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Comment Re:Agolf Shittler ruining America (Score 0) 113

I like the 34 time convicted felon angle a lot. Not because I'm particularly pro Trump or anti Trump. I just like that depending on which judge is doing the talking he's either a 34 time convicted felon or a man who had 34 convictions thrown out on appeal. So is he or isn't he? With the mix of judges in this country and their various loyalties the world may never know.

Comment Re:That'll show Orange Man! (Score 1) 145

So we grow 80% of the worlds soybeans (give or take)? What happens when we stop selling them to China? Grow something else I guess? The same areas that grow soybeans are just fine for corn and other crops so to me this seems like the kind of thing that within a season or two means nothing to either side. American farmers can grow other crops. China can get soybeans from other places right?

Comment Re:act of war (Score 1) 130

You say that like it's not an option but increasingly it's becoming more likely. One of the only good things about the US dropping two atomic bombs on Japan was that it horrified the world (including the US) once it happened. Results were 80 years of nobody nuking anyone else. Ever larger and more deadly weapons kept the fear up but now they're becoming commonplace. More countries join the club every year and sooner or later someone is going to use one. China's making a great case for being the inevitable target.

Submission + - Another large Black hole in "our" Galaxy (arxiv.org)

RockDoctor writes: A recent paper on ArXiv reports a novel idea about the central regions of "our" galaxy.

Remember the hoopla a few years ago about radio-astronomical observations producing an "image" of our central black hole — or rather, an image of the accretion disc around the black hole — long designated by astronomers as "Sagittarius A*" (or SGR-A*)? If you remember the image published then, one thing should be striking — it's not very symmetrical. If you think about viewing a spinning object, then you'd expect to see something with a "mirror" symmetry plane where we would see the rotation axis (if someone had marked it). If anything, that published image has three bright spots on a fainter ring. And the spots are not even approximately the same brightness.

This paper suggests that the image we see is the result of the light (radio waves) from SGR-A* being "lensed" by another black hole, near (but not quite on) the line of sight between SGR-A* and us. By various modelling approaches, they then refine this idea to a "best-fit" of a black hole with mass around 1000 times the Sun, orbiting between the distance of the closest-observed star to SGR-A* ("S2" — most imaginative name, ever!), and around 10 times that distance. That's far enough to make a strong interaction with "S2" unlikely within the lifetime of S2 before it's accretion onto SGR-A*.)

The region around SGR-A* is crowded. Within 25 parsecs (~80 light years, the distance to Regulus [in the constellation Leo] or Merak [in the Great Bear]) there is around 4 times more mass in several millions of "normal" stars than in the SGR-A* black hole. Finding a large (not "super massive") black hole in such a concentration of matter shouldn't surprise anyone.

This proposed black hole is larger than anything which has been detected by gravitational waves (yet) ; but not immensely larger — only a factor of 15 or so. (The authors also anticipate the "what about these big black holes spiralling together?" question : quote "and the amplitude of gravitational waves generated by the binary black holes is negligible.")

Being so close to SGR-A*, the proposed black hole is likely to be moving rapidly across our line of sight. At the distance of "S2" it's orbital period would be around 26 years (but the "new" black hole is probably further out than than that). Which might be an explanation for some of the variability and "flickering" reported for SGR-A* ever since it's discovery.

As always, more observations are needed. Which, for SGR-A* are frequently being taken, so improving (or ruling out) this explanation should happen fairly quickly. But it's a very interesting, and fun, idea.

Submission + - Surado, formerly Slashdot Japan, is closing at the end of the month. (srad.jp) 1

AmiMoJo writes: Slashdot Japan was launched on May 28, 2001. On 2025/03/31, it will finally close. Since starting the site separated from the main Slashdot one, and eventually rebranded as "Surado", which was it's Japanese nickname.

Last year the site stopped posting new stories, and was subsequently unable to find a buyer. In a final story announcing the end, many users expressed their sadness and gratitude for all the years of service.

Comment Re:Just pull out of the EU then... (Score 1) 184

I would genuinely like to see it happen. Mostly because I'd like to see how something like that shakes out. On a regular basis Apple, or Amazon, "Somebody" gets this treatment and I'm not saying that they do or don't have it coming. Not taking a position. We all see this response and yeah, it could happen I guess but what would be the fallout. I'd like to find out just once.

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