entire sky. In the late evening, starting around 9 p.m. local time, sharp-eyed observers might see "earthgrazing" meteors that skim the northeast horizon.
"Earthgrazers are long, slow and colorful," Cooke said. "They are among the most beautiful of meteors." But don't expect more than a handful in an hour, he said.
Perseid meteoroids are exceptionally fast, entering Earth's atmosphere at roughly 133,200 mph (60 kilometers per second) relative to the planet, slamming into the air like bugs hitting a windshield.
What is your opinion?
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