You might not think that something called "Restless Leg Syndrome" (RLS) is all that serious, but for those of us that suffer from it, it is a major pain in the... well, the leg.
If I don't get to sleep early enough, I risk lying awake with RLS, wanting to rip my leg off and beat it against the wall. This basically means a night with really, really crappy sleep, which everyone can agree is miserable.
So when adverts come on the TV for things that I have (or think I have, as my wife points out), I pay attention. I'm not happy that I'm paying more and more attention to these adverts as I age, but that's another post about sampling frequency...
There is a product called Requip by GlaxoSmithKlein for treatment of RLS, and one of the side effects quickly stated at the end of the TV advert really caught my attention: "Also tell your doctor if you or your family notices that you develop any unusual impulses or behaviors, such as pathological gambling or hypersexuality," and later: "Most patients were not bothered enough to stop taking Requip."
Duh. Of course I'm not going to be bothered enough if I have pathological needs for gambling and sex.
Hmm. I think I'll stick with beating my leg against the wall, thanks.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Summoning Angels
While I was at college, I lived in a dorm where most of the beds were elevated on A-frames to within a couple of feet of the ceiling. This was done to allow more space within rooms, since they were quite small to start with. One night, during my freshman year, I fell asleep in my bed while my room-mate worked at his desk, tucked below his bed at his desk on the opposite side of the room.
I remember dreaming that I had found a very old piece of vellum with what appeared to be an Enochian Chant written on it. These chants were used in the Middle Ages to summon angels, and are beautiful pieces of vocal composition. I began to sing the chant (confirming that this was a dream, because I cannot read music, much less hold a tune). When I got to the end, I was disturbed to find that I had just sung the chant to summon Lucifer.
Sometime later, I was lying on my stomach awake in the dark, and I felt something approaching. When I picked up my head and looked, a great big bat landed on my face! With a start, I woke from that dream, to find myself back at in my room, with my room-mate's desk light still on, but with him nowhere to be found. Instead, sitting on the end of my bunk bed was a very old, wrinkled man, who held out a bony, freckled hand. He said, quite pleasantly, "Shake the hand of Satan."
I watched with amazement as my hand moved out to grasp his -- without my being able to stop it. And then it was all gone, and I woke up the next morning. I asked my room-mate whether he had noticed anything strange the night before, and when he replied that nothing had happened, I explained my dreams. He told me he had not left the room at all, and had gone to bed quite soon after I had last spoken to him, turning out his light.
I tried to convince myself that this had all meant nothing, but I did spend the next days wondering about that handshake. I had a very creepy feeling that I had just done something that would not do me very well in the near future. Luckily, nothing did happen, and I was able to file this event away under "strange (nested) dreams," but I often wonder what would have happened to me mentally had some other strange chance occurrence come to pass while I was affected.
Should I ever find out that such an Enochian Chant exists, I will be sure never to read it.
I remember dreaming that I had found a very old piece of vellum with what appeared to be an Enochian Chant written on it. These chants were used in the Middle Ages to summon angels, and are beautiful pieces of vocal composition. I began to sing the chant (confirming that this was a dream, because I cannot read music, much less hold a tune). When I got to the end, I was disturbed to find that I had just sung the chant to summon Lucifer.
Sometime later, I was lying on my stomach awake in the dark, and I felt something approaching. When I picked up my head and looked, a great big bat landed on my face! With a start, I woke from that dream, to find myself back at in my room, with my room-mate's desk light still on, but with him nowhere to be found. Instead, sitting on the end of my bunk bed was a very old, wrinkled man, who held out a bony, freckled hand. He said, quite pleasantly, "Shake the hand of Satan."
I watched with amazement as my hand moved out to grasp his -- without my being able to stop it. And then it was all gone, and I woke up the next morning. I asked my room-mate whether he had noticed anything strange the night before, and when he replied that nothing had happened, I explained my dreams. He told me he had not left the room at all, and had gone to bed quite soon after I had last spoken to him, turning out his light.
I tried to convince myself that this had all meant nothing, but I did spend the next days wondering about that handshake. I had a very creepy feeling that I had just done something that would not do me very well in the near future. Luckily, nothing did happen, and I was able to file this event away under "strange (nested) dreams," but I often wonder what would have happened to me mentally had some other strange chance occurrence come to pass while I was affected.
Should I ever find out that such an Enochian Chant exists, I will be sure never to read it.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
30 years ago today
Bill Gates could still smile, despite a rough day:
The reason for this third run-in with the law in New Mexico are not clear, as all records of this particular arrest have been lost.
The world could have been very different, very different.
The reason for this third run-in with the law in New Mexico are not clear, as all records of this particular arrest have been lost.
The world could have been very different, very different.
Saturday, December 08, 2007
Metrology
Earlier this year I went to a meeting at the OAS about metrology.
Metrology? Yaaaawn. Isn't the definition of units settled? Isn't that something you do in grade school?
Well, yes, and no. The study of units (metrology) mostly has to do with commerce - just as it did over two millennia ago when rulers wanted to ensure that merchants were measuring properly (and probably the motivation was not to protect the customer, but to ensure proper payment of taxes).
When you buy a thermometer, you'd like to know that it was accurate, right? Not taking your child to the hospital for an actual fever of 105 when it shows up as 103 on your thermometer could have serious repercussions. And these serious errors are out there: most thermometers in the world are made in (surprise, surprise) China. In a recent test carried out by the Uruguayan metrology lab, over 20% of the 120,000 annually imported thermometers for home use were found to be seriously defective. Similar failure rates were found for sphigmomanometers and other medical measuring equipment. (Source: Alexis Valquis, German Federal Technical and Physical Institute, PTB)
There are also cases where mismatches between standards can have large economic repercussions. The market for Canadian white paper is about $5 billion/year, with a great deal of this being in the European market. However, the North American and European 'standards' for paper 'brightness' differed by 0.5% to 1% on the same papers, and this implied an extra annual cost in bleach to Canadian mills of about $65 million to meet the European 'standard.' An intercomparison and recalibration removed the problem, which was completely artificial.
Even when you decide to use a standard from which to measure, you have to make sure you are using a common standard, since there are many different 'standards' out there. On building a bridge over the Rhine between Germany and Switzerland at Laufenberg, construction was almost finished when both sides realized there was a 54 cm height mismatch between the sides. They had known there was a 27 cm difference between the national standards, because the Swiss used the Trieste sealevel standard, while the Germans used the Amsterdam standard. However, since 54 = 27 x 2, someone forgot to check which one was actually higher than the other, and the corrections were applied in the wrong direction. You would think that two countries with such careful engineers would have caught this before it became a really expensive fix. (Source: Swiss Government website (in German))
Here's a good example of where you might be concerned (besides driving over a bridge where the sides didn't match): the amount of lead in wine. Samples from the same batch of wine were sent to labs all over the world, and the labs were asked to measure how much lead (Pb) was in the sample. Here's the spread in the reported results:
The stunning part of this is that the 10% spread is the narrow grey line, and the actual spread is well over 50%. The good news is that the national labs responsible for most of our safety got it right to within the 10% band. (Source: J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2001, 16, 1091–1100, DOI: 10.1039/b103248h)
But what do you do if the 'standard' is actually changing? Incredibly, this is actually happening to the kilogram. As you might expect, for a long time the standard has been an actual physical object: a platinum and iridium cylinder cast in 1889 that is kept under high security at BIPM in Paris, along with six official copies (image below). Along with the original, many duplicates were made, which were shipped off to many countries existing at the time for them to use as their national references. The availability of many duplicates allows some sophisticated statistical studies, and they have allowed the rather odd conclusion to be drawn that, despite the security, it can be reliably demonstrated that this cylinder has lost about 50 micrograms over its lifetime. This change may seem small, but it has huge implications for the metric system, since there are many other derived units which depend on the base unit of the kilogram. There are all sorts of efforts underway to define the kilogram using physics rather than a physical object, as has been done with the meter (the meter is now how far light travels in 1/299,792,458 of a second, rather than the distance between two marks on a 'reference stick' kept in Paris). There is currently a struggle between two camps: one which wants to generate a new object - an ultraprecise sphere of ultrapure silicon, and the other which wants to simply agree on a specific number of Carbon-12 atoms (Source: Eurekalert article).
Another point about the metric system - there are three countries that have failed to convert: Liberia, Myanmar and the good old US of A. Good company to keep. And how do these countries define their own standards in these older units? They refer to the metric system standards, of course.
Metrology? Yaaaawn. Isn't the definition of units settled? Isn't that something you do in grade school?
Well, yes, and no. The study of units (metrology) mostly has to do with commerce - just as it did over two millennia ago when rulers wanted to ensure that merchants were measuring properly (and probably the motivation was not to protect the customer, but to ensure proper payment of taxes).
When you buy a thermometer, you'd like to know that it was accurate, right? Not taking your child to the hospital for an actual fever of 105 when it shows up as 103 on your thermometer could have serious repercussions. And these serious errors are out there: most thermometers in the world are made in (surprise, surprise) China. In a recent test carried out by the Uruguayan metrology lab, over 20% of the 120,000 annually imported thermometers for home use were found to be seriously defective. Similar failure rates were found for sphigmomanometers and other medical measuring equipment. (Source: Alexis Valquis, German Federal Technical and Physical Institute, PTB)
There are also cases where mismatches between standards can have large economic repercussions. The market for Canadian white paper is about $5 billion/year, with a great deal of this being in the European market. However, the North American and European 'standards' for paper 'brightness' differed by 0.5% to 1% on the same papers, and this implied an extra annual cost in bleach to Canadian mills of about $65 million to meet the European 'standard.' An intercomparison and recalibration removed the problem, which was completely artificial.
Even when you decide to use a standard from which to measure, you have to make sure you are using a common standard, since there are many different 'standards' out there. On building a bridge over the Rhine between Germany and Switzerland at Laufenberg, construction was almost finished when both sides realized there was a 54 cm height mismatch between the sides. They had known there was a 27 cm difference between the national standards, because the Swiss used the Trieste sealevel standard, while the Germans used the Amsterdam standard. However, since 54 = 27 x 2, someone forgot to check which one was actually higher than the other, and the corrections were applied in the wrong direction. You would think that two countries with such careful engineers would have caught this before it became a really expensive fix. (Source: Swiss Government website (in German))
Here's a good example of where you might be concerned (besides driving over a bridge where the sides didn't match): the amount of lead in wine. Samples from the same batch of wine were sent to labs all over the world, and the labs were asked to measure how much lead (Pb) was in the sample. Here's the spread in the reported results:
The stunning part of this is that the 10% spread is the narrow grey line, and the actual spread is well over 50%. The good news is that the national labs responsible for most of our safety got it right to within the 10% band. (Source: J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2001, 16, 1091–1100, DOI: 10.1039/b103248h)
But what do you do if the 'standard' is actually changing? Incredibly, this is actually happening to the kilogram. As you might expect, for a long time the standard has been an actual physical object: a platinum and iridium cylinder cast in 1889 that is kept under high security at BIPM in Paris, along with six official copies (image below). Along with the original, many duplicates were made, which were shipped off to many countries existing at the time for them to use as their national references. The availability of many duplicates allows some sophisticated statistical studies, and they have allowed the rather odd conclusion to be drawn that, despite the security, it can be reliably demonstrated that this cylinder has lost about 50 micrograms over its lifetime. This change may seem small, but it has huge implications for the metric system, since there are many other derived units which depend on the base unit of the kilogram. There are all sorts of efforts underway to define the kilogram using physics rather than a physical object, as has been done with the meter (the meter is now how far light travels in 1/299,792,458 of a second, rather than the distance between two marks on a 'reference stick' kept in Paris). There is currently a struggle between two camps: one which wants to generate a new object - an ultraprecise sphere of ultrapure silicon, and the other which wants to simply agree on a specific number of Carbon-12 atoms (Source: Eurekalert article).
Another point about the metric system - there are three countries that have failed to convert: Liberia, Myanmar and the good old US of A. Good company to keep. And how do these countries define their own standards in these older units? They refer to the metric system standards, of course.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
The Cactus Ball:
My wife and I walked into the grand ballroom: parquet floors gleamed under candle-laden chandeliers, white panelled walls reached high up to the ceiling. There were a few guests, but the floor was mostly occupied by... cacti.
Some of these succulents were quite tall, reaching up to our shoulders. Most were shorter, about waist high, and there were some about knee high. Most were of the columnar type. We did not spot any chollas or prickly pears. As we looked more carefully, we noticed that there were no pots. All of the cacti were in fact sitting directly on the floor, and they had no roots at all. Small buds were present at their bases, keeping them upright.
Stranger still, as we stared at this strange promenade, we noticed that the cacti were moving very, very, slowly: a stiff, prickly procession around the centre of the elegant room. It was a cactus ball.
The opposite doors opened, and we made our way through the creeping green and grey crowd towards the next room, eager to see what was next. But just as we approached the threshold, a wind started to blow, and all the candles went out at once. A dim green glow came from the ceiling, which was covered with glow-in-the-dark stars. The wind blew harder and harder, and we could see the chandeliers swinging as the air rushed around and around, like a tornado in a box. Soon, it was hard to stand, and I began to worry that we would not be able to hang on. The cacti were still stolidly moving, implacably orbiting, immune to the tempest.
Suddenly, we lost our grip, and the wind picked us up and began to push us backwards around the room. As we began to go faster, I worried that we would eventually encounter one of the cacti, and I did not look forward to a back full of spines. Of course, that encounter immediately occurred, and I shuddered as I felt the impact. Then another, and another, as we were whirled mercilessly through the needled forest.
And just as suddenly, the wind was gone, the candles came back up, and the doors flew open, and more guests came in at a frenetic speed. People swarmed about, moving at breakneck pace, darting here and there, as if on fast forward. I tried to speak, to look about for my wife, but I couldn't. I was now one of the cacti.
Some of these succulents were quite tall, reaching up to our shoulders. Most were shorter, about waist high, and there were some about knee high. Most were of the columnar type. We did not spot any chollas or prickly pears. As we looked more carefully, we noticed that there were no pots. All of the cacti were in fact sitting directly on the floor, and they had no roots at all. Small buds were present at their bases, keeping them upright.
Stranger still, as we stared at this strange promenade, we noticed that the cacti were moving very, very, slowly: a stiff, prickly procession around the centre of the elegant room. It was a cactus ball.
The opposite doors opened, and we made our way through the creeping green and grey crowd towards the next room, eager to see what was next. But just as we approached the threshold, a wind started to blow, and all the candles went out at once. A dim green glow came from the ceiling, which was covered with glow-in-the-dark stars. The wind blew harder and harder, and we could see the chandeliers swinging as the air rushed around and around, like a tornado in a box. Soon, it was hard to stand, and I began to worry that we would not be able to hang on. The cacti were still stolidly moving, implacably orbiting, immune to the tempest.
Suddenly, we lost our grip, and the wind picked us up and began to push us backwards around the room. As we began to go faster, I worried that we would eventually encounter one of the cacti, and I did not look forward to a back full of spines. Of course, that encounter immediately occurred, and I shuddered as I felt the impact. Then another, and another, as we were whirled mercilessly through the needled forest.
And just as suddenly, the wind was gone, the candles came back up, and the doors flew open, and more guests came in at a frenetic speed. People swarmed about, moving at breakneck pace, darting here and there, as if on fast forward. I tried to speak, to look about for my wife, but I couldn't. I was now one of the cacti.
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
La Cucaracha
Factoid for the day: cockroaches seem to have been morphologically stable since the Carboniferous, i.e. over the last 290 to 354 million years.
Modern cockroaches are more similar to their ancient fossil ancestors than any other extant insect - except they are a lot smaller. Some cockroaches from the Permian (about 250 million years ago) were over a foot long. Wouldn't want to step on that at night - it would go like a skateboard!
I haven't seen it in the movies, but most ships in history have had very serious cockroach problems because of the lack of predators. Captain Bligh had the Bounty doused with boiling water to deal with this. We have a cockroach problem at the South Pole's Scott Base in Antarctica for the same reason.
They were among the few creatures to make it through an ancient disaster event called the Permian-Triassic boundary, where 90% to 95% of marine species went extinct, as well as 70% of all land organisms. On an individual level, perhaps as many as 99.5% of separate organisms died as a result of the event. But cockroaches made it.
Other things that made it through and became more important as a result: mosses and worts, therapsids (where we come from), and bivalves.
Modern cockroaches are more similar to their ancient fossil ancestors than any other extant insect - except they are a lot smaller. Some cockroaches from the Permian (about 250 million years ago) were over a foot long. Wouldn't want to step on that at night - it would go like a skateboard!
I haven't seen it in the movies, but most ships in history have had very serious cockroach problems because of the lack of predators. Captain Bligh had the Bounty doused with boiling water to deal with this. We have a cockroach problem at the South Pole's Scott Base in Antarctica for the same reason.
They were among the few creatures to make it through an ancient disaster event called the Permian-Triassic boundary, where 90% to 95% of marine species went extinct, as well as 70% of all land organisms. On an individual level, perhaps as many as 99.5% of separate organisms died as a result of the event. But cockroaches made it.
Other things that made it through and became more important as a result: mosses and worts, therapsids (where we come from), and bivalves.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Leopard Applenaut
Here is an in-depth review of Apple's latest Operating System release, 10.5, or "Leopard" on Ars Technica, by John Siracusa.
Bottom line: I agree with Siracusa that the upgrade is well worth it, for the backup features of Time Machine alone. Screen Sharing for remote troubleshooting is also a great bonus. As Siracusa puts it:
I have not installed Leopard yet on our iMac G5... that one gives me the jitters to do - it's a first generation iMac PowerPC chip machine that occasionally chokes on 10.4.10 Tiger, but I imagine the later iMacs will do just fine. I will take that step tonight with the knowledge that at least I do have pre-upgrade full backups of every one of these machines on a whopping big 1 Terabyte hard disk I carry around in my backpack... that disk will now settle down to a more mundane existence as the iMac's Time Machine external hard drive.
The lesson in spades: do a backup right now, for God's sake! I'm glad that my wife's business made me actually take that seriously, and set up a routine to capture all the 'mission-critical' files and applications.
Bottom line: I agree with Siracusa that the upgrade is well worth it, for the backup features of Time Machine alone. Screen Sharing for remote troubleshooting is also a great bonus. As Siracusa puts it:
If you are your family's "Mac Guy," the newfound ubiquitousness on screen sharing alone is reason enough to get everyone to upgrade to Leopard.I have installed Leopard on my:
- big machine (a MacPro Intel DualCore, amazingly fast, no problems);
- on my wife's laptop (iBook G4, required an "Archive and Install," occasional freezes on wake-up now); and
- on my PowerBook G4 (BIG problems because my hard drive was near full before the upgrade, resulting in the "Blue Screen" after restart, eventually I had to erase everything and do a completely clean install, and then reinstall all my files and non-Apple software [gee, now where are the original CDs and the licence codes for all this??]).
I have not installed Leopard yet on our iMac G5... that one gives me the jitters to do - it's a first generation iMac PowerPC chip machine that occasionally chokes on 10.4.10 Tiger, but I imagine the later iMacs will do just fine. I will take that step tonight with the knowledge that at least I do have pre-upgrade full backups of every one of these machines on a whopping big 1 Terabyte hard disk I carry around in my backpack... that disk will now settle down to a more mundane existence as the iMac's Time Machine external hard drive.
The lesson in spades: do a backup right now, for God's sake! I'm glad that my wife's business made me actually take that seriously, and set up a routine to capture all the 'mission-critical' files and applications.
Monday, October 22, 2007
Snap it!
A friend of mine writes a weekly column for the San Antonio Express-News.
This week he posted a good, brief article about how digital photography has revolutionized the ability of the general public to take professional quality photos. Not that a digital camera will make you an instant Ansel Adams, but that digital tools bring this type of quality within your reach without the monumental effort it took in the analog age to produce the ethereal beauty of Ansel Adams' pictures.
His point was illustrated beautifully by a photo taken by Andrea Ottesen, at the University of Maryland, with a simple Canon ELPH 7 Mpixel camera, which made it onto the most recent cover of AAAS's Science magazine:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/317/5846/1858
This week he posted a good, brief article about how digital photography has revolutionized the ability of the general public to take professional quality photos. Not that a digital camera will make you an instant Ansel Adams, but that digital tools bring this type of quality within your reach without the monumental effort it took in the analog age to produce the ethereal beauty of Ansel Adams' pictures.
His point was illustrated beautifully by a photo taken by Andrea Ottesen, at the University of Maryland, with a simple Canon ELPH 7 Mpixel camera, which made it onto the most recent cover of AAAS's Science magazine:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/317/5846/1858
Thursday, October 04, 2007
Sputnik 1 +50
The Space Age began fifty years ago today, but those involved at the time had little idea of how significant the event was to be.
Both the Russian and American teams involved in rocketry at the time were consumed by one overarching goal: to develop an ICBM capable of delivering an atomic bomb to enemy territory. The idea of orbiting a satellite was completely secondary, and the public reaction to the launch of Sputnik 1 by the Russians took both teams by surprise (listen to Sputnik 1).
In fact, the idea of orbiting something was only barely tolerated by the military commands in both countries. The declaration of the International Geophysical Year (IGY) for 1957-1958 was the event that stimulated sufficient political interest in the gains of being first, and was what permitted the orbital programs to go ahead.
(Click on any of the graphics to go to a page with a larger version.)
After the fall of Nazi Germany, both the USA and the USSR took as much of the V-2 rocket program home with them as they could. The USA got the cream of the crop from the test range at Peenemuende: Wernher von Braun and most of his designers, while the Soviets took much of the hardware and plans from the East at Mittelwerke, as well as von Braun's assistant, Helmut Groettrup. The photo shows the Soviet-built rocket R-2A, clearly showing its V-2 heritage, and probably composed of many parts brought from Germany. This was the first methyl alcohol fueled rocket, changed from the V-2 and R-1 ethyl alcohol motor (one reason for this shift was said to be to stop the guards from stealing the ethyl fuel to drink). The R-2A variant was used for science, rather than the military version which carried a radiological liquid dispersal weapon known as Geran. The R-2 was also the first rocket technology exported to China by the Soviets, and formed the basis of the Chinese Long March program, combined with the information from the deported US researcher and JPL co-founder Tsien Hsue-shen.
This is the "Chief Designer," Sergei Korolev, lionized posthumously by the Soviets as the father of the early successes in the Soviet space program, at the Kapustin Yar launch site in 1953. Having suffered for many years in a Siberian Gulag during Stalin's Great Terror, he was rescuscitated in the late 1940's and held great sway in the Soviet space effort until changes in the Politburo and disputes with the military led to the ascendancy of his arch-rivals, Valentin Glushko and Vladimir Chelomei. Today's Russian rocket fleet owe a great debt to the efforts of these engineers: the Soyuz to Korolev via the R-series, the Proton to Chelomei via the UR-series, and the efforts of Glushko, who provided engine designs for both families of rockets. Only with the lifting of secrecy in Russia have the efforts of the many many people involved in the program come to light, allowing many others to claim credit for their work. Korolev died early, and was never publicly recognized for his efforts.
Close-up of the 80cm aluminum alloy spherical portion of Sputnik 1. The four antennae were actually two sets of two, differing in length by a few centimeters, probably to accommodate the more efficient radiation of the two frequencies used by the on-board radio transmitter. Sputnik 1 was actually a rush job, prepared within one month because the original payloads for the R-7 were way behind schedule. The Sputnik was scoffed at by many as "Korolev's toy." The original scientific IGY payload was eventually launched as Sputnik 3.
This shot shows the scale of Sputnik as it was covered with the fairing cone of the R-7 rocket.
Frame grab from a Soviet animation of the separation of the fairing and the launch of Sputnik 1 from the booster. The small fairing can be seen on the second rocket from the left in the diagram of the multiple boosters that came from the R-7 line:
This graphic shows the evolution of the boosters from Korolev's design bureau. The R-7 was the first ICBM, launched on August 21 1957, virtually unnoticed by the world. It was at this point that the rocket lifting power (or throw weight) was sufficiently high, and the weight of the latest nuclear weapons had been decreased enough for the two to form an effective weapon and delivery system. The Vostok and Voskhod boosters carried the first man in orbit, as well as the first multiple-man crew capsules. The modern Soyuz system has clear design lines reaching back to the earliest of the R-series, and this heritage is part of the reason for the system's extremely high success rate (760 launches to date with 740 successes, per Space Launch Report), as well as its extremely low cost.
A mosaic in the main hall at the Korolev Control Centre in Moscow, showing the 'Holy Trinity' of Soviet space efforts: On the left, Konstantin Tsiolkovskiy, inventor of modern rocket theory; on the right, Chief Designer Sergei Korolev; and in the centre, Yuri Gagarin, first man in space. Spectator is Mohammed Masri, from Saudi Arabia.
As Boris Chertok, one of Korolev's deputy designers, noted in a BBC interview, if it had not been for the cold war, the space race would never had occurred, and the space age would have started much later.
One other interesting feature of the Soviet first was that since the US did not object to the passage of a foreign capsule crossing over its territory, this established the principle of international uses of outer space. However a skeptic might observe that the US Corona and Midas spy satellite programs were well into their design stages, and overflight of enemy territory was a necessary condition for this first remote sensing spy program to work. In fact, this space overflight principle probably kept the Cold War from becoming 'hot' at many different points in the subsequent decades because of the ability of both powers to monitor and verify each other's treaty commitments.
Both the Russian and American teams involved in rocketry at the time were consumed by one overarching goal: to develop an ICBM capable of delivering an atomic bomb to enemy territory. The idea of orbiting a satellite was completely secondary, and the public reaction to the launch of Sputnik 1 by the Russians took both teams by surprise (listen to Sputnik 1).
In fact, the idea of orbiting something was only barely tolerated by the military commands in both countries. The declaration of the International Geophysical Year (IGY) for 1957-1958 was the event that stimulated sufficient political interest in the gains of being first, and was what permitted the orbital programs to go ahead.
(Click on any of the graphics to go to a page with a larger version.)
After the fall of Nazi Germany, both the USA and the USSR took as much of the V-2 rocket program home with them as they could. The USA got the cream of the crop from the test range at Peenemuende: Wernher von Braun and most of his designers, while the Soviets took much of the hardware and plans from the East at Mittelwerke, as well as von Braun's assistant, Helmut Groettrup. The photo shows the Soviet-built rocket R-2A, clearly showing its V-2 heritage, and probably composed of many parts brought from Germany. This was the first methyl alcohol fueled rocket, changed from the V-2 and R-1 ethyl alcohol motor (one reason for this shift was said to be to stop the guards from stealing the ethyl fuel to drink). The R-2A variant was used for science, rather than the military version which carried a radiological liquid dispersal weapon known as Geran. The R-2 was also the first rocket technology exported to China by the Soviets, and formed the basis of the Chinese Long March program, combined with the information from the deported US researcher and JPL co-founder Tsien Hsue-shen.
This is the "Chief Designer," Sergei Korolev, lionized posthumously by the Soviets as the father of the early successes in the Soviet space program, at the Kapustin Yar launch site in 1953. Having suffered for many years in a Siberian Gulag during Stalin's Great Terror, he was rescuscitated in the late 1940's and held great sway in the Soviet space effort until changes in the Politburo and disputes with the military led to the ascendancy of his arch-rivals, Valentin Glushko and Vladimir Chelomei. Today's Russian rocket fleet owe a great debt to the efforts of these engineers: the Soyuz to Korolev via the R-series, the Proton to Chelomei via the UR-series, and the efforts of Glushko, who provided engine designs for both families of rockets. Only with the lifting of secrecy in Russia have the efforts of the many many people involved in the program come to light, allowing many others to claim credit for their work. Korolev died early, and was never publicly recognized for his efforts.
Close-up of the 80cm aluminum alloy spherical portion of Sputnik 1. The four antennae were actually two sets of two, differing in length by a few centimeters, probably to accommodate the more efficient radiation of the two frequencies used by the on-board radio transmitter. Sputnik 1 was actually a rush job, prepared within one month because the original payloads for the R-7 were way behind schedule. The Sputnik was scoffed at by many as "Korolev's toy." The original scientific IGY payload was eventually launched as Sputnik 3.
This shot shows the scale of Sputnik as it was covered with the fairing cone of the R-7 rocket.
Frame grab from a Soviet animation of the separation of the fairing and the launch of Sputnik 1 from the booster. The small fairing can be seen on the second rocket from the left in the diagram of the multiple boosters that came from the R-7 line:
This graphic shows the evolution of the boosters from Korolev's design bureau. The R-7 was the first ICBM, launched on August 21 1957, virtually unnoticed by the world. It was at this point that the rocket lifting power (or throw weight) was sufficiently high, and the weight of the latest nuclear weapons had been decreased enough for the two to form an effective weapon and delivery system. The Vostok and Voskhod boosters carried the first man in orbit, as well as the first multiple-man crew capsules. The modern Soyuz system has clear design lines reaching back to the earliest of the R-series, and this heritage is part of the reason for the system's extremely high success rate (760 launches to date with 740 successes, per Space Launch Report), as well as its extremely low cost.
A mosaic in the main hall at the Korolev Control Centre in Moscow, showing the 'Holy Trinity' of Soviet space efforts: On the left, Konstantin Tsiolkovskiy, inventor of modern rocket theory; on the right, Chief Designer Sergei Korolev; and in the centre, Yuri Gagarin, first man in space. Spectator is Mohammed Masri, from Saudi Arabia.As Boris Chertok, one of Korolev's deputy designers, noted in a BBC interview, if it had not been for the cold war, the space race would never had occurred, and the space age would have started much later.
One other interesting feature of the Soviet first was that since the US did not object to the passage of a foreign capsule crossing over its territory, this established the principle of international uses of outer space. However a skeptic might observe that the US Corona and Midas spy satellite programs were well into their design stages, and overflight of enemy territory was a necessary condition for this first remote sensing spy program to work. In fact, this space overflight principle probably kept the Cold War from becoming 'hot' at many different points in the subsequent decades because of the ability of both powers to monitor and verify each other's treaty commitments.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Nicks and Dings:
Here's what all the fuss was about - the ding in Endeavour's belly from the ET foam strike:
The inspection of Endeavour on the KSC runway has just started.
You might ask: "How could a piece of foam do this much damage? Aren't those tiles tough?" I answered that (with a little help from a Nobel laureate) for the Columbia disaster.
The inspection of Endeavour on the KSC runway has just started.
You might ask: "How could a piece of foam do this much damage? Aren't those tiles tough?" I answered that (with a little help from a Nobel laureate) for the Columbia disaster.
Shuttle HUD views
The recent NASA TV coverage of Endeavour's landing at KSC included some live views through the heads-up display system that I had not seen before.
Here are four frame grabs from the footage that provide a nice sample of the coverage. Pay close attention to the hair raising (at least for a VFR pilot) angle of descent...
Last turn of the shuttle aligning with runway centerline.
Runway in view.
Yikes! That is damned steep. My instinct simply screams "Too high! Too high! Where the hell is the VASI?" Heh.
Final flare started, wind from the left at about 10 kts.
Here are four frame grabs from the footage that provide a nice sample of the coverage. Pay close attention to the hair raising (at least for a VFR pilot) angle of descent...
Last turn of the shuttle aligning with runway centerline.
Runway in view.
Yikes! That is damned steep. My instinct simply screams "Too high! Too high! Where the hell is the VASI?" Heh.
Final flare started, wind from the left at about 10 kts.
Friday, July 20, 2007
Mail from "Wyatt Herb"
Another sample from my daily e-mails. I think this one's serious:
So there you go. Free advertising to an enterprising fellow.
"WYATT HERB"
Hi!
My name is Manu Costa, specialist in products of information on data set from tropical rainforests, skilled with wide range of expertise. I can assure you I am capable of climb up all dominat vegetables canopy, reaching over the reflective tree foliage, installing and enabling GPS software devices to supply geodesic coordinates for tracking the expeditionary surface area.
The emergent high forest in most unlikely conditions of plant biodiversity portray complex phyto-architecture, allowing treetop exploration. This flexibility potential is indicated in:
Botany collecting of blossoming and tree fruits, for inventory and taxonomy purposes, bio-prospecting of new plants species, insects, among others;
Any field routine tasks on tropical rainforest's survey, which require reaching tree's crown.
Objectives: join multi-subject ecologist teams, explorer missions, filmmaker expeditions or any other group with scientific purposes. What can be offered: working experience, dedication, competence and determination on pursuing scientific objectives.
It will be excellent if you, who is now reading this article, keep this information for future needs or forward it to whom you judge it may suit. More information about the efficiency on such procedures or references (and resume) about work, upon your request.
Success!
Manu L. Costa (Manu de Lima e Costa [manulc@uol.com.br])
So there you go. Free advertising to an enterprising fellow.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Bored? Got a few moments?
Head over to the Galaxy Zoo and do some classifying!
Learn the difference between elliptical and spiral galaxies in a few minutes with an easy tutorial, take a test, and if you qualify you can start classifying galaxies in no time at all.
You will likely be looking at images seen by no other human, and contributing to a massive effort led by English researchers at Oxford University to classify over a million galaxies. There is apparently some evidence from a sample of about 1,600 galaxies that there is a locally preferred direction of rotation, and this effort will try and confirm or refute this with a much better statistical sample using images from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, which reaches out far beyond the local group.
You will get pretty good at it, and quickly amass several hundred galaxies.
Here are two typical samples:
...obviously a clockwise spiral.
Here's one that's a little more difficult:
...a little less obviously another clockwise spiral.
It can get difficult:
There are some cases, like this one, where the galaxy is so far away that the image is extremely low resolution, and there is really no way to tell.
Learn the difference between elliptical and spiral galaxies in a few minutes with an easy tutorial, take a test, and if you qualify you can start classifying galaxies in no time at all.
You will likely be looking at images seen by no other human, and contributing to a massive effort led by English researchers at Oxford University to classify over a million galaxies. There is apparently some evidence from a sample of about 1,600 galaxies that there is a locally preferred direction of rotation, and this effort will try and confirm or refute this with a much better statistical sample using images from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, which reaches out far beyond the local group.
You will get pretty good at it, and quickly amass several hundred galaxies.
Here are two typical samples:
...obviously a clockwise spiral.
Here's one that's a little more difficult:
...a little less obviously another clockwise spiral.
It can get difficult:
There are some cases, like this one, where the galaxy is so far away that the image is extremely low resolution, and there is really no way to tell.
Monday, July 16, 2007
Tumbleweed
...I did not know this until today, but that bouncing symbol of the West, the tumbleweed, is actually an invasive species, brought over to North America from its native Ukraine by European immigrants in the 1800's.
I didn't know it was edible when young, either.
I just know it's prickly, and really a pain to remove after someone fills up your car and your dorm room with it (a Caltech prank). I found bits of it for months after that...
I didn't know it was edible when young, either.
I just know it's prickly, and really a pain to remove after someone fills up your car and your dorm room with it (a Caltech prank). I found bits of it for months after that...
Saturday, June 30, 2007
But where's Vanna?
For those of you who are Wheel of Fortune fans, here is a little toy from fd's flickr toys, which picks out random flickr photos, and has you guess the title.
The faster you guess, the more points you get. And, it's played against any others who are online at the time.
It helps to know your geography, be observant, be a quick and accurate typist, and to guess a lot.
Have fun with it: Guess
The faster you guess, the more points you get. And, it's played against any others who are online at the time.
It helps to know your geography, be observant, be a quick and accurate typist, and to guess a lot.
Have fun with it: Guess
Friday, May 11, 2007
Political Science:
More nonsense about pencil-necked scientists from those savants on the Hill, via the American Institute of Physics' FYI listserv edition.
Discussing the reauthorization bill (H.R. 1867) for the National Science Foundation, there were several attempts at amendments to limit the increase in the budgets for the NSF or to at least limit the areas in which NSF was allowed to invest taxpayer moneys:
Sigh. Echoes of "why do we need NOAA? We have the Weather Channel to do that."
Ranking Member Vernon Ehlers (R-MI-3) is a Ph.D. physicist, one of only two Members of Congress with scientific degrees.
Rep. Brian Baird (D-WA-3) is the House Subcommittee on Research and Science Education Chairman.
Discussing the reauthorization bill (H.R. 1867) for the National Science Foundation, there were several attempts at amendments to limit the increase in the budgets for the NSF or to at least limit the areas in which NSF was allowed to invest taxpayer moneys:
There was far more discussion about an amendment offered by Rep. John Campbell (R-CA-48): "None of the funds authorized under this section may be used for research related to seven activities such as "the accuracy in the cross-cultural understanding of others' emotions" or "archives of Andean Knotted-Sting Records." Said Campbell: "What this amendment does is it says that there are certain things upon which we should not be spending money through this bill during this time of budget deficits, stealing Social Security funds, and increasing taxes." He added, "I understand that there is a process of peer review from which these studies come in the National Science Foundation, and that's all well and good. But our job here is we are the elected representatives and stewards of the taxpayers' money, not the academics in the National Science Foundation, and it is our decision whether or not we wish to spend taxpayers' funds on studies of the social relationships and reproductive strategies of Phayre's leaf monkeys or on bison hunting on the late prehistoric Great Plains. I think we should not do that. I am sure that some believe that these are very fine academic studies. That's excellent. Within the realms of academic halls, they may think a number of things are fine academic studies. That's not the question. The question before us is, do these things rise to the standard of requiring expenditures of taxpayer funds in a time of deficits, proposed tax increases and raiding Social Security funds? I think the answer is a resounding no."
Rep. Brian Baird (D-WA-3) immediately refuted the logic of the Campbell amendment, first quoting a letter from the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the similar position of the Association of American Universities. He then said, "the gentleman [Rep. Campbell] seems to suggest, it seems, that we here in the Congress, with a cursory evaluation of the abstracts from studies, should insert ourselves in the peer-review process. I wonder if the gentleman had looked at chemistry research or physics research in the same way, and do we really want to spend this body's time, and do you, sir, or you, sir, have the expertise to evaluate these studies? That's why we have a peer-review process. That's why we have a National Science Foundation. It is why we have a Science Foundation Board to direct us."
Rep. Vernon Ehlers (R-MI-3) outlined his opposition, telling his colleagues: "you can't always judge the full proposal by the title. This was evident a few years ago when we went through exactly the same charade when discussing the National Science Foundation budget. Some of my colleagues came down to the floor to amend the NSF appropriations bill, and one offered an amendment to remove grants for the study of ATM. This person gave a magnificent speech why we should not spend money at the National Science Foundation or the Department of Energy to study ATM. His argument was, let the banking industry do the research on ATMs. What he didn't know is that the proposal was not on automatic teller machines but the proposal was on studying asynchronous transfer modes, which involves the way computers talk to each other. This research led to a substantial change in the speed at which computers were able to talk to each other. This is a good example of why it is dangerous to just look at titles and make a judgment."
Sigh. Echoes of "why do we need NOAA? We have the Weather Channel to do that."
Ranking Member Vernon Ehlers (R-MI-3) is a Ph.D. physicist, one of only two Members of Congress with scientific degrees.
"Only two members of Congress hold doctorates in the sciences, both in physics: Rep. Vern Ehlers of Michigan ..., and Rep. Rush Holt [(D-NJ-12)] of New Jersey (leader of the congressional Science Coalition and former Congressional Science Fellow). Sadly, the House Science Committee and the Senate Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Space are not considered high profile committees and many of the members assigned to these committees have little expertise in the broad array of scientific issues that come before them, yet they are being asked to determine the direction and funding of federal science."(Michèle Koppes, 2004-2005 GSA-U.S. Geological Survey Congressional Science Fellow)
Rep. Brian Baird (D-WA-3) is the House Subcommittee on Research and Science Education Chairman.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Póngase las pilas!
A very useful primer on batteries, written by Isidor Buchmann, via Adam Goddard of the NewtonTalk list:
Battery University
Battery University
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
Jean Monnet & Robert Schuman:
Today is Europe Day. On this day in Paris in 1950, French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman laid the first plans for what was eventually to become today's EU. With his now-famous declaration, Schuman sketched the outlines of an initiative to consolidate the coal and steel industries of Europe, binding nations—and their principal war-making industries—so closely together that renewed war would be unthinkable.
Jean Monnet was the diplomat who helped draft the declaration, and later became the first President of the European Coal and Steel Community, which would evolve to become the European Union.
Go ahead and read the declaration. Now substitute "gas and oil" for "coal and steel" and think of it in terms of the Middle East. Unfortunately, this is not a credible way out of the Middle Eastern mess for us (us being mankind, and not the U.S.).
Jean Monnet was the diplomat who helped draft the declaration, and later became the first President of the European Coal and Steel Community, which would evolve to become the European Union.
Go ahead and read the declaration. Now substitute "gas and oil" for "coal and steel" and think of it in terms of the Middle East. Unfortunately, this is not a credible way out of the Middle Eastern mess for us (us being mankind, and not the U.S.).
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Captain John Smith's Voyage of Discovery from an "Out of this World" Perspective
Fellow Code 600 Employees:
Several people have been asking about the Earth science gift that was presented to the Queen today by Dr. Colleen Hartman of NASA HQ during the Science on a Sphere portion of the Queen's visit.
Attached is a jpeg of the artwork, and below and attached is a written explanation of the content of the artwork. PAO has expressed plans to mass produce a poster of the artwork -- but that would probably be a couple of months down the road. The concept was conceived by me and the artistic interpretation/implementation was done by Ms. Laura Rocchio of SSAI, supporting the Landsat Science Office. The basic idea was to commemorate the 400th anniversary of John Smith's exploration by using three of NASA Goddard's Earth imaging sensors (MODIS, Landsat 7 ETM+ and EO-1) to tell the story of the expansive portion of the Earth that he traversed that year.
Sincerely,
Darrel Williams
Associate Chief, Hydrospheric and Biospheric Sciences Laboratory
and Landsat Project Scientist
Hmm. Give HRH the Queen a 'poster,' eh? Argh.
Several people have been asking about the Earth science gift that was presented to the Queen today by Dr. Colleen Hartman of NASA HQ during the Science on a Sphere portion of the Queen's visit.
Attached is a jpeg of the artwork, and below and attached is a written explanation of the content of the artwork. PAO has expressed plans to mass produce a poster of the artwork -- but that would probably be a couple of months down the road. The concept was conceived by me and the artistic interpretation/implementation was done by Ms. Laura Rocchio of SSAI, supporting the Landsat Science Office. The basic idea was to commemorate the 400th anniversary of John Smith's exploration by using three of NASA Goddard's Earth imaging sensors (MODIS, Landsat 7 ETM+ and EO-1) to tell the story of the expansive portion of the Earth that he traversed that year.
Sincerely,
Darrel Williams
Associate Chief, Hydrospheric and Biospheric Sciences Laboratory
and Landsat Project Scientist
On December 20, 1606, a group 105 men and boys plus 39 sailors set sail from London, bound for the shores of America, some 4828 kilometers (3000 miles) distant. After 144 days at sea, the three Virginia Company ships made landfall at Cape Henry, Virginia on April 26, 1607. The Company went on to establish Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in what eventually became the United States of America. In 1608, one of the sailors, Captain John Smith, embarked upon a three-month surveying expedition of North America's largest estuary, the Chesapeake Bay. With no map or sextant to guide him, Smith relied upon compass and astrolabe for navigation.
This poster celebrates the Virginia Company's long journey from London to Jamestown and Captain Smith's exploration of the Chesapeake Bay. The 400th anniversary of Smith's Voyage of Discovery is commemorated here using data from three of NASA's Earth imaging sensors.
A cloud-free image showing the North Atlantic Ocean, eastern North America, and western Europe and Africa, features Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data captured in July 2004. This serves as the body of the poster, and helps convey the expansive portion of Earth that John Smith and his cohort traversed in 1607.
A Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) image of the Chesapeake Bay region is featured in the center. The white line demarks the path of Captain Smith's Chesapeake expedition in a 10-meter long shallop. White crosses indicate locations where Smith and his small cadre of sailors nailed wooden crosses to trees, marking the farthest extent of their explorations.
The small circle on the upper right of the bay image features an Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) Advanced Land Imager (ALI) image of central London acquired on February 14, 2001. The opposite circle shows a corresponding image of Jamestown acquired on April 3, 2007.
The rhumb lines across the Atlantic Ocean and the engraving of Captain Smith over Africa are taken from Smith's 1616 map of New England, the first published map to name America's northeastern seaboard. A small image of the Susan Constant, the largest of the three Virginia Company ships, can be found near the Chesapeake Bay on the MODIS image.
Captain Smith would surely marvel at the present day map-making capabilities, illustrated here. Today, images such as these, and the data used to create them, are relied upon by many nations to better understand and manage the natural and cultural resources of our planet.
Hmm. Give HRH the Queen a 'poster,' eh? Argh.
Thursday, May 03, 2007
Farewell Wally:
Photo: NASA
- Navy
- Fifth American in space
- Only one to fly Mercury, Gemini and Apollo
- Mercury-Atlas 8 "Sigma 7"
- the corned beef sandwich smuggler
- w/ Stafford in Gemini 6A, held off ejection after ignition misfire
- "my name is Juan Jimenez - I yam astronau"
- Successful docking w/ Gemini 7, "The boring mission"
- made the "lowest bidder" remark
- UFO sighting - turned out to be St. Nick
- Apollo 7 was 'return to flight' after Chaffee, Grissom & White tragedy
- Winner of an Emmy
"I left Earth three times, and found no other place to go. ...Please take care of Spaceship Earth."http://www.wallyschirra.com/
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Chocolate teriyaki:
A post about a box of Macy's chocolates we received as a gift, the name of which has a long history going back to the early part of last century in Seattle.
The chocolates have long since been consumed, and I can vouch for their tastiness. However, I cannot vouch for the choice of name for the product.
Frango? Frango? Are they trying to conjure up mixtures of France and Mango? My Aunt Fran? Are they aware that "frango" is Portuguese for "chicken"?
Well, as usual, it turns out that there is a complicated story here, and that Macy's inherited the 'brand' which has a convoluted history in the Northwest and Midwestern USA. Wikipedia has a decent article on Frango.
It seems that what we ate was a box of Midwestern Frango.
You never know how much history you are chewing on at any one time, do you?
The chocolates have long since been consumed, and I can vouch for their tastiness. However, I cannot vouch for the choice of name for the product.
Frango? Frango? Are they trying to conjure up mixtures of France and Mango? My Aunt Fran? Are they aware that "frango" is Portuguese for "chicken"?
Well, as usual, it turns out that there is a complicated story here, and that Macy's inherited the 'brand' which has a convoluted history in the Northwest and Midwestern USA. Wikipedia has a decent article on Frango.
It seems that what we ate was a box of Midwestern Frango.
You never know how much history you are chewing on at any one time, do you?
Sunday, April 08, 2007
(not) Idle thoughts:
My prompt: "What people do when they are bored determines whether they will be great or not."
My son's response: "Do what should be done."
Us together, in the liverpudlian voices of the vultures in The Jungle Book: "Hmm. I dunno, whaddyou wanna do?"
My son's response: "Do what should be done."
Us together, in the liverpudlian voices of the vultures in The Jungle Book: "Hmm. I dunno, whaddyou wanna do?"
Saturday, March 03, 2007
Sky awareness alert:
Total lunar eclipse viewable from all continents this weekend.
What is moving - the Earth, its shadow, the Moon, or all three?
Extra bonus points:
How many of the following would you need to know to figure out how far it is to the sun by timing this eclipse?
- First penumbral contact 20:18 GMT (not visible in the Americas)
- Interior umbral contact 22:44 GMT (viewable in Eastern South America, Europe Africa & Asia)
- Greatest Eclipse 23:21 GMT (viewable at moonrise in Eastern North America)
- ...
- Last penumbral contact 02:24 GMT (not viewable in Eastern Asia & Australia)
What is moving - the Earth, its shadow, the Moon, or all three?
Extra bonus points:
How many of the following would you need to know to figure out how far it is to the sun by timing this eclipse?
- Mass of the Earth
- Mass of the Moon
- Mass of the Sun
- Diameter of the Earth
- Diameter of the Moon
- Diameter of the Sun
- Distance to the Moon
- Need more info
Friday, March 02, 2007
Deforestation:
A set of questions sent to me by a group of sixth grade students preparing an exhibit at one of the St. Clements' Schools in Edmonton, Canada:
1. What is deforestation?
Although there are some very technical definitions of this, the easiest one is simply to consider the removal, reduction, or change of naturally occurring vegetation as 'deforestation.'
2. Why does deforestation happen?
Deforestation can occur for many reasons, some of them natural, some of them man-made. Natural deforestation can occur when for example a natural climate change occurs, a water source is cut off (by landslide, by earthquake changing underwater flow etc.), or by shorter events like fires, or disease (e.g. bark beetles). Man-made events are things like clearing forests for cropland, acid rain, excessive use of groundwater, building of dams, and climate change caused by man's industrial activities.
3. How does deforestation affect animal life?
While you are probably most familiar with the negative effects (loss of habitat), you should also know that for other species it is actually positive. For example, for species that thrive at the edges of forests, having more edges is better, so they tend to do better. It's a very complicated question, and does not have a clear-cut answer, since it depends on what you want the final outcome to be. One interesting effect is that deforestation inland can cause large changes out at sea, because a lot of soil is released into rivers, which is then dumped in the ocean. The ocean around Haiti has been completely changed by the deforestation of the island for firewood, which has completely changed the quality of seawater in the coastal areas.
4. Does deforestation connect to pollution?
Sometimes yes, sometimes no. For instance, not all pollution will cause deforestation - the effects of increased CO2 are very complex, and it looks like some plants will do better than others (e.g. climbing vines, poison ivy will do very well). However, pollution from things like NOx and SO definitely change the landscape (the area around Sarnia, Ontario is a prime example of this). There is very little that will grow in the area besides hardy lichens, where there used to be mature stands of maple, beech and alder. One direct connection is that deforestation is often for specific purposes that directly lead to pollution - you cut down wood to burn it, releasing pollutants.
5. What are the short term effects of deforestation on communities and the world?
Again, good and bad. Remember, we have to get food from somewhere, and usually that means clearing forest (deforesting) to get farmland for crops. We also need energy for cooking, and to keep warm, and that is why so many areas have cut down their forests simply to eat and stay warm. But to do that you pay a price - you slowly have to walk farther and farther to find wood, and you also usually find that the water quality from wells starts to decline. In Canada and the USA, this happened a very long time ago, during the first wave of European settlements.
7. Are people trying to help deforestation by planting more trees?
Yes. But they are finding that this is a very difficult thing, since we really only know how to efficiently plant trees of a few types. Rebuilding a truly diverse forest (like they are trying to do on Brazil's Sao Paulo state coast), is a very, very difficult thing to do. It costs a lot more money than people are willing to pay. But there are many governments talking about the problem and trying to agree on how to do it, and how to pay for it.
8. What are the responses to deforestation?
I assume you mean people's responses, and not nature's. In general, most people are not aware of it, or believe there is so much forest that there is no need to worry. Unfortunately, there are so many people now needing to be fed that it is no longer safe to ignore deforestation.
9. Which countries have less deforestation?
Interesting question, and I am not sure of the exact answer. But my guess would be that Russia is probably among the least deforested simply because they have such vast areas of forest that have relatively few people.
10. How do we know deforestation is going to get better?
We don't, and it probably won't. We have to solve the population/food/energy problem first.
11. Since about 50 years ago, have people been trying to help deforestation or making it worse?
There are definitely more people today trying to help with the problem. However, there are even more people today that need food and energy, and they completely overwhelm the first group. So, on balance, today the problem is worse.
12. Can other materials be used rather than wood?
Only in very limited circumstances. The population would need access to the alternative, and they very likely would need money to pay for it, or a government programme to subsidize it.
13. How do we know whether deforestation is going to get better?
We don't. The very best guesses these days tell us that it is going to get worse.
14. What are the long term effects of deforestation on communities and the world?
The biggest one is simply that deforestation often degrades the underlying soils. Soils take thousands, or even tens of thousands of years to develop, so deforestation is like mining soil. It changes the water quality, and it also changes the look of our living environment - imagine BC without pine forests! One big issue a lot of people talk about is the influence of forests on the various natural cycles: water, carbon, and oxygen. We have no idea how many of these cycles will operate with reduced forest areas - and we have no idea if a world with few forests is even hospitable for humans.
15. Do you think deforestation will get better or worse in the future? and 16. What’s your point of view on this problem?
I don't see any way it will get better overall in the next century. Perhaps there will be local attempts and successes, but on a global scale, I am a pessimist - there is too much invested in the current model of businesses and society to take serious action. We will not do anything serious until one of the fundamental cycles collapses. And by then, it might be too late. Imagine trying to tell everyone in the world, a single country, or even a single city that they have to go on a really strict energy diet. It's very very hard to do, and people get very mad. That's why politicians have a very hard time with this, and why activities like the one you are involved in are absolutely critical.
17. What are the causes of deforestation?
Nature and people's needs. See above.
18. How does deforestation work?
Either the forest is physically altered by people, or the environment in which the forest is changed into a regime that the forest species can no longer tolerate.
19. Why does the government let deforestation happen?
To feed their people, basically. Most countries are faced with a very, very difficult choice: feed people and expand their economies, or decline. In Canada and the USA, we were very lucky that our leaders decided to create the National Parks and Parks Canada systems early on enough to be able to set aside these areas for us to enjoy. It was a close call (for the USA certainly), because there was a lot of pressure for this land not to be set aside, but to leave it open for settlers. As our own populations and energy needs increase, you will see many examples of pressures to release these lands for uses that might involve some form of deforestation.
A post-script to this all:
Well, glad to know I contributed to something today.
To whom it may concern
Hello. We are grade six students and our names are []. Our central idea is today’s actions influence tomorrows events. We are working on deforestation in exhibition. We wanted to ask you a few questions on deforestation. It would be great if you could email us back, phone us or even come into our school (if you’re close enough). We would be really pleased if you could answer the following questions [] on deforestation and help us reach our goal. We are writing this letter because we need someone to help take action in deforestation. If you don’t know what the exhibition is, it is a project that we are all doing in groups. And it is not just our class that is doing this project. Exhibition is supposed to be about different topics that groups research and take action on. Thank you for time and remember to contact us by computer, phone or call the school if possible. Please contact us as soon as possible.
1. What is deforestation?
Although there are some very technical definitions of this, the easiest one is simply to consider the removal, reduction, or change of naturally occurring vegetation as 'deforestation.'
2. Why does deforestation happen?
Deforestation can occur for many reasons, some of them natural, some of them man-made. Natural deforestation can occur when for example a natural climate change occurs, a water source is cut off (by landslide, by earthquake changing underwater flow etc.), or by shorter events like fires, or disease (e.g. bark beetles). Man-made events are things like clearing forests for cropland, acid rain, excessive use of groundwater, building of dams, and climate change caused by man's industrial activities.
3. How does deforestation affect animal life?
While you are probably most familiar with the negative effects (loss of habitat), you should also know that for other species it is actually positive. For example, for species that thrive at the edges of forests, having more edges is better, so they tend to do better. It's a very complicated question, and does not have a clear-cut answer, since it depends on what you want the final outcome to be. One interesting effect is that deforestation inland can cause large changes out at sea, because a lot of soil is released into rivers, which is then dumped in the ocean. The ocean around Haiti has been completely changed by the deforestation of the island for firewood, which has completely changed the quality of seawater in the coastal areas.
4. Does deforestation connect to pollution?
Sometimes yes, sometimes no. For instance, not all pollution will cause deforestation - the effects of increased CO2 are very complex, and it looks like some plants will do better than others (e.g. climbing vines, poison ivy will do very well). However, pollution from things like NOx and SO definitely change the landscape (the area around Sarnia, Ontario is a prime example of this). There is very little that will grow in the area besides hardy lichens, where there used to be mature stands of maple, beech and alder. One direct connection is that deforestation is often for specific purposes that directly lead to pollution - you cut down wood to burn it, releasing pollutants.
5. What are the short term effects of deforestation on communities and the world?
Again, good and bad. Remember, we have to get food from somewhere, and usually that means clearing forest (deforesting) to get farmland for crops. We also need energy for cooking, and to keep warm, and that is why so many areas have cut down their forests simply to eat and stay warm. But to do that you pay a price - you slowly have to walk farther and farther to find wood, and you also usually find that the water quality from wells starts to decline. In Canada and the USA, this happened a very long time ago, during the first wave of European settlements.
7. Are people trying to help deforestation by planting more trees?
Yes. But they are finding that this is a very difficult thing, since we really only know how to efficiently plant trees of a few types. Rebuilding a truly diverse forest (like they are trying to do on Brazil's Sao Paulo state coast), is a very, very difficult thing to do. It costs a lot more money than people are willing to pay. But there are many governments talking about the problem and trying to agree on how to do it, and how to pay for it.
8. What are the responses to deforestation?
I assume you mean people's responses, and not nature's. In general, most people are not aware of it, or believe there is so much forest that there is no need to worry. Unfortunately, there are so many people now needing to be fed that it is no longer safe to ignore deforestation.
9. Which countries have less deforestation?
Interesting question, and I am not sure of the exact answer. But my guess would be that Russia is probably among the least deforested simply because they have such vast areas of forest that have relatively few people.
10. How do we know deforestation is going to get better?
We don't, and it probably won't. We have to solve the population/food/energy problem first.
11. Since about 50 years ago, have people been trying to help deforestation or making it worse?
There are definitely more people today trying to help with the problem. However, there are even more people today that need food and energy, and they completely overwhelm the first group. So, on balance, today the problem is worse.
12. Can other materials be used rather than wood?
Only in very limited circumstances. The population would need access to the alternative, and they very likely would need money to pay for it, or a government programme to subsidize it.
13. How do we know whether deforestation is going to get better?
We don't. The very best guesses these days tell us that it is going to get worse.
14. What are the long term effects of deforestation on communities and the world?
The biggest one is simply that deforestation often degrades the underlying soils. Soils take thousands, or even tens of thousands of years to develop, so deforestation is like mining soil. It changes the water quality, and it also changes the look of our living environment - imagine BC without pine forests! One big issue a lot of people talk about is the influence of forests on the various natural cycles: water, carbon, and oxygen. We have no idea how many of these cycles will operate with reduced forest areas - and we have no idea if a world with few forests is even hospitable for humans.
15. Do you think deforestation will get better or worse in the future? and 16. What’s your point of view on this problem?
I don't see any way it will get better overall in the next century. Perhaps there will be local attempts and successes, but on a global scale, I am a pessimist - there is too much invested in the current model of businesses and society to take serious action. We will not do anything serious until one of the fundamental cycles collapses. And by then, it might be too late. Imagine trying to tell everyone in the world, a single country, or even a single city that they have to go on a really strict energy diet. It's very very hard to do, and people get very mad. That's why politicians have a very hard time with this, and why activities like the one you are involved in are absolutely critical.
17. What are the causes of deforestation?
Nature and people's needs. See above.
18. How does deforestation work?
Either the forest is physically altered by people, or the environment in which the forest is changed into a regime that the forest species can no longer tolerate.
19. Why does the government let deforestation happen?
To feed their people, basically. Most countries are faced with a very, very difficult choice: feed people and expand their economies, or decline. In Canada and the USA, we were very lucky that our leaders decided to create the National Parks and Parks Canada systems early on enough to be able to set aside these areas for us to enjoy. It was a close call (for the USA certainly), because there was a lot of pressure for this land not to be set aside, but to leave it open for settlers. As our own populations and energy needs increase, you will see many examples of pressures to release these lands for uses that might involve some form of deforestation.
A post-script to this all:
Dear respectful sir,
Thankyou for taking your very valluable time to answer our questions on deforestation. Your answers have been a great help for our group and we are very sure that we will influence a lot of people and also we will knowledge them about deforestation. At school, we went around to different classes and suveyed the students on how many people recycled and how many did not.And our group was very happy with the results, about 300 people recycled and there were only about 75 people who did not. So now, we are trying to encourage those 75 people to recycle.
Well, glad to know I contributed to something today.
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Impatience:
Tracking a package that was being shipped to us, I was absolutely stunned to see the following information from FedEx:
This package was shipped from Shanghai, China yesterday, and is on a delivery truck today in our neighbourhood. I wonder when it was actually manufactured - the day before that? The product is probably still cooling down!
This type of service really spoils us, and makes me wonder about the cost in carbon for this type of delivery speed. I haven't even accounted for this type of carbon cost in my tallying of 17+ tons per year for my lifestyle (the average American produces about 7 tons of carbon per year). Most of my carbon comes from my jet travel, on long overnight flights. ...I have to make up for driving a Toyota Prius somehow, you know, to be able to keep up with the Al Gore's of this world, who apparently don't practice exactly what they preach. And buying carbon offsets doesn't get you off the hook either - yes, it helps, but it doesn't make that type of lifestyle justifiable.
Conversely, I have a package coming from Cusco, Peru, and that was shipped about ten days ago. No sign of it yet. No tracking either, so I can't tell if was torn apart by drug sniffing coon hounds in Miami, or if it is still on a donkey's back bouncing down the trail to the port of Callao before being loaded on a guano boat.
You know, the way things used to be done. Slowly and patiently. And that included waiting for things to show up in the regular mail.
This package was shipped from Shanghai, China yesterday, and is on a delivery truck today in our neighbourhood. I wonder when it was actually manufactured - the day before that? The product is probably still cooling down!
This type of service really spoils us, and makes me wonder about the cost in carbon for this type of delivery speed. I haven't even accounted for this type of carbon cost in my tallying of 17+ tons per year for my lifestyle (the average American produces about 7 tons of carbon per year). Most of my carbon comes from my jet travel, on long overnight flights. ...I have to make up for driving a Toyota Prius somehow, you know, to be able to keep up with the Al Gore's of this world, who apparently don't practice exactly what they preach. And buying carbon offsets doesn't get you off the hook either - yes, it helps, but it doesn't make that type of lifestyle justifiable.
Conversely, I have a package coming from Cusco, Peru, and that was shipped about ten days ago. No sign of it yet. No tracking either, so I can't tell if was torn apart by drug sniffing coon hounds in Miami, or if it is still on a donkey's back bouncing down the trail to the port of Callao before being loaded on a guano boat.
You know, the way things used to be done. Slowly and patiently. And that included waiting for things to show up in the regular mail.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Hot Spots for Nitrogen:
A 'science highlight' I recently churned out for NSF:
Scientists at the National Center for Earth-surface Dynamics (NCED, http://www.nced.umn.edu/) have recently made a surprising link between topography and biological processes.
Working in the Angelo Coast Range Reserve in Northern California, Dr. Benjamin O’Connor (presently with the U.S. Geological Survey in Reston, VA), discovered that denitrification, a key nutrient process in streams, is controlled by the local landscape in and around the stream. It turns out that the combination of surface topography, the timing and volume of fluid flow and microbial processes all combine to produce areas and times of relatively high and low activity within the same stream, or “Hot Spots and Hot Moments.” Very small stretches of the stream can be responsible for much of the stream’s total loss of nitrogen to the atmosphere. This process is extremely important in watersheds where water quality downstream is of societal concern.
NCED has found that these Hot Spots can be predicted with a combination of high-resolution topography and hydraulic factors predicted from stream bathymetry. This work links to other discoveries showing that nitrogen and light availability affect the spatial distributions of algal blooms through the channel network, whereas recent flooding history determines whether the insects grazing on this algae will be vulnerable to predators like fish.
Advances such as these, coupled with highly resolved spatial data from remote sensing and other sources, provide a new basis for prediction in ecology.
Caption: Local topography controls denitrification “hot spots” such that ~80% of denitrification takes place in only ~16% of stream length in the Angelo Coast Reserve.
(Thanks to Chris Paola, Miki Hondzo, and Mary Power for corrections to the text...)
Scientists at the National Center for Earth-surface Dynamics (NCED, http://www.nced.umn.edu/) have recently made a surprising link between topography and biological processes.
Working in the Angelo Coast Range Reserve in Northern California, Dr. Benjamin O’Connor (presently with the U.S. Geological Survey in Reston, VA), discovered that denitrification, a key nutrient process in streams, is controlled by the local landscape in and around the stream. It turns out that the combination of surface topography, the timing and volume of fluid flow and microbial processes all combine to produce areas and times of relatively high and low activity within the same stream, or “Hot Spots and Hot Moments.” Very small stretches of the stream can be responsible for much of the stream’s total loss of nitrogen to the atmosphere. This process is extremely important in watersheds where water quality downstream is of societal concern.
NCED has found that these Hot Spots can be predicted with a combination of high-resolution topography and hydraulic factors predicted from stream bathymetry. This work links to other discoveries showing that nitrogen and light availability affect the spatial distributions of algal blooms through the channel network, whereas recent flooding history determines whether the insects grazing on this algae will be vulnerable to predators like fish.
Advances such as these, coupled with highly resolved spatial data from remote sensing and other sources, provide a new basis for prediction in ecology.
Caption: Local topography controls denitrification “hot spots” such that ~80% of denitrification takes place in only ~16% of stream length in the Angelo Coast Reserve.
(Thanks to Chris Paola, Miki Hondzo, and Mary Power for corrections to the text...)
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
A Stormy Past:
A 'science highlight' I recently churned out for NSF:
Scientist Jeffrey Donnelly, of the Coastal Systems Group at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), is looking closely at the mess left by hurricane storm surges--not the mess left by Katrina on the Gulf Coast, but the mess left in the New York City area. He has found not just one, but at least ten layers of sand left behind by likely hurricanes in the last seven hundred years.
Dr. Donnelly hopes to reconstruct the history of intense storms in the Southern New England and Long Island by looking at the deposits left by land-falling hurricanes and storm surges in backbarrier salt marshes and kettle ponds found at different heights throughout the area. So far, his group has found sand layers that correspond to the known great storms of 1991, 1954, 1938, 1893, 1788 and 1693 AD. Many additional layers indicate prehistoric storms that date back to 1642–1477, 1434–1347, 1316–1257, and even to 1190–1034 AD and earlier.
While considered rare in the New York City area, land-falling hurricanes have likely occurred many times throughout the past ~3500 years. With six severe storms, likely hurricanes, in the past 700 years, the frequency of land-falling hurricanes in the New York City area is equal to that of southern Rhode Island, and higher than that of southern New Jersey. Initial findings suggest that alternating periods of frequent and infrequent hurricane activity have occurred in the past, possibly tied to changes in climate. The times of high hurricane activity in western Long Island are 3500–3050 years before present (BP) and 2200–900 BP, nearly synchronous with high activity observed in the Caribbean and northern Gulf Coast.
Estimates of past storm strengths and frequencies are extremely valuable to researchers trying to tease out the influence of human activities on climate.
Scientist Jeffrey Donnelly, of the Coastal Systems Group at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), is looking closely at the mess left by hurricane storm surges--not the mess left by Katrina on the Gulf Coast, but the mess left in the New York City area. He has found not just one, but at least ten layers of sand left behind by likely hurricanes in the last seven hundred years.
Dr. Donnelly hopes to reconstruct the history of intense storms in the Southern New England and Long Island by looking at the deposits left by land-falling hurricanes and storm surges in backbarrier salt marshes and kettle ponds found at different heights throughout the area. So far, his group has found sand layers that correspond to the known great storms of 1991, 1954, 1938, 1893, 1788 and 1693 AD. Many additional layers indicate prehistoric storms that date back to 1642–1477, 1434–1347, 1316–1257, and even to 1190–1034 AD and earlier.
While considered rare in the New York City area, land-falling hurricanes have likely occurred many times throughout the past ~3500 years. With six severe storms, likely hurricanes, in the past 700 years, the frequency of land-falling hurricanes in the New York City area is equal to that of southern Rhode Island, and higher than that of southern New Jersey. Initial findings suggest that alternating periods of frequent and infrequent hurricane activity have occurred in the past, possibly tied to changes in climate. The times of high hurricane activity in western Long Island are 3500–3050 years before present (BP) and 2200–900 BP, nearly synchronous with high activity observed in the Caribbean and northern Gulf Coast.
Estimates of past storm strengths and frequencies are extremely valuable to researchers trying to tease out the influence of human activities on climate.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Going in (Great) Circles:
On a spheroid like the Earth, it is a well known fact that the shortest path between two points lies on a Great Circle. What is not so well known is that this same Great Circle also defines the longest distance between those two points. The longest distance is simply the arc going the other way.
So, my question was: "what is the longest great circle route one could fly on Earth and always be over a) land, and b) water?"
Thanks to Google Earth and its Ruler/Path tool, I found the following candidates:
Over Land: Beach near Dong Hoi, Vietnam to Dakar, Senegal - 12,900 km
Over Water: Tellicherry, India to Iliamna Bay, Alaska - 29,000 km
You will note that for the overland route, I did not count small lakes as being over water. The key to this route is threading the arms of the Red Sea and the southern Mediterranean beach near Rafa. If you slightly bend the "rules" and ignore the arms of the Red Sea, you can get a much longer route, Magadan, Russia to the Northern Namibian coastline (Hoarusib Mündung/Delta) of 14,620 km. This route is constrained by the Caspian and Black Seas.
For the overwater route, I did not count very small islands as being over land. Getting around Antarctica is the key to these routes, and threading various narrows. This is where you will have to use the 'path' tool rather than the 'line' because these distances are farther around than the antipodal point. An early candidate of mine was Pulau Dramai, Papua New Guinea to Seminole Shores, Florida - 24, 460 km.
Have at it folks!
So, my question was: "what is the longest great circle route one could fly on Earth and always be over a) land, and b) water?"
Thanks to Google Earth and its Ruler/Path tool, I found the following candidates:
Over Land: Beach near Dong Hoi, Vietnam to Dakar, Senegal - 12,900 km
Over Water: Tellicherry, India to Iliamna Bay, Alaska - 29,000 km
You will note that for the overland route, I did not count small lakes as being over water. The key to this route is threading the arms of the Red Sea and the southern Mediterranean beach near Rafa. If you slightly bend the "rules" and ignore the arms of the Red Sea, you can get a much longer route, Magadan, Russia to the Northern Namibian coastline (Hoarusib Mündung/Delta) of 14,620 km. This route is constrained by the Caspian and Black Seas.
For the overwater route, I did not count very small islands as being over land. Getting around Antarctica is the key to these routes, and threading various narrows. This is where you will have to use the 'path' tool rather than the 'line' because these distances are farther around than the antipodal point. An early candidate of mine was Pulau Dramai, Papua New Guinea to Seminole Shores, Florida - 24, 460 km.
Have at it folks!
Saturday, January 06, 2007
Scrumptious telephony
While discussing the problems we have been having with one of our cell phones, and how we would dispose of the old one, my wife came up with a great idea.
"Why don't they make edible phones? When you are done with it, you simply eat it!"
The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. It's not an impossible goal, although incredibly difficult. There are organic materials out there that do just about everything required - substrates, masking, semi-conductors, phosphorescents, etc. etc.
It might take a while to get the average cell phone to under several pounds of weight, and leaving it in the sun might be a problem, but then there are other benefits: no need to worry about all that personal data on your PDA - a little concentrated hydrochloric in your GI tract would take care of it permanently.
The pathetically obvious advertising campaign for LG's "Chocolate" series telephones (1, 2) would certainly make more sense.
"Why don't they make edible phones? When you are done with it, you simply eat it!"
The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. It's not an impossible goal, although incredibly difficult. There are organic materials out there that do just about everything required - substrates, masking, semi-conductors, phosphorescents, etc. etc.
It might take a while to get the average cell phone to under several pounds of weight, and leaving it in the sun might be a problem, but then there are other benefits: no need to worry about all that personal data on your PDA - a little concentrated hydrochloric in your GI tract would take care of it permanently.
The pathetically obvious advertising campaign for LG's "Chocolate" series telephones (1, 2) would certainly make more sense.
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
Route 66, here we come!
The other day a group of us curmudgeons were lamenting the fact that today's pimply grocery clerks can't mentally figure out the change, and are left helpless when the power goes out. The old standard argument came up about how electronic calculators have weakened our maths skills.
I realized that a similar type of malady has afflicted me, as I have become overly dependent on a different electronic gizmo - the GPS navigation in my car. What should be a basic skill, finding one's way from place to place, is left to a device that has many more ways to fail than one's memory. Many cars are now coming with this option available, and there are many portable units available to install in older cars. More and more people are probably losing their ability to navigate, and becoming dependent on these little devices.
However, in using this amazing technology, I have also come to realize a wonderful benefit. In suggesting several choices of routes to take, it is letting me explore routes I never would have driven on my own, including some beautiful small back-country roads. That made me think that perhaps this GPS nav technology will begin to revive some of the small towns that the interstate system killed off in the late 1950's. Location near a main highway will not be such a necessity for businesses like hospitality, where being 'away from it all' is in fact a plus. Finding any location, business or otherwise, will become much easier.
There has been a lot of discussion in urban planning circles about whether repeated cul-de-sac patterns are more conducive to 'neighbourliness' than strict grid patterns. The premise is that more complex and confusing street patterns discourage traffic flow (enhancing safety for children), and make it harder for criminals to 'case' houses for burglary. The GPS technology of course defeats the non-connectedness of the streets.
In fact, the rise of this technology may also mean that many short-cuts once known only to the locals will be more used, and that many now-quiet streets might carry more traffic. I also wonder whether this new 'accessibility' that GPS nav gives will affect the very design of our cities and their suburbs. It may well also open up areas to developers that until now had been too out of the way for consideration.
I realized that a similar type of malady has afflicted me, as I have become overly dependent on a different electronic gizmo - the GPS navigation in my car. What should be a basic skill, finding one's way from place to place, is left to a device that has many more ways to fail than one's memory. Many cars are now coming with this option available, and there are many portable units available to install in older cars. More and more people are probably losing their ability to navigate, and becoming dependent on these little devices.
However, in using this amazing technology, I have also come to realize a wonderful benefit. In suggesting several choices of routes to take, it is letting me explore routes I never would have driven on my own, including some beautiful small back-country roads. That made me think that perhaps this GPS nav technology will begin to revive some of the small towns that the interstate system killed off in the late 1950's. Location near a main highway will not be such a necessity for businesses like hospitality, where being 'away from it all' is in fact a plus. Finding any location, business or otherwise, will become much easier.
There has been a lot of discussion in urban planning circles about whether repeated cul-de-sac patterns are more conducive to 'neighbourliness' than strict grid patterns. The premise is that more complex and confusing street patterns discourage traffic flow (enhancing safety for children), and make it harder for criminals to 'case' houses for burglary. The GPS technology of course defeats the non-connectedness of the streets.
In fact, the rise of this technology may also mean that many short-cuts once known only to the locals will be more used, and that many now-quiet streets might carry more traffic. I also wonder whether this new 'accessibility' that GPS nav gives will affect the very design of our cities and their suburbs. It may well also open up areas to developers that until now had been too out of the way for consideration.
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