Saturday, 21 February 2009

Don't you wish you had a super flying submarine?

Well now you do!

Thanks to the latest GE update, you can use the flight simulator underwater.

This is what the Marianas Trench looks like from the cockpit.

That's about as deep as you can get. Some bloke called Piccard went down there in a sort of submarine about 50 years ago. The deepest part of it is called the Challenger Deep and it's about 35,000 feet below sea level. Even there, at incredible pressure, life exists.

Tuesday, 17 February 2009

3 lighters

I took this picture yesterday, and I'm quite pleased with the way it's turned out.

I'd prefer refillable lighters, but these are what I have for now. When you finish them, you just chuck them.
So what happens then? I do find smashed lighters regularly on the beach here. The metal tops go rusty, and the plastic bit?
Well that tends to end up in landfill, I suppose, but not all of them do. A lot of plastic ends up in the ocean, where like everything else, it gets abraded and eroded by the waves.
But it doesn't stop being plastic. Right down to the molecular level, our oceans are carrying this stuff in suspension, where it's being imbibed by the creatures at the bottom of the food chain, and from there, everything else.
Loads more info about that HERE
I got really interested in looking at google earth for places where humans have left for good. From there I ended up loking at Alan Weisman's website where he talked about places where nature is gradually reclaiming what we've left behind. Places like Pripyat, near Chernobyl, Varosha in Northern Cyprus, and the Korean demilitarised zone (crap res images in GE for that one unfortunately)
Wikipedia came up with some more too.
Also, there's people that get their kicks from exploring ruins and stuff. The 28dayslater website has photographs and accounts of urban explorers sneaking around in old hospitals and airbases - places where humankind has left nature to return. It's always there, lurking... waiting...
Anyway, the pattern is similar wherever you look. The trees grow taller. The buidlings grow smaller.

Saturday, 7 February 2009

out and about

Busy times here. Lots of people giving me the opportunity to teach them right now.

Obviously I'm not on the road teaching 24 hours a day, but I get home and I find I can't be bothered coming up with stuff for this blog. As I said in my last post, I do have things I want to write about, but not right now.

The business of work has coincided with me getting a bit bored with the flight simulator, and also with the discovery of a site that uses google earth alphanumeric characters to make greeting emails, which means that something I thought was pretty unique has already been done. They can't find an upper case "N" either!

Work, as I say, is taking most of my attenetion right now. I'm lucky to have a job I enjoy doing, and so far this year, every pupil has passed their driving test. Much better than warming my arse in front of this monitor.

Tell yer what... Here's what Upton test centre looks like from above...