Airbrush

England beat Sweden 2-0 and Russia Vs Croatia was decided on penalty kicks! Russia missed 2 penalty kicks. Interesting to note that only a few penalty kicks were delivered to either of the upper corners. None were shot to the center of the goal. Most were low and towards either post. Why is that? My guess is that forwards are usually paranoid about kicking OVER the goal. That is why they overcompensate by shooting low. Current rank: Croatia 5-0-0 Belgium 5-0-0 France 4-1-0 England 4-0-1

I really liked the movie where they transported a hump back whale into the future. There is the most recent Star Trek series "Discovery" with the star is Sasha from the Walking Dead! It's worth your while, I enjoyed it. https://www.cbs.com/shows/star-trek-discovery/ The thing I don't like about the Discovery series is the fact it is all about WAR with the Klingons. I prefer the exploration and discovery kind of plots.

Maybe Harry Kane was listening to you because England's only goal against Colombia was a penalty kick that was dead center on goal, but goalie dove for the corner. The trick for a penalty shot directly center on goal is to not kick the ball too hard and pretend like it is going to be a high velocity, but kick the ball soft enough to allow time for the goalie to dive out of the way. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJFAHdusoGY After a 1-1 tie, the match was settled by penalty kicks, and shame on Columbia for missing 2 penalty kicks.

The absurdity of wondering if an intelligent alien, that has the technology to travel interstellar, was EDIBLE is off the scale! First off there is no contest. They have technology far beyond our own. We would be helpless. They would dominate Earth will little effort. Imagine what they may look like? Hardly TASTY looking I would dare to speculate.

How about rather than penalty kicks to decide a tied match, play another 10 minutes or more with no goalies! Anyone catch the last two matches? Brazil played very well to eliminate Mexico 2-0. Both Brazilian goals were beautifully assisted fast-break teamwork and the goals were simple taps into the goal. Japan looked like they were going to beat Belgium by scoring 2 goals in the first 4 minutes of the second half. Then Belgium came from behind using fantastic header goals to win 3-2. Now my list of favorites based only on prior performance is: Croatia 4-0-0 Belgium 4-0-0 Uruguay 3-0-0 Brazil 3-1-0 France 3-1-0 Russia 3-1-0 England and Sweden are even at 2-0-1 I never would bet on sports or anything else. But I like to analyze soccer and US football based on numbers.

I agree that the first motion picture with V-ger was great! I'm not familiar with "The Year we made contact". Is that a recent motion picture? Here is what's next with Star Trek, a film directed by Quentin Tarantino! "In December 2017, Deadline Hollywood reported that Quentin Tarantino is currently working on the next Star Trek theatrical installment with Abrams, with the intention being that the former will direct the film.[49]Mark L. Smith, Lindsey Beer, Megan Amram and Drew Pearce took part in the writers room before Paramount finalized a deal with Smith to write the script.[50] In April 2018, it was announced that two new Star Trek films are in development at Paramount.[51] Later that month, it was announced that S. J. Clarkson will direct the second Star Trek film in development, and that the film will enter production before Tarantino's film. J. D. Payne and Patrick McKay will co-write the screenplay, while Abrams and Lindsey Weber will co-produce the project." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_(film_series)

I just finished watching Croatia eliminate Denmark by a shoot out. Very poor penalty kicks on both sides. Shame on both teams. So many low shots easily blocked. Consider the fact that no goalie can block a penalty kick that goes with force into one of the top corners. So the wise should start practicing at hitting the top corners with good force routinely.

I am sure that eating intelligent aliens that come to earth would be a LAST resort for humans, only when all "Earthling-food" is gone! It would be a very low probability. Also remember "War of the Worlds" by Wells where the aliens were not immune to human microbes. Maybe we are not immune to theirs?

I just watched Russia eliminate Spain on penalty kicks. Spain dominated the game (about 80% possession) BUT took few shots on goal. Russia played a defensive game and was lucky to get a penalty kick because of an unintentional hand ball. Spanish players need to practice their penalty kicks! I think these are the teams with the best records (at 7-1-18 correct me if I'm wrong), so I would think the champ will be among these, but you never know! (Team Win-Draw-Loss) Croatia 3-0-0 Uruguay 3-0-0 Belgium 3-0-0 France 3-1-0 Russia 3-0-1 Brazil 2-1-0 Mexico 2-0-1 England 2-0-1 Sweden 2-0-1 Who am I missing?

Recently I saw a piece on Fox News about the Fermi Paradox on the Greg Gutfeld show. That caught my attention because they usually discuss politics and because astronomy and cosmology are my favorite areas of science. Greg suggested that there is probably no intelligent alien civilizations out there because if there was they would have become obvious to us. Here is what Wiki has to say about the Fermi Paradox: "The Fermi paradox, or Fermi's paradox, named after physicist Enrico Fermi, is the apparent contradiction between the lack of evidence and high probability estimates[1] for the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations.[2] The basic points of the argument, made by physicists Enrico Fermi (1901–1954) and Michael H. Hart (born 1932), are: There are billions of stars in the galaxy that are similar to the Sun,[3][4] and many of these stars are billions of years older than the Solar system.[5][6] With high probability, some of these stars have Earth-like planets,[7][8] and if the Earth is typical, some may have developed intelligent life. Some of these civilizations may have developed interstellar travel, a step the Earth is investigating now. Even at the slow pace of currently envisioned interstellar travel, the Milky Way galaxy could be completely traversed in a few million years" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox This subject was raised as though it was a recent discovery in science, but many here know it has been around for a long time. Some members of the panel made normal comments, but Greg Gutfeld said something like if aliens come to Earth "we could eat them". He said we eat Earthlings (cows, pigs, chicken, fish, etc are Earthlings), "even vegetarians eat Earthlings because broccoli is an Earthling." He was suggesting that since we eat Earthlings, we could eat aliens. How likely is it that alien biology would be so consistent with our own that we could eat, or even WANT to eat an intelligent alien? I watch Fox News only when there are commercials on CNN and MSNBC. I peek in at Fox News trying to understand the other side. This show about the Fermi Paradox is an example of a stupid show. The other cable news channels are not perfect, but they don't look quite as stupid as Fox News. Why would anyone ever consider eating an intelligent alien that came to Earth? This is very telling of Greg Gutfeld. Back to the subject of the Fermi Paradox, how do you explain it? To me it is easy, interstellar travel is more difficult than we can imagine. Also intelligent aliens have nothing to gain by us knowing about them.

IF the big bang is homogeneous and isotropic, and has a finite size (even an irregular shape), then the center of the finite size should be roughly the center of mass. Why not?

Can there be a center of mass to the universe? That depends on what exactly the universe is. If the universe is finite in size and expanding, then the center of mass would be roughly the center of the finite universe. Why would it not?

This is how Trump explained the strange jacket Melania wore in his Tweet, when she went to visit the children (animals): “I REALLY DON’T CARE, DO U?” written on the back of Melania’s jacket, refers to the Fake News Media. Melania has learned how dishonest they are, and she truly no longer cares!” Trump wrote. Let's analyze this tweet. Trump said it "refers to the Fake News Media." So that can only mean, in my mind according to standard English usage, that Melania is saying: "Hello news media. I really don't care about the migrant crisis on the border, do you? (I'm just going through the motions for appearances)." How could it mean anything else? Trump, however, is claiming it means "Hello news media. I really don't care about YOU, do you?" This makes no sense at all. Of course the news media cares about itself. The tweet can only mean what she does not care about the children (animals) in cages. So, again, Trump twists himself into a pretzel trying to explain something, and failing miserably.

I don't think I WANT to be outraged. When Obama was president I had many better interests than politics. Obama seemed reasonable, educated, knowledgeable, thoughtful, and articulate. He voiced my own feelings and thoughts. Because now daily I hear thoughtless, even insane comments from Bozo the Clown, so I am just hoping Bozo reaches his tipping point and causes a blue wave in the midterms. I am hoping that the migrant crisis on the border of the USA and Mexico will be Trump's Katrina disaster. I am hoping for Mueller to have something to say before Sept 1st. I am hoping for impeachment.

In my retirement I spend many hours every day watching cable news. I usually prefer MSNBC and CNN. If there happens to be commercials on both of these then I take a brief look at Fox News or Fox Business News, for as long as I can stand it. I want to understand the "other side". Sometimes I see a story on Fox News that I don't see on CNN or MSNBC, so I question it. I want this discussion to be what you gathered at Fox News and your reaction to it. Recently I saw Fox News talking about the new TIME magazine cover with Trump looking down on that little girl that has become a symbol of the brutal separation of kids from parents at the border, and he is saying "Welcome to America." Fox said this is an example of FAKE NEWS because the little girl on the magazine cover was eventually actually reunited with her mom. Is that true? I thought the story may be substantially true, just not absolutely true, which I don't believe is fake news, because the story is in essence TRUE but this little girl would not be the best example. Another Fox News story is that AG Susan Rice was aware the Russians were messing with the US elections, before the election, but she told her team to STAND DOWN because they thought Hillary would win the election. So she and Obama are responsible for not stopping the Russians, not Trump. Could anyone share about these stories, or can you tell us some more Fox News stories that you think are not true? If you are a fan of Fox News please share what you think is fake news on CNN or MSNBC.

I watched Mexico beat Germany 1-0. That goal by Lozano was a great shot!! The news reported a minor earthquake which was caused by Mexicans jumping up and down after the game ended! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfzWXPZAak0 Does anyone bring their soccer ball to the park to kick it bouncing off a wall? That's what I do. A half hour of kicking penalty kicks, then a half hour shooting baskets, then an hour in the swimming pool!

It looks like there are 32 teams qualified for the world cup, and my own country USA did not qualify. How embarrassing!

Oort Cloud objects are so rarified that a brief random blocking of light would be ignored, it could even be a rogue planet. Astronomers only pay attention to transits caused by constant periodic dimming from exoplanets.

Thanks for the topic "Star Trek Vs Star Wars"! I was thinking of posting the EXACT same subject title years ago, but quit when I got tangled up when I tried to write it out. By far...... Star TREK is vastly superior to Star WARS. I remember when the first Star Trek episode aired in 1966, just after the advent of COLOR TV. I LOVED IT until the bitter end!! We had great hopes for the series "Lost In Space", but it turned out to be a dumb series about Dr. Smith getting into trouble, needing to be rescued in nearly every episode. Star Trek was about space exploration, real science "....to go where no one has ever gone before!" Star Wars has nothing to do with space exploration or real science. Star Wars is a dumb series about fighting wars in space forever using the stupidest weapon ever imagined, the Light Sabre. Using the word "Wars" in the title is lame as hell! How about the title "War In Space Forever"? Like Carl Sagan pointed out real "Star Wars" is unlikely. When the first Star Wars movie came out in 1977. I went to see it by myself and had become so disappointed by the time those 2 robots landed on the sand planet, and their stupid conversation, made me so bored that I walked out of the theater. Ok..... Star Trek is not perfect, the idea of a transporter seems beyond impossible.

"Animals" is the worst thing Trump can say about any group of people. He calls the gang members of MS-13 "animals" because they torture, kill, rape, and other terrible things that bad people do to innocent people, AND they are Latinos. But, strictly speaking, this assumes that "animals" in general are despicable. Calling a group of people "animals" sounds Nazi. When I go down the list of animals that I am familiar with, there is a long list of LOVELY creatures: dogs, cats, birds, squirrels, rabbits, horses, deer come to mind when I think "animal". Trump loves to eat meat. Are those animals that give up their lives for his pleasure despicable? Trump must be thinking of animals that are man-killers, lions, tigers, crocodiles, any dangerous animal. But even they are ONLY doing what is natural in their environment as humans continuously encroach on their natural habitats. Trump needs to come up with a better example of what is despicable. Maybe he should call MS-13 gang members "despicable" (deserving of hatred and contempt)?

Exactly. If we feed our body efficiently, it will function optimally. If we eat as a means for merely entertainment, and not fuel, then the more food means more fun, however more fat.

Earth has plate tectonics which brings heavy elements to the surface. Mercury and Mars don't have any of that, and I think Venus has very little surface recycling. For a planet to be habitable may require plate tectonics to bring the heavy elements necessary for life to the surface, if I remember correctly.

Thank you too Zapatos!

Thanks for the kind words dimreepr!

My hobby in my retirement is painting big-wave surfing scenes. I haven't made hardly any money from it yet. When I started using an airbrush it gave more realism to my pictures. My avatar photo, by Robert Brown, is famous, a giant 77-foot wave ridden by Mike Parson at Cortes Bank (100 miles off the coast of San Diego, CA) on 1-5-2008. See the actual photo here and read all about it: https://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/09/sports/othersports/09surf.html But the problem with that photo is the smaller wave in front of it blocks our view of the trough, so for my painting of that same wave I removed the wave blocking our view of the trough: https://john-kaelin.pixels.com/featured/cortes-bank-xxl-1-5-2008-john-kaelin.html See all my artwork at "biggestwaveseversurfed.com" which takes you to this web site: https://john-kaelin.pixels.com/ Recently a new world record for "biggest wave ever surfed" was established at Nazare, Portugal on 11-08-2017 by Rodrigo Koxa at 80 feet tall. What about Ken Bradshaw's 80 footer at Log Cabins on 1-28-1998? Well, that was not photographed, only some grainy video was shot from a mile away. http://www.swellnet.com/news/rearview-mirror/2018/01/28/condition-black-january-28th-1998 The video of the new world record is not much help because you can hardly see what is happening: https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=rodrigo+koxa+nazare&view=detail&mid=D41B67AF5A72B9621951D41B67AF5A72B9621951&FORM=VIRE