are we putting all are eggs in one basket with technology?
Computer glitch hits US flights File image of planes at Atlanta International Airport The delays affected Atlanta airport, one of the world's busiest A computer glitch affecting aircraft flight plans has caused cancellations and delays along the US east coast. According to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), a computer system in Atlanta, Georgia, which processes flight plans stopped working properly. As a result, controllers were forced to enter flight plans manually. The FAA said the safety of planes in the air was not affected and, according to US media reports, the computer system is now working again. The problems began at about 0515 local time (1015 GMT) on Thursday and, according to the Associated Press news agency, were resolved around 1000. Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport was worst affected, with dozens of flights cancelled or delayed. Airports in New York, Boston and Florida also reported delays. Airline officials said they expected the delays to continue through the day. Last August a similar computer failure affected hundreds of flights across the US. if we geta solar flair in 2012 predicted by NASA we lose all technology. just look at what happen with the planes imagine the world! FEATURE Solar Storm Warning 03.10.2006 + Play Audio | + Download Audio | + Historia en Español | + Email to a friend | + Join mailing list March 10, 2006: It's official: Solar minimum has arrived. Sunspots have all but vanished. Solar flares are nonexistent. The sun is utterly quiet. Like the quiet before a storm. This week researchers announced that a storm is coming--the most intense solar maximum in fifty years. The prediction comes from a team led by Mausumi Dikpati of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). "The next sunspot cycle will be 30% to 50% stronger than the previous one," she says. If correct, the years ahead could produce a burst of solar activity second only to the historic Solar Max of 1958. see captionThat was a solar maximum. The Space Age was just beginning: Sputnik was launched in Oct. 1957 and Explorer 1 (the first US satellite) in Jan. 1958. In 1958 you couldn't tell that a solar storm was underway by looking at the bars on your cell phone; cell phones didn't exist. Even so, people knew something big was happening when Northern Lights were sighted three times in Mexico. A similar maximum now would be noticed by its effect on cell phones, GPS, weather satellites and many other modern technologies. Right: Intense auroras over Fairbanks, Alaska, in 1958. [More] Dikpati's prediction is unprecedented. In nearly-two centuries since the 11-year sunspot cycle was discovered, scientists have struggled to predict the size of future maxima—and failed. Solar maxima can be intense, as in 1958, or barely detectable, as in 1805, obeying no obvious pattern. The key to the mystery, Dikpati realized years ago, is a conveyor belt on the sun. We have something similar here on Earth—the Great Ocean Conveyor Belt, popularized in the sci-fi movie The Day After Tomorrow. It is a network of currents that carry water and heat from ocean to ocean--see the diagram below. In the movie, the Conveyor Belt stopped and threw the world's weather into chaos. see caption Above: Earth's "Great Ocean Conveyor Belt." [More] The sun's conveyor belt is a current, not of water, but of electrically-conducting gas. It flows in a loop from the sun's equator to the poles and back again. Just as the Great Ocean Conveyor Belt controls weather on Earth, this solar conveyor belt controls weather on the sun. Specifically, it controls the sunspot cycle. Solar physicist David Hathaway of the National Space Science & Technology Center (NSSTC) explains: "First, remember what sunspots are--tangled knots of magnetism generated by the sun's inner dynamo. A typical sunspot exists for just a few weeks. Then it decays, leaving behind a 'corpse' of weak magnetic fields." Enter the conveyor belt. see caption"The top of the conveyor belt skims the surface of the sun, sweeping up the magnetic fields of old, dead sunspots. The 'corpses' are dragged down at the poles to a depth of 200,000 km where the sun's magnetic dynamo can amplify them. Once the corpses (magnetic knots) are reincarnated (amplified), they become buoyant and float back to the surface." Presto—new sunspots! Right: The sun's "great conveyor belt." [Larger image] All this happens with massive slowness. "It takes about 40 years for the belt to complete one loop," says Hathaway. The speed varies "anywhere from a 50-year pace (slow) to a 30-year pace (fast)." When the belt is turning "fast," it means that lots of magnetic fields are being swept up, and that a future sunspot cycle is going to be intense. This is a basis for forecasting: "The belt was turning fast in 1986-1996," says Hathaway. "Old magnetic fields swept up then should re-appear as big suns the world would die without technology we have no way of communication. we rely on trade to get food here in America, if we cant talk it over we cant trade! they say a solar flair well do worse than lose technology it make it to where we have no electricity! so even the most basic things well, malfunction.
Polls & Surveys - 9 Answers
Random Answers, Critics, Comments, Opinions :
1 :
I don't know if we are putting all "are" eggs in one basket.
2 :
We are putting all our virtual eggs in a virtual basket.
3 :
perhaps
4 :
That is why I don't shop for groceries at discount stores (Target, Walmart, etc.) I don't like having groceries (e.g. eggs) and my technology (e.g. new blu ray player) in the same basket. :-/
5 :
I have neither eggs nor basket.
6 :
yeah no doubt i mean everything is done on computers thesedays, i think its something like 96% of all financial transactions are done electronically. if something ever happened to the sharemarket systems or whatever there would be chaos and if an event like in the movies where all electronic stopped working i think most people would lose their mind lol
7 :
wtf is your point? solar storms happen all the time. whenever one hits, air control is notified before this is going to happen to ground flights. watch the nasa and nova clips on hulu to see what i'm talking about. no shit is going to happen in 2012. technology has helped us so much.
8 :
yes without electricity everyone would die.
9 :
Yes, we are and we will wish we had diversified our technology! :-)
