sw’as

Yesterday was an interesting day in scientific news. First I read that it is now possible to use the Sun’s energy to propel a craft through space. This is an interesting idea, and even more interesting are the details of the project. It is a privately funded project and the rocket taking this ’sailing ship’ to space is an ex-intercontinental (are you allowed to put two prefixes on a word?) missile launched from a submarine.

I have read a fair number of news articles on this (but not delved much further into the detail) and I see a problem with stopping this thing. Once it gets going there is no friction to slow it down so you’ll need a force in the other direction. I guess they aren’t looking to stop it at this stage, but these guys think it’s possible, not only to stop, but to turn around and come back!

And why wouldn’t I believe them?

The second big thing, as the title suggests, is that it may soon be possible to reproduce without sex or birth. Exactly why you would want to forgo the first, I’m not sure.

But as this article states, there is a fairly good reason for the idea (of course there might be a reason why people are unable to reproduce naturally, but I’ll leave that up to you to decide).

But, what about the birth thing you might ask? Well if you combine that technology with this one (which some are suggesting is the go)….

The world could be an interesting place in 50 or 100 years, even more so than now! I hope I’m around to see it.

I know it’s only just halfway through the year but I think I have gathered enough evidence already to justify this nomination.

The winter school holidays are here and it marks the end of an important phase in the life of the one I love. Well, it’s actually a kind of arbitrary point in time really, but I chose it because I want to point out how proud I am of Laura. Laura has been teaching high school English and drama classes for two full terms now and has faced and beaten all the challenges that the first semester of teaching threw at her.

She is dedicated Laura has spent hours and hours of her own time on weekends doing more than is asked of her as a teacher. Primarily this term she has spent many hours preparing students, costumes, props and sets for the school musical and helped turn it into the hit that it was. She has even gone as far as enlisting slave labour to sew costumes. She has coached both netball and softball teams to many a courageous loss (and maybe a couple of wins). She has also given up half of her holidays to supervise a school camp (although I don’t think she really counts it as work because it’s at the snow).

She is respected by her colleagues She is very regularly receiving great feedback on her ability from other staff and school management. I believe it has been said that the deputy principal was going to “work very hard” at ensuring Laura has a permanent position at her school next year.

She recieves great client feedback She has had parents on the phone thanking her very much for her wonderful work. One particular parent, upon finding out it was her first year as a teacher, was absolutely amazed and continued to comment on how well she had handled situations in the class room with her child. She regularly comes home speaking of students who enjoy the way she teaches and who are continually surprising and exceeding her expectations.

She is passionate Not only about teaching and the well-being of students but about the public school system and how fantastic it is. But more importantly how much more fantastic it could and should be with just a little bit of sanity from our federal government. She is also passionate about individual students. Just a couple of days ago Laura came home and launched into a story about how disappointed she was that one of her best year 10 English students is moving to another school. She was genuinely disappointed and described the student as “just golden”.

She knows how to deal with a crisis Laura has dealt with sporting injuries including broken bones, the daily crisis that is her year nine drama class, the crisis that is year nine in general and she has even saved a life - no joke. Need I say more?

I’m confident in saying that she has thoroughly enjoyed it and expects to continue to enjoy teaching for years to come. She’s been involved in so many extra curricular activities that they’re hard to count. I hope I haven’t made too many spelling or grammatical errors - thankyou for teaching me. Congratulations on a fantastic six months Laura - I’m so proud of you.

I’ve been looking for something to take me to the next level of geek. Here it is.

I’ve been waiting for this to happen for years.

I thought of this idea over four years ago and hadn’t heard any of the big phone companies talking about it until I read this news article today. I guess it’s no wonder they didn’t want to talk about it too much. The idea is long overdue, with only one problem - mobile calls are getting cheaper and cheaper to the extent that, at times, it is cheaper to call using the mobile network than the land line. Nevertheless it’s an excellent idea and I have no idea why it hasn’t been implemented sooner. I will be looking with great interest to see if it comes to Australia soon.

This quick Q&A gives a good summary (although some of the questions/answers are a little dodgy).

This:

Is a little concerning. I would have structured the service in a slightly different way. The handset itself should be a stand alone mobile with a separate phone number to the land line. People calling someone with this service could then make the choice whether to call the land line or the mobile (and have the relevant rate applied). This configuration makes much more sense to me but I’m sure it has its own issues. For example the phone companies would then no doubt charge two line rental fees (one for fixed and one for mobile).