Posted by Thinker on Sep 4, 2009 in
Thinkable
Cost can be a prohibitive factor in many interests but not star gazing when in the beginning it doesn’t have to cost you a cent – so if you are interested, read on. While it is true that it simple is free, what else do you need to find out what exists outside our home, that is the earth? You will be pleased to learn that all that’s required is a star chart which will be available in almost any book on astronomy or astrology for that matter.
Buying quality mini binoculars is not as expensive as it use to be. As the cost of producing quality mini binoculars fall the easier it is to find a good pair. Watch these videos for tips on buying mini binoculars.
Some charts are simple and easy to follow but you can easily get much more complex versions that illustrate far more. New ones can be obtained at an observatory or planetarium and look for one that only shows the brightest stars but don’t worry if you can’t find one here as there are other places you can use.
If you intend to spend any money on a telescope, do not buy a cheap one – it really will be waste of money and won’t help you enjoy your new interest at all. Even if you buy one, the revolving earth would make the star disappear in such a split second that you would continue your search from the beginning all over again. There is no need to be disappointed by this, the star will back the following night so instead of putting the scope away, focus it on another.
My second tip is a far cheaper option but one that will bring many nights of star gazing and all you need to do here is lend, borrow or buy a normal 10×50 set of binoculars. With this sort of power you will be able to see the moon much more clearly than ever before but you will also find it easy to see whole constellations in their entirety. As for information, other than the internet of course just about every library will have a number of books on star gazing but so will your local school so you will not be short of help. Many of them have star charts in and it doesn’t matter how old the book, the chart will always be correct.
Before you go into too much depth, locate the Southern Cross or Scorpio in the book and then see if you can find it in the night sky. The Southern Cross lies in the south and Orion you’ll find pretty much moving from East to West over your head as the night progresses. Note that it may not be conspicuous as you look for it since it may rise towards the later part or early in the morning.
Do you need to read a lot I hear you ask? Not really, but the moment you start to explore the stars, you will want to know more about them, where they come from and probably where they are going. Strangely, some of the best books to study with in the beginning are those written especially for children as they do not overcomplicate the subject.
To conclude, the bare minimum stuff you need for star gazing are one eye and one star chart and you could have the Universe in your home. Only then do you need binoculars and once you know enough about the stars and how and why they move, then you can invest in a decent telescope.
Posted by Thinker on Sep 4, 2009 in
Thinkable
Elgin watches have first originated about one hundred years ago. These types of watches have made a household name following their launch of high standard and uniquely designed pocket and wrist watches.
Some of the most antique Elgin watches are pocket watches which are crafted with the rarest designs. This attribute has contributed to the high popularity of these watches during that period. By possessing an Elgin watch, one is known to possess a high level of elegance and style.
Elgin watches are displayed in a vast range. Elgin has been commonly known for it’s strikingly pocket watches. The pocket watches manufactured by Elgin during the ancient times were in high demand. As these watches were affordable, they were worn by the usual citizens, particularly railroad officers. Many people favored Elgin watches over others as they have the ability to precisely display the time. It made checking the time a fashionable trend.
Elgin has also been widely recognized for its creation of stunning pocket watches for women which can easily be bypassed by valuable jewelry by onlookers. There are also specially crafted pendant watches also available for women which appeared so elegant that it was replaced over jewelry. It was also a common sight of women to be adorned with an Elgin watch. These types of watches came in both gold and silver colors for its purpose of resembling jewelry. Elgin manufactures its watches in an approach that would greatly complement the elegant outward appearance of the wearer.
The beauty and style of Elgin watches simply cannot be compared to the modern type watches. It was the Elgin brand that first marketed watches in the form of lockets that could then be given to the brides of those ages.
The Elgin brand is targeted to commoners, not just the prestige class. There is a watch that is suitable for every class and occupation type such as for ladies and railroad employees. As these type of watches are very precise with indicating the time, they have even been demonstrated to avoid the onset of train crashes. Thus numerous railroad officials relied on Elgin watches for their preciseness and cost effectiveness.
As the decades passed by, the wrist watch emerged in popularity while the Elgin pocket watches decreased in demand. This encouraged the Elgin company to innovate wrist watches with a classic type design. Elgin still created high tech wrist watches even though technology was not so sophisticated during that time.
As of today, many still prefer to purchase Elgin pocket and wrist watches due to the fact that no other modern brand can out compete its high quality and graceful appearance. As ancient Elgin watches are rarely found, it therefore has a high price tag associated with it. These are usually available from Elgin retailers.
Posted by Thinker on Sep 4, 2009 in
Thinkable
The future will come and go, in the far future we will still be here, hopefully. But that which we call science fiction will eventually all vanish. Science fiction short stories frequently transition from a futuristic tale to mundane fiction. For example, suppose you read a story about a person who carried a portable telephone the size of a pack of cigarettes, this phone worked almost anywhere in the world, and could call any other phone in the world. If this story were written in 1910 you would consider it a remarkable work of science fiction, but unless there were a real story you would become quickly bored by it. If I wrote this story and posted it to my science fiction blog you would claim it doesn’t even qualify as free science fiction.
The Science Fiction Blog SpaceTimeStories.com is first and foremost a site where advanced ideas are discussed. Today those ideas are highly speculative, and obviously science fiction. Robot communities which have time travel and telepathy is pure fiction today. It might be reality tomorrow. Here’s another example: what is the difference between telepathy and having a cellphone chip embedded in your ear? The answer is not much. So the “new telepathy” is nothing more than a typical phone call. Today my phone calls reach my ears through tiny white wires. If my headphones were wireless and were painted skintone then you might think I have telepathy.
If you like ideas such as Matrioshka brains, science fiction short stories and tributes to Star Trek heroes the please visit my blog and leave a comment. But don’t be disappointed if 50 years from now my writings have moved from the category of free science fiction to factual science.
Posted by Thinker on Sep 4, 2009 in
Thinkable
I was reading a thread at a big webmaster forum yesterday which made the claim that “SEO is dead.” Now, it’s hard to say whether or not the original poster was being serious or sarcastic, but he referenced some other news he’d been reading on a few authority sites that made the “dead” claim.
The notion was that, because of the prevalence of Web 2.0 community sites, the idea of needing to optimize for any of the engines was going away — and fast. The idea was also put forth by another poster that, because of the huge number of content management systems that are already setup to be “search engine friendly”, the need to have any additional knowledge to rank well was quickly diminishing.
My answer to all this? Poppycock.
First, while it is true that there are many CMS programs that are search engine friendly out of the box, on-page factors matter so little to ranking (at least in Google) that even if the on-page playing field was leveled, it would make little difference in the current search engine results.
Second, SEO is about far more than just what’s on the page. The way you analyze what keywords are worth optimizing for, the way you write the content around those keywords, and the links you get to the pages that you want to rank for those keywords all have a large role to play in how much traffic you get from the search engines — and that analysis takes specialized knowledge. Anyone can learn to do it, but it does have to be learned.
Third, and most importantly, Web 2.0 is nice, and sites that revolve around that kind of community are huge traffic mongers (e.g. YouTube), but there will always be a need for full-text indexing of the web.
So is SEO dead? Nope. It’s alive and well, and will be for as long as people need to search for information on the web.