Sunshine
The director also considered the story of Sunshine as an appropriate counterintuitive approach for the contemporary issue of global warming, with the death of the sun being a threat. Originally, Sunshine was scripted to begin with a voiceover talking about how parents tell their children not to look into the sun, but once told, the children would be compelled to look. Boyle described the sun as a godly personality in the film, creating a psychological dimension for the astronauts due to its scale and power. The director also described the film’s villain as based on light, explaining, “That’s quite a challenge because the way you generate fear in cinema is darkness.” The director also sought to have the characters experience a psychological journey in which each person is worn mentally, physically, and existentially and is experiencing doubt in their faiths.
I like to get a little dose of science fiction every now and then to keep the subconsciousness nourished with far-out ideas. Sunshine was just what the doctor ordered as far as the science part of the movie is concerned. In the movie a “Q-Ball” , the nucleus of a supersymmetric particle, gets itself lodged in the Sun. The hypothetical Q ball eats through normal matter, ripping apart the Sun’s neutrons and protons and converting them into supersymmetric particles. The Earth’s last and only hope? Why, to launch and detonate a gigantic nuclear bomb to fix the problem, of course!
Here’s an interesting review with the scientific advisor of the film.
Well, science aside, I think the film makers did a pretty good job with many other aspects of the film. The art direction and visual effects in general were well made. More importantly, they were also original and refreshing, which is not an easy task to accomplish in this day and age.
I found it particularly inspiring that the sun was treated as a god-like entity much like the ancient egyptian Sun God Ra and the aztec god Huitzilopochtli. As a matter of fact, sun has been worshipped for all of recorded history.
My personal prediction is that the Sun God is about to get quite angry while us mere mortals are thinning the ozone layer which is protecting us from his angry UVB eye.
Posted by api at 11:43 - 1 Comment »
Micro-Compact Low E-Home
The micro-compact low e-home is all-electric and powered by photovoltaic solar panels of 8 sqm with a small diameter vertical axis wind generator.
Day-time excess power is diverted into the grid. Night-time power is provided by the wind turbine and reserve batteries. Heating and air conditioning is ducted to each of the four function spaces. Long duration LED lighting is used internally and for the external walkways.
I wouldn’t call it exactly portable at 2 metric tonnes of weight, but it is an interesting and quite well though out concept. The Micro Compact home web site has several other variations of this shelter. The price is around 34000 euros per unit.
On my recent trip to Lappland, I met a guy who had built a small transportable fibre glass home mounted on a sledge. It could be moved around with a snow mobile and could house him and his dog. I think that architects who design miniature houses like the Micro Compact home could really learn a lot by interviewing people who have actually built and used homes like this in the real life. Sometimes there is a bit of an ivory tower situation between the architects and the real world users of portable homes.
And don’t let me get started on the huge RV truck conversions that they are building in USA. Sometimes they have a small garage built in the truck for another vehicle. Check out this example of these gas guzzling monsters.
Posted by api at 10:35 - 1 Comment »
Great Worldwide Star Count
Bright outdoor lighting at night is a growing problem for astronomical observing programs around the world. By searching for the same constellations, participants in the Great World Wide Star Count will be able to compare their observations with what others see, giving them a sense of how star visibility varies from place to place. The observers will also learn more about the economic and geographic factors that control the light pollution in their communities and around the world.
“Without even being aware of it, many of us have lost the ability to see many stars at night,” Ward says. “The Great World Wide Star Count will help raise awareness of the importance and the beauty of the night skies.”
My father’s father was a bit of an eccentric. Among his other achievements (of being the director of an aeroplane factory and a fire station) he painted stars on the ceiling of his sauna. The exact reasons for this remain a bit unclear to me.
Light and sound pollution are an increasingly serious problem, especially in densely populated areas. In this year’s Banff Mountain Film festival I saw a collage-style animated film called Conversing with Aotearoa. In an interview segment, various outdoor enthusiasts were asked “When do you feel that you are out in the wilderness?”. I couldn’t agree more with the person who said “When I can no longer hear the sounds of the civilization.”
On Monday, I’m off to the most remote village in Finland. The village of Lisma is located deep within Lemmenjoki national park in the parish of Inari. It is my departure point for a 10 day solo expedition to the Øvre Anarjóhka area in Norway.
Posted by api at 09:53 - No Comments »
A Greener Apple
It is generally not Apple’s policy to trumpet our plans for the future; we tend to talk about the things we have just accomplished. Unfortunately this policy has left our customers, shareholders, employees and the industry in the dark about Apple’s desires and plans to become greener. Our stakeholders deserve and expect more from us, and they’re right to do so. They want us to be a leader in this area, just as we are in the other areas of our business. So today we’re changing our policy.
I’ve been following Greenpeace’s Green My Apple campaign with great interest. I’m the first one to admit that I’m a real Apple fan boy and that fact can make it difficult to judge the effectiveness of Apple’s environmental efforts with objectivity. However, after reading both sides of the story, I couldn’t help but to re-position Greenpeace as a somewhat hypocritical organization in my personal mind map. They chose Apple as a high profile target and a type of a scapegoat to serve as an example to other companies that refuse to co-operate and communicate with Greenpeace’s activists in a manner that is seen proper by Greenpeace.
To me it is obvious that Apple has been doing a much better job (all in all) with their environmental policy than many of their competitors. The Greenpeace campaign was targeting a very specific part of the policy: toxic substances and recycling practices. One of the goals of this campaign is to make all computer products 100% PVC free. PVC is commonly used as a shielding material for ethernet cables for example. I discussed this matter with one of Greenpeace’s charity muggers on the street and found out that even their own offices still use PVC-shielded cable. Sure the PVC free cabling is more expensive and difficult to obtain, but if 90% of your income goes to a “fund raising and expenses” one would expect that you could use at least part of the remaining 10% to clean up your own act and show a good example to others by phasing out PVC in your own organization. And yes, PVC free cabling is available today. Not speak of feeding electricity from the land lines instead of running the engines of Rainbow Warrior to generate electricity while moored at a port!
It is also obvious that today’s announcement will put Apple to the top end of Greenpeace’s score card and after this they will proudly tout their campaign as a great success. I wonder what they will do with the domain name though.. perhaps they could spend a few thousand euros to rename and repurpose it as “greenmyhp.org” or “greenmydell.org”.
Well, part of my disgust with this particular dirt throwing campaign has something to do with the charity monging practices that Greenpeace and many other non-profit organizations are so aggressively using these days. Although financially extremely lucrative, I am certain that the shameless “face to face” guilt trip marketing strategy will really hurt their reputation in the long run. Unobjective scoring and grading of companies and data for publicity stunt reasons in campaigns like “Green my Apple” will only exacerbate the process.
Ahh, there… I’m glad I got that out of my system! Peace, love and understanding to all of my treehugging brothers and sisters… and the rest of you eco-conscious gadget-freaks and code monkeys as well. And to any Greenpeace activists that might stumble upon here: no offense intended, just please clean up your own act while you are saving the world.
Posted by api at 23:00 - No Comments »
Paradise, at a price - World - smh.com.au
“Fiji has been famous in America since Raymond Burr bought Naitouba in 1968, and it grows and grows,” said Morrison. “It would have to be in the top three most sought-after island areas in the world.”
Chiefs sold Gibson’s Mago Island, for instance, and removed its villagers after their conversion by Christian missionaries in the mid-19th century.
The most recent owner, Japan’s Tokyu Corporation, bought it in 1985 for $US6.15 million. Gibson has reportedly installed a bowling alley. Locals told the Herald he intended to keep it as a private getaway and that his son lives there as a caretaker. This week, moguls and magnates can pick up the 90-hectare Blue Lagoon Island, said to have inspired the book and film of the same name, for $US25 million ($33 million) or the boutique 19-hectare Natewa Bay Island for $US8 million.
“Unlike Mago Island purchased by Mel Gibson,” says the listing at luxuryrealestate.com, “Blue Lagoon was never permanently inhabited, thus when it was declared freehold in the 1860s, no native population was displaced”. That selling point provides a clue to the problem of what real estate agents call “alienated freehold” islands: as land values have climbed, so has discontent among nationalists and landless Fijians. Some form of compensation, says the land rights activist Francis Waqa Sokonobogi, is needed to stop the natives from becoming restless again.
Naitouba is currently owned by Adi Dam a.k.a Da Free John. He is a sort of cult leader. While visiting Fiji I met a friendly fellow from San Francisco who said he was a second generation “practicioner”. He was on his way to the private island of the religion.
An island like that is a bit like a miniature nation. You have your own infrastructure, eco-system and in some cases (as in the case of Naitouba), your own culture and beliefs. I spent this morning reading about the celebrity scientologists (John Travolta, Tom Cruise and, gasp, even Beck!). It seems that once you get succesful and rich enough, you start thinking about buying your own tropical island. They are the ultimate symbols of success in the world of the jet set.
Global warming may cause severe problems for paradises like that though. Even if the islands won’t be washed away by the raising sea level, the fresh water may get salinated and there may be major flooding.
Posted by api at 13:44 - No Comments »
Arctic seed vault
The vault’s purpose is to ensure survival of crop diversity in the event of plant epidemics, nuclear war, natural disasters or climate change; and to offer the world a chance to restart growth of food crops that may have been wiped out.
At temperatures of minus 18C (minus 0.4F), the seeds could last hundreds, even thousands, of years. Even if all cooling systems failed, explained Mr Riis-Johansen, the temperature in the frozen mountain would never rise above freezing due to the permafrost on the mountainside.
To quote one of my mottos: “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”
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Ol Doinyo Lengai - The mountain of Gods
I have climbed about 50 active volcanoes in various parts of the world, but Ol Doinyo Lengai has captured my interest like no other volcano ever has. As of 2005 I have climbed Ol Doinyo Lengai 10 times and have spent 100 nights camping at the summit craters. During my first visit on July 17, 1997, I went up and down in one day and spent about 4 hours in the crater. There was some very minor activity, but four hours is not long enough to have a very good chance of seeing an eruption. I decided that I wanted to spend several nights there to increase my chances of seeing some flowing lava, which is what I did twice in 1998 and once in 1999. The more time I spent on Ol Doinyo Lengai, the more fascinated I became. In July 2000 and July 2001 I organized camping expeditions to the crater for small groups of clients. In August 2002 my expedition, which included photographers, a film team, and a volcanologist, encountered hazardous camping conditions due to violent lava fountains and extremely rapid lava flows. Part of our camp was destroyed by lava and a Tanzanian guide was injured.
Volcano spotting! Now there’s a hobby I can appreciate. Oldoinyo Lengai is the only volcano in the world that erupts natrocarbonatite lava. It’s cooler than other types of lava and looks like black mud or oil during the day, but glows in a mysterious orange hue during night. It also the most fluid lava in the world… almost like water.
This was the volcano of the week at Volcano World. The report is by Frederick A. Belton.
Posted by api at 22:34 - No Comments »
Ness and I got sick of his whistling. Laws platform in the background.
Snow_girl is a stationed at the Halley Antarctic Research Station. She has uploaded dozens of amazing pictures to Flickr. Not only the surroundings, but also the social atmosphere over there seems to something really unique and wonderful.
Posted by api at 23:33 - 2 Comments »
Coober Pedy - underground in Australia
Aesthetic concerns are pretty much on par with ecological considerations in this rough
and tumble town of miners and drifters. Resident Trevor McLeod recalls a controversial
proposal to level the hills to fill in the mining holes, partly because a few tourists
tumbled down the 90-foot shafts and died. The idea got about as much support as
suggestions to halt strip mining, which, like most things in this frontier town, remains
legal.
“Anyway, those piles are nice to see on the horizon,” Mr. McLeod says.
“If we pulled them down, what would we look at?”
Dirt walls, mainly. About 70 percent of Coober Pedy’s 3,500 residents live
underground. It’s simple survival, since summer temperatures soar above 55 degree
Celsius. The boroughs remain cool in summer, and warm in winter.
I have always been fascinated by underground homes. I mentioned the missile silo homes earlier and I was delighted to learn about an entire community that lives underground.
A CNN article about subterranean homes discusses some of the energy saving benefits and has an image gallery of underground homes as well
Builders orient many underground homes south and incorporate a wall of windows to capture the sun’s winter rays more directly and exploit solar heat. That energy can also help keep excess humidity in check, resulting in comfortable, even toasty, homes.
Posted by api at 09:37 - No Comments »
According to some research, the moose (alces alces) population in Finland has been getting out of hand recently. They are causing a lot of traffic accidents and eat all the young tree plants in hunger. Young guys are no longer interested in hunting and some of the older hunters are saying that it’s actually hard work, not just a recreational activity. The natural predators of moose, the bears and the wolves, have diminished in numbers and hunting is seen as a necessary means to maintain the moose population within reasonable limits.
There are more than 2000 moose accidents on the roads here each year. When you hit a moose of this size with a sedan car at 100 km/h their legs usually get broken and the 300-500 kilogram body gets thrown through the windshield.
Posted by api at 09:04 - No Comments »
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Flu pandemic ‘could hit 20% of world’s population’
A global taskforce should be urgently formed to tackle a potential influenza pandemic that could affect 20% of the world’s population, trigger economic disaster and kill millions, experts warned today.A report in scientific journal Nature gives a fearful assessment of the huge impact a pandemic could have on the world, with an estimate that more than seven million people could die in the first few months. A pandemic would change the world “overnight” and could be worse than previous outbreaks because of the greater interlinked nature of modern life, experts told Nature.
It seems inevitable that there will be some sort of pandemic disease that will hit the world sooner or later… perhaps within the next decade. Whether it’s avian flu or something else, nobody knows. Experts keep warning about it, but what is an individual person to do about it? The only thing I can think of is to try to keep as fit as possible to increase general resistance to flu. An unpleasant subject matter, but a very real threat, I’m afraid.
I just read on Helsingin Sanomat that the government here is already preparing priorization lists for people who will get vaccinated first in the highly likely case that the vaccine will be in short supply. Finnish government is paying a flat annual fee for a place in line for the vaccine, which will likely take months to develop after the outbreak.
Posted by api at 10:18 - 1 Comment »
Superman Homepage
If you ask the average person on the street, “Where does Clark Kent change into Superman?”, nine out of ten people will answer “In a phone booth”.
Why? Why has the phone booth become synonymous with Superman?
Let’s go back in time and take a look at the various eras of Superman…
In the Golden Age of comic books Clark Kent didn’t use a phone booth to change into Superman. Actually right throughout every era of Superman comics the phone booth change has rarely been seen.
Yes, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster (creators of Superman) used a phone booth for Clark Kent to change into Superman in a Sunday newspaper comic strip in late 1942. Clark, seeing that there is a job for Superman, excuses himself from Lois by arranging to be called away by a bogus phone call. While inside the phone booth he says to himself, “This definitely isn’t the most comfortable place in the world to switch garments, but I’ve got to change identities - and in a hurry!” Yet this was not the very first time Superman found himself changing clothes inside a phone booth.
In “The Adventures of Superman” TV series of the 1950s starring George Reeves, Clark mostly used the Daily Planet Store Room to make his costume change. Some times he used a back alley way… but in all 104 episodes he never used a phone booth.
TeliaSonera, one of the biggest telecom operators in Finland, is abandoning their phone booths. The reasoning is that almost everyone has a cell phone these days. I can’t even remember when was the last time I made a call in a phone booth. They should save a few coin operated ones for covert spy calls and other cinematic purposes.
The news in Helsingin Sanomat (in finnish only)
Posted by api at 10:53 - No Comments »
A sandstorm approaching a compound in Iraq.
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Ancient civilizations are a fascinating research subject. One sometimes encounters unexplainably high level of sophistication in many fields such as astrology, medicine and other areas of knowledge that obviously require a persistent and orchestrated research and exploration effort that must have spanned many generations and centuries.
The Piri Re’is Map
The Piri Re’is Map is only one of several anomalous maps drawn
in the 15th Century and earlier which appear to represent
better information about the shape of the continents than
should have been known at the time.
Furthermore, this information appears to have been obtained
at some distant time in the past.
Piri Re’is, Ptolomy (2nd Century A.D.), as well as
Mercator and Oronteus Finaeus, well-known 15th Century map-makers,
included the traditional southern continent in their world maps, as did others.
Antarctica was not discovered until the 19th Century, and it was largely
unexplored until the middle of the 20th.
This is just the start.
Anomalous maps also show the Behring Strait as linking Asia and America,
river deltas which appear much shorter than they do today,
islands in the Aegean which haven’t been above water since the
sea-level rise at the end of the ice-age and
huge glaciers covering Britian and Scandinavia.
Long dismissed as attempts by cartographers to fill in empty spaces,
some of the details of the old maps look very
startling when correlated with modern
(very mainstream) knowledge of the changes
in the Earths’ geography in the geologic past,
particularly during the Ice Ages.
The Piri Re’is map is most interesting because of the
attribution of the source of its information, and the extraordinary
detail of the coastal outlines.
Posted by api at 09:01 - No Comments »
NPC Online Library: Dr. Louis Hagler’s Response To Community Noise
Noise has always been an important environmental problem for humans. In
ancient Rome, legislation was enacted to control the noise emitted by the
iron-covered wheels of wagons on paving stones, which disrupted sleep and
caused annoyance to the citizens. In some cities in Medieval Europe, horse
drawn carriages and horses were banned from the streets at night in order
to ensure peaceful sleep for the inhabitants. The noise problems of the
past pale in significance to those experienced by modern city-dwellers;
noise pollution continues to grow in extent, frequency, and severity as a
result of population growth, urbanization, and technological developments.
The growth in urban noise pollution involves direct and cumulative adverse
health effects; it affects future generations by degrading residential,
social, and learning environments with corresponding economic losses.
Is it just me or has the social noise really increased considerably over the last two decades? What exactly is the sound pressure level sufficient to disturb sleep? What are those annoying radio “entertainers” smoking? Will people be wearing both gas masks and hearing protectors while walking on the streets in the future?
Don’t lose the music
Posted by api at 09:26 - No Comments »
