I like to complain about weathermen on this blog, mostly because they are so rarely right and yet somehow stay employed. But more and more I'm reminded that they are attempting to predict the future and when you compare them to some other professions, they are actually doing better than most. They may only have a 60% success rate, but those are starting to look like Hall of Fame numbers. Remember back when the Icelandic volcano was going off? Day after day people whose job is it to study volcanoes would go on television and admit that they didn't know why this particular one started erupting, how long the eruptions would last, how severe they would get, when they would end or if they would happen again. These guys spent years in college studying rocks and they knew pretty much the exact same things that I did.
The news the last couple of days has revolved around a falling satellite. Apparently, a 20 year-old, 35-foot long piece of equipment is in a slowly decaying orbit and is on its way back to Earth. It's just an issue of when. No, really, when is the big issue. Also, where. Because NASA scientists can't really pinpoint a time or place. There are just too many variables. They have an idea of when, but if their calculations are just off a little, it can change their estimations by hundreds of miles and several minutes. Basically, the world should just keep it's head on a swivel.
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