The Happy News thread

[WarpGirl]

No Long Island NY USA. But in my home town we have the most delicious ethnic food. Everything from Latin, to Polish. The food is the most difficult part of living where I do now. We have very little high quality ethnic resturants. One really, great Thai place that's it.

[Silverbullet]

Marc, just 55? Prime of life. As they say "old enough to know better and young enough to do it again." Lucky you.

I have 21 years on you and what doesn't hurt doesn't work. Even the memories have moss on them. Still I can wheeze at a beautiful young woman and pretend. What play hell is looking at the young women these days in their early 20's knowing they could be my grand daughter and almost my great grand daughter. Now that hurts.

SB

[marchale]

Marc, just 55? Prime of life. As they say "old enough to know better and young enough to do it again." Lucky you.

I have 21 years on you and what doesn't hurt doesn't work. Even the memories have moss on them. Still I can wheeze at a beautiful young woman and pretend. What play hell is looking at the young women these days in their early 20's knowing they could be my grand daughter and almost my great grand daughter. Now that hurts.

SB

Well, I won't turn 55 till July, but I can empathize with you on the health problems there (I've been on Social Security Disability since I was 40 for what's since become a long list of reasons, though fortunatly nothing is considered as being severe yet outside of my psoriasis - which exacerbates the "being horny but not getting any" problem as I'd have to wear a catsuit like 7 of 9's to bed, LOL!) Oh well, I guess that's why there's substitutions out there to deal with it, eh? I mean, not everyone's involved in a romantic relationship and you just have to learn how to live with your libido when you're living alone.

But you know, SB - I might be in the prime of life, but I don't really feel any too young there (my parents conceived me right about the same time that Scott Bakula was born, he's 9 months older than I am almost to the day) and while I've got plenty of lust in my heart for certain characters closer to my own age like Captain Archer (and Chakotay too), it really kinda freaked me out when my favorite fantasy guy (Trip) turned out to be young enough to have been my kid. So yeah, I know what you mean about the age thing hurting there. Actually I've got that problem with both the age and the looks thing. Not that I'm attractive at all, I'm not - but I'm still vain or self conscious enough to dye my hair because I hate how it's looking being a redhead going grey (it looks gross being half red and half grey right now) and having lost 57 pounds since turning diabetic & needing to watch my carbs now because of that, I'm starting to get a figure like 7 of 9 here (being kinda larger busted but getting skinnier to the point where I'm noticing men looking at me in ways they sure wouldn't have 57 pounds ago and I just think to myself, oh yeah - you might think my figure looks appealing, but you wouldn't want to see how bad it looks with all the psoriasis I'm covering up by wearing these long sleeve shirts and pants even when its hotter outside. Anyway, while getting skinnier is good for the health benefits (especially since becoming diabetic, it helped drop my A1C from 7.9 in December down to 5.9 now) its actually a pain in the ass having guys look at my figure when the psoriasis makes me too self conscious than to be sexually active; and thats especially tough being oversexed by nature anyway. So I can really relate to how the spirit is still more than willing to but its annoying feeling that way when you can't do it with the people you feel sexually attracted to.

[WarpGirl]

BURN NOTICE IS BACK BABY! And thank god the Charger is being reborn, I was terrified it was a gonner. I mean it's a part of the team!

[Silverbullet]

arc, I have type II diabetes. The list of what I can eat is shorter than the list of what I can't. I am at my fighting weight. No gut (been off beer for donkey's ages) Frankly other than hving to wear hearing aids, glasses, false teeth. I am in pretty good shape for the shape I am in.

I was kind of a swordsman when I was young and single so don't feel bad about enjoying a roll in the hay when it is available. I keep hearing abot these people who are sex addicts. I guess I was in that lot cause I sure as hell liked it.

Red head? favorite color hair for a woman.

SB

[Kotik]

this one's for our token Canadian, who happens to like HUGE FONTS

Opening game of the women's football world-cup:

GERMANYLAND 2 : 1 CANADALAND

YOU LOST !!!

[Elessar]

I've booked a ticket to the UK

[Cogito]

I've booked a ticket to the UK

Just in time for the traditional English summer. Make sure you pack plenty of jumpers and waterproof clothes.

[enterprikayak]

So this feels like sad news but it is part of my greater improving-my-life-via-divorce plan, so I gues it's happy. Today I sold 12 goats and one of my dogs, and had the realtor over. We need to sell the place for financial reasons and move back into town. Lotta work got done today, but all of it makes me feel bad. I'm relieved to get it sorted out though.

[marchale]

So this feels like sad news but it is part of my greater improving-my-life-via-divorce plan, so I gues it's happy. Today I sold 12 goats and one of my dogs, and had the realtor over. We need to sell the place for financial reasons and move back into town. Lotta work got done today, but all of it makes me feel bad. I'm relieved to get it sorted out though.

Oh, hang in there, hon - I know it can be hell on the emotions, and change (even when it's ultimately for the best) can be very tough to live with at times. I had a lot of mixed feelings about giving up my home of 21 years and moving into a subsidized apartment after mom died (even though I knew it was for the best). I think in time your relief at getting it sorted out will become being glad you did it, even if its hard to live with right now. But just hang in there, there's better days ahead.

[Cogito]

Sorry to hear you are facing difficult choices.

You have my sympathy (fat lot of good that will do you), hope things start changing for the better soon.

[justTripn]

YIKES! I just wrote a PM and it turned out to be a post. I don't think I said anything too awful. YIKES. Scary.

Anyway, I'm so sorry you have to move, but . . . . onwards and upwards. Poor ek.

Elessar's going to England . . . Elessar's going to England . . . !

[Elessar]

Thanks the announcement indeed I am going to England, July 20 - Aug 12.

hey so I think I mentioned that DARPA Conference here - the 100 year starship plan. You can read about it at http://www.100yss.org.

Anyway I convinced my research advisor it was a good idea for us to submit and he told me to take point so I wrote the abstract and submitted it. The idea behind it is that without significant mass increases, it's an engine design that could send a probe to Pluto in 2-3 years (down from 9 on New Horizons), possibly a probe that could pass Voyager in 10, and ideally in the long term, an extrasolar interstellar probe that could reach the Alpha Centuari system in about 40. It's related to our work, it's more of a long term extension of our work - it's where we hope our work will eventually go. If it gets accepted, I get to present it! I also found out I get to go with him to the American Nuclear Society meeting this year. Anyway, here it is:

Presentation Title: Pulsed Fusion Rocket – An Ultra High Isp Variable Thrust Deep Space Vehicle Powered by Inertial Confinement Fusion

Abstract:

The Pulsed Fusion Rocket (PFR) is an ultra-high ISP, variable thrust propulsion system design presented for a high performance unmanned space vehicle for outer solar system exploration and beyond. PFR is an updated design study based on a single aneutronic Q>1 Inertial Electrostatic Confinement (IEC) fusion device producing an ISP of 350,000s with p-B11 fuel and Nitrogen propellant (Miley 2003). An array of sixteen RF-powered permanent magnet (PM) helicon-mode antennae injects highly ionized p-B11 into the reaction chamber while Nitrogen gas is sprayed into the nozzle region. 8.7 MeV alpha particles are generated as the primary fusion reaction product. These extremely energetic alphas are magnetically collimated into a magnetic nozzle where their energy is equilibrated with the injected Nitrogen to adjust the thrust-to-ISP ratio. Through the revolutionary coupling of a pulsed mode helicon array, PFR accomplishes power breakeven and uncoupled thrust and specific impulse via hitherto unachievable plasma densities and IEC confinement methodologies (Wurden, 2008, Sedwick 2006). Since the p-B11 reaction is aneutronic, less than 1% of fusion power produced is lost to neutron generation, reducing shielding mass requirements and tritium involvement compared to alternative fusion reactions. Reaching a maximum thrust of 340 N, an optimized reactor configuration will allow PFR to reduce trans-Plutonian transit times for scientific packages over conventional electric propulsion systems significantly. With a scalable propulsion mass, PFR can also outperform the most competitive variable specific impulse manned spacecraft designs in near-term Martian transit times. During the acceleration stage of flight, thrust is maximized by using an increased Nitrogen injection into the alpha particle stream to achieve a mean exit velocity of 3400 km/s. At propellant burnout, the Nitrogen tanks are separated and the system runs until target rendezvous on the low-thrust, ultra high Isp of 700,000s provided by alpha particle exhaust. Reaction rates are predicted at 109/s at laboratory-sized scale, allowing pulsed operation to reduce power mass in preliminary interplanetary applications. Extrapolation of present laboratory-scaled IEC experiments to desired conditions is theoretically achievable, but requires the resolution of physics issues regarding stability and propellant/fuel mixing in a magnetically vectored exhaust.

[panyasan]

So this feels like sad news but it is part of my greater improving-my-life-via-divorce plan, so I gues it's happy. Today I sold 12 goats and one of my dogs, and had the realtor over. We need to sell the place for financial reasons and move back into town. Lotta work got done today, but all of it makes me feel bad. I'm relieved to get it sorted out though.

Times like these can be very hard. Sorting out things can be very helpfull. Hoping you will find a nice place.

[putaro]

Presentation Title: Pulsed Fusion Rocket – An Ultra High Isp Variable Thrust Deep Space Vehicle Powered by Inertial Confinement Fusion

Hydrogen-boron fusion - that's extremely cool. Using it as the engine seems to imply you're getting more power out than you're putting in? If that's the case, interstellar probes are way cool but how about just plain old boring electricity generation? I've got a bunch of broken nukes at Fukushima that need replacing!