Posts by carl_

Astroboffins solve birth of the Man in the Moon face

question: if the center of mass of the moon is not at its geometric center, will tidal friction cause it to orient itself so the center of mass is closer to earth?

i suggest that the moon gathered more early solar system material on the "forward" face relative to its direction of motion, then later that side reoriented to point at the earth due to tidal forces. this would explain that there are more (and larger) craters on one face, and also that that face is pointed at the earth.

an imbalance in the center of mass would normally work itself out in a large enough planet body, but only because the heat cause by accretion would be enough to melt the core. if the moon's accretion never built up enough heat, it could have retained an offset center of mass that resulted in the way it was formed.

'Weird' OBJECT, PROPELLED by its OWN JETS, spotted beyond Mars orbit by Hubble

the rotation theory does not seem to fit what's show in the image. besides, why would the fact that it is rotating cause it to heat up over a hundred degrees more than its surroundings?

it's far more likely to be the result of residual heat from a collision. there could have been radioactive material in the asteroid that ignited in the collision.

Torvalds shoots down call to yank 'backdoored' Intel RdRand in Linux crypto

Linus is OK - just human that's all

i think this "lack of people skills" is simply frustration.

this man works damn hard and don't forget, unlike most other damn-hard-working guys, he does it for all of us. his is a labour of love and that makes a big difference to how his actions are to be taken.

what pisses him off is wasted time. he has had enough of people who don't sacrifice their time to fully understand something, then believe they are sure enough to push a patch or even just voice an opinion. time after time it comes down to him to do their work for them and fix the problem.