The coastal towns along the north east coast of Honshu, lost all official documentation regarding their cities, and residents.
Not only “hard copies”, but everything stored on computers. All computers were destroyed by Mother Earth. Basically you would’ve had to store everything of importance inside a old fashioned bank safe.
So much for high tech.
In Japan, in order to cut back on the usage of electricity, many retail stores are cutting back on operating hours, and on lighting.
Japanese consumers have less time to shop, and in some stores, are shopping in the dark. Stores are keeping most of their lights turned off.
Consumers say they don’t mind, especially because they know it’s due to the triple whammy of disasters that have struck their country.
Even in the areas that are on the periphery of the natural disaster areas, in north east Honshu, trash collection has come to a near stand still.
Temporary trash dumps have been set up in parks and baseball fields.
The Japanese government has told people not to eat the vegetables, and not to drink the water, because of radiation contamination. At the same time they say “There is no immediate threat.”
What they mean by that is, that the levels, and types, of radiation contamination is such that you will not notice any bad effects “immediately”. However, if you continue to eat, drink, or expose yourself to even the lowest levels of contamination, over time you will suffer bad effects.
For example: Iodine-131 is a short life span radioactive isotope. It collects on your thyroid glands (just like iodide), and if it builds up will cause cancer. Even low levels of iodine-131 will build up on your thyroid if you keep eating, drinking, or exposing yourself to the contamination. This is why the Japanese government is telling people to stop eating the vegetables, and stop drinking the water, even though there is no “immediate” threat.
In other words, it’s still bad, bad, bad!
TEPCo said that Japan needs to prepare for rolling blackouts well into summer 2011.
The power shortage is a direct result of the nuclear disaster.
TEPCo is warning Japanese industries to make plans for the power shortage, such as reducing production.
Farnas Aerospace Company, and Iranian Aviation and Space Industries Association, have unveiled an unmanned flying saucer.
The spy flying saucer, called Zohal, is equipped with an auto-pilot system, GPS (Global Positioning System), two separate imaging systems with full HD 10 mega-pixel picture quality, and is able to take and send images simultaneously.
A week after the 9.0 quake, computer system problems continue for Japanese banks.
Mizuho Bank is unable to process salary payments for more than half a million people.
Also, Internet banking and ATMs would be offline over Japan’s upcoming three-day weekend.
On Thursday, Mizuho bank’s nationwide ATM network of more than 5,600 machines went offline until midday, then failed again in the evening, and more problems on Friday.
Like I said before, another good reason to keep your money under the mattress (unless you think it’ll float away in the flood).
President Medvedev has ordered the creation of a multi-use card, that will act as ID, passport, insurance, drivers license and debit card.
The cards will contain micro-chips. It’s part of a plan for a “…better digital culture…”. A new national payment system will be created, so people can use the IDs for bill payments.
The system could cost Russia $5 billion, and it’s hoped to get it up and running by January 2012.
17MAR2011
The situation in Japan, with Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, is similar to the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, in that nuclear fuel was exposed. The Japanese are trying to deal with the situation by dumping water onto the reactors and spent fuel pools. At this point only partial melting of fuel rods have occurred. How did the Soviets deal with Chernobyl, where full melt down of the entire reactor took place?
CNES SPOT/EOSAT satellite image, 1986.
After a series of attempts to restrain the nuclear melt down failed, resulting literally in melting of the reactor (in the U.S. it’s called China Syndrome, because jokingly it was said it would melt it’s way to China), the Soviets began to air drop sand, lead and boric acid. 5,000 metric tons worth in one week! The reactor was eventually sealed in a concrete coffin.
Most people working to fight the Chernobyl disaster died from radiation exposure. One firefighter said it felt like pins & needles on his face, and the air tasted like metal, then he died. Most of the vehicles used are still parked at the Chernobyl compound.
Soviet scientist were concerned with the melting reactor reaching ground water. They decided to pour huge amounts of concrete in the bottom of the reactor building, which seems to have worked.
For perspective: Chernobyl was ONE reactor, no spent fuel pools. Japan is dealing, officially, with SIX reactors & their spent fuel pools (1,000+ fuel rods).
Fukushima 2011: JAPAN DISASTER START OF GLOBAL GREAT DEPRESSION
IDAHO NATIONAL LABRATORY WATCHING EVENTS IN JAPAN, SEA WATER MAY NOT WORK
JAPAN QUAKE = NO ECONOMIC RECOVERY
The first thing Verizon Wireless touts, is it’s contiguous 700 MHz spectrum across the continental U.S. and Hawaii, which will carry Verizon’s new LTE (Long Term Evolution) 4G network. Verizon plans on deploying 4G to 38 markets by the end of 2010, however, does not currently have a 4G enabled phone, but is expecting one by mid-2011. The rest of the U.S.? Well, you will just have to wait until 2013 for Verizon’s 4G to be in your area.
As for speed, Verizon expects download speeds of 5-12 Mbps, and upload speeds of 2-5 Mbps. This is great speeds, exceeding most dsl and cable speeds. However, one of the larger issues that PC gamers experience on wireless networks, is slow latency. Here is the good news, Verizon’s LTE network will have 1/4 of the latency that their 3G network has. All of this is great news for people who use the Verizon network for surveillance, video streaming, or other bandwidth intensive applications.
Another benefit, is the ability to have multiple users per time slot, as opposed to only one user being able to communicate data in a single time slot. This leads to the faster latency times, and greater “always on” data connections. Also, the LTE network has better building penetration, providing better signals deep inside a building.
LTE has a theoretical download speed of 100 Mbps, while its rival, HSPA has a theoretical download speed of 14.4 Mbps, according to Verizon’s website.