Off to a ski holiday

Today, I am off for a long-awaited ski holiday in the Austrian Alps, specifically the Arlber, partly sponsored by my aunt to reward my efforts in achieving my Masters degree last year.
I will be joined by my sister and my better half too.
It will be freezing up there, as seen by the following screen dump from http://www.lech-zuers.at



While there, I shall be hoping for a deal at Copenhagen...

I hope I will hear good news from there.

Until then! Auf wiedersehen!

Ordnance Survey maps to go free online

Ordnance Survey maps to go free online

This will include:

'all legislation, as well as road-traffic counts over the past eight years, property prices listed with the stamp-duty yield, motoring offences with types of offence and the numbers, by county, for the top six offences.'

Amazing!

I doubt we will every be there in secret society Malta. And yes, the UK has a Data Protection Act.

Article on The Guardian

Interesting ... softer food make you heavier

In a study published in 2003, a team led by Kyoko Oka at Kyushu University in Fukuoka, Japan, investigated the effect of food texture on weight gain. They fed one group of rats their usual hard food pellets, while a second group received a softer version. Both pellets had exactly the same calorie content and flavour. The only difference was that softer ones were easier to chew. After 22 weeks, the rats on the soft food diet were obese and had more abdominal fat. "Food texture might be as important a factor for preventing obesity as taste or food nutrients," Oka and his colleagues concluded.

...

A similar study in people had comparable results. Kentaro Murakami and Satoshi Sasaki, both at the University of Tokyo in Japan, surveyed 450 female students about their eating habits and then classified the food they ate according to how difficult it was to chew. They found that women who ate the hardest foods had significantly slimmer waistlines than those who ate the softest foods.

Source: New Scientist

Boing boing bing boing

No, it's not a bouncing ball

It's a Microsoft innovation called Bing. Not that I usually care about Microsoft and what it does, but by the looks of it, I think it can offer something for Google to worry about.

I like the welcome page, clean and sharp. It seems the wall paper changes each day.


Let's start and bing for Malta:

Results seem relevant and to the point, but looks a bit cluttered.


Anyway try it out. Competition does Google good.

[......AOTEAROA......] New comment on Australia and New Zealand.

WhiteShadow has left a new comment on the post "Australia and New Zealand":

to put it simple: wonderful

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Posted by WhiteShadow to ......AOTEAROA...... at February 24, 2009 6:40 AM

[......EAST AFRICA ......] New comment on East Africa in 2 months.

WhiteShadow has left a new comment on the post "East Africa in 2 months":

Jesus!!
Impressive!!
Wow!!
And so close to those animals!!

....i'm speachless...

give us more!

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Posted by WhiteShadow to ......EAST AFRICA ...... at January 22, 2009 4:15 AM

Antarctica is actually warming

One of the major issues claimed by skeptics against climate change is that Antarctica is actually cooling. How is this possible when the whole earth should be, according to scientists, warming?

Well an answer has actually been found that rebukes the whole idea. Check this out at The Guardian. A recent investigation into the issue has discovered that while some parts of the frozen continent have been getting slightly colder over the last few decades, the average temperature across the continent has been rising for at least the last 50 years.

How come?

The picture below explains it all:

The Western part of Antarctica (shown in red) has been warming at a rate of 0.17 degrees C every decade for the past 50 years. This outweighs the observed cooling in the Eastern part of Antarctica for a an average heating over the region of 0.12 degrees C per decade. This rate matches the heating rate of the southern hemisphere as a whole.

This was not understood before since there was not much data for the Western Antarctica and / or any date it was not yet analysed. Mainly, satellite data was used for this study. Furthermore, it should be noted that the cooling is caused by the ozone hole, a feature that is healing itself and will eventually close by mid-century. Hence, more accelerated warming is expected.

How to cool the planet

This, I think, really makes sense.

A seemingly simple way of keeping those temperatures cool, especially in view of climate change is:

(wait for it....)

...painting the urban areas white.

From our physics classes, we all learned on black-body radiation...the darker the body, the more heat is absorbed and the less is reflected. Hence, Hashem Akbari a scientist at the prestigious Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, came up with the idea of painting roads, pavements and building in light colours to reduce the urban heat island effect and hence save on electricity and pollution. In a few words, we need to increase our albedo.

Easy, simple and cost-effective.

Just some ratios:

Coloured paints have an albedo of 0.1-0.3;
White paints an albedo of 0.5-0.9;
Asphalt road surfaces have albedos as low as 0.05;
Concrete has an albedo of up to 0.3;
Tar and gravel just 0.1.

What does this mean? Take concrete. An albedo of 0.3 means that concrete absorbs 70% of the sun's radiation.

In California warehouses and commercial premises with flat roof have to have them painted white. This has been in force since 2005 (always avant-garde).

Now lets think locally. We should do this in Malta. Think of the picturesque villages in Italy and Greece that are all whitewashed saved for the colourful doors and windows. They did it for a reason!

Sources: The Guardian; New Scientist

Plans for 2009

The new year has started.

What were my expectation for 2008?

- Masters Graduation: - Done (with distinction :))

- Italy winning Euro 2008: - Not quite...

- Holidays:- City weekend breaks to Paris (for Valentines) and London (Unholy Trinity gig)

- also trip to Maremma (Tuscany) as part of my Masters

- Inter:- won Serie A, kicked Mancini out, brought Mourinho...so far so good

- A calmer year:- not quite, but having more time for myself and Baanisuu

- Started playing football again with Kirkop F.C.


So what about 2009?

- Supporting Baanisuu during her final year at University

- Baanisuu's Graduation (and commencement of Masters??)

- Swimming in summer (have not enjoyed a swimful summer for years)

- Hoping Inter will win the Serie A and reach at least the semi-finals of the UEFA Champions League

- Skiing holiday (hopefully December 2009)

That is it, my list for 2009. Not too heavy as you can see and nothing that cannot be achieved.

Detroit 2009: Third-gen Prius arrives with 50 mpg combined rating

It is out, the Prius 2010. First looks show an improvement over the current one. Will wait for 3rd party reviews to judge.