vivweb01blog

  Introduction We all interact with the ‘net’ daily in one way or another, whether it’s via our smartphone, on a laptop or desktop pc, or just at 'arms length' when using a service that involves internet data transmission of some kind.  Many of our more recently acquired household devices now interface with the internet in some way (e.g doorbells, home heating systems, etc..).  We are now almost totally dependent on the internet's continued function to fulfil our increasingly complex everyday lives - our society just wouldn't work properly without it nowadays. One of the down sides to all this is that it makes us highly vulnerable to cyber-attacks, or indeed any natural event which interferes with the net's infrastructure - for anyone who would like to find out more about this aspect of our vulnearbility as a society, check out my recent blog on modern warfare How many of us really understand how the net really works ? And do we really need to ? It is, of cour...

  I first published this blog in February 2022, just before Putin's invasion of Ukraine.  A    report   last year of  the possibility of life existing on another planet also presented a good opportunity for a fresh look at the question, which  seems even more relevant now, given the increasingly fragile state of our planet's ecosystem and our own continuing descent into resource-driven conflict. All in all,  perhaps a fitting time to consider whether there might be a possibility of alternative accommodation for humans elsewhere in the universe.... The combination of dimethyl sulphide (DMS), CO2 and methane in the atmosphere of  exoplanet K2-18b in significant quantities is seen as a possible 'biomarker' for life there - although it does not by any means confirm the presence of life there , it is certainly intriguing. At a distance of 124 light years, however, the possibility of our ever venturing there are slim, to say the least.  Read o...

  This post was first released in October 2022 as a response to the political 'crises' of the time. Note the more recent updates at the end of the main text - nothing really changes, does it..... As a bit of light relief from the momentous events of recent weeks in politics, I thought I’d take a wry and admittedly somewhat irreverent look at what motivates our politicians….if Radio 4’s ‘News Quiz’ can get away with it each week, despite the BBC’s draconian rules on all things pc, then so can I… In seemingly perpetual 'crisis' situations like this one,   as individuals we only really have two options - either to laugh or cry; I prefer to err on the side of laughter – for now, at least. Recent upsets at the top of the political tree, and the almost obsessive speculation about the outcome of yet another leadership race in the media, prompted me last week to ask myself the question:  “Why on earth would anyone actually want to be PM at a time like this ?” The role is...