The U.S. consume 7 billion pounds of candy a year.

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Last night I had a dream about the Fail Whale.

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There is a growing tendancy to think of Man as a rational, thinking being, which is absurd.- Marvin the Martian.

It's gotten to the point where careful investigation is needed just to tell parody from reality. I think that means reality is broken.- Noclevername.

Daniel Boone, despite popular imagery, didn't wear a coonskin cap. However, the confusion might arise because Davy Crockett wore a coonskin cap.

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Todd (Bowie, MD, US, North America, Earth, Sol System, Vega region, Local Bubble, Orion arm, Milky Way Galaxy, Local Group, Virgo A Cluster, Virgo supercluster, the universe in which spock is clean shaven)

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.

personal page: http://blog.astrosketches.info

David Boon, ex-cricketer and current Australian Circket Team selector, set the record for the Australian cricket team by drinking 52 cans of beer on the flight from Sydney to London for the 1989 Ashes test series.

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The left hand knows full well what the right hand is doing, but quietly ignores it.

I've never seen beer offered on an airline.

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I'm trying to remember now if beer was offered on my flights--I'm thinking it was, but I always ordered something stronger.

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Todd (Bowie, MD, US, North America, Earth, Sol System, Vega region, Local Bubble, Orion arm, Milky Way Galaxy, Local Group, Virgo A Cluster, Virgo supercluster, the universe in which spock is clean shaven)

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.

personal page: http://blog.astrosketches.info

Beer has been offered on flights in Australia for as far back as I can remember, and still is. I always go Johnny Walker or rum though.

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The left hand knows full well what the right hand is doing, but quietly ignores it.

Spoons banned for alcoholism.
Oh, sorry, wrong thread.


OK.... ummmmm... I'll even make it on-topic...

Every single visible star is in our local, tiny, insignificant little Milky Way Galaxy.

Our galaxy is of quite a respectable size, actually. It's the second largest galaxy in our 47-member local group.

So there.

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There is a growing tendancy to think of Man as a rational, thinking being, which is absurd.- Marvin the Martian.

It's gotten to the point where careful investigation is needed just to tell parody from reality. I think that means reality is broken.- Noclevername.

heheh..

I meant tiny in cosmological terms... It always struck me as interesting that as we gaze out into the universe, all we can see is our own tiny, tiny corner of the Cosmos (and a coupla of very nearby galaxies).

Even though a clear sky at night gives you an immense sense of scale, it is actually not even close to representing a significant part of the Universe..

Sorta sad yet awe-inspiring - even empowering in a strange sort of way, all at once.

In cosmological terms, the bowling ball that falls on your foot is a minute, infinitesimal, tiny tiny little mote.

This knowledge will not make your toes feel better.

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smile, and the Universe smiles with you

ah, but it's the smallest non-dwarf galaxy in the Local Group!

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Todd (Bowie, MD, US, North America, Earth, Sol System, Vega region, Local Bubble, Orion arm, Milky Way Galaxy, Local Group, Virgo A Cluster, Virgo supercluster, the universe in which spock is clean shaven)

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.

personal page: http://blog.astrosketches.info

No it isn't! Triangulum is smaller!

So there!

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There is a growing tendancy to think of Man as a rational, thinking being, which is absurd.- Marvin the Martian.

It's gotten to the point where careful investigation is needed just to tell parody from reality. I think that means reality is broken.- Noclevername.

Mount Etna in Sicily, also known as Mongibello from the Latin mons and the Arabic gibel both meaning mountain, has been known to blow smoke rings: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/696953.stm

Last night, in a fit of humor, I said during band rehearsal of a pro oboist in the band:

"He practiced? That's cheating!"

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Todd (Bowie, MD, US, North America, Earth, Sol System, Vega region, Local Bubble, Orion arm, Milky Way Galaxy, Local Group, Virgo A Cluster, Virgo supercluster, the universe in which spock is clean shaven)

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.

personal page: http://blog.astrosketches.info

And they still bloody won it as well. Ah well, the times, they might sorta be a-changing...

My RF for today - Sir George Downing (1623–1684), after whom Downing Street in London is named, was a spy for Oliver Cromwell.

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"Rules are for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools" - D. Bader

"Universe" literally means "rolled into one"

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There is a growing tendancy to think of Man as a rational, thinking being, which is absurd.- Marvin the Martian.

It's gotten to the point where careful investigation is needed just to tell parody from reality. I think that means reality is broken.- Noclevername.

The word mummy comes from the Arabic mumya, for black tar.

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The ancient Egyptian word for "mummy" was "karst" or "karast". It is possible the Greeks got their word "Khristos" from it, meaning to anoint with oil, from which we get the modern word "Christ."

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There is a growing tendancy to think of Man as a rational, thinking being, which is absurd.- Marvin the Martian.

It's gotten to the point where careful investigation is needed just to tell parody from reality. I think that means reality is broken.- Noclevername.

The journal Social Biology changed its name from Eugenics Quarterly in 1969

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There is a growing tendancy to think of Man as a rational, thinking being, which is absurd.- Marvin the Martian.

It's gotten to the point where careful investigation is needed just to tell parody from reality. I think that means reality is broken.- Noclevername.

US$1.00 in 1913 has the same buying power as $21.82 in 2009.

- CPI Inflation Calculator

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hmmm...the real question is, have they changed what they're about?

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Todd (Bowie, MD, US, North America, Earth, Sol System, Vega region, Local Bubble, Orion arm, Milky Way Galaxy, Local Group, Virgo A Cluster, Virgo supercluster, the universe in which spock is clean shaven)

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.

personal page: http://blog.astrosketches.info

Dunno. I'll check for you when I get back to the BL

Princess Zelda from "The Legend of Zelda" was named after Zelda Fitzgerald, wife of F Scott Fitzgerald.

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There is a growing tendancy to think of Man as a rational, thinking being, which is absurd.- Marvin the Martian.

It's gotten to the point where careful investigation is needed just to tell parody from reality. I think that means reality is broken.- Noclevername.

NRA sells concealed carry handbags.

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Salty
"...with God, all things are possible..." Even evolution

In the UK, adult shoe sizes (whole integers) increase in units of a barleycorn, or one-third of an inch.

I limit myself to one cigar every three days. I have yet to keep my limit of one cigarette every hour.

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Salty
"...with God, all things are possible..." Even evolution

Are we really restricted to just one random fact?

Oh well here goes :

The coolest white dwarf is WD 0346+246 :

"We might expect the faintest white dwarfs to be coolest, but while ESO 439-26's luminosity may be lowest, its temperature is not. At 4560 K, it is warmer than the current record of 3500 for a somewhat brighter star called WD 0346+246. (At these temperatures, white dwarfs are reddish showing the danger in naming clases of objects before they are understood.)"

Source : Page 75, Kaler 'The 100 Greatest Stars', Copernicus Books, 2002.

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Well currently maybe but I think you'll find the occassional Supenova or maybe bright nova in the Large & Small Magellanic Clouds and Andromeda Galaxy, maybe Triangulum (M33 Pinwheel) too is briefly visible too! ;-)

Eg. SN 1987 A or Sanduleak -69 202, S Andromedae 1885.

Of course whether you still count a supernova as a visible star is a vexed issue!

Also some stars visible that are now part of the Milky Way may have originated in other dwarf galaxies that our Milky Way has gobbled up! Arcturus and kapteyn's Star may possibly be exampels of stars born in another ex-galaxy and Omega Centauri may well be the core of an elliptical dwarf galaxy. Ofc ourse Omega is agroup of stars - a globular cluster or galaxy rather than a single star but it is Bayer listed as a single star!

Finally, there's S Doradus which although a multiple was for a long time thought to be the most massive and brightest star visible and which is located in the LMC. See :

http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclo...S_Doradus.html

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A child born in Denmark today has a 50% chance of living to one hundred years old.

If you really want to be technical, when you see M31 from a sufficiently dark rural site, you are looking at a star, or rather on the order of a trillion stars.

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Todd (Bowie, MD, US, North America, Earth, Sol System, Vega region, Local Bubble, Orion arm, Milky Way Galaxy, Local Group, Virgo A Cluster, Virgo supercluster, the universe in which spock is clean shaven)

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.

personal page: http://blog.astrosketches.info