10 Types Of People

Just thought I would put a wee blog post out to let people know that I am now officially engaged to Faye (@framemybear on twitter). I will post picture and explain how it happened another time, but I’m kinda busy just now

**EDIT** Spelling mistake – “not” changed to “now”

If you are like me, you were upset, and annoyed, when a definition for a “planet” was created, as this meant that Pluto was no longer a planet. This was very very upsetting for many many people. Well, you may be able to stop crying. Let us hope so. Because, next week, the IAU are meeting, and are going to discuss the definition of a planet. Currently, the definition of a planet is

a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (c) has cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit.

This definition means that Pluto (as it has a number of other objects in it’s orbit) is not a planet. It is a dwarf planet, which covers (a) and (b), but not (c). The idea, by some people, is to get rid of (c) and just use the first 2 bits of the definition. This would mean that Pluto would be a planet again (woo!) but would also mean that Ceres (the largest meteor in the meteor belt between Mars and Jupiter), a number of plutioniun objects, and the moon (huh?) would become planets.

Now, you may be saying “Why can’t Pluto just be a planet, never mind the rest of them.” Well, some people are saying that we should not have a definition of a planet, that planets should evolve in the public conciousness. Which means, lets be honest, that there would be 9 planets again. Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Venus and Pluto. (A rhyme anyone?)

I am not sure which I prefer. I just want Pluto to be a planet, but the moon? Thats a bit weird.

Anyways, make your own mind up about what you think, and when I hear something, I’ll tell ya. You can read more about it here, at newscientist.com.

OK, so I just read the latest New Scientist magazine, and saw a competition that they had set up. Called “Visions of the Future”. The only thing annoyed me was the fact that it was in conjunction with Microsoft, however in general it is quite an interesting competition, and it got me thinking. Basically, they asked for you to send in what you think is going to happen with technology in the future.

So this got me thinking about what I think could happen with computing in the future. Now in the past few years, I’ve thought of a few ideas that I think will happen with computing, and then a while after thinking it, I saw things happening to show that it will happen.

For example, a few years ago I raved to everyone I know about how we are going to get wireless electricity. This way, we could have truly wireless laptops…with absolutely no cables if thats what you wish, then, my sister sent me a link showing me that wireless electrcity was actually in development, and it had been used to power a 60W lightbulb.

Then, last year I went really big with a idea that one day we will get an international wireless network…a bit like mobile phone network, but with better signal, and faster. Then, a few weeks ago, I read google’s blog, and they just announced that they were starting up a joint venture with a few companies to create an American-wide wireless network.

So basically its made me think a lot more about the future of computing and how far we’ve come.

If we take wireless electricity, throw in a renewable energy source so we don’t kill the world, add a pinch of international wireless network, use the booming mini-laptop industry and combine it all with IPv6 which is about to come out, and you can get nearly the whole world connected via the internet.

It just shows so much potential.

Ok, to start off with I amn’t going to explain the title of this seemingly odd blog.

I am going to explain what I did yesterday.

I had a day off yesterday, so Dave asked me and a few other people if we wished to join him on a days walking. I agreed. So yesterday, at 9am, we left the centre, and headed in the new minibus to Fort William.

It took us around 2 hours to get there, and when we got there, we got out, and looked up at our walk…Ben Nevis. The highest mountain in Britain.

So we started the walk up, the weather was amazing, as you can see from the first picture. We walked 3 quarters up the hill in just a tshirt and trousers. Even walking for 400m up in the snow. However, it then started to get windy, so I had to put some more clothes on.

By now, you probably know where I am going with this story and with the title. Well, when we got to the top, we took some pictures, delighted in the fact that we were currently higher than all 60 million people in Britain, and raved. You can see the rave here – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlVIhkeC9L8

So, now that we had the highest rave in Britain, we decided that we would sledge halfway down Ben Nevis. (We would have done it all, had it not been for the fact that we ran out of snow halfway down). 1 little problem with this, was the fact that we didn’t have any sledges. So, we just used our behinds. It was extremely fast, faster than I have every been on a sledge. And it was steep. And it just kept coming and coming. Was one of the best experiences of my life. That half of the mountain that took us 2 and a quarter hours to walk up, took us 15 minutes to slide down.

The whole journey took 3 and a half hours up the mountain, and 1 and a half down.