Home
The Daily Dose/March 5, 2010
By Gaylon Kent
The Writer's Shack
Notes from around the Human Experience...
GET YOUR DRY, TECHNICAL MATTER RIGHT HERE: As if we don't have enough to worry about, scientist are reporting the Chilean earthquake produced enough changes to sea level and the tectonic plates underneath the surface of the Earth to cause the planet to rotate faster, meaning one day's rotation now takes just over one millionth of a second less time to complete than it did before the quake.
Oh, Jesus H: Another change occurred to Earth's figure axis, which was estimated to have been altered by about three (3) inches. We had never heard of a figure axis either and we're fairly well read here, but evidently it is the axis around which the Earth's mass is balanced and this axis differs from the axis the Earth rotates around by 33 feet or so for reasons we probably wouldn't understand even if they had been explained to us.
And You Wonder Why You Don't Get Invited To More Parties: You know, it's nice to throw all this knowledge around, especially if you are highly educated, an expert, and can throw around knowledge like this and have commoners like us accept it blindly because we are both unwilling and unable to refute it and can only scratch our head and wonder what the hell is going on.
But how much do we really know? Okay, you work for JPL and you have several degrees and are generally regarded by mankind as knowing more about this subject than virtually any other of your six billion fellow humans, but can we really know that the Earth is now rotating a microsecond sooner because of an earthquake? This implies the exact speed of Earth's rotation around is knowable and that we have reckoned the speed of Earth's rotation down to a level where we can differentiate millionths of a second.
Which Brings Us To This: The yellow spotted bell frog, thought extinct 30-years ago, was found to be alive and kicking in its native Australia. It was actually discovered a couple of years ago, but the announcement was held off to ensure its habitat wasn't encroached and it really became instinct. If man can't even get whether or not a species of frog has died off or not can we really rely on our fellow humans to reckon the speed of Earth's rotation to a millionth of a second?
HUT, HUT HIKE: Surprising few, NFL is considering farting around with its overtime rules.
Playbook: Currently, the NFL plays a sudden death overtime period where the first team to score wins regardless if the other team has had a chance to be on offense. For example, if Team A returns the opening kickoff of the overtime period for a touchdown, the game is over. If Team A returns the kickoff to the one-yard line and kicks a field goal, the game is over. If the receiver for team catches the kickoff in the end zone, runs out to the five-yard line, gets scared, and retreats back to the end zone where he is tackled, that is two points for Team B and they would win. It is entirely possible, and sometimes happens, for a team to lose without running an offensive play.
But what do you expect? The NFL like hockey, which lets teams decide a winner in shootout that is about as anticlimactic as a peck on the cheek is when you were hoping to score, refuses to let teams play by the same rules used in regulation to decide a winner in overtime.
This is not particularly fair, but the NFL has been loathe to change it, probably because there aren't a whole lot of options because there is little interest in the NFL in adopting a college-type overtime system.
FYI: In the NCAA, Team A starts with the ball on their opponents 25-yeard-line and keeps the ball until they either turn it over or score. Then Team B gets the ball. It's not unlike extra innings in baseball, and if a team is winning after an overtime period, the game is over. If not, they do it again.
Dry, Technical Matter: The longest game in NCAA Division I-A game is seven, done on three occasions. The all-division record is eight, when Bethune-Cookman defeated Virginia State in 1998.
We're Not Going To Get Back On Message Here Anytime Soon, Are We? While researching the above item, we discovered the last scoreless game in NCAA Division III was between Williams and Amherst in November, 1995.
Yay! Back On Message: What the NFL is considering is a format that would let Team B have the ball if Team A scores a field goal on their first possession. That would be the only circumstance where Team B would get a chance to match a score. If Team A scores a touchdown on the first possession, they win. If A scores a field goal, and B follows with a field goal, then it's sudden death the rest of the way.
Here's A Suggestion: Why not play football? True, playing professional football is a brutal way to make a living. We've scammed enough press passes to NFL games and been on enough sidelines to see firsthand exactly how brutal even a routine NFL hit is. To require another period of men who are already ready to call it a day is asking a lot.
But being a professional football player isn't indentured servitude. Nobody forces you to do it and if you don't like it you can do something else.
Get Your Official Writer's Shack Policy Right Here: So if you don't want to play a full 15 minute quarter, cut it in half and play a seven-and-a-half minute period.
NUMBERS GAME: The Canada/US gold medal hockey Sunday was the most watched television program in Canadian history, with about two-thirds of the country watching. By contrast, about nine percent of America watched the game.
ORDER IN THE COURT: On this date in 1868, the US Senate is formed as a court of impeachment to hear the case of President Andrew Johnson, who had annoyed members of the House of Representatives by having the nerve to violate an unconstitutional law and generally not do whatever the Radical Republicans in Congress wanted him to do. Johnson would be acquitted, by one vote, in May.
Thought For The Day: In times like these, it helps to remember there have always been times like these. - Paul Harvey
Answer To The Last Trivia Question: Chile is 265 miles wide at its widest point.
Today's Stumper: The trivia question will return.
Comments? Recipes? Complaints? Email the Writer's Shack here!
Home |
|