The Pod Bay - 2013-12-07

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12:15 AM

@DavidFreitag peers in.

GOCE detection. http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24706-ultrathin-fault-caused-gravitydisto‌rting-japan-quake.html#.UqIIOmRDs7Q

12:35 AM

@Hennes :]

Imaginary numbers......

To be honest, i think i probably spend three hours of my life dealing with imaginary numbers. In all of my schooling i have never encountered complex numbers.

I used it in our equivalent of highschool.

Yeah - same here, but for only a day or so.

Calculate the places where aX^3 + bX^2 + cX + d equals zero.

12:39 AM

I made a MathJax extension for chat, if you want to use it.

It got marked down because the answer was "You can not do that" (by which they meant "you can not do that with the stuff we tought you, and if you read some other books and know more then we just mark the question as bad".

I love it when teachers put things on the test that cover material that they never taught

2 hours later…

Undo the Snowman

3:08 AM

1

Q: How does the surface area of a heat shield impact the ideal angle of attack for reentry?

The Apollo command module had a diameter of about 12.8 ft (which I assume is pretty close to the diameter of its heat shield). However, the heat shield for the new Orion spacecraft is a little bigger, at 16.5 ft (again, the diameter of the vehicle itself).

reentry heat-shield

3:19 AM

@UndotheSnowman here's one fantastic chapter from FAA on Returning from Space: Re-entry (PDF) it should have you covered if you take the time to read it ;)

oh and Coming Home: Reentry and Recovery from Space ebook is now downloadable for free off NASA pages

Undo the Snowman

Neat!

@TildalWave I wanted to thank you for being the big part of the site you are. It's been an awesome journey watching the site grow up, and working together on the issues that arise ;)

@UndotheSnowman C'mon you're making me blush now :) I'd be here anyway as a mod or not, I love it here. I wish I had all the time to research everything, there's not a single boring question here.

Undo the Snowman

:)

We need some Tildal clones, to provide awesome answers to every question.

3:35 AM

Clones would be of no use to me, their experience still wouldn't be mine :P And who'd tolerate them? I sure wouldn't LOL

Undo the Snowman

They would all vote for each other, and you would have to suspend them :P

oh, the gods of the internet finally caught up to my online chemistry teacher :P

@UndotheSnowman the "format war"?

Undo the Snowman

@TildalWave Yup, same guy. A beaver chewed on the cable going into his area or something and completely wiped him off the face of the planet as far as the internet is concerned.

He says that pages take 3-4 minutes to load.

Which means he can't run his classes. Which means he can't tell me how to format my paper. Which means I can format it in a decent way!

It just sounds like lame excuses really. I dunno much about him, but I got impression he's just lazy.

Undo the Snowman

@TildalWave I was in his class when the beaver wiped him off the planet. Unless he's really good at faking a rapidly failing broadband connection, he's telling the truth.

It was amazing - halfway through the class, he started sounding like he was inside a barrel going down a waterfall.

At the end of the class I'll expose his name... I don't want to now, he searches the internet for bad things said about him.

3:42 AM

how come you're doing your classes online?

if it's not too personal ...

Undo the Snowman

Because I'm homeschooled.

And I can do my classes without getting out of bed this way.

Which is awesome.

hehe OK that's not that bad of a reason actually

Undo the Snowman

So, I'm actually the lazier of the two :P

He's very industrious - he runs classes morning through night. He's just prickly.

so you're studying to become a professional pillownaut?

Undo the Snowman

@TildalWave Yes.

Actually, a pillowdev.

3:44 AM

dewdev?

Undo the Snowman

lol

Good grief, have I only been on the network for a year? Feels longer.

you're a yearling?

I'm not yet

Undo the Snowman

On SO.

Yup, this is my first post:

0

Q: Is there a mathematical expression parsing library on Android?

Currently I have an app on iOS that I am looking to port to Android. This app uses the Objective-C GCMathParser framework/class. I am looking for a replacement on Android (or a way to make GCMathParser work on Android) that would be able to calculate stuff like: 2*2 (2+3)+2 ((2+3)+2)/5 (-2 ...

java android parsing

December 6, 2012.

Wait, no, this is:

1

A: UITableView doesn't scroll

Try saying self.tableView.userInteractionEnabled = YES; after you implement the clock view. If this doesn't work, try [self.view bringSubviewToFront:self.tableView];

I remember being soo excited to be able to vote ;)

Then I found mSO.

seems tableView was the clue there in the last one

+1 for yours and the accepted one

Undo the Snowman

;) Thanks.

3:54 AM

I've never programmed much for android tho ... the new Delphi XE seems reasonably convenient for that as far as IDEs go tho

Undo the Snowman

I'm iOS, really.

I know... and Delphi is too, Android, iOS, Windows and OS X

but their pricing sucks so I'm now doing a lot more stuff in Lazarus

which is free

Undo the Snowman

Meh, Xcode is better. But if you were going cross-platform...

And I really like Sublime Text

I'm used to Delphi's IDE

tho truth be told I mostly develop backends now

4:12 AM

astrobites: UR #11: Our Galactic Magnetic Field and Stellar Autopsies

posted on December 07, 2013 by Astrobites

This month's undergraduate research post features pulsars as a probe of our galaxy's magnetic field, and the possibility of asymmetries in supernovae associated with gamma-ray bursts.

@TildalWave good morning ;-)

Undo the Snowman

@Hash Morning!

@Undo morning have a good day

Undo the Snowman

You too ;)

Morning @Hash ;)

4:58 AM

BTW @UndotheSnowman what app you use to draw these images like here space.stackexchange.com/q/3058/49 ?

Undo the Snowman

5:36 AM

Paper (iOS)

@Tildal ^

5:53 AM

@UndotheSnowman pretty cool, shame it's iOS only

An Open Letter to President @BarackObama from Bill Nye of The Planetary Society @ExplorepPlanets http://www.planetary.org/blogs/bill-nye/20131205-an-open-letter-to-the-president.html#.UqK3dmQRr3c.twitter

Tweeted by LaurenAlloyce on December 7, 2013 at 5:55 AM

3 hours later…

8:47 AM

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&‌nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbs‌p;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&‌nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

very elegant

@Undo I'm pretty sure you could use a non breaking space

Non-breaking space

In word processing and digital typesetting, a non-breaking space, also known as a no-break space or non-breakable space (NBSP), is a variant of the space character that prevents an automatic line break (line wrap) at its position. In certain formats (such as HTML), it also prevents the “collapsing” of multiple consecutive whitespace characters into a single space. The non-breaking space is also known as a hard space or fixed space. In Unicode, it is encoded as . Non-breaking behavior Text-processing software typically assumes that an automatic line break may be inserted anywhere a space ...

7 hours later…

Undo the Snowman

3:50 PM

I awaken.

@JohnB is sneaking up on 10k.

4:08 PM

How do we feel about homework questions?

Undo the Snowman

@TildalWave Why?

I'm good with them.

0

Q: Orbit Mechanics for circular Polar Orbits, Latitude-Longitude

In this case I have to launch a satellite into an circular polar orbit at height 800 km. My question is: I need to find the latitude and the longitude of the satellite as reference of time (t) and I have to plot it in a map using matlab :) Thinks I know: h= 800Km, i(inclination)=90 Deg due to ...

orbital-mechanics

seems too narrow to me

Undo the Snowman

@TildalWave I think it's one of those real-world questions we need.

But yeah, it is narrow. Especially the part about plotting it in MatLab.

@TildalWave I wish we had like custom OT close reasons like SO - I really don't like that last sentence.

Is this homework? It seems too narrow by specifying input parameters and software used to plot ground track with to be of any future use to the site, would you please edit your question to clarify what is the purpose of your calculations (you start by saying "I have to launch a satellite into an circular polar" but somehow I doubt that is actually the case) and if possible frame it a bit wider? Thanks! — TildalWave 17 secs ago

acceptable?

Undo the Snowman

It's almost too narrow and too broad at the same time :P

4:17 PM

@UndotheSnowman that last sentence... I'd just edit it out

Undo the Snowman

@TildalWave Yes. Absolutely.

Got to go now - be back in a few hours. I'm fine with whatever you decide to do with it.

that's just pushing responsibility forward :P take care! ;)

5:04 PM

@TildalWave What is the last words expansion in that home work question

Undo the Snowman

5:19 PM

@Hash Tas?

It's just a signature (which is going to go away once I wake up enough to trust myself with edits)

10

A: What is the farthest a spacecraft has traveled away from earth?

Wikipedia states that Voyager 1 is currently farthest from Earth; it gives the distance as of Dec 3 2013 as 126.95 AU ($1.899 \cdot 10^{10}\text{ km}$) from Earth. At that distance, the speed of light delay is approximately 17 hours 36 minutes. By Dec 7 2013 it was listed as at a distance of 127....

^ We need this guy to write more answers.

Undo the Snowman

5:36 PM

Oy @Manish!

Venus is as the closest distance to Earth today no? It's still big low on the horizon here

Undo the Snowman

@TildalWave Go ask on @Donald.McLean's site ;)

Neah ... too localized :)

plus, I know how to open Wolfram Alpha ;)

Undo the Snowman

That's what we need! A wolfram-alpha SE plugin that just takes each question title and plugs it in to W|A. Community could post the answer!

it's still closing the distance, but it looks pretty big tho

5:41 PM

'o

?

Who is closing whose distance?

Venus to Earth

Undo the Snowman

Lol

Will that change the sex ratio demographics?

Undo the Snowman

5:42 PM

tempted to flag as offensive

@Undo You female?

Undo the Snowman

No.....

Hm.

Poor Earth )+: Stuck in the middle between Mars, and Venus

sniffle

Undo the Snowman

)+:<

@ManishEarth Didn't Aarthi do the upside-down smiley face thing?

Eh? Somebody copying me?

5:44 PM

☺

c'est terrible

Undo the Snowman

ASCII WARS!

ℑ

❯:D

╫w╫

Undo the Snowman

Dangit, a bunch of stuff just shows up as little squareses.

└─┬┴┬┴──┐

5:46 PM

heh

Undo the Snowman

~

Glares @Undo
Look what you did now!

Undo the Snowman

<sup>test</sup>

^ No superscript!

☹

╘∩╛

Undo the Snowman

Got to go now - bye folks! Try not to hurt each other with the ASCII - some of those things are sharp.

5:48 PM

+Θ+

@Tilda At werk?

╘♦╛⁮

king diamond :)

@Everyone neah at home

Looks a little like an TIE fighter with some modifications

What exactly powers a solar-sail? The hypersonic solar wind, or the energy in the particles?

≈≡══►

No symbology for moi q+: You'll have to type it out loud

@Everyone well ... both

5:54 PM

Explain?

@Everyone radiation pressure

Hm? Then a solar sail may, beyond the heliopause, be powered by the CMB?

@Everyone Well I argue in one of my answers that that wouldn't make much sense (like pulling yourself up by your own hair), but if you have your light beam source somewhere else then yes you'd get useful push. Problem with onboard laser is that while you'd get some push it would also be negated by the push in the opposite direction at the point of your light source

and using laser alone without the sail isn't efficient

Ah. You mean because CMB is ubiquitous?

hmm CMB LOL... dunno why I read that as RTG :D

CMB is pointless because it's more or less equal from all directions

6:04 PM

heh. happens to me all the time. head-in-the-clouds they tell me

It's Saturday ;)

Ugh. Isn't there any way, other than a sail, to move in space without consuming oneself?

@Everyone consume someone else? :D

ramjets

if there's something to compress

@Tilda I mean, fuel is part of the original space-craft mass per contemporary technology

Ergo, self-cannibalization

Ought to be something more than ramjets |+:
Right now the only visible options (to me) are self-cannibalization, sail, ramjets

I know what you meant and yes, it is somewhat annoying but that's how it goes. You wanna accelerate mass, you're gonna have to push against some

6:09 PM

Yeh. That fuelforms part of launch mass too; no fuel depots in space )+:

No maps either

How about electromagnetic propulsion? You know... sailing the eddy currents :)

e.g. find a massive body that you find magnetically repulsive LOL

Interstellar?

@Everyone doubt it, but if you can get usable escape velocity then why not?

there's some particle acceleration to near the speed of light in the magnetic interaction between the Sun and the Earth for example

We went through that earlier I think. Remember the space-tether experiment?

@Tilda Too slow for the moment to have anything to do, I think

brb. dry throat.

6:28 PM

abkc

1 hour later…

Undo the Snowman

7:35 PM

@TildalWave I'd day that if we don't get a response to your comment by tomorrow we should close it, with nuking following sometime afterwards.

Watching The Right Stuff again ... White House after the launch of Sputnik:

> Was it them? Was it their German scientists who got them up there first?
> No. No, it was not, senator. Our Germans are better than their Germans.

hehe

Undo the Snowman

Lol

@UndotheSnowman Well it currently has one vote to close, and I'm not mod-hammering it, it's not really problematic.

Undo the Snowman

Sounds good.

Hehe that movie is still hilarious even tho I watched in now prolly 5 times or more. The funniest thing about it is that most of it actually happened not much differently than how it's shown there, it really was that naïve era of spaceflight :)

8:28 PM

@TildalWave!

Undo the Snowman

@Scrooge!

@Scrooge hey dr. UV ;)

I actually decided to keep this user name - it speaks to my grumpiness and bah-humbugness

Undo the Snowman

@Scrooge Noooooo!!!

i actually posted a question on astro... shocking I know

it's a good screen name methinks

Undo the Snowman

8:34 PM

Ok if you really want to ;)

user image

I'll go read it :)

lol i already have

those ghosts don't scare me

Undo the Snowman

Good question, @UV-D/@Scrooge.

i am struggling a bit to write questions and answers...the past 2 months have been hell on earth

Undo the Snowman

Is there a question Mark Adler can't answer?

8:38 PM

i am just waiting for the "that is where Saturnians fart" comment

in the next 3 weeks, I am moving house (to a place over 600km north of here)

but I have an awesome new teaching job

now, where did they go?

by the way, @UndotheSnowman your meta post telling spammers that they need to do better is classic!

@Scrooge interesting way to exchange atmosphere :D

or create one LOL

@TildalWave i have former colleagues that exchange atmospheres when they speak too

funny that the atmosphere on Titan isn't that far off than what comes out with farts either

exactly

I wonder if it smells the same yellow it looks like :D

someone had eggs for breakfast

8:48 PM

i'd imagine so, that is a rancid smell

hmmm possible question

yup but think of all the plastics ... we should totally send there a 3D printer LOL

could earth support a ganymede sized moon

why not?

what would the upper limit of the size of the moon that the earth could support

I don't understand in what sense you mean that? Support by what? I see no reason why our moon couldn't be even bigger than the Earth as far as orbits go. Of course, that'd change a few things around here.

8:53 PM

yeah, twas just a random thought

For one, our common barycenter would shift out of Earth's own body

tides would be absolutely huge

lots of weather and likely a lot thinner atmosphere too

oh yes, and surfable

but it all depends on how close it would be

orbital period more or less

true

like i said, i am struggling a bit with questions

if it was large enough, we'd still have dinosaurs :)

with a really interesting space program LOL

8:56 PM

we still do... my former colleagues

oh c'mon a hag is not necessarily a pterodactyl :)

you have not seen these hags

true

these are haggier than usual

user image

9:03 PM

i need to forage for food

Where's @RhysW lately?

Undo the Snowman

9:28 PM

@Scrooge Thanks! ;)

@TildalWave I think I heard something about him moving or something.

yup I also remember something along those lines, but it's been quite a while now, surely he managed to plug his router in the wall socket no? :)

Undo the Snowman

10:06 PM

One would think so...

last seen Dec 3 at 19:51 on Astro.

Nov 8 at 12:33 on Space D:

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