Quite the contrary: Our current musical scale is a human creation and has something to do with how sound works.

Obviously, there are a lot of different ways to make scales and tonalities and music (and even music that doesn't have scales or tonalities). But there is no question that the currently used western scales and tonalities are a complex interplay among the physical properties of sound, the human auditory system, and human thought about sound.

Obviously another culture could take on this same elements, the same interplay and come up with a complete different answer, because the physical properties of sound remain the same but the other two elements are quite subjective. But that is a lot different than saying our current musical scale "has nothing to do with how sound works." Pretty much every single element of the scale and how it is used is shaped by some portion of the physical property of sound.

"Vote for us, because the alternative is horrible" is not a very inspiring reason to vote.

I dunno, "the alternative is horrible" inspires me pretty well . . .

OK, that is version 5.11 and at least on my phone, it has a fairly nasty force close bug.

The latest version is 5.12 and it is available here:

http://www.mediafire.com/?nex1dcidhb8t886

The original filename appears to be Tricorder_5.12.apk, so searching on that or similar brings up some more potential download locations.

Thanks. Just downloaded and installed from that link.

This was answered above by spacemandave:

You'll also notice that during much of the 2000s, there is a gap in discoveries at about the 5 o'clock position. This corresponds to monsoon season in the southwest U.S. (roughly July to mid September). Most of the discovered asteroids in the past decade were made by the Catalina Sky Survey, based just outside of Tucson, AZ, and they generally don't bother observing during monsoon season because of the increase in cloud cover.

Isn't facebook really just an aggregation of parts, parts which having a best-of-breed alternative outside facebook? Yet this is what everyone is beholden to?

Hello, network effect.

There are a variety of reasons facebook has more traffic. We can discuss them ad nauseum but for now, the reason facebook has more traffic is because it has more traffic. That will continue--perhaps not indefinitely, but for a good while, regardless of technical considerations.

Someone else may have a better technical implementation or whatever, but all my friends are on facebook . . .

To refine this a bit, what you could do is make 'zone' near the extreme of the accelerator pedal travel which will provide full acceleration. But then another zone right at the end of the travel where the acceleration would cut out (and perhaps not just completely cut out instantly, but gradually ramp down as it gets very near the end of travel down to nothing at the very end of travel).

What that would do is make it easy enough to get completely full acceleration out of your vehicle, but you would have to do so intentionally by finding that sweet spot--which is what we want here. You make the sweet spot plenty wide & easy to find.

But if you panic & slam the accelerator to the floor, you get no acceleration at all--which is also what you want.

Once people are used to this system (which would only take a couple minutes driving I would guess) the only times you'd be pressing the accelerator to the floor would be when you were #1 panicking for some reason #2 actually trying to apply full brakes.

In neither instance do you want to give that person full acceleration (the last thing you want is a panicky person at the helm of a motor vehicle with full acceleration, and the person trying to apply the brakes obviously doesn't want full acceleration either).

Yes, but as I point out above, this itself is not 'no problem'.

It is a problem with the user interface of motor vehicles, that it is easy to get mixed up between the accelerator & brake pedals, especially when under stress.

This is a particular problem the can be addressed by particular solution, not just 'no problem'.

Or to put it it another way, it is a a DIFFERENT problem than what was a originally thought, but definitely not no problem at all.

There you go. That's actually a really great idea and would solve this entire problem instantly.

If the incidents (or many of them, or even just some or a few of them) are caused by human factors--mixing up the brake & accelerator pedals--then we aren't we looking at that as a problem and figuring out how to solve it?

I don't know what the solution might be--maybe having the accelerator pedal give you some feedback if you slam it into the ground as you would a brake pedal in an emergency situation?

But regardless, it is a problem, it is a known problem, it is definitely a real and very dangerous problem, and there are bound to be solutions out there. Why does no one seem to be looking?

Small addition to the above--personally I like observing the sun through the eyepiece with a solar filter--the experience is more personal and you can see more detail.

But as others have pointed out elsewhere on this thread, you can use your telescope to project an image of the sun very easily.

This has a couple of advantages:

  1. No extra equipment needed at all

  2. Several people or even a small group can view simultaneously

  3. You can project the image onto a piece of paper & the sketch the location/shape of sunspots directly

Some more ideas & tips here:

  http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/objects/sun/3304766.html
  http://solar-center.stanford.edu/observe/

Also as the single overall best tip for figuring out how to use your telescope: Subscribe to Sky & Telescope:

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/

After a year or so of reading that magazine each month you'll have a much better idea about what to do with your telescope and how to use it.

The sun is actually a really great object for observation with a small telescope exactly because of the advantages pointed out above. You could view it, for instance, every day for a week during school hours.

The sun is actually quite fascinating as a telescopic object. Sunspots are intricate and no two are the same. They change from day to day or even hour to hour (compared with most astronomical objects, which don't change much at all over the course of even months or years, as seen from even large earth-based telescopes, with few exceptions).

I've shown the sun to a number of school and youth groups and it never fails to get a "wow!!" and "I never knew the sun LOOKED like that".

With even a 4-inch scope (and solar filter of course) you'll be able to see a view very similar to the one here:

  http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/sunspots/

In addition, however, you'll be able to use different eyepieces to zoom in & see more detail in the sunspot clusters.

A great class project would be to view the sun daily for a week & make a sketch of the sunspots & their location on the sun. Over that time you'd see the sunspots rotate to different positions on the sun (thus your students will be able to directly observe the rotation of the sun & do things like calculate the speed of rotation if you're interested in that type of thing) and also change in shape & size.

You can buy something like this:
http://www.telescope.com/control/accessories/telescope-and-eyepiece-filters/4*57-inch-id-orion-full-aperture-solar-filter

But far more economical is this (the 8x11 sheet at 20 euros is enough to build like three or four solar filters):

http://www.baader-planetarium.com/sofifolie/sofi_start_e.htm

Then use that film to construct a solar filter that will mount to your telescope as explained here:

http://www.baader-planetarium.com/sofifolie/bauanleitung_e.htm

Read that as "Chinese Man Gets 30 Months For Fake CRISCO Sales".

I'm sorry to say, but after the infinite possibilities conjured up by that thought of all those illicit Chinese tubs of CRISCO (what are they doing with it? why do they need so much? why are they pirating it instead of just buying it a the supermarket? what, er, activities or businesses where they using it for?) the real story about ordinary old hardware counterfeiting was a pretty fair letdown . . . .