BellGab.com Archive

Yesterday brought some more developments with respect to fusion, a topic that was discussed (although briefly) last episode. Timely! Now Lockheed Martin skunkworks is throwing their hat in the ring.
http://aviationweek.com/technology/skunk-works-reveals-compact-fusion-reactor-details
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/prnewswire/press_releases/California/2014/10/15/DA37396

Quote from: wr250 on October 16, 2014, 07:02:24 AM
i use a welders helmet to view eclipses , the ones for arc welding, not gas welding.

That's one of the best ways to do it, I think. We are going to get together with a local astronomy group at a park on the day of, they will have glasses and telescopes with filters on them for viewing the Sun.

I hope it's not cloudy!

Hope all the North Americans are able to get a pair of eclipse glasses (or other safe viewing device) to watch the solar eclipse coming up on October 23!
http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-news/observing-news/partial-solar-eclipse-october-23-2014-10062014/

Never heard of this guy before today, but it looks like Driscoll has imploded on an epic scale:

According to Christianity Today, the pastor had trolled online discussion forums under the pseudonym "William Wallace II," and lambasted the supposed rise of "male lesbians;" "feman," (men who act like women, in his definition); and "men who allow their wives to nag at them."

http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/15/us/driscoll-megachurch-pastor-resigns/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

Now I'm going to have to search the bellGab user list for William Wallace II...

Could have sworn I heard an Art show with this guy or some other breatharian at some point. I'll be damned if I can remember the date of that show, though.

Quote from: Mind Flayer Monk on October 15, 2014, 04:14:49 AM
See if you can get From Beyond.

Will do and thanks for the suggestion! If this guy also directed Re-Animator, I'm in

Quote from: Robert Ghostwolf's Ghost on October 14, 2014, 12:11:03 PM
That's a blast from the past I'd forgotten all about!  It's been a long, long time, and about all I remember is that it was funny and twisted in that good low budget way.  Where did you see it recently?

It's definitely a "Good bad movie". It was recommended somewhere online so I went out and downloaded it. Totally worth it.

My wife and I watch scary (both in terms of horror and budget) movies throughout October. Last year Chopping Mall was a highlight, this year it may just go to Basket Case.

Never heard of this before, I may have to check it out

Quote from: MV on October 14, 2014, 01:23:37 PM
Good to hear you on the show, AO.

I'm glad I put aside some time to listen. I really like the interaction between the hosts and everyone in the chat room.

Basket Case, 1982
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083624/

The answer is, as always, Ttongsul
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ttongsul

The groaning in the background of the Laxibrew commercial made my day.
Or is that Laxibru?

Quote from: zeebo on October 13, 2014, 11:39:09 PM
Taintco's beverage dept. needs to expand into more upscale markets.  Maybe a nice red wine product called FlowMerlot.

Wow

Dynomak fusion reactor design
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0920379614002518
http://www.washington.edu/news/2014/10/08/uw-fusion-reactor-concept-could-be-cheaper-than-coal/

Quote from: zeebo on September 07, 2014, 11:51:08 PM
"Astronomers have mapped the cosmic watershed in which our Milky Way Galaxy is a droplet. The massive structure, which the research team dubs the Laniakea Supercluster, extends more than 500 million light-years and contains 100,000 large galaxies."

Laniakea: Our Home Supercluster

[attachimg=1]

The Milky Way (blue dot, center) lives in the outskirts of Laniakea (orange), a galactic supercluster 520 million light-years across. Galaxies (white dots) flow along streams (white lines) toward a central point.

Laniakea: Our home supercluster

Scooped!!
And that smacks me down for lack of due diligence... I need to study the available literature (ie, this thread) better next time

Mentioned on the gabCast, the Laniakea supercluster
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap140910.html
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v513/n7516/full/nature13674.html

http://youtu.be/rENyyRwxpHo

Quote from: area51drone on October 13, 2014, 04:36:11 PM
Damn you Agent.  You can't even tell us what you're working on without threatening your anonymity, and here we are, all pining to know what great discovery you are in the midst of making...

Hey guys, touching base with you all again, things are still crazy for me and getting worse! Have not had time to do much of anything online in a while, but I hope to post some long winded rants once I get a chance to catch my breath again.

In the meantime there's always neat stuff going on...
http://www.nasa.gov/chandra/news/ultraluminous_pulsar.html#.VDw9KhZH8tk
Could it be one of these?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quark_star

We've been in the midst of a heatwave here in downtown Canada. Temperatures are unseasonably high and even the mosquitoes have awakened from dormancy! It's now been about two weeks that we've been treated to fantastic weather after a very disappointing summer. 

September has been more summer than summer.

That paper has some big problems. DPS nailed it. Don't take the results too seriously!

Aside from the obvious problems, we've already observed objects which are too small and massive to be explained by anything other than a black hole. Which doesn't mean anything about singularities, admittedly. But what we see through telescopes gives us a pretty strong hint that something like what we call black holes are out there.

Missed the show but really glad to hear this news! Congrats Jaz!

Quote from: Georgie For President 2216 on September 23, 2014, 12:26:30 PM
This is a good illustration of why one team's result does not constitute science in the absence of repeatability.  I think I personally put too much faith in that result as it seemed to verify a number of fundamental but as yet undemonstrated principles.

BICEP2 is still not completely off the table (unlike the tone taken in the article above) but it's in a more critical condition than it was before these Planck results were released. I was really hoping it would be verified, when/if primordial gravitational waves are finally detected they will give up a treasure trove of fundamental results. We now have to wait for the upcoming paper in November which will hopefully give a more definitive statement than this. But the situation looks grim for gravitational wave fans.

The BICEP2 results on primordial gravitational waves have been extremely controversial (and rightly so) since they were announced. Now the Planck team has thrown their hat in the ring with an argument that there may still be a signal but it can't be as powerful as BICEP2 originally indicated because of the dust. Planck did a census of the dust and came up with it's own analysis which showed up a few days ago on the arXiv. For a shorter summary, see
http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/09/gravity-wave-evidence-disappears-into-dust/

The issue isn't yet completely resolved, but it does seem like it must be that at lest part of the signal (maybe all of it) might be due to cosmic dust. In November the Planck and BICEP2 teams are releasing a joint paper, so that will say more about the state of the detection or non-detection of primordial gravitational waves from BICEP2.

Science in action!

A short gasp while I surface for air

http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/alpha-magnetic-spectrometer-detects-positrons-0918

... and back into the depths I go

Just read Blasphemy by Douglas Preston. Picked up in an airport during a fit of boredom. My eyes demand more bleach.
Actually took me a while to realize this wasn't the same Preston who wrote The Hot Zone. Because wow

Ahoy all new fish!

I appreciate that the 1995 after dark scans were included. So much fun flipping through them while listening to these old shows.

Hey everyone

Great to see so much lively discussion going on! I wanted to pop my head in and say hi, and let you all know that I exist now in a superposition of states, simultaneously working my ass off and posting on coastgab. Blink and you will find me in one or the other.

Also, all this talk of exploding stars makes me think of one of the most compelling topics, the question of what those explosions leave behind.
In some cases you get one of these: http://www.spacetoday.org/DeepSpace/Stars/Magnetars/MagnetarSGR1806_20.html
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/post/2011/04/magnetar-star-crust-measured/1#.U_3EeGPCY1g

I exist in a superposition of trolling and lurking states.

Quote from: DigitalPigSnuggler on July 18, 2014, 12:34:03 PM
It's about time that someone agrees with me about that.

haha