dionysius wrote: 

1...band name..
2..album name...
3...first hit single...

 cc_rider wrote: 
I will not venture even to guess what will or won't work inside the horizon of the supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way galaxy. If time itself just stops (one possibility), you could forever be right in front of the ATM about to enter your PIN, but never doing so. Might as well be doing something more fun at that moment.

 NoEnzLefttoSplit wrote: 

haha!

 dionysius wrote: 
Given my overdraft I'm not too concerned at the moment. Of course, when the time arrives, I might have other concerns.

* note to self - buy pampers*

 dionysius wrote: 
So what you're saying is, even if you CAN remember your PIN number, your ATM card is probably not going to work?

Does Milliway's even HAVE an ATM?

c.

 NoEnzLefttoSplit wrote: 

Considering that you will be crushed into a strand thinner than spaghetti once you reach the event horizon of a stellar-mass black hole, then yes, your PIN numbers will be lost. But the event horizon of a supermassive galaxy-eater is so vast that you could be far enough away from the singularity for matter to to retain its shape. You could be alive and conscious and completely unaware of even crossing the event horizon of a supermassive, apart from noticing all the stars turn red and then disappear. Then, who knows what happens? Space and time as we know them don't exist in (around?) a singularity.

Man, that's a frightening sci-fi story plot point there.

 dionysius wrote: 
Well I for one am VERY unlikely to remember my PIN numbers when I get to the other side.

 NoEnzLefttoSplit wrote: 

Black holes evaporate through Hawking Radiation—a stunning intuition. But is information lost on the other side of the event horizon from us? A deep question no one, not even Hawking, has been able to answer. The answer may have a lot to do with entropy, the arrow of time and causality, the fate of the universe and a lot of the properties of spacetime I don't pretend to understand.

 dionysius wrote: 
You obviously haven't understood his theory about the radiation from black holes!!

(not meaning to joke about this, but I kind of think he might approve).

 geordiezimmerman wrote: 
Amazing man!

 geordiezimmerman wrote: 

A hero of the mind. A plucky, determined fellow, and an original thinker. The loss of Hawking will be humanity's loss.

 geordiezimmerman wrote: 
I hope he pulls through. I was actually at the event he was scheduled to attend at Arizona State - it was disappointing he couldn't be there, but he did speak to us remotely.

prof Stephen Hawking "very ill"

I didn't know he was 67 !!

Linky thingy

 Welly wrote:

   It's about time!

New York Times

April 18, 2009

E.P.A. to Clear the Way for Regulation of Warming Gases

By DAVID BRODER

WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday is expected to formally declare carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases to be pollutants that threaten public health and welfare, setting in motion a process that for the first time will regulate the gases blamed for global warming.

E.P.A. officials, briefing members of Congress in advance of the ruling, said that the agency had found the science supporting the so-called endangerment finding "compelling and overwhelming." The ruling triggers a 60-day comment period before any proposed regulations governing emissions of greenhouse gases are published.

But even as the E.P.A. begins the process of regulating these substances, Congress is engaged in writing wide-ranging energy and climate change legislation that will pre-empt any action taken by the agency. President Obama and Lisa P. Jackson, the agency's administrator, have repeatedly said they much prefer that Congress address global warming rather than have the E.P.A. tackle it through administrative action.

Two years ago this month, the Supreme Court, in the case Massachusetts v. E.P.A., ordered the agency to determine whether greenhouse gases harm the environment and public health or explain why they do not. Agency scientists were virtually unanimous in determining that they do, but top officials of the George W. Bush administration suppressed the finding and took no action.

In his first days in office, Mr. Obama promised to review the case and act quickly if the finding were justified. Friday's announcement is the fruit of that review. The E.P.A. action was approved after two weeks of scrutiny by the White House Office of Management and Budget's information and regulatory affairs arm.

Even before the decision was formally announced, environmental advocates applauded.

"At long last, the E.P.A. has officially recognized that carbon pollution is harmful to our health and to the climate," said David Doniger, director of the climate center at the Natural Resources Defense Council and one of the lawyers in the Supreme Court case. "The heat-trapping pollution from our cars and power plants leads to killer heat waves, stronger hurricanes, higher smog levels, and many other direct and indirect threats to human health."

"With this step," he added, "Administrator Lisa Jackson and the Obama administration have gone a long way to restore respect for both science and law. The era of defying science and the Supreme Court has ended."

Auto companies, utilities and other emitters have long dreaded this day but reacted with caution because they regulatory process has just begun and they hope to address their concerns in the legislation now before the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Roger Martella, general counsel at the E.P.A. during the Bush administration, said the finding marks the official start of an era of controlling carbon in the United States.

"The proposal, once finalized, will give EPA far more responsibility than addressing climate change," Mr. Martella said. "It effectively will assign E.P.A. broad authority over the use and control of energy, in turn authorizing it to regulate virtually every sector of the economy."

 triskele wrote: 
They better not kill it this time.....just get the tranquilizer guns!

not BIG news, but there's a cougar roaming around the area where schlabby and i got married...which is near where my sister lives....she'd better keep her cats and dog inside for a while....

CAPTAIN PHILLIPS HAS BEEN FREED!!!

What a bozo...