JamesSavik

The tarot, astrology, numerology and other scams have a few things in common: they are all so generic they could apply to anyone. For instance, just look at the 12 sun signs of astrology. Read the discription for any one of the 12 signs from Aries to Scorpio. Jumble them up and say give a Scorpio the same discription as a Leo. Chances are, he'll say I can see that. The same goes for John Edwards- the biggest doush in the universe, and his scam: cold reading. He starts his show out saying "I'm getting a message from Mike or Michael who has passed"... if there are more than three people in the group sombody has a dead uncle mike. He reads the audiance reaction and then zeros in on some sucker... He sees a middle aged lady with K-mart shoes who is responding with a big S on her key ring and says, "Uncle Mike says to quit worrying about money and live your life... is it Susan or Sarah?" Who isn't worried about money? "It's Sarah", says the adoring dolt. Before it gets too specific or there are details he moves on... "Now I'm hearing from a William and he wants to say he's sorry to a Cindy or Mindy..." It looks amazing but its 100% grade A corn fed B*LLS*IT.

The brightest supernova Astronomers using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and ground-based telescopes have detected the brightest stellar explosion ever recorded. Observations suggest supernova SN 2006gy is the brightest and most energetic stellar explosion ever recorded and may be a long-sought new type of explosion. Here, an artist's illustration shows what SN 2006gy may have looked like if viewed up close. NASA/CXC/M.Weiss Astronomy Magazine Online May 7, 2007 The brightest stellar explosion ever recorded may be a long-sought new type of supernova, according to observations by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and ground-based optical telescopes. This discovery indicates that violent explosions of extremely massive stars were relatively common in the early universe, and that a similar explosion may be ready to go off in our own galaxy. "This was a truly monstrous explosion, a hundred times more energetic than a typical supernova," says Nathan Smith of the University of California at Berkeley, who led a team of astronomers from California and the University of Texas in Austin. "That means the star that exploded might have been as massive as a star can get, about 150 times that of our sun. We've never seen that before." Astronomers think many of the first generation of stars were this massive, and this new supernova may thus provide a rare glimpse of how the first stars died. It is unprecedented, however, to find such a massive star and witness its death. The discovery of the supernova, known as SN 2006gy, provides evidence that the death of such massive stars is fundamentally different from theoretical predictions. An infrared image (left) shows NGC 1260, the galaxy containing SN 2006gy. The dimmer source to the lower left is the center of NGC 1260, while the much brighter source to the upper right is SN 2006gy. The panel on the right shows Chandra's X-ray image of the same field of view. Infrared: Lick/UC Berkeley/J. Bloom and C. Hansen; X ray: NASA/CXC/UC Berkeley/N.Smith et al. "Of all exploding stars ever observed, this was the king," said Alex Filippenko, leader of the ground-based observations at the Lick Observatory at Mt. Hamilton, California, and the Keck Observatory in Mauna Kea, Hawaii. "We were astonished to see how bright it got, and how long it lasted." The Chandra observation allowed the team to rule out the most likely alternative explanation for the supernova: that a white dwarf star with a mass only slightly higher than the sun exploded into a dense, hydrogen-rich environment. In that event, SN 2006gy should have been 1,000 times brighter in X-rays than what Chandra detected. "This provides strong evidence that SN 2006gy was, in fact, the death of an extremely massive star," says Dave Pooley of the University of California at Berkeley, who led the Chandra observations. The star that produced SN 2006gy apparently expelled a large amount of mass prior to exploding. This large mass loss is similar to that seen from Eta Carinae, a massive star in our galaxy, raising suspicion that Eta Carinae may be poised to explode as a supernova. Although SN 2006gy is intrinsically the brightest supernova ever, it is in the galaxy NGC 1260, some 240 million light years away. However, Eta Carinae is only about 7,500 light years away in our own Milky Way galaxy. "We don't know for sure if Eta Carinae will explode soon, but we had better keep a close eye on it just in case," says Mario Livio of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, who was not involved in the research. "Eta Carinae's explosion could be the best star-show in the history of modern civilization." Supernovas usually occur when massive stars exhaust their fuel and collapse under their own gravity. In the case of SN 2006gy, astronomers think that a very different effect may have triggered the explosion. Under some conditions, the core of a massive star produces so much gamma ray radiation that some of the energy from the radiation converts into particle and anti- particle pairs. The resulting drop in energy causes the star to collapse under its own huge gravity. After this violent collapse, runaway thermonuclear reactions ensue and the star explodes, spewing the remains into space. The SN 2006gy data suggest that spectacular supernovas from the first stars

Don't give up on it Frank. It may just be the linkage. Sometimes they slip and won't engauge and have to be put back in place. Do you have anyone nearby that knows their stuff and is honest? Perhaps you can get Lugnutz to give you an over the phone diagnosis.

How the Beast avatar came to be: Long ago when I was a kid, me and all of my friends were X-men fans. My BF was Arch-angle, my best friend was Havoc and another was Iceman and Nightcrawler. We didn't take our own nicknames, the group gave it to you. The group gave me the nickname the Beast. At first I didn't care for it because I was bigger than most kids my age. The other kids said it wasn't just because I was big and strong but because I am also good natured and smart. That I could live with. Time passed and I forgot about it but when I wrote my story Broken I remembered it. Big and strong but smart and gentle struck me as both highly complimentry and describing me fairly well so I kept it.

I seek balance and truth. Yes there are parents who will completely accept a kid coming out. There are others who will send them to quacks or religious fanatics that will mess with their heads. Some parents will simply disown them. A small but dangerous minority of hard core bigots or psychos who will try to beat or torture their sexual orientation out of them, or pour boiling water on their genitals so they won't get those urges. Some nut cases in the Cuban communities in South Florida have been reported killing young people in unauthorized exorcisms to expel the demon of homosexuality. This is because people aren't always rational when it comes to the subject of homosexuality. Others who don't appear to give a rip will go bonkers when homosexuality shows up in their family. We do no one any favors by creating propaganda pro or con. The best we can do is tell the truth and that truth is, while conditions are much improved, we still have a long way to go. When I write, my stories show a spectra of reactions to homosexuality from so what to get thee behind me abomination and every variation in between. This is the reality that I know. If it wasn't for the spelling checker, I couldn't even spell utopia.

I have always been here.

It's only chapter 2 and I haven't a clue.

It must be my birthday or something.... a chapter of Little Buddha's WISYA and EleCivil's Laika in the same weekend!?

I'm in heaven! Stories by Elecivil AND LittleBuddha in one weekend? It must be my birthday or something.

You've had that avatar a long time and I instantly associate it with you. We can't really tell you what a cool avatar might be. To be cool, it must come from you and possibly say something about yourself. I once had a long discussion on another forum about the psycology of avatars: how people pick them, what they mean to you and what they mean to others. For instance in a forum elsewhere about tekkie stuff, my avatar was Wiley Coyote. Wiley is a great engineer but he is cursed with bad luck. You can't help but admire his grit. He never gives up and he is one tough coyote. Please don't be trite! There are more than enough Homer Simpsons. Brian the dog from Family Guy and Looney Tunes characters. To replace your excellent avatar, you're going to have to come up with something that can top it and that's going to be tough.

Excellence isn't limited to GA... and I do believe that makes three people who suggested that New Brother is a great story.

Yom Kippur was also a brilliant use of counter-attack and combined arms to utterly and completely destroy a numerically superior enemy. Since its very inception, the state of Israel has had to fight to survive and be free. I admire Israel's military professionalism, courage as a nation and sheer tenacity and will to survive.

No. Cygnus is a huge cloud- this is merely the northern half- it is several hundred light years across. It corresponds to the Milkey Way galaxy's Cygnus Arm- one of our galaxy's bright spiral arms. Two other well known clouds are the Orion and Scorpius-Taurian Arms. The red glowing parts of the cloud are energized by starlight from bright massive and energetic stars. The darker parts of the cloud are collapsing to form stars, multiple stars and/or planetary systems. As it happens, those bright/massive stars pump out a lot of radiation pressure which either energizes the gas or pushes it towards gravitational collapse. This particular region could be forming many thousands of stars.

Asking which story is your favorite is like asking what your favorite song or movie is: unless you are 12, you probably don't have one. The more stories that you experience, the more forms, the more genres, the more authors; the more favorites you will have. With all due respect to this site and the powerhouse authors that are here, there is quality fiction scattered all over the web. Here at GA, the required reading list could go on for a lot longer than I intend to type. You couldn't go wrong starting out with the Log Way or Desert Dropping by Dom Luka. I love all of Comicality's work but my particular favorite is My Only Escape. Christopher P. Lydon has a large body of excellent work that you can stay lost in for weeks. Little Buddha's Some Day Out of the Blue is a lot of fun. Vance Lista's stories are in a class by themselves. dkstories, Jack Scribe, Luc, Nick James, Luc, Ghost Ryder- its all good. GA has high standards and crap doesn't make it here. Other sites you'll want to check out: Awesomedude.com is home for EleCivil and Graeme whose Leaves & Lunatics and New Brother respectively are classics. While you are at AD, check out Freethinker's Courage & Passion and Centennial Park. CrvBoy.org is another site rich in content. Just off the top of my head, my favorite over there is Tappings by KIT but it's also Brew Maxwell's home. Deweywriter.com is home to the classic Brian & Pete Saga- a real classic of the genre. www.storiesbydriver.net is home to the incomprable Driver 9 one of the best authors on the net and in print. Falling Off a Log and The Quarry are masterpieces. Last, but not least, you can find an author called the EggMan at the Nifty Prolific Author page. His story A New Life is very popular. Well, it's late and I'm tired. I've given you some real gems. Enjoy and let us know what you think.

I guess your microwaved rat burito didn't go down so good. I like the kangaroo burito better but it still kicks going down.

This is an amazing mosaic of the star-forming region of Cygnus. Suitable for wallpaper perhaps?

I guess Children of Man is another sub-genre of sci-fi: post-apocalyptic like Mad Max, the Omega Man or Jericho. I must confess a fondness for fifties B&W "Monster" movies. Not that I would go out of my way to watch one, they are like a comedy that wasn't intended to be a comedy. By trying to be serious, they are hysterical. Oh my God, it's eating the tank... Typical plotline is that there is a nuke test and an ant/spider/scorpion becomes huge and eats New Mexico.

It would be a bargain if it wasn't for that 300M euro debt...

Mystery illness strikes after meteorite hits Peruvian village Villagers in southern Peru were struck by a mysterious illness after a meteorite made a fiery crash to Earth in their area, regional authorities said Monday. Around midday Saturday, villagers were startled by an explosion and a fireball that many were convinced was an airplane crashing near their remote village, located in the high Andes department of Puno in the Desaguadero region, near the border with Bolivia. Residents complained of headaches and vomiting brought on by a "strange odor," local health department official Jorge Lopez told Peruvian radio RPP. Seven policemen who went to check on the reports also became ill and had to be given oxygen before being hospitalized, Lopez said. Rescue teams and experts were dispatched to the scene, where the meteorite left a 100-foot-wide (30-meter-wide) and 20-foot-deep (six-meter-deep) crater, said local official Marco Limache. "Boiling water started coming out of the crater and particles of rock and cinders were found nearby. Residents are very concerned," he said.

Graeme- You should rent or get hold of Babylon 5. It really is a great story. The writer sold it as a 5 season story arc and that's what we got. The Bab 5 universe isn't nice or politically correct. The races have various levels of technology. There is nothing "magical" like the Force from Star Wars, magic technologies like transporters or replicators from Star Trek, or copious amounts of chese that afflict a great deal of sci-fi. IMHO, B5 is one of the best sci-fi series ever done. Sci-Fi Books that I have enjoyed: Isaac Asimov: Foundation series. Frank Herbert: Dune... (the first book was my favorite) Arthur C. Clark: 2001, others Orson Scott Card: Ender's Game, others Kurt Vonnegut: Slaughterhouse 5, Long Walk to Forever

Hysteria. Fear. Point the finger, claim moral superiority, claim the public places. As gay people, haven't we seen this crap before?

Let's play what if. OK- smoking is banned in all public places by and act of congress and a note from the surgeon general. Consider this very carefully: who is to decide what is good for you? The senate? An industry panal? What's next? What other products will be banned or freedoms recended because it's not good for you? Will beef be bannned because of cholesterol? Will sugar be banned because its bad for your teeth? Will guns be banned because they hurt people? Will homosexuality be banned because you could catch HIV? Before we fix the behavior of others, we should consider which of our behaviors others might seek to fix and if we should grant others such powers over us.

Let us know what you think about Science Fiction. Please reply with other movies, television series or books that you like. Questions 1, 2 and 4 may have multiple answers.

I always loved Luke. What a sweetheart he was. A lesser person would have told a bitchy, whiney Rory where to stuff it. Or worse yet used him like a dirty, dirty gym towel. Luke was a character with character which made him memorable. Maybe Dom can do a sequel where Luke meets the hot, sweaty Beast, er I mean, man of his dreams.

This is, after all, life. People come and they go, you have your favorites and you miss them when they are gone. The point is don't take your favorite online authors for granted. Let them know that you like their work. I know that a lot of authors have written a story or two and hung it up because they decided that they must suck because of the feedback (or lack there of) that they recieved. I'm a fan of Little Buddha and he's got a new story out. My first move after reading and enjoying chapter 1 was to send him an email telling him that it looks good, I can't wait for more and thank you for sharing your time and talent with us. Authors don't have to you know. They are like everyone else and can always do something else.