Sometimes great ideas are just that . . .Great Ideas. Once upon a time, Bill Gates had a great idea and with it he turned the computer industry into, well, an industry worth a gazillion dollars. Since that time he and his fellow engineers have created applications that revolutionized the way we gather and use data. However, like baseball players, sometimes they don’t hit home runs they just strike out, nobody’s perfect, look at Vista.
Bill and his cohorts have invented a way to stop hurricanes. They’ve even filed a series of patent applications. Their filings describe a way of using “large fleets of vessels to suppress hurricanes through various methods of mixing warm water from the surface of the ocean with cold water from the ocean depths.” The purpose of this activity is to decrease the surface temperature that fuels those great storms that periodically ravage our coast.
“Every couple of years there’s a news story concerning some hurricane-suppression idea,” said David Nolan, an associate professor of physical oceanography at The University of Miami. “They’re all kooky in their own way, some are more plausible than others, but they all face an enormous problem of scale. You would have to cover an incredible area to reduce the temperature of the ocean by a significant amount.”
But Dr. Nolan didn’t take into account that the proposal comes from one of the richest geeks in the world. Covering his bases, Gates didn’t become a billionaire by being shy. Within the patents is a description of how the cost would be covered and the cost would be monumental because tens of thousands of his “vessels" would be needed. Gates proposes funding by selling insurance policies in hurricane-prone areas. Plus, of course, funding from local, state and national agencies.
Great idea, maybe. Maybe not. Fiddling with Mother Nature? Assuming this works, couldn’t this cause an ecological disaster by unbalancing the ocean temperatures? There’s an old saying, “Throwing the baby out with the bath water” that seems appropriate. Great cause but probably a bad idea. I’m not a geek, oceanographer or meteorologist, so my opinion is not worth much. However, if anyone can do it it probably would be Bill Gates.
Trivia question of the day
(Try it without Google)
The answer will be in tomorrow’s blog.
Yesterday’s Question: Sticking with the musical theme, for a period of two years, what singer reported ate nothing but meat loaf, mashed potatoes and tomatoes? Elvis again
Today’s Trivia: Who was the first hitter to hit a home run in the Astrodome.
No comments:
Post a Comment