RKMBs Forums .::Important::. off topic and offensive posts I need 13 across.

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Kristogar Velo said:
Nothing sadder than a conversation between two losers who vowed to "leave these boards forever."

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cunt ( P ) Pronunciation Key (knt)
n. Vulgar Slang
The female genital organs.
Sexual intercourse with a woman.

Offensive. Used as a disparaging term for a woman.
Used as a disparaging term for a person one dislikes or finds extremely disagreeable.

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How to Qualify for the Daytona 500

Posted Friday, February 6, 2004

Matt McLaughlin



Author’s Note: This article is intended for newer fans. Based on the amount of email I get every year asking how the field is determined for the Daytona 500, I thought I’d review the somewhat complex procedure. Long term fans may want to sit this one out.

For newer fans even how the starting line up is set for the Daytona 500 is more than a little confusing. The Byzantine qualifying set up for the Daytona 500 is used only for this race. (Even the Firecracker 400 at this same track in July uses the standard qualifying procedures.) In first round qualifying only the first row, comprised of the first and second fastest cars in Round One is set. The rest of the running order determines starting position for the Twin 125 Qualifying races, held on the Thursday prior to the race. A driver could be third fastest in first round qualifying and theoretically start the Daytona 500 in 31st place if he wrecks early in one of the 125s. (43rd if the wreck is bad enough the back up car has to come off the trailer.) There is second round qualifying as well. Any driver who elects to take a second round time loses his first round effort, and if the second round speed is slower, that is how he will be ranked. In years past there was third round qualifying but third round was dropped in 1999.

Drivers line up for the Twin 125s in the order they qualified. The first 125 features the pole winner for the Daytona 500, with the 3rd fastest driver starting second, the fifth fastest driver starting third etc. (In other words all who qualified in an odd numbered position.) The pole sitter for the second 125 is the driver who is on the outside pole for the Daytona 500. The fourth fastest qualifier starts in second position, the sixth fastest in third position etc. (All those drivers who qualified in an even numbered position.) In the event qualifying is rained out and can not be run prior to Thursday, the starting lineup for the 125s would be determined by 2003 owner (not driver) points, with new teams starting shotgun on the field.

If your favorite driver gets the pole or outside pole for the 500, starts his 125 race, quickly falls off the pace and drops into the pits don’t panic. That driver has probably decided not to risk his front row starting point by getting into a wreck that would have him have to go to a backup car and start out back of the field. The top 14 finishers in each race not already in the event (the pole sitter and outside pole sitter) get into the 500.(As long as they pass post race technical inspection of course.) NASCAR looks at which 125 had the fastest average speed. The cars in that race (Positions 1-15 or 16) start on the inside row for the 500 in the finishing order of the race. The drivers in the slower 125 start on the outside lane.

Positions 31-38 are awarded to the eight drivers not yet in the race who had the fastest speeds in qualifying.

The final five positions are based on provisionals. (This is a change from last year. Last year the final seven spots were provisionals) The provisional starting places are based on 2003 owner points. (Thus any team new to the sport this year does not have a provisional to use for the first four races of the 2004 season.) The 43rd starting place goes to any previous Winston Cup champion who attempted to make the 500 but isn’t in the show yet. In the event two or more Winston Cup champions haven’t made the race, the most recent champion gets the starting position. If no previous Winston Cup champion needs the 43rd starting spot, it goes to the next driver eligible through team provisional points. (Which again can mean a driver who wasn’t with the team in 2003 could beat out the driver who actually earned those points.)

Clear as mud, right? Hey, I’m just telling you how it works. I didn’t design the system.

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The visual distortion that will be described here would be caused by gravitation in the Schwarzschild metric [14]. Einstein's general relativity [15] is not the only gravitational theory that admits the Schwarzschild metric as an exterior solution for a spherically symmetric, non-rotating gravitational field, but it is the preferred theory, and the theory that will be assumed implicitly here. The Schwarzschild metric is

[hard to represent accurately]

Here ds is a metric measure of coordinate distance r, coordinate time t and coordinate angles theta and phi. The term R_S, the Schwarzschild radius, refers to the radius of a black hole event horizon, and c refers to the local speed of light. R_S is directly proportional to the mass that creates the metric through R_S = 2GM/c^2, where G is the gravitational constant and M is the mass interior to r.

For a photon, ds^2 = 0. Combining this with the conservation of angular momentum allows one to express the deflection angle phi of a photon moving in a gravitational field [16] as

[same thing here]

where b is a constant over the trajectory of the photon path, corresponding to a linear projected impact parameter of a photon at infinity for a photon that escapes. This impact parameter can be visualized by assuming that when the photon is far from the gravitating object it travels in a straight line; the impact parameter is the distance between the closest approach of the continuation of this straight line and the center of the gravitating object. Note that Delta phi is not the extra angle deflected by the lens but the total change in the phi angle between the observer and the source, emitted at radial coordinate r_emitted and observed at radial coordinate r_observed. This angle is measured with the lens at the vertex, and includes gravitational deflection. Therefore, for example, a source seen by an observer just over the limb of a lens which has only a small mass, and hence a negligible effect of the trajectory of the photon, has a Delta phi near pi.

An important radius is found from Eq. (2) when Delta phi diverges to infinity. Here a photon will circle the massive star at the photon sphere. The exact location of the photon sphere is R_P = 1.5 R_S. Note that a "normal" neutron star with a relatively weak external gravitational field does not have a photon sphere. Were it somewhat more compact, it would have a photon sphere, and were it even more compact, it would have an event horizon and be called a black hole. For black holes and the "ultracompact" neutron stars considered below, however, these circular photon orbits can exist.

Photons circling at the photon sphere are not in a stable orbit [16] - any small perturbation will cause them to spiral either in or out. Photons emitted from infinity with impact parameters slightly greater than R_B = 3^(1.5) R_S / 2 will spiral around the compact star near the photon sphere and then spiral out. Photons emitted from infinity with impact parameters slightly less than R_B will spiral around near the photon sphere and then spiral in, eventually colliding with the neutron star surface or falling into the black hole. It is also possible for a photon to be emitted from a ultracompact neutron star surface, orbit near the photon sphere, and then spiral back in again impacting the surface. These describe, in general all of the distinct cases of photon orbit near an ultracompact neutron star. All shorter photon trajectories will lie on one of these paths.

Stated differently, the three cases of photon orbits near a gravitating body can be classified as: "always outside the photon sphere," "crossing the photon sphere," and "always inside the photon sphere." The first is the case of a photon passing the neutron star or black hole, reaching a critical radius R_c, and then escaping again toward infinity. In this case the photon does not reach or cross the photon sphere. Its distance from the star decreases monotonically until R_c, and then increases monotonically thereafter. The second case is that of a photon continuing to come toward the neutron star (or black hole) until it impacts the surface (or falls through the event horizon). Here its distance decreases monotonically. The third case is that of a photon emitted from the surface of a strong gravity neutron star, reaching a critical radius R_c, and then falling back down and again impacting the neutron star surface. This critical radius is given by the cubic equation solution [9]

[again. use your imagination.]

where n = 0 is for the first case and n = 2 is for the third case.

Photons climbing out of a gravitating object become less energetic. This loss of energy is known as a "redshifting", as photons in the visible spectrum would appear more red. Similarly, photons falling into a gravitational field become more energetic and exhibit a blueshifting. The observed energy E_observed at radius r_observed of a photon emitted at radius r_emitted with energy E_emitted is [7]

[uncreative shithead]

Note that the magnitude of the redshifting (blueshifting) effect is not a function of the emitted angle or the received angle of the photon - it depends only on how far radially the photon had to climb out of (fall into) the potential well. Also note that the power received from a continuously emitting source would have an additional factor of [(1 - R_S/r_emitted) / (1 - R_S/r_observed)]^(1/2) caused by the relative differences in the perceived rate of the number of photons emitted per unit time.

The effect a gravitational field would have on the actual perceived color of an object is more complex, however, as it depends on the distribution of photons emitted from the source at different energies relative to the sensitivity of the observer to measuring photons of different energies. For example, an object that would be described as green might be very bright in the ultra-violet - but this would not normally be perceived, as people cannot see the ultra-violet. Were this object put in a strong gravitational field and viewed from far away, so that the photons would be significantly redshifted, the strong ultra-violet emission could be shifted into violet emission and the object would look more blue, even though its light has been redshifted. This is an exceptional case, however, and redshifted objects may indeed appear more red.

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Drzsmith said:
He'll be back.

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Drzsmith said:
He'll be back.

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Drzsmith said:
He'll be back.

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Drzsmith said:
He'll be back.

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First National Bastard said:
Not to mention that your vaunted intellect is comparable to, oh, that of someone who has stayed over at Michael Jackson's house.

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Results of experiments with Spiders and Drugs

Scientists at the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) have turned their attention from the mysteries of the cosmos to a more esoteric area of research: what happens when you get a spider stoned.

Their experiments have shown that common house spiders spin their webs in different ways according to the psychotropic drug they have been given. Spiders on marijuana made a reasonable stab at spinning webs but appeared to lose concentration about half-way through. Those on Benzedrine - "speed" - spin their webs "with great gusto, but apparently without much planning leaving large holes", according to New Scientist magazine.

Caffeine, one of the most common drugs consumed by Britons in soft drinks, tea and coffee, makes spiders incapable of spinning anything better than a few threads strung together at random. On chloral hydrat, an ingredient of sleeping pills, spiders "drop off before they even get started".

Nasa scientists believe the research demonstrates that web-spinning spiders can be used to test drugs because the more toxic the chemical, the more deformed was the web.

The scientists believe their previous work on the goemetry of crystals will help them to devise computer programs that can analyse web-building objectively in order to predict the toxicity of new medicines. "It appears that one of the most telling measures of toxicity is a decrease, in comparison with a normal web, of the numbers of completed sides [of a web]; the greater the toxicity, the more sides the spider fails to complete", the scientists say.

Paul Hillard, spider specialist at the Natural History Museum in London, said researchers first discovered the effects of psychotropic drugs on spiders during experiments at the end of 1960s. The researchers fed caffeine to spiders in hope of making them spin webs in the late evening rather than the early dawn. The result was eccentric webs rather than earlier spinning, he said.

Article and research by Steve Connor

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backwards7 said:
I wonder what would have happened if Peter Parker had been bitten by a spider that was high on dope?

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