This is an awe inspiring picture. It was taken by the Planck telescope and it is the first ever full sky map of the cosmic microwave background. The satellite was launched by the European Space Agency in May last year and sent nearly a million miles into space to record the origins of the universe. It began taking data in August 2009, by the end of its mission in 2012, Planck will have made four maps of the universe.
The bright horizontal band through the centre shows the Milky Way with streamers of cold dust extending above and below. But the interesting part to researchers is the scattering of yellow flecks in the red background. These are the oldest photons in the universe and are thought to have been generated about 380,000 years after the Big Bang, when matter was finally cool enough to start forming atoms. It is hoped data from here will help scientists seek out some signature radiating from a period fractions of a second after the Big Bang.
It may also confirm the existence of the “axis of evil” – a weird alignment of hot and cold spots in the emptier regions of space. Planck will also stare into an ominous hole in space that some physicists suggest is evidence that our universe is not the only one… Now hold that thought and look again at that photo…
“From the closest portions of the Milky Way to the furthest reaches of space and time, the new all-sky image offers an extraordinary treasure chest of new data for astronomers.” – Professor Peter Ade, Cardiff University
Touch screen, built in camera, scanner, GPS, MEMS, WiFi, google map/earth, google search, image search… all in one device. This way, when you can see a building through it, it gives you the image search result right on the spot.
Another Example:
Travellers? Students?
This technology is here now and there is a million other applications this could encompass.
NASA have forewarned of huge solar storms 2012/2013, interesting eh? It’s not just the National Grid in the line of fire, I wrote a post not long ago detailing the fragility of a society so heavily reliant on technology, Clicky Here to have read.
Having trouble with my internet connection and it’s making me even more anti-technology, my brain is tuned to problem solve, specifically in engineering although the older I get the more I can use the same thought strategies in a more lateral way and I see more and more flaws other things such as peoples’ live’s, society in general, politics, religions, capitalism, communism, even science. The problem relating to my internet is I have little control over it, I’m relying on a third party, I used to use packet radio many years ago before the internet which was a basic internet system used amongst Amateur Radio enthusiasts, the great thing about it was there was no necessity for a third party, you could connect directly with whoever you wanted to file share with or chat to (providing you had a suitable set up), there ‘were’ bulletin board systems (BBS) and nodes where you could share information with other parts of the world but generally they were local and operated by other Radio Amateurs that you were either friendly with or knew somebody who was. My beef with modern day communications is that it is getting far too complicated and with that comes fragility, the system is becoming vulnerable to a myriad of potentially disabling influences.
Solar Activity/Magneto Fluctuations:
Solar flares create huge electro-magnetic pulses that penetrate the Earth’s ionosphere, these propagations can induce power surges into electrical transmission systems such as our national grid large enough to severely damage sub station transformers (such conditions caused a massive black-out in the US some years ago). The same thing applies to any large cable network, telecoms for instance, although fibre optic cables will be immune in such a case any sensitive electronics could be susceptible and many telecoms system are still largely copper cable.
Satellites:
Our reliance on satellites adds to the situation, not only is there an ever increasing amount of space junk floating around that could easily destroy a satellite in a collision (nothing really floats in space, it’s all moving at several thousands of miles an hour!) but radiation from solar flares could also easily annihilate it’s electronics.
Weather:
Kind of obvious, flooding, high winds, extreme high/low temperatures; not only directly but anything that might paralyse essential maintenance services.
Cyber Attack:
Cyber Warfare is already happening, China especially are targeting Western infrastructures and may possibly already have a method of disabling key areas of our communications system.
Terrorism:
Terrorist organisations could target communications networks in order to gain notoriety or interfere with emergency operations.
Pandemic:
The whole of civilisation could crumble on this one, but nationally it becomes even more acute. Consider 10% of the workforce across the board are off sick, that includes managers, supervisors, delivery drivers (in particular tankers to deliver fuel) farmers, police, doctors, nurses, emergency personnel, air traffic control and the administration staff that do the shed load of paperwork involved with all of it, and also engineers servicing & maintaining all this technological marvelry including the communications network. At first 10% doesn’t sound a lot and we could easily cope for a week or two, but how about a month, or even six? And what if the working populous off sick was fifteen percent, or twenty?
Political Red Tape:
Health and Safety, Political Correctness, ethnic integration over skills based employment all pose a threat for reasons that defy logic.
Economic Decline:
All this stuff costs a fortune to keep running let alone improve, so with dwindling resources companies will inevitably struggle to provide an effective service
In time I believe we will be protecting ourselves from the expense and the possibility of being cut off by abandoning third party utility providers for a simpler solution. What that will be who knows, maybe there’s a niche there?
So I can’t solve my internet problem, because it’s not my problem.
Ironically as I’ve been typing this, Orange, who provide my mobile phone service, have barred my phone!
• Germany overtaken in list of top trading nations
• Chinese economy on track to grow by 9.5% in 2010
“China completed a resurgent 2009 with a huge rise in exports establishing China as the world’s biggest exporter, ahead of Germany, for the first time. The juggernaut Chinese economy also revealed record monthly imports of crude oil and a vast renewed appetite for iron ore and copper.
Trade in December, according to figures from China’s customs office, showed a massive 17.7% year-on-year jump in exports, dramatically outpacing a forecast for 4% growth. The huge increase came after 13 months of decline.
Crude oil imports averaged more than 5m barrels a day for a month for the first time in December, up by more than a fifth from November, as the country sucked in raw materials at a faster pace than expected.
Imports jumped by 56%, pushing China’s overall trade surplus in the month down by 4% from November instead of the expected 3% increase.
While some experts said much of the increase was due to seasonal factors and quirks in commodities markets, it appears that the strength of demand from China is signalling a further rise in global trade during 2010.
Imports of unwrought copper rose by more than a quarter from November to 369,368 tonnes, more than expected, while copper scrap imports jumped an even bigger 46%. Soya bean imports hit a record 4.78m tonnes in the month, with a surge in supplies from the United States and Brazil. Exports of aluminium and finished steel were also up strongly. China’s economy is predicted to grow 9.5% in 2010, topping last year’s expected figure.
The figure will be welcomed by business leaders who argue that China needs to shrug off the effects of the downturn if global trade is to recover. China is widely seen as a key engine of growth, especially as the US economy remains in the doldrums, with rising unemployment and many of its major manufacturing industries still badly hit.
However, the increased consumption of raw materials is likely to fuel criticism that China is failing to meet its environmental obligations. A dash for growth is seen as incompatible with the need to minimise burning fossil fuels and felling rainforests. Open-cast copper mining and soya bean farming on previously protected rainforest, have been top of environmental concerns for several years.
The development research centre of the state council, a leading thinktank, said China’s economy would remain robust as market-driven investment picked up while government-led stimulus spending slowed. It said real estate investment would buoy growth, while inflationary concerns remained mild.
China is understood to have bought oil contracts in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries to secure oil Âsupplies ahead of a boom in Âmanufacturing. US and Brazilian farmers are also understood to be ready to increase supplies of Soya beans as domestic demand from the meat industry, which uses soya beans as a feedstuff, soars to record levels.
Adding to Âenvironmental concerns, China’s steel mills undertook a massive production drive in 2009, partly in response to a $585bn government stimulus plan. ÂDisregarding a 60% collapse in the export market, they produced almost half the world’s steel in 2009.”
This is in today’s Guardian, 15 years ago I once said in a conversation about politics that we needed to beware of China in the future, I was laughed at!
Today the south was hit by snow bigtime, 16 inches in places we however had barely 1 inch. But it snowed all day but was thawing as fast as it was falling so no real accumulation except in the odd sheltered spot. As the temp dropped it continued to snow and settle but it wasn’t heavy and then soon stopped, how crap. -2 outside now so all slush has gone crusty with a thin layer of snow over, wierd. So I rang work in the morning anticipating chaos trying to get in and told them I would work from home on the code emailed the day before. I dug out my development board, eventually found the serial lead. Dwonloaded the software and off I went…trying to write code to the micro, no chance, everything else worked fine, it compiled no problem, the software eventually found the dev board on the serial port and it seemed to write but came up with some odd error message which did my head in for 2 hours so I went to Maplins to buy a new Microcontroller, but they didnt have any, web only! Sod ’em. Im now getting quite bored writing this so I feel sorry for anyone reading it, so I’ll do us both a favour and bog off to bed…night.
Image: ESA,HFI and LFI consortia
