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 very cool indeed.
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I don’t think the average person, myself included, can ever fully understand the magnitude of this accomplishment. In fact, the quantities involved are so far beyond the human experience, I suspect even the mission scientists and engineers struggle to truly visualize them.
First, consider the distance. Assume you wanted to emulate this trip. So, you decide to continually fly round-trip from New York to Sydney, until you equal the distance. Bad news here. It would take over 200,000 round-trip flights. Assuming you fly one leg of this round-trip, every single day, you would be flying for a bit over a thousand years.
The good news is that, if you’re willing to wait that long, you’ll save a bit on the trip. At around $200M for the commercial flights, you’d beat the $700M price tag for New Horizons 
Next, consider the navigation. Imagine you fire a bullet moving about 20 times as fast as the average rifle round. Your target is a different fast-moving bullet. Finally, make the problem a bit more difficult by requiring that you ricochet off two other fast-moving bullets on the way. Oh, and don’t forget that distance we talked about earlier. Simple right?
Then, consider the engineering. You decide to build a contraption that can accomplish almost all of these goals. Though, at that point you’re “only” aiming at that second bullet. You haven’t decided you’ll ricochet off of it yet.
So, you plan and lobby, lobby and plan…for a couple of decades. Then, you get permission (and funding) to actually build the thing. A few years later its built and launched. Yeah! Success, right?
Nope, you get to wait, and watch it travel, and wait…for an additional decade. Along the way, you decide that second ricochet would be really cool! You even find another bullet to hit. Finally, decades later, if you’ve got the patience, and are still around, you get to enjoy the payoff.
All done right? Maybe. They’re talking about another ricochet and another bullet
Personally, I am in awe of this accomplishment. And, more, as an engineer myself, the patience it must require to begin a project that might not be completed until after you’re gone.
Kudos, NASA! Home run on this one!
Now, can we talk about that Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway? Are you sure about it? Can I talk you out of it, please?
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Bull! Why stupid person? It's a contradiction. (8)
This space for rent
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Nice easy one to start the year!
OXYMORON
Sent from my Amstrad PC 1640
Never throw anything away, Griff
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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We have a winner (obviously)
This space for rent
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Pete O'Hanlon wrote: Bull! Why stupid person? It's a contradiction. (8)
Is it SCROTUMS?
Michael Martin
Australia
"I controlled my laughter and simple said "No,I am very busy,so I can't write any code for you". The moment they heard this all the smiling face turned into a sad looking face and one of them farted. So I had to leave the place as soon as possible."
- Mr.Prakash One Fine Saturday. 24/04/2004
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Spot cream for Piers.
veni bibi saltavi
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Over 24 hours late now...
@walterhevedeich
If it doesn't get posted by 13:00 UTC today, I'll reboot it tomorrow...
Sent from my Amstrad PC 1640
Never throw anything away, Griff
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Latest addition to family have just discovered the joys of my desk. In addition to detecting their presence on the keyboard it would also help if it could detect which monitor they have decided to look at and automatically transfer my work window to a vacant monitor.
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Here you go,[^]
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Already have three of those, different breed admittedly. They now cower in fear as kittens approach!
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There's an app[^] for that... 
Anything that is unrelated to elephants is irrelephant
Anonymous
-
The problem with quotes on the internet is that you can never tell if they're genuine
Winston Churchill, 1944
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Never argue with a fool. Onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.
Mark Twain
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Um ...
Quote: We make our software easier to use with a manual that you can view two different ways: you can view it on your computer, and you can print it.
So ... that's a PDF file, then? 
Sent from my Amstrad PC 1640
Never throw anything away, Griff
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Purrhaps... 
Anything that is unrelated to elephants is irrelephant
Anonymous
-
The problem with quotes on the internet is that you can never tell if they're genuine
Winston Churchill, 1944
-
Never argue with a fool. Onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.
Mark Twain
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Meowbe so...
Sent from my Amstrad PC 1640
Never throw anything away, Griff
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Pictures or it didn't happen!
They seem to have a natural affinity for keyboards, and can type - in cat - faster than I can type - in English - from an early age. I suspect the tail helps here, though ours seems to type exclusively with his butt.
Here is ours a few months after we got him, doing his best to prevent any form of input: Dropbox[^]
Sent from my Amstrad PC 1640
Never throw anything away, Griff
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Hi All,
Just wishing you all a Happy New Year! May it be a good one.
Glenn
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Happy New Year to you as well Glenn.
I may not be that good looking, or athletic, or funny, or talented, or smart
I forgot where I was going with this but I do know I love bacon!
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Happy new year to everybody from me too.
I'm just back in the office from an extended Christmas and New Year break (Dec 7th - Today) Can somebody please remind me what it is I do here.
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Lucky so & so, I was sick over Xmas...(properly ill on holiday!) 
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... clearly Poland has a lot of cats.[^]
Sent from my Amstrad PC 1640
Never throw anything away, Griff
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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That's because they don't want to adopt the cyrillic alphabet
latin doesn't have the slavic sounds so they resort to all kinds of arcane letter combinations to write them down.
modified 20-Oct-19 21:02pm.
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Well that's not true,
there's other languages that use the same alphabet with different sounds
... for instance the most common: "J" - is it pronounced (English word sounds) "jay" or "yay"
English wasn't the first language to use the "Latin" alphabet, so the English sounds are not necessarily the correct sounds either. The frogs have same alphabet but a lot of completely different sounds, they weren't first either, and for most of the alphabet nor was it the Latin regions that used it first either.
Most (not all) of the letters are from an older form of Goth, and guess what: a many of the original pronunciations resemble Crylic sounds more then English sounds, and some are the other way...
Ergo: it's wrong to say the Czeck's are abusing the Latin alphabet or as you put it: using "arcane combinations." English does the same exact thing.
Damn it's hot, tijd voor een Ysje.
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For what it is worth czech in cyrillic is written: чех.
modified 20-Oct-19 21:02pm.
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