Balta1701

QUOTE (iamshack @ Oct 14, 2011 -> 02:18 PM) I just don't understand all the evidence of machining. There are formations of rock (I believe diorite or something) that can only be cut by diamond or whatever and are absolutely perfectly cut and then placed together so that not even a human hair can fit in between the cut rocks. Almost as if they were levitated in some way and then heat-fused together. We have absolutely no explanation for how this could have been done. I've got one more fun bit here. Quick math suggests to me that the great pyramid exerts a pressure of about ~30-40 mpa on its base. (2500 kg/m3 * 10 m2/s * 150m ~ 3x10^7 pascals). The normal yield stress of basic sandstone units is on the order of 20 mpa. The Great pyramid therefore exerts enough pressure at the base that unconfined, unsupported rocks would fracture. However, the rocks are not fully unconfined, there are rocks next to them. Hypothesize that there was 1 mm of space between the rocks. Then, let the rocks sit there in their new pressure state for a period of ~3000 years. In terms of the ductile response of rocks, this is a fairly large amount of time. If the rocks are 1 meter across, then filling up 1 mm of space entirely requires a strain of 0.1% per rock. This is a very small amount of strain. Furthermore, it is probably a fair assumption that the rocks at the top and outside of the pyramid were found deeper in the quarries than the rocks forming the core. This means that the pressure state on the last quarried rocks was previously compressive, and now that compressive force has been lessened or removed. The normal response of rocks to this effect is to expand slightly over time. Meanwhile, the rocks at the core would have previously seen lesser compressive stresses than they currently see, and thus would have also seen large shifts in their stress regime. The normal response of rocks under these conditions is to flow slightly over long timescales. In other words...the fact that a human hair can't go through the cracks is exactly what one would expect if the rocks were sitting there in new stress states over several thousand years. It's not going to fill in a crack a foot wide, but some flexure of the rocks should be the expected behavior over time.

Very giant failure he was. He built the biggest company in the world but didn't become the world's richest man. That means others took home the wealth. If only we'd cut his taxes more...maybe that would have finally made him start innovating stuff.

Tell Mr. Jobs again how he's a failure since his net worth was less than 1/5th that of the founder of Microsoft.

Really good idea. It's the best way to keep the government from getting your money.

Perhaps it's just not your day.

Now who can't spell?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 14, 2011 -> 02:39 PM) So how does procession affect that? The precessional timescale is a small shift on the order of 20ky. It woudln't surprise me if the mantle can keep up with that magnitude of shift. Everything that is currently near the equator stays close to the equator. Might shift, but would be so small that you can't measure it.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 14, 2011 -> 02:34 PM) Of course there is no way to prove it, because it is under miles of ice. Funny how that works. Yes there is...because that ice recorded the atmosphere. If the ice was 15,000 years old or less...it would still have active radiocarbon in it. We can actually go and literally date the ice from the period you're talking about. We have Antarctic and Greenland ice going back 800,000 years right now. Furthermore, if a substantial additional fraction of ice had melted and then somehow refroze before now, we'd see a much higher recent sea level from about that era.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 14, 2011 -> 02:31 PM) Hapgoods theory of crust displacement was the other thing he touched on, which I am not too sure about myself. Of course there really aren't any reputable links on it. http://www.crawford2000.co.uk/hapgood-pole...ctonic-slip.htm This one is mine. We actually think something like this might have happened circa 550-600 million years ago, and probably happened pretty regularly on Mars. He's right that if you put a severe high-mass anomaly near the poles, the Earth's mantle will actually spin around on the liquid core and realign itself with that mass anomaly near the equator. But this is where the fact that the Earth isn't circular comes in. The Earth is an oblate spheroid. It distorts outward along the equator because of the rotational speed of the planet. When you spin the Earth by tens of degrees...that oblate shape must spin too. The oblate shape is why that type of change is very rare...you have to overcome the fact that there is already a mass anomaly sitting at the equator, and you have to move that mass away. When you move the spin axis, what happens then is that the oblate part tends to fade away and another one builds near the new equator...but it does so on a timescale of mantle flow. The mantle would flow that type of anomaly away on a period of ~millions of years. We'd actually still be sitting on a very distorted Earth today. If that had happened 10 ky ago, with satellite measurements we'd literally have mapped out the previous equator to within a kilometer. There is also substantial geologic shifts which occur if the Earth spins. The stuff that was formerly near the Equator sinks by several kilometeres, while the stuff that moves to the new equator rises upwards by several kilometers (and tends to suddenly start eroding). Finally, a huge number of rock types actually record to within a good margin of error their position on the Earth's surface. If there is anything magnetic in the rock (and most rocks are weakly magnetic), the rock records where it is relative to the Earth's magnetic field. If something moves north, the rock will be substantially misaligned with the current Earth's magnetic field.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Oct 14, 2011 -> 02:30 PM) Agreed. I'm just sitting here with some popcorn. δ13C of that is probably around -13 vs. PDB.

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Oct 14, 2011 -> 02:27 PM) Many make the argument that a lot of civilizations grow around water/oceans. So, if a civilization existed near the water front during an ice age, most of it's structures were destroyed or drowned as the waters rose. But you're not just talking about a small settlement of 2000 people. You're talking about something substantial enough to have developed math and building power that literally reshaped civilizations around the globe 80 centuries later. A civilization advanced enough to do that would also wind up doing things like developing irrigation or maybe sanitation. They wouldn't confine themselves to the oceanfronts, they'd move up rivers seeking fertile agricultural land and hunting grounds.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 14, 2011 -> 02:25 PM) With the Sphinx there is supposedly evidence of water erosion with theorizes that there was flowing water around it at one point. The last possible time period was about 10-12k years ago. Well, first of all, with all we've gotten about rapid climate change in the last 2 decades now that we've realized we need to care about how quick it can happen...the idea that you can't have had a single rain event that produced substantial erosive scouring around an object that IIRC actually wound up partially buried anyway leaves me skeptical.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Oct 14, 2011 -> 02:18 PM) I just don't understand all the evidence of machining. There are formations of rock (I believe diorite or something) that can only be cut by diamond or whatever and are absolutely perfectly cut and then placed together so that not even a human hair can fit in between the cut rocks. Almost as if they were levitated in some way and then heat-fused together. We have absolutely no explanation for how this could have been done. Well, first of all...there is a lot of stuff that can break or fracture just about any large scale rock, including a "Diorite". Rocks are very weak in tension...they can be broken fairly accurately using wedges if you know what you're doing, and although we might use diamond-impregnated stuff today, that's because it's fastest to do so. Secondly, "Heat-fusing" rocks together on a short timespan would leave signatures in the rocks that people like me could pick up in a matter of hours. I know a guy who can tell you whether a rock was heated past 50 degrees C any time since it was formed...actually changing the crystal structure would take >800 degrees C and a fair amount of time. I can't necessarily explain how it was done...but the assumptions there can be checked.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 14, 2011 -> 02:14 PM) The make a few arguments about the ages of a few things being wrong, such as the dating of the Sphinx and settlements/building in Peru. Can they give a concrete reason why the ages are wrong? There are some issues with radiocarbon in that time span but the error is still quite a bit less than 6000 years.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 14, 2011 -> 02:10 PM) I'd love to see them lock payroll up in long term pitching contracts. That pretty much never ends well. Give whoever you sign a Captain Cheeseburger style opt-out after 2-3 years and let them go to the Yankees after 2 years of slimming their ERA in Comerica.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Oct 14, 2011 -> 12:29 PM) Nothing would thrill me more than for the Tigers to spend loads of money on pitching. If you're in Detroit, don't you almost have to? They're down to 0 bad contracts after this year with a ton of money to spend and a need for pitching.

With what I know now about the geologic record and how much work there has been done in excavations...it's really hard for me to buy that there was not just a large civilization somewhere that we don't recognize...but that this civilization was large enough to travel fully across the seas and interact with civilizations across much of the world, at a time of dramatic climate upheaval, without leaving any sort of substantial record. I can buy that we'd miss their main city, esp. if it was somewhere in Persia...but no substantive archaeological records at all? Absence of proof is not proof of absence...but that's not exactly far away.

Especially since 1/3 of the 1994 season and the start of the 1995 season were lost. Basically, 1995 was below 1993's pace in revenue by 20%, 1996 was back at the 1993-1994 pace, and th en 1997 was well above it.

Can you really blame me for all this? Tex started the thread.

QUOTE (jwmann2 @ Oct 14, 2011 -> 11:53 AM) Best way to anticipate and weather your moves and how you will compete is to take a look at what else is going on in the Central. What moves are the Twins and Tigers making in free agency? How is their minor league talent? The Sox were right there most of the season, had Dunn had his normal 40+ homers and 110+ RBIs I think this team would have contended at least until the end. Your DH has to perform. The Tigers will have a substantial sum to spend in free agency and really aren't losing anyone of significance to their team. The Tigers have substantial room to get better next year based on this money. The Twins are in rough shape and really have no option other than to count on Mauer and Morneau to rebound next year. They're likely to lose guys that they don't have the resources to replace right now such as Cuddyer, and their AAA players didn't step up and impress this year when they came up.

Mittens took in $14.2 million last quarter. Less than the $17 million Perry took in, but leaving them with similar amounts of cash-on-hand. The big difference there is that Mittens has been in the race for 6 months, meaning he's already spent a good chunk of money on infrastructure in the early states, while some amount of Perry's money will still be going to startup in those areas (assuming he doesn't call it quits).

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Oct 14, 2011 -> 11:22 AM) Telling you what a 401k is? Again, universal. It is a federal law that created it. The agency who holds it for you probably has some labrynthine rules about fees, but the loss associated with that is minimal. Do you really not understand financial risk at all? Because I think you do, and I think you are being intentionally boneheaded to make some sort of point. Honestly, the fact that talking to a lawyer is in your guys' opinion 100% necessary to make sure my service provider is not screwing me over in the process of taking out a mortgage scares the living f*** out of me.

Xtreme wealth concentration is bad for this economy #American.

Very easy to pronounce judgments as an outsider.

Really? Is that just because you don't like the French name?