Cancer

NO!!  YOU MUST NOT TOUCH THE SACRED TEXTS!!

This day in history, 1975, Pink Floyd's concept album Wish You Were Here reaches #1 in the United States and goes on to sell 13 million copies. Wanting to deliver an album that was as innovative as The Dark Side of the Moon, they decided to return to their experimental roots. The concept Pink Floyd settled upon was to use no traditional instruments at all - no guitar, no bass, and no drums. After frustrating months of sessions on "household objects," most of the band was ready to move on from the idea. But out of these ashes, Wish You Were Here was born. 
  Wish You Were Here
 
 

There is solid reason to say that Venus was in the HZ until 3/4 Gyr ago or so, at which time the inevitable increase in solar luminosity drove all the water into vapor form, the thermal structure of the atmosphere changed so that water was exposed to the solar UV, and it got photodissociated and lost.  End of habitability.
 
The outer edge of the HZ is harder to guess.  Mars is low enough mass that its geological activity was able to maintain a circulation of atmosphere gases through the solid part of the planet for a Gyr, tops, and maintain a magnetic field strong enough to stand off the impinging solar wind, for a less-understood amount of time.  In other words, Mars might not be habitable now even if it was now and had always been where Earth is now.  It is a weak candidate.
 
Had Mars been 1 or 2 earth masses, its geology probably would still be going.  In such a case, would an Earth-mass Mars in its current location be habitable now?  And, an important second question arises: would it have been habitable 3.5 Gyr ago when the solar luminosity was substantially lower?  I would need some convincing before I'd say we had any confidence in our ability to answer those questions.

... the concept of the various colleges having competitions, complete with morale-raising cheers, in this context lends new and ironic overtones to the old "We're #1!" chant.

Roaches have chewing mouthparts; flies have sucking mouthparts.  Which is more disturbing in the final analysis varies between individuals.

Are we talking moo-dos or techni-cows?

L Marcus has not had a previous life. He has caused other people to have previous lives.

I prefer "clock roaches"

Hope you put in the part about an elk eating it, and you having to wait for it to pass through its system so you could harvest it from the droppings ... which of course were deposited in the middle of a lake ...

“I don’t believe in astrology; I’m a Sagittarius and we’re skeptical.” --Arthur C. Clarke

I did an irreverent and entirely anonymous (read: paper response forms) survey in my morning class.  The numbers in the parens are the tallies of hits to each response. (22 responses (24 registered for the course); the prompt said "circle as many as apply" so selection of multiple alternatives did happen.)
 
1.    I feel I already know some stuff about astronomy, space science, and physics.
(1)  Oh yeah
(14) Some
(8)  I’ve heard those words
(1)  Don’t hurt me
 
2.    I’m in this class because
(2)  It’s the only way my schedule can work
(2)  I guessed that this is the <core class designation> that might have the least math
(17) I have no idea; I got put here by someone else
(4)  I explicitly wanted this kind of subject
(0)  I’m gonna drop, but I haven’t been able to find a satisfactory alternate to plug in yet
 
3.    Things I have heard about this instructor
(4)  Nothing at all
(17) Just what’s in his “Personal Trivia” on the Canvas page
(1)  He’s hard
(0)  He’s boring
(0)  He’s terrifying
 
4.    Astronomy is different from astrology!
(12) Yup, and I know the difference
(12) Ummmmm…
(1)  Am I in the wrong class?
 
 

Re: The Last Word
 

I did an irreverent and entirely anonymous (read: paper response forms) survey in my morning class.  The numbers in the parens are the tallies of hits to each response. (22 responses (24 registered for the course); the prompt said "circle as many as apply" so selection of multiple alternatives did happen.)
 
1.    I feel I already know some stuff about astronomy, space science, and physics.
(1)  Oh yeah
(14) Some
(8)  I’ve heard those words
(1)  Don’t hurt me
 
2.    I’m in this class because
(2)  It’s the only way my schedule can work
(2)  I guessed that this is the <core class designation> that might have the least math
(17) I have no idea; I got put here by someone else
(4)  I explicitly wanted this kind of subject
(0)  I’m gonna drop, but I haven’t been able to find a satisfactory alternate to plug in yet
 
3.    Things I have heard about this instructor
(4)  Nothing at all
(17) Just what’s in his “Personal Trivia” on the Canvas page
(1)  He’s hard
(0)  He’s boring
(0)  He’s terrifying
 
4.    Astronomy is different from astrology!
(12) Yup, and I know the difference
(12) Ummmmm…
(1)  Am I in the wrong class?
 
 

I did an irreverent and entirely anonymous (read: paper response forms) survey in my morning class.  The numbers in the parens are the tallies of hits to each response. (22 responses (24 registered for the course); the prompt said "circle as many as apply" so selection of multiple alternatives did happen.)
 
1.    I feel I already know some stuff about astronomy, space science, and physics.
(1)  Oh yeah
(14) Some
(8)  I’ve heard those words
(1)  Don’t hurt me
 
2.    I’m in this class because
(2)  It’s the only way my schedule can work
(2)  I guessed that this is the <core class designation> that might have the least math
(17) I have no idea; I got put here by someone else
(4)  I explicitly wanted this kind of subject
(0)  I’m gonna drop, but I haven’t been able to find a satisfactory alternate to plug in yet
 
3.    Things I have heard about this instructor
(4)  Nothing at all
(17) Just what’s in his “Personal Trivia” on the Canvas page
(1)  He’s hard
(0)  He’s boring
(0)  He’s terrifying
 
4.    Astronomy is different from astrology!
(12) Yup, and I know the difference
(12) Ummmmm…
(1)  Am I in the wrong class?
 
 

NO!!  YOU MUST NOT TOUCH THE SACRED TEXTS!!

NO!!  YOU MUST NOT TOUCH THE SACRED TEXTS!!

Long preamble here.
 
The administrative unit in which I have the Associate Director title got moved out of one building last spring (that one was subsequently demolished and the spot is being built on now), and into another one.  The current location is a building that is older than the building that was demolished.
 
In this older building/new location, the only men's restroom is on the third floor (the only women's restroom is on the second floor).  Yes, classes are held in this building (which has three floors), and things get pretty congested during passing periods.
 
So ... unless it is pouring down rain, when my morning coffee demands liberation, rather than go upstairs, it is more convenient for me to duck outside and walk into another building right across the way, where there is a less-used men's room right near the entry on that entry level.  That other building houses the Business School.
 
I realized today that what I am doing is ... using the Business School as my outhouse.
 
After some consideration ... as a member of the College of Science & Engineering, I am oddly OK with that.

I get you, Amigo.  
 
I feel like that about The Black Hole.  At least, about my self-made expurgated version, where I erased every scene with VINCENT and BOB after the landing on the Cygnus.
 
Trust me; it's _way_ better that way.
 
 

NO!!  YOU MUST NOT TOUCH THE SACRED TEXTS!!

Long preamble here.
 
The administrative unit in which I have the Associate Director title got moved out of one building last spring (that one was subsequently demolished and the spot is being built on now), and into another one.  The current location is a building that is older than the building that was demolished.
 
In this older building/new location, the only men's restroom is on the third floor (the only women's restroom is on the second floor).  Yes, classes are held in this building (which has three floors), and things get pretty congested during passing periods.
 
So ... unless it is pouring down rain, when my morning coffee demands liberation, rather than go upstairs, it is more convenient for me to duck outside and walk into another building right across the way, where there is a less-used men's room right near the entry on that entry level.  That other building houses the Business School.
 
I realized today that what I am doing is ... using the Business School as my outhouse.
 
After some consideration ... as a member of the College of Science & Engineering, I am oddly OK with that.

Long preamble here.
 
The administrative unit in which I have the Associate Director title got moved out of one building last spring (that one was subsequently demolished and the spot is being built on now), and into another one.  The current location is a building that is older than the building that was demolished.
 
In this older building/new location, the only men's restroom is on the third floor (the only women's restroom is on the second floor).  Yes, classes are held in this building (which has three floors), and things get pretty congested during passing periods.
 
So ... unless it is pouring down rain, when my morning coffee demands liberation, rather than go upstairs, it is more convenient for me to duck outside and walk into another building right across the way, where there is a less-used men's room right near the entry on that entry level.  That other building houses the Business School.
 
I realized today that what I am doing is ... using the Business School as my outhouse.
 
After some consideration ... as a member of the College of Science & Engineering, I am oddly OK with that.

So? Have the courage of your convictions, man!

I hate to say this, but I think impeaching Donald Trump is a horrible idea. The Democrats don't have anything like the votes necessary to convict him in the Senate, and with Moscow Mitch at the helm, I don't know that there would ever even be a vote. The effect I foresee from an impeachment of Trump is to make him a martyr, emboldening his fan base for the next two election cycles (at least) and virtually guaranteeing his reelection next November.
 
You can't count on Donald Trump to resign the Presidency, the way Nixon did, at the threat of impeachment. That would require a sense of shame, or a concern for the future of the country, or some kind of understanding that he's done something genuinely wrong. Nothing I've ever seen of this President leads me to believe that he possesses any of those traits.
 
If the Democrats really want to be done with Donald Trump--and really, who could blame them?--they need to focus on a candidate and a platform that can unite the Democrats' various warring factions while winning enough support from moderates and disenfranchised Republicans to take back all of those Electoral College votes Trump wasn't projected to win the last time. That isn't likely, but is at least theoretically possible to accomplish. But impeachment is a non-starter as long as McConnell and the GOP run the Senate.

Are they spherical bears?