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Winnipeg

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Posts posted by Winnipeg

  1. Amazing video...reminds me of the year I lived in Northern Manitoba (about the same, if not a little closer to the magnetic north pole than Yellowknife).  About the only thing I miss from that year are the Northern Lights.

     

    Although the author seems to have forgotten how to spell Canada :blink:

     

    Here in Lethbridge, without fail the last 3 years, everytime there is a solar storm that promises good Aurora, sure enough, Clouds as far as I can see.

  2. Actually when most people say supermoon, they mean the mythical thing that gets passed around facebook all the time.  I got so tired of pasting links to explain the reality and telling people it's not what they think, that I just ignore the posts about it now.  You would think that after so many hoaxes about it, people might start thinking it strange that no one has seen one of these enormous moons before.  Or the companion hoax that says Mars will appear the same size as the moon.

     

    Makes me want to facepalm hard enough to see stars...

     

    People still believe that Nigeria has Princes with large sums of cold hard cash they need to get out of the country...

     

    Or that Microsoft will cold call you when your PC is infected with Malware and instruct you to install a tool to remove it...

  3. He's being paid for his servers/infrastructure, which cost him both time and money to build and maintain.  You may dislike the person, but enough people use his services the NS Admin Team feel it's worth saving from the boneyard, so honestly, he deserves to be compensated.

     

    Open Source means you have the right to use the code all you want to build your own version of NS++, or whatever.  It does not mean he has no right to be compensated for his time if others find his end product worth something.

    It's not really that much different than anyone that runs offsite forums like myself.  I spend $35-40/month on the server we have here, and I don't expect anyone to contribute.  I get other benefits from it that makes it worth my wild (plus I'm just a nice guy...sometimes), so it's a mutually beneficial arrangement.  With the numbers using NSWiki, NS++ and other services, his bills are likely higher than mine....

     

    Overall I think this is probably a good event as it takes that infrastructure away from someone no one seems to like or really trust and puts it in someone's hands that is far more trusted by the Community.

  4. Ask him to send a spare Million this way :PB)

     

     

    Then he rejected offers from Goldman Sacs, and is now at Blackstone where they do billion dollar deals over lunch.
  5. If you look in the upper centre-right of the photo you can see that white line, could be a shooting star, or a plane, or possibly a satellite, although I bet the exposure time for the photo would have seen a much longer line if it was a sat, and if it was a plane, I think it would be intermittent due to the blinking navigation lights.

  6. Lethbridge had a Chinook Arch overhead last night, so no stars, shooting or otherwise to be seen. bah!

     

    I can't remember the last significant event, be it meteor showers, or aggressive auroras that Lethbridge has had clear skies for.

  7. I guess that really depends on what's powering it/providing it with energy to continue...but yes, storms do eventually come to an end.  Would be kinda sad though...for most of written history Humans have known Jupiter by the Red Spot, but in a generation or two it there might be no red spot for humans to see.

  8. I was referring to a (big) asteroid hitting Earth. Isn't that how we got our moon?

     

    I'm pretty sure that theory calls for a proto-planet hitting earth rather than just a big asteroid...the Giant impact hypothesis calls for a planetary body, similar in size of Mars.

     

    That said, it's a theory, and apparently unfalsifiable, as it can be expanded to explain away future discoveries, so who knows.

     

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_impact_hypothesis

  9. Total eclipse of the Moon on April 15.  Visible in its entirety from the USA.  Totality starts at 07:06 UT and finishes at 08:24 UT.  Partial phase starts at 05:58 UT and ends at 09:33 UT.

     

    Total lunar eclipses are always nice to watch, seeing what colour the Moon will be when eclipsed.  No equipment necessary, just a pair of eyes.

     

    I remember observing one once and looking to the south and seeing a nice display of the aurora australis which had been masked until then by the Moon's brightness.

     

    Those are alot harder to get a good view of compared to the northern ones.  I've only seen them from photos taken on the ISS.  Even made a video of them like 2 years ago. Three Cheers for Public Domain!

     

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