EvilDrPuma Posted May 20, 2012 Report Share Posted May 20, 2012 Re: "Neat" Pictures Old D&D Character Sheet He's not a hobbit...er, halfling fan, I take it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghost-angel Posted May 20, 2012 Report Share Posted May 20, 2012 Re: "Neat" Pictures There is pretty strong evidence that global climate change may have contributed to the Mayan food crisis. At the same time' date=' temperatures in Europe dropped significantly and contributed to farmland building up around centralized cities and larger communal buildings. The Mayans used an irrigation method that would absorb heat from sunlight and create a vapor barrier over crops when temperatures cooled at night. Evidence suggest that the cooling of Europe was balanced by a drought that made the Mayan irrigation method unworkable.[/quote'] There's also some evidence of plagues sweeping through the Americas and depopulating large sections of it (one notable one is much further north along the east coast of North America). Start combining all these factors over a, relatively, short period and you have a civilization collapsing series of events occurring. Plague also goes toward explaining why some regions were never fully (or ever) repopulated. Trying to point to one event is folly, and the kind of over simplification the History Channel likes... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vulcan Posted May 20, 2012 Report Share Posted May 20, 2012 Re: "Neat" Pictures Trying to point to one event is folly' date=' and the kind of over simplification the History Channel likes...[/quote'] Well, when you are trying to inform people with viciously short attention spans about a historic event, a fair amount of simplification is necessary. But still... Aliens? On the History Channel? I suppose it makes about as much sense as WWF on SciFi... excuse me, Syfy (and what an IDIOTIC change that was). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghost-angel Posted May 20, 2012 Report Share Posted May 20, 2012 Re: "Neat" Pictures At least it wasn't a WW2 documentary? That's an achievement all by itself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cygnia Posted May 20, 2012 Report Share Posted May 20, 2012 Re: "Neat" Pictures At least it wasn't a WW2 documentary? That's an achievement all by itself. Used to be the only stuff on the History Channel was Hitler and aliens -- and sometimes the two of them together. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MisterVimes Posted May 20, 2012 Report Share Posted May 20, 2012 Re: "Neat" Pictures There's also some evidence of plagues sweeping through the Americas and depopulating large sections of it (one notable one is much further north along the east coast of North America). Start combining all these factors over a, relatively, short period and you have a civilization collapsing series of events occurring. Plague also goes toward explaining why some regions were never fully (or ever) repopulated. Trying to point to one event is folly, and the kind of over simplification the History Channel likes... Exactly. Columbus and his men cited vast numbers of indigenous people and by the time the Mayflower got here they were all massively depopulated and the colonists noted how "tame" the wilderness was. Of course it was, millions of people had tamed it before they got here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MisterVimes Posted May 20, 2012 Report Share Posted May 20, 2012 Re: "Neat" Pictures Closing frame for a short film I just helped shoot. The plot was Gangsters busting up Nazi smugglers. [ATTACH=CONFIG]43180[/ATTACH] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ternaugh Posted May 20, 2012 Report Share Posted May 20, 2012 Re: "Neat" Pictures Old D&D Character Sheet He's not a hobbit...er' date=' halfling fan, I take it.[/quote'] I am amused that he has "mustache wax" amongst his items. Of course, most days, so do I. JoeG Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BoloOfEarth Posted May 20, 2012 Report Share Posted May 20, 2012 Re: "Neat" Pictures Used to be the only stuff on the History Channel was Hitler and aliens -- and sometimes the two of them together. So, according to the History Channel, Hitler was an alien? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Hopcroft Posted May 20, 2012 Report Share Posted May 20, 2012 Re: "Neat" Pictures So' date=' according to the History Channel, Hitler was an alien? [/quote'] No, but there was a Tomorrow People storyarc in the 1970s that asserted that very thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Logan D. Hurricanes Posted May 20, 2012 Report Share Posted May 20, 2012 Re: "Neat" Pictures So' date=' according to the History Channel, Hitler was an alien? [/quote'] That's what they want you to think! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MisterVimes Posted May 20, 2012 Report Share Posted May 20, 2012 Re: "Neat" Pictures So' date=' according to the History Channel, Hitler was an alien? [/quote'] No, but apparently they were pals. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted May 20, 2012 Report Share Posted May 20, 2012 Re: "Neat" Pictures The colours may be because of the "zoomed out" nature used by the software program. And you are saying that if you stood at the side of the pyramids matching the photo and stood there for 24 hours that you would not see the three planets line up as in the photo? Yes, that's what I'm saying. (of note: I only used that time as it was just past midnight. I could have picked a different time during that day--5th Dec 2012) The arc made by connecting the dots of the planets is a specific arc on the celestial sphere. When you have the planets/whatever low enough in the sky to appear near the horizon, the angle made by that arc on the celestial sphere with respect to the horizon for a viewer standing on earth depends on the viewer's latitude. When exactly that segment of arc is near the horizon depends on the local time, but the angle between the arc and the horizon is independent of that: no matter what time it is when the planets are near the horizon, the angle made by their arc and the horizon is set by the observer's latitude. Simplified example: suppose all three planets are dead on the celestial equator. As seen from any point on Earth's equator, when those three planets are near the horizon, the arc they make will be perpendicular to the horizon. That is because, when you stand on Earth's equator, the celestial equator itself is perpendicular to the horizon. At the poles, by contrast, nothing rises or sets on a diurnal basis. Three planets on the celestial equator would go in an arc parallel to the horizon, and skimming that horizon, as seen from either pole. So, when I use the virtual planetarium software we have in the teaching lab, I find that those three objects, in the positions they have in the sky in early December 2012, cannot have the arc they make appear anything close to parallel to the horizon from an observer's location of 30 degrees N. To get that, the observer needs to be more like 50 degrees S latitude. Now, a separate question is made by the picture of the Pyramids themselves. If it turns out that in order for a person at Giza to see the Pyramids in a nice even-spaced row like that, the person has to be standing (e.g.) due south of the pyramids, then it is also impossible to get that image in real life for a different reason. Those planets are (depending on time of day) going to appear slightly south of due east or due west when they are near the horizon, so to have them in the picture you have to be facing due east/west as required. But if to see the pyramids as they appear in the image you had to be looking north at the pyramids from a point south of them, then you have incompatible requirements on where you must be looking. I couldn't work out where the photographer as standing with respect to the pyramids from a mab of the Giza site, so I don't know if that is also a problem; I just was pointing out that that too could be a fundamental issue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Susano Posted May 21, 2012 Report Share Posted May 21, 2012 Re: "Neat" Pictures I recall it used to be A&E = Arms and Entertainment and History = All Hitler Channel. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Celt Posted May 21, 2012 Report Share Posted May 21, 2012 Re: "Neat" Pictures Great view. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tkdguy Posted May 21, 2012 Report Share Posted May 21, 2012 Re: "Neat" Pictures I recall it used to be A&E = Arms and Entertainment and History = All Hitler Channel. In all fairness, HBO originally stood for "Hey, Beastmaster's On!" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Enforcer84 Posted May 21, 2012 Report Share Posted May 21, 2012 Re: "Neat" Pictures In all fairness' date=' HBO originally stood for "Hey, Beastmaster's On!"[/quote'] Loved that movie. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Man Posted May 21, 2012 Report Share Posted May 21, 2012 Re: "Neat" Pictures As did I. Too bad about the cat though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Mackinder Posted May 21, 2012 Report Share Posted May 21, 2012 Re: "Neat" Pictures Tanya Roberts probably had a lot to do with my liking of that movie. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xavier Onassiss Posted May 21, 2012 Report Share Posted May 21, 2012 Re: "Neat" Pictures Less talking more pictures. [ATTACH=CONFIG]43203[/ATTACH] Fixed, I think. It's one of those days. Pretty much everything I touch is blowing up in my face. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L. Marcus Posted May 21, 2012 Report Share Posted May 21, 2012 Re: "Neat" Pictures It's broke, it's broken! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Susano Posted May 21, 2012 Report Share Posted May 21, 2012 Re: "Neat" Pictures Less talking more pictures. What picture? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BoloOfEarth Posted May 21, 2012 Report Share Posted May 21, 2012 Re: "Neat" Pictures Even a picture of a little red "X", is still a picture. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MisterVimes Posted May 21, 2012 Report Share Posted May 21, 2012 Re: "Neat" Pictures The Meerkats finally win one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Logan D. Hurricanes Posted May 21, 2012 Report Share Posted May 21, 2012 Re: "Neat" Pictures Even a picture of a little red "X"' date=' is still a picture.[/quote'] I'm not even seeing that. Tried linking straight to it and that didn't work, either. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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