Gary

I was just reading about the Challenger expedition, which was the first to measure the depth of Challenger Deep, the deepest place in the oceans of the world. They did this in 1875, apparently with some apparatus involving a rope made of Italian hemp. They found Challenger Deep to be 8,184m deep, which is a bit off from the 2009 sonar measurement of 10,971m. How did they make this measurement? How did they know that the weight on the end of the rope had reached the bottom? Did it really reach the bottom?

I'm looking for reviews of the Origin of Species, especially any from around the time when the first Spanish edition was translated and published in 1877.

If the review talks about the differences between the English and Spanish versions, or about what Spanish-speaking people found controversial about the book, this would be extremely helpful. If it talks about a Spanish version that is easily available online, as the Godinez translation is, that would be especially useful to me. Blog posts, in either English or Spanish about Spanish translations of Origin of Species would also help.

Thanks!

I've got a money-saving idea. Can anyone think of such a material? Some sort of aquarium tubing-like material would be ideal, but I'm not sure how well it would do in the sun.

I'm reading a book which briefly mentions an ancient city called El Yafri, where there are ruins made from enormous stone blocks, similar to the megaliths at Baalbek. The book describes how H. St. John Philby passed within a couple hundred miles of this place, and met people who had seen it, but it was forbidden for him to go and explore it. This ancient city would be in the Rub' al Khali or Empty Quarter of the Arabian Peninsula. The author, writing in 1970, speculates that one day satellites might photograph this lost city.

Is there any evidence that this place exists? Has it been found by satellites, or is the author just making this up?

I had this experience earlier today and have some more interviews coming up because I'm at a job fair for teachers. I'm 26 and I do look younger than my age; that runs in my family. I've even been yelled at for using the wrong door when I show up to substitute teach at schools. It's usually a problem with office staff, rather than with students. How should I respond to such a statement or question in an interview?

I basically told her that if a student makes an issue of my appearance then I'll tell the student that they can talk to me after class because I don't want to disrupt the lesson for unimportant things.

The problem can't be the way I dressed to the interview, I was wearing a suit like everyone else.nowslect

Yahoo Answers has a Horoscopes forum:

http://answers.yahoo.com/dir/index;_ylt=AurfNJpaC9...

I would imagine that most atheists feel about the same way about astrology as they do about gods. So why don't we go point out that astrology is a total pseudoscience?

Here are some examples of the questions people ask in the Horoscopes forum:

"how to know if a cappy misses you. (10pts)?"

"are Sagittarius very physical as opposed to mental their opposite (Gemini) ?"

"Why is this sagittairus guy avoiding me?"

"what star sign am i, and am i compatible with my husband and daughter?"

"Do virgo men like to give oral?"

I finished reading The Moon is a Harsh Mistress today, and I noticed that Garrison didoes are mentioned. What is a Garrison dido? Is it a term from astronautics, or is it something Heinlein made up?

Here's the relevant quote:

"He answered so calmly that I steadied down. "Farside approach, Man; I'm blind back there. They came in on tight Garrison didoes, skimming the peaks; I barely saw the chop-off for Luna City. The ship at J-City is the only one I can see; the other landings I conclusively infer from the ballistics shown by blip tracks."

There are a number of videos on Youtube that claim that Apollo 10 obtained a photograph of some alien structure, which is referred to as "The Castle". The image is tightly cropped and greatly enlarged, so it looks like this:

http://www.hallofthegods.org/uploaded_images/Castl...

This image supposedly comes from a photo labelled AS10-32-4822.

If anyone can find a high-res, uncropped scan of the photo, I would appreciate it, because all I can find is a low-res copy with huge JPEG artifacts all over it. The Castle is not visible in the low res photo.

What is this object? It is so small in the image that I can't consider it as evidence of alien architecture on the Moon, but I would like to know what it is. If I were able to find its exact location, it would probably be visible on images from the LRO, the way the Apollo landing sites are visible. Can anyone provide any additional help with this?

I recently updated uTorrent, and now I see that changes have been made to the status bar. What is meant by the letter O in this bar? I can figure out that the D is the download speed and the T is the amount of data transferred, but I can't find any information about the O.

You can see a screenshot of uTorrent's status bar here:

http://imagesocket.com/view/Capture454.PNG

I once heard a story about a church somewhere in Europe that has relics from some saint that died long ago. Among these relics are two skulls, both from the same saint. Normally, this would be an indication that at least one of the skulls did not come from the saint in question. But the church leaders explain this away: The smaller skull was in the saint's head when he was a boy.

Does anyone know the origins of this story, and whether there really is a church with such relics?

I am getting a Wii, with Wii Fit, for my mother. What other games should I get her? I figure something kind of abstract and casual would be perfect for her. I don't think she'd be interested in RPGs or games where a character runs around in a 3D environment.

Here are some games she has played a lot on her computer:

Mah Jong

Snood (this is just like Bubble Bobble)

A matching game that looks like Yoshi's Cookie

Tetris

A jigsaw puzzle game

My mother wants a Wii and Wii Fit and she's asked me to get these for her. I went to several stores and they are all sold out of both items, though they do have accessories and PS3s and XBoxes. All the online stores are sold out too, except for eBay which is full of extremely sketchy looking sellers. Why are Wiis so hard to find? It's not Christmas season and the system has been out for over three years. Shouldn't they be common by now?

I have a Canon Powershot A560, and I have been using a 512 MB SD card in it. I want a bigger one because I keep filling this one up at inopportune times. How big of a card can I use? I'm thinking of getting a 4GB card but I'll get an 8GB card if it works and it's cheap.

Why are so many people worried that this mission will be harmful? Was there something on TV that exaggerated the effects of crashing a small spacecraft into a crater on the Moon?

I'm sure there's some link someone can just give me for this information.

I'm thinking of going back to school for some postbaccalaureate work and a master's degree. What jobs will be very much in demand in the next three to five years or so? Which fields are expected to grow, in terms of job openings, much faster than most other fields?

I've heard that some people have proposed using a spacecraft with a powerful laser to remove small debris from orbit, either by vaporizing it or by shifting it into an unstable orbit where it can burn up in Earth's atmosphere. I know light places a minute amount of pressure on the objects it hits, so maybe tiny objects could be removed from orbit in this way. Has NASA or any other space agency given this idea much thought, and is this a feasible means by which space junk can be removed from orbit? Would it be possible for a spacecraft to detect tiny objects, like paint flakes, and use a laser to slow them until they fall to Earth?

I'm reposting this question, because the only people who didn't think it was possible just said "no" with no other details.

I've heard that some people have proposed using a spacecraft with a powerful laser to remove debris from orbit, either by vaporizing it or by shifting it into an unstable orbit where it can burn up in Earth's atmosphere. Has NASA or any other space agency given this idea much thought, and is this a feasible means by which space junk can be removed from orbit?

I heard this Buddhist fable from a Unitarian Universalist reverend, but I've moved far away and I've lost contact with him. I'll paraphrase it here. If you've heard this story, please tell me where it comes from. It reminds me strongly of the parable of the Good Samaritan from Christianity. I might have forgotten some details and I think the reverend did a better job of telling the story than I do.

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Two Buddhist monks are walking down a road. They encounter a woman who has been raped and left unconscious and naked on the side of the road.

One of the monks says that they should help her. But the other monk disagrees. He says that they can't help the rape victim because their order prohibits them from contact with women.

The first monk, who believes that it is right to help the woman, removes his robe and wraps her in it, and carries her to a place of safety where she will get the help she needs. The other monk follows, but does not help.

Later, the two monks are walking back to their monastery. The monk who did not help says to the one who did, "Why did you help her? We aren't supposed to touch women, and you carried a woman some distance, and you got involved in something you shouldn't have got involved in!"

The monk who helped her replied, "I carried her to a hospital, but you are still carrying her."

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