whew! (DA14 asteroid didn't hit us!)

[Darren Dirt]

meanwhile, in a galaxy NOT so far, far away...

http://www.google.com/search?q=DA14+15+February+2013&tbm=nws




its [predicted] distance was... pretty damn close:



http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/technology-science/science/asteroid-2012-da14-google-doodle-1711286



was about an hour ago apparently, and very few could see it live: http://earthsky.org/space/who-will-see-the-february-15-asteroid-flyby

[Tom]

It wasn't /that/ close. Sure it was inside the orbit of geo-sync satellites, but meh, it wasn't near close enough to hit.

[Thorin]

Yup, and then separately a meteorite struck the Earth in Russia, in the Ural mountains: http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013/02/15/russia-meteorite.html.  Apparently they were not connected.

Fun fact: it's a meteoroid while in the sky and a meteorite once it hits the ground, while "meteor" describes the light show it produces.

[Tom]

So what's a metroid?

[Mr. Analog]

Something you don't let Samus Aran near (she tends to mush them up)

[Tom]

[Mr. Analog]

The interesting thing about this story is two-fold:
-Meteorites hit the earth every day so when it actually intersects with a populated area it's news (think about it!)
-Bad Russian driving lead to some amazing video of this event.

[Tom]

The interesting thing about this story is two-fold:
-Meteorites hit the earth every day so when it actually intersects with a populated area it's news (think about it!)
-Bad Russian driving lead to some amazing video of this event.

I think a third point:
-Meteorites of that size hitting the earth in a populated area shortly after a near miss is fairly rare

[Thorin]

Yeah, good thing those Russians can't drive and are all corrupt, otherwise we'd have to rely on the North American media to get footage of it, and I doubt they'd bother.  Or they'd try to blame it on Obama / the Repubs.

1,100 or so people have been wounded by flying glass, most of them not seriously, though.

[Mr. Analog]

Yeah, good thing those Russians can't drive and are all corrupt, otherwise we'd have to rely on the North American media to get footage of it, and I doubt they'd bother.  Or they'd try to blame it on Obama / the Repubs.

1,100 or so people have been wounded by flying glass, most of them not seriously, though.

Whoah coach must have been tired last night :-)

The best videos all came from "dash cams" which really isn't a thing here (though i guess here it would have been cell phone cams)

And as the dazzling meteor display we had here in 2008 showed the media was plenty interested even though it didn't kill anyone.

[Lazybones]

Ya dash cams also appear to be a thin in Asia as well. Deal extream carries them.

HD sports cams for skiing and mountain biking are semi popular in North America

[Lazybones]

Ya dash cams also appear to be a thing in Asia as well. Deal extream carries them.

HD sports cams for skiing and mountain biking are semi popular in North America

[Lazybones]

http://www.wired.com/autopia/2013/02/russian-dash-cams/

So the main reason isn't showing off on line it is the fact russa has lots of corruption and double the accident rate of the US making them nessary to cover your ass in an accident. 

[Thorin]

Yeah, good thing those Russians can't drive and are all corrupt, otherwise we'd have to rely on the North American media to get footage of it, and I doubt they'd bother.  Or they'd try to blame it on Obama / the Repubs.

Whoah coach must have been tired last night :-)

The best videos all came from "dash cams" which really isn't a thing here (though i guess here it would have been cell phone cams)

And as the dazzling meteor display we had here in 2008 showed the media was plenty interested even though it didn't kill anyone.

Hmm, that I was last night, too many late nights 'n all.  Re-reading my post, it doesn't carry the same tone as what I intended to say - that is, that it's dash cams that caught the best displays and that dash cams are popular in Russia due to people trying to protect themselves from both bad driving and corrupt police officers.

As for the 2008 meteor shower (almost typed "meteor swarm", was just reading a D&D article), I don't remember it getting a huge amount of press.

HD sports cams for skiing and mountain biking are semi popular in North America

The GoPro cam is the most popular product for high-def sports videos; it's to the point that people in extreme sports talk about their GoPro instead of their HD cam.  Just like we call them Band-Aids, even though they are Self-Adhesive Bandages.

[Darren Dirt]

So what's a metroid?

The eponymous in-game Metroids (メトロイド?) are large jellyfish-like creatures with tripartite nuclei. - Wik (see also: Google images search results )