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Comment not new (Score 1) 49

1) Very similar to previous USGS hazard maps.
2) Nearly every high risk zone has an associated large historic earthquake and continuing microseismicity. Seattle's 1700 M9 is just outside of historic memory. Eastern Tennesse has not had a quake.

3) Few seismic building laws in Eastern US, despite sizeable risk.

Comment Brian Green;'s multiverse book (Score 2) 202

Some of the the mind blowing chapters consider an infinite universe in space and time. Our local area could exactly repeat on the average of 10^150 light years, Brian calculates. And there could many more variants than exact repeats.

Imagine an infinite number of exct copies of yourself, each sparated by immense distances. Image even more variants of yourslef, living slightly to greatly different lives.

Comment Iron Dome answers half-full half-empty debate? (Score 1) 379

I remmeber US Star Wars detractors said the system would be considered a failure if it allowed a single nuclear missile to strike the US. On the other hand supporters said it would be a success if it created uncertainty in the attacker and was partially succesful. Well, seeing Iron Dome in action after a couple couple battles now, it seems to be pyschologically beneficial to the Israeli population. This is whether you belive it has been 25% or 90% successful in knocking out rockets. Then I would say the "hal-full" side has won the debate.

Comment deconstruct Postols motives (Score 1) 379

As a long term opponent of US Star Wars expensive & mediocre results, Postol may fear the succes of Iron Dome could revitalize US efforts. Star Wars is still a multi-billion dollar annual project a quarter century after its inception. I do have to compliment Postol for poking holes in the over optimistic propaganda of both systems, even if I think he is too skeptical.

Comment Ditto GPS (Score 1) 42

Mositure and temprature variations causes bending of GPS wavepaths and small delays. Geophysicists ave been studying the "noise" in large scale GPS data to measure atmospheric conditions. Right now this mostly from dedicated high frequency tectonics GPS stations like Earthscope. There could be a way to "crowdsource" smartphone users for more data.

Comment I attened Samsung Watch developers seminar Wed, (Score 1) 381

Its interesting how much technology they pack into a small device - 1 GHz CPU and 4GB flash, camera, gyro. The screen is 320 x 320 or about 6x20 characters. Google glass is same height, but twice the width. mini-Linux, Android and Java.

Overall I see good potential as a basic messaging receiving device. I am dubious about the camera, because it is hard to aim unlike a smartphone or glass.

The basic user interface follows smartphone conventions- touch activated and scrolling cardlets. The positive is that you can write a similar applet for both a phone and watch. I personally dont think the long term future of a smart watch is as a small smartphone. Other user interfaces such as voice and wrist guestures will be more efficient.

The first two generations tether with smartphone for internet access. Ditto google glass. Battery life is about 3 days if you dont use the camera or video.

Samsumgs million dollar smart watch app contest (top prize 100K) ends this week.

Comment save the space station first! (Score 1) 78

In Bush's original terminiation of the space shuttle program the US was supposed have a shuttle replacement by this year. Now the earliest is 2018 with some suspecting more like 2021 or so. The recession and tea party politics stretched out replacement spending programs. NASA has order Soyuz seats through 2017 at a very high price. Russian factories need a three year advance order to build new capsules and rockets.

The rated lifetime of the ISS somewhere between 2020 and 2030. Russia is not committing past 2020 due to neo-cold war politics. A catstophic failure like that of the solar panel position bearings a few years back could end the ISS because there isnt launch capacity for large replacements. The tea party faction in the US is blah toward the space program and ISS too.

Comment mystery where most anthropengic CO2 goes (Score 3, Interesting) 190

Less than half what humans create in hydrocarbon buring and cement making stays in the atmosphere. The ocean is suspected as the major sink, as it turns into something like soda. A more active plant biopshere could be another sink.

Furthermore we dont know all the non-human sources. Is there a significant amount being released from melting permafrost marshes? Some onsite studies suggest the possibility. Volcanoes, melting sedimate methane hydrates too. This satellite could help constrain unkown sources and sinks.

The resuting data is likely to fuel both pro and anti AGW factions. A significant group prefers not to know whatis happening at all and blocked these kind of satellites in the 1990s and 2000s. I wish to know what is happening.

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