Things you don't need to know...

Astatine (At) with atomic number 85 is one of the heaviest naturally occuring elements (Uranium has atomic number 92). It's also the rarest of the naturally occuring elements. According to Wikipedia, it's estimated that less than a gram of the substance is present in the earth's crust. The total landmass of the Americas contains about a trillion atoms of the stuff, and little Norway possesses around 10 billion or 2000 atoms per Norwegian. Other sources, (https://www.chemicool.com/elements/astatine.html) give a somewhat higher estimate (25 g). OTOH Isaac Asimov estimated the world wide total as 0.07 g in 1953 (https://www.livescience.com/32064-rarest-particle-on-earth-property.html). But for all practical purposes, even if the substance must be valuable, don't waste your money on an astatine mine. Follow James Veitch advice in stead and spend it on hummus.

The reason for the deplorable shortage is that astatine is extremely radioactive. The most stable isotope (Astatine-210) has a half-life of 8.1 hours. This means that, even if you subscribe to the young earth "theory", none of the astatine present at the dawn of the earth remains today. In stead, it's produced by the decay of heavier elements. Actually, the astatine you find now (if you were unlucky) is not the same astatine as the astatine of last week.

BTW: The name "astatine" is derived from greek, "astatos" which means "unstable".

For a long time it existed only as an empty space in the periodic table, but it was finally discovered (from artificial synthesis) in 1940.

Little is known about the physical properties of the element, as we haven't actually seen it. If you (very unlikely, and very dangerous) had a lump of the element in front of you, it would immediately vaporize due to the heat generated by radioactive decay (followed by your decay within the next 48 hours). We can deduce (guess) some of it's properties from it's position in the periodic table (same group as chlorine and iodine). We think it's nearly black, and we think it may behave like a metal (if it did behave, which it clearly doesn't).

It can be produced synthetically, and has found some use i experimental cancer therapy.

pibbur who would rather invest in Grimoire 2 than in astatine mining.

PS. A list of the properties of astatine can be found here: http://periodictable.com/Elements/085/data.html. It's quite illustrating, the most common value is N/A, and as such, what we know about astatine can be compared to what we know about the Heechee. DS.

PPS. Regarding it's value, it turns out it's not as costly as one might expect. Astatine-211 is not prohibitively difficult to produce in "commercial" quantities using high-yield cyclotrons I've yet to find a price per gram, but it's cheaper that Iodine-123. DS.
 
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Finally, after all these years, a good ES game?

pibbur who actually thinks also the recent ES games are good, but refuses to be called a fanboy.

PS. This may be old news to you. But I first saw it yesterday in GamlaStan@Stockholm. So there! DS.
 
@ Couchpotato Well, 1971 is too late for some of us :)
 
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@ Couchpotato Well, 1971 is too late for some of us :)
Before that was the huge monstrosities in Lab rooms.:biggrin:

FOSDIC-Dale-Lipe-Ray-Ertzberger-mid-60sNOAA-1100x690.jpg


So nobody used them except the Military and Science Labs.
 
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Yeah, your smartphone can run circles around the unit in the above picture ;)
 
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I'm too old for that list.

So let's go back to 1954, the year IBM launched it's 650 Magnetic Drum Data-Processing Machine, the first mass produced computer. Marketed for business, scientific and engineering, IBM expected to sell around 50 of 'em, but they ended up shipping close to 2000 units between 1954 and 1962. At it's peak, they made one system each day. One reason for it's success, apart from it's versatility was it's fairly low cost (4000 USD/month).

The machine used a 7 bit bi-quinary decimal encoding. 5 bits for the numbers 0,1,2,3,4, 2 bits for the numbers 0 and 5. Only two bits could be on at each time, and the number was the sum of these two bits. The console had a nice panel of flashing ligts showing the numbers currently treated.

IBM-650-panel.jpg


A rotating magnetic drum was used for memory, with the capacity of 1000 or 2000 10-digit numbers.

The basic configuration consisted of a IBM 650 Console unit containing memory. processor and operator's console, a IBM 655 power unit and a IBM 533 card read-punch unit (for input and output). Total weight around 2.5 tons.
3403ph03.jpg


Several optional components were available, providing extra memory, floating point arithmetic and magnetic storage.

Performance:
Memory access (unoptimized) 2.5 ms.
78,000 additions or subtractions per minute
138,000 logical decisions per minute
Tape storage capacity: 23,000 100 character records.

Technical data available here:http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/650/650_intro.html
Support ended in 1969.

pibbur who wrote this sitting on a train from Oslo to Bergen, using a 8 MB i5 Microsoft Surface PRO computer weighing 1 kg, connected to a global network by way of a tiny portable telephone.

PS: It did come with software:
  1. FORTRAN
  2. Synthetic Programming System for Commercial Applications
  3. SPACE (Simplified Programming Anyone Can Enjoy) — A business-oriented two-step compiler . Seems like they had fun back then too.
  4. Technical Assembly System (TASS) — A macro assembler.
DS

PPS. Algorithm guru Donald Knuth dedicated his "Art of Computer Programming" book series to the 650. DS.
 
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tl;dr;Some more info about astatine.

Some more info about astatine.

First I want to clarify a couple of issues from my last post about the element.

It's true that the most stable isotope (Astatine-210) has a half-life of 8.1 hours. But this isotope does not occur naturally, it can only be synthesized. The most stable naturally occuring isotope is astatine 219 with a half life of ….. 56 seconds!

Production of the most long lived isotopes (210 and 211) is comparably easy (by high-energy irradiattion of naturally occuring Bismuth). Thus it is theoretically possible to produce the isotopes in reasonable (practically useful) quantitiies. However production requires high-yeld cyclotrons, and there are only about 30 of those globally, which severely limits the prtactical use.

Which is a pity, because astatine-211 could be very valuable in cancer therapy. The isotope decays by emitting alpha particles (Helium-4 nuclei), producing stable lead-207 isotopes. These alpha-particles penetrates only a very short distance (thickness of paper) into its surroundings. If we could direct such an alpha emitting substance to tumors or a specific organ, we could achieve very efficient irradiation of the malignancy with very little damage to surrounding tissues. The procedure is called "targeted alpha particle therapy", and we can achieve it by binding the active substance to for instance antibodies against the tumor cells. The procedure is not new, and not restricted to astatine, but astatine-211 is particularly well suited for the task. Radiation energy levels are optimal and it binds efficiently to carrier molecules. Half-life is long enough to make it practically useful (provided it's made locally), and production cost is relatively low. Production capacity is as said limited at the moment, but that will likely change if the substrance keeps its promises.

But what about astatine-210? It also has a longish half-life and is fairly easy to produce? You don't want that! Because At-210 decays primarily by positron emission, transforming itself to Polonium 210, and that one is extremely toxic. 0.089 micrograms can kill - that's about a thousandth the weight of a grain of salt. Great care must be taken to minimize contamination of astatine-211 production by this, it's smaller siebling.

pibbur who thinks he's said enough now. About astatine. But there are of course other very rare elements….

PS…. actually, no. ….DS.
 
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Things about me you don't need to know.

1. I'll be blunt I visit this site for games not politics & debates.
2. Cant stand politics don't even bother to talk about them with me.
3. Football to me is the NFL, we call the other sport soccer.
4. Pizza is the food of gods and I will eat it whenever I want to.
5. Hate everyone equally I don't pick and choose.
6. I'll play PC games till the day I die.

That's all for now.:brood:
 
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Couch, things I think you don't need to know regarding those statements:

1. you suck because politics is the best thing to argue about when you need arguing on a whim :p
2. read #1 :p
3. second F in FIFA stands for football, it's played with feet and the ball is actual round ball, what's soccer and NFL neverheard of any of it
4. pizza sux unless spiced up with hectolitres of beer :evilgrin:
5. you suck, rock/paper/scissors is fun and helps with choosing
6. don't let Nintendo hears you

:p
 
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3. second F in FIFA stands for football, it's played with feet and the ball is actual round ball, what's soccer and NFL neverheard of any of it
NFL is the modern gladiator blood-sport of 200+ pound men beating the crap out of each other with the goal of getting points in the other endzone. More fun then FIFA/Soccer.

NFL = National Football League



This is Soccer not Football.:p



As for you pizza comment I request a duel at dawn with pistols.:shakefist:

VMP1a%20purdeypistolpair.jpg
 
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Yea, see… You can try as much you want.
Football is football and no person or country will baptize it into something else. Feel free to call it rose or shit if you want. :p

National football league you say? Sorry, never heard of it before. And to be honest, can't care less about it. Whatever is in that video, looks unbelievably boring. And silly - it's not played on ice yet people wear helmets.
But whatever, I did hear about United States Soccer Federation but ignored it because I don't know what does the word "soccer" mean. I know that it's mentioned in the first rule of football though:
https://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2014/06/20/first-rule-football-dont-call-soccer/
 
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Nah American Football is more interesting. I always fall asleep watching FIFA games get no more then 1 or two points a game. Rather watch people get hurt scoring 40 points.
Yea, see… You can try as much you want.
Football is football and no person or country will baptize it into something else. Feel free to call it rose or shit if you want. :p

National football league you say? Sorry, never heard of it before. And to be honest, can't care less about it. Whatever is in that video, looks unbelievably boring. And silly - it's not played on ice yet people wear helmets.
But whatever, I did hear about United States Soccer Federation but ignored it because I don't know what does the word "soccer" mean. I know that it's mentioned in the first rule of football though:
https://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2014/06/20/first-rule-football-dont-call-soccer/
Hint the hemlets are their to protect you from concussions and other harm. Imagine getting hit by a 300 pound man knocking you down. So Gladiator Blood sports.

As for the video it's watchable but apparently the league doesn't allow embedding.
 
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I call NFL the NFL, same with CFL. Always have, since about the age of five Football shall always be football, trying to pass that name to another game that barely sees any kicking makes no sense.

As far as brutal, I think both hockey and rugby are the true clashes of titans. If you think the NFL or CFL are excessively brutal sports, you might need to watch some better contests.
 
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As far as brutal, I think both hockey and rugby are the true clashes of titans. If you think the NFL or CFL are excessively brutal sports, you might need to watch some better contests.
Nope I'm calling it what Europeans think of American Football. It's called sarcasm.

Just search Google.:p
I call NFL the NFL, same with CFL. Always have, since about the age of five Football shall always be football, trying to pass that name to another game that barely sees any kicking makes no sense.
I've never heard anyone in my family say lets watch some NFL man. It's "Are you ready for some Football", and that's a famous saying for the NFL. Even has a post game song.

Anyway You Say 'Tomato', I say 'Tomato.:biggrin:

Funny isn't how one word can mean different things worldwide.
 
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Let me set you all straight!! :) What many of you call soccer, is actually called Futball, notice the completely different spelling from the game Football which is played by the NFL and CFL. Actually, futball is an amalgamation of two sports, soccer and diving!! See, it's all quite simple when you SPELL it out correctly!!!! :D
 
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Let the americans call their game "football", and let the rest of us call football "football". And let's make it mandatory to fill out where we're from in the statistics to the right. Then we'll know what any of us is talking about (when it "comes" to football, that is).

pibbur who likes John Cleese.

EDIT: Sorry, forgot the :D
 
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Finally, after all these years, a good ES game?

Ah, yes, THAT pose again … It's a new fashion now, that pose. Just look at so many games these days, they have exactly the same pose … Just not looked on from above ...
 
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According to news media, the Airbus Beluga XL freighter took off for the first time yesterday, from Airbus' own Toulouse-Blagnac airport.

BelugaXL-FirstFlight-1-.1000x562.jpg


Another plane I refuse to believe can fly (and given the looks of it, doesn't deserve to fly either).

Other planes for which I seriolusly doubt their flying capability:
  1. Boeing 747
  2. Airbus A380
  3. Antonov 225

To be honest, I have been sitting in two of those in european airports, and 10 hours later finding myself sitting in the same devices in similar facitlies in the US. So there's definitely something going on. Stilll, if you look at those mammoths, crawling oh-so slowly upwards, it is, at least to me, hard to fathom that they're able to do it. Just take a look at the Antonov 225 leaving Zürich: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jALTAeHLbQ

pibbur who

PS. If anyone now wants to come with the it's-against-the-law-of-physics-that-a-bumblebee-can-fly-but-the-bumblebee-doesn't-know-that-so-it-flies-anyway story - well, that one is a myth. DS.
 
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