Real life Sci-fi 2013

Steve K

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Re: (*) Planetesimal'fest

the second video is the one to watch! Incredible! ....and a bit too close for comfort, if you ask me!
Watching the video, I couldn't help but wonder... why are so many people taking movies of their commute to work?? What normally happens on their drive that they want to capture?
 

EZO

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Re: (*) Planetesimal'fest

Watching the video, I couldn't help but wonder... why are so many people taking movies of their commute to work?? What normally happens on their drive that they want to capture?

A great many Russians use windshield mounted "dash cams" - small automated DVRs otherwise known as blackboxes to record everything that goes on in front of and sometimes also behind their vehicles. Many of these units include GPS mapping functions as well as G-sensors that will react on impact to record the video, sound and GPS information during an accident even if power is lost to the camera. The reasons for their popularity are multifold but the primary reason is for self protection. The average Russian motorist has to contend with often corrupt police, thugs, drunks, insurance scammers and incredibly dangerous road conditions where many drivers disobey speed limits and other safety laws. As a result of embracing this technology, numerous astonishing events and horrific traffic accidents get captured on video and there are whole websites and a YouTube channel dedicated to them.

Here are a few links that can enlighten you on the subject.

http://www.animalnewyork.com/2012/russian-dashcam/

http://jalopnik.com/tag/russian-dash-cams

http://www.rferl.org/content/dash-c...orruption-and-scams-car-crashes/24780355.html
 
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Steve K

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Re: (*) Planetesimal'fest

oh.. this explains where Tosh.0 gets some of his material...

to be honest, I've considered getting a little GoPro camera for the bike I commute on. Too many drivers that either drive while sleeping or don't respond well to any change in routine traffic. And it will be handy for the next meteroite that screams across the local cornfields!!
 

EZO

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Re: (*) Planetesimal'fest

I'm not so sure that the next big meteor will streak across local American skies. Between this latest event in Russia and the Tunguska explosion I'm starting to wonder if Russia just attracts large meteors in the same way that trailer parks in the US are said to attract tornadoes. :ironic:
 
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EZO

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Re: Planetesimal'fest

It seems the meteor (now a meteorite) likely ended up in a lake east of Moscow. I wonder if there will be an attempt to recover it, as it could be among the largest on record depending on what it weighs in at.


"A circular hole in the ice of Chebarkul Lake where a
meteor reportedly struck the lake near Chelyabinsk,
about 1500 kilometers (930 miles) east of Moscow,
Russia, Friday, Feb. 15, 2013.
"







 
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Steve K

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Re: Planetesimal'fest

two small boys were transported to earth in a meteorite!!?? That's incredible! ;)
 

moldyoldy

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Re: Planetesimal'fest

according to Soviet, er, Russian news channels, the meteor damage exceeds 1 billion rubles with over 1200 injured. However the Russians did not lose their humor. There are at least a couple Photomontage showing Vladimir Putin, with upper body bare, riding on the main smoke trail of meteor, or another showing Medvedev standing on a monument with his hand in his jacket Napoleon-style and a piece of the meteor knocks his Napoleon-style hat off showing a clowns hat underneath. etc. I think that the Photomontage have been shrunk enough to paste:

zgbdc5-68tlmxibgzo4kt6om3y-original.jpg


edit: Ooops, Greta does not want Russian links posted on CPF. I removed those. Hopefully the German link of the Russian Photomontage of Putin is OK.
 
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EZO

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Re: Planetesimal'fest

two small boys were transported to earth in a meteorite!!?? That's incredible! ;)

And they have amazing superpowers here in earth's gravity and solar radiation! :)
 
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LEDAdd1ct

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Re: Planetesimal'fest

The other joke circulating the web goes like this:

"Yeah, it was supposed to arrive December 21, 2012, but the Russian Postal Service..."
 

EZO

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"Estimates of the meteor's size varied considerably." (New York Times) The Russian Academy of Sciences claims the object weighed ten tons and was around three meters in diameter. The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration estimated that the object was about 15 meters (49 ft) in diameter and had a mass of several thousand tons. Three impact sites were found. Two were in an area near Chebarkul Lake and the other is some 80 kilometres (50 miles) further to the northwest, near the town of Zlatoust. In Kazakhstan, emergency officials said they were looking for two possible unidentified objects that may have landed in Aktobe Province, Kazakhstan, adjacent to the affected Russian regions. There is disagreement and some confusion about the possible size and weights of the meteorites that made impact. One American scientist claims the object(s) that hit the ground were no larger than a loaf of bread while others point out that there appear to be at least two impact craters twenty or more feet in diameter and that larger meteorites may have survived intact. It is believed the meteor was made of an extremely hard material, possibly iron. The energy released from impacts were big enough to register as seismic events but some sources claim the meteor disintegrated completely. It will probably take some time for all the facts to sort themselves out.
 

EZO

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By "coincidence" a rather large shooting star was captured on a dash cam video in the San Francisco area at 7:44PM 2/15/2013.
The person who posted it said he was driving south on I-280 toward the peninsula.
Perhaps we are experiencing a "meteor shower" of larger rocks than usually seen?

 
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orbital

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I'm not so sure that the next big meteor will streak across local American skies. Between this latest event in Russia and the Tunguska explosion I'm starting to wonder if Russia just attracts large meteors in the same way that trailer parks in the US are said to attract tornadoes. :ironic:

^

The Soviet scientists lab experiment that proved the Tunguska event was above ground, should have gotten an extra day off,
not to mention possibly a Nobel Prize, since nowadays you don't actually have to do anything to get one..

below: While hiking along some railroad tracks in Colorado about 20 years ago,
I spotted this ,,, its heavy and clearly metallic.
It's origin is still a bit of a mystery :rolleyes:

 
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EZO

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^

below: While hiking along some railroad tracks in Colorado about 20 years ago,
I spotted this ,,, its heavy and clearly metallic.
It's origin is still a bit of a mystery :rolleyes:

That's a really cool object Orbital. If it is a meteorite it could be quite valuable as a collectible. If you take it to a local university science department you could probably have it definitively identified. It could be just about anything though, such as a discarded piece of industrial slag or an old locomotive clinker.

Since you found it along railroad tracks, a clinker seems the most likely explanation. "A clinker is a piece of solid matter formed in a coal fueled firebox when the firebed melts from its own heat and forms into a gooey mass on top of the firebed and prevents the free flow of air through the fire especially under poor combustion conditions or with poor quality fuel thus reducing the amount of heat the fireman can get out of the fire. Clinkers must be disposed of at regular intervals during its duty if a locomotive is to continue to produce sufficient steam to enable it to maintain a reasonable rate of work. Sometimes this had to be done during a single trip where poor coal was used."

Edit: The term "clinker" comes from the fact that these metallic blobs, when cooled, would make a clinking sound when they'd hit each other or the shovel during clean out of the firebox.

 
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LEDAdd1ct

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If it's either a meteorite or a piece of bona fide American railroad history, those are both pretty cool possibilities. :)
 

EZO

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If it's either a meteorite or a piece of bona fide American railroad history, those are both pretty cool possibilities. :)

Very true! Only one is far more common than the other. I would certainly enjoy having either one. Good find orbital!
 

orbital

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+



___________^

A Yale professor figured the chances the 2012DA14 Asteroid and the Russian Meteorite in the same day were 1:100,000,000
..who's to argue w/ a Yale professor
 

Samy

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Well i can't say much about the co-incidence but i run a forward facing HD camera in the wife's car and front and rear HD camera's in my car. They're fairly cheap these days and are good insurance.

cheers
 
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