Quick Thoughts: Katrina, South Carolina, Hole in Space
It’s been two years since Katrina’s landfall in New Orleans
Shut up already.
I’m sorry. Yes it floods are tragic. Loss of life is tragic. Loss of property is tragic. You have some sympathy from me for the combinations of random events that led to your losses. You have my sympathy for the struggle getting back on your feet afterwards.
You don’t have my sympathy for living in a city that has been under water 27 times since it’s founding. That’s once every eleven years. Not only that, the city has been sinking all that time and the sea level is rising so it’s only going to get worse. Raising the levees every time just means that when they do break or are crested your flood is going to be worse.
I’m no civil engineer, or ecologist, and I’m not even good eyeballing heights and depths, but you had plenty of obvious signs this would happen, and will happen again. Mourn your loss, move on. It’s the American way. Even the poorest of us here in the states live better than the majority of the world. Don’t go soft, don’t despair… for goodness sake don’t spend your time whining and begging for help, we’re all better than that.
Anyone want to start a Map Drive?
Aside from this girl’s stage fright being hilarious, 94% of high school students can find the US on a map. That’s drastically higher than what was quoted the other night, but it’s still very sad. There’s no reason it shouldn’t be 100%.
SPAAAAAAAAAAAAACE HOOOOOOOOOOOOOLE
Recently some astronomers have discovered a hole in space. They had noticed the region before and dubbed it as a “cool spot,” due to lower background radiation levels. Now that they’ve got better equipment and more viewing time they’ve investigated further.
It’s big, and it’s wierd. See it for yourself. It’s a billion lightyears across. If you don’t know, a lightyear is how far light can travel in a year. Light is fast. Put another way, a lightyear is 5,865,696,000,000 miles, and this hole is a billion times that.
There are other voids in space, but never has one anywhere near this size been discovered. We don’t get it. This means either our theories on universal structure and expansion/movement are way off… or something happened that we don’t understand, on a scope we can barely even imagine. Either way, I find it pretty exciting. I like it when something kicks us in the pants and makes us re-evaluate our understanding of the universe.
Read about it on new scientist.
3 Comments
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Comment by James — September 27, 2007 @ 2:10 pm
Ok so that is one HUGE hole… I can’t even fathom a million MILES across… let alone 5,865,696,000,000 miles x a billion!
Comment by Todd — January 26, 2008 @ 3:32 am
Umm, yeah, sorry about that hole. Little glitch in the time travel project I was working on. We’ll get that sewn up soon.
Comment by Todd — January 26, 2008 @ 3:39 am
http://www.astro.umn.edu/~larry/void/eridanus_notes.jpg