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Technology Bytes
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Ryan Dollard's blog
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22 July, 2009, 19:55 Love in the 21st century
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Well, what can I say... the last time I wrote to you I promised you that I wouldn’t leave it so long next time, and I did. I hope we’re not developing one of those unhealthy relationships that begin with the cosy intimacy of a new romance and end with one of us being sectioned under the 1983 Mental Health Act. That would be really bad. A new low – even for my chequered history.
So as you sit blinking back tears beside the spoilt meal I have missed in our metaphorical relationship I will trot out the customary excuse. No, I didn’t lose the keyboard. No, the dog didn’t eat my blog. I just took off. I took off on holiday for a month. A techno-holiday.
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I left lovely Moscow and went back to my rural homelands in the far north of England and escaped the 21st century all together. It was great. I enjoyed simple pleasures that our generation seldom get to experience. I spurned the internet, my mobile phone, GPS and all of that type of thing. It was a blissful break.
Picture the scene. It was a quiet Sunday evening. I was ensconced in my favourite chair in my mum and dad’s house. The dog was asleep on my lap and I was holding a glass of something flavorful of a vintage that to my expert palette was definitely red. The house phone rings, and I simply lolled the head to one side and announced that should this call be for me I was not in. When was the last time you could get Callminder to tell your friends, the taxman, the bank or some other troublesome sod lies to prevent you having to get up? Never, that’s when.
Plans to meet up with friends were not changed. As I had no device for people to announce that they’d be 45 minutes late and meet us in another bar, or the restaurant or whatever. I arrived at the set venue ten minutes tardy and everyone was there. It was like I’d organised my own surprise party.
No facebook updates, no offers for cut-price viagra, no frankly unfeasible requests from seemingly very accommodating college students in America begging me to add them on MSN because I look “hot”. Let’s be honest, you and me: if you really are a highly desirable co-ed, you are not trawling the web looking for portly, pasty journalists of below average height to have typed conversations with when you could be out having real fun.
I did not miss the internet.
I got merrily lost walking the dog in the forests and although it all took an hour longer than I expected, it was far more fun than having a route carved out for you by a dull system of satellites. Molly and I would never had been chased by cows had we stuck to the footpath, and I would still be oblivious to the fact that I can still hurdle a barbed wire fence when the need arises, even if I have gone a bit native.
So, I’m back now... pardon your prodigal correspondent and let’s carry on where we left off. And I like my phone and being able to be flexible. I thank the good lord (be that Jesus, Buddha, Allah, Peter Clohessy, whoever) for Google and the Internet and the ability to book flights online. And without GPS, Moscow is just a giant grid of parked cars.
So, to continue the tortured relationship trope I’ve been trotting out all through this entry, I guess, dear reader, my view of you is the same as my view of the 21st century’s gadgets and gizmos. I adore you to bits, but I don’t want you in my life every day. That’s love I suppose. x
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05 May, 2009, 18:39 Convalescence and Cosmonauts
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Hello again,
First, let me make an apology for my prolonged absence. I have had a bit of a strange run of misfortune that has left my mind elsewhere. If you saw the surgery, you know that I had to cure my horrendous snoring in our laser program a few weeks ago. But what you probably didn't gather was that due to a slight human error, I ended up bleeding quite profusely from a pair of singed nostrils.
Nothing to do with the technology I might add, tools are all very well and good, but even the best can fall afoul of a little human fallibility. Waking up with a frankly unfeasible amount of gauze wedged into the old nasal cavities, I didn't really feel like writing to you all, some of whom may have been about to sit down to a meal, recounting the nitty gritty of that experience. And I will refrain from doing so now. If any ghouls really feel I must share this story, leave your e-mail addresses below and I will indulge you privately.
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And then I managed to damage my foot on the last of Moscow's icy steps before the current balmy interlude, and limped becrutched around the city for the best part of two weeks cursing my stars for rotten luck - my stars and the cab drivers who made a pretty penny from my condition as I was unable to use the metro easily with my tripod gait. Don't believe me? Go and Youtube our latest "Glonass" program, and if you are as eagle-eyed as my dear mother, you'll spot a John Waynesque walk as I talk to the camera.
Anyway, if any of you have kept faith with me, and I trust my previous diligence means a couple of you might have, you may be wondering why the wanderer has returned. Well, on RT at the moment I'm interviewing spacemen. Not little green ones I may or may not have imagined under anaesthesia on the operating table, either. I mean real bona fide Cosmonauts.
It was an absolute pleasure. A Canadian, a Russian, and a European about to go off for six months and further our knowledge of the solar system, and allow their bodies to be experimented on in order to bring closer that great adventure science has planned for a manned trip to Mars. Generous with their time and knowledge, incredibly thoughtful, and as lively an interview panel as a journalist could hope to meet, it was an easy day's work, and a huge amount of fun.
And all credit to you, the RT viewers as well, because it was you who supplied the questions. Maximum points to all those who contributed a query, as they were as intelligent and pertinent as the answers the guys gave you.
If you get the chance, do check it out either on the channel or here on the website. I don't think you'll be disappointed.
If you've read this and not written me off weeks ago as a feckless wastrel then thank you. I'll try to be more prolific in the future.
And before I go, a special "get well soon" to the convalescing and the crutch-bound as you have my sincere sympathy, brothers and sisters.
As always, if anyone has any ideas for programs or features you'd like us here on Tech Update to cover, do drop me a line. I promise we do investigate all your suggestions, and even if you haven't seen one you've given to us on the show yet, it doesn't mean we've forgotten about you or that you won't see it soon.
It's been nice to chat, let's not leave it so long next time!
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17 March, 2009, 14:58 Science fiction to technological fact
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In the laziness and torpor of a damp and dreary Sunday afternoon, I decided to brighten things up with a bit of Bond. James Bond. (Sorry, I couldn't resist the obvious joke).
As Auric Goldfinger smirked down over our temporarily incapacitated hero, there followed one of my all-time favourite cinematic exchanges:
“Do you expect me to talk?”
“No, Mr Bond. I expect you to die!”
They don't write 'em like that any more! And with that, the arch super-villian bumbled off as a big laser prepared to seperate 007 from the one part of his body that sees more action than his trigger finger. As if you needed reminding, this didn't happen and Sean Connery went on to save the day and get the girl.
Anyway, the point of this little jaunt down memory lane is that, in 1964, the world was quite happy to believe that, now we had these laser thingymabobs, they would soon be at the forefront of the next generation of military technology.
Indeed, if I cast my memory back to my days as a pasty student of literature in dusty libraries, I seem to recall that Alexey Tolstoy was quite enamoured with the idea as far back as 1927 when he published “The Hyperboloid of Engineer Garin.” All the more impressive given the fact that no-one actually managed to invent the laser until 1960. Ten points to big Al. But I'm getting sidetracked so I'll get back to the cut-and-thrust. I'm sure you are very busy and find my scenic route to the point tiresome.
So for decades it's been assumed that we'd all be firing ray guns and that cops and robbers would be having laser shootouts before the year was out. But in truth, the first working laser weapons are only just beginning to be produced.
Thankfully these weapons are not in the hands of a large lunatic with a kinky predaliction for painting naked girls gold and killing them. At least I don't think so. It doesn't sound like Barack Obama's thing does it?
America and Israel have successfully completed tests of a missile defence system that is capable of shooting missiles out of the sky using a highly powerful laser beam. The idea now is to make a mobile version that can be fitted to a truck to protect cities and military bases. The technology is already there and working, but the fiddly process of design and engineering is currently providing the only stumbling block. Of course lasers have been used in sighting and targetting for a long time now, but this is the first glimpse of the kind of laser weapon that Han Solo or Luke Skywalker might understand. And it's still a long way from Ronnie Reagan's Star Wars idea that frankly seemed a bit far-fetched even in the 80s really, and I was a schoolboy who, at the time, had a lot less difficulty believing that Michael J Fox was dipping about between the past and future like it was a trip to the shops.
Is it all a good idea? Does a planet which already has enough nuclear weapons to blow itself up many times over need another ridiculously powerful way for people to clobber each other? Perhaps not, but it's going to happen so we might as well just get used to it and try and play together nicely like good little boys and girls, enjoy the geeky knowledge that we have cracked the old laser thing at last and concentrate on making other sci-fi toys a reality. My particular votes are for hovvering skateboards and teleportation. I've spent too many precious hours of my life idling in airports and it would be a welcome change. Although I bet there'd still be a lot of fuss and bureaucracy at customs.
So anyway, this month's show will be about those little red beams and all its new uses, which are mainly not military as it happens. There's also the distinct possibility that it will feature my debut as a rapper. Now there is an image to conjure with, or dread, depending on how confident you are in my ability not to make a complete spectacle of myself.
Finally for this week, I'd like to wish you all a very happy St. Patrick's Day for the seventeenth, particularly those of you from the Emerald Isle itself. If you happen to be attending the parade in Moscow on Sunday, you may notice a short man in a green rugby shirt grinning like a moron and very possibly singing ‘The Fields of Athenry’ with lots of gusto but little regard for the actual tune. Do not be concerned. He will be entirely harmless. It will just mean that the day before, Ireland won a rugby grand slam for the first time in sixty-one years, and Ryan is a very happy boy. Seriously, St Patrick, if you're reading this, it has been an awfully long time and don't you think you could have a word with your boss and explain that it would be a nice thing to do? I don't expect you to post a reply or anything, I'll just keep an eye out on Sunday with my heart in my mouth.
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About author
Ryan writes and presents “Tech Update”, RT’s monthly guide to all that’s new in the world of Science and Technology. The programme covers everything from medical advances to breakthroughs in alternative energy to new gadgets for fun and games.
Before working on the show Ryan was a general news correspondent for the station and was the only TV reporter allowed inside the Penza Doomsday cult’s underground cave before it was blown up.
Ryan first worked at RT as a sports reporter.
He cut his TV teeth in England on ITV regional news as a correspondent and sports presenter and has an MA in Literature from Cambridge University.
Away from gizmos and gadgetry Ryan enjoys reading and is an avid fan of rugby, football and cricket.
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07 August, 2009, 20:43
To celebrate the anniversary of the moon landing and seeing how you were probably not in Moscow at the time of its anniversary here is George Melies, 1902 classic A Trip to the Moon
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LdCxNr-vas&feature=related