Tuesday Overnight Open Thread. February 25, 2025. [scampydog]

ONT! Good evening and happy Tuesday. It is national chili day. We'll set the over/under at 64 chili comments.

Why does Irish chili only have 239 beans? Because anymore and it'd be too farty.

List five things accomplished at work this week? Sure let's have a go it - it's the ONT, we will do two. Mad Lib style.

Last week, I (verb), multiple times - in each (noun), "Who is taking this (noun) on? And when can we expect it to be (verb)?"

Reminded at least (number) of (noun), that "reply all" should be (adverb) (verb) - like a secret (noun).

February 25th. Some interesting happenings on this date in history.

Samuel Colt. Samuel Colt patents first multi-shot revolving-cylinder revolver, enabling the firearm to be fired multiple times without reloading.

Colt's revolver had its roots in young Samuel's inability to stay focused at the boarding school his father had sent him to; he preferred reading scientific encyclopedias and tinkering with his own experiments than tending to his schoolwork, and was consequently expelled.

United States Paper Currency

1862 First Legal Tender Act 1862 is passed by the US Congress, authorizing the United States note (greenback) into circulation, the first fiat paper money that was legal tender in America.

United States Notes were also called Legal Tender Notes because of the text originally appearing on the back of the note that begins, "This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private." This provision made the currency a valid and legal form of payment on par with gold and silver. This was a very controversial action at the time as it made the United States Note a fiat currency, meaning its value was established by law alone and was not based on some other unit of value such as gold, silver, land, etc. Many people during and after the Civil War believed the creation of a fiat currency to be unconstitutional as the Constitution considered only gold and silver legal tender. The matter was settled in 1871 in the Supreme Court case of Knox v. Lee wherein the court declared that making United States Notes legal tender was constitutional.

Those dirty bastards. 1919 Beaver state is 1st to tax gasoline (1 cent per gallon).

Oregon used the tax money to finance construction of the Pacific Coast Highway, among other projects. Seeing the state's success, others soon followed with taxes of their own. Colorado, New Mexico and North Dakota followed that same year. Ten more states joined in 1921, and twenty in 1923. By the end of the decade all 48 states, minus the future Alaska and Hawaii, had gasoline taxes.

It is science time with an assist from our AoSHQ friend, [publius]! Some facts, some confusion, no lab coats, and pants optional.

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool. Richard P. Feynman

😂 pic.twitter.com/rVy58uTo2Q

— Spill The Memes (@SpillTheMemes) January 18, 2025

SMOD

Don't worry they said.

The planetary parade.7 planets viewable.

[publius]

While this planetary alignment isn't particularly rare, it is relatively uncommon. Spotting two, three, or even four bright planets at once is not unusual, but the chance to see all five together doesn't come around often. Looking ahead, a similar alignment will occur in late October 2028, though that event will take place before sunrise, requiring early risers to catch the view.

Mercury will likely be too low to see before Saturn disappears into the sunset. When an object disappears into the setting sun, it's called the heliacal setting. Planetary motion makes this a bit more complex than with stars, which pretty much remain fixed against the celestial background. The inner planets, being between Earth and the Sun, have very different motions from Earth's perspective, and pop up only before sunset and sunrise-you never see an inner planet in the middle of the night sky. "Elongation," or how far the object is from the Sun (in degrees on the celestial sphere), determines this.

Then there's the Moon. After a new moon, moving much faster than the Sun across the ecliptic, it first appears on the sunset side and then disappears in the sunrise on the morning side over a lunar month. But for stars and the outer planets (with some complications due to retrograde motion and all that), it's usually that a star first appears just before sunrise, the heliacal rising. As the Sun moves eastward, the star becomes more visible at night before finally disappearing in the sunset. It's just about where the Sun is against the celestial backdrop, which shifts over the course of the year. When the Sun is opposite the star, you get the "acronycal rising." The star rises at sunset, sets at sunrise, and is directly overhead at midnight.

Mercury will be more visible in early March. If you're interested in this, the desktop version of Stellarium is great for seeing what the sky will look like. You can adjust the date and time and see how things change over a few weeks and so on.

Mars. Elon is on a roll. If Lynn Carter is on Mars, I'm in.

America now has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to open the space frontier by initiating a sustained program of human exploration of Mars. Elon Musk's SpaceX Starship launch system will soon be operational, offering payload delivery capability comparable to a Saturn V Moon rocket at about five percent of the cost. Musk has positioned himself close to President Donald Trump, who at his inauguration in January promised that his administration would be "launching American astronauts to plant the Stars and Stripes on the planet Mars." As far as meeting the central political and technical conditions for making a bold reach to the Red Planet are concerned, it's game on.

[publius]

If we're serious about getting to Mars, NASA is basically going to have to be DOGE'd and reformed. Big time. The current model, which is basically a bunch of pork to keep various congresscritters happy and favored contractors greased and all that, has got to be thrown out, and the mindset behind it stomped into the ground and killed.

Elon and SpaceX can take the lead, but they're going to need a reformed NASA working with them, throwing out all the crap. If you want to get to Mars, well, roll up your sleeves and engineer an effective way, and don't do all the mess of contractors spread out in favored congressional districts and pork, not to mention the DEI crap.

Walter Lewin making science fun.

Trump selects Isaacman to be NASA administrator

Dave Cavossa, president of the Commercial Space Federation, also praised Isaacman's selection. "CSF is 'over the moon' happy to hear of the nomination of fellow commercial space advocate and friend Jared Isaacman for NASA administrator," he told SpaceNews. "At this critical time, as NASA and commercial space become inextricably linked toward the success of our nation's space program and our continued global leadership in space, I cannot imagine a better candidate for this role."

Not limited to bourbon. What are some purchases that didn't live up to the packaging?

Cool box, good presentation. It looks like bourbon but tastes like it was aged in a gas can.

Adult version of, "Don't eat the yellow snow."

Tonight's ONT brought to you by the Scorps.

For space related issues send to publiusswan at charter dot net. Send "just wing it" ideas to scampydog at proton dot me

posted by Open Blogger at 10:00 PM

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