The premise that our society is different from what it would have been without the computer revolution is generally accepted. Is our society better than it would have been without the revolution? Is our society worse? Would your answer differ if your position in society were different?
I assume if you read this that if you read this you are comfortable using computers and internet. Still today there are many among us who make a point out of not participating in areas where computers and technology are used. I have experienced that mostly among people in their 40+ when I am at work doing an introduction classes in computers and new technological applications. Even met those in my own age group which try to avoid new technology, and that is just ignorance. Most people are positive but some are negative. Are people negative because they have had a negative experience with IT or is it that they have never used it before and are sceptical? Most people I have dealt with are negative because they are sceptical to changes that may come – they instantly think what changes I have to do when this new technology enters my workplace. Others are positive because they see how this will improve their daily routines and how it can make them more effective and make things easier.
I think there is a lot of work to be done on how the new technology is presented to the future users. They must not get the feeling that this is something they have to do – or like this is something shoveled upon them. Users must be integrated in the intial processes and asked how they want their new technology to be. I see that this can be a very effective way of involving more people and making them more positive.
I think the question wether our society is better or worse because of the computer revolution is very hypthetical. I believe we have come better out of it, not worse. What is the substitute have the computers not been here – or to this extent? I can`t think of anything, and it seems as the computers were destined to be here. People certainly embraced the computeres and still do. I think we still are on the plus-side when it comes to better or worse.
But can you control the speed and direction of the technology – and why would someone want to do that. I think the research on important aspects and areas are going slow – think of how long it takes for engineers to think out how to make the first driverless cars. But how short period of time it takes for Sony to “develop” a wireless control to PS3? I think technology is at its best when it does something to improve our society like more efficient cars, high-speed trains and faster computers. People could get the wrong idea of the propulsion of our technological leaps because of the way the game industry unleashes “new” technology the way they do.
I tried the nice search engine Spotify has to offer, where you can f.e. type in “year:1982″ and Spotify sends the result back with songs/artists from 1982. Then you may order the list by popularity and you can then see which songs from 1982 are the most popular – today! This is only one of the many advanced searches Spotify has to offer. But, what music from 1982 is popular today you say? Well, some of my favorites and perhaps yours too?
Other songs in the top 40 are of course Hot in the city by Billy Idol, Avalon by Roxy Music and off courseBad to the bone by George Thorogood & The Destroyers. If you`re not into this music, maybe it could interest you that “Knight Rider” (tv-series) with The Hoff came out in 1982?
See, the 80`s was not all that bad – and I was born in 1982!!
In Trondheim today it was the first day for many students as well as the beginning of yet another semester for many others. It has been a warm day with few clouds but no rain. I guess the sky emptied itself last night when it was pooring for hours!
The local newspaper, Adresseavisen, has been covering the enrollment of this years new students at NTNU. They presented an article last week with ten things you had to do while you were in Trondheim. Sorry, but it was in norwegian only – but I will present you my own slightly edited list :)
10 THINGS YOU SHOULD DO IN TRONDHEIM DURING YOUR STAY AS STUDENTS
1. Visit Bar Cirkus. Beer is expensive in Norway, but Bar Cirkus offers reasonable prices matched with great music and lots of people – and no cover!
2. Go see a game of football at Lerkendal. People in Trondheim are very proud of Rosenborg (Rosenborg has won a lot during these 20 years as well as playing very well in the Champions Leaugue). Rosenborg will be playing against Real Madrid 24th of august. Maybe you could see it at Samfundet.
3. Buy a membership at Samfundet. You get concerts, lectures and nightclubbing for a good price. For instance, this fall N.E.R.D. will play.
4. Visit Tyholt-tårnet. There is a restaurant at the top with a great view 120 mtrs high!
5. Walk alongside the Nidelva past Marinen and to Gamle Bybro a sunday to experience a few sightings.
6. Go for a swim at Pirbadet. It has a great view towards the Trondheimfjord.
7. Visit the Nidaros Cathedral – and go inside it too. It is majestic on the outside, but just as well from the inside.
8. Take the boat out to Munkholmen and then enjoy yourself a picnic in the middle of the fjord.
9. Walk from the centrum of Trondheim to Ila alongside the river. Then continue up Steinberget until you arrive at Sverresborg. Recommended! If you are not sure where you shall go, do not hesitate to leave a comment.
10. Make reservations and book yourself a flight with Værnes Flyklubb for an hour. They will fly you over Trondheim – or where you want to go for 1000 kroner per hour. You can be f.e. three friends (300 kroner appr. each) who will get a birds view of a the place where you spent part of your life. Definately worth it.
I hope you do at least half of this, and keep and eye out on this page as well – links and other useful tips will be presented here during the semester. So long!
After contemplating about Spotify for a good while now ( I had a beta-account) I finally made up my mind about investing in a premium account there. I don`t know why I was sceptical about it. Now I have access to loads and loads of music which I can listen to whenever I want – wherever I want. My biggest problem before was that the music took a lot of space on the harddrive and that when accessing music wireless with my laptop it could be troublesome sometimes. Now I can download the Spotify on whichever computer – log in and find all the music and my playlists.
Now I explore new music more and more – it is very interesting. The premium account at Spotify only makes the ads between songs go away and you get faster streaming. For me it is actually important because I`m not a big fan of advertizers and commercials as well as pop-ups, even if something is for free. And then there is the iPhone app, for you who have the iPhone.
I also set up the Spotify with my Lastfm-profile so my friends can follow what kind of music we listen to at parties or while I am doing homework. It`s easy, you just go to “Edit – Preferences” (Ctrl+P), scroll down to Lastfm and fill in your account name and password at Lastfm.
You may use the Spotify for FREE (with the commercials in between), use a DAY-PASS (24hrs and cost 1/10 of the premium account) or opt for the PREMIUM ACCOUNT (costs $9,99 for a month). I choose the Premium because I wanted to test and see how I may use Spotify and see if it was something I could see as useful for me. I think it is.
How long does it take to fall from 35 000 feet for an airliner? Well, it all depends on how that airliner falls down. If it goes nose down immidiately, it could take around 50-60 seconds. From what investigators and Airbus has learned from flight 447 the plane sent out messages for four minutes before it all went quiet.
Experts are now speculating in that the precious probes on the side of the aircrafts which measures speed could have gotten iced up very quickly, making parts of the autopilot to shut itself down because it could not read the speed of the aircraft. This would make the control of the aircraft during the turbulence at night very difficult, and could have been a factor in the fatal crash. Not being able to know what speed you are flying at, you could very easily fly too fast for the structure to handle during that rough turbulence or too slow, making the aircraft stall. If they encountered a stall at night during that turbulence, not being able to read their speed, it would be extremely difficult if not impossible to establish level and controlled flight again.
My thoughts are that the pilots during these difficult speed and ice issues, lost control and crashed in the sea. The pilots probably did all they could to get them out of the situation, but the aircraft stalled then over-speed and stall again due to icing on the pitot static system. They probably did this the last four minutes of their flight, while ACARS constantly transmitted messages about the general condition of the aircraft, which was broken apart eventually due to over-stressing of the air frame.
Those are my thoughts after having read a few articles and followed different forums on the internet about the flight 447 which went down. I have seen the media are quite sceptic about recovering those black boxes, but I sincerely believe they will discover them any day now. Remember, they have now found wreckages and bodies of those souls in the water. The black boxes also sends out a signal (lasts 30 days) which makes finding it a tiny bit easier.
They have yet to find the wreckage, and I guess today it is not doubt that the plane has gone down pretty rapid in the atlantic ocean. Second day after the tragic incident of flight 447 from Air France.
Due to the first lightning strike in the Airbus A330 the one that likely caused the electrical system onboard, they could likely have lost the weather radar they had to help them navigate around bad storm cells and perhaps one of the autopilot systems. It is difficult to sit here and trying to picture what has happened, but all the talk about this electrical failure mentioned after the lightning struck. It would seem like that the flight crew lost some aircraft systems – and have flown straight into a storm, not able to know exactly where they were due to the loss for example of the weather radar. If they then flew straight into a storm not knowing it, busy coping with the electrical failure they might have been hit by several lightnings and severe turbulence – the lightnings could potentially create a “pressure problem” after a while like what has been mentioned earlier the plane had warned about. One direct hit by lightning could cause som systems to malfunction(rarely) or minor hull damage (this is also rare), but I am not sure if aircrafts can withstand several direct hits from lightning.
Or they had lost critical automated flight systems and instruments as a result of the storm including radio and communications – leaving the pilot to fly not able to see where he is flying and no visual reference because of the storm and the fact that it is night. Explaining why they had not called in any mayday messgage.
Well, I think we could easily come up with many more thoughts on this – now I wait for the rescue searchers to find the location of the wreckage. Let`s look at Boeing 747 getting hit by lightning during take-off, shall we.
Today we learned that Air France lost contact with an Airbus A330-200 on a non-stop fllight between Rio De Janeiro (SBGL) to Paris (LFPG). I am sure you are on it as well.
So far they have not found the plane or the wreckage, but some are hoping for a miracle landing in the ocean with survivors. Even though the hopes of finding survivors now are quickly fading for each hours that goes.
The aircraft is said to have been hit by severe turbulence and thunderstorms, and that the aircraft itself has suffered a hit from a lightning. It has been confirmed that the flight crew transmitted to brazilian Air Traffic Controllers that they had hit turbulence, but not that they had been hit by lightning although the aicraft itself had sent to the mainland and Air France that it had encountered an “electrical failure” and “pressure loss”.
An aircraft of this type certainly is equipped for handling situations like these, so people are wondering how the plane could vanish like this without leaving enough time even for the pilots to send out a distress message or mayday. The Air France flight 447 travelled in airspace with lots of other traffic crossing the atlantic at the same time, and they were not affected by the bad weather not more than that there is not a report on it as we have heard.
I know two of my friends have been on planes that has been hit by lightning and both of the times the flight crew was very relaxed about it as it can knock out one system, but like the A330-200, most jetplanes today have plenty of backup systems.
This aircraft was just 4 years old (picture) belonging to some of the safest airliners in the world, and one of the most sofisticated and reliable jets itself. A long-range stalwart, as CNN`s air travel expert Richard Quest put it. It had a maintenance check only a month ago, on 16th of april as well. And if we look at what phase the flight 447 was in, they were at cruise (FL350) when disappeared. That is definately the safest phase of the entire trip making this even more and more unlikely to have happened. As we know the take-off and landing phase is the most critical one during flight.
At about 0200 GMT, the captain reported entering heavy turbulence caused by Atlantic storms, French media report. At 0214 GMT a data message transmitted by satelites reported electrical and pressurisation problems. This suggests whatever happened, happened before the crew could put out a mayday radio call. It was likely a sudden and catastrophic emergency. Even a double engine failure at cruising altitude would normally give the crew around half an hour’s gliding time.
And I would like to point out that a landing on water has a very low success rate – like the one in the Hudson river, he landed there with optimum conditions during day. The flight 447 was in the middle of an atlantic storm – in the middle of the NIGHT. No visual reference points – and if he had electrical problems the whole flightdeck would be pitch black you would not be able to see your own hand there- during the wild turbulence they would not know if they were upside down or not. Falling down from 35 000 feet does not take that long time – if this aircraft was out of control. 30 seconds perhaps. If you want to go to Air France`s own page for information, you may do so by clicking this link.
The reason for my trip to Paris was the concert held by Simply Red at the Olympia Hall 28th of may 2009. I have been a fan of Simply Red for as long as I can remember. I am 26 years old, and the music of Simply Red has always been around me. Funny to think of that Mick Hucknall (vocalist) has been singing in Simply Red for 23 years now.
A few hours before the concert started people began waiting outside. Me and my girlfriend was sitting at a café nearby when we saw people were lining up. So we walked right over and got in line too.
The concert was held inside a cute hall at Olympia with room for around 2000 people. Behind the stage there were several large screens and in front of them the band. We were right in front of the stage not far away.
If you ever were to go a concert at Olympia Hall in Paris, remember that the floor is constructed with a small slope, so any place offers the same great view of the stage. There`s also a terrace for vip-tickets with chairs. Those who were situated there did not use them, they were all dancing too under the concert! The atmosphere was so great.
The music of Simply Red is very good to begin with, but I was amazed of how great it was live. I had never heard Simply Red live before, and I must say it was fabulous.
Here is a little taste of what it was like to be there, a video I found from youtube:
This concert was a great one to be at, and together with a trip to Paris, I guess it is a long time before I get that kind of “high” again. That is, if not someone knows any great concerts coming up in New York or Toky soon!
