Eeeeeew!

Remind me never to travel to China, or at least not till they have completed their "toilet revolution".

Imagine the Possibilities

Oooooh!
This just makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. It really does.

Changing World Technologies

The name is quite accurate as this technology has the potential to dramatically alter what we currently hold to be just a fact of life: TRASH.

CWT has developed a process that mimics the natural process that breaks down organic matter into oil. More information on that here.

A nice quote from one of their press releases:

Changing World Technologies' Research & development facility opened in December 1999. It is located within the Philadelphia Naval Yard. Since the technology is classified by environmental regulators as a manufacturing process, the R&D facility successfully met permitting requirements under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and received a FONSI: Finding of No Significant Impact. The operating permit includes the processing of agricultural waste, tires, plastics, municipal waste and dredged harbor sediments.

I like that "FONSI: Finding of No Significant Impact."

They recently opened their first commercial plant in partnership with ConAgra.
Good Luck!

Let your mind run wild with the idea for a bit and see what you come up with, and see if you don't agree with me.

Leonid Meteor showers

I really thought that the Leonid Meteor showers were something that came along every few years, 5 or 10 or something like that, but discovered that they occur every year at about this time.

The Leonid meteors are debris shed into space by the Tempel-Tuttle comet, which swings through the inner solar system at intervals of 33 years. With each visit the comet leaves behind a trail of dust in its wake.

Lots of the comet's old dusty trails litter the mid-November part of Earth's orbit and the Earth glides through this debris zone every year. Occasionally we'll pass directly through an unusually concentrated dust trail, or filament, which can spark a meteor storm resulting in thousands of meteors per hour. That's what happened in 1999, 2001 and 2002.

We are currently in the process of passing through that area of debris again, and while it will not be as spectacular this year it will definitely be worthy of your attention if you have a clear night for the next couple of days.

More information here, and here is what it looks like from space! Some really great pictures with both articles as well.

Enjoy!

Candy Faries

Gee,

I am sure my parents wish they had known about Candy Faries when I was small!

Thanks Cronaca!

Virginia's Ratification of the Constitution

This article is well worth reading!

You will need to scroll down to Wednesday, Nov 10th for the specific article.

An intersting excerpt:

As I mentioned, Virginia's acceptance of the Federal Union contained this explicit condition:

... [T]he powers granted under the Constitution, being derived from the people of the United States may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression, and that every power not granted thereby remains with them and at their will....

New York and Rhode Island phrased the same idea a bit differently:

... That the powers of government may be reassumed by the people whensoever it shall become necessary to their happiness....

The powers that the people of the several states gave up to the Federal Government, that is, are powers that they are free to take back if they determine that those powers have been abused by Washington or that such secession is otherwise in their best interests.

Thanks to Dappled Things for the article.

The Darwin Awards

I thought I would share these with you as I just about fell out of my chair and onto the floor I laughed so hard!

My personal favorite is number 5.

Once again, it's time for the Darwin Award Nominees. The Darwins are awarded every year to the persons who died in the most stupid manner, thereby removing themselves from the gene pool. This year's eight nominees are:

Nominee No. 1 [San Jose Mercury News] An unidentified man, using a shotgun like a club to break a former girlfriend's windshield, accidentally shot himself to death when the gun discharged, blowing a hole in his gut.

Nominee No. 2 [Kalamazoo Gazette] James Burns, 34, (a mechanic) of Alamo, MI , was killed in March as he was trying to repair what police describe as a "farm-type truck." Burns got a friend to drive the truck on a highway while Burns hung underneath so that he could ascertain the source of a troubling noise. Burns' clothes caught on something, however, and the other man found Burns "wrapped in the drive shaft! ."

Nominee No. 3 [Hickory Daily Record] Ken Charles Barger, 47,
accidentally shot himself to death in December in Newton, NC . Awakening to the sound of a ringing telephone beside his bed, he reached for the phone but grabbed instead a Smith & Wesson 38 Special, which discharged when he drew it to his ear.

Nominee No. 4 [UPI, Toronto] Police said a lawyer demonstrating the safety of windows in a downtown Toronto skyscraper crashed through a pane with his shoulder and plunged 24 floors to his death. A police spokesman said Garry Hoy, 39, fell into the courtyard of the Toronto Dominion Bank Tower early Friday evening as he was explaining the strength of the building's windows to visiting law students.
Hoy previously has conducted demonstrations of window strength according to police reports. Peter Lawson, managing partner of the firm Holden Day Wilson, told the Toronto Sun newspaper that Hoy was "one of the best and brightest" members of the 200-man association.

Nominee No. 5 [Bloomberg News Service] A terrible diet and a room with no ventilation are being blamed for the death of a man who was killed by his own gas emissions. There was no mark on his body, and an autopsy showed large amounts of methane gas in his system. His diet had consisted primarily of beans and cabbage (and a couple of other things).
It was just the right combination of foods. It appears that the man died in his sleep from breathing the poisonous cloud that was hanging over his bed. Had he been outside or had his windows been opened, it wouldn't have been fatal. But the man was shut up in his nearly-airtight bedroom.
According to the article, "He was a big man with a huge capacity for creating "this deadly gas." Three of the rescuers got sick, and one was hospitalized.

Nominee No. 6 [The News of the Weird] Michael Anderson Godwin made News of the Weird posthumously. He had spent several years awaiting South Carolina's electric chair on a murder conviction before having his sentence reduced to life in prison. While sitting on a metal toilet in his cell attempting to fix his small TV set, he bit into a wire and was electrocuted.

Nominee No. 7 [The Indianapolis Star] A cigarette lighter may have triggered a fatal explosion in Dunkirk, IN. A Jay County man, using a cigarette lighter to check the barrel of a muzzle loader, was killed Monday night when the weapon discharged in his face, sheriff's investigators said. Gregory David Pryor, 19, died in his parents' rural Dunkirk home at about 11:30 PM. Investigators said Pryor was cleaning a 54-caliber muzzle-loader that had not been firing properly. He was using the lighter to look into the barrel when the gunpowder ignited.

Finally, THE WINNER!!! [Arkansas Democrat Gazette] Two local men were injured when their pickup truck left the road and struck a tree near Cotton Patch on State Highway 38 early Monday. Woodruff County deputy Dovey Snyder reported the accident shortly after midnight Monday.
Thurston Poole, 33, of Des Arc, and Billy Ray Wallis, 38, of Little Rock, were returning to Des Arc after a frog gigging trip. On an overcast Sunday night, Poole's pickup truck headlights malfunctioned.

The two men concluded that the headlight fuse on the older-model truck had burned out. As a replacement fuse was not available, Wallis noticed that the .22 caliber bullet from his pistol fit perfectly into the fuse box next to the steering-wheel column. Upon inserting the bullet, the headlights again began to operate properly, and the two men proceeded eastbound toward the White River Bridge . After traveling
approximately 20 miles, and just before crossing the river, the bullet apparently overheated, discharged, and struck Poole in the testicles.

The vehicle swerved sharply right, exiting the pavement, and striking a tree. Poole suffered only minor cuts and abrasions from the accident, but will require extensive surgery to repair the damage to his testicles, which will never operate as intended. Wallis sustained a broken clavicle and was treated and released. "Thank God we weren't on that bridge when Thurston shot his balls off, or we might both be dead," stated Wallis.

"I've been a trooper for 10 years in this part of the world, but this is a first for me. I can't believe that those two would admit how this accident happened," said Snyder. Upon being notified of the wreck, Lavinia (Poole's wife) asked how many frogs the boys had caught and did anyone get them from the truck??? (Though Poole and Wallis did not die as a result of their misadventure as normally required by Darwin Award Official Rules, it can be argued that Poole DID, in fact, effectively remove himself from the gene pool.)

Last years winner also managed to not kill himself, but did remove himself from the gene pool.

A New X-Prize

Now that a private company has won the first X-Prize . A new one is in the offing.

Anyone who wants to follow in the shoes of Burt Rutan and win the next big space prize will have to build a spacecraft capable of taking a crew of no fewer than five people to an altitude of 400 kilometers and complete two orbits of the Earth at that altitude. Then they have to repeat that accomplishment within 60 days.

While the first flight must demonstrate only the ability to carry five crew members, the winner will have to take at least five people up on the second flight.

And one more thing. They have to do it by Jan. 10, 2010.

More here. Too Cool!

Stars

My mother was driving to work Friday and saw what she initially thought was a pair of airplanes. But they did not move. So she called Gunner and asked him to find out what they were. It turns out they were planets, specificly Venus and Jupiter.

The first week of November will be an exceptional time for predawn
skywatchers with a beautiful gathering of the two brightest planets, and the
waning crescent moon will later drop by to join them.

Venus and Jupiter will appear closest together on the mornings of Nov.
4 and 5.

For those of you that missed that particular sight, you still have something to look forward to:

After Nov. 4, Venus and Jupiter will slowly separate, but there will still
b one more eye-catching sight.
On the morning of Nov. 9, those who arise
about 45 minutes before sunrise will be treated to a spectacular sight as Venus,
Jupiter and the moon - the three brightest objects of the night sky - form a
stretched-out triangle, the moon appearing closely above Jupiter.
Imagine
the astrological significance that the ancients might have ascribed to a
celestial summit meeting such as this!
As a bonus, the 1st-magnitude star
Spica and the planet Mars barely miss being part of this assembly; look for them
respectively about 17 and 22 degrees below the moon if the sky is clear and dark
enough.

Check the link if you are interested in the complete text of the article from Space.com.

Vacation

Hello to all of my nonexistent readers!

I will be going on Vacation starting November 25.

Just for the fun of it, I am going to try and post some pictures while I am in Hawaii. And will also give you a run-down on the things you just have to do while on Oahu (that is where we are going).

Sorry I have been so lax about posting here of late, but I have been rebuilding Gunner's template (No Quarters) and that has taken a lot of my time.

Ciao!

Sorry

Things have been a bit hectic the last few days. I am helping Gunner set his template up so his Blog will look the way he wants it to, and I am getting ready to go on vacation (woo hoo!!).

By the way, I promise to post from Hawaii.

Lots of pictures!