News from the future (aka Australia)

[Isaac]

the world has not ended!

[Tunnelcat]

So, will the earth start falling apart based on where we are past the date line?

[Sergeant Thorne]

LOL @ upside-down screenshot!

[Gekko71]

It's an old joke - but this is a funny take on it.

[sdfgeoff]

I always wondered what timezone these end times prophesies plan to take place in.
Guess it's not ours.

[Sapphire Wolf]

Pffffff... The world cannot end tomorrow! Were the Mayans high when they predicted that lie?!?!?!?!?!?! I say that tomorrow... the world will be fine! PERIOD!!!!!!!!!

[Foil]

LOL @ upside-down screenshot!

x2 - This got an audible laugh from me.

[Alter-Fox]

I was listening to an interview with an archeologist who specializes in Mayan ruins and others in those areas... the end of the world wasn't even a Mayan prediction. It was an Aztec prediction based on the end of the Mayan calendar (or some detail like that), and somehow it got attributed to the Mayans.

[Tunnelcat]

LOL @ upside-down screenshot!

I'd have been impressed if he'd only turned the clock window upside down, not the entire screen.

And we're still here too I've noticed! Maybe it's going to happen at midnight??????????????

[Sapphire Wolf]

The Mayans, they like to troll other civilizations!

[Isaac]

LOL @ upside-down screenshot!

I'd have been impressed if he'd only turned the clock window upside down, not the entire screen.

And we're still here too I've noticed! Maybe it's going to happen at midnight??????????????

Fact: Did you know if you took Australia and put it on the United States millions of people would die?

[Sergeant Thorne]

Would that be by wallaby stampede or a boomerang swarm large enough to darken the sun?

[Sapphire Wolf]

The world is still alive, it's like the Y2k of 2012.

[Tunnelcat]

LOL @ upside-down screenshot!

I'd have been impressed if he'd only turned the clock window upside down, not the entire screen.

And we're still here too I've noticed! Maybe it's going to happen at midnight??????????????

Fact: Did you know if you took Australia and put it on the United States millions of people would die?

Which ones? The Aussies or the Americans?

[roid]

I always wondered what timezone these end times prophesies plan to take place in.
Guess it's not ours.

i would imagine it's whatever time zone the culture in question was in. MayansAztecs

[Tunnelcat]

Well, I doubt they even knew about time zones, or even other continents, back then.

[Foil]

As I recall, when asked about the time zones, predictors usually say something about it starting on the date line, and sweeping around the Earth by time zone...

[Sergeant Thorne]

They should have known they can't be that creative with occurrences not either in the far distant past or future. Eh?

[Top Gun]

The only exact time that made any "sense" to me for this one was the actual moment of the Winter Solstice, which was around 6:15 AM Eastern time. Not that it made much more sense than the rest of the nonsense.

[roid]

As I recall, when asked about the time zones, predictors usually say something about it starting on the date line, and sweeping around the Earth by time zone...

heh, so those as yet uneffected would have been able to see people being knocked off the internet. I guess that's what Y2K should have been like too.

On that vaguely related note... Isn't it cool how seismic waves from an earthquake travel across the twitter-verse faster than the waves travel across the landscape . Watching twitter for "OMG i just felt an earthquake" type tweets has already given some ppl a useful heads-up to prepare a few seconds or even minutes out. NEAT!
Probably more up Tunnelcat's alley, uhhh, tunnel-alleycat.

[Tunnelcat]

Of the 2 main types of waves, P (primary or longitudinal) and S (transverse) waves, the primary is faster, at around 5000 m/s in the hardest of rock, basalt or granite. S waves run at about 60% of that, but since they have a greater amplitude, they do more damage. But all the speeds can vary depending on the hardness or softness of the substrate they travel through. All the other surface type waves are somewhat slower. These are usually formed with a ground rupture speed of 5000 to 6000 mph.

But recently, a new type of quake wave has been discovered, which can occur in what are now called supershear quakes. They're essentially high speed shock waves, kind of like the shock waves that are formed during supersonic flight, or when a bullet travels through the air. These quakes can even produce a sonic boom. To propagate, they require a rupture to occur on a very long and straight fault that is under very high stress, typically strike-slip faults, like the San Andreas. What's scary is that the actual ground rupture speed to generate these shock waves requires the rupture to suddenly slip at about 13,000 mph, over twice the speed of a normal ground rupture! In other words, the ground just moved at 13,000 mph for a fraction of a second! Ouch! So this means that the S waves traveling out from the fault form a Mach cone, hence the sonic boom, as the rupture propagates along the fault!

http://ericfdiaz.wordpress.com/super-sh ... an-deadly/

http://www.livescience.com/1803-speed-l ... uakes.html

For all the geeks on the board, here's the math:

http://pangea.stanford.edu/~edunham/res ... shear.html

But alas, it's all for naught. The internet is still faster.

[Jeff250]

Do we have a good scientific understanding for why the screenshot is rotated 180 degrees versus just being flipped vertically?

[Sergeant Thorne]

Because it would have been incorrect to flip it vertically. Stand on your head if you need proof! No one looks at the image from inside the monitor! Not here, and not in Australia (can't speak for Roid).

[Tunnelcat]

Maybe that's were roid lives, in his computer.

[Jeff250]

Because it would have been incorrect to flip it vertically. Stand on your head if you need proof!

I guess that's as best an explanation as I could have hoped for.

[Spidey]

Because it would have been incorrect to flip it vertically. Stand on your head if you need proof!

I guess that's as best an explanation as I could have hoped for.

Rotating the image is relative to the curvature/radius of the earth.

Better?

If you’re looking for a scientific explanation of something so simple…you are definitely over thinking it.

[Jeff250]

It just depends on where Australia is when the image is sent. If it's on the side of the earth, then if you send the image up, we would expect the rotation:

around.png (19.8 KiB) Viewed 3056 times

However, if it's front and center, then we should expect the image to be flipped:

over.png (12.57 KiB) Viewed 3056 times

[Sergeant Thorne]

You're definitely overthinking it, but you're overthinking it using fancy illustrations so you've redeemed yourself! Don't forget that prior to computers and the ease of graphical manipulation that came with them, we had to be able to understand documents and more importantly photos from the continent of Australia using more rudimentary methods. Specialized mirrors would have been required to flip things the way you're talking about. Far too expensive and involved. Standing on your head was the universally accepted means of translation. Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it! (or something)



My second explanation involves a trade route around, through the Philippines, eastern and northeastern Asia, finally ending up in the Americas having been ROTATED not flipped by virtue of the direction of the trip. Some modern trade routes take a more direct (unimaginative) path, and this may result in the kind of vertical flips you're talking about.