Andorra calling

This just in.

After hosting thousands upon thousands of visitors from all over the globe, my drinks Web site just got its first visitor from Andorra.

That may not mean anything to most people, but for someone like me who has had a lifelong fascination with maps, geography and tiny, out-of-the-way countries (see San Marino, Liechtenstein and Kiribati), a real-time connection with someone in Andorra is like striking gold.

I’ve visited a couple of tiny countries — Luxembourg, located at the confluence of Belgium, France and Germany, and Antigua & Barbuda, an islands-nation in the Caribbean, for example — but they’re easily reached.

The Principality of Andorra is a bit more remote, tucked into a 174-square-mile pocket in the eastern Pyrenees mountains between France and Spain, although 10 million tourists manage to get there each year.  

That must agree with the 72,000 locals since tourism provides 80% of the country’s income and the population has the highest average life expectancy of any nation in the world (80 for men, 86 for women). 

One of the biggest attractions is the large amount of area for skiing. This Sunday, for example, the main race of the Andorran Ski Championship will be held and thousands of fans will flock to the mountains for the event.

But that’s the touristy stuff. When I visit a country I prefer to find something offbeat. In Andorra, that can be the bordas, the old traditional mountain homes. More than two dozen of them have been converted to public restaurants, most of which are known for a signature dish. Thus, a tour of the bordas is a gastronomic treat that comes highly recommended.

I’m making out my dining list right now. If I can just link up to my Web site visitor, I may even be able to get a personal tour.

It’s a matter of ones and ooohs

OMG!

The first chip to pack more than 2 billion transistors has been launched by silicon giant Intel. Just to prove it, that’s a picture of it over there on the right.

According to the technology press, in this case a breathless BBC writer:

“The quad-core chip, known as Tukwila, is designed for high-end servers rather than personal computers. It operates at speeds of up to 2Ghz, the equivalent of a standard PC chip. It marks the latest milestone in chip technology; Intel released the first processor to contain more than one billion transistors in 2006.” 

I have no idea what that means, except that maybe early in 2010 Intel will announce a 3 billion zoomawatz chip.

Well, maybe I have a little bit of an idea what it means: more proof of the legitimacy of Moore’s Law.

Intel co-founder Gordon Moore said way back in ‘65 that the number of transistors it is possible to squeeze in to a chip for a fixed cost doubles every two years.

But there’s another scientific finding just announced that requires little explanation: that high heels may improve one’s sex life. Just to prove it, that’s a picture of high heels over there.

Now, that is a finding I can deal with.

in a letter to the publication European Urology, Dr. Maria Cerruto of Italy said her study of 66 women under age 50 found that those who held their foot at a 15-degree angle to the ground — the equivalent of a 2-inch heel — had as good posture as those who wore flat shoes, and crucially showed less electrical activity in their pelvic muscles.

As an appreciator of electrifying female pelvic muscles, this study seemed of very high importance.

Her study suggests the muscles were at an optimum position, which could well improve their strength and ability to contract. Thus, wearing higher heels, even if they aren’t stilettos, may improve a woman’s pelvic floor muscles and, therefore, her sex life.

His, too, one would assume. 

LIFE IMITATES ART, SORT OF

One of life’s guilty pleasures is watching reruns of the various iterations of “Law & Order.” Actually, it’s difficult to avoid watching them, given the profusion of versions that have dominated series-TV for lo these many years.

I particularly enjoy seeing unexpected casting decisions. For example, standup comic/TV host/voiceover-artist Bob Saget playing a techno-nerd who poisons the wife of the man who is having an affair with his wife. His character was so obsessed with tracking his wife’s wherabouts he secretly embedded a tiny RFID in her shoulder.

That came to mind when I read that European citizens will be getting a chance to shape policy on the use of RFIDs, sometimes called “smart tags.”

RFIDs, which stands for radio frequency identification, are tiny sensors that store data about whatever they’re attached to by linking a piece of computer memory with a radio transmitter. Saget’s character used the device to track his wife’s travels. More commonly, they’re used to track and inventory merchandise, although their use is increasingly found in keeping track of pets,

The European Commission is setting up a group made up of a large cross-section of the population of member nations to discuss how the tags should be used. Some people think they’ll be a common, benign tool in business before long. Others think they may not be confined to “Law & Order” episodes, instead being used secretively by governments to track people.

Whatever they wind up being, it’s a fascinating move when a multi-national organization such as The European Commission opens up the discussion to the public at large. That’s a good use of democracy. It fills me with warm feelings.

Somewhere out there

Years ago, my eldest son described to me the most awe-inspiring sight he’d experienced as a U.S. Marine.

He was on temporary duty in Norway, above the Arctic Circle, and had taken a break from the usual indoor meetings to sit outside with some buddies. Above and around them were the Aurora Borealis, commonly known as the Northern Lights.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said. “It was like you were floating into the lights. There was no real divide between the earth and the sky, no real horizon.”

The Northern Lights have fascinated mankind for untold centuries, so much so that we’ve just sent a rocket up to study the phenomenon. NASA’s Delta II finally got off the ground at Cape Canaveral, FL, yesterday after being delayed by high winds. The THEMIS mission, NASA explains, is five identical probes they hope will gain new insights into sudden brightening of the Lights in high-latitude skies.

These flareups are known as “auroral substorms.” THEMIS (which stands for “Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions During Substorms“) is supposed to determine what causes them.

The five-probe Delta II package needs to have only four of the probes work, scientists say. They’ll magnetically map the North American continent every four days while 20 ground stations in Alaska and Canada will document the auroras and space currents from Earth. The hope is to be able to predict the substorms which soimetimes disrupt communication transmissions on Earth.

That’s nice. I’m as big a fan of science and discovery as the next guy. On the other hand, I just hope they get some wonderful pictures out of the whole thing. I really don’t need every wonder in the universe dissected and described for me.

A voice in your head

We’ve all heard a little voice telling us to be careful not to drink too much. Most of the time we didn’t know where it was coming from. If you’re a guy and find it happening in New Mexico, there’s a simple explanation.

The state has shelled out $10,500 for 500 talking deodorizer cakes to be used in men’s room urinals in bars and restaurants.

Recorded messages embedded in the sanitary supply tell the patron, in a woman’s voice, “Hey, big guy. Having a few drinks? Think you had one too many? Then it’s time to call a cab or call a sober friend for a ride home. Remember, your future is in your hand.”

The program is an offshoot of the sort of thing used in anti-drug capaigns in various parts of New York, Colorado, Pennsylvania and in Australia.

New Mexico had 143 alcohol-related deaths in 2005, the country’s eighth-highest rate, and men have 78% of all drunk-driving related convictions in the state.

MAYBE IF WE ALL PUSHED

NASA’s plan for its New Horizons unmanned spacecraft is for it to journey for nearly nine years (!) through the tricky reaches of space to take a close-up look of distant Pluto.

The only trick is getting the sucker off the ground.

For the second straight day, the rocket scientists at Cape Canaveral, FL, had to scrub the launch because of inclement weather. Earth weather. Nothing like the buffeting and meteorites and asteroids and things the New Horizon will have to dodge on its trip. Just Earth weather.

It was a bit breezy — winds up to 38 mph — on Tuesday, so the liftoff was scrubbed. Early today, it was discovered that a storm in Laurel, MD, had knocked out power at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, which is managing operations of the project.

And this is for an unmanned craft. Your tax dollars in action.

They promise to try again tomorrow. The forecast for Cape Canaveral is sunny, with a high of 71°F, no precipitation, 58% humidity and gentle winds of up to 12 mph. For Laurel, MD, no storms are predicted.

Here, we can read all about it under clearing skies, although our high will be just 39°.

A VERY BIG MAC ATTACK

We have a pair of iMac computers up here on Weathering Heights. Perhaps a bit excessive in a two-person household, but there it is nonetheless. Our contribution to wretched excess.

I mention this because even though both computers function very well for our graphic-heavy needs, those devils at Apple have done it again. They’ve come up with Something New. Something cute, sexy and … well, new.

In this instance, it is the Intel-powered iMac G5, the first of the Macintosh computers powered by Intel’s dual processor under the company’s switch to that chip technology.

I’m not much of a shopper. In fact, except for hunting and gathering supplies for meals, I despise shopping in general. But when it comes to Macs, I’m a bit of a sucker for Something New. I’ve somehow been able to resist the iPod, but that’s because I have literally thousands of MP3’s in — where else? — my iTunes archives and I rarely find myself in a situation in which I’m in a music-listening moods and can’t sit down and listen to them.

Can I hold out long enough for the urge to acquire Something New to pass? Evidence that I may give in is in my basement in the form of a Sony Beta VCR, a format I latched on to when the rest of the consumer niche was headed in another direction. Evidence that I may not is in my garage in the form of an 11-year-old Mercury Tracer with less than 65,000 on the odometer. It’s a toss-up. Stay tuned for updates.

OK, BOYS, ONE MORE TIME!

Ever hear of Cryosat? You will, if it ever gets off the ground. Well, stays off the ground would be more like it.

Cryosat is the European Space Agency’s project to study how the Earth’s ice sheets are responding to climate change. The satellite that will do the work was lost in the Arctic Ocean last year mere minutes after launch from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia. But, the ESA has decided to build another at a cost of about $150 million, and hopes to have it in the air within three years.

A BBC article reports that “Some of the world’s leading scientists have expressed their support for Cryosat-2, saying the data will greatly improve our understanding of climate change. Professor Julian Dowdeswell, director of the Scott Polar Research Institute at Cambridge University, UK, said it would help answer the question of whether the great ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica are growing or decaying. Cryosat-2 will fly closer to the poles than previous satellites, providing valuable missing data.”

While we’re wating to see if the ice is growing or shrinking, we can pause to wonder if the weekend will offer snow or sunshine. The answer is, yes. Saturday’s forecast calls for snow, a high of just 25° and a frigid low of 10°. Temperatures will be as uncomfortable on Sunday — a high of 22° and a low of 5° — but with no snow.