Meteorite Streaks Across Russian Urals, Leaves At Least 400 Injured

[Jetavan]

MOSCOW — A meteor that scientists estimate weighed 10 tons (11 tons) streaked at supersonic speed over Russia's Ural Mountains on Friday, setting off blasts that injured some 500 people and frightened countless more.

The Russian Academy of Sciences said in a statement that the meteor over the Chelyabinsk region entered the Earth's atmosphere at a speed of at least 54,000 kph (33,000 mph) and shattered about 30-50 kilometers (18-32 miles) above ground.
....
Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said the incident showed the need for leading world powers to develop a system to intercept objects falling from space.

"At the moment, neither we nor the Americans have such technologies" to shoot down meteors or asteroids, he said, according to the Interfax news agency.

[Michał Kalina]

And people wonder where do these jokes about Chelabinsk come from...

[LizaSymonenko]

There is nothing to joke about here.

[Jetavan]

Video from car dashboard, etc.

[Jetavan]

Even though the meteorite was not connected to the asteroid that is approaching Earth today, it does raise issues about humanity's plan in case an asteroid does have Earth in its sights. (Tyson also tweeted that the asteroid will one day hit Earth, for sure. Not clear where he got his information, though.)

[choy]

"At the moment, neither we nor the Americans have such technologies" to shoot down meteors or asteroids, he said, according to the Interfax news agency.

Ironic that Russia and the US has enough firepower to completely annihilate each other and the rest of the planet with them, yet they can't stop a small boulder falling from the sky.

[sheenj]

"At the moment, neither we nor the Americans have such technologies" to shoot down meteors or asteroids, he said, according to the Interfax news agency.

Ironic that Russia and the US has enough firepower to completely annihilate each other and the rest of the planet with them, yet they can't stop a small boulder falling from the sky.

You forgot to mention it was traveling at 33,500 mph.

[choy]

"At the moment, neither we nor the Americans have such technologies" to shoot down meteors or asteroids, he said, according to the Interfax news agency.

Ironic that Russia and the US has enough firepower to completely annihilate each other and the rest of the planet with them, yet they can't stop a small boulder falling from the sky.

You forgot to mention it was traveling at 33,500 mph.

My point was they have developed so much destructive power but they can't even do something about this.  I'm sure if the focus was on developing something to deflect or even destroy meteors and asteroids, it can be done and accomplished.

Besides, they can always send space shuttles with special booster rockets to slingshot around the moon to acccelerate to over 30k mph.  Then let a band of misfit oil rig workers blow up the rock.

[orthonorm]

"At the moment, neither we nor the Americans have such technologies" to shoot down meteors or asteroids, he said, according to the Interfax news agency.

Ironic that Russia and the US has enough firepower to completely annihilate each other and the rest of the planet with them, yet they can't stop a small boulder falling from the sky.

You forgot to mention it was traveling at 33,500 mph.

But remembered to incorrectly use ironic.

[orthonorm]

"At the moment, neither we nor the Americans have such technologies" to shoot down meteors or asteroids, he said, according to the Interfax news agency.

Ironic that Russia and the US has enough firepower to completely annihilate each other and the rest of the planet with them, yet they can't stop a small boulder falling from the sky.

You forgot to mention it was traveling at 33,500 mph.

My point was they have developed so much destructive power but they can't even do something about this.  I'm sure if the focus was on developing something to deflect or even destroy meteors and asteroids, it can be done and accomplished.

Besides, they can always send space shuttles with special booster rockets to slingshot around the moon to acccelerate to over 30k mph.  Then let a band of misfit oil rig workers blow up the rock.

One word: kickstarter.

[choy]

"At the moment, neither we nor the Americans have such technologies" to shoot down meteors or asteroids, he said, according to the Interfax news agency.

Ironic that Russia and the US has enough firepower to completely annihilate each other and the rest of the planet with them, yet they can't stop a small boulder falling from the sky.

You forgot to mention it was traveling at 33,500 mph.

But remembered to incorrectly use ironic.

And how is that?

[orthonorm]

"At the moment, neither we nor the Americans have such technologies" to shoot down meteors or asteroids, he said, according to the Interfax news agency.

Ironic that Russia and the US has enough firepower to completely annihilate each other and the rest of the planet with them, yet they can't stop a small boulder falling from the sky.

You forgot to mention it was traveling at 33,500 mph.

But remembered to incorrectly use ironic.

And how is that?

I am not sure, but I would guess you are used to lotsa other people using it incorrectly and the general lack of instruction about rhetoric in education today.

[orthonorm]

"At the moment, neither we nor the Americans have such technologies" to shoot down meteors or asteroids, he said, according to the Interfax news agency.

Ironic that Russia and the US has enough firepower to completely annihilate each other and the rest of the planet with them, yet they can't stop a small boulder falling from the sky.

You forgot to mention it was traveling at 33,500 mph.

But remembered to incorrectly use ironic.

And how is that?

I am not sure, but I would guess you are used to lotsa other people using it incorrectly and the general lack of instruction about rhetoric in education today.

(I never understood why how fit into the lesson about the W-words, so I pretend it is why.)

[choy]

"At the moment, neither we nor the Americans have such technologies" to shoot down meteors or asteroids, he said, according to the Interfax news agency.

Ironic that Russia and the US has enough firepower to completely annihilate each other and the rest of the planet with them, yet they can't stop a small boulder falling from the sky.

You forgot to mention it was traveling at 33,500 mph.

But remembered to incorrectly use ironic.

And how is that?

I am not sure, but I would guess you are used to lotsa other people using it incorrectly and the general lack of instruction about rhetoric in education today.

So you don't consider the ability to blow up everything on the surface of planet earth ironic to the fact that they do not have the capability to blow up a much, much smaller rock?

[orthonorm]

"At the moment, neither we nor the Americans have such technologies" to shoot down meteors or asteroids, he said, according to the Interfax news agency.

Ironic that Russia and the US has enough firepower to completely annihilate each other and the rest of the planet with them, yet they can't stop a small boulder falling from the sky.

You forgot to mention it was traveling at 33,500 mph.

But remembered to incorrectly use ironic.

And how is that?

I am not sure, but I would guess you are used to lotsa other people using it incorrectly and the general lack of instruction about rhetoric in education today.

(I never understood why how fit into the lesson about the W-words, so I pretend it is why.)

(Although I am keen on Y and W being vowels.)

[orthonorm]

"At the moment, neither we nor the Americans have such technologies" to shoot down meteors or asteroids, he said, according to the Interfax news agency.

Ironic that Russia and the US has enough firepower to completely annihilate each other and the rest of the planet with them, yet they can't stop a small boulder falling from the sky.

You forgot to mention it was traveling at 33,500 mph.

But remembered to incorrectly use ironic.

And how is that?

I am not sure, but I would guess you are used to lotsa other people using it incorrectly and the general lack of instruction about rhetoric in education today.

So you don't consider the ability to blow up everything on the surface of planet earth ironic to the fact that they do not have the capability to blow up a much, much smaller rock?

Of course I do!

^---------That is irony.

[sheenj]

"At the moment, neither we nor the Americans have such technologies" to shoot down meteors or asteroids, he said, according to the Interfax news agency.

Ironic that Russia and the US has enough firepower to completely annihilate each other and the rest of the planet with them, yet they can't stop a small boulder falling from the sky.

You forgot to mention it was traveling at 33,500 mph.

My point was they have developed so much destructive power but they can't even do something about this.  I'm sure if the focus was on developing something to deflect or even destroy meteors and asteroids, it can be done and accomplished.

Besides, they can always send space shuttles with special booster rockets to slingshot around the moon to acccelerate to over 30k mph.  Then let a band of misfit oil rig workers blow up the rock.

The reason we couldn't do anything about this one is because it was too small. It simply didn't show up on radar so we didn't see it until it hit the atmosphere.

[choy]

Of course I do!

^---------That is irony.

No, that is sarcasm.

[orthonorm]

Of course I do!

^---------That is irony.

No, that is sarcasm.

And a poodle is a dog.

[Jetavan]

"At the moment, neither we nor the Americans have such technologies" to shoot down meteors or asteroids, he said, according to the Interfax news agency.

Ironic that Russia and the US has enough firepower to completely annihilate each other and the rest of the planet with them, yet they can't stop a small boulder falling from the sky.

Size had something to do with it: it was too small (15 m across) to catch early on. Nonetheless, it was the biggest to hit Earth since 1908:

A meteor that exploded over Russia this morning was the largest recorded object to strike the Earth in more than a century, scientists say. Infrasound data collected by a network designed to watch for nuclear weapons testing suggests that today's blast released hundreds of kilotonnes of energy. That would make it far more powerful than the nuclear weapon tested by North Korea just days ago and the largest rock crashing onto the planet since a meteor broke up over Siberia's Tunguska river in 1908.

[choy]

Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me a sinner.

[sheenj]

"At the moment, neither we nor the Americans have such technologies" to shoot down meteors or asteroids, he said, according to the Interfax news agency.

Ironic that Russia and the US has enough firepower to completely annihilate each other and the rest of the planet with them, yet they can't stop a small boulder falling from the sky.

You forgot to mention it was traveling at 33,500 mph.

But remembered to incorrectly use ironic.

And how is that?

I am not sure, but I would guess you are used to lotsa other people using it incorrectly and the general lack of instruction about rhetoric in education today.

So you don't consider the ability to blow up everything on the surface of planet earth ironic to the fact that they do not have the capability to blow up a much, much smaller rock?

Of course I do!

^---------That is irony.

BTW Orthonorm, you're in the wrong in this case. What choy is describing here is pretty much a textbook case of situational irony.

Main Entry:          situational irony
Part of Speech:    n
Definition:           an outcome that turns out to be very different from what was expected, the difference between what is expected to happen and what actually does

source: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/situational+irony

[NightOwl]

"At the moment, neither we nor the Americans have such technologies" to shoot down meteors or asteroids, he said, according to the Interfax news agency.

Ironic that Russia and the US has enough firepower to completely annihilate each other and the rest of the planet with them, yet they can't stop a small boulder falling from the sky.

You forgot to mention it was traveling at 33,500 mph.

But remembered to incorrectly use ironic.

And how is that?

I am not sure, but I would guess you are used to lotsa other people using it incorrectly and the general lack of instruction about rhetoric in education today.

If enough people use a word incorrectly, their usage of it becomes correct. It's called linguistics... which is ironically the bane of pedants.

[orthonorm]

"At the moment, neither we nor the Americans have such technologies" to shoot down meteors or asteroids, he said, according to the Interfax news agency.

Ironic that Russia and the US has enough firepower to completely annihilate each other and the rest of the planet with them, yet they can't stop a small boulder falling from the sky.

You forgot to mention it was traveling at 33,500 mph.

But remembered to incorrectly use ironic.

And how is that?

I am not sure, but I would guess you are used to lotsa other people using it incorrectly and the general lack of instruction about rhetoric in education today.

So you don't consider the ability to blow up everything on the surface of planet earth ironic to the fact that they do not have the capability to blow up a much, much smaller rock?

Of course I do!

^---------That is irony.

BTW Orthonorm, you're in the wrong in this case. What choy is describing here is pretty much a textbook case of situational irony.

Main Entry:          situational irony
Part of Speech:    n
Definition:           an outcome that turns out to be very different from what was expected, the difference between what is expected to happen and what actually does

source: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/situational+irony

Actually, it is not at all, not even by that "definition". And "situational irony" called by people like me, Morrisettian Irony, has not had enough to impact on the notion of irony to be taken seriously.

[PeterTheAleut]

Even though the meteorite was not connected to the asteroid that is approaching Earth today, it does raise issues about humanity's plan in case an asteroid does have Earth in its sights. (Tyson also tweeted that the asteroid will one day hit Earth, for sure. Not clear where he got his information, though.)

What gets me is the CNN reporter who recently asked Bill Nye, "The Science Guy", if the asteroid passing by the earth today was caused by global warming.

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/02/11/cnn-anchor-blames-asteroid-on-global-warming/

[orthonorm]

"At the moment, neither we nor the Americans have such technologies" to shoot down meteors or asteroids, he said, according to the Interfax news agency.

Ironic that Russia and the US has enough firepower to completely annihilate each other and the rest of the planet with them, yet they can't stop a small boulder falling from the sky.

You forgot to mention it was traveling at 33,500 mph.

But remembered to incorrectly use ironic.

And how is that?

I am not sure, but I would guess you are used to lotsa other people using it incorrectly and the general lack of instruction about rhetoric in education today.

If enough people use a word incorrectly, their usage of it becomes correct. It's called linguistics... which is ironically the bane of pedants.

No linguistics is not if enough people use a word incorrectly, their usage of it becomes correct. That has to be one of the worst definitions of linguistics ever.

What you are describing is the tension between proscription and description within language usage which may be included within the domain of a field of study we call linguistics.

No one is purely a proscriptionist nor descriptionist. This use of irony is merely lazy and adds almost nothing to English usage while diluting its precision.

When it comes to irony and its many variations, I've taken up the vanguard of truth and reject this ridiculous usage of the word.

Here I stand. I can do no other.

[sheenj]

"At the moment, neither we nor the Americans have such technologies" to shoot down meteors or asteroids, he said, according to the Interfax news agency.

Ironic that Russia and the US has enough firepower to completely annihilate each other and the rest of the planet with them, yet they can't stop a small boulder falling from the sky.

You forgot to mention it was traveling at 33,500 mph.

But remembered to incorrectly use ironic.

And how is that?

I am not sure, but I would guess you are used to lotsa other people using it incorrectly and the general lack of instruction about rhetoric in education today.

If enough people use a word incorrectly, their usage of it becomes correct. It's called linguistics... which is ironically the bane of pedants.

No linguistics is not if enough people use a word incorrectly, their usage of it becomes correct. That has to be one of the worst definitions of linguistics ever.

What you are describing is the tension between proscription and description within language usage which may be included within the domain of a field of study we call linguistics.

No one is purely a proscriptionist nor descriptionist. This use of irony is merely lazy and adds almost nothing to English usage while diluting its precision.

When it comes to irony and its many variations, I've taken up the vanguard of truth and reject this ridiculous usage of the word.

Here I stand. I can do no other.

Languages change. Get over it.

[choy]

No linguistics is not if enough people use a word incorrectly, their usage of it becomes correct.

Of course it is.  If I say something and I am understood, then what is the problem?  Unless you are suggesting that languages should be uniform across all speakers of that language everywhere in the world.  Fact is, English isn't uniform, even within the United States.  Nevermind in the UK, Canada, Australia, etc.  Ever heard of Singlish?  Languages evolve and one generation's poor grammar would be another generation's proper grammar.  If it has enough acceptance that it becomes the norm, then that is language evolution.

[PeterTheAleut]

So what does your tangent on linguistics have to do with the topic of this thread? Is the sky going to fall on us if we don't have a proper understanding of language?

[choy]

So what does your tangent on linguistics have to do with the topic of this thread? Is the sky going to fall on us if we don't have a proper understanding of language?

Perhaps the reason Russia didn't see the meteor coming was because the warning message had bad grammar in it?

[orthonorm]

"At the moment, neither we nor the Americans have such technologies" to shoot down meteors or asteroids, he said, according to the Interfax news agency.

Ironic that Russia and the US has enough firepower to completely annihilate each other and the rest of the planet with them, yet they can't stop a small boulder falling from the sky.

You forgot to mention it was traveling at 33,500 mph.

But remembered to incorrectly use ironic.

And how is that?

I am not sure, but I would guess you are used to lotsa other people using it incorrectly and the general lack of instruction about rhetoric in education today.

If enough people use a word incorrectly, their usage of it becomes correct. It's called linguistics... which is ironically the bane of pedants.

No linguistics is not if enough people use a word incorrectly, their usage of it becomes correct. That has to be one of the worst definitions of linguistics ever.

What you are describing is the tension between proscription and description within language usage which may be included within the domain of a field of study we call linguistics.

No one is purely a proscriptionist nor descriptionist. This use of irony is merely lazy and adds almost nothing to English usage while diluting its precision.

When it comes to irony and its many variations, I've taken up the vanguard of truth and reject this ridiculous usage of the word.

Here I stand. I can do no other.

Languages change. Get over it.

IOW, you have no argument. Of course language changes, but it changes amid discord. In your absurd notion of language change, you would poll all speakers of a language (if you could decide who is a speaker of a language) then at some point of majority usage language would have changed. One speaker fewer, no change.

Sorry but your entire approach to this is riddled with so many ontological problems regarding language and otherwise.

Not to mention that you don't even understand the definition of situational irony which you posted as it does not at all have anything to do with how irony was used by choy.

Come back with something more substantial with a cut and paste from a dictionary. In other words, let's see if you can think.

[Cyrillic]

In Soviet Russia, you hit meteorite.

[Jetavan]

Even though the meteorite was not connected to the asteroid that is approaching Earth today, it does raise issues about humanity's plan in case an asteroid does have Earth in its sights. (Tyson also tweeted that the asteroid will one day hit Earth, for sure. Not clear where he got his information, though.)

What gets me is the CNN reporter who recently asked Bill Nye, "The Science Guy", if the asteroid passing by the earth today was caused by global warming.

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/02/11/cnn-anchor-blames-asteroid-on-global-warming/

Global warming doesn't impact an asteroid's orbit, but it could, though, have an effect on how much destruction a meteorite or asteroid creates if it impacts the earth. More CO₂ leads to a warmer ground, but a cooler atmosphere, leading to a contraction of the atmosphere's upper layer. A contracted atmosphere means that a meteorite from space would enter the atmosphere at a later point in time, giving the atmosphere less time to slow down the meteor with air friction, leading potentially to a more energetic explosion of the meteor.

[NightOwl]

"At the moment, neither we nor the Americans have such technologies" to shoot down meteors or asteroids, he said, according to the Interfax news agency.

Ironic that Russia and the US has enough firepower to completely annihilate each other and the rest of the planet with them, yet they can't stop a small boulder falling from the sky.

You forgot to mention it was traveling at 33,500 mph.

But remembered to incorrectly use ironic.

And how is that?

I am not sure, but I would guess you are used to lotsa other people using it incorrectly and the general lack of instruction about rhetoric in education today.

If enough people use a word incorrectly, their usage of it becomes correct. It's called linguistics... which is ironically the bane of pedants.

No linguistics is not if enough people use a word incorrectly, their usage of it becomes correct. That has to be one of the worst definitions of linguistics ever.

What you are describing is the tension between proscription and description within language usage which may be included within the domain of a field of study we call linguistics.

No one is purely a proscriptionist nor descriptionist. This use of irony is merely lazy and adds almost nothing to English usage while diluting its precision.

When it comes to irony and its many variations, I've taken up the vanguard of truth and reject this ridiculous usage of the word.

Here I stand. I can do no other.

People are lazy. That's why there is semantic and syntactic change. As sheenj said... Get over it. Language is based on communication, which doesn't mean there has to be strict "majority rule," simply a relatively common consensus so as to allow for a basic exchange of information.

[Jetavan]

"At the moment, neither we nor the Americans have such technologies" to shoot down meteors or asteroids, he said, according to the Interfax news agency.

Ironic that Russia and the US has enough firepower to completely annihilate each other and the rest of the planet with them, yet they can't stop a small boulder falling from the sky.

You forgot to mention it was traveling at 33,500 mph.

But remembered to incorrectly use ironic.

And how is that?

I am not sure, but I would guess you are used to lotsa other people using it incorrectly and the general lack of instruction about rhetoric in education today.

If enough people use a word incorrectly, their usage of it becomes correct. It's called linguistics... which is ironically the bane of pedants.

No linguistics is not if enough people use a word incorrectly, their usage of it becomes correct. That has to be one of the worst definitions of linguistics ever.

What you are describing is the tension between proscription and description within language usage which may be included within the domain of a field of study we call linguistics.

No one is purely a proscriptionist nor descriptionist. This use of irony is merely lazy and adds almost nothing to English usage while diluting its precision.

When it comes to irony and its many variations, I've taken up the vanguard of truth and reject this ridiculous usage of the word.

Here I stand. I can do no other.

People are lazy. That's why there is semantic and syntactic change. As sheenj said... Get over it.

Acedia is rampant.

[NightOwl]

"At the moment, neither we nor the Americans have such technologies" to shoot down meteors or asteroids, he said, according to the Interfax news agency.

Ironic that Russia and the US has enough firepower to completely annihilate each other and the rest of the planet with them, yet they can't stop a small boulder falling from the sky.

You forgot to mention it was traveling at 33,500 mph.

But remembered to incorrectly use ironic.

And how is that?

I am not sure, but I would guess you are used to lotsa other people using it incorrectly and the general lack of instruction about rhetoric in education today.

If enough people use a word incorrectly, their usage of it becomes correct. It's called linguistics... which is ironically the bane of pedants.

No linguistics is not if enough people use a word incorrectly, their usage of it becomes correct. That has to be one of the worst definitions of linguistics ever.

What you are describing is the tension between proscription and description within language usage which may be included within the domain of a field of study we call linguistics.

No one is purely a proscriptionist nor descriptionist. This use of irony is merely lazy and adds almost nothing to English usage while diluting its precision.

When it comes to irony and its many variations, I've taken up the vanguard of truth and reject this ridiculous usage of the word.

Here I stand. I can do no other.

People are lazy. That's why there is semantic and syntactic change. As sheenj said... Get over it.

Acedia is rampant.

Which might be a problem in religion, not so with language. If orthonorm wants to retreat into the mountains to preserve his sacred lexicon, let him do it, otherwise he'll have to accept that language is not grounded in dogma.

[sheenj]

IOW, you have no argument. Of course language changes, but it changes amid discord. In your absurd notion of language change, you would poll all speakers of a language (if you could decide who is a speaker of a language) then at some point of majority usage language would have changed. One speaker fewer, no change.

Sorry but your entire approach to this is riddled with so many ontological problems regarding language and otherwise.

Really? You got all of that out of "Languages change. Get over it"?

Not to mention that you don't even understand the definition of situational irony which you posted as it does not at all have anything to do with how irony was used by choy.

Come back with something more substantial with a cut and paste from a dictionary. In other words, let's see if you can think.

OK, let's break this down.

The US and Russian governments have the ability to destroy the surface of the world many times over.  They also have state of the art Radar and GPS equipment allowing them to find and locate a wide variety of objects.

Are you still with me here?

With this knowledge we can surmise that these governments also have the ability to locate a 15m diameter boulder and destroy it. This is the expectation.

However, the outcome was that no one saw the aforementioned boulder until it exploded in the sky and injured 400+ people.

The expectation differs from the outcome, making it a form of situational irony.

[Achronos]

orthonormheadexplodeintopopcorn.gif

[vamrat]

"At the moment, neither we nor the Americans have such technologies" to shoot down meteors or asteroids, he said, according to the Interfax news agency.

Ironic that Russia and the US has enough firepower to completely annihilate each other and the rest of the planet with them, yet they can't stop a small boulder falling from the sky.

You forgot to mention it was traveling at 33,500 mph.

But remembered to incorrectly use ironic.

And how is that?

I am not sure, but I would guess you are used to lotsa other people using it incorrectly and the general lack of instruction about rhetoric in education today.

So you don't consider the ability to blow up everything on the surface of planet earth ironic to the fact that they do not have the capability to blow up a much, much smaller rock?

Once you get past the initial learning curve, nukes are pretty simple.  Fire rocket, blows up doing a decent bit of structural damage, radiation and fallout kill everything else with a certain percentage of efficiency.  (Leukemia takes decades to finish the job.)  A lot of the "kill everyone on Earth" bit takes radiation and fallout into account, not just pure concussive sweep-the-planet's-surface-clean explosions.  

Basically, there would be a hell of a lot of money that would go into such a thing and a HUGE learning curve.  First off, asteroids really aren't slow.  It's just looks like that because there's A LOT of space between them and where they are going.  Going around the block at 60 mph takes a lot less time (and thus feels faster) than going from Tallahassee to Green Bay (even though the speed is technically the same).  Also, the Earth is moving.  Pretty fast actually.  How fast?  67,000 MPH fast.  That's faster than I drive through school zones on any given day (by a couple MPH or so).  And asteroids are going 30k-some odd MPH.  

So basically, let's take our cars, you going 60 MPH and me going 30 MPH, we'll both play chicken (going at oblique angles) but you can feel free to take a shot at me on the way in, but you have to use a flintlock musket.

[LizaSymonenko]

No matter how prepared men think they are, God can still surprise them when He feels like it.

We fool ourselves if we think we are invincible.

[NightOwl]

IOW, you have no argument. Of course language changes, but it changes amid discord. In your absurd notion of language change, you would poll all speakers of a language (if you could decide who is a speaker of a language) then at some point of majority usage language would have changed. One speaker fewer, no change.

Sorry but your entire approach to this is riddled with so many ontological problems regarding language and otherwise.

Really? You got all of that out of "Languages change. Get over it"?

Internet forums have the tendency to attract people who are extremely pedantic (or should I say, "online personalities" who are extremely pedantic).

[orthonorm]

So what does your tangent on linguistics have to do with the topic of this thread? Is the sky going to fall on us if we don't have a proper understanding of language?

This was near brilliance, a near miss if you would (in honor of my beloved George Carlin) rather than the nonsensical notion of a near hit.

Let me rephrase your statement:

Yeah, the sky is going to fall, if we don't have a perfect understanding of language . . . 

[choy]

Once you get past the initial learning curve, nukes are pretty simple.  Fire rocket, blows up doing a decent bit of structural damage, radiation and fallout kill everything else with a certain percentage of efficiency.  (Leukemia takes decades to finish the job.)  A lot of the "kill everyone on Earth" bit takes radiation and fallout into account, not just pure concussive sweep-the-planet's-surface-clean explosions.  

Basically, there would be a hell of a lot of money that would go into such a thing and a HUGE learning curve.  First off, asteroids really aren't slow.  It's just looks like that because there's A LOT of space between them and where they are going.  Going around the block at 60 mph takes a lot less time (and thus feels faster) than going from Tallahassee to Green Bay (even though the speed is technically the same).  Also, the Earth is moving.  Pretty fast actually.  How fast?  67,000 MPH fast.  That's faster than I drive through school zones on any given day (by a couple MPH or so).  And asteroids are going 30k-some odd MPH.  

So basically, let's take our cars, you going 60 MPH and me going 30 MPH, we'll both play chicken (going at oblique angles) but you can feel free to take a shot at me on the way in, but you have to use a flintlock musket.

What learning curve?  We've been practicing blowing up asteroids since the 70s



Man, I'm watching too much Colbert.

Anyway, on a serious note.  ICBMs aren't just "light fuse, cover ears, boom!"  A lot has been put into increasing payloads, precision in hitting targets, and of course getting through defenses.  And it's not just the rockets themselves, there is a lot more sophistication that goes into the strategic aspect of this, including spy missions and such to identify targets and all that.  The reason we miss these smaller rocks coming towards us is because all our high resolution imaging is pointed towards ourselves watching each other.  I don't believe we don't have the capability, the governments just would rather watch sheepherders in the desert just in case they turn out to be Al Qaeda operatives instead of using that technology and that money to monitor the skies.

[orthonorm]

IOW, you have no argument. Of course language changes, but it changes amid discord. In your absurd notion of language change, you would poll all speakers of a language (if you could decide who is a speaker of a language) then at some point of majority usage language would have changed. One speaker fewer, no change.

Sorry but your entire approach to this is riddled with so many ontological problems regarding language and otherwise.

Really? You got all of that out of "Languages change. Get over it"?

Internet forums have the tendency to attract people who are extremely pedantic (or should I say, "online personalities" who are extremely pedantic).

Because there are so many more on the internet who are children who need to be led.

[choy]

IOW, you have no argument. Of course language changes, but it changes amid discord. In your absurd notion of language change, you would poll all speakers of a language (if you could decide who is a speaker of a language) then at some point of majority usage language would have changed. One speaker fewer, no change.

Sorry but your entire approach to this is riddled with so many ontological problems regarding language and otherwise.

Really? You got all of that out of "Languages change. Get over it"?

Internet forums have the tendency to attract people who are extremely pedantic (or should I say, "online personalities" who are extremely pedantic).

Because there are so many more on the internet who are children who need to be led.

Speck, meet plank.

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