Japan earthquake - where's America in all this??

[Zorba]

Whats 10cm in 36000km between friends??

A 10cm axial shift will be an infinitesimally small angular shift over 36000km

Im not going to do the sumz.

Aw come on,you love it :-)
I know if there is a 3m dish on a concrete base in a garden,and the base tilts 10cm any direction,the dish will have to be realigned. So it must be the same when the Earth moves,all satellites must be offset now.
Even Sundials may have to be reset :-)

 

[Lazarus]

Agreed.
Now,they said the Earth's axis has shifted 10cm. Does this affect dish alignment ? Because if I move my dish up or down 10cm,that is enough to lose BBC . Or do the satellites follow the Earths movements ?

But Mother Earth wobbles on its axis anyway, so the 10cm permanent (until the next time) shift isn't significant vis-a-vis Satellite reception.

Interesting question, nevertheless.

Drop a PM to Prof. Brain Cox. He'll know.

Edit: The typo was unintentional, yet Freudian. I'll leave it.

 

[IAmATeaf]

I still think Obama is an utter disgrace. He should have gathered the United Nations together and made some official statements.

His silence does indeed speak volumes. I hear Japan's oil is pretty much non-existent these days...

Who do you expect these things from Obama? Yes the is the President of the USA with enough fire power to incinerate parts of the world but why would you expect him to put on a big hat and announce that he's in charge?

As said by others actions speak louder than words

 

[IAmATeaf]

Agreed.
Now,they said the Earth's axis has shifted 10cm. Does this affect dish alignment ? Because if I move my dish up or down 10cm,that is enough to lose BBC . Or do the satellites follow the Earths movements ?

Luckily for us the satellites aren't simply flown in space and left to fend for themselves else you're right we'd have to do constant adjustments to the dishes so that I could reliably watch reruns of Terry and June

 

[2cvbloke]

I think Obama's more interested in the Archimedes Death Ray, cos he's ordered a third go at it for the Mythbusters, like they haven't got anything better to do that to revisit that again!!!

Has anyone heard about the british rescue teams being sent home? Apparently they didn't have the right paperwork to work in Japan helping to save lives...

 

[PaulR]

Has anyone heard about the british rescue teams being sent home? Apparently they didn't have the right paperwork to work in Japan helping to save lives...

No, but I did see a report of people queing up to leave Japan to go home (China, UK, etc) and even when they have a full visa giving them permanent right of abode in Japan they have to get this stamped so that they get readmitted at some time in the future.

These are the people who keep Japan running (in better times) because they do the jobs that the Japanese don't/won't do themselves!

 

[2cvbloke]

These are the people who keep Japan running (in better times) because they do the jobs that the Japanese don't/won't do themselves!

Sounds a bit like the UK and European migrant workers...

 

[Lazarus]

Apparently they didn't have the right paperwork to work in Japan helping to save lives...

It was discussed on the J Y Vine prog yesterday.

A group of well-meaning folk who thought they could just turn up virtually unannounced and expect the British Embassy and the Japanese Authorities to drop everything, sort out the protocol and then get back to serious business.

I had no sympathy for them at all.

 

[sonnetpete]

Well meaning they may have been but unless you have a particular skill/experience/specialism with this sort of situation, it would have been better for them to have stayed at home. Far better to have donated either their time or the money they must have spent flying to Japan to a relief organization (preferably one where all the money actually goes to relieve suffering).

 

[Lazarus]

I believe they all did have relevant skills, but theproblem was not so much waht they could offer, but the gung-ho way they had of going about it.

 

[Channel Hopper]

Plus, we only have their word for it, they could be quite adept at looting on the side.