Climate change in Google Earth

Climate Change In Our World is a new Google Earth layer developed by the Met Office Hadley Centre demonstrating current climate change predictions. It's an excellent tool for communicating what climate change can (and will) do to our world and I encourage all of you with Google Earth installed to download the layer.


There is a time line across the top, which you can either slide to a particular year to see what the temperature increase would be, or which you can play as an animation, watching the temperature rise as time goes by. The timeline goes from 1999 to 2099. There is a second animation which flies you around the earth to areas of specific interest, where you can click on an icon and read stories of how climate change is already impacting the world.

Fly over to the Artic Circle and watch the temperature increase at an astonishing rate. By 2018 it is approximately 8 or 9 degrees (celsius) warmer than in 1999; by 2043 it is around 12°C warmer and by the end of the animation in 2099 it has increased by an incredible 18°C. The data used to produce the layer are based upon a mid-range IPCC emissions scenario.

A second Climate Change In Our World Google Earth layer has been produced by the British Antartic Survey and demonstrates the retreat of the Antartic ice shelves over the past 50 years.


These are great educational tools for both adults and kids with links to resources offering further information and practical advice.

Incidentally, I took this opportunity to update my version of Google Earth and installed the latest beta (4.3). It's great. It has its own browser so any links you click on open in the Google Earth window and it comes with lots of really interesting layers. Those that I have found of interest in the few moments I have spent madly clicking around are the National Geographic Magazine layer (under Gallery) and The Earth from Above with GoodPlanet (under Global Awareness) but there are loads of others.


After rediscovering my love of Google Earth I downloaded another layer which demonstrates World Oil Consumption using data from the CIA World Factbook. Fascinating. Next, I think I shall play with rising sea levels. I mean that from a purely educational Google Earth perspective, not from an evil-world-domination-I-like-to-think-I-am-God perspective.

Addicted to Facebook?

Are you addicted to social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace or LinkedIn? Do you spend more time online than you do working? Do you find yourself checking your email, looking at friends' photos, reading your Facebook wall and then suddenly realising it's coffee time and wondering where the morning has gone?

If so, I have just the cute little application for you. It's called Notworking, a little counter that tells you how much time you're spending networking, or not working, when you should be working. Of course, we can always justify at least part of our time online, such as checking out the Answers section of LinkedIn for your industry and when you're in the web field, such as I, there are many, many excuses ("I'm just evaluating Facebook to determine it's usefulness as a marketing tool for the University. Honest!"). So, to help out with such situations the Notworking counter can be paused as necessary. It can also be reset, useful when the truth becomes embarrassing.


You can estimate your hourly rate and stick this in. It then calculates how much money you could have earned during the time you've been procrastinating online. For example, I could have earned $4.63 during the time I spent writing this, working out my hourly rate, and creating my screen shots. Trouble is, I did earn it and it really isn't that much money so this is much more useful if you're working for youself and earn big bucks. The other thing to bear in mind (in fairness to myself) is that I am only doing this because I had to restart a development server that stopped responding, so for at least $1 of that time I would have been sitting twiddling my thumbs anyway. As it is, I have been doing a service to industry by spreading the word about this FREE application and making others aware of their wasted hours.

If you want to get this little app for yourself then you can download it from Website Repairs. It even floats over your other windows so there's no ignoring it.

Total time spent on this blog: 00:18:55
Total cost: $7.30

iRobot and iPod win CHOICE Shonky award

You may remember that some time ago I wrote about what I consider to be an excellent invention, a robotic vacuum cleaner, the Roomba iRobot. Well, I'm quite pleased I didn't rush out to purchase one because it has now won the CHOICE (Australian consumer watchdog) Shonky for Best Dirt Redistribution. According to CHOICE,

It’s about time they invented a robot that vacuums the house for us — it’s just that the iROBOT has a few minor shortcomings. Like, it’s almost useless on carpet. It’s OK on hard floors, though extremely slow, taking minutes to cover what you’d take seconds to do. And it’s noisy. Oh, and ours didn’t automatically return to its base for recharging, as it’s supposed to.

But what really made us doubt was its dirt redistribution function: when the small dirt container starts filling up, every time the iROBOT bumps into a wall or obstacle, a little heap of collected dirt falls out again. iROBOT? iDon’tthinkso.

See www.choice.com.au - robot vacuum cleaners for CHOICE's review of two robotic vacuum cleaners.

The Apple iPod also won a Shonky award: the iSHONK for dual shonkyness:

An iPod is a significant investment, so you don’t want your APPLE to be a lemon. And if there is something wrong with it, you’d expect an easy repair and warranty service. Podluck.

Level 1. Several readers complained about cracked screens, faulty batteries and problems with sound reproduction.

Level 2. APPLE doesn’t allow retailers to handle complaints under warranty (which is their obligation under Fair Trading laws) — you have to send your faulty iPod to APPLE yourself via Australia Post. And if they decide the fault isn’t covered by the warranty, you’ll have to foot the entire bill.

So, all you iPodettes out there, be very careful not to crack your screen. Speaking of faulty goods, I'm now off to find a replacement battery charger for my digital camera after over-heating the original by leaving it plugged in too long. I only hope I can find one before we leave for the UK in a few weeks.

Biometrics prevent pub fights

This is kind of old news now as I read it a week ago but forgot to pass it on. Apparently, a pilot biometrics scheme, in Yeovil of all places, is being used to cut down on pub brawls by scanning drinkers' thumbprints and preventing entry to anyone who has already been barred from any of the other pubs in the scheme. According to silicon.com, there are seven pubs taking part in the scheme and South Somerset District Council reports a 23% decrease in alcohol related crimes since the start of the pilot.

The latest news from silicon.com on this topic is that 40% of respondents to an online poll they conducted said they would be prepared to participate in such a scheme. On the other side of the fence are the 29% who said they would consider moving if their town introduced such a scheme, and sitting on the fence were the 31% who really couldn't be bothered just for the sake of having a pint - lightweights!

Me suspects the poll gave a basic three choices:
a) Yes I would participate in such a scheme;
b) Probably isn't worth it just for a pint;
c) No way, I'd rather move;
which probably wouldn't give an altogether accurate impression of people's opinions. But I merely speculate.

For more on biometrics see silicon's A-Z of biometrics and biometrics on wikipedia.

Another cool gadget: Roll-up laptop screen

This is so cool. It's a laptop screen that you can roll up and stick in your bag. Then you can take it out of your bag and unroll it and it stays flat. It uses "morphing materials" which basically means that the metal can retain up to three different structures. Wow! That's some freaky physics. Check it out at silicon.com

Weird and wonderful gadgets

The Gist: Completely distracted, three interesting gadgets: the vacuum cleaning Roomba, the USB rechargable battery and the titchy teeny "where on earth did I put it?" iPod Shuffle.

I'm having one of those dreadful days at work where you really do begin to wonder why you're there and what was it you were supposed to be doing again? I know you've all had them so don't come the innocent with me. And no, I wasn't drinking last night. Well, actually I was but not excessively and by that I do not wish to imply that I'm an alcoholic for whom a few drinks every night is an essential but I do enjoy a glass of wine now and then. In fact I'd had that particular bottle of wine since my birthday (2nd December for those of you that need a reminder and yes, it's coming up again soon).

From that first paragraph you should all now be gathering just how distracted and fragmented my mind is at the moment. Must perform a de-frag this afternoon. It could be to do with all the crazy brain games Toby's had me playing all week, such as seeing how many sequences of numbers you can remember, forwards and backwards (I reached 10 sets of 3 digits before I got bored but perhaps I wasn't playing properly), and spelling words forwards and backwards.

So, I thought I'd share with you all some weird and wonderful gadgets I have stumbled upon this week.

The Roomba
Firstly, I bring you the Roomba, a fantastic labour-saving device for all you working peeps out there with busy social lives and very little time (or desire) for housework. This little device will vacuum your floor for you. How brilliant is that? It's flat so it can get under furniture that you would usually struggle to reach (or just not bother) and it will even find its way back to base when it needs recharging. I really want one of these. How wonderful it would be to arrive home from work and find the vacuuming has already been done. You can get similar gadgets to mop your floor too. Now all I need are dusting and toilet-cleaning gadgets.

USBCell
Brilliant! I love this. It's an absolute stroke of genius. The USBCell is basically a AA battery which you can recharge by plugging it into the USB port on your computer. Oh what a wonderful world we live in. Apparently greenies think it's pretty good as you can recharge it whilst you're using your 'puter anyway. It only has 40% capacity of a regular battery due to the space taken up by the USB connector but who cares when it's so damn easy to charge anyway? These cost £12.99 for two and I shall be purchasing a few when I'm in the UK at the end of the year for use with my wireless keyboard and mouse.

iPod Shuffle

This is more amusing than anything else. The iPod Shuffle claims to be the world's smallest digital music player and let's hope it is as anything smaller would be difficult to see, let alone operate. I was led to this titchy tiny gadget via Silicon.com's Weekly Round-up which makes mention of an episode of Saturday Night Live from a few years back which poked fun at Apple for releasing ever-diminishing iPods. Well, now they've gone and done it and as Round-up points out you need double-jointed fingers to use it (see image). Remember Zoolander's mobile phone? I'm amazed at the technology behind this, really I am. I mean it's just incredible that they can make something like this so small. But I mean really, does it have to be? No matter how many times I go to the website and look at the photographs I can't help wondering if this is a joke.

Climate change tip for the top: Well, it's got to be to replace some of your AA batteries with USBCells really, doesn't it? And that's about it from me really, although I would like to point you in the direction of some interesting articles I saw on the BBC website this week and also to encourage you to go and see Al Gore's film, An Inconvenient Truth (brilliant title), which I'm planning on seeing next week. I'll try and get round to letting you know what it's like.

State of California sues auto companies for damaging environment:
State sues car firms on climate

Should we spend money on climate change? The arguments for and against:
Wasteful efforts to curb global warming (Against)
Climate change remains top priority (For)