some reason that link is back to /. try this one, http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/O...

now that sounds really cool doing your own laser reflection but are you using facility scope? Have amateur astronomers done this before? Does it require a really powerful laser, i.e. the kind that guvmint doesn't want in hands of individuals?

Now you people commenting of they don't think this is possible, this is one of these reflectors wwphx is talking about, http://spie.org/Images/Graphic...

How about go outdoors, outside the city, and look up (or out) and beyond instead of always looking forward or down like typical flatlanders (the same kind of people that hounded Galileo).

Actually I prefer more of their profits going into maintenance such as clearing tree branches growing into power lines, replacing sagging lines and decaying poles. Infrastructure! It's what keeps this country going. Wasting on more on security for something that happens very rarely is not good investment into future (but hey like most Americans don't think of such things).

you mean PG&E unless there is some subtle joke which I'm too dense to get. (or how about for those old enough to remember the fictious CG&E that managed the ill-fated Ventana power plant).

for me in college I would see a BASIC program (this was in pre-internet days when magazine articles listed programs) I'd type it in and run the program to see what it does. Of course I have to go back and read the article to better understand what I just entered into the computer. Not the best way to learn but had fun with it. Regarding pre-internet, I did have a Compuserve electronic mail account but far from going to article online and do copy/paste.

Europa may be hard but I like to imagine a submarine launched into the water below and take pictures of the little fishes. Well maybe not but as SETI's Cynthia Phillips says when looking for life go where the water is.

Yep, if you are a country or a corporation then you gotta have spies (like all other big organizations need accountants and other staff to do specific jobs). As earlier post, whoop de do. What really gets me though is when we export our engineering and manufacturing offshore. Hey, they don't need spies, we will send stuff to them.

get a big enough amp to make a sound like one of these F1s, https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

It seems ***every*** piece of footage whether it be fiction, reality show, news cast, whatever of any kind of car stuff there is ***always*** some kind of dubbing. Even footage from helicopters that capture a crash, they add sound to it (I know the copter camera does not have a microphone pointed at the ground, and the sound does not travel at speed of light). Another common practice is dubbing 16mm combat war footage (all footage has been dubbed). Those cameras had no soundtrack including footage from Vietnam War with exception of a news crew that included a soundman lugging a audio tape recorder alongside cameraman.

Obviously the "General Lee" always has tires screeching on pavement sounds when accelerating, it's tradition like the ST Enterprise whoosh sound as it travels superluminal speeds.

a human being. so far other animals not considered yet.

I dabbled a little few years ago but there really not much interests me. Taking a look at Galaxy 19 lyngsat.com as suggested by Isao has stations of little interest to me. However, it was interesting to get some hands-on experience receiving signals from a satellite, ironically the day I first locked on to bird in the Clarke Belt was the same day Arthur died.

Also back then there were websites that you can download software and load this into one of those sat receivers and be able to watch DishTV, Direct, and other encrypted sites for free. However, these didn't offer much (I have no interest in football, soccer, hockey which all have 200 channels each). There were some premimun channels like TCM that I already have on cable, but then I may also dump cable because even TCM shows same movies over and over again (occasionally they will show something different i.e. a series of Mamie Van Doren movies). There were "local" TV stations from various towns like Bakersfield on these dish tv stations. But then almost all I have no interest so why bother.

Getting back to when I setup my satellite receiver. Someone at DeAnza Electronics flea market was selling DishTV Ku-band dishes and oddball sat receiver boxes for dirt cheap, had a whole stack of these and didn't want to crate them all to the dump. Living in a condo reduced my opportunities (all the birds were aligned away from my windows), I was not interested in mounting the dish on a awning of sorts (I was experimenting and had no long term deployment interest). I was able to just fit the dish into my skylight, borrowed a sat finder meter to help lock onto the bird, and it was exciting to see the bars all light up on the satellite receiver box (Comet I think was the brand). Go through the motions to select the frequencies and download the channels. It seemed it was more interesting technically than watching entertainment (again almost all channels were of no interest). I also referred to these sites, http://www.uksatellitehelp.co.... and http://emantechnology.com/stor.... There were some channels that were non-encrypted including NASA-TV Public channel (and this was back when Shuttle was flying). However these stations were able to do encryption far more difficult to hack, and they also encrypted all channels including "FTA" like NASA-TV.

Now there is C-band birds which NASA-TV provides non-encrypted including the Media channel but the antennas are big and hard to find. However, NASA-TV mostly has usual drivel repeated over and over. There was a time when everyone was dumping C-band dishes for free and great opportunity for experimentalists including those wanting a dish to do EME.

he will be sued into oblivion by the Star Wars Corp. for unauthorized use of costumes and trademarks.

thanks for the tutorial and come to think of it, last time I had engine failure while driving was with a 1970 Toyota (no power steering or brakes) decades ago. I have never had engine failure so I was thinking no such thing can occur but your post reminded us that, yes a car can have complete engine shutdown while driving at any speed.

few months ago watching "The Anderson Tapes" (early 1970s) and near end of movie police searching building for more robbery suspects find some equipment tapped into some of the buildings phone lines. Senior officer says, "whoever set this up better have a warrant!" Later the 'snoops' that have been tracking character played by Sean Connery erased and purged all the tapes of conversations they recorded because they could get in big trouble as none of it was authorized by the courts. Fast forward to these days, meh, that kind of storyline is totally ridiculous. There are other such movies back in the days when people did respect legalities of wiretapping and eavesdropping. Of course there were shenanigans played out by some govt agencies but they knew they were doing wrong so they had to cover it up. These days, they don't because "it's ok."