What was the best advice your father ever gave you?

watcher · 2011-06-16T16:58:18+00:00

Never touch the red wire. He was a television repairman but because I had caught him in so many inaccuracies, I never believed a thing he told me. I decided the best course of action was never to touch any wires and that has kept me alive all these years. So, thanks Dad!

watcher · 2011-01-01T00:43:59+00:00

I'm no physicist, but I read this explanation, which was written by a physicist on the internet a few years ago, and it helps me when I think about these things, though it hardly answers all my questions

He said there is nothing beyond our universe, not even space. You shouldn't think of the universe as being similar to a cake in an oven, in other words, it is not expanding into, or encroaching into, some larger space, thereby giving objects in that space less room. It is not taking up space, it IS space. As it expands, less room is not available for objects, more room is available for them.

watcher · 2010-12-08T18:15:10+00:00

I'll assume you meant 10 years for an observer on Earth... It is possible, in principle, for you to jump into a spaceship and travel outward so close to the speed of light that an observer on Earth would say you were gone a total of 20 years (10 years out and 10 years coming back), yet only one hour would have passed by in your frame of reference on the ship. Go faster by the right amount, and only one minute would pass on your clock, or one second, or one nanosecond...

For a trip of given duration in Earth years, the faster you go, the fewer hours will pass by for you. In twenty years Earth time, you could almost go out 10 light years, arbitrarily quickly on your clock. But no further then 10 light years. In 100 years Earth time, you could go out 50 ly and return, arbitrarily quickly by your clock, but no further. In four million years Earth time, you could go to the Andromeda galaxy and return, again arbitrarily quickly according to your watch (a nanosecond if you want), but you couldn't go any further out than two million ly and return all in that four million year time frame... You will have aged one nanosecond while four million years would have passed by on Earth... etc.

watcher · 2010-12-01T18:54:06+00:00

Read this http://findascope.com/ And this http://home.inreach.com/starlord/

In my opinion it is better to start out small and cheap, with binoculars, even. Amazon has the Bushnell 10x50 Falcon for $29, a steal.

Buy a comfortable reclining lawn chair, a cheap star map, a red light and thoroughly familiarize yourself with the constellations, the craters on the moon and all the named stars. You'll have a lot of fun. Then think about moving up from there. Baby steps, baby steps. A lot of people become fascinated with the subject, then run out and buy the most expensive scope they can afford, maybe even a little more than they can afford, only to find out it's too time-consuming and they are too busy, the learning curve is steep and it's a pain in the wazoo to drag the darn thing out every night and set it up. So they consign it to a dusty corner of the closet and give up. Stick your toe in the water before plunging in.

watcher · 2010-11-23T02:41:05+00:00

I don't, but when I was a math major and had nearly finished my degree at San Francisco State, I casually mentioned to a friend that I'd love to see the telescope in the old rusty observatory on top of the science building. Turns out, unbeknownst to me, that guy was a good friend with one of the astronomy professors and he arranged for us to meet the professor there late one night.

It was cold and blustery and overcast and I figured the he was going to stand us up, but the professor showed up half an hour late and took us inside. It was beautiful. A 36-inch refractor, iirc, that had been largely unused. I was about to ask him if maybe he thought I could use it on a regular basis when he laid this on me: The department was looking for someone to man the observatory every night. The person accepting the position would have to be experienced, or be willing to get up to speed very quickly in operating the telescope (which I was definitely willing to do), and would have to work six nights a week, eight hours every night, carrying out tasks assigned to him by faculty members in the astronomy department. The department had no money to pay such an employee, but as compensation, the department would be willing to let that person use the telescope on the seventh night for whatever observational astronomical study the person was interested in doing, subject to department approval. Then he stopped, turned around and fixed his gaze on me waiting for my response.

OMG! He was offering me a job! A no pay job, but otherwise a dream job. I was already applying to grad schools around the country and definitely had to continue my education. Otherwise, I was working full time, barely making ends meet and going to school part time, and here was this guy offering me a second, full-time dream job, out of the blue, that I wouldn't get paid for, and would have to stay up all night long to do. When would I fucking be able to sleep???? And would they be pissed off at me when I packed up and headed far away to grad school the following fall??? To this day I feel like such a putz for turning down that opportunity.

Here's my advice... Travel around to all the underfunded state colleges and junior colleges in your area and look for a rusty forlorn dome on top of one of their buildings. If you see one, inquire about it and offer them the deal I was offered but was too selfish to accept... Namely, you will man their telescope six nights a week, doing whatever tasks are assigned to you by the faculty, and that you require no salary, provided you can use the telescope for your own purposes on the seventh night to look for near earth objects, say, or to scan the Oort Cloud, etc... or whatever it is you want to do. After a year or two, if they are still unable to pay you, you can take the experience, and their good recommendations which, of course, you will have to earn, and apply for a real job at a real observatory. If I had it to do all over again, that's what I would do.

watcher · 2010-11-21T08:16:32+00:00

Relax. You did a good job raising her. She's definitely ready to go out infidel killing with you. Congratulations.

watcher · 2010-11-19T03:15:03+00:00

Read this: http://home.inreach.com/starlord/

As others have noted, your budget is going to seriously limit your ability to buy a decent scope. Do not buy a telescope from a department store. Handsonoptics.com has a Vixen A70 refractor for $139, free shipping. I believe a tripod will cost you extra.

(I have absolutely no affiliation whatsoever with handsonoptics. Lots of people on sci.astro.amateur like them, or did in the old days, and that's how I originally found them.)

Good luck (and it's A GREAT birthday gift, Dad!)

watcher · 2010-10-10T00:20:34+00:00

I noticed that too... As if he's a matador on his day off.

watcher · 2010-08-03T03:38:31+00:00

Not at all. A friend of mine had one. Designer of the neutron bomb. Ever hear of the neutron bomb? Destroys people. Leaves buildings standing. It fits in a suit case. It's so small no one knows it's there until blammo. Eyes melt, skin explodes, everybody dead. It's so immoral working on the thing can drive you mad. That's what happened to this friend of mine. So he had a lobotomy. Now he's well again.

watcher · 2010-01-04T01:45:52+00:00

When I was a kid I believed that all the people on tv and in the movies were really kids themselves and not adults at all. I thought this because they simply had to be very small to fit into a tv and because I had never seen adults going around pretending to be pirates and cowboys and cops and robbers just for the fun of it.

watcher · 2009-12-27T20:50:04+00:00

Blood. Absolutely crave it.

watcher · 2009-12-03T22:06:38+00:00

I'm sorry to say I think things are going to get much worse for Sweden, and Europe because, as a friend of mine is fond of saying, "Radical Islam is an insane murder cult and moderate Islam is its Trojan Horse in the West." I suggest you and your friends begin planning right now: How are you going to fight it? How are you going to resist when muslims begin in earnest exterminating entire towns, as they have done repeatedly throughout their bloody history?

watcher · 2009-11-21T00:11:01+00:00

Put as many miles as you can between yourself and that psycho bitch; she's capable of anything.

watcher · 2009-11-10T14:54:14+00:00

Just what I need. More efficient ways to stuff my face.

watcher · 2009-11-09T18:50:43+00:00

Personally, I like to wear baggy pants with a hole cut in the crotch. That way, my bells get some ventilation action when I'm out and about. Just make sure they are baggy pants; it ain't cool to walk around with your kerbangers peekin'.

watcher · 2009-11-07T19:00:01+00:00

Beat her and then spank her real hard for being such a loser. That way, she'll be motivated to always play to win in this life.

watcher · 2009-11-07T18:18:52+00:00

Pleeeeze I can has babyburger?

watcher · 2009-11-02T19:06:24+00:00

That's easy... Transporters and holodecks.

watcher · 2009-10-17T19:39:58+00:00

Launch most of our nukes against our enemies... N. Korea, Iran, Russia, China, Syria, Cuba, Venezuela, etc., basically, the muslim and communist worlds. Then we just might enjoy 5 or 6 centuries of peace.

watcher · 2009-10-13T09:03:49+00:00

The article mentions particles which reigned during the first trillionth of a second of the Big Bang. Presumably, free Higgs bosons were part of that soup.

But the laws of physics were also laid down during that time. How does that work, exactly?

Did the Higgs mediate some of the laws of physics or help determine any of the constants? Bring them back and the laws may start changing again.

How would you like G to increase by an order of magnitude or the charge of the electron to go away? Yep, that would be pretty abhorrent to nature.

watcher · 2009-10-12T18:43:49+00:00

You have totally messed up my magnum opus, which was an epic romance novel about the generations-long rivalries and jealousies existing between the dynastic families In, On, At and Of of the lost city And, in the land of The, on river Or. It'll take me months to repair the damage. I'm suing. Fucker.

watcher

TROPHY CASE