Michel Verheughe

Years ago I was a film about an African (Somalian, I think) who walks across north Africa. Many follow him and they end up in Morocco, to cross the strait of Gibraltar. They are thousands and Europe fear their arrival. The USA even send negociators to no avail. One day, thousands of Africans cross the strait, to die on the beaches of Spain, killed by the police/army.

I have googled that film that I think has a name like "the long march" but to no avail. Does anyone know this film?

For many years, I had a "homepage" on the server of my Norwegian internet provider. Since the first of November, they have terminated that service. When asked, they answered: Find a free server!

Which I did: FreeHostingEU.

It works fine. But then, I have a couple of X-Plane flight simulator models that I distribute that way. The link works fine but when I click the link to the ZIP file, it comes back with a 404 page from FreeHostingEU.

Does this mean that the site can link HTML pages but not a download of a ZIP file?

I ask Yahoo! Answers because, since FreeHorstingEU is free, I don't expect customer service.

Thanks in advance.

According to the Bible, the flood was covering the entire planet. Since then, some have tried to explain it - as an historical event - as a tidal wave from a Greek earthquake. The other day I was wondering: How about this scenario:

A large meteor comes so close to the earth that it ends up in a nearly geo-stationary orbit over the middle-east, to move out of orbit, again. Its gravity would create a tremendous tidal wave, pulling the water of the oceans and covering much of that region under water.

Note: I am atheist and believe in schoolbook evolution. Therefore I ask this question to the Astronomy and Space section of Yahoo! Answers. I don't need religious opinion, only a scientific opinion: could this scenario be possible? After all, the moon came into a stable orbit around the earth and, one day, will escape it.

Why? Isn't it simpler to let Ukrainians vote what they want to be, province by province and even village by village?

Look at the Baarle-Nassau and Baarle-Hertog Belgian territories in The Netherlands! Why can't they do that in Ukraine?

And what is all that NATO saber rattling? Here, in Norway, we see a video of a Russian plane dangerously close to a Norwegian F-16 fighter. It gives the impression that Russia come close to the Norwegian airspace but ... to happen, the Norwegian F-16 must be as close to the Russian airspace, isn't it? And don't tell me I don't know about it because I am a private pilot myself and I maintain the Norwegian airspace for a iPad navigation app.

I have tried to give a thumb-up to someone else after answering a question. But it doesn't work. My browser is Safari on an older Mac.

Is this intentional or an error from Yahoo! or my browser?

She is beautiful. Sometimes I am fascinated looking at her hand holding her cup of tea. From the top of her head to the tip of her toes, I can kiss every inch of her body that tastes like heaven. I can't stop watching her. And if I am sick I don't want to be cured because ...

We have been married for 42 years. We have a son and three grand-children. Yes, I tell her often how I feel for her and no, the feelings are not exactly reciprocal.

Does anyone else, amongst senior citizens, feel the same?

PS: The title is from a lovely song from Charles Aznavour.

As a GA pilot and teaching meteorology at my club, I know that freezing fog is deadly. A friend of mine tried to go flying with a thin freezing fog, seeing the sun above it. He went up about 200 ft then crashed at the end of the runway in the snow. He survived but the aircraft broke both wings.

Today, there is freezing fog here, in south Norway and I went driving my car, then thought: Hum, I don't see a build-up of ice on my car. Why is that? What is the difference? I know, the lower pressure over the wings cools down by adiabatic effect but ... why not my car? What's the difference? Thanks in advance.

I know, this is against the rules of Yahoo! Answers, but someone with the name of David, told me on a question about astrolabe that he also used a sextant in the seventies. Checking his profile, it looks like he is also a radio amateur. So am I! ;-)

But he doesn't have an email address in his profile.

David, if you read this, could you send me an email at:

michel (at) online (point) no

CU VY SN DR OM DAVID = BEST 73 DE LA0HA/MM = SK E E

... ;-)

I don't understand this. The media say that an Orion airplane has been flying over the possible debris of the ill-faithed B-777. Couldn't they have dropped an EPIRB (the maritime equivalent to the aviation ELT) that - once in contact with the water - starts sending a signal to the COSPAR-SARSAT satellites and on 121.5 MHz. This is an off-the-shelf device that can be found anywhere as it equippes many small and larger vessels worldwide.

It would enable the Autralian SAR services to monitor the actual surface current and give the SAR vessels something to home on, from the 121.5 MHz signal. They all have a Radio Direction Finder for that purpose.

I ask the question to the aviation section of Yahoo! Answers because there is, perhaps, professional pilots here, who can answer what can be dropped from an Orion. Incidentally, maritime training is my profession and I own and fly a little Kitfox aircraft (VFR only).

Years ago, I flew from Norway to Belgium when we were diverted to the nearest airport for repairs. It turned out that something made a hole in the right-hand window of the cockpit. As we waited for the repairs, I saw the damaged window being taken away and I asked a pilot what caused it. "Probably some space dust, tiny meteroid, the only thing that can be encountered at a cruise altitude of 35,000 feet."

Now I am thinking of the Malaysian B-777 that disappeared. Could it be caused by a larger meteorid? I know that NASA has a meteroid watch program. But how big a meteorid has to be, to be detected? Could it be big enough to destroy the cockpit of the aircraft without being detected by e.g. infrared satellite picture or land-based radar detection?

Nietzsche writes that he was scared by the idea of the Eternal Return; the idea that we may live our lifes again and again, as a result of a non-creationist atheist universe. But then, most of the people on earth believe in one of the two Abrahamic religions that promises a heaven and eternal life.

Personally, I feel that an eternal life in heaven is much more scary that the possibiltiy that, in a googolplex (largest number we can think of) number of years, everything that can happen, will happen and I'll find myself typing this question to Yahoo! Answers.

Because in heaven, eternity means that you have done everything that can be done and not only once but an infinite number of times. Isn't our consciousness the time difference between not having and having done something?

Your thoughts, please.

PS: I don't ask the religion section of Yahoo! Answers because it is a scary place full of trolls! ;-)

Religion is mostly motivated by our fear of death as two Abrahamic religions offer an eternal after-life. I wonder why notorious atheists like Richard Dawkins don't mention the eternal recurrence as suggested by Nietzsche, to offer an alternative to our fear of "eternal death." Perhaps an eternal recurrence adapted to modern concepts of relativity and quantum but still, an alternative for atheists.

That is, perhaps, more difficult to understand than the religious notion of a heaven where we sit, with folded wings, on a cloud, eating good food and having fun. But an eternal heaven poses the paradox that once you have done everything that you can do, read every book that can be written, and an infinite number of times, it must be quite boring. The only thing we can't do in heaven is to kill ourselves because we are already dead. Sounds more like hell to me! ;-)

I'd appreciate your serious opinion, thanks.

The other day, I was watching Gerry Adams in that british documentary about the Bible and Jesus, when he talks about the sermon on the mount and the need to love our neighbour and forgive our ennemies.

Yet if I love my neighbour in a homosexual way, god will make sure I burn eternally in hell. Isn't it mean for someone who sends his son on earth to preach forgiveness?

PS: This is a thought experiment, I am a very heterosexual grand-father who admires Jesus, the man, for his teaching of love and peace.

I don't think so. We exist because we are best at ensuring the survival of our genes. For a woman, it means, being impregnated by the best provider and defender.

Hence if men go at war, it is because women sexually select those who will provide and defend them.

To put it simply: if you are a pacifist man, you are not sexy.

Your thoughts, based on rational evolutionist psychology, please.

The Danish astronomer Ole Rømer noted the eclipses of Jupiter's moons, in order to create a "cosmic clock" that would enable seafarers to find their longitude. It works like this: If you know when the eclipse will occur at a place of reference (like, the Greenwich prime meridian) knowing your time gives you the Greenwich Hour Angle and ... you longitude!

But the tables had to be written as time (Greenwich, Paris or Copenhagen) and ... how did Rømer and his collegues worked that out in the 17th century when we know that it was only at the end of the 18th century that John Harrison made the first marine chronometer that had some accuracy. Actually, his clock made the Jovian moon tables completely obsolete but that's another story.

My question is, how were they able to write time tables ... without accurate time recording instruments? Yes, seafarers used the north star and pointer as a celestial clock but not to the accuracy needed to find a longitude where five seconds of time would put you off one mile!

Aviators prefer the Lambert projection and seafarers, the Mercator one. It makes sense: aviators navigate often by radio signals that follow the great circle or gnomonic path, closer to Lambert, while seafarers follow a rhumb course as a straight line on the Mercator.

But when I use my GPS moving map in my little aircraft, if e.g. I head west from my location in Norway, and zoom out to show north Europe, my heading point towards south England and not Scotland, as it should if I was flying on a compass course of 270. This is because the great circle from my latitude 60 north, bends southward on an initial heading of 270.

I know, gnomonic navigation is the path of the shortest distance and what we would prefer as pilots. But I have never been flying more than 20 minutes without a waypoint on a flight plan, hence flying from point to point in such short distance that the gnomonic vs. rhumb line doesn't make a difference.

So, why not using Mercator in the air? Pilots did it in the past, when they navigated with a bubble sextant, needing spherical trigonometry.

Because when you think of it, if God didn't create the universe, then it must have always existed and always will. Time is looping, as Nietzsche suggested. What can happen, will happen, and not only once but an infinite number of times. Will it then be a new event or simply a new observation of the same one? The latter - he thinks, and so do I.

Interestingly enough, Nietzsche came with that idea more than a century ago. After that, Hubble's discovery of the Big Bang went if favour of the theists: the universe had a beginning. It was even said that the Pope liked the idea. If not exactly according to the Bible, a creation needed a creator and that was good enough for him.

Then the theory of "multiverse" or multiple universes where anything that is possible exists, seems to swing the pendulum the other way. Furthermore, the theory of strings and M-theory seems to make sense of an eternal universe of recurring big bangs.

What are your thoughts?

Here is a story I made up to illustrate my question:

Last year, I went for a trip on my near-light-speed spaceship. On return, the space agency asked me to pay "space taxes" for one year. I answered that, on the clock of my spaceship I had been away only for one week and I don't intend to pay for one year. Then, trying to be smart, I asked them:

"And how do you know I went for a near-light-speed trip and it is not you, and the earth, that moved away from me, since there is no absolute space reference?"

I think I know their answer that would be something like: "Ah but the inertia measuring instrument of your spaceship shows that you accelerated then decelerate, which we didn't!"

But I am not sure how acceleration and deceleration affects the observation of time. Any idea?

Christians, you believe that God talked to Moses and Abraham. But you don't believe he talked to Mohamed or Joan of Arc and the Virgin Mary didn't appear to Bernadette of Lourdes.

My question then is: How do you explain your selective choice? A rational decision or a gut feeling?

I once read that mathematics is easy: If you have two lions in a cage and you remove three of them, you can easily empty the cage by putting one lion back in it.

My question is: Do you know who wrote that?