The Off Topic Topic

[FunkMonk]

There's a very slight chance an enormous 50km comet will slam into Mars. That'd be super cool to watch.

http://spaceobs.org/en/tag/c2013-a1-siding-spring/

Since C/2013 A1 is a hyperbolic comet and moves in a retrograde orbit, its velocity with respect to the planet will be very high, approximately 56 km/s. With the current estimate of the absolute magnitude of the nucleus M2 = 10.3, which might indicate the diameter up to 50 km, the energy of impact might reach the equivalent of staggering 2×10¹º megatonnes! This kind of event can leave a crater 500 km across and 2 km deep. Such an event would overshadow even the famous bombardment of Jupiter by the disintegrated comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 in July 1994, which by some estimates was originally 15 km in diameter.

When I played SimEarth back in the day my favorite thing to do after life started evolving was to slam the planet repeatedly with comets. 

[Caliga]

When I played SimEarth

I really wish they'd do a remake.

[garbon]

When I played SimEarth

I really wish they'd do a remake.

I don't know. Might lead to another Spore.

[MadImmortalMan]

So in 1990 no state had 20% or greater obesity, 20 years later no state has an obesity rate under 20%. 

I know it's not proper math, but if weight is a normal bell curve, we could be talking about an obesity increase of 1 percentile each year.  Or at least in that ball park.

Yeah it's nuts. Too much too fast, and it's worldwide. It's hard to believe that our eating habits or exercise levels are really so vastly different than they were in the 80s.

When did HFCS got introduced as the main industrial sweetener in the US? When I was there last year everybody in our group was amazed at how sweet every foodstuff that used it was, even stuff that wasn't supposed to be sweet.

HFCS is a major problem, but it wouldn't explain the ROTW. Mexico is catching up faster and they don't use it like we do. Also, I my cousin just got back from Brazil, and he's going back for the WC. He said he'd never seen so many fat Brazilians. I mean, aren't hot women Brazil's main strategic asset? Ugh.

[The Larch]

So in 1990 no state had 20% or greater obesity, 20 years later no state has an obesity rate under 20%. 

I know it's not proper math, but if weight is a normal bell curve, we could be talking about an obesity increase of 1 percentile each year.  Or at least in that ball park.

Yeah it's nuts. Too much too fast, and it's worldwide. It's hard to believe that our eating habits or exercise levels are really so vastly different than they were in the 80s.

When did HFCS got introduced as the main industrial sweetener in the US? When I was there last year everybody in our group was amazed at how sweet every foodstuff that used it was, even stuff that wasn't supposed to be sweet.

HFCS is a major problem, but it wouldn't explain the ROTW. Mexico is catching up faster and they don't use it like we do. Also, I my cousin just got back from Brazil, and he's going back for the WC. He said he'd never seen so many fat Brazilians. I mean, aren't hot women Brazil's main strategic asset? Ugh.

Oh yes, that'd go mainly for the US, but I guess that it all boils down to the same thing, more processed foods, more sedentary lifestyles, less time for exercise, and so on.

[Josephus]

When I played SimEarth

I really wish they'd do a remake.

I don't know. Might lead to another Spore.

Spore. Forgot about that. There was more buzz before that came out than after

[DGuller]

Oh yes, that'd go mainly for the US, but I guess that it all boils down to the same thing, more processed foods, more sedentary lifestyles, less time for exercise, and so on.

I wonder what the lag is in such phenomena.  It takes time for bad habits to become widespread and more culturally accepted, and it takes time for bad habits to show up at the waistline.

[Caliga]

Ah, Spore.  Another game that I bought, played for like 30 minutes, and then tossed in the corner.

[garbon]

When I played SimEarth

I really wish they'd do a remake.

I don't know. Might lead to another Spore.

Spore. Forgot about that. There was more buzz before that came out than after

Well that's because once it came out, we all saw how lackluster it was. It'd been pegged as kind of a conflation of Maxis's catalog but then failed spectacularly at every level.

[Neil]

Oh yes, that'd go mainly for the US, but I guess that it all boils down to the same thing, more processed foods, more sedentary lifestyles, less time for exercise, and so on.

I wonder what the lag is in such phenomena.  It takes time for bad habits to become widespread and more culturally accepted, and it takes time for bad habits to show up at the waistline.

Poverty?

[Phillip V]

Received a job offer to go work in Washington DC; dunno how I am gonna save any money there, though. It's so expensive.

[Admiral Yi]

Received a job offer to go work in Washington DC; dunno how I am gonna save any money there, though. It's so expensive.

Live in the burbs and commute, like all the other people who say they live in DC.

[Phillip V]

Received a job offer to go work in Washington DC; dunno how I am gonna save any money there, though. It's so expensive.

Live in the burbs and commute, like all the other people who say they live in DC.

But then how long will that commute be? 1 to 2 hours?

The job is in Chantilly.

[garbon]

Received a job offer to go work in Washington DC; dunno how I am gonna save any money there, though. It's so expensive.

Live in the burbs and commute, like all the other people who say they live in DC.

But then how long will that commute be? 1 to 2 hours?

The job is in Chantilly.

Oh so you won't be in DC either.

[Caliga]

I used to work with a software vendor based out of Chantilly.  Nice town.