Tuesday, March 03, 2009

Wanderers 2009.3.3

Dick with Cosmic Objects

Dick Pugh is delivering his world class talk on meteorites. He's the expert, bar none in these parts.

Terry has set up an RSTP server for real time streaming, with Apple computers showing the feed. My VLC player on Ubuntu was starting to deliver audio from home, but not video. Now that I'm here, I'm not getting either, go figure (but hey, I'm here).

I was hoping Tara could join me but she has too much homework. Schools maybe overestimate the value of their content? I'm hoping to see Lucy, the ancient fossil remains, at Seattle Center before it closes. This'll require "missing school" (not really -- this is the Global U after all, Seattle Center a campus destination for sure).

Meteroites don't start fires, They're extremely cold (picture from Bagdad, Arizona). They can raise hell though, without being hot. One in Arizona broke up into BB-sized "buck shot" and killed dozens of rabbits, snakes etc.

There's Dick Pugh in Hoba, Namibia, standing next to the largest meteroite in the world. Portland State (PSU) is lucky to get branding on these slides. There's Dick in Brahin, Belarus. There's a Bondoc, Luzon, where the word "boondocks" comes from. Park Forest, Illinois; Bensour, Morocco; Brownfield, Texas...

Anyway, it's a start. Rhett Savage reports from a remote location that it's working for him.

Don thought it was cool that some of those rocks in the room were measured older than Planet Earth.