Looks like we’ll be ok. Local weather stations suggest that we got some 4 inches of rain. At 4 we were woken up by some vicious winds and moved to a lower room that seemed safer. We did lose the top of a tree but it landed on the woodpile. Nevertheless, there are still hours to go.
The storm is starting even though it is still a very long way off. I know this is only a taste of what we’re going to get later in the night and tomorrow morning.
Another concern we have is the amount of water we’re going to get. We are on a hillside and we have concerns about how saturated the soil is on that hillside. That said, I think this is a safe place to live, likely the safest I’ve ever lived in.
It is still surprising how many people fervently believe that the augmented city will get them out of this no matter what. So many individuals seem so used to that condition that they forget just how fragile those networks are and don’t have any backup plans for when they fail.
Italian pilot David Cenciotti, blogger, is writing about the military operations in Libya on his site. Not only can readers gain technical insight into the operations there, Cenciotti points to a new relationship between aviation enthusiasts and military forces.
Enthusiasts form an international network that constantly monitors military communications worldwide, thus potentially undoing the element of surprise. In the case of US bombing of Libya by B-2 bombers, the USAF reacted by using misleading communications signals. Later on, however, an enthusiast informed the USAF that one of its aircraft was broadcasting its identity inadvertently through a transponder normally used to broadcast aircraft positions and identities for collision avoidance purposes.
If there’s a place where information technology is providing massive advances, it’s in paleoanthropology. Genetic analysis is redefining our notion of recent human origins. As a spectator, I’ve been following this material with great interest. If you have any curiosity about where we came from as a species and haven’t read about the recent discoveries involving the Neanderthals and the Denisovans, take a look at this piece by John Hawks as an introduction.
Former chief economist at the IMF, Simon Johnson looks at the Irish crisis and assesses it in terms of global geopolitics and the rise of China. Read his article here.