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SGBear's avatar

SHE BLINDED ME WITH...

SGBear's avatar

In 1930, Pluto was discovered by Clyde Tombaugh, a new 23-year-old employee at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff. He did not attend university because of family financial restrictions. He went to get his bachelor's and master's six and eight years later. This is what he saw:

https://planetary.s3.amazonaws.com/web/assets/pictures/20130129_pluto_discoveryplates.gif

In 1941, Glenn Seaborg (PhD UC Berkeley, Nobel Prize Chemistry 1951) named Plutonium after the planet, not the god. Over the next sixty years, the scientific community would get better pictures of Pluto - but it was generally a blob. Even as recently as 1994 - Hubble would show Pluto as this:

https://www.eso.org/~ohainaut/nice/pluto.gif

Hubble would get upgraded and we saw better photos in 2002:

https://cdn.spacetelescope.org/archives/images/thumb700x/opo1006h.jpg

This is what we saw from the New Horizons spacecraft. This is not a computer recreation. This is real - a nearly pure nitrogen ice surface.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-b7Z4mllLPw&list=PLc4W06G5-v7BDRHoh7n3QkUKUDJmgMO0n

goldenone's avatar

Pluto was downgraded by the IAU in 2019 so that it is no longer a planet. That said, the mountains of frozen nitrogen are pretty cool 😎.

AndyPanda's avatar

Frozen nitrogen would (have to be) pretty cool.

SGBear's avatar

TIL: Eva Geiringer Schloss is Anne Frank's stepsister and only a few month older than Anne. She lived on the same block as Anne. Eva and family were arrested in May 1944 due to a double-agent in the Dutch Underground and were sent to Auschwitz. Three months later, Anne and family were arrested and sent to Westerbork and then Auschwitz. Eva is still alive.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eva_Schloss

HeyStudentsBears's avatar

one of the buildings i worked in once had a giant Jeff Koons dog as well. it was on Astor Place and the IBM Watson demo center was in that same building - it was probably cooler to see the Watson demo than see the dog everyday

https://www.artnews.com/art-in-america/features/koons-sculpture-adorns-lobby-at-astor-place-59671/

heyalumnigo's avatar

I guess that means MJ is the best player for 3 different jersey numbers.

SGBear's avatar

Cal football currently doesn't have anyone wearing #12. There are plenty of vacant numbers. Interesting, there are three players with #37: Robinson Jr., Wilson, Womack.

https://calbears.com/sports/football/roster

Oski Disciple's avatar

Nor will we ever have a player wearing 12. It was retired in honor of Joe Roth. Yesterday was the anniversary of his most premature death. Played much of his senior season knowing his fate.

CalGal2004's avatar

I remember when we got the news that weekend. A buddy of ours was a student manager for the football team. (='<)

Jimmy Chitwood's avatar

On the plane down to Cabo Sat I watched Significant Other on the American Air flight. Had “potential” but then took a drastic turn towards “mediocrity” midway before coming to rest at “absurd.” The dude who played Daddario’s husband in White Lotus S1 was the male lead - somewhat similar role. Recommendation: Pass.

MoriBear's avatar

Glad that you get an off-season break now that MBB is essentially over.

Jimmy Chitwood's avatar

Openly questioning both Mark Fox’s status as an employee of the University of California as well as Jim Knowlton’s competency as an Athletic Director is a full time gig, MoriBear…we won’t rest until the former is dismissed and the latter passes a competency hearing….

SGBear's avatar

OUR CRUMBLING DEMOCRACY

SGBear's avatar

Speaker McCarthy has given Tucker Carlson a massive trove (41,000 hours) of J6 riot footage. I am sure that this will go well.

https://www.axios.com/2023/02/20/kevin-mccarthy-tucker-carlson-jan-6-riot-footage

SGBear's avatar

Time for the army to march to the sea again as MTG says red states should secede.

https://www.newsweek.com/marjorie-taylor-greene-wants-nations-divorce-red-blue-states-1782449

clapdoc's avatar

Sherman's only mistake was not finishing the job.

SGBear's avatar

US Representative Andy Ogles (R-TN) was elected on his background of being a former police officer specializing in international sex crimes, a businessman, an economist, a nationally recognized expert in tax policy and health care. The problem is, none of that is proven to be true, except the elected part.

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/yet-another-republican-faces-difficult-questions-tall-tales-rcna71147

SGBear's avatar

According to Dominion Voting Systems court filing vs. Fox News, Trump called into Fox News on Jan 6th, but they wouldn't let him on air because Fox executives thought it would be irresponsible to put him on air because nobody believed the stolen election angle was true even though they were peddling it.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-lou-dobbs-on-air-jan-6-irresponsible_n_63f06ef2e4b0e2590d3d8b67

SGBear's avatar

The NRA has lost 12% of its membership in a year and a half.

https://www.thetrace.org/2023/02/nra-membership-decline-corruption/

GoldenSD81's avatar

In show of American strength and unity with Ukraine, Biden goes to Kyiv.

SGBear's avatar

ELSEWHERE IN COLLEGE

SGBear's avatar

[SI] College football commissioners are mulling the following rule changes: 1) clock continues to run after an incompletion once a ball is spotted, 2) clock continues to run after 1st downs, except inside 2 minutes to go, 3) no consecutive time-outs, and 4) plays at the end of half that result in a defensive penalty will have the time subtracted from the 2nd half.

https://www.si.com/college/2023/02/20/college-football-shorter-game-rules

heyalumnigo's avatar

When did Manfred join the NCAA Rules committee?

AndyPanda's avatar

1 & 2 bring NCAA into alignment, and makes sense. 3 will help with 3 tos to ice a kick. Support all 3. 4 is actually for the end of the 1st & 3rd quarters, carrying over into the next quarter instead of adding an untimed down. The only time this might be a problem is if there is a very high wind or other factor that makes one end of the field significantly more difficult than the other. That I suspect is rare in end of 1st & 3rd qtr situations.

If the really want to speed things up, limit media timeouts to 2 minutes + admin time, instead of 3:55 and even over 4 minutes long timed media tos. But that will never fly with the networks.

SGBear's avatar

Florida exploring compelling universities to accepting the Classical Learning Test - an alternative to SAT and the ACT. CLT focuses more on Western literature and includes stuff like creationism.

https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-politics/2023/02/17/desantis-classical-learning-test-college-board-ap-sat/

goldenone's avatar

Just found out former Haas professor and mentor of goldenone passed away in December. I brought him up on the boards before as the author of Simplicity Marketing about brand clutter and confusion. Seriously bummed today.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/peter-sealey-dead-columbia-pictures-coca-cola-1235288776/

Jimmy Chitwood's avatar

Sorry for your loss golden.

Oski Disciple's avatar

Great win by the women's bb team over U$C yesterday. See Nick's write-up. Jayda Curry's Pac 12 record streak of hitting a three continued as the Bears pulled out a thriller in OT.

goldenone's avatar

Congratulations to the women's team on earning a signature victory. Not sure how many years it will be until the men's team can accomplish that again.

clapdoc's avatar

Until the men's team can accomplish a signature victory? Even non-signature victories are hard to come by.

AndyPanda's avatar

It must always be interesting dynamics for both Cal & Stanford when playing USC & Coach Lindsey G.