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Kompetenceudvikling

Umiddelbart er den tegning jo fin, men i min ungdom var det anderledes.

I begyndelsen af 70’erne var jeg meget optaget af den kommende dommedag, olien var ved at slippe op, The Limits to Growth dokumenterede at uanset hvad vi gjorde, så ville det gå galt, og at feks. de kommende supersoniske fly og raketter ville ødelægge ozonlaget.

Alt det var jeg meget bevidst om, og det var ikke noget jeg lærte i skolen, det var gennem Danmarks Radio, ikke mindst det hedengange P1 program: Leksikon.

I 1977 tog jeg så selv et kursus på Ungdomsskolen for at lære at programmere, i 1978 tog jeg kurset igen, på det alter ofrede jeg min spejderkarriere, som også var svært inkompatibel med sen 70’ernes fremherskende ideologi i Gymnasierne. Det var også svært inkompatibelt at arbejde med datamaskiner i sen 70’erne, så det droppede jeg også til fordel for politik og marginalkultur – nørden var ikke velset dengang…

Men dette, mit første program skrevet i BASIC, hang dog, trods alt, ved:

10 LET H=5
20 LET G=10
30 LET A=0.5*H*G
40 PRINT A

Og det mere generelle:

10 INPUT H,G
20 LET A=0.5*H*G
30 PRINT A

Senere, efter Gymnasiet hvor jeg startede på et teknisk universitet, rettede jeg ind, og har vel i min karriere været medvirkende til at kanalisere rigtig mange millioner, regnestykket er komplekst, til Seattle og Cupertino, men også til Indien, Kina og Ukraine.

Jeg magtede så ikke at gennemføre min uddannelse, men jeg har alligevel arbejdet professionelt det meste af tiden siden 1983, og jeg tør slet ikke regne min gennemsnitlige timeløn ud, og min månedsløn før skat har svinget fra 0 til 80.000, og min arbejdsuge fra 0 til over 100 timer.

Udokumenterede kompetencer

At du så næppe kan få et fast arbejde i det etablerede system, bla. pga. manglende dokumenterede kompetencer, er vore alles problem.

Pensum

Mit budskab er at du, når du har lært de basale færdigheder som at læse og skrive, så lær informationssøgning og kildekritik, herefter står du for din egen uddannelse, men find nogle gode lærere, det der populært kaldes venner.

Her kan du passende starte din egen uddannelse:

Og du kan fortsætte her:

Sjovt nok var det første programmeringssprog jeg lærte, i 1977, programmeringssproget BASIC, og det stadig er i udbredt brug, f.eks. til makroer i Microsoft Office, så det mest karrierefremmende du kan gøre, hvis du vil arbejde med udvikling af programmer, er måske stadig at lære BASIC.

Myten om den hurtige teknologiske udvikling

At den teknologiske udvikling går ekstremt hurtigt, er en vandrehistorie, dine udokumenterede, såvel som de dokumenterede, kompetencer indenfor teknologi er langtidsholdbare.

Her viser jeg bla. hvordan mit første program ville se ud i andre programmeringssprog, nå ja, det minder mig om hvor meget jeg elsker APL, det er måske det du skal lære først, dine kompetencer er så mindre brugbare, underdrivelse, hvis du skal have et arbejde som programmør i en virksomhed…

Samme program i APL som i BASIC :-O. Jep! Det skal læses fra højre mod venstre.

(∼R∈R°.×R)/R←1↓ιR?

2009 04 2 I Can Haz Code Mac Meetn Greet Kim Bach from Kim Bach

One more thing…

Resultatet af afstemningen som altid følger en Joy of Tech stribe? What would be highest on your list of things to teach in school?

46% svarede:

How to learn, and how to love to keep learning, … curiosity may have killed the cat, but it died as clever as a fox.

Vi lader lige den stå.

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Heros Of The Working People

Heros Of The Working People

You might, or rather might not, have wondered why I changed my profile picture on social media four times these last ten days.

It has something to do with the first cosmonaut of Danish heritage, Andreas Mogensen, who just returned safely to Earth after a visit to the, boringly named, International Space Station.

The images are some of the icons of the Soviet space program, from top left clockwise Sergei Pavlovich Korolev – designer of the Soviet rockets that is the foundation of the Soyuz Andreas Mogensen flew, Laika – the first living being launched into space by humans, Alexey Arkhipovich Leonov – the first human to perform a EVA (spacewalk) and Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova – the first woman, and civilian, to have flown in space.

I grew up with the spacerace in the 1960ies and if anyone had told us that the first human of Danish heritage in space would be a cosmonaut flying in Soviet rockets we would probably have laughed.

It’s interesting to note that Arthur C. Clarke had foreseen a future of cooperation in space similiar to what we se to day in the book and movie 2001, space exploration is way too costly, and the International Space Station is a testament to excatly that, peaceful cooperation between adversaries, I thoght the Russians were the bad guys?

Now if we could only get the Chinese aboard.

References

Андреас Энеуолль Могенсен (англ. Andreas Enevold Mogensen; род. 2 ноября 1976, Копенгаген, Дания) — астронавт ЕКА, первый астронавт — гражданин Дании[1] и 544-й космонавт мира, доктор философии. 2 сентября 2015 года в качестве бортинженера-1 транспортного пилотируемого корабля «Союз ТМА-18М» и экспедиции посещения ЭП-18 стартовал с космодрома Байконур к Международной космической станции.

Википедия contributors, “Могенсен, Андреас,” Википедия, свободная энциклопедия, http://ru.wikipedia.org/?oldid=73244457 (accessed сентября 12, 2015).

Sergei Pavlovich Korolev (Russian: Серге́й Па́влович Королёв; IPA: [sʲɪrˈgʲej ˈpavləvʲɪtɕ kərɐˈlʲɵf], Ukrainian: Сергі́й Па́влович Корольо́в, Serhiy Pavlovych Korolyov, also transliterated as Sergey Pavlovich Korolyov; 12 January [O.S. 30 December 1906] 1907 – 14 January 1966) was the lead Soviet rocket engineer and spacecraft designer in the Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union during the 1950s and 1960s. He is considered by many as the father of practical astronautics.

Wikipedia contributors, “Sergei Korolev,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sergei_Korolev&oldid=672293804 (accessed September 12, 2015).

Laika (Russian: Лайка; c. 1954 – November 3, 1957) was a Soviet space dog who became one of the first animals in space, and the first animal to orbit the Earth. Laika, a stray dog from the streets of Moscow, was selected to be the occupant of the Soviet spacecraft Sputnik 2 that was launched into outer space on November 3, 1957.

Wikipedia contributors, “Laika,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Laika&oldid=680429457 (accessed September 12, 2015).

Alexey Arkhipovich Leonov (Russian: Алексе́й Архи́пович Лео́нов; IPA: [ɐlʲɪˈksʲej ɐˈrxʲipəvʲɪtɕ lʲɪˈonəf]; born 30 May 1934 in Listvyanka, West Siberian Krai, Soviet Union) is a retired Soviet/Russian cosmonaut and Air Force Major General. On 18 March 1965, he became the first human to conduct extra-vehicular activity (EVA), exiting the capsule during the Voskhod 2 mission for a 12-minute spacewalk.

Wikipedia contributors, “Alexey Leonov,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Alexey_Leonov&oldid=667662194 (accessed September 12, 2015).

Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova (Russian: Валенти́на Влади́мировна Терешко́ва; IPA: [vɐlʲɪnʲˈtʲinə vlɐˈdʲimʲɪrəvnə tʲɪrʲɪʂˈkovə]; born 6 March 1937) is the first woman to have flown in space, having been selected from more than four hundred applicants and five finalists to pilot Vostok 6 on 16 June 1963. In order to join the Cosmonaut Corps, Tereshkova was honorarily inducted into the Soviet Air Force and thus she also became the first civilian to fly in space.

Wikipedia contributors, “Valentina Tereshkova,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Valentina_Tereshkova&oldid=678010614 (accessed September 12, 2015).

Comments here too:

New article on Kim Bach . Org:"Heros Of The Working People"

Posted by Kim Bach on Friday, 11 September 2015

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Kepler-452b: Most Earth-like exoplanet yet – a consequence of the size of the Universe?

Kepler-452b artist concept.jpg
Kepler-452b artist concept” by NASA – http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/soaking-up-the-rays-of-a-sun-like-star-artistic-concept. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikipedia.

July 23 2015 NASA announced that the Kepler space telescope had found the most Earth-like exoplanet yet:

The discovery of a super-Earth-sized planet [Kepler-452b] orbiting a sun-like star brings us closer than ever to finding a twin of our own watery world. But NASA’s Kepler space telescope has captured evidence of other potentially habitable planets amid the sea of stars in the Milky Way galaxy.

I think that the most impressive fact about exoplanets, including Earth-like, is that we had the imagination to believe that they had to exist, given such small empirical evidence (just one solar system).

This might be a fact of the Universe given the infinity of it on both scales (10 to the positive power and 10 to the negative power.

So there must be a lot of “Earths” out there, and we might have some better guesstimates on some of the factors of the Drake Equation now.

Congratulations to us all with this amazing find, that was science fiction in my childhood!

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I’m getting “Lunatics”

I’m pro nuclear power under the following condition:

Nuclear power should be ear-marked to produce batteries, solar arrays and wind turbines that can render us independent of non-renewable energy.

As soon as renewable energy usage has reached critical mass, and this will happen way before we have a 100% coverage, nuclear power is to be phased out.

Public funding for research in new ideas that has no prospect of materialising any time soon, and are pipe/wet dreams of the physicists and so called visionaries, like controlled fusion, are to be stopped IMMEDIATELY!

So what about the nuclear waste?

Like it was investigated in the TV-series Space:1999, we could store the spent fuel on the Moon.

And another idea I came up with yesterday, that turns my original idea on it’s head, is to make nuclear fusion power plants, using something like the Orion-pulse nuclear engine, to ignite fusion, and to build that plant on the Moon.

The plant would produce and charge batteries, build solar arrays and wind turbines that are produced on the Moon using the huge amounts of energy, and the produced batteries, solar arrays and wind turbines can, basically for free, hitch a ride to Earth utilising only gravity and parachutes for soft landing.

Don’t we need a Moonbase then?”

The argument is something like “It will be labour intense, and it will be a problem that we don’t have a Moonbase in place that can provide accomodation for the myriads of “lunauts” required to build this capability?

I’d argue that it wont be needed, since self-replicating robots can mine raw materials, produce all the goods, construct, build and operate the plant(s).

Science-fiction?

NO! I don’t think so.

I think it’s less science-fiction than controlled fusion, and that it can be achieved using heavy-lift technologies, that were developed in the 1960ies, combined with modern robotics!

I’m getting “Lunatics”.

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New high-score

New high score

As far as I can see, this was my 40K, and I average just a little more than 19 Tweets/day.

The Full Monty


ps. Just for the record, I have wasted FAR more than 333 hours on Twitter on my 10 accounts.

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Rosetta, triader og de nørdede sammenhænge

Rosetta
Billede: Wikimedia Commons User:IanShazell

Siden der i sidste uge blev skrevet om det europæiske rumfartsagentur ESAs rumsonde Rosetta, har jeg fulgt interesseret med. Rosetta, der blev opsendt for 10 år siden, 2. marts 2004, og har retning mod kometen 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

Interessen i Danmark skyldes nok, i høj grad, at rumsonden har været i dvale i 31 måneder, og at strømforsyningen der i dag, den 20. januar 2014, skal vække rumsonden af sin tornerosesøvn, er leveret af det danske firma Terma.

Med sig har Rosetta et modul der skal lande på en kometen, og da jeg så navnet på den undrede jeg mig, landingsmodulet hedder nemlig Philae. I forvejen vidste jeg godt hvad både Rosetta og Philae hentydede til, jeg kunne bare ikke se sammenhængen.

Det er ikke unormalt at man navngiver rumsonder og landingsmoduler med den slags hentydninger og betydninger. F.eks. Cassini-Huygens-sonden, der blev sendt til Saturn. Det giver god mening. Huygens opdagede saturnmånen Titan, hvor Huygens-soden landede, og Cassini opdagede en del af Saturns måner. Klar sammenhæng.

For at vende tilbage til Rosetta, så har den sit navn efter Rosettestenen, en sten med inskriptioner på både egyptisk og oldgræsk. Da oldgræsk var kendt, havde man nu en nøgle til at tyde de egyptiske hieroglyffer.

Philae er et tempel i det sydlige Egypten tæt på Aswan, dedikeret til gudinden Isis.

Det var klart at der måtte være en forbindelse mellem Rosettestenen og Philae, udover Egypten. Det viser sig at Philae, eller rettere en obelisk der tidligere stod ved templet, også har en betydning i forståelsen af de egyptiske hieroglyffer.

Oversat fra engelsk Wikipedia:

På [Philae] obelisken er der to inskriptioner, en i egyptiske hieroglyffer, en på oldgræsk. Ved at sammenligne de to tekster, selv om de ikke var direkte oversættelser af hinanden, mente egyptologen William John Bankes at genkende navnene Ptolemaios og Kleopatra skrevet med hieroglyffer, dette blev senere bekræftet af Thomas Young og Jean-François Champollion, og hjalp Champollion med at afkode de egyptisk hieroglyffer.

Og så er der mere. Et af instrumenterne ombord på Rosetta hedder OSIRIS: forkortelse for Optical, Spectroscopic, and InfraRed Remote Imaging System. Hvad hentyder OSIRIS så til? Osiris er en egyptisk Gud, der i følge Osiris myten fik guden Horus sammen med gudinden Isis. Osiris myten er en voldsom og saftig historie, den fulde tekst kan findes på penelope.uchicago.edu Plutarch: Isis and Osiris

Tilsammen udgør Osiris-Horus-Isis en af de vigtige triader i egyptisk religion.

Jeg elsker den slags nørdede sammenhænge. Held og lykke til ESA med missionen, og søgningen efter de nye Rosettesten og Philae obelisker, og hils den kære Isis hvis i ser hende.

Kilder

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Hyldest til “ideer” – TEDx København 2010

Den 30-November-2010, og for andet år i træk lykkedes det WEMIND at få stablet en Københavnsk TEDx begivenhed på benene, og det skal de have en stor tak for. Selve begivenheden foregik i “Pressen”, det tidligere avistrykkeri under Politikens Hus.

Jeg elsker viden, ideer og folk der virkelig brænder for det de gør, så TEDx ville jeg under ingen omstændigheder gå glip af.

TED er et globalt fænomæn hvor inivterede talere får 18 minutter til at dele deres ideer og passioner. TEDs kredo er “ideer der fortjener at blive udbredt” – “ideas worth spreading” – hvorvidt vi blev præsenteret for det tirsdag i “Pressen” undersøger jeg nedenfor.

Forstå dit biom

Det er en rigtig god idé at forstå at bakterierne er vore venner, eller måske rettere at vi skal forstå dem, og stræbe efter balance, det fortalte Professor Morten Sommer os om – det hedder tilsyneladende “biomet”. At dette er et højaktuelt emne er blevet understeget af NASAs annoncering af at der er opdaget liv på jorden, baterier, der har en helt anden biologi end vi har observeret tidligere, vi ved stadig ikke ret meget og bakterier.

Mod det uendelige univers

Jeg har altid synes at det er en god idé at udforske rummet, og at prøve at sigte efter det gennem open source tankegang, var det Kristian von Bengtson fra Copenhagen Suborbitals prøver at gøre, der kan være optakt til en gentagelse af 20ernes tyske “Raketenrummel”, og tænk hvis rumfartsprogrammet havde været “open source” fra 30erne og fremad, så var vi nok nået længere i dag. Og så skal man huske at filmen om Wernher von Braun hed “He aimed for the stars” (“but sometimes he hit London” blev det tilføjet) – raketteknologi har en skyggeside, det virker dog som om de civile programmer har fundet en fornuftig symbiose med myndighederne, det vigtigste for mig er “open source” tilgangen, noget der er i stærk kontrast til millitæret og vel også til Burt Rutans SpaceShip One/Two/White Knight.

1-2-3-4 GLÆDE!

Arbejdsglæde er også en god idé, noget der virker, og det blev demonstreret helt lavpraktisk 1-2-3-4 og vi var klar til at omfavne hinanden, tak til Alexander Kjerulf. Mine tanker gik til en kollega, der netop altid siger god morgen når jeg møder, og hvor glad jeg er for at hun gør det.

Vi er smukke

Lone Frank synes at vi skal dele vores smukke genom, og det synes jeg er en god idé, fordi det kan være med til at få os til at forstå vores samhørighed, og at vores genom er del af en flydende “strøm”. Den “personlige genom” revolution er lige om hjørnet, fortalte Lone Frank, jeg vil dog næppe bruge 6.000 kr. på det, og jeg kan ikke se hvorfor det ville være interessant for mig, så jeg vil nok holde mig på sidelinjen i denne revolution, men det er ihvertfald dybt fascinerende, og egentlig er jeg tilhænger af at man laver samfundstjeneste for Big Brother, noget jeg har gjort de sidste 3-4 år gennem sociale medier, det er i hvertfald at foretrække at vi “deler” frivilligt fremfor at det sker gennem ufrivillig overvågning.

Han HAR tøj på!

Martin Fernando Jakobsen vil have pladespillere i verdens flygtningelejre, og det er en god idé, jeg elskede også hans ydmyghed, jeg mener bestemt IKKE projektet er udtryk for “Kejserens nye klæder”, og man kunne se at de unge elskede det. Fik ikke fat i om musikken de unge producerer bliver udgivet, men det håber jeg.

Lad bjerget komme til Muhammad

Kaspar Colling Nielsen & Mik Thobo-Carlsen talte om den fuldstændig vilde idé, at bygge et 3.500m højt bjerg, Mount Copenhagen – eller “Rasmus Bjerg” som jeg synes det skulle hedde, udenfor København. Det er nok ikke en god idé at gennemføre det, men det er en rigtig god idé at tænke så vildt, jeg er overbevist om det er et projekt der rent faktisk er muligt at gennemføre, og jeg synes menneskeheden mangler superliga projekter som disse.

Min idé: “THAT is NOT a moon/to boldly go”

Hvis jeg skulle foreslå et projekt så ville det være at vi byggede en “Livsstjerne”, en rumstation gerne på størrelse med en måne, selv om mindre da også kan gøre det. Et projekt vi alle, under ledelse af Copenhagen Suborbitals og Mount Copenhagen, kan samarbejde om. Oplyst af arbejdsglæde bygger vi “Livsstjernen”, og lad os fylde den med vores smukke genomer, musik og kunst. Der bliver plads til alle, også til bakterierne, og det gælder også de arsen-baserede.

At det ikke er så langt ude som det lyder til, understreges af at der for tiden er en indsamlig på nettet der går ud på at købe en kommunikationssatellit – Buy This Satelitte, i skrivende stund er der indsamlet over $23.000 ud af det første mål på $150.000, hvis tempoet holder, så er det mål nået om 14 dage.

Ideer der fortjener udbredelse? Ja, det synes jeg! Se alle videoerne på http://video.tedxcopenhagen.com

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The Pod Bay Doors have been opened – Godspeed Arthur and thank you

HAL Sheeding a tear for Arthur C. ClarkeThis week, the world got a lot less interesting, when the visionary, humanist, inventor and author Arthur C. Clarke died. I really considered not commenting on it, because others would be better at it, and the picture from Joy of Tech on the left sums up my feelings.

Remembering a great visionary and humanitarian

Arthur might not be the best writer, but his clear visions, belief in humanity and always good spirit was such an inspiration.

Clarke has mostly been remembered for his two most famous contributions to the collective heritage of humankind:

  1. The movie 2001
  2. The concept of Geo-synchronous communications satellites

The only thing that I feel sorry for, is that Arthur didn’t live to witness the discovery of Extraterrestial Intelligence, which I’m sure is on the verge of happening, and when we have First Contact, I hope that the politicians and scientists read the works of Arthur C. Clarke, before trying to understand E.T., I really feel that Arthur did.

First Contact

I’ll give you an example, and it’s my favourite part from one of his books, “The Fountains of Paradise”.

As is traditional with the novells by Arthur C. Clarke, the plot contains several independent sub-plots, and that is the strongest aspect of his writing, it never gets dull, and it’s filled with humour, and insights into humanity.

The main plot in the “Fountains of Paradise” is really about the construction of an elevator to the Clarke Belt, the geo-synchronous orbit, 36,000 kms from Earth.

But the by-line is a story about First Contact – e.g. the discovery of intelligent Extraterrestrials – a favourite topic of Clarke – it’s also about Artificial Intelligence – the favourite topic of Clarke.

The sub-plot is similar to “Rendezvous with Rama”: Due to universal limits of relativity, you can only travel at sub-light speeds. Another universal law is that the ordinary life-spans are too short even for ET, so ET is investigating the universe using unmanned probes.

Earth, or rather the solar system, is visited by such a a spaceship, and onboard is a computer or more correctly an AI – that is somewhat secretive – but co-operative – and we have so much to learn, like the fact that we’re an emerging level 1 Civilisation, at least in the 22nd Century, where the book is taking place.

Clarke suggested that advanced Civilisations goes through three levels:

  1. Civilisation can control energy on Planetary level
  2. Civilisation can control energy on Solar level
  3. Civilisation can control energy on Galactical level

Needless to say we’re not even a level 0 civiisation right now. When ET finally arrives, some hundred years after the probe visited, he expresses admiration for the achievements of “such a young civilisation.

Well the computer abroad the space-probe, is co-operating and teaching us lot’s of things, without violating the rules about giving away information posessed by a higher level civilisation, so we’re only given hints, like a level 1 civilisation, has mastered the conversion of matter to energy and back – e.g. has things like matter transporters and replicators, like in Star Trek.

That is until someone at a Theological Institute decides to transmit the complete religious scriptures to the computer, it painstakingly analyses it, points out the fundamental flaws of religious thinking, shuts down communication with a comment that expresses disappointment at such tribal manners from an emerging level 1 Culture, and sorry but now you have to switch to direct communications, going to cruise mode, shutting down, bye.

Mind you, ET is 50 light-years away, so everyone was upset by the actions of the religious people, but really it was also the end of religious thought, and humanity could move on the bigger projects, like building the space elevator.

The concept of the Space Elevator was lifted from a Russian scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, that Arthur credits in the closing notes of “Fountains”. Clarke also suggests that it might be possible to build it already in this century, and the concept is well thought out, and actually feasible with current technology, unfortunately the current funding of space exploration, dictates direct military benefits, and the military seems to love chemical rockets, what a shame.

Other contributions

Another important contribution by Clarke, was his 80th birthday special feature, where Discovery dedicated an entire evening to Arthur, another was his series The “Arthur C. Clarke’s Mysterious World”, where he was also dealt with myths and Urban legends, paving the way for the “Mythbusters”.

Clarke deserved the Nobel Peace Price, not least for deciding to live his final many years in war-torn Sri Lanka.

The Pod Bay doors have been opened, Godspeed Arthur

The Imperial Cinema in Copenhagen is showing “2001: A Space Odyssey” on Monday 24th of March oops April 28th at 3.45pm CEST.

Imperial has one of the best cinemas in Northern Europe, expect me to be in the audience, I can’t really think of a better way to pay tribute to Arthur, get your ticket here (link will probably expire soon ;-)).

I’m humbled by your creative vision: The Pod Bay doors have been opened, and my God it’s full of Stars. Godspeed Arthur!

The picture that accompanies this article is from the great comic strip, The Joy of Tech. I dare to claim “fair use”, and why don’t you click here to buy some merchandise, or one of the paintings – I’d love to own “HAL 9000 shedding a tear” as a painting. BTW: I’m not making any money from providing Joy of Tech with such a link, welcome to the future of advertising ;-).

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Happy birthday dear Sputnik, Space Ship One, FSF, Russian democracy and brother dearest

The famous Earthrise pictureI’m so envious my dear brother, this day October 4th – your birthday – seems to coincide with one of the most important days in modern civilisation, a day that has importance for exploration of space, as well as important steps in the history of human thought and the move towards true democracy.

Today, October 4th 2007, it’s 50 years since the first man made satellite, Sputnik 1, was launched, and the world was changed almost overnight. 12 years later man had already walked on the moon

The first stage of the race towards space, has to be one of the single most impressive feats of human kind in history, really on a par with the building of the Pyramids.

Building of Pyramids was, like the space program, put on hold – it was just not efficient, even though the monument still stand, in the form of immense launch facilities at Kennedy Space Centre, it was only really a demonstration of power, and funding had to be cut, or else it could have ruined the economy, like continued pyramid building could have done to Egypt

Flash forward 47 years, three years ago, the era of real space exploration of space was ushered in, with the successful flight of SpaceShipOne, the first commercially developed vehicle, capable of reaching space.

So happy birthday to you all, and humanity for giving us the inspiration to do the impossible, which is escaping this cosy spaceship we’re all living in, or should I say on, the spaceship called Earth.

ps. I also found out that today marks the 23rd anniversary of establishment of The Free Software Foundation (FSF) by Richard Stallman. FSF and the thoughts behind it is slowly changing the mindset of people, and is the foundation of the current explosion in true knowledge sharing. Today also marks the 14 anniversary of the failed attempt by the Soviet military to stop the move towards democracy – October 4th truly is a historic day.

pps. If I had the energy to do so, I’d love to have made a picture showing the faces of Sergei Korolev, Burt Rutan, Paul Allen, Richard Branson, Richard Stallman, Boris Yeltsin and my brother René, to accompany this article – sorry but you have to make that – mentally – yourself.

Instead I’m showing one of the most important pictures of mankind, the “Earthrise” picture taken by Apollo 8, just a little over 11 years after the Sputnik 1 launch.

“We close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you — all of you on the good Earth.”

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Jens Martin Knudsens Rosenkjær-foredrag – dr.dk/P1/Rosenkjær/Jens Martin Knudsen

Jens Martin KnudsenJens Martin Knudsens Rosenkjær-foredrag – dr.dk/P1/Rosenkjær/Jens Martin Knudsen

Jens Martin Knudsen var Danmarks bedste formidler af videnskab. Her er et foredrag han gav i forbindelse med at han modtog Rosenkjær prisen

Han døde i Februar 2005, og kort før det meldte han sig frivilligt til at rejse til Mars, mon han er nået frem?

Æret være JMKs minde.

Rækken af Rosenkjær-foredrag findes som Podcasts, du kan finde dem her.