[QUOTE=Xyzzy;508866][url]https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/02/a-small-asteroid-may-briefly-blot-out-sirius-monday-night/[/url][/QUOTE]
I hope that SOFIA is able to get on this. This is why we need at least 3 airborne observatories of 0.5m or larger available and stationed around the world.

Also, in several areas around the world there should be arrays of dedicated occultation telescopes. They would be a couple of lines of scopes set a few km or miles apart. Each line would have 5 to 10 scopes set a few km apart. The 2 lines would have an offset of ~1/2 the distance between the scopes. Where possible a third line similarly spaced away from one of the two, but filling in the gap of the spacing (~1/4 offset). Further other scopes could be added to form an X pattern to catch more passes at different angles. The US western plains, Australia outback, Russian steppes, the Atacama, and parts of Africa would provide a good spread. The scopes would be all identical completely off the shelf. Using GAIA data to locate opportunities, we should be able to start getting more shapes of asteroid quickly. When no known opportunities exist the scopes could be used for other projects.

[QUOTE=Uncwilly;508874]Also, in several areas around the world there should be arrays of dedicated occultation telescopes.[/QUOTE]I agree.

Are you going to pay for them?

[QUOTE=xilman;508922]Are you going to pay for them?[/QUOTE]I might contribute to the project.

What are your thoughts on the layout of such arrays? Would a circle or other shape be better than lines?

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[url=https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/02/new-review-dozens-studies-insect-population-decline-causes-things-can.html]New Review of Dozens of Studies of Insect Population Decline, the Causes, and Things You Can Do[/url] | naked capitalism
[quote][From the review in question]The pace of modern insect extinctions surpasses that of vertebrates by a large margin, although the extent of losses cannot be accurately quantified…. Since the declines affect the majority of species in all taxa, it is evident that we are witnessing the largest extinction event on Earth since the late Permian and Cretaceous periods (Ceballos et al., 2017; Raup and Sepkoski Jr, 1986). Because insects constitute the world’s most abundant and speciose animal group and provide critical services within ecosystems, such events cannot be ignored and should prompt decisive action to avert a catastrophic collapse of nature’s ecosystems (May, 2010).

Most worrying is the fact that the declining terrestrial insect fauna comprise not only specialists with narrow ecological requirements, such as dependence on particular host plants (e.g., Coenonympha oedippus in bogs), ecological niches (e.g., roller dung-beetles) or restricted habitats (e.g., Bombus terricola in the USA), but also generalist species that were once common in many countries (e.g., Aglais io in the Netherlands or Macaria wauaria in the U.K.). This suggests that the causes of insect declines are not tied to particular habitats, but instead affect common traits shared among all insects.[/quote]
I find the usual curious "we must not mention this, 'tis taboo" omission - lots of mention of insect populations, but nary a word about *human* population, nor of the obvious negative correlation between the two. For example: habitat destruction and 'pollution' [meaning especailly pesticide usage in this case] are identified as the 2 main drivers of insect population decline. Both of these are tied to intensified, widening-scale and predominantly monoculture agriculture, which ultimately boils down to a single cause: burgeoning human population, though "economic development", as a code for "increased per-capita consumption" also plays a major role. In that sense it's not particularly noteworthy that global warming is not widely seen as a key driver of insect loss, since it is driven by the same thing -- [b]too many people, consuming too much 'stuff'[/b] -- thus the precise ordering-of-causes is immaterial, as the root cause is singular. While the various promising mitigations are laudable, they don't address the metaphorical elephant in the room, in form of the bolded part above. We need to drastically curb both our per-capita impacts on the environment *and* our population growth rate, for in doing the former alone we merely palliate the symptoms of the disease, which is us.

[QUOTE=ewmayer;509095][url=https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/02/new-review-dozens-studies-insect-population-decline-causes-things-can.html]New Review of Dozens of Studies of Insect Population Decline, the Causes, and Things You Can Do[/url] | naked capitalism

I find the usual curious "we must not mention this, 'tis taboo" omission - lots of mention of insect populations, but nary a word about *human* population, nor of the obvious negative correlation between the two. For example: habitat destruction and 'pollution' [meaning especailly pesticide usage in this case] are identified as the 2 main drivers of insect population decline. Both of these are tied to intensified, widening-scale and predominantly monoculture agriculture, which ultimately boils down to a single cause: burgeoning human population, though "economic development", as a code for "increased per-capita consumption" also plays a major role. In that sense it's not particularly noteworthy that global warming is not widely seen as a key driver of insect loss, since it is driven by the same thing -- [b]too many people, consuming too much 'stuff'[/b] -- thus the precise ordering-of-causes is immaterial, as the root cause is singular. While the various promising mitigations are laudable, they don't address the metaphorical elephant in the room, in form of the bolded part above. We need to drastically curb both our per-capita impacts on the environment *and* our population growth rate, for in doing the former alone we merely palliate the symptoms of the disease, which is us.[/QUOTE]In an effort to make some of the article more accessible to non-entomologists such as myself, I offer the following. I [i]did[/i] happen to know that Bombus is the genus of bumblebees, but drew a blank on the others.

[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coenonympha_oedippus]Coenonympha oedippus[/url][quote]Coenonympha oedippus, the false ringlet, is a species of butterfly in the subfamily Satyridae. It is found in Austria, Belgium, France, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Liechtenstein, Mongolia, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, and Ukraine. It is extirpated from Bulgaria, Germany, and Slovakia.[/quote]

[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombus_terricola]Bombus terricola[/url][quote]Bombus terricola, the yellow-banded bumblebee, is a species of bee in the genus Bombus. It is native to southern Canada and the east and midwest of the United States.[/quote]

[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aglais_io]Aglais io[/url][quote]Aglais io, the European peacock, more commonly known simply as the peacock butterfly, is a colourful butterfly, found in Europe and temperate Asia as far east as Japan.[/quote]

[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macaria_wauaria]Macaria wauaria[/url][quote]Macaria wauaria, the v-moth, is a moth of the family Geometridae. It has a Holarctic distribution. <snip> Occurs from Morocco through North and Central Europe to the Russian Far East , Siberia, Amur and Kamchatka and Central Asia.The North limit distribution area is Lapland.It also occurs in Labrador, Quebec, Ontario and Nova Scotia. In the mountains rises to a height of 1700 meters.[/quote]

On the other side of the ledger, human activity has done much to expand the range (and numbers) of some species of insects. I'm too lazy to look up all the scientific names, but among those that come to mind are the gypsy moth, the Japanese beetle, the boll weevil, the Formosan termite, various species of cockroach, the European cabbage butterfly, the fire ant, the Asian longhorn beetle, the emerald ash borer, the European corn borer, the codling moth, the Colorado potato beetle, the khapra beetle, the Asian tiger mosquito, the Mediterranean fruit fly, the African honeybee, and the housefly. I might also point out that the European honeybee, rightly the cause of concern of late, is not native to the Americas.

[QUOTE=Uncwilly;508930]What are your thoughts on the layout of such arrays? Would a circle or other shape be better than lines?[/QUOTE]


[trolling]Constant-width shapes are always better.



[YOUTUBE]-eQaF6OmWKw[/YOUTUBE]


(new things I learned from this video: Australia has some triangular money... hehe)
[/trolling]

[QUOTE=LaurV;509206](new things I learned from this video: Australia has some triangular money... hehe)
[/trolling][/QUOTE]Hmm. They are from Bermuda. You must have heard of the Bermuda Triangle?

[url]https://coinquest.com/cgi-bin/cq/coins.pl?coin=20026[/url]

I somehow expected your correction, hehe...

If not you, then who? :razz:
I never said that I was talking about the coins shown in the video (which, technically speaking, are not exactly triangular), but seeing them made me curious and I googled "[URL="https://www.google.com/search?q=triangular+coins&tbm=isch"]triangular coins[/URL]".

[QUOTE=LaurV;509206][trolling]<snip>
(new things I learned from this video: Australia has some triangular money... hehe)
[/trolling][/QUOTE]

A bit of googling turned up a series of triangular coins issued by the Isle of Man. They were legal tender, but mostly for collectors.

I remembered my dad talking about "mills" used as sales tax tokens, but, contrary to what I remembered him saying, apparently they were not triangular. At least some of them were, however, made of aluminum, which I also remembered him saying.

I did find images of a Louisiana luxury tax token that was circular with a triangular hole in the middle, though.

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;509250]A bit of googling turned up a series of triangular coins issued by the Isle of Man. They were legal tender, but mostly for collectors.

I remembered my dad talking about "mills" used as sales tax tokens, but, contrary to what I remembered him saying, apparently they were not triangular. At least some of them were, however, made of aluminum, which I also remembered him saying.

I did find images of a Louisiana luxury tax token that was circular with a triangular hole in the middle, though.[/QUOTE]

Don't forget the famous Yap Island stone money! Those stone wheels had holes in the middle to allow 2 guys to carry each piece of legal tender on a pole slung between them. IIRC said currency was done in not by its lack of portability but due to the "seignorage advantage" enjoyed by a few select islanders who got access to Western steel tools in form of hammers and chisels. Whence the english pejorative "chiseler". :)

In Asia, holey coins are very common historically for the eminently practical reason of being able to loop standard multiples like 100 on a short loop of twine - the historical analog of "large bills".