Russian City Hit By Meteorite

Just hours ago, the Russian city of Chelyabinsk was rocked when a meteorite estimated to weigh approximately 10 tons exploded in the air above them. This occurred as the largest asteroid to pass close to Earth is getting ready to make it's fly-by, we hope! Asteroid 2012-DA14 is 150 feet across and weighs in at an estimated 130,000 tons! Imagine what would happen to the Earth should it hit us instead of missing us. Over 500 people are reported injured in Russia after the impacts from the exploding 10 ton meteorite. If estimates of the relative sizes of the objects are correct, 2012-DA14 would have 13,000 times the impact potential of the relatively small meteorite that hit Chelyabinsk, Russia.

This incident hi-lights the need to have a much stronger presence in space than the human species does now. If an asteroid the size of 2012-DA14 were to hit the Earth, it could very well be the end of us as a species.

Google? What Have You Done To My YouTube?!

Do you use YouTube? Have you looked lately at what Google has done to the YouTube homepage?! I can't believe that they think they've, "IMPROVED" something that had nothing wrong with it! I thought at first that something had gone seriously, horribly wrong with my computer. No, that wasn't it, maybe, I thought to myself, YouTube has been hacked by some nefarious Chinese hackers. No, it turns out that the people at YouTube thought in their infinite wisdom that everyone would like to look at a YouTube homepage that looks like it had been pulled out of the mid-90's from a Geo-cities website!

I can't believe that they seriously think I'm going to go to YouTube on a daily basis and look at that horrible, white hideous mess that they call a homepage! It hurts my eyes just to look at it for more than a few seconds. The thing is, I've been a member of YouTube since 2006, and have put up nearly 80 videos myself. I couldn't tell you how much I use YouTube on a daily basis. If they insist on keeping that horrible mockery of a homepage, I'm going to have to convert myself to a Vimeo person.

I'm sending out a plea right now to those in charge at YouTube. Please, please put the homepage back the way it was. There is no way in HELL that you could possibly believe that monstrosity looks like a website that anyone would want to look at. I'm serious YouTube. I will pull all my videos and go to Vimeo if that is what it takes. What you now call a homepage is nothing but a hot mess of fecal matter that doesn't have anyplace on internet of this century!

Disaster preparedness, or not?

In the aftermath of superstorm Sandy, it's become apparent that the United States needs to seriously start investing (i.e. spending money) on reinforcing the infrastructure of our country. Nearly a week after the storm hit the East coast and there are still millions of customers without power, the distribution of fuel is spotty at best and citizens are feeling the frustrations of general chaos.  LINK

For instance, after every major disaster it seems there is always a lack of fuel distribution. I know it was that way for us here in the Mid-west after a major wind-storm earlier this year. Most gas stations, although they had gasoline, had no power and therefore couldn't pump it. The same is now happening on the East coast. Why can't the government require fuel suppliers (i.e. gas stations) to all have back-up power systems, I mean, it's not like they don't have fuel to run generators! Every quarter for the last several years, all the major oil companies have been reporting record profits, why not make them put some of those profits to good use. They (the oil companies) always claim that they don't actually run the gas stations, that they're mostly all independents. Who cares?! Even if it's true, the oil companies wouldn't exist if it weren't for the gas stations that deliver their product to the consumers. So in my opinion, it would be in their best interest to see that the gas stations are open and operating after a major crisis.

The time that it's taking to get power restored to customers on the East coast also hi-lights the need for our power distribution grid to be over-hauled. We need redundancies built into the system so that power can be restored more quickly, and it's apparent that if consumers had more access to solar and wind energy alternatives, many people wouldn't have to wait for public utilities to be brought back online.

This Tuesday could be a deciding factor in what will happen after the next major disaster. Will we elect a Republican government that wants to sit back and say we like thing just the way they are, or will we elect a Democratic government that will move forward on improving the infra-structure of the country so that we can face the daunting problems that nature throws at us?