Active Region 1002 on an Unusually Quiet Sun

Explanation: Why has the Sun been so quiet recently? No one is sure. Our Sun has shown few active regions — that house even fewer associated sunspots — for over a year now, and such a period of relative calm is quite unusual. What is well known is that our Sun is in a transitional period between solar cycles called a Solar Minimum, where solar activity has historically been reduced. The stark lack of surface tumult is unusual even during a Solar Minimum, however, and activity this low has not been seen for many decades. A few days ago, however, a bona-fide active region — complete with sunspots –appeared and continues to rotate across the Sun’s face. Visible above, this region, dubbed Active Region 1002 (AR 1002), was imaged in ultraviolet light yesterday by the SOHO spacecraft, which co-orbits the Sun near the Earth. Besides the tranquility on the Sun’s surface, recent data from the Ulysses spacecraft, across the Solar System, indicate that the intensity of the solar wind blowing out from the Sun is at a fifty year low. Predictions hold, however, that our Sun will show more and more active regions containing more and more sunspots and flares until Solar Maximum occurs in about four years.

antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0809/sunspot1002_soho_big.jpg

Ashleigh Prather – Crazy Phelps Fan

This is the actress (Mary) from the “Crazy Phelps Fan” commercial for AT&T. See commercial here and see her resume here. I think she is hot, do you?

Rachael Ray’s Corn Porn

fucking bullshit autoplay bullshit:
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Safety Tips From Anubis

Mountain Dew Closet

Took us 7 months to drink all this.

You Beat 2 Trees!

Former Super Power

And now, something completely different

And now, something completely different

A tree

Snuk

Didn’t Hilldog have one of these?

Why Tigger is the Only One

Cool Drive Mods

How Ghillie Gets Laid

The Science of Pokemon

Reboot, is this valid within the context?

November 1st Theme Day

After the resounding success utter failure of October 1st’s theme day, this next one is going to be a little easier for you guys to grok:  Pets.  Cat, dogs, lizards, snakes, birds, spiders, lemurs, ferrets, turtles, squirrels or anything else that you have enslaved for your own petty amusements.

When you post your picture of your perfect pet, please have the title formated in this fashion: “My Pet [animal type] – [animal name]”.  So if I were to post my puppies, I’d have: “My Pet dogs – Abby and Zeus”.

Also, I’m thinking of giving out money for theme days in a 100% arbitrary fashion.  Opinions?

Bailout Hearings and Their Chance of a Fair Resolution

Lolcat Book

Yes, there’s actually a book now. For sale on Amazon.com. Yet another sign the end is near.

Abe Lincoln Block Rockin Beats

Emo Cows

Today I Feel Strong Enough To Punch Mister Hitler

WW2 Dr.Seuss

Tugboat

The Justine McAllister, a tugboat, in New York Harbor. Tugboats are used to maneuver, primarily by towing or pushing, other vessels in harbors, over the open sea or through rivers and canals. Tugboats are also used to tow barges, disabled ships, or other equipment like towboats.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Picture_of_the_day

Dr. Strange sends a blast

Photoshop help

Funky Green Concept Cars

Psychedelics on wheels…

From Wired Magazine
www.wired.com/cars/futuretransport/multimedia/2008/08/gallery_green_concept_cars

Homeland Security

We has it. Old School.

Cats can swim

Proof.

The Ultimate Pie Chart

Mmmm… Pie…

Found@DRB
www.darkroastedblend.com/2008/09/super-star-mobile-skyscraper.html

Pushmepullyou Limo

Better known as the two headed, double ended Llama Limo…

Pics:
www.autoblog.com/photos/weirdtruck-dual-nosed-escalade-limo/239145/

Via DRB
www.darkroastedblend.com/2008/09/over-top-limousines.html

Final fight

I saw this in my way to my girlfriend house

My Next SUV

The Russian Kamaz-43269. This ain’t your gramps Lada…

www.darkroastedblend.com/2008/09/over-top-limousines.html

I owe you 1 wallpaper

Scrappy Junkyard Predator

This Junk Will Jack You Up…

readmore-webphemera.blogspot.com/2008/09/predator-lands-in-london.html

Haumea of the Outer Solar System

Explanation: One of the strangest objects in the outer Solar System was classified as a dwarf planet last week and given the name Haumea. This designation makes Haumea the fifth designated dwarf planet after Pluto, Ceres, Eris, and Makemake. Haumea’s smooth but oblong shape make it extremely unusual. Along one direction, Haumea is significantly longer than Pluto, while in another direction Haumea has an extent very similar to Pluto, while in the third direction is much smaller. Haumea’s orbit sometimes brings it closer to the Sun than Pluto, but usually Haumea is further away. Illustrated above, an artist visualizes Haumea as a nearly featureless ellipsoid. Quite possibly, however, Haumea has interesting craters and surface features that currently remain unknown. Originally discovered in 2003 and given the temporary designation of 2003 EL61, Haumea was recently renamed by the IAU for a Hawaiian goddess. Haumea has two small moons discovered in 2005, recently renamed Hi’iaka and Namaka for daughters of the goddess.

antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

Actual art on @ a college?

The Corpus Clock is a large sculptural clock on the outside of the Taylor Library at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. It was conceived and funded by John C. Taylor, an old member of the college.
It was officially unveiled to the public on September 19, 2008 by Cambridge physicist Stephen Hawking

The clock’s face is a rippling 24-karat gold-plated stainless steel disc, about 1.5 metres in diameter. It has no hands or numbers, but displays the time by opening individual slits in the clock face backlit with blue LEDs; these slits are arranged in three concentric rings displaying hours, minutes, and seconds. The lights dart rapidly around the clock, pausing at the correct positions allowing the time to be read as on a normal analog clock.
The dominating visual feature of the clock is a sculpture of a grim-looking, devouring, metal insect similar to a grasshopper or locust. The sculpture is actually the clock’s escapement (see below). Taylor calls this beast the Chronophage (literally ‘time eater’, from the Greek χρόνος [chronos] time, and φαγέω [phageo] to eat). It moves its mouth, appearing to ‘eat up’ the seconds as they pass, and occasionally it ‘blinks’ in seeming satisfaction. The creature’s constant motion produces an eerie grinding sound that suits its task. The hour is tolled by the sound of a chain clanking into a small wooden coffin hidden in the back of the clock.
The clock is entirely accurate only once every five minutes. The rest of the time, the pendulum may seem to catch or stop, and the lights may lag or, then, race to get ahead. According to Taylor, this erratic motion reflects life’s “irregularity”.
Conceived as a work of public art, the Chronophage reminds viewers in a dramatic way of the inevitable passing of time. Taylor deliberately designed it to be “terrifying”: ‘Basically I view time as not on your side. He’ll eat up every minute of your life, and as soon as one has gone he’s salivating for the next.” Others have described it as “hypnotically beautiful and deeply disturbing”.
[edit]Mechanics of the clock

The Corpus Clock is a product of traditional mechanical clockmaking. It features the world’s largest grasshopper escapement, a low-friction mechanism for converting pendulum motion into rotational motion. The grasshopper escapement was an invention of eighteenth-century clockmaker John Harrison, and Taylor intended the Corpus Clock to be an homage to Harrison’s work. Since “no one knows how a grasshopper escapement works”, Taylor “decided to turn the clock inside out”[6] so that the escapement, and the escape wheel it turns, would be his clock’s defining feature.
The Corpus Clock’s clockwork is entirely mechanically controlled, without any computer programming, and electricity is used only to power an electric motor, which winds up the mechanism, and to power the blue LEDs that shine behind the slits in the clock’s face. The clock has many unexpected and innovative features; for example, the pendulum briefly stops at apparently irregular intervals, and the Chronophage sculpture moves its mouth and blinks its eyes. Taylor explains it as follows:
The gold eyelids travel across the eye and disappear again in an instant; if you are not watching carefully you will not even notice. . . . Sometimes you will even see two blinks in quick succession. The Blink is performed by a hidden spring drive, controlled in the best tradition of seventeenth century clockmakers of London. The spring is coiled up inside a housing that can be seen mounted on the large gearwheel visibly protruding from the bottom of the mechanism. As the huge pendulum below the Clock rocks the Chronophage as he steps round the great escapewheel, each backward and forward movement is used by sprag clutches to wind up the drive spring. A position step prevents the spring from being overwound yet allows the spring to be ready at an instant to drive the Blink. The mechanism is released by a countwheel with semi random spacing so the Blink takes place at any position in the to- and fro- motion of the pendulum. A further countwheel mechanism chooses a single or a double blink whilst the air damper at the top of the gear train slows the action to a realistic pace.
The Corpus Clock is expected to be able to run accurately for at least two hundred years.
[edit]Funding and realisation

Taylor invested five years and £1 million in the Corpus Clock project, and two hundred people, including engineers, sculptors, scientists, jewellers, and calligraphers, were involved. The clockwork incorporates six new patented inventions, and “the rippling gold-plated dial was made by exploding a thin sheet of stainless steel onto a mould underwater . . . [at] a secret military research institute in Holland.” Stewart Huxley was the design engineer. Sculptor Matthew Sanderson modelled the Chronophage.

Do Not Hump

Why not?

Isaac Asimov

Pookie

Scariest plush toy ever

Time car

Black and Young

I dunno about you guys, but I don’t think real estate when I see www.youngandblack.com.au

I found this in Burleigh Waters on the Gold Coast, QLD Australia.

Wild Animal Crunch!

Tastes like extinction!

Woll Smoth and Fronds

I got these from community.livejournal.com/ohnotheydidnt/20184696.html , but they may have come from somewhere else.

HMS Victory

Brak Obama 2008

All Hail Brak!

Call of the Pit

Badass aint it

Guilty x 12

13 extra years of freedom to the day.

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7652206.stm

Invincible Walking Dead

Robert Kirkman

Penguicow

This is an interesting cow sculpture located near to the penguin pool at Edinburgh Zoo. I am led to believe that a problem with cross-breeding penguins and cows, is that the milk Pengui-cCws, or Cow-Guins, produce tastes a liitle too fishy! Also milk-maids find it very difficult to swim across the penguin-pool whilst carrying a pail full of milk.

Stolen completely from: www.flickr.com/photos/12559612@N00/2875271977

Bikes made from left-over watch pieces

Mavericks

Half Moon Bay, CA

Actual History of /b/

For those of us that came before the ‘legion.’