Rambling and blogging for over 8 years, from good food and drink around town, eclectic electronic music, absolutely anything to do with digital media, throw some sport (more than likely cricket) in and the odd personal experience — as seen through my viewfinder.
I’m a fan of doomsday scenarios, and please note that we’re talking scenarios and not real world occurence. However, for some of the scenarios out there, plausible or not, there’s nothing you can do about them.
Remember the buzz about killer bees? So do we, fondly. Because it turns out bees are really important, but since late 2006 they’ve been disappearing for reasons nobody can quite explain. And it’s not just honey supplies that will suffer if the bees bite it. You can also kiss your fruits and veggies good-bye. “You could have the perfect field, soil, and sun, and if the pollinator was not there you’d have a vine and no fruit,” says Dr. Jeff Pettis, head USDA bee researcher. With honeybees pollinating more than a quarter of the world’s food supply, that’s a lot of empty vines (and stomachs). The financial impact of a bee-free season would be US$75 billion. Perhaps Albert Einstein put it best: “If the bee disappears from the surface of the Earth, man will have no more than four years to live.”
How to Survive: Become part of the solution—starter hives are selling for $215 on betterbee.com
Continuing on this concept - honey bees are of great value to Australian horticulture and agriculture. Their pollination services to the 35 most important honeybee dependent crops were estimated to be valued at AUS$1.7 billion in 2000.
Colony Collapse Disorder, has the potential to destroy the majority of our fruit and vegetable crops. “Vanishing of the Bees”
The cruising altitude of a jumbo jet is around 35,000 feet. Imagine jumping from a balloon at three times that height.
Project Excelsior was a series of high altitude parachute jumps made by Captain Joseph Kittinger of the United States Air Force in 1959 and 1960.
His only protection, a pressure suit - he made three ascents in a helium balloon. The first - Excelsior I on November 16, 1959 from 76,400 feet. His stabiliser chute deployed early, tangling around his neck. He was sent into a spin, tumbling at 120 revolutions per minute, sustaining upwards of 22G’s and causing him to lose consciouness. Luckily, his main chute opened at 10,000 feet and he survived.
Only three weeks later, his second jump was successfully completed from a height of 74,700 feet.
The third and last jump set the world record for the highest parachute jump and the longest parachute freefall, both of which still stand today. This ascent was to an incredible height of 102,800 feet, some 31.3 kilometres above the Earth’s surface.
Woohoo! NASA’s Deep Impact Project offers you to have your name mounted on a CD within the impactor spacecraft that will collide with Tempel 1. It is the first mission ever to look deep inside a comet. I even got a certificate!
In the 1960s and 70s, groups like The Beatles and Black Sabbath were accused of recording satanic messages into songs, which could only be heard when the music was played backward.
Has Aphex Twin done the modern day equivalent?
The image found within the audio spectrum analysis is the aural equivalent of steganography: the practice of hiding secret messages and watermarks in images.
