Ice Shelf Disintegration Threatens Environment

Ice shelf disintegration threatens environment: The disintegration of Larsen B is almost certainly a response to human-induced global warming, says Queen's geographer Robert Gilbert, the only Canadian researcher on the international research team. Antarctic temperatures have increased more than 10°C in the last 25 years. By comparison, the world-wide temperature change during the entire post-glacial period has only been 2 – 3°C, he adds.

The breaking up of Larsen B alone will not change sea level, but other glaciers previously restricted by the ice shelf have surged forward, lowering their surfaces, says Dr. Gilbert. Lower elevations have warmer temperatures, which warm the glaciers and cause more melt and more flux of ice to the sea. So that is having and will have an effect on global sea levels. As more ice is lost there may be a greater impact on sea level than previously predicted.

Further, with the increased energy in the atmosphere associated with global warming, there will be more storms, he warns. Storm surges, which also raise water levels, will have profound effects on low-lying areas and may necessitate infrastructure like the large moveable dams called surge gates already used in Europe and Providence, R.I., that can be closed during extreme high sea levels to prevent flooding.

Via Science News Daily.

A wormhole for the Internet

Interesting post on a company called Netli and its product/service to speed up content delivery by creating a new protocol layer on top of IP (eg, creating Netli/IP instead of TCP/IP): Who Has Time For This?: The Wormhole Factory: Netli's wormhole is an Internet Protocol (IP) router that speaks both TCP and the Netli Protcol--a layer 4 replacement that transfers a web page in only ONE round trip. Realizing that the universe wasn't about to replace its routers, Netli deployed its own routers, co-located across the US, Europe[…] At the server side, a Netli router converts the session back to TCP so that the servers have no idea (anthropomorphologically speaking) that they're not connected directly to the browsers.

At IBM we used to do some bizarre stuff like tunneling SNA through TCP/IP and the reverse. Sometimes I wonder if IBM killed off APPC too early (APPC was a bear to set up, but once configured transferred data faster than TCP/IP over the same wire. I'm hazy on the history now, but if I recall correctly APPC let you set up a conversation and then initiate separate data transfers in that conversation, so more session-oriented than TCP/IP. Then again, using HTTP/1.1 pipelining one should be able to eliminate much of the setup lag when requesting a new URL from the same server).

Proof that video games can kill you

Video games, they are bad for you: CNN.com - Man dies after online game marathon - Aug 9, 2005: A South Korean man who played computer games for 50 hours almost non-stop died of heart failure minutes after finishing his mammoth session in an Internet cafe, authorities said on Tuesday. The man was 28, had played non-stop over the course of three days, pausing only for bio-breaks and brief naps.

Shortening the life expectancy of SUVs everywhere

Gas (petrol for non-USians), which has bounced between US$2.50 and $3.00 in the NYC area, is about to hit £1 per liter in the UK, or about US$6.78 per gallon. In Australia it's topped AUD$1.25 per liter, or about US$3.60 per gallon.

Would be interesting to see how taxes play a role in setting the price worldwide.

I wonder how, if at all, the psychological effect of the smaller units (liters) plays a role in people's consumption of gas. Would US drivers drive more or less if gas was priced in liters (66¢/liter seems cheaper than $2.50/gallon, right?).