Incredible electric fireball ....

[Oren]

"Sparks, flames rip down power lines during windstorm in Canada"

Interview:

Home owner captures video.

[nestork]

Yeah, I saw a video of that fireball on the TV news.

They say the electric company thinks it was caused by lightening, but I can think of no reason why an electric fireball like that would travel along the wires. It seems to me there would be no impetus for it to move in any direction since the voltage along the entire length of high voltage wire would be very much the same.

I just think this fireball is another example of the fact that things exist in nature that we're unaware of, and don't yet understand. When we see a light in the sky behaving in an odd manner, we think UFO. It's very possible that everything we've been identifying as UFO's are perfectly natural, it's just that they're not common nor understood.

[DerbyDad03]

By that logic it's also very possible that everything we've been identifying as UFO's really are UFO's. I say this for 2 reasons:

1 - From a purely grammatical perspective, if it's an object and it's flying and we can't identify it, then by definition it's a UFO. 2 - Define "perfectly natural". An alien being from some far off solar system is as "natural" as fireballs and lightening are here on earth. Since we don't even understand some of the natural occurrences on our planet, we surely can't expect to understand what goes on "out there". Those floating, spinning lights we call UFO's may be exactly that, at a minimum based on my first point, although a lot more intriguing if by my second.

[nestork]

I understand what you're saying, but just because we see a light in the sky,

a) it may not necessarily be "flying". Clowds, for example, don't "fly". Ditto for stars.

b) the term "UFO" officially means unidentified flying object, which says very little, but the use of that term implies very much more. "UFO" has come to mean a "craft" of some sort of alien origin being piloted by an alien intellence of some sort.

All I'm saying is that if that electric fireball occurred, then things like this CAN and DO exist in nature, even though they are exceedingly rare. For all we know, the lights in the sky that we've been calling "UFO's" for the past 75 years may simply be a perfectly natural atmospheric phenomenon that we're completely unfamiliar with BECAUSE it occurs quite rarely.

[RobertMacy]

thanks immediately started and could copy to HD.

[krw]

Lorenz force would tend to propel the plasma away from the source of the electricity, much the same way a rail gun works.

It's understood well enough, though perhaps not by the general public. In the case you use above, the observer just doesn't have the information to make the judgment. Worse, his brain will try to fill in the blanks. If it can't be identified, just label it as such and move on. ;-)

[trader4]

Voltage may be the same, but the distance between wires will vary and wind can be a factor. Ever see a Jacob's ladder?

I didn't see anything violating any laws of physics.

[RobertMacy]

Wow, I use Opera, but we're talking 'out of date' Opera 9.64 running on Win98 OS through dial up, which has saved me from getting a malware/virus at least 3 times now. Possibly 5, sometimes an abrupt crash is the key. Doesn't crash offline, just once in a while online, so suspect something asked my computer to do something 'illegal' for that OS.

Why dialup? Live in rural area and constantly get calls from local phone company to upgrade to DSL and get up to 7Mbs! at some exhorbitant cost. After I tell them that I'm 17,624 ft from the central office and ask what speed should I expect; they never have an answer, just repeat that 'up to

7Mbs'. A neighbor has DSL and barely gets above 300k at 39.95/mo and asked me how to make it go faster. I told him he's lucky to be able to do that at our distance. The way they get that speed is to use two line pairs to the CO. And, further checking, I was told not even available at my building, ...at all, [I've seen third world countries have better landline installations - our cable hangs along some available poles then drops and runs along the ground for a while, then disappears down a tube (we have buried services here, even power!)] so why do they keep calling and bothering me? Why not satellite? Can't use satellite for VOIP, so don't want to buy a service that is not real-time enough to let me use skype and such.

But, sigh, dialup is going the way of the 300 baud modems. Soon won't even get access. Also, I wonder when websites designers will realize people want 'information' more than 'pretty'. And it's REALLY irritating to have a blank screen UNTIL something loads in fully - that's just stupid. Even worse is the 'just start showing you something of interest and you get to start reading' and then rip it out from under you by blanking the screen for a long time just to 'update' the screen to complete some little ad at the bottom of the page! That's just stupid.

Your turn to vent.

[trader4]

I think that battle was over a long time ago and you lost. I feel for you, but the trend to more pretty stuff is only going to continue as the overwhelming part of the mass market now has bandwith that supports it.

And it's REALLY irritating to have

I shared that venting 12 years or so ago, when I had dial-up. Then went with DSL for about a year or two, until cable internet arrived here. I can't imagine how it must be now, with far more content, ads, etc. When I was on dial-up I was bitching that the website designers are on gigabit ethernet inside a building and have no idea what it's like for those that don't have it. But given how the world has evolved and the vast majority have high speed, I don't think it's reasonable anymore for them to design websites to the lowest common denominator. I wonder what percent in the USA are sill on dial-up?

[Stormin Mormon]

I had dialup for many years. Road Runner cable arrived, and I tried it. So much better. Hope I never need to go back to dialup.

[The Daring Dufas]

Can you get 4G cell service? I think but not sure you could get data only. Of course you could be so far out in the sticks that even cell service is limited. o_O

TDD

[RobertMacy]

What amazes me is that even wih my SLOW dialup, for the websites I use are still FAST. However, when I call a vendor and tell them about how their website hangs all five of our computers so take my order. They're right there, have high speed interconnect, and take LONGER!with apologies that the site is a bit slow. So, it seems we've gone the way of Microsoft, bloat the code to match the capability and always keep going slightly slower. No one 'notices' because they get so much more than they did before. [present company excluded, of course]

[The Daring Dufas]

We have Road Runner Business service here and it's 12/1.5 mbs. It's fast enough to do everything I want as far as streaming video and VoIP. We can get even faster speeds but I can download torrents quite fast at the speed we have here at the home/office. ^_^

TDD

[RobertMacy]

4G ?!!! and how much does THAT cost?

[RobertMacy]

Doesn't matter. I work internationally: a lot of people actually are billed for 'bits used' out there, so out of respect to keep costs low, I use ONLY text emails, limit the quoting, and never send attachments, unless asked for.

[The Daring Dufas]

4G is not the speed, it's a protocol but here's some info. ^_^

TDD

[(PeteCresswell)]

Dunno about dialup, but my #1 daughter is behind the slowest DSL connection I've ever seen. I've got an IP camera down at the New Jersey shore that's behind a 44k DSL connection and that one is

*slow*.... but the daughter's connection is orders of magnitude slower than even that - I mean *really*, REALLY slow.

Got to wonder what percent of the populace has that kind of speed. I guess SpeedTest.net knows...

[JoeBro]

DerbyDad03 wrote in news: [e-mail]:

LOL! Thanks for the laugh. I haven't seen any pussy-whipped dorks refer to their wife as SWEMBO in ages. Most men I know refer to their wife as a partner, not a master. Glad to see that there are still some PWs around.

[DerbyDad03]

What's a SWEMBO?

[DerbyDad03]

"4. SWMBO Acronym for She Who Must Be Obeyed. Term of endearment for one's wife/girlfriend (or resignation to the nature of your relationship).

The term originates from the H. Rider Haggard novel, "She" (first published

1886). The character Ayesha, known as She-who-must-be-obeyed, the Queen of Death, the White Goddess,of the lost city of Kôr who rules her kingdom with terror, She is the very image of the Femme Fatale. To disobey her or to scorn her is to earn & receive instantaneous death."

Most of us use the acronym as a term of endearment, even if Haggard didn't intend that it be used that way.

Anyone who thinks that those of us who refer to our ladies as SWMBO are "pussy-whipped", probably hasn't ever gotten the first part of that term.