I join the unmotivated crew. My lack of motivation is compounded by the fact that I really don't have much to do. It's hard to motivate to do nothing.

It looks like the Cash for Clunkers bill will probably get done.

>[link]

If you want to get a $4500 discount on a new car, I guess you'd better buy a really inefficient old beater since the car has to get 18mpg or less to qualify. If that's city mileage in 2008 EPA ratings then that's not too bad though. If it's highway in original EPA ratings that's going to leave out a lot of old cars.

I think it will be much more useful for SUVs and truck owners since they will be more likely to be inefficient enough to qualify and I think you can get a less efficient new SUV or truck to qualify on that end than you can with a car.

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ION, @ shortly before 1 EDT, grapple of Hubble by the shuttle starts.

Cool!

I'll be sad when Hubble finally dies. I guess they think it'll last another five years or so - then they'll dump it in the Pacific or something. Originally the plan was to send a shuttle to bring it back to Earth, but after the loss of Columbia that plan was abandoned.

My lack of motivation is compounded by the fact that I really don't have much to do. It's hard to motivate to do nothing.

Yeah, I kind of have that too -- except I should be making up new things to do!

As should I. I just don't know what.

I'm listening to the MSNBC Countdown podcast. They are talking about the danger of space junk and they are bring up force equals mass times acceleration. Dude No! The space junk isn't accelerating, it's at constant velocity and the danger is kinetic energy equals mass time velocity squared and it's the velocity squared part that makes it dangerous. Aaaaaagh, it hurts!

lisah, maybe you could crush it and put it in something like the baby food?

Well, the anti-bio doesn't really crush well. He'd taken it whole in baby food for 3 doses and then ate around it this morning. I tried crushing it and he still turned his nose up at it. It's pretty bitter I think.

Are you boarding hi, lisah? If so, could they give it to him in an IV?

I may have to end up doing that which I really didn't want to. It stresses him out. They could give me the meds in injectible form but I guess it could cause problems? And I'm not sure how comfortable my pettsitter would be giving them to him. They could also do a liquid formulation but, really, it's hard getting anything in his mouth he doesn't want there. I'm not sure that squirting a liquid in would work and not be a complete mess. I'm going to try it in cream cheese tonight and see if that fools him.

The space junk isn't accelerating, it's at constant velocity and the danger is kinetic energy equals mass time velocity squared and it's the velocity squared part that makes it dangerous.

Yeah. Duh.

Okay, technically it is accelerating due to the force of the Earth's gravitational field. I hadn't thought that through, but that's a directional change in velocity not a change in speed. It's still the kinetic energy they should be talking about.

The space junk isn't accelerating, it's at constant velocity and the danger is kinetic energy equals mass time velocity squared and it's the velocity squared part that makes it dangerous.

Well, technically, since it's traveling in a circle, it's undergoing acceleration. Space junk has a constant speed, not constant velocity, because speed is a scalar and velocity is a vector.

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