Tuesday, 18 May 2010
May Post
You've drained me and I've had enough. It's not easy being constantly bitched at, so leave me alone from now on.
Tuesday, 20 April 2010
Saturday, 13 February 2010
February Post: Half Term
Snow: Global Warming, Ironic?
This winter the UK saw some of the worst snow we've had since 1963. We thought we had it bad in 2008 when we had "the worst snow in 20 years", but after it melted after a week or so things returned to normal. This winter, we were landed in the dogs trump not once, not twice, but several times in quick succession after snowfall came down quicker and thicker than anticipated, just after the roadsalt supplies had been exhausted. This brought the roads all over the country to a standstill, and thousands of cars were left stranded. It was almost like a scene from the end of the world.
But what this suggests to me, is somehow these progressively more snowy winters are a result of Global Warming. I'm not really sure why or how, but one theory is that our winter climate and summer climate are becoming more extreme, the amplitude of change is increasing, to what could be exponential, or just linear, hopefully the latter. If this was true, we could be expecting summers of more Meditterean and then African temperatures, and winters of more Icelandic, possibly even Arctic temperatures. The UK could become a "living" climate, of periglacial catagory, changing to arid. However, we would have to adapt. And I don't think we could do that.
However, on the summers front, I'm all for palm trees =)
This winter the UK saw some of the worst snow we've had since 1963. We thought we had it bad in 2008 when we had "the worst snow in 20 years", but after it melted after a week or so things returned to normal. This winter, we were landed in the dogs trump not once, not twice, but several times in quick succession after snowfall came down quicker and thicker than anticipated, just after the roadsalt supplies had been exhausted. This brought the roads all over the country to a standstill, and thousands of cars were left stranded. It was almost like a scene from the end of the world.
But what this suggests to me, is somehow these progressively more snowy winters are a result of Global Warming. I'm not really sure why or how, but one theory is that our winter climate and summer climate are becoming more extreme, the amplitude of change is increasing, to what could be exponential, or just linear, hopefully the latter. If this was true, we could be expecting summers of more Meditterean and then African temperatures, and winters of more Icelandic, possibly even Arctic temperatures. The UK could become a "living" climate, of periglacial catagory, changing to arid. However, we would have to adapt. And I don't think we could do that.
However, on the summers front, I'm all for palm trees =)
Friday, 1 January 2010
New Year, New Decade
So we begin, we made the first decade of the millenia with many personal ups, and many global downs. We're all aware of the ups and downs, so let's not procrastinate with them.
2000-2009 brought up huge leaps forward in technology and ultimately communication. In 2000 we used Internet dial-up, compare that to now, and we're able to watch HD videos on YouTube, by simply clicking play. Remember the now-old VHS system for television recording? Nowadays, VHS is virtually defunct, it's all on Blueray, and if you can't be bothered to record (like me) then you can go back and watch it on iPlayer in HD. Say that to someone back in 2000, and they'd laugh in your face.
So where are we going to be led in 2010-2020? Well, it's all very easy for us to let our imagination run wild a bit and exaggerate on what reality will really become.
Take for instance back in the 1950's, we said that by the 1990's we'd all be using hover cars and there would be passenger service to space with people living on other planet in the solar system. It's been 40 years since man's stood on the moon. It's too easy to exaggerate, and there's nothing wrong with that, just what we should maybe expect in reality is something less.
It's good to let that old thinker up there run wild a bit.
One thing I'm reasonably certain of, is the use of mobile phones. Since there widespread growth into the world in the past decade, I find more and more people are texting rather than making calls, because it's cheaper, easier and you can go back later to re-read the text. It's like a portable email system, though not quite instant messaging.
It's impossible to buy a mobile phone towards that only makes calls. You at least get texting, a camera, internet access, apps, utilities such as converters and calculators, music players, photo albums etc. Take the iPod Touch/iPhone for example in the past couple of years. Where do you expect that sort of technology to be in 2020?
Surely we'll be able to control mobile phones by simple voice recognition, you'll be able to call a number, have a chat with some mates, then simply saying "End call please, and book a table at the Turn & Slip Inn for 3" and you're phone would book a table for 3 at a restaurant. Touch screens will be "so last decade", companies would say that it's too much bother for you to need to press virtual buttons on a screen. This being said, why would we need buttons at all?
Mobile phones will shrink in size, to ridiculously thin sizes, made from carbon fibre for strength and low density.
And another thing, with the demand for texting increasing, we could even see current ways of texting like dial-up back in 2000, therefore we could expect to see the broadband/blueray equivalent of texting in 2020. Mind you, the growth in science in materials, technology, product development etc etc is exponential, so we could even expect to see this by 2015. That's five years from now.
And at what point does the artificial intelligence of machines and computers exceed humans, continuing up this exponential growth such that computers recognise themselves as computers without the need for programming, and literally artificial intelligence grows at an ever-increasing rate which none of us slow, constant humans can keep up with?
We won't be able to develop the science to regain control of this, as the science we'll be dealing with will be too smart for us to manipulate. This was actually predicted for 2035, called the Point of Singularity.
But hey, what do I know? I'm just exaggerating. Right.?
2000-2009 brought up huge leaps forward in technology and ultimately communication. In 2000 we used Internet dial-up, compare that to now, and we're able to watch HD videos on YouTube, by simply clicking play. Remember the now-old VHS system for television recording? Nowadays, VHS is virtually defunct, it's all on Blueray, and if you can't be bothered to record (like me) then you can go back and watch it on iPlayer in HD. Say that to someone back in 2000, and they'd laugh in your face.
So where are we going to be led in 2010-2020? Well, it's all very easy for us to let our imagination run wild a bit and exaggerate on what reality will really become.
Take for instance back in the 1950's, we said that by the 1990's we'd all be using hover cars and there would be passenger service to space with people living on other planet in the solar system. It's been 40 years since man's stood on the moon. It's too easy to exaggerate, and there's nothing wrong with that, just what we should maybe expect in reality is something less.
It's good to let that old thinker up there run wild a bit.
One thing I'm reasonably certain of, is the use of mobile phones. Since there widespread growth into the world in the past decade, I find more and more people are texting rather than making calls, because it's cheaper, easier and you can go back later to re-read the text. It's like a portable email system, though not quite instant messaging.
It's impossible to buy a mobile phone towards that only makes calls. You at least get texting, a camera, internet access, apps, utilities such as converters and calculators, music players, photo albums etc. Take the iPod Touch/iPhone for example in the past couple of years. Where do you expect that sort of technology to be in 2020?
Surely we'll be able to control mobile phones by simple voice recognition, you'll be able to call a number, have a chat with some mates, then simply saying "End call please, and book a table at the Turn & Slip Inn for 3" and you're phone would book a table for 3 at a restaurant. Touch screens will be "so last decade", companies would say that it's too much bother for you to need to press virtual buttons on a screen. This being said, why would we need buttons at all?
Mobile phones will shrink in size, to ridiculously thin sizes, made from carbon fibre for strength and low density.
And another thing, with the demand for texting increasing, we could even see current ways of texting like dial-up back in 2000, therefore we could expect to see the broadband/blueray equivalent of texting in 2020. Mind you, the growth in science in materials, technology, product development etc etc is exponential, so we could even expect to see this by 2015. That's five years from now.
And at what point does the artificial intelligence of machines and computers exceed humans, continuing up this exponential growth such that computers recognise themselves as computers without the need for programming, and literally artificial intelligence grows at an ever-increasing rate which none of us slow, constant humans can keep up with?
We won't be able to develop the science to regain control of this, as the science we'll be dealing with will be too smart for us to manipulate. This was actually predicted for 2035, called the Point of Singularity.
But hey, what do I know? I'm just exaggerating. Right.?
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