http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0902/11iridium/

Two satellites just smashed into each other at a speed of about 1.2 miles a SECOND, which is normal considering orbital speeds, but still a massive amount of energy. The resulting cloud of particles is spreading out, and it's not entirely known what will happen (since it's a cloud), but one thing's for sure, lots of debris flying in random directions at orbital speed is a danger to anything nearby. If another satellite is destroyed by one, that's even more debris, and of course there's the ISS.

It may not get as bad as that, the debris are in, to put it mildly, rapidly decaying orbits, and there's a LOT of space between things up there, but there is the possibility for an ugly chain reaction.

So, I was in Portland yesterday and today (had to go down there, unfortunately), and as expected, I picked up my Sega Saturn. Yes, I have one now, with both a 3d controller and a standard (model 2) controller. :)

Games -- (multiplayer titles, all two player) NiGHTS into dreams..., Galactic Attack (RayForce), Bust-A-Move 2: Arcade Edition, Astal, Cyber Speedway

(single player titles) Tomb Raider, Midway Presents Atari's Greatest Arcade Hits Vol. 1, Bug!, Panzer Dragoon, MechWarrior 2: Arcade Combat Edition

... However, in addition to getting that a few weeks before I thought I would be able to, while there I looked in the stores that sell used games, as usual... and found an amazing opportunity that I simply could not ignore as a classic games collector: A TurboGrafx-16! Now, in the five years or so I've been looking at older games, I haven't seen one single TG-16 anything, not one game, controller, anything, much less system. I heard that evidently one local place had one four or five years ago which I didn't see at the time, but that sold quickly and for a lot of money, and there's been nothing else since...

But there it was in the store (one of my favorites, for sure... :)), guaranteed to work, for $50, with the system, power supply and RFU, TurboTap multitap (required for multiplayer, as the system only has one controller port), two controllers, and seven games, six complete with cases and the seventh with its slipcover and manual. So yeah, I bought it.

I don['t really have any great multiplayer games for it, and it came with no shmups, which are the platform's best genre, but it's amazing to have... and there are a few good games, if single player.

(multiplayer titles) Takin' it to the Hoop (2 player) (no slipcover), World Class Baseball (2 player, this is the one without the case but with manual and slipcover), Battle Royale (fighting/wrestling game, 5 player if I had three more controllers) (no slipcover)

(single player titles) Bonk's Adventure, Keith Courage in Alpha Zones, China Warrior (no slipcover), Victory Run (no slipcover)

So yeah, the last two days were great, despite the travel (note: I hate travel). Finding that TG-16 made up for everything. :)

Some thoughts... I've only played saturn for like an hour (I will more tonight!), but I like the 3d controller already. The analog stick on it is very unique and different -- it was obviously designed for NiGHTS... and the game, on first impression, is perfect with it. I don't know if it'll work quite as well with other games, but I'll try it on my other games with analog support (Mechwarrior, Panzer Dragoon, Cyber Speedway) and see how well it works. The controller design is great, though. Haven't really used the standard controller yet. The Saturn has an interesting window on top, so you can look in and see the disc spinning...

Now all I need is a memory cart for it. :) The internal save will do for now, but I need a memory card soon; the internal storage is very small, and is battery-backed (by a user-replaceable CR2032, which I just replaced), so I'd definitely rather have files backed up on one of the flash-based memory carts.


As for the TG16, I don't know what to think... I had no expectations of owning one of these anytime soon, so actually having one is weird, somehow... very cool, though. It's amazing that I do! The controllers are essentially blatant ripoffs of model 1 NES controllers, but with turbo switches on them. They work, but more buttons would have been good (indeed, several of the games I have use select as an action button...). Oh well... There was a 6-button controller late in the system's life, but only a few games (fighting games like Street Fighter II') support it.

Anyway, the major negative? The controller cords are about three feet long. When using it you virtually need to have the system at your feet, even with the multitap that adds another foot... very annoying. At least the power and RF cords for the system are long...

Oh, and the other negative is that only one HuCard (TG16 cartridge games are on thin cards called HuCards; think a credit card size, but two or three credit cards thick) has oncart saving; for all others that save, you need to either use passwords or the internal save... but the base TG16 doesn't have internal save support. The only way to get it is ify ou get a Turbo CD drive or Turbo Booster Plus addon, which adds backup support and A/V jacks in addition to the built-in RF. (The standard Turbo Booster adds just the AV jacks; you need the Plus for backup too). None of the games I have yet support saving (well, the baseball game has passwords), but still, it's annoying. It does go into the other drawback of the TG16, though -- a LOT of the best games are on CD, and the Turbo CD or TurboDuo are very expensive now. The cart systems aren't too bad (this $50 here is a good price, below the average Ebay price for such a package I'm sure (particularly including shipping!), but is a reasonable price for the system. A Turbo CD, though? That'd be $150, minimum, and very likely more. Turbografx CD games are region-free, though (the cards aren't, they're region-locked, though you can get around it with (expensive!) card adapters or a mod), which is really nice, and opens the option to instead get a PC Engine CD or Duo, or preferably a Duo R or RX, which fix the dying-sound (bad capacitor) problem of standard Duo models.

Of course, those systems are very costly as well. So yeah, I won't have Turbo CD support anytime soon I imagine, sadly... but hey, I have the base system now, which is a lot more than I thought I'd have two days ago! :)

I just saw a fully grown women peeing upwright in a mans uranial.
And suddenly I find that don't understand the birds and the bees anymore...

I have a million questions! Did she a penis or a mangina? Or can women actually use a mans urnal and I just fucked up on sex edd from day one from my lovley teacher Internet.

Adultswim just turned my world inside out....
Up is down and blue is penis.

Someone explain this to me now!
Who here has a vagina? Some one speak up!

Damn you comidy central! Why would you do this to me! :psyduck:

You have to listen to the whole thing!
It climaxes at the end!

Be sure to give me your feedback!

[MP3]http://www.tcforums.com/etoven/Remixes/actraiser_forest%202.mp3[/MP3]

BTW... I'm Taking requests!
Download [here]

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part 1, Visit his site for the other parts


<embed src="http://blip.tv/play/gcBN64oQj7FA" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="320" height="270" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed>

His latest update part 8 with more to come


I was kid when I played it last, Look back on it now, The story was loaded with holes and nonsense.

Its true that the Junction system stank, Although it made the game more challenging, It also made it more tediously time consuming , I had beaten its successors far more quickly. FF8 had more challenging bosses like the ultima weapon and the omega weapon which were 20X harder to beat then the last boss.

Squall had no personality but atleast he wasn't a effeminate vexing twat like Tidus.

I'll go first...

My idea of hell is dying and going to a place where everyone is mark summers, and they all want me to do the physical challange.

IDE totally be screaming in aganony and IDE be crying on my neaze saying "I don't want to crawl threw a pit of slime! And mr summers would be like, "well you shouldn't have drew 6 tits on that noregian girl on deviant art." and IDE be like, "but it was favored 64 times!". And he'd be like and that's why your hear!"

that be as scary as those dreams I have where I open my eyes, and there's a foreigan piece of furnichure right next to the bed just staring at me. And I wake up in cold swet screaming.

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Happy birthday N-Man. If you can, upload some pics so we can make fun of you and your family. <3

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I totally understand his anger, a distraction can break character in a flash and make you feel like an idiot, flub a line or just plain cause you to pause for a millisecond to reorient yourself but Mr. Bale... goes a bit too far...

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Also MS, allergies, and more. But why?

In part because babies in our nice clean antibacterial-soap environments don't eat enough dirt.

Nothing new, just another interesting article on the subject. Things like antibacterials are far, far too widely used in the US...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/27/health/27brod.html?em

Quote:Personal Health
Babies Know: A Little Dirt Is Good for You

By JANE E. BRODY
Published: January 26, 2009

Ask mothers why babies are constantly picking things up from the floor or ground and putting them in their mouths, and chances are they’ll say that it’s instinctive — that that’s how babies explore the world. But why the mouth, when sight, hearing, touch and even scent are far better at identifying things?

When my young sons were exploring the streets of Brooklyn, I couldn’t help but wonder how good crushed rock or dried dog droppings could taste when delicious mashed potatoes were routinely rejected.

Since all instinctive behaviors have an evolutionary advantage or they would not have been retained for millions of years, chances are that this one too has helped us survive as a species. And, indeed, accumulating evidence strongly suggests that eating dirt is good for you.

In studies of what is called the hygiene hypothesis, researchers are concluding that organisms like the millions of bacteria, viruses and especially worms that enter the body along with “dirt” spur the development of a healthy immune system. Several continuing studies suggest that worms may help to redirect an immune system that has gone awry and resulted in autoimmune disorders, allergies and asthma.

These studies, along with epidemiological observations, seem to explain why immune system disorders like multiple sclerosis, Type 1 diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease, asthma and allergies have risen significantly in the United States and other developed countries.

Training the Immune System

“What a child is doing when he puts things in his mouth is allowing his immune response to explore his environment,” Mary Ruebush, a microbiology and immunology instructor, wrote in her new book, “Why Dirt Is Good” (Kaplan). “Not only does this allow for ‘practice’ of immune responses, which will be necessary for protection, but it also plays a critical role in teaching the immature immune response what is best ignored.”

One leading researcher, Dr. Joel V. Weinstock, the director of gastroenterology and hepatology at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, said in an interview that the immune system at birth “is like an unprogrammed computer. It needs instruction.”

He said that public health measures like cleaning up contaminated water and food have saved the lives of countless children, but they “also eliminated exposure to many organisms that are probably good for us.”

“Children raised in an ultraclean environment,” he added, “are not being exposed to organisms that help them develop appropriate immune regulatory circuits.”

Studies he has conducted with Dr. David Elliott, a gastroenterologist and immunologist at the University of Iowa, indicate that intestinal worms, which have been all but eliminated in developed countries, are “likely to be the biggest player” in regulating the immune system to respond appropriately, Dr. Elliott said in an interview. He added that bacterial and viral infections seem to influence the immune system in the same way, but not as forcefully.

Most worms are harmless, especially in well-nourished people, Dr. Weinstock said.

“There are very few diseases that people get from worms,” he said. “Humans have adapted to the presence of most of them.”

Worms for Health

In studies in mice, Dr. Weinstock and Dr. Elliott have used worms to both prevent and reverse autoimmune disease. Dr. Elliott said that in Argentina, researchers found that patients with multiple sclerosis who were infected with the human whipworm had milder cases and fewer flare-ups of their disease over a period of four and a half years. At the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Dr. John Fleming, a neurologist, is testing whether the pig whipworm can temper the effects of multiple sclerosis.

In Gambia, the eradication of worms in some villages led to children’s having increased skin reactions to allergens, Dr. Elliott said. And pig whipworms, which reside only briefly in the human intestinal tract, have had “goodeffects” in treating the inflammatory bowel diseases, Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, he said.

How may worms affect the immune system? Dr. Elliott explained that immune regulation is now known to be more complex than scientists thought when the hygiene hypothesis was first introduced by a British epidemiologist, David P. Strachan, in 1989. Dr. Strachan noted an association between large family size and reduced rates of asthma and allergies. Immunologists now recognize a four-point response system of helper T cells: Th 1, Th 2, Th 17 and regulatory T cells. Th 1 inhibits Th 2 and Th 17; Th 2 inhibits Th 1 and Th 17; and regulatory T cells inhibit all three, Dr. Elliott said.

“A lot of inflammatory diseases — multiple sclerosis, Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis and asthma — are due to the activity of Th 17,” he explained. “If you infect mice with worms, Th 17 drops dramatically, and the activity of regulatory T cells is augmented.”

In answer to the question, “Are we too clean?” Dr. Elliott said: “Dirtiness comes with a price. But cleanliness comes with a price, too. We’re not proposing a return to the germ-filled environment of the 1850s. But if we properly understand how organisms in the environment protect us, maybe we can give a vaccine or mimic their effects with some innocuous stimulus.”

Wash in Moderation

Dr. Ruebush, the “Why Dirt Is Good” author, does not suggest a return to filth, either. But she correctly points out that bacteria are everywhere: on us, inus and all around us. Most of these mi cro-organisms cause no problem, and many, like the ones that normally live in the digestive tract and produce life-sustaining nutrients, are essential to good health.

“The typical human probably harbors some 90 trillion microbes,” she wrote. “The very fact that you have so many microbes of so many different kinds is what keeps you healthy most of the time.”

Dr. Ruebush deplores the current fetish for the hundreds of antibacterial products that convey a false sense of security and may actually foster the development of antibiotic-resistant, disease-causing bacteria. Plain soap and water are all that are needed to become clean, she noted.

“I certainly recommend washing your hands after using the bathroom, before eating, after changing a diaper, before and after handling food,” and whenever they’re visibly soiled, she wrote. When no running water is available and cleaning hands is essential, she suggests an alcohol-based hand sanitizer.

Dr. Weinstock goes even further. “Children should be allowed to go barefoot in the dirt, play in the dirt, and not have to wash their hands when they come in to eat,” he said. He and Dr. Elliott pointed out that children who grow up on farms and are frequently exposed to worms and other organisms from farm animals are much less likely to develop allergies and autoimmune diseases.

Also helpful, he said, is to “let kids have two dogs and a cat,” which will expose them to intestinal worms that can promote a healthy immune system.