How science-fiction is our world?

Today I walked into a toilet block and the light turned on as I walked in. Despite being such a little thing (that was probably automated by a switch/timer system on the door) it made me happy. A few decades ago an automated system like that would have been incredibly cool but today we just take for granted. This then made me realize that I was standing in a climate controlled building with hundreds of desktop computers within a few hundred meters and thousands of chips in general.

To somebody of the early twentieth century it would appear that we live in a completely different world. 100 years ago flight had only just been invented and yet today we can look up at the sky and see the trails of scores of airplanes. Not only that but we’ve sent man to the moon and robots to everywhere within a billion kilometers. Its certainly not bad.

Little elements of old school science fiction do exist in the modern world. We have complex displays capable of display all sorts (and they’re flat) of information and images – we can even touch them and view them in 3D. We have a complex network that connects billions of people around the planet. Billions of people carry devices that allow them to communicate with something in their hand.

Despite everything that we can do and do do every day mankind is always capable of imaging the future. We still haven’t conquered the other planets (largely due to the recession and cosmic limits) but we’ve managed quite a lot. Not bad for a civilization that’s only been intelligent for a few hundred thousand years.

Interesting facts I’ve learned in the last 24 hours

• The first clock with a dial was installed at Norwich Cathedral, England in 1325
• A fly’s wing takes 1/1000th of a second to beat
• Pitcairn is the world’s smallest island with country status
• Of the five great lakes Michigan is the only on just in the United States
• The Caspian Sea is the largest inland lake and it would take 400 years for all of its water to flow over the Niagra Falls
• Canada (including islands) has the world’s longest coastline at 265,523km
• The PH (Potential Hydrogen) scale was invented by Søren Sørensen
• Seaborgium is the only element to have been named in honor of a living person
• The safety razor was invented in 1903 by King Camp Gillette
• The average (70 kilo) person has 1 gram of Silicon in them
• Bananas grow on trees but they are technically considered herbs
• History teaches us that a double run of Republicans followed by a Democrat (as we have had with Bush and Obama) generally leads to another Republican
• The Vatican City is the smallest country by land mass (0.44km2) and population (~1000)
• Istanbul is the only city in two continents

Attempting to recite all 50 states from memory

OK, I have learnt these. I do know them. I have not cheated this list:

1. Maine
2. Delaware
3. Washington
4. Washington, D.C.
5. Alaska
6. Hawaii
7. New York
8. Pennsylvania
9. Virginia
10. West Virginia
11. North Dakota
12. South Dakota
13. North Carolina
14. South Carolina
15. Idaho
16. Iowa
17. Utah
18. Oklahoma
19. Ohio
20. Texas
21. California
22. Florida
23. Kentucky
24. Tennessee
25. Maryland
26. New Jersey
27. Connecticut
28. Arizona
29. New Mexico
30. Nebraska
31. Nevada
32. Colombia
33. Montana
34. Mississippi
35. Massachusetts
36. New Hampshire
37. Indiana
38. Georgia
39. Arkansas
40. Kansas
41. Louisiana
42. Alabama
43. Missouri
44. Illinois
45. Oregon
46. Vermont
47. Wyoming
48. Wisconsin
49. Rhode Island
50. Michigan

Not bad. Took a few minutes though. I am planning on creating some sort of online quiz game for this – though I don’t know how it will work.

All About Azerbaijan

Last night Azerbaijan surprisingly won the Eurovision song contest, easily beating the critics’ (and bookies’) favorites France, Sweden and Ireland – and they rarely get it wrong on big events like Eurovision. When watching Eurovision, other than noticing that about 90% songs were English – quite surprising considering that the UK – the people who would be expected to sing best in English – don’t normally do that well -, I also noticed that I didn’t actually have a clue about Azerbaijan, where it is, what language it speaks, what the culture is like and all the other interesting things that might be expected from me. Here is my fact file:

• The capital city is Baku
• Just over 9,000,000 people are thought to live there
• It is on the edge of the Caspian Sea
• It is bordered by Russia, Armenia, Turkey, Georgia and Iran
• The official language is Azerbaijani and to say hello you would say ‘Salam’, so look out for lots of this next year
• The current political system is a Presidential Republic (with a President and Prime Minister), however it has been a Democratic Republic (1918) – the first Islamic state of its kind – before being taken over by the Soviet Union in 1920, finally gaining independence in 1991 with the disillusion of Communism
• Azerbaijan is technically considered by the United Nations (which it is a member of) to be in Asia, however it is in the Eurasian area, which why it (and the other former Eastern Bloc countries) is allowed to perform in Eurovision
• During World War Two, Azerbaijan fought with the Soviet Union, supplying men and oil
• 90% of the people are considered to be Azerbaijani, and much of the remaining ten percent is made up from peoples from former Eastern Bloc countries
• 99% of the people are Muslim
• The three most popular sports are Freestyle Wrestling, Football and Chess
• The Azerbaijan National Aerospace Agency plans to launch its first satellite in summer 2012
• Azerbaijan is very mountainous, however 9 of the 11 climate zones exist within Azerbaijan, with temperatures ranging from -33 degress Celsius to +44 degrees Celsius

And because I quite enjoyed that, I might do something like this for more countries in the future. Please put ideas in the comments!