kwaigonegin
Colonel
They should've said Kimchi.. probably more believable LOL
I assume most Norks have never seen let alone eaten a hamburger before in their entire lives.
What the Heck?! Thread (Closed)
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They should've said Kimchi.. probably more believable LOL
I assume most Norks have never seen let alone eaten a hamburger before in their entire lives.
Miragedriver
Brigadier
Mysterious ancient star chart shows foreign skies
This article, , originally appeared on .
The astronomical chart on the ceiling of the Kitora Tomb. Agency for Cultural Affairs
The , located near the village of Asuka in Japan's Nara Prefecture, is known for gorgeous, colourful paintings at the four cardinal points of the compass. A black tortoise guards the north of the ancient tumulus, which has been standing since the seventh or eighth century. A red phoenix stands at the south, a white tiger at the west and a blue dragon at the east.
The ceiling of the tomb is decorated differently, with a map of the night sky, charting 68 constellations, with the stars picked out in gold leaf. Three concentric circles are drawn with vermilion, showing the movement of celestial objects, one of which is the sun.
According to Kazuhiko Miyajima, a professor at Doshisha University who studied the chart after the tomb was discovered in 1998, this makes it possibly . It has designations for the horizon, equator and ecliptic circles, as well as recognisable patterns of stars.
While older depictions of the skies have been found in the west (the 17,300-year-old Lascaux cave painting, for example, shows ), most do not contain recognisable star patterns, or diagrams of astronomical phenomena.
One thing that has baffled researchers, however, is the area of sky the chart depicts.
The chart as annotated by University of Iowa research fellow Steve Renshaw.
Researchers Mitsuru Soma, an assistant professor of astronomy at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, and Tsuko Nakamura, a researcher of modern astronomy with Daito Bunka University's Institute of Oriental Studies, teamed up with Japan's and to calculate the location, .
Back to bottling my Grenache
This article, , originally appeared on .
The astronomical chart on the ceiling of the Kitora Tomb. Agency for Cultural Affairs
The , located near the village of Asuka in Japan's Nara Prefecture, is known for gorgeous, colourful paintings at the four cardinal points of the compass. A black tortoise guards the north of the ancient tumulus, which has been standing since the seventh or eighth century. A red phoenix stands at the south, a white tiger at the west and a blue dragon at the east.
The ceiling of the tomb is decorated differently, with a map of the night sky, charting 68 constellations, with the stars picked out in gold leaf. Three concentric circles are drawn with vermilion, showing the movement of celestial objects, one of which is the sun.
According to Kazuhiko Miyajima, a professor at Doshisha University who studied the chart after the tomb was discovered in 1998, this makes it possibly . It has designations for the horizon, equator and ecliptic circles, as well as recognisable patterns of stars.
While older depictions of the skies have been found in the west (the 17,300-year-old Lascaux cave painting, for example, shows ), most do not contain recognisable star patterns, or diagrams of astronomical phenomena.
One thing that has baffled researchers, however, is the area of sky the chart depicts.
The chart as annotated by University of Iowa research fellow Steve Renshaw.
Researchers Mitsuru Soma, an assistant professor of astronomy at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, and Tsuko Nakamura, a researcher of modern astronomy with Daito Bunka University's Institute of Oriental Studies, teamed up with Japan's and to calculate the location, .
Back to bottling my Grenache
Miragedriver
Brigadier
Archaeologists find 'very significant' 4K-year-old home in Ohio
One tribe lived in Ohio so long ago we don't even have a name for them. Archaeologists recently uncovered one of their 4,000-year-old homes in Lorain County and say it belonged to hunter-gatherers who visited periodically during the fall and winter, the reports.
"There's nothing like this anywhere in Ohio," says team leader Brian Redmond. "It's very significant. ... We have no idea what they called themselves or what language they spoke." What archaeology tells us: They lived in a wigwam-style, U-shaped home where hickory saplings were placed in post holes along the perimeter and tied together, then covered with several cattail mats.
In other words, it was "long-term" and "rather comfortable by Late Archaic period standards," says . There are also cooking pits, storage holds for hickory nuts, and a shallow clay basin that captured Redmond's imagination.
It was found with a primitive bone tool and deer anklebone inside, but "the purpose of this construction remains a mystery," .
"Perhaps the basin held plant material. ... Maybe it was a water dish for the family dog! We really don’t have a clue." Whoever lived there, he says, they migrated from the southeast, hunted small game and deer, and caught fish from Lake Erie and Black River; pottery and farming hadn't been invented yet.
Redmond is keeping the site secret to guard against vandals, and says he'll probably cover it with dirt and plastic to keep it preserved. (Another mysterious US find: .)
Back to bottling my Grenache
One tribe lived in Ohio so long ago we don't even have a name for them. Archaeologists recently uncovered one of their 4,000-year-old homes in Lorain County and say it belonged to hunter-gatherers who visited periodically during the fall and winter, the reports.
"There's nothing like this anywhere in Ohio," says team leader Brian Redmond. "It's very significant. ... We have no idea what they called themselves or what language they spoke." What archaeology tells us: They lived in a wigwam-style, U-shaped home where hickory saplings were placed in post holes along the perimeter and tied together, then covered with several cattail mats.
In other words, it was "long-term" and "rather comfortable by Late Archaic period standards," says . There are also cooking pits, storage holds for hickory nuts, and a shallow clay basin that captured Redmond's imagination.
It was found with a primitive bone tool and deer anklebone inside, but "the purpose of this construction remains a mystery," .
"Perhaps the basin held plant material. ... Maybe it was a water dish for the family dog! We really don’t have a clue." Whoever lived there, he says, they migrated from the southeast, hunted small game and deer, and caught fish from Lake Erie and Black River; pottery and farming hadn't been invented yet.
Redmond is keeping the site secret to guard against vandals, and says he'll probably cover it with dirt and plastic to keep it preserved. (Another mysterious US find: .)
Back to bottling my Grenache
Miragedriver
Brigadier
I have a question for all the ex, or current military individuals in the USA. Why following the Chattanooga military base shooting was the USA flag not lowered to half-mast? I believe that it was lower for the Fort Hood Shootings in 2013?
Can someone explain? Thank you.
Back to bottling my Grenache
Can someone explain? Thank you.
Back to bottling my Grenache
Equation
Lieutenant General
I see it in some places today but I can't explain why not at others.
kwaigonegin
Colonel
You asked too soon my friend... flags are being flown half staff starting today.
Miragedriver
Brigadier
Why so late after the shooting? Is there a certain time period after an event that must be waited?
What is the criterion? Just inquisitive.
I imagine that there is also a length as to the duration of the “half-mast” dependent on the magnitude of the circumstances.
kwaigonegin
Colonel
I don't think there is any standard time period on determining when the flag is flown at half staff. While there are criterias for such an event the timing itself is base solely on POTUS. He could call it immediately or he could call it a week later.
I think in this case Obama called it late. Or maybe in his mind this event was not significant enough to warrant such thing but changed his mind later.
I heard at lunch that the Congressional leaders grew tired of waiting on Obama and ordered the Capitol flags lowered this morning in hopes of getting Obama to follow suit.
Around noon, or a little before, eastern time, Obama officially ordered the half staff flags for mourning for the military victims of the Chattanooga shootings. There has been no explanation why it took so long.
IMHO...and it should have applied at Ft. Hood too...these service personnel were killed and wounded by enemy combatants who admitted to be acting on behalf of terrorist militants and Jihad. Those military personnel should be entitled to the military honors, as should their next of kin, appropriate for being wounded or KIA.
Equation
Lieutenant General
Congrats to both USA and China! Who said the US kids are not good with math?
4:31 PM By
Students during the International Mathematical Olympiad in Amsterdam in 2011.
VALERIE KUYPERS / AFP / GETTY IMAGES
The United States last week ended a 21-year drought when its team took home first place in the annual International Mathematical Olympiad. The U.S. win broke a long stretch dominated by China, which placed lower than second only once during that period (China took second this year). China has been participating since only 1985, which makes its record all the more impressive: It has won almost two-thirds of the Olympiads it has competed in.
The (IMO) is a competition for high schoolers around the world. The U.S. ranks 36 of 65 countries and economies on math proficiency among 15-year-olds, according to the , but those rankings are based on populationwide statistics; the IMO pits countries’ very top tier against one another.The U.S. picks its six-person team through a series of tests. These aren’t the standardized tests students take at the end of the year. U.S. students take three tests: the AMC (multiple choice), the AIME (all answers are integers between 0 and 999) and the USAMO (six questions, all proof-based). Any student in eighth through 12th grade can choose to take the AMC, but to take any subsequent tests, students must score high on the preceding one. The students who do best on the USAMO are invited to a summer camp for training, and the final squad is chosen from among the attendees.
More and more countries are participating in the IMO — 104 this year — but top places are dominated by a small number of countries. While formerly competitive countries such as Hungary and Romania have fallen behind, China, Russia and the U.S. have held the top three slots in a third of the competitions since the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Although the U.S. had been mostly shut out from the top prize, the Americans have put up incredible individual results. The IMO awards gold medals to contestants whose scores place them in approximately the top 8 percent of competitors. Since the U.S. began competing in 1974, it has won 109 gold medals, putting it in second place overall. The U.S. ties the USSR for the third-highest rate of gold medals won per competition participated in (2.7 medals), behind China (4.6) and Russia (3.6).
If you want to play along at home, here’s one of the six questions from this year’s competition:
Determine all triples (a, b, c) of positive integers such that each of the numbers: ab-c, bc-a, ca-b is a power of two.
Like , this problem is easy to describe and hard to solve. Only 5 percent of the competitors got full marks on this question, and nearly half (44 percent) got no points at all.
But, on the triumphant U.S. squad, four of the six team members nailed it.
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