Snagged and sharing - Clouds and Mountains

Clouds and mountains - two majestic powers of earth and sky. They seem to confront each other in dramatic fashion – like armies lined up to do battle – and what spectacle when they do.

In the photo below, a sea of clouds envelops the terrain around Mount Killimanjaro at sunrise, while Africa’s highest peak at 5,891 metres (19,330 ft) looks on, indomitable.   Meanwhile, in this view into the crater and ash cone of Mount Meru from the summit peak, an army of clouds encroaches around its lower reaches and looks ready to scale its sides. Below, Piz Bernina is practically engulfed in clouds almost indistinguishable from snow covering the crags of what is the Eastern Alps’ highest peak at 4,049 metres (13,283 ft). Looking down California’s Hopper Mountain at low hanging clouds, the mountains in the distance seem to just about have the upper hand over the blanket lying beneath. This magnificent sunset scene from the rim of Mount Rinjani in Indonesia shows distant peaks again fortress-like in their defence against the clouds that would overwhelm them. Here, an aerial panorama shows the truly epic scale of the struggle. A great swathe of cloud mass threatens to swallow up the Alps, while beyond the front lie more peaks – and yet more clouds!   This shot from a plateau of the Zugspitze, Germany’s highest mountain at 2,962 metres (9,718 ft), shows the view towards the Wetterstein range, smothered by another range – of clouds – on top. Finally, the science bit. Clouds are of course formed by condensation as water vapour forms into tiny droplets or ice crystals just a fraction of a millimetre wide. Small they may be, but when these crystals get together, crowding around one another in their billions, they become visible as clouds. Clouds appear white because they are able to reflect light; this halo-like lenticular cloud – a stationary cloud that forms at high altitudes – is a case in point. One way clouds are formed is when they rise over mountains. Confronted by the sheer mass of landforms shaped by fates like the collisions of continental plates, there is only one way the wraiths of the skies can go and that’s up. So spare a thought for clouds: while they may seem to assail the peaks of mountains, they have little choice. We leave you with a shot of a lenticular cloud over Nanda Devi, India’s seconds highest peak at 7,816 metres (25,643 ft).

A Brief History of the Computer.

ENIAC, 1946 Regarded as the first general purpose electronic computer, the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC) was initially commissioned for the use in World War II, but not completed until one year after the war had ended . Installed at the University of Pennsylvania, its 40 separate eight-foot-high racks and 18,000 tubes were intended to help calculate ballistic trajectories. SAGE, 1954 A gigantic computerized air defense system, SAGE (Semi-Automatic Ground Environment) was designed to help the Air Force track radar data in real time. Equipped with technical advances such as modems and graphical displays, the machine weighed 300 tons and occupied one floor of a concrete blockhouse. NEAC 2203, 1960 Manufactured by the Nippon Electric Company (NEC), the drum-based machine was one of the earliest transistorized Japanese computers. It was used for business, scientific and engineering applications. IBM System/360, 1964 Part of a family of interchangeable computers, the IBM System/360 mainframe was the first to cover a complete range of applications, from small to large, from commercial to scientific. Users were able to enlarge or shrink their setup without having to make headache-inducing software upgrades as well. Higher-end System/360 models had roles in NASA's Apollo missions as well as air traffic control systems. CDC 6600, 1964 For a time the fastest machine in the world, Control Data Corporation' s 6600 machine was designed by noted computer architect Seymour Cray. It retained its speed crown until 1969, when Cray designed his next supercomputer. DEC PDP-8, 1965 The first successful commercial minicomputer, the PDP-8, made by the Digital Equipment Corporation, sold more than 50,000 units upon its release, the most of any computer up to that time. Years before Apple and Gnu/Linux offered alternatives to the dominant IBM/Microsoft paradigms, DEC proposed its own vision, by encouraging users to educate themselves and take part in the evolution of the line. Interface Message Processor, 1969 Conceived at the height of the Cold War, when the U.S. government sought a way to keep its network of computers alive in case certain nodes were destroyed in a nuclear attack or other hostile act, the IMP featured the first generation of gateways, which are today known as routers. As such, IMP performed a critical task in the development of the ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network), the world's first operational packet switching network, and the predecessor of the contemporary global Internet. Kenbak-1, 1971 Often considered the world's first "personal computer" the Kenbak was touted as an easy-to-use educational tool, but it failed to sell more than several dozen units. Lacking a microprocessor, it had only 256 bytes of computing power and its only output was a series of blinking lights. Cray-1, 1976 At the time of its release, the Cray-1, above, was the fastest computing machine at the world. Despite its price tag between $5 and $10 million it sold well. It is one of the many machines designed by Seymour Cray, a computer architect who devoted his life to the creation of so-called supercomputers, machines which prioritized processing capacity and speed of calculation. Apple I, 1976 Initially conceived by Steve Wozniak (a.k.a. "Woz") as a build-it-yourself kit computer, Apple I was initially rejected by his bosses at Hewlett-Packard. Undeterred, he offered it to Silicon Valley's Homebrew Computer Club and, together with his friend Steve Jobs, managed to sell 50 pre-built models to The Byte Shop in Mountain View, California. The suggested retail price: $666. Though sales were low, the machine paved the way for the smash success of the Apple II. IBM Personal Computer, 1981 Featuring an independent keyboard, printer and monitor, the slick, complete-looking package that was the IBM PC helped push personal computing out of the hobbyist's garage and into the corporate and consumer mainstream. Its immense commercial success made it the hallmark of personal computing for many years and led other manufacturers to produce similar desktop models. Osborne 1 Portable Computer, 1981 The first commercial portable computer, the Osborne weighed 24 lbs. and cost less than $2,000. It gained popularity because of its low price and the extensive software library that came with it Hewlett-Packard 150, 1983 Representing the first step in a technology widely available today, the HP 150 was the first commercially available computer with touch screen technology. The 9-inch computer screen was surrounded by infrared transmitters and receivers that detected the position of the user's finger. Deep Blue, 1997 Begun at IBM in the late 80's, the Deep Blue project was an attempt at using parallel processing to solve a difficult problem namely, beating the best chess player in the world, Garry Kasparov. During a six-game match, which Kasparov ultimately lost, the confounded master attributed one move to "the hand of God." iPhone, 2007 The handy little device introduced by Apple CEO Steve Jobs in 2007 not only brings together internet access, a regular cell phone, camera and media player, it supports a wide variety of third party applications, or apps, that supply everything from recipes to maps of the night sky, and wraps it all in a sleek, glossy exterior. iPad, 2010 And now the tablet is finally here. It's called an iPad, and it's half an inch thick, weighs 1.5 pounds and features a 9.7 inch display. As Steve Jobs says in the presentation above, the device has a 10-hour battery life, so you'll be able to use all the 3rd-party apps, games, video and online newspapers you want. The Wi-Fi iPad begins at $499 while the 3G version begins at $629.

Photos from Bolivia

The cloud-scraping plateau of the Andes is an otherworldly realm where flamingos lift off from a lagoon warmed by hot springs and colored carnelian by algae. Moonlight bathes Incahuasi Island, an outcropping of cacti and fossilized algae in the Uyuni salt flat. A great lake covered this area 16,000 years ago. When it dried up, it left a 4,000-square- mile basin of salt, the world's largest such deposit. To find new grazing, vicuñas dash across a corner of the Uyuni salt flat. Just three feet tall, these animals produce wool so soft it was reserved for Inca royalty. Hunted almost to extinction, they're now protected and making a comeback. Vehicles seem to float on a shimmering salt flat flooded by summer rains. Winter's relentless sun vaporizes snow to create spiky forms called nieves penitentes near the top of Pomerape Volcano, at 20,000 feet. Snow falls lightly at such extreme altitudes in the cold, dry climate along the Bolivia-Chile border. Piles of salt, scraped by pickax from the deposit at Uyuni, await transport by truck to a nearby processing plant. How much salt does this vast basin hold? Estimates range upward from ten billion tons—just one example of Bolivia's abundant mineral wealth, which includes tin, silver, zinc, and natural gas. Rare puna flamingos make Laguna Colorada their main nesting ground. Also known as James's flamingos, the birds were thought extinct before a 1957 expedition discovered this colony, which now includes about 15,000 breeding pairs. During winter, when the air temperature here at 14,000 feet above sea level sometimes plunges to minus 20 degrees Fahrenheit, birds flock to the openings of the hot springs that keep Laguna Colorada warm. On the Altiplano, wind erodes rock into a modernist shape perched on a narrow base. The shadow of Sajama—at 21,463 feet, Bolivia's highest peak—juts over the rugged Chilean coast. Bolivia lost access to the sea in the late 19th-century War of the Pacific, which embittered relations between the two countries. Domesticated llamas spread across a spring-fed pasture at the edge of the Uyuni salt flat. Such creatures have provided communities in the Altiplano with food, wool, and sturdy backs to bear burdens since before the time of the Inca.

Out Of This World Coral Photography