Don't
worry Just
when I thought there was nothing to write about, along comes
this delightful bit from the Observer
(UK),
reminding me of things I'd thought of years ago and then
forgotten. To soften the blow (or relieve the tedium), I've
included a couple of pictures from my Sunday afternoon
drive. All right then, let's begin:
What
science editor Robin McKie is talking about is an overdue
"flipping" of the earth's magnetic poles. (There's even
going to be a sci-fi thriller about this coming out next
year.) According to the article, during the accompanying
sudden drop in the intensity of the planet's magnetic field,
all kinds of gruesome things could happen. A similar event
on Mars is thought to have been responsible for making the
Red Planet the lovely vacation spot it is today, in
fact.
"As
to humans, our greatest risk would come from intense
solar radiation bursts. Normally these are contained by
the planet's magnetic field in space. However, if it
disappears, particle storms will start to batter the
atmosphere.
'These
solar particles can have profound effects,' said Dr Paul
Murdin, of the Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge. 'On
Mars, when its magnetic field failed permanently billions
of years ago, it led to its atmosphere being boiled off.
On Earth, it will heat up the upper atmosphere and send
ripples round the world with enormous, unpredictable
effects on the climate.' "
In
light of recent events highlighting any number of bizarrely
illogical and contradictory trends in our country and the
world, it's refreshing to consider a natural event that's
totally out of our control. What I mean is, one isn't
likely to go mad with frustration over nobody doing anything
about it. Crazy with fear, perhaps, but not anger at one's
fellow man. On the other hand, things like slashing the
budget for everything except killing large numbers of
swarthy non-Christians strikes me as rather unwise every
time another corporate crook makes off with the swag or my
car hits a pothole on the Interstate. I've even been known
to think unfondly of Apple and IDG World Expo for putting
Mac users' butts in a sling over whatever they're squabbling
about. But the prospect of being spontaneously cooked by
microwaves from outer space puts it all in perspective, yes
indeedy.
Well,
maybe According
to the white coat gang, the browning of America and
everyplace else may be just around the corner. While the
polar switch usually occurs roughly every 250,000 years, at
the moment the changeover is something like a million
years overdue. If this were a library book, you might as
well shut up and keep it.
"The
effects could be catastrophic. Powerful radiation bursts,
which normally never touch the atmosphere, would heat up
its upper layers, triggering climatic disruption.
Navigation and communication satellites, Earth's eyes and
ears, would be destroyed and migrating animals left
unable to navigate.
Gauthier
Hulot of the Paris Geophysical Institute has discovered
Earth's magnetic field seems to be disappearing most
alarmingly near the poles, a clear sign that a flip may
soon take place. Using satellite measurements of field
variations over the past 20 years, Hulot plotted the
currents of molten iron that generate Earth's magnetism
deep underground and spotted huge whorls near the
poles."
But
maybe we won't get cooked. Maybe nothing will happen except
that satellites fall out of the sky and all the birds get
lost and die. Who needs robins, anyway? Your cell phones may
not work, and as for computer hard drives... um....you see
where this is leading? If so, please clue me in. ("Wait a
minute, CDs are optical media! Who cares about solar storms?
Why, I'll just slap this baby down and reinstall the
software! But why won't my iBook wake up? Oh no, the
motherboard... <whimper>...")
It
does suggest that our preoccupation with these machines I'm
typing on and whether MIcrosoft needs to be boiled in poison
oil amount to very little in the overall scheme of things.
This is a subject I've touched on before, of course. (Still
warm, too.) From time to time I have this weird intuition
that human beings are really meant for Better Things than
whatever we're mucking about with. I dunno, call it the
extreme contrarian P.O.V., or maybe D.H.O.V. (Dead Hippies
On Viagra). Call it "Jennifer" for all I care, but I am not
talking about sitting on a cloud playing a harp. I'm talking
about powers of mind and spirit. No, really.
Anyway,
we just might need something to concentrate on while we're
watching the glaciers eat Manhattan. And wouldn't it be the
biggest joke of all if paper turns out to be the only
storage medium with any real longevity to speak of? That,
and -- hang onto your noggins -- oral history?! The
inability to maintain one's attention span longer than
thirty seconds will become a distinct evolutionary
disadvantage for techies if the only way to keep Unix alive
is through orders of chanting monks:
"0001100101001110100010011101...."
Aw,
go on, be happy Well,
this has been fun. But I would like to point that that
hypothetical rogue asteroids we haven't spotted yet are one
thing and measurable changes in magnetic intensity quite
another. This is real and could be in our laps soon. It also
might not happen in time to distract us from more mundane
disasters best avoided, so I hope everyone comes out of
cultural hypnosis and wakes up to his or her potential well
before the Navajo Nation becomes beachfront or Microsoft
selects the next president-for-life.
In
the meantime, it's open season on anyone without a flag, oil
wells to ransom, or a paid-up Windows license, so if you'll
excuse me, I'm off to find a decent mine shaft. Obscurity
has its advantages, and if I go deep enough, the dirt will
shield my hard drives. Something tells me no one will laugh,
either, when I eventually emerge, lugging that ol' tangerine
toilet-seat by the handle:
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