Internet: Enabling Technology

Enabling Technology

Written by Dr. Adnan Ahmed Qureshi

You know you are a PC addict when you can't tear yourself away from what you're doing to watch X-Files. On repparttar

plus side, you know you can cope with your addiction if you can manage to raise yourself out of repparttar 119029

swivel chair for long enough to set repparttar 119030

video. Millions of people watch X-Files and even there are fan clubs on repparttar 119031

Net. Its members call themselves X-Philes repparttar 119032

sort of word play that only works online.

Of course, with huge viewers you hardly need to go online to contact a fellow fan, but it's an example of repparttar 119033 way in which PC technology enables you to extend your enjoyment of almost every activity - if you're willing to stretch a point and call watching TV as active. More interesting, though, is repparttar 119034 way a PC and modem enables you to enjoy this kind of social life with people who keep different hours from you.

Go back ten years and you had to be on repparttar 119035 same schedule as repparttar 119036 people with whom you spent your leisure time. You can hardly go out to repparttar 119037 coffee-shop, see a show, eat dinner or go on picnic with someone unless they're physically available at same time as you. You have to be synchronized. This was easy when almost everyone worked days, knocked off at five and had weekends free. These days, repparttar 119038 trend is towards never having completely free time.

All this activity can make it hard to organize a social life - enter repparttar 119039 Net. It's been obvious for a long time that Net enables those with specialist or unusual interests to get together intellectually, even if it's impractical for them to do it physically. Only now is clear it can enable you to get a social life - asynchronously. If someone lives just around repparttar 119040 corner but your free time hardly ever matches up repparttar 119041 Net enables you both to put that time when it's most convenient.

The Net vs. Nature.

Written by Michael Bloch

Over repparttar

last few days, I've noticed many disturbances on repparttar 119028

Internet. Mail has been going missing, a lot of sites have been down. It seems to be a global thing. It can make life pretty difficult if you are building and maintaining sites, or are reliant on repparttar 119029

Internet to communicate with family and friends.

So much of our world is now dependent on repparttar 119030 Internet to keep things flowing. I still think it's a great tool as repparttar 119031 Internet has broken down international barriers. I have met many wonderful people through this medium.

While repparttar 119032 difficulties I have been experiencing over repparttar 119033 last couple of days are probably coincidental, I remember a point last year when this wasn't repparttar 119034 case. It wasn't caused by hackers, or Australia's "extension cord" being cut by a Japanese trawler (again).

It was repparttar 119035 sun....seriously...solar flares.

A solar flare is an explosion on repparttar 119036 Sun that happens when energy stored within it is suddenly released. Flares produce a burst of radiation across repparttar 119037 entire electromagnetic spectrum, from radio waves to x-rays and gamma-rays - it's a radiation smorgasboard!

The frequency of these flares is tied in with repparttar 119038 Sun's eleven year cycle. When repparttar 119039 flares peak, radiation forty billion times greater than an atomic bomb, weighing from 1-10 billion tonnes and travelling at approximately 1-2 million mph is flung into repparttar 119040 solar system. When repparttar 119041 solar cycle is at a minimum, active regions are small and rare. Few solar flares are detected. These multiply as repparttar 119042 Sun approaches repparttar 119043 most active part of its cycle. The Sun reached its maximum, from what I understand, late last year.

Flares and geomagnetic storms (extreme solar wind caused by charged particles) can have serious ramifications on our communications, navigational tools and power supply. On March 23, 1989, Hydro-Quebec had a 9 hour blackout affecting 9 million people. The cause was a geomagnetic induced current (GIC) due to a large geomagnetic storm. Solar flares can effect cell phone communications, GPS navigation, other satellites and more importantly, my dear friend, business partner and confidant - The Internet.

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