Fed2 Star - June 10, 2018 - page 1 (of 2)
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Fiona Craig
Jun 10, 2018, 5:47:16 AM6/10/18
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Fed2 Star
Earthdate June 10, 2018
[This is a subscription mailing list. Details about how to stop
receiving it are at the foot of the email.]
For a fancy formatted version go the Fed2 Star website:
http://www.ibgames.net/fednews/current/index.html
In this week’s Fed2 Star: newsdroids castigated over subject line error
in last week’s Star emails, the FedTerm picture gallery has a new entry
for you to download, why an asteroid’s orbit is in the wrong direction,
girls (and boys and things) who wear glasses turn out to be smartasses,
sharks prefer jazz to classical music, drone flight that went wrong
still gains world record, an absolutely pointless robot, attaching a
camera to a toy car, finding out what’s happening on Venus, and a
timelapse video of a flight from London to San Francisco.
Official News part one
SCHRODINGER’S NEWS BULLETIN
by Hazed
It has been pointed out to me by some of our more observant readers than
the email version of the Fed2 Star last week, which was sent out as
usual in two separate emails, displayed quantum characteristics. Both
emails were labelled as “page 1 of 2”. Whichever of the two emails you
first looked at then collapsed into a state of being page 1, leaving the
other page to become page 2.
Such spooky behaviour is not ideal and I intend to reprimand the
newsdroid responsible, as soon as I can find out which of the three
droids it was. Right now they are all swearing “It wasn’t me” and
claiming to have no knowledge of how the error happened. In fact, they
are themselves acting in a quantum fashion, all three of them being in a
state that is neither innocent nor guilty.
I supposed to redress the balance, this week I should make sure both
emails are labelled “page 2 of 2” but that would just continue the
confusion, so I won’t!
This wasn’t the only problem with last week’s Fed2 Star. It went out
with Monday’s date instead of Sunday’s, due to an unfortunate incident
involving a time machine. This week I have personal made sure that the
news is dated correctly, as Sunday 10 July, 2018. No – June. June!
NEW PICTURE IN THE FEDTERM GALLERY
by Hazed
If you use the FedTerm front-end to play the game you will be aware that
the program displays pictures of Fed characters, if an image is
available. The installation comes with pictures of notable persons such
as myself, and if you ask for SpyNet Report you will see the picture
displayed in the top left of the screen, alongside your own picture
should you have created one.
There is also a vast gallery of pictures of Fed characters (past and
present) on the website, from where you can download the images of your
friends. You will find the gallery here:
http://www.ibgames.net/fed2/fedterm/gallery/index.html
If you create your own character picture, you can have it added to the
gallery, and one player has just done that. Nalla’s picture is now on
display and you can download it by going to the gallery here:
http://www.ibgames.net/fed2/fedterm/gallery/m-p.html#n, right-clicking
on the picture and saving it to the Pictures folder of your FedTerm folder.
If you want to be like Nalla, and all the others who have previously
sent in pictures to be added to the gallery, then make your own picture
and size it
80 pixels wide x 96 pixels high. Save it in .png format. Put it into the
FedTerm| Pictures folder and you will see it whenever you log into the game.
Mail the picture to fed...@ibgames.com (don’t forget to put Fed2 in the
subject line) and tell me your character name, and I will add it to the
gallery, and then report it in a future issue of the Star.
REAL LIFE NEWS: AN ALIEN ASTEROID THAT ORBITS THE WRONG WAY
by Hazed
One of the asteroids goes in reverse. Asteroid 2015 BZ509 orbits around
the sun in the opposite direction from the other rocks in its vicinity
near Jupiter. Now scientists have announced that it might be because
it’s not from our Solar System.
Yes, this asteroid could be an alien – a stray from interstellar space
that was captured by the gravity of the Sun.
In a recent paper, astronomers Fathi Namouni and Helen Morais explain
that if this theory about the reason for the asteroid’s contra-rotation
turns out to be true, then it could be an important key to understanding
how our system evolved. They say, “The presence of extrasolar asteroids
bound to the Solar System early in its history implies the need for a
revision of planet formation theory.”
The two astronomers built a simulation of a million asteroids just like
BZ509, based on observations of the rock and on our understanding of the
rest of the Solar System. They ran the simulation backwards to the
beginning of planetary formation. The result that seems most likely is
that the asteroid was captured from interstellar space by the Sun’s
gravity over 4.5 billion years ago.
This is an interesting theory, but because it’s based on a computer
model, it may not be a true record of what happened. Other experts
suggest an inactive comet could have come from the furthest reaches of
the system and got captured into orbit around Jupiter.
The only way to find out for sure if the asteroid did come from outer
space is to send a mission there to capture a sample of the rock.
Meanwhile, all we can do is run computer simulations.
Source:
https://gizmodo.com/why-is-this-asteroid-orbiting-the-wrong-way-around-the-1826197460
REAL LIFE NEWS: SEE, I TOLD YOU WEARING GLASSES MEANS I AM SMARTER!
by Hazed
A new study shows that people who wear glasses don’t just look smarter –
they really are more intelligent.
Well, what it really shows is that people who are near-sighted when they
are young are more likely to have gone onto higher education.
Researchers from the University Medical Center in Germany examined more
than 4,600 Germans aged between 35 and 74, all of who have myopia
(near-sightedness). They found that 53% of the college grads had the eye
condition, versus only 24% of people who dropped out of high school.
So either people who need glasses are more likely to go to college… or
people who spend more time studying end up making their eyesight worse,
in which case, the headline should be “see, I told you school made you
go blind!”
Source:
https://metro.co.uk/2015/03/13/people-who-wear-glasses-are-more-intelligent-says-science-5101790/
Earthdate June 10, 2018
[This is a subscription mailing list. Details about how to stop
receiving it are at the foot of the email.]
For a fancy formatted version go the Fed2 Star website:
http://www.ibgames.net/fednews/current/index.html
In this week’s Fed2 Star: newsdroids castigated over subject line error
in last week’s Star emails, the FedTerm picture gallery has a new entry
for you to download, why an asteroid’s orbit is in the wrong direction,
girls (and boys and things) who wear glasses turn out to be smartasses,
sharks prefer jazz to classical music, drone flight that went wrong
still gains world record, an absolutely pointless robot, attaching a
camera to a toy car, finding out what’s happening on Venus, and a
timelapse video of a flight from London to San Francisco.
Official News part one
SCHRODINGER’S NEWS BULLETIN
by Hazed
It has been pointed out to me by some of our more observant readers than
the email version of the Fed2 Star last week, which was sent out as
usual in two separate emails, displayed quantum characteristics. Both
emails were labelled as “page 1 of 2”. Whichever of the two emails you
first looked at then collapsed into a state of being page 1, leaving the
other page to become page 2.
Such spooky behaviour is not ideal and I intend to reprimand the
newsdroid responsible, as soon as I can find out which of the three
droids it was. Right now they are all swearing “It wasn’t me” and
claiming to have no knowledge of how the error happened. In fact, they
are themselves acting in a quantum fashion, all three of them being in a
state that is neither innocent nor guilty.
I supposed to redress the balance, this week I should make sure both
emails are labelled “page 2 of 2” but that would just continue the
confusion, so I won’t!
This wasn’t the only problem with last week’s Fed2 Star. It went out
with Monday’s date instead of Sunday’s, due to an unfortunate incident
involving a time machine. This week I have personal made sure that the
news is dated correctly, as Sunday 10 July, 2018. No – June. June!
NEW PICTURE IN THE FEDTERM GALLERY
by Hazed
If you use the FedTerm front-end to play the game you will be aware that
the program displays pictures of Fed characters, if an image is
available. The installation comes with pictures of notable persons such
as myself, and if you ask for SpyNet Report you will see the picture
displayed in the top left of the screen, alongside your own picture
should you have created one.
There is also a vast gallery of pictures of Fed characters (past and
present) on the website, from where you can download the images of your
friends. You will find the gallery here:
http://www.ibgames.net/fed2/fedterm/gallery/index.html
If you create your own character picture, you can have it added to the
gallery, and one player has just done that. Nalla’s picture is now on
display and you can download it by going to the gallery here:
http://www.ibgames.net/fed2/fedterm/gallery/m-p.html#n, right-clicking
on the picture and saving it to the Pictures folder of your FedTerm folder.
If you want to be like Nalla, and all the others who have previously
sent in pictures to be added to the gallery, then make your own picture
and size it
80 pixels wide x 96 pixels high. Save it in .png format. Put it into the
FedTerm| Pictures folder and you will see it whenever you log into the game.
Mail the picture to fed...@ibgames.com (don’t forget to put Fed2 in the
subject line) and tell me your character name, and I will add it to the
gallery, and then report it in a future issue of the Star.
REAL LIFE NEWS: AN ALIEN ASTEROID THAT ORBITS THE WRONG WAY
by Hazed
One of the asteroids goes in reverse. Asteroid 2015 BZ509 orbits around
the sun in the opposite direction from the other rocks in its vicinity
near Jupiter. Now scientists have announced that it might be because
it’s not from our Solar System.
Yes, this asteroid could be an alien – a stray from interstellar space
that was captured by the gravity of the Sun.
In a recent paper, astronomers Fathi Namouni and Helen Morais explain
that if this theory about the reason for the asteroid’s contra-rotation
turns out to be true, then it could be an important key to understanding
how our system evolved. They say, “The presence of extrasolar asteroids
bound to the Solar System early in its history implies the need for a
revision of planet formation theory.”
The two astronomers built a simulation of a million asteroids just like
BZ509, based on observations of the rock and on our understanding of the
rest of the Solar System. They ran the simulation backwards to the
beginning of planetary formation. The result that seems most likely is
that the asteroid was captured from interstellar space by the Sun’s
gravity over 4.5 billion years ago.
This is an interesting theory, but because it’s based on a computer
model, it may not be a true record of what happened. Other experts
suggest an inactive comet could have come from the furthest reaches of
the system and got captured into orbit around Jupiter.
The only way to find out for sure if the asteroid did come from outer
space is to send a mission there to capture a sample of the rock.
Meanwhile, all we can do is run computer simulations.
Source:
https://gizmodo.com/why-is-this-asteroid-orbiting-the-wrong-way-around-the-1826197460
REAL LIFE NEWS: SEE, I TOLD YOU WEARING GLASSES MEANS I AM SMARTER!
by Hazed
A new study shows that people who wear glasses don’t just look smarter –
they really are more intelligent.
Well, what it really shows is that people who are near-sighted when they
are young are more likely to have gone onto higher education.
Researchers from the University Medical Center in Germany examined more
than 4,600 Germans aged between 35 and 74, all of who have myopia
(near-sightedness). They found that 53% of the college grads had the eye
condition, versus only 24% of people who dropped out of high school.
So either people who need glasses are more likely to go to college… or
people who spend more time studying end up making their eyesight worse,
in which case, the headline should be “see, I told you school made you
go blind!”
Source:
https://metro.co.uk/2015/03/13/people-who-wear-glasses-are-more-intelligent-says-science-5101790/
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