Editorial The Guardian, Monday 20 September 2010 Article history The solar wind is a violent burst of charged particles that creates magnetic storms in the Earth's upper atmosphere. But the sun's light, too, has pressure: Nasa scientists calculated 30 years ago that in the vacuum of space, the impact of sunlight on a gossamer-thin mirror would be enough to get it moving with an acceleration of a millimetre per second per second. This doesn't sound much, but within 24 hours a space sailing ship could be travelling at 100 metres a second, and still be accelerating. It could reach Mars in 400 days. The US Planetary Society has twice tried to launch a prototype space sailing ship; in May this year the Japanese space agency sent its experimental "kite" Ikaros floating towards Venus. And today the European Planetary Science Congress in Rome will hear the case for a fleet of "data-clippers" – robot windjammers laden with instruments, scudding out on the gentle breeze from the sun to Europa or Titan and then tacking back to Earth to download vast quantities of scientific data stored in flash memory. The biggest costs in space are rocket fuel and data transmission across epic distances. A fleet of automaton solar-wind-powered ships would greatly cut the costs and thereby multiply the returns. But beyond this ultimate economy drive, think of the beauty: of a fleet of silent windjammers, riding on radiation alone, literally making light work of charting the planets and their many satellites – all the way to the very last outposts of the empire of the sun.
Monday, September 13, 2010
SAN JOSE, CA, Sep 13, 2010 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) -- The Tech Museum today raised the curtain on its most ambitious exhibition, The Tech Silicon Valley Innovation Gallery, revealing cutting-edge technology developed by the world's foremost experts on computing, digital design, communication and collaboration.
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Once again I have been in Toronto General Hospital for a few days. I felt a short spell of the old chest pain on Monday night. On Tuesday morning, I had to have my INR checked. Afterwards, at the streetcar stop up at College and University, I felt so tired that I felt I had to lean against a newspaper box. Then I felt that I would fall down unless I hitched myself up on top of the box. I saw black spots in front of me and, feeling awful, I slumped back against the wall. Two streetcars came, but I did not feel strong enough to walk to them. After only about eight minutes, I hailed a cab and went to the hospital's emergency department.
They monitored my heart, but, because I have had two DVT's in my legs, the doctor recommended a CT scan on my lungs. The results showed that I had no clots in my lungs, only small scars of previous clots, but they did show that I had a growth behind my breast bone. There is a gland there called the thymus. It usually shrinks after adolescence, but mine is about half as long and wide as half my thumb. Because it is behind my upper sternum, the thoracic surgeons reckoned they could not do a biopsy on it without opening the chest and so they might as well remove it.
I was in hospital until yesterday establishing by CT scan, gamma ray exam and ultrasound that, if it was malignant, it has not spread to my abdomen or my scrotum. So it is quite safe for the moment, but they will split my chest like a walnut and take it out. As I am on blood thinners, we will probably wait two or three weeks and then some discomfort. Bwaaa!
HOME COOKING
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I got into a discussion on Facebook yesterday about "hot dishes".
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Arts & Crafts Tassie: Markree House 1926
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*Cecil William Baldwin* (1887–1961) was born in Melbourne and trained at
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A Lot Of Gas And Some Empty Chairs
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Totnes, Devon
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*Continuity and change*
‘How old is that building?’ people ask. And the answer is often: ‘Various
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Long hot Summer?
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A lovely Spring day at last. Earlier, the unmistakable roar of a military
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Here's the Deal
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Fascism Versus Democracy
The current experience of the United States will show, I suspect, that
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THINGS COME IN THREES
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My mum always used to say that things come in threes. What she meant was
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A GOOD YEAR FOR SNOWDROPS
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During the Another Angry Voice heyday I was getting huge amounts of traffic
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Return to Valetto by Dominic Smith
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*Return to Valetto* by Dominic Smith is a virtual vacation to one of my
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What Size Are Party Invitations
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What Size Are Party Invitations. Be it invitation size, leaflet size,
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distance
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I called this poem the 6 foot social distancing love Waltz Blues....
Waltz
Come close, but not too close
That's good
No, that's 5 foot 10 inches
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Uber Diaries: Respect the Grind
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(Note: This is a story I wrote for an upcoming book. This one didn't make
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Pickup: Sentinel Hotel
The passenger is ave...
Tuesday, September 11
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In the morning we join the other guests and the large orange cat on the
terrace for breakfast. This cat is as big as my two cats together. Why do I
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Love Remembered
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My mother left when I was only a girl. I wish I could say she got in a car
and drove away. That would be an easier story to tell. But that isn’t the
route...
Cara Mengatasi Paru Paru Basah
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Paru-paru basah merupakan penyakit yang serius. Jika tidak segera diatasi,
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Cara ...
ELLE
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The reality of true sado-masochism is not a bit of BDSM fun and games in
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PR in 2017: buy a bunker
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In PR we talk about reaching out and cutting through. We craft messaging
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At the end of a decade...
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In about a month I will celebrate my 75th birthday.
For the last ten years I have shared regularly, entertained some difficult
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The Joys of Aging
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Getting old is a royal pain in the nether regions. The systems start acting
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Finding Words
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Something that I have started doing in the last year is writing poetry. I
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..hello...
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..hello...my name is lori...and how i loved blogland and this space, so
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My Happy Diversion
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All over the world today, there is trouble. Every news headline, every post
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Make A Green Choice
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Life is precious, yet so very fragile. We see it on the news, we
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even not...
Weird
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Most students of English are familiar with the "i before e, except after
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Postscript One
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Except for the weather, and its aftermath, life seems to have slowed down
to a crawl for us, my husband and me, until last Thanksgiving. Thanks to
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that blazing ball of fire in the sky
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*click photo for full-size image*
*photo by Donald Kinney*
*click photo for full-size image*
*photo by Donald Kinney*
*NEWEST EDITION - **Donald Kinn...
Madiba sunshine. Amandla !
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Mandela est là « Je suis fondamentalement optimiste. Je ne saurais dire si
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Are you tired of being lied to?
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I have been silent for some time now. I was very busy sorting out all the
contradictory and devious informations being fed to me by mass medias all
more o...
¿Inspiración?
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Lo primero que me ha venido a la mente al ver esta fotografía de Grace
Kelly de los 50’s ha sido la similitud con uno de los diseños de Raf Simons
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Neurotic mothers
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I doubt I am alone in being a neurotic mother, but I felt I had to confess,
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In Loving Memory
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It is with deep sadness that we write today as a family to tell you of the
passing of Moannie on Monday 8th October 2012.
We would like you all to know th...
New Blog
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I'm leaving Blogger and Google and moving to a new site. I'll keep this
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Move Over, Ronnie Burkett
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Mention shadow puppets and most people think of making rabbit or cock
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But sit...
TheSartorialist.com RSS Feed
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Hi guys,
Thanks so much for the feedback. It’s been great seeing the response and
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I'm currently reading a book with this implausible title, by Charles Nevin.
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As I type this entry, I'm looking out my bedroom window at the Storm of
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I'm dusting off Please Sir and slowly returning to the blogosphere with new
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Ultima Lezione.
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*Ti ricordi? Eravamo turisti con poche parole?*
Do you remember?We were tourists with few words?
* L'abbraccio nel vicolo?* The hug in the alley?
*...
NaNoWriMo: Day 3 (Bad, bad day)
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Migraines: 1 (big fat mumma of a headache!)
Analgesia: (almost) anything that came to hand
Daily word count: zero
Total word count: 3167 :((
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I know there's been nothing public here for six months, but I'm here every
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That Is All
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I've decided to suspend this blog. I'm going to make it private as it is a
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The Victorian Bushfires - Remembering
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A peaceful space and supportive thoughts. It's an entire year since the
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Hello
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I haven't been able to access blogger.com for two months now. Now it seems
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A Makeovah
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Yes, I did spend my entire summer in Los Angeles. Yes, it was incredible.
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