UK went back last weekend - I wish it would stop!
-
Enjoy XS650.com? Consider making a donation to help support the site.
XS650.com receives a small share of sales from some links on this page, but direct donations have a much greater impact on keeping this site going.
Interesting Posts Today
- Thread starter halfmile
- Start date
Take a look at the size of that rear sprocket! It’s probably a rocket up to 45 mph before it tops out at 50!
Yeah Bob, just like my bike.....
In the vein of? Think this was shot from the space station. It knocks my socks off every time I see it.
might even see KC on the far left.
I've noticed the straight strings of small towns across the photo left right right north south and diagonals. I suspect this is an artifact of towns/cities built along the rail lines.
https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VA37pEAUudU/VLLVLlzzcVI/AAAAAAAAFYk/kwlP--TEHdA/s1600/export.png
I've noticed the straight strings of small towns across the photo left right right north south and diagonals. I suspect this is an artifact of towns/cities built along the rail lines.
https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VA37pEAUudU/VLLVLlzzcVI/AAAAAAAAFYk/kwlP--TEHdA/s1600/export.png
Last edited:
Colorized by Mike Savid
Description
Colorized photo from 1915
Original Title: Bureau of Standards, Instrument shop
Location: Gaithersburg, Maryland
This is The Bureau of Standards workshop, From 1901 to 1988, after that they renamed it to The National Institute of Standards and Technology. They were in charge of Metrology. Metrology is the science of measurement and includes all theoretical and practical aspects of measurement.
In order to compete against other countries, we have to have a quality product. In order to get that we need a standard on all materials that creates guidelines for safety and knowing we have the same material as everyone else. For example, they will creates standards for metal alloys, so all our coins will be the same.
They have labs that tested all kinds of things. Granite posts, leather, meat, and so on, all were tested. This machine shop was responsible in making all their strange testing machines.
It's all in your perspective...
From our vantage point in the Milky Way, there's about 5000 stars visible to the naked eye.
There's about 400 billion stars in our galaxy... the Milky Way.
Closest estimate... about 170 billion galaxy's in the observable universe.
Works out to an estimated 1 septillion stars in the observable universe.
That's 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 suns.
Makes ya feel very very small.
Btw. Interstate out of Chi Town (SW) leads to St Louis... out of pic. Due west along I-70 would be KC... also out of view. Most likely Des Moines.... Omaha maybe?
But yeah... a fantastic shot.
Last edited:
Just call it an "average" of just one planet orbiting each sun.
I figure it'd be supreme arrogance to think "we're the only ones here."
I figure it'd be supreme arrogance to think "we're the only ones here."
..
Last edited:
Or the most advanced! I think if we ever do make contact with someone out there it will be a major kick in the #*% ego to find out why they have been keeping their distance from us!Just call it an "average" of just one planet orbiting each sun.
I figure it'd be supreme arrogance to think "we're the only ones here."
We are the only planet with XS650s...
And a 1 in 1 septillion chance it's never happened anywhere else. It's all very amazing.
Maybe Covid keeps them away??
There was a Peter Cook & Dudley Moore sketch, back in the days of B&W tv - our pair were at sea in a small boat in the middle of a very dark night. Dudley was looking up at the sky and speculating abut the vast distances, the scale of the Galaxy, the immensity of the Universe. Reaches a similar conclusion - 'It makes you feel very small and insignificant, don't it?'
Peter looks down at Dudley, who was several inches shorter, and says 'Must make you feel particularly small and insignificant, Dud?'
In our galaxy alone, find a medium-size yellow star (zillions of them). Does it have planets around it, and are any of them rock planets? (As opposed to gas giants) Are those planets within the "Goldie Locks Zone"? (not too hot, not too cold...where there could be liquid water) There's an equation out there (the name escapes me) that says there are about 3 billion planets out there, with people on them asking the same thing...
Add to it that the obverse of entropy (life) has no requirement to be water/carbon based.In our galaxy alone, find a medium-size yellow star (zillions of them). Does it have planets around it, and are any of them rock planets? (As opposed to gas giants) Are those planets within the "Goldie Locks Zone"? (not too hot, not too cold...where there could be liquid water) There's an equation out there (the name escapes me) that says there are about 3 billion planets out there, with people on them asking the same thing...
The Drake equation.
Heard some theorizing on BBC Radio Four t'other day. They were discussing AI and virtual reality. Virtual reality, they said, has already become a part of our daily lives as we use telephones, watch tv, play 3D computer games even before we take things a stage further and don VR headsets. With the trend towards augmented reality, this will grow. And the power of the illusion of reality is growing rapidly as technology advances. Leading to the philosophical question, how do I know that what I think of as the real world around me is not in fact a virtual reality? Rather like the Matrix scenario?
Given the statistical probability that in a very large universe life has evolved many times over, it follows that culture and technology has arisen many times. Many of those cultures have developed AI and virtual reality. And within a virtual world, new virtual realities will develop. Virtual realities within a virtual reality. Dreams within a dream. Which could happen to the nth degree.
They went on to argue that the chances that what we believe to be the reality of our lives, our world, our existence are in fact vanishingly small. We are all living as part of a virtual reality despite our belief to the contrary.
I've often thought that this world "we think we are living in" is in fact some teenager's science class project and at this point I'm afraid the kid is going to get a failing grade!
Similar threads
