n2doc
n2doc's Journal
Can we just retire the friggin' Nobel Peace Prize Already?
I mean, seriously, it HAS NO MEANING ANYMORE. And Hasn't for a long time.
see:
EU winning Nobel Peace Prize is beyond parody, like knighting Fred Goodwin in the middle of a mad boom
By Iain Martin World Last updated: October 12th, 2012
Has the committee which runs the Nobel Peace Prize been infiltrated by satirists or opponents keen on discrediting the organisation? Norwegian radio reports this morning, carried by Reuters, suggested that the European Union is to be awarded the prize for supposedly keeping the peace in Europe for the last sixty years. Was this a Nordic spoof? Apparently not.
It is only a few years since President Obama was ludicrously awarded the Nobel peace prize for winning the 2008 election and not being George Bush. Since then Mr Obama has continued the war in Afghanistan, stepped up drone attacks and got America involved in Libya's bloody revolution, suggesting that it is better to hand out baubles after someone has finished their job rather than when they are just getting started or are half way through. Incidentally, the same stricture should have applied to bankers honoured by New Labour when they were still running banks which later blew up.
Giving the EU a peace prize is at best premature, like knighting Sir Fred Goodwin in the middle of the mad boom. We have no idea how the experiment to create an anti-democratic federation will end. Hopefully the answer is very peacefully, but when Greek protesters are wearing Nazi uniforms, and Spanish youth unemployment is running at 50 per cent, a look at history suggests there is always the possibility of a bumpy landing.
Daftest of all is the notion that the EU itself has kept the peace. It was the Allies led by the Americans, the Russians and the British who defeated and disarmed the Germans in 1945. The German people then underwent the most extraordinary reckoning, transforming their country into an essentially pacifist society. The EU had very little to do with it. Throughout that period it was Nato, led by the Americans and British, which kept the peace in Western Europe. The American taxpayer picked up most of the resulting tab, and the British paid a significant part of the bill too.
more
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/iainmartin1/100184804/eu-winning-nobel-peace-prize-is-beyond-parody-like-knighting-fred-goodwin-in-the-middle-of-a-mad-boom/
Titan’s Surface the “Consistency of Soft, Damp Sand”
Artist concept of the Huygens probe landing on the surface of Titan. Credit: ESA
Even though the Huygens probe landed on Titan back in 2005 and transmitted data for only about 90 minutes after touchdown, scientists are still able to eke information out about Titan from the mission, squeezing all they can from the data. The latest information comes from reconstructing the way the probe landed, and an international group of scientists say the probe “bounced, slid and wobbled” after touching down on Saturn’s moon, which provides insight into the nature of the Titan’s surface.
“A spike in the acceleration data suggests that during the first wobble, the probe likely encountered a pebble protruding by around 2 cm from the surface of Titan, and may have even pushed it into the ground, suggesting that the surface had a consistency of soft, damp sand,” describes Dr. Stefan Schröder of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, lead author of a paper recently published in Planetary and Space Science.
Schröder and his team were able to reconstruct the landing by analyzing data from different instruments that were active during the impact, and in particular they looked for changes in the acceleration experienced by the probe.
The instrument data were compared with results from computer simulations and a drop test using a model of Huygens designed to replicate the landing.
Read more: http://www.universetoday.com/97933/titans-surface-the-consistency-of-soft-damp-sand/
Cookie Monster Crater on Mercury
Big Bird has been grabbing the headlines lately, and its time for another Muppet to get a little face time. So, here’s Cookie Monster’s face, plastered across the surface of Mercury. Well, it looks like it, anyway. This is an image from the MESSENGER spacecraft, orbiting Mercury, and the folks at Goddard Space Flight Center suggested this superposition of younger craters on older craters (in this case two smaller and shadowed craters that look like googly eyes placed on the rim of an older crater) appears to resemble everyone’s favorite blue, Sesame Street, cookie-loving monster.
While most of us can enjoy this image for the pareidolia effect of seeing a familiar face (and start salivating about cookies), what scientists are looking at here are craters. Specifically in this image, the Law of Superposition allows scientists to determine which surface features pre- and postdate others, leading to a better understanding of the geological history of different regions of Mercury’s surface.
Read more: http://www.universetoday.com/97941/cookie-monster-crater-on-mercury/
Stunning New Panorama Shows the Hazy Distant Hills of Mars
This beautiful new panorama of the Curiosity rover’s view in Gale Crater of the distant hazy hills beyond that seem to call out, begging for exploration. “FINALLY, a spaceprobe takes a picture that shows Mars as it has burned in my mind all these years,” said Stuart Atkinson via Twitter, who created this mosaic from four separate raw color images taken by the rover. The images, just uploaded today to Earth, were taken on Sol 50 (Sept. 26, 2012) by the right MastCam on Curiosity. This provides a glimpse at the depth and distances the rover’s cameras can see, with those beckoning hills off in the distance.
Click to see the full, large view of the panorama. Almost enough to make you get those hiking boots out from the back of the closet!
Stu not only stitched together this image but also wrote a new poem about “The Watching Hills.”
An excerpt:
Perhaps two, waves would have lapped gently
Around your feet – maybe higher,
Maybe rolled in slow martian motion past your knees,
And looking down you’d have seen stream-
Polished stones swimming past your boots,
Tumbling over and over and over…
…… all gone now.
Read more: http://www.universetoday.com/97921/stunning-new-panorama-shows-the-hazy-distant-hills-of-mars/
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