11/20/2002: Sun spot

Undertoad • Nov 20, 2002 4:24 pm
Image

What you have there is one of the best images of a sunspot ever recorded. It was taken on July 15 this year. The spot itself is described as "planet-sized" and this is just one part of it.

When you look closely at it, there are a whole lot of spooky things in there. I took the large version of the image and just took out this shot of some dude's face:

Image
Nic Name • Nov 20, 2002 4:27 pm
Image
Nic Name • Nov 20, 2002 4:58 pm
That 5000 Kilometers distance graph and the size of the sun spot reminded me that ...

according to Guinness World Records:

Longest Journey By Solar-Powered Car

The Radiance, a sleek solar car built by the Queen's University Solar Vehicle Team of Ontario, Canada, travelled 7043.5 km. (4376.62 miles) across Canada from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to Vancouver, British Columbia, in 29 days from July 1–29, 2000. Radiance was built for the annual World Solar Challenge between Darwin and Adelaide in Australia, and achieved second place in 1999.

The record-breaking solar car crossed the whole of Canada at a cost of just five Canadian dollars, compared with the CAN$3,000 (US$2,030) fuel costs incurred by the support truck that tailed the car. The Radiance was not only able to convert the sun's rays into propelling energy, it could also store the sun's energy by using it to charge a set of over 1,000 nickel batteries – which are similar to those used in laptop computers.
Senor Oso • Nov 20, 2002 6:08 pm
There's something odd about those numbers. $2,030 in fuel to go 4376 miles? I don't know what gas costs in Canada, I'm sure it's taxed more heavily than it is in the U.S. But even figuring, say $2.50 US per gallon (which works out to about $3.75/gallon Canadian), that truck still only got about 5 miles per gallon. What kind of truck were they using anyway? Even semis get better mileage than that.
Nic Name • Nov 20, 2002 6:25 pm
OK, I'll do the research if you'll do the math assuming there is no significant price difference over time.
Senor Oso • Nov 20, 2002 6:37 pm
Originally posted by Nic Name
OK, I'll do the [b]research if you'll do the math assuming there is no significant price difference over time. [/B]


Assuming that prices were the same in 2000 as they were in January 2002 ($1.419 US per gallon), and that the exchange rate was the same in 2000 as it was in January 2002, the support truck got 3.05 miles per gallon. Obviously we can't assume those things but I doubt they're likely to be much different.

Now, I may have done the math wrong, so somebody check me on this: Fuel Cost ($2030) / Price Per Gallon ($1.419) gives you 1430 gallons of fuel. Then, Miles Traveled (4367) / 1430 gallons of fuel should leave you with 3.05 mpg.
Nic Name • Nov 20, 2002 6:40 pm
Bear in mind ... it was towing a solar vehicle. ;)
Senor Oso • Nov 20, 2002 6:46 pm
Originally posted by Nic Name
Bear in mind ... it was towing a solar vehicle. ;)


Thbpbptptptptpbpbtthht.

So then the solar car didn't actually make it all the way across Canada on it's own? I thought it said the support truck was merely "trailing" the solar car.

In any case, all I can say is... I'm bored now.
MaggieL • Nov 20, 2002 7:07 pm
I doubt that a support truck tailing a solar car is operating at it's most fuel-efficient speed.

Tailing isn't towing.
Senor Oso • Nov 20, 2002 7:12 pm
Sure, but still, 3 miles per gallon? It just seems weird to me. But

- It doesn't matter.

- There wasn't any real point to this other than I thought the numbers were weird.

- I am even more bored with this topic now than I was before, if that's possible.
Undertoad • Nov 20, 2002 7:17 pm
Well then they can't compare the figures, because nobody in their right mind would operate a truck that way.
Nic Name • Nov 20, 2002 7:22 pm
Tell me more about the sun spots.

That's an awesome image. Can we get wallpaper high-res?

Anybody see any other stuff in that image?

Edit Note:

In the top right corner, I see a face looking upward and sticking his tongue out. :p
Undertoad • Nov 20, 2002 7:34 pm
It's from Astronomy Pic of the Day

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap021114.html

If you click on the image there, you get the larger version.

Further investigation of their links suggest that it really came from here

http://www.solarphysics.kva.se/

Where they say you can use the images if you give credit to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. So here goes: "That Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, boy I gotta hand it to them. They really know how to teach that science. In a Swedish and royal way. I gotta give them credit."
Nic Name • Nov 20, 2002 7:39 pm
WOW. Freakin' awesome wallpaper. I hope the wife doesn't throw a pail of water on the monitor!
Griff • Nov 20, 2002 7:42 pm
If you look more closely at UTs face capture you'll notice Apollo has his index finger laid up against his nose. The Gods, in their infinite boredom, are doing a stage production of The Sting.
Nic Name • Nov 20, 2002 7:48 pm
Griff has discovered how the sun spot is created ... by Apollo holding one nostril and blowing fiercely through the other.
Nic Name • Nov 20, 2002 7:58 pm
Originally posted by arz on another thread

I learn so much stuff on this site. :)
tandr • Nov 20, 2002 11:57 pm
This was second thought. First one was "This is how hell looks like"
Nic Name • Nov 21, 2002 12:33 am
Wouldn't that be something ... if all along we've been looking at the Sun as the source of light and life ... and it's actually Hell. As a kid, I was always thinking down in Hell ... never thought of the Sun.

Nah ... couldn't be. Could it?
juju • Nov 21, 2002 1:14 am
It doesn't make much sense, seeing as how the sun is the source of all life in our solar system.
Cam • Nov 21, 2002 1:26 am
And the voice of reason shines through :)
kisrael • Nov 21, 2002 9:43 am
I think it looks more like Boba Fett.
helen • Nov 21, 2002 10:30 am
WOW. That's some image.

Perhaps a mute point, but in Canada we use litres not gallons, and kilometres not miles. So it's not just the exchange rate that makes all the calculating a difficult prospect. (at least for me).
MaggieL • Nov 21, 2002 12:01 pm
There's this section too. I think it's Jesus...or maybe Elvis.
MaggieL • Nov 21, 2002 12:03 pm
And then there's this...subtle. I don't know what to make of it. Is it lunchtime yet?
Undertoad • Nov 21, 2002 12:04 pm
It's the Sta-Puff marshmellow man.
Griff • Nov 21, 2002 12:22 pm
Oops my mistake, they're watching a pre-release version of AP 3, Look who's coming to dinner: Dr. Evil
dave • Nov 21, 2002 12:54 pm
I think it was Sta-Puft, Tone.

Anyway, I also think that's Bob's Big Boy. :)
warch • Nov 21, 2002 1:07 pm
Elby's! Thats a hellava grease fire.
Griff • Nov 21, 2002 1:27 pm
I told Big Boy not to throw water on that, does he listen?
Tobiasly • Nov 21, 2002 2:28 pm
Originally posted by helen
Perhaps a mute point, but in Canada we use litres not gallons, and kilometres not miles.

In America, we have moot points instead of mute points. :)
Griff • Nov 21, 2002 2:33 pm
In Steamboat Springs they have Moots
Nic Name • Nov 21, 2002 2:58 pm
a mute point - stfu!
Urbane Guerrilla • Nov 21, 2002 5:37 pm
Originally posted by MaggieL
There's this section too. I think it's Jesus...or maybe Elvis.


That ain't not neither no Stay-puf Marshmallow Man! That's Vincent -- from Beauty And The Beast!
perth • Nov 21, 2002 8:27 pm
Originally posted by Griff
In Steamboat Springs they have Moots

steamboat fucking rocks. have you ever been? late september every year they have a great brewfest.

~james
dasviper • Nov 22, 2002 1:56 am
Originally posted by Griff
In Steamboat Springs they have Moots


In Massachusetts, we have Smoots
Griff • Nov 22, 2002 7:02 am
Originally posted by perth

steamboat fucking rocks. have you ever been? late september every year they have a great brewfest.

~james


Not yet, but it sounds like its right in the old *cough* wheelhouse.
Leus • Nov 22, 2002 9:58 am
Originally posted by Tobiasly

In America, we have moot points instead of mute points. :)


I thought Canada was in America... :-)
MaggieL • Nov 22, 2002 12:18 pm
Originally posted by Leus


I thought Canada was in America... :-)


Nic has problems distinguishing "the United States" from "America "too.

This is largely an issue of lazy nomenclature. Yankee haters have had a problem ever since 'den of the running dogs of the capitalist power structure' fell out of vogue at the end of the cold war. "The Great Satan" was popularized for a while just before then by that fun-loving Iraninan mullah, but somehow just doesn't have the same ring to it.

But as for "America" (meaning all land area in the Western Hemisphere except Antartica--and no cracks about "Little America", OK?) vs. "The US" vs. "Canada": not to worry--there is a solution...which begins to materialize in strip 5 of 11 of "For Cod and Country", where we hear the aliens Neil and Bob ("Is that your names or is that what you do?") say:Image

Read the series at:
http://www.goats.com/archive/021023.html

...and don't forget during the codpiece prolog that if you pronouce "American" properly it comes out "merkin"--glossed as a wig for pubic hair.
wolf • Nov 22, 2002 11:40 pm
Originally posted by MaggieL


...and don't forget during the codpiece prolog that if you pronouce "American" properly it comes out "merkin"--glossed as a wig for pubic hair.


Oh my gods ... someone other than me KNOWS that????
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