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jakonovski
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Reply #385 on: July 23, 2015, 09:36:24 AM

They found an earth size planet on sun like star's habitable zone. Pretty cool.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/kepler/main/index.html
Merusk
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Reply #386 on: July 23, 2015, 10:03:49 AM

Yeah until you read the details, then you get all "oh, ok we're still alone" about it again.

The star is 1.5 billion years older than ours, meaning it's entering the "burn everything" phase. Any oceans on the planet are likely slowly boiling-off as it enters a super-greenhouse cycle. The estimated size of the planet (5x earth) means there's likely lots of volcanic activity on the surface still.

Drat, no green women yet.

The past cannot be changed. The future is yet within your power.
Lucas
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Further proof that Italians have suspect taste in games.


Reply #387 on: July 23, 2015, 10:04:41 AM

It's a very exciting discovery; I've been listening to the audio news conference for a while and from what I understand, all those slightly differences that are explained in one of the images provided in the article (Figure 4) basically balance each other out, making Kepler 452b VERY similar to Earth, although with (maybe) less water.

During the Q&A, one of the panelists implied that, from what they know right now, the amount of sunshine and the distance of the planet (but the exact composition of the body is unknown, of course) could result in a photosynthesis process not unlike the one on Earth, with all the consequences one can imagine.

Now, of course, life as it is now on Earth also relies on other things: among the most important ones, a moon (probably an impact with another celestial object billions of years ago) and gas giants diverting a lot of incoming comets and asteroids. But unicellular organisms? They're very likely to be there, IMO.

" He's so impatient, it's like watching a teenager fuck a glorious older woman." - Ironwood on J.J. Abrams
Lantyssa
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Reply #388 on: July 23, 2015, 10:28:22 AM

Drat, no green women yet.
They've also had all that time to get off the planet and to somewhere safer.  There may be green women yet!

Hahahaha!  I'm really good at this!
Shannow
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Reply #389 on: July 23, 2015, 11:27:01 AM

I read an article (which I can't find a link to at the moment) that breakdowns our chances of finding life/intelligent life in our galaxy. It was fucking depressing. (Don't get me wrong the chance of finding life out there excites me).
  Just consider the age of the galaxy, human civilization and the speed of light. What's the chance we detect radio signals (and why is it a given that an alien civizilation will want to point radios at the sky?, fuck why is it a given that alien life has to be carbon based?) any time in the near future? If that planet is 1000 light years away (aka only ONE PERCENT the diameter of the Milky Way) and it started broadcasting at EXACTLY the same time as we did we still have 900 years or so to go. That assuming a similar time for development on their planet.  If its off a million years or so (what? 0.01% the age of the galaxy or so?) we'll never see it.

I've managed to depress myself. Good times. 

Someone liked something? Who the fuzzy fuck was this heretic? You don't come to this website and enjoy something. Fuck that. ~ The Walrus
jakonovski
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Reply #390 on: July 23, 2015, 11:46:39 AM

Spoilered to spare the sensitive:

pxib
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Reply #391 on: July 23, 2015, 12:28:38 PM

I've managed to depress myself. Good times. 
First, the good news: Carbon based life is practically a given. The distribution of elements in the solar system (excepting hydrogen and the noble gasses) is relatively similar to the distribution of elements in your body. Carbon is what two Heliums fusing makes, and that's common in all massive and/or dying stars. Oxygen and Nitrogen are other easy, stable products. Carbon compounds, even as complex as amino acids, apparently form in interstellar gas. Water is everywhere.

The step from self-replication cellular structure - and (even more so) the prokaryote/eukaryote boundary - may be difficult to crest, but the odds of organic chemistry fumbling together something bacterial given a few billion years are pretty good.

Establishing communication is a lot trickier. We are already becoming a post-radio civilization. Rather than broadcasting with more and more powerful antennae, we've been broadcasting smaller and smarter... using large numbers of low-power localized repeaters, and only when fiber-optic connections are unavailable. Worse, the stars produce enough radio that unless a broadcast is absurdly powerful and pinpoint accurate, it wouldn't last 50 lightyears before it gets diluted to indistinct noise. A Kardashev II might be able to manage a generalized cry into the wilderness, but the Fermi Paradox quashes that one pretty hard. Humanity isn't terribly interested in funding SETI, imagine how much harder it would be to convince them to spend the petawatts required to point a strong, focused, endless message at every star in the sky... in the hopes of not receiving a message for centuries.

The speed of light is a harsh mistress.

if at last you do succeed, never try again
Khaldun
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Reply #392 on: July 23, 2015, 12:55:08 PM

Yeah until you read the details, then you get all "oh, ok we're still alone" about it again.

The star is 1.5 billion years older than ours, meaning it's entering the "burn everything" phase. Any oceans on the planet are likely slowly boiling-off as it enters a super-greenhouse cycle. The estimated size of the planet (5x earth) means there's likely lots of volcanic activity on the surface still.

Drat, no green women yet.

Actually what the Kepler folks are saying that because this planet is significantly bigger than Earth, its oceans aren't boiling off yet (if it has them). Has about 500 million years of good life left to go.
Lucas
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Reply #393 on: July 23, 2015, 01:01:32 PM

Yeah until you read the details, then you get all "oh, ok we're still alone" about it again.

The star is 1.5 billion years older than ours, meaning it's entering the "burn everything" phase. Any oceans on the planet are likely slowly boiling-off as it enters a super-greenhouse cycle. The estimated size of the planet (5x earth) means there's likely lots of volcanic activity on the surface still.

Drat, no green women yet.

Actually what the Kepler folks are saying that because this planet is significantly bigger than Earth, its oceans aren't boiling off yet (if it has them). Has about 500 million years of good life left to go.

Yeah, basically they're saying that it will probably start experiencing the effects of the "greenhouse" phenomena  in 500-1billion years which isn't a long time in astronomical terms, but neither that short. Anyway, while the search for E.T. might sound depressing on the short term, I think that the launch of the James Webb telescope and the subsequent ones should bring very interesting results within our lifetime, like, for example, images of exoplanets.

" He's so impatient, it's like watching a teenager fuck a glorious older woman." - Ironwood on J.J. Abrams
Lantyssa
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Reply #394 on: July 23, 2015, 01:24:34 PM

Carbon is what two Heliums fusing makes, and that's common in all massive and/or dying stars.
I would love to know how you got one carbon from two helium atoms.

/chemistrypedant

Hahahaha!  I'm really good at this!
Trippy
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Reply #395 on: July 23, 2015, 01:30:39 PM

Off by one error.
Lucas
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Further proof that Italians have suspect taste in games.


Reply #396 on: July 23, 2015, 01:31:46 PM


" He's so impatient, it's like watching a teenager fuck a glorious older woman." - Ironwood on J.J. Abrams
calapine
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Reply #397 on: July 24, 2015, 07:02:50 PM

Delta IV launch from yesterday that, thanks to the nice weather, looks better most than most. Has a sort of dreamy quality I think.

Youtube

(The reason for the launch is rather prosaic though, WGS 7, military communication sat for the airforce)

Restoration is a perfectly valid school of magic!
Tannhauser
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Reply #398 on: July 28, 2015, 01:00:08 PM

Fancy a trip at lightspeed from the Sun to Jupiter?  Better get comfy!

http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150728-travel-from-the-sun-to-jupiter
Morat20
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Reply #399 on: July 29, 2015, 05:42:15 PM

I see they're still futzing with the EM drive trying to sort out what's causing the reaction.

I'm a little annoyed with the science reporting on it (it's not a goddamn warp drive, it doesn't do FTL, and the only reason it's interesting is because it's potentially reactionless. Which means you don't have to carry reaction mass, which means it greatly simplifies travel once IN space. That's it. It's basically just an ion drive without need for reaction mass. It doesn't do magic).

Mostly I figure they'll find some weird interaction that explains it (sorta like Voyager's weird acceleration they finally sorted out), but who knows. It'd be pretty nice if it turns out the virtual particle theory is correct, but it won't change the world. It'll just mean NASA can pack more shit onto probes.
Lucas
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Reply #400 on: September 01, 2015, 12:51:18 PM


" He's so impatient, it's like watching a teenager fuck a glorious older woman." - Ironwood on J.J. Abrams
Ghambit
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Reply #401 on: September 02, 2015, 07:10:09 AM

I see they're still futzing with the EM drive trying to sort out what's causing the reaction.

I'm a little annoyed with the science reporting on it (it's not a goddamn warp drive, it doesn't do FTL, and the only reason it's interesting is because it's potentially reactionless. Which means you don't have to carry reaction mass, which means it greatly simplifies travel once IN space. That's it. It's basically just an ion drive without need for reaction mass. It doesn't do magic).

Mostly I figure they'll find some weird interaction that explains it (sorta like Voyager's weird acceleration they finally sorted out), but who knows. It'd be pretty nice if it turns out the virtual particle theory is correct, but it won't change the world. It'll just mean NASA can pack more shit onto probes.

Virtual particles experimentally maintaining the laws of classic mechanics.  Nothing to see here.  Move along now.   awesome, for real
A big deal... it is actually.  The applications and revised theories?  Will take a long time to sort out.

"See, the beauty of webgames is that I can play them on my phone while I'm plowing your mom."  -Samwise
Morat20
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Reply #402 on: September 05, 2015, 08:58:22 AM

I see they're still futzing with the EM drive trying to sort out what's causing the reaction.

I'm a little annoyed with the science reporting on it (it's not a goddamn warp drive, it doesn't do FTL, and the only reason it's interesting is because it's potentially reactionless. Which means you don't have to carry reaction mass, which means it greatly simplifies travel once IN space. That's it. It's basically just an ion drive without need for reaction mass. It doesn't do magic).

Mostly I figure they'll find some weird interaction that explains it (sorta like Voyager's weird acceleration they finally sorted out), but who knows. It'd be pretty nice if it turns out the virtual particle theory is correct, but it won't change the world. It'll just mean NASA can pack more shit onto probes.

Virtual particles experimentally maintaining the laws of classic mechanics.  Nothing to see here.  Move along now.   awesome, for real
A big deal... it is actually.  The applications and revised theories?  Will take a long time to sort out.
I think I read that CERN just found some weird lepton-level interaction broke the Standard Model. THAT'S exciting shit. A reactionless drive is just useful. :)
pxib
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Reply #403 on: September 30, 2015, 02:58:04 PM

Curiosity may not be clean enough to investigate the flowing (though extremely saturated with sodium and magnesium perchlorate) water on Mars:
Quote
An organisation called the committee on space research (Cospar) draws up the rules on what is called planetary protection, which exist to prevent missions from Earth contaminating the pristine environments of other worlds. Landers that are searching for life must be exceptionally clean, and fall under category IVb, but those entering special regions are category IVc missions and must be cleaner still.

Curiosity was designed for category IVb, and under Cospar rules is not allowed to enter areas where water might be flowing. But that might be up for discussion. Nasa’s Jim Green argues that the intense radiation environment on Mars, in particular the ultraviolet light, might have killed any bugs Curiosity carried into space, and so may be clean enough to move into the sites.

A recent report from the US National Academy of Sciences and the European Science Foundation, however, suggests that UV light might not do the job, and could make matters worse. “Although the flux of ultraviolet radiation within the Martian atmosphere would be deleterious to most airborne microbes and spores, dust could attenuate this radiation and enhance microbial viability,” the report states.

Curiosity could inspect the flows from a distance, using its onboard laser to take more measurements of the dark streaks. But a more controversial option is to find a flat region at the bottom of one of the flows, and scoop up some Martian soil for analysis.

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calapine
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Reply #404 on: October 03, 2015, 06:56:34 AM

Curiosity may not be clean enough to investigate the flowing (though extremely saturated with sodium and magnesium perchlorate) water on Mars:

If I understand it correctly the perchlorate is working as an antifreeze agent here, allowing the water to stay liquid and flow in the first place.

Imagine if are able to catch this live one camera one day. Waterish stuff flowing down a hill on another planet. Mind boggling.

Another thing, where I think we tend too get too blasé about too quick is the rovers. Opportunity landed 11 years ago...and is still driving around. And about Curiosity...just look at that thing:





(Sorted by size: Sojourner, Opportunity/Spirit, Curiosity)

I had no idea it's that big.  headache
« Last Edit: October 03, 2015, 08:44:24 AM by calapine »

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Tannhauser
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Reply #405 on: October 03, 2015, 09:13:21 AM

That's right, we're Americans so first SUV on Mars bitches!

Kidding, that's a cool pic though for scale.
Trippy
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Reply #406 on: October 05, 2015, 02:51:55 PM

The border between Pakistan and India is visible from space as the entire border is lit. Story:

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=86725&src=fb


Morat20
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Reply #407 on: November 03, 2015, 05:41:15 PM

NASA's findings on the EM drive have been leaked. "It's still fucking doing it" is the result.

I'm too lazy to dig up a link, but the article I read boiled down to the vacuum chamber results were "Yep, it's still doing it" and someone preemptively criticized it as using the Earth's magnetic sphere, and one of the scientists snapped back with "We're not morons, we handled that".

Media reports remain stupid, with half of them confusing it with an Ablucurrie drive or FTL. Reactionless drive would be fantastic enough, thanks, even at the very small thrust in question. (It adds up quickly in space).

OTOH it took decades to figure out what was shoving Voyager wonky, so it's always really tricky with small forces.
MahrinSkel
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Reply #408 on: November 03, 2015, 06:02:27 PM

Yeah, a bunch of them are reporting that it is violating conservation of energy or motion, which isn't true either. If it is doing what it seems to be, it's doing so in perfect accordance with those rules...we just don't know wtf it is pushing against.

The team investigating it is obviously being cautious as hell, and there's none of the hyper-paranoia that kept earlier claims of reactionless drives from being properly investigated. It's purely a space drive (like the ion drives), but even trivial amounts of constant acceleration without reaction mass would be a game-changer.

--Dave

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Morat20
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Reply #409 on: November 03, 2015, 07:12:17 PM

Well, the purported theory behind it involves quantum mechanics and virtual particles, which (if you assume they are correct) does accord with Newton. It works exactly like an ion drive, Newton-wise, except the thrust is generated by virtual particles rather than, you know, the non-virtual ones of an ion drive.

Admittedly, you have to accept the fact that they're actually generating virtual particles AND aiming the things AND they exist long enough to turn energy into momentum AND it's this relatively easy to do (I mean the Casimir effect is virtual particles exerting force, so it's not exactly unknown), which is a giant leap that should be treated with giant amounts of skepticism. And honestly, the easiest way to test it would be to strap it to the back of a radio, toss it out the ISS airlock*, and see what happens.

I think the reporting confusion is that most reporters think "Really big news in space travel" and all they know is FTL. Whereas a reactionless drive doesn't sound as awesome, yet actually IS in terms of game changing. It won't get you to Tau Ceti in a human lifetime, but the actual TRIP becomes suddenly possible for probes. You don't need like 40 times an probe's weight in reaction material to get it there.

And certainly exploring the solar system would get a heck of a lot easier. RTG's are pretty straightforward, and not having to launch reaction mass? HUGE savings. And ion drives can get....really fast, actually. It's like compound interest. It starts slow as hell, but once it hits a certain point? Jesus.


*Well, actuall you'd need a regular rocket to get it out of LEO but once you got that, you just watch it for a few months and see if it's still accelerating. The radio makes that easy.
Ghambit
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Reply #410 on: November 03, 2015, 07:20:03 PM

If you keep tabs on spaceflight.com you will see some of the most beautiful engineering in the world happening there.  What a great community... and yah, they still can't account for the thrust.  Even taking Lorentz interactions into account, the force they're seeing is like 100x's what that'd produce... even if they didn't compensate for it.

My favorite theory is in relation to a physical manifestation of Feynmann's advance wave theory; which has never been seen before (it was just a thought experiment).  Basically, the drive reacts against a wave traveling FTL (forward in "time" basically) moreso than the counter-wave traveling backwards.  At least, that's how I think it'd work.

The prior virt particle idea breaks physics to the point we'd have to invent some stuff.  Which is super cool too, and for me, helps explain the accelerating expansion of the universe (if you assume the universe computes).

"See, the beauty of webgames is that I can play them on my phone while I'm plowing your mom."  -Samwise
MahrinSkel
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When she crossed over, she was just a ship. But when she came back... she was bullshit!


Reply #411 on: November 03, 2015, 07:40:31 PM

Couldn't you kludge together something like a standing wave interacting with the Casimir force? Or if you really want to dredge the pseudoscience depths, a Tesla wave creating a high potential channel for the virtual particles?

 awesome, for real

Sorry, just wanted to feel like I was helping.

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Morat20
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Reply #412 on: November 03, 2015, 07:45:07 PM

I dunno, there's some crazy stuff out there. I can at least wrap my head around the VP theory. I mean I know VP exist, so that's not made up. I know they're a lot like regular particles, except for their very brief existence. I know they can exert measurable forces (the Casimir effect).

And I know that energy is conserved because whatever thrust you're getting requires more energy to produce than the force generated.

And lastly I know ion drives work, and they use...rapidly accelerated particles as thrust.

So the big leap is "produce virtual particles and use them for the ion drive" which means you need to make them and have them impart thrust before they disappear. That's a pretty big leap, and honestly if it was possible it'd be the sort of thing I'd expect you'd need quantum computers and crap to figure out. Super-precise, ridiculously future engineering that we might be able to do in a century or two.

I've read physicists calling the whole notion poppycock and others saying "hey, wait a second, it's not impossible" and obviously I can't evaluate it. But I at least grasp the explanation for dummies, which beats the heck out of the time I tried to figure out what the whole "time travel via rapidly spinning ridiculously long tube" thing was about. Or that weird theory about black holes, holographic somethings, and causal arrows.

MahrinSkel
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When she crossed over, she was just a ship. But when she came back... she was bullshit!


Reply #413 on: November 03, 2015, 07:59:30 PM

Yeah, the standing wave thing just occurred to me because the essence of the Casimir Effect is that when two surfaces are very close together, the 'virtual vacuum' between them becomes more empty of virtual particles than the surrounding space (or so I understand). So if you had a standing wave that was just the right distance displaced from a surface, it might act as a 'surface' for the purpose of the Casimir Effect, and since it was only a standing wave and not a physical surface, being continually recreated rather than held apart by some physical process, you might get that unipolar thrust.

But even trying to think about the math involved gives me a headache.

--Dave

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Ghambit
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Reply #414 on: November 03, 2015, 08:15:11 PM

It's a spooky action at a distance interaction.  You ride that advance standing wave before the inverse function collapses and negates it.

"See, the beauty of webgames is that I can play them on my phone while I'm plowing your mom."  -Samwise
Morat20
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Reply #415 on: November 06, 2015, 07:44:20 PM

It's a spooky action at a distance interaction.  You ride that advance standing wave before the inverse function collapses and negates it.
Virtual particles as spooky enough. They spontaneously generate in pairs, attract to each other, and then mutually annihilate -- conserving energy. Oh, and sending a particle back in time that generates them in the first place. I think.

And you can make them real, but that's sort of tricky. Black holes apparently do it though (Hawking radiation). You just have to shove in enough energy so that energy is conserved. The universe's books always balance.
calapine
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Reply #416 on: November 13, 2015, 10:14:09 AM

Time for a Rosetta and Philae update  smiley



1) ESA released a new highlight video of the latest science findings.  I created a GIF out of the most impressive (IMHO) section:




And that's how 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko was born: Collision by two separate comets. The detection of Molecular Oxygen was another big surprise, details in the video.


2) Animation of the Philae's first touchdown and subsequent two hour flight. No graceful hoping but lots of tumbling and spinning. It was lucky to not land on it's head.


3) The comet has a water-ice cycle that creates a fresh layer of ice on it's surface every ration. Summarized it works like this:


During sun hours the ice on top and up to a few centimetres down turns into gas. It's flows away together with dust particles and produces the typical comet halo. At night this process stops as the surface cools down, but deeper layers of the comet retain the heat. Subsurface water ice from this regions turns into vapour and sublimates towards the top. Upon reaching the cold surface it freezes again and creates a new ice coating. Until the next comet day begins and everything starts again.



GIF created from this source video

Background info:

http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2015/11/12/reconstructing-philaes-flight-across-the-comet/

http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2015/09/23/rosetta-reveals-comets-water-ice-cycle/


« Last Edit: November 13, 2015, 10:29:10 AM by calapine »

Restoration is a perfectly valid school of magic!
Soln
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the opportunity for evil is just delicious


Reply #417 on: November 15, 2015, 10:07:32 AM

Thanks Calapine, great stuff.
Engels
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inflicts shingles.


Reply #418 on: November 16, 2015, 08:12:23 AM

Wow, nice summary Calapine, thank you!

I should get back to nature, too.  You know, like going to a shop for groceries instead of the computer.  Maybe a condo in the woods that doesn't even have a health club or restaurant attached.  Buy a car with only two cup holders or something. -Signe

I LIKE being bounced around by Tonkors. - Lantyssa

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calapine
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Reply #419 on: November 16, 2015, 07:51:48 PM

Welcome!  smiley

Restoration is a perfectly valid school of magic!
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