The New Joke Thread

[CaptTom]

Originally Posted by Jdege

GMT and UTC are far from confusing.

In GMT we have a fixed number of seconds, every year, and the length of each second varies from year to year.

In UTC each second is of a fixed length, and the number of seconds in a year varies from one year to the next.

I don't know how it could be more simple...

Hey, no fair! I'm not supposed to LEARN something from the JOKE thread!!

I always thought they changed the name from GMT to UTC because the French didn't want to see an English place name for the prime meridian.

[Jdege]

Originally Posted by CaptTom

Hey, no fair! I'm not supposed to LEARN something from the JOKE thread!!

I always thought they changed the name from GMT to UTC because the French didn't want to see an English place name for the prime meridian.

Changes in Solar weather affect the amount of solar wind, which heats to a greater or lesser extent the upper atmosphere of the Earth. When the upper atmosphere heats or cools, it expands or contracts, which slows or speeds up the rotation.

The result is that the length of a day changes, from day to day, in an unpredictable way. If you define a second to be a fixed part of a day, then your second changes in unpredictable ways.

Of course, it didn't matter until we could measure time precisely enough to see the difference. But by 1970, we could, and the scientific community switched over to using a fixed-length second, and defined rules for the length of a year that allowed for leap seconds to be added or subtracted to keep things synced.

Which is why there are between 58 and 62 seconds in a minute, because every Jan or Jul 1st, the international standards bodies might add or subtract one or two seconds.

[Adelie]

GMT and UTC are substantially the same, but GMT is not as tightly defined which causes problems for very precise work.

[GordMay]

Overheard, at my next Doctor's appointment:
"Doctor, Doctor, I keep seeing into the future!
When did this start?
Next Thursday afternoon."

[Jdege]

Originally Posted by Adelie

GMT and UTC are substantially the same, but GMT is not as tightly defined which causes problems for very precise work.

GMT and UTC are fundamentally different, because they aren't based on the same definition for "second", and keep time in very different ways.

[MicHughV]

I can remember when GPS first came out.....it had a " degraded" signal for civilian use. I don't remember how much....100'??....a few seconds ??

I had to laugh at that, I don't think a nuclear bomb dropped 100' from it's intended target, will have any less of an impact.

[Adelie]

Originally Posted by MicHughV

I can remember when GPS first came out.....it had a " degraded" signal for civilian use. I don't remember how much....100'??....a few seconds ??

I had to laugh at that, I don't think a nuclear bomb dropped 100' from it's intended target, will have any less of an impact.

It was called Selective Availability.

The error intentionally introduced were such that 95% of the time your reported location would be within 100m (329’) of your actual location (provided GPS and charting Lat/Lon agreed).

100m doesn’t do much for you standing on the ground but for a buried missile silo that was a big improvement in their odds of coming thru a nuclear attack. The military is a little self-centered in how the define success and failure.

[MicHughV]

well, I have seen plenty of these news reel showing an atomic or nuclear bomb going off..be it under water or on land. I think 100m one way or another will make little difference to how dead you'll be....with missiles generally carrying several warheads these days, they can pretty much blanket any area they want. If the explosion don't get ya...the radioactive fallout will.

This is depressing topic.....it's time for my first beer of the day...may have to have another after that...it is Friday isn't? Oh, Thursday, you say, .....close enuff

[Jdege]

Originally Posted by MicHughV

I can remember when GPS first came out.....it had a " degraded" signal for civilian use. I don't remember how much....100'??....a few seconds ??

I had to laugh at that, I don't think a nuclear bomb dropped 100' from it's intended target, will have any less of an impact.

With sufficiently accurate GPS, any Piper Cub is a cruise missile.

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by Adelie

It was called Selective Availability.

The error intentionally introduced were such that 95% of the time your reported location would be within 100m (329’) of your actual location (provided GPS and charting Lat/Lon agreed).

100m doesn’t do much for you standing on the ground but for a buried missile silo that was a big improvement in their odds of coming thru a nuclear attack. The military is a little self-centered in how the define success and failure.

Selected availability never had an effect on Military GPS which uses a completely different frequency than civilian GPS.
I believe it’s intent was among other things was to prevent some nut from making a Cessna into a cruise missile or similar.
SA still exists, it was just turned off by Presidential decree, but it can be re enabled at any time, it’s also variable, and can be applied to only certain places on the planet if desired, GPS can also be denied by region too.

The civilian GPS signals we all use has no military value, it was brought to the world for free by the US taxpayer.

By GPS I’m referring to the US system.

On edit, civilian GPS also has a speed notch, meaning it won’t work above a certain speed. That’s there to prevent it from being used for weapons system guidance. I ran into that exporting aircraft to Morocco, I had to prove they couldn’t be used for missile guidance, Luckily Garmin provided the proof no problem.

[MicHughV]

not to start a thread drift....but I am under the impression that the Russians have their own GPS system, so the USA SA is probably moot for them..

if there is a joke anywhere in this morass....I'm off the opinion, that so many countries these days have nuclear weapons... that none would ever use them...not even North Korea.... as the resulting counter launch would obliterate any place....

ayr, for the life of me, I cannot understand why mankind has been unable to live in harmony with each other...nobody get off this planet alive....nobody...so why not be happy.....???

we should arm these missiles with bad jokes...that should get somebody's attention...ok...ok....enuff....you win...no mo' bad jokes..see....no lives lost, nothing destroyed...I'm liking the idea....now I just have to sell Trump on the idea...

[dfelsent]

So the reporter was interviewing The mad scientist. The mad scientist had a formula for immortality. This was the tale he was told.
The mad scientist’s laboratory was in the Sahara desert.
He would go to the seashore and collect seagulls for his formula
His formula for immortality was being tested on porpoises. They lived forever.
One day, as he returned his laboratory, he found several lions, asleep,across the doorway.
He stepped over the sleeping lions. Carrying his gulls.
He was immediately arrested by the FBI.
The charges were very simple.
Transporting gulls across staid lions for immortal porpoises.

[MicHughV]

when I was a kid, we would refer to a bra as an " over the shoulder, boulder holder"....at the young age of 9...we knew it all...

[StuM]

Originally Posted by MicHughV

when I was a kid, we would refer to a bra as an " over the shoulder, boulder holder"....at the young age of 9...we knew it all...

So what did you call men's underwear? Under the butt nut hut??


And then there's

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqxWhBZXF8Q

[Jim Cate]

In Bislama, the Vanuatan version of Pidgen, a bra becomes " basket belong titties".

A fairly graphic language...

Jim