Nature

Whenever I have to leave the countryside, I 'fill up' on nature.

Wanted to share these pics of Ysperklamm in the Austrian 'Waldviertel' with you.

peace

History

When I need to test the bandwidth of my internet connection (usually in hotel rooms), I usually go to speedtest.net.

You probably know the site. I like the way numbers are presented and it seems concise enough. Just recently, I noticed that every test is saved and can be accessed via a URL, such as:

http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/a/2075194134

Now look at the URL and the ID at the bottom of the result page. I wonder what I would see if I change the number in the URL?

Would be interesting to retrieve very old results and compare with newer ones. I wonder if that is intentional by the good people at speedtest.net?

peace

Numbers

During my first excursions into the then young world wide web, I stumbled upon a 'world clock'. I cannot recall the site URL but there are plenty of similar pages on the web today.

All of them have one thing in common. They show counters for world population, births, deaths and other indicators counting up (or down) based on statistics and estimates.

World Clock by Peter Russell

It's a mesmerizing experience to watch these counters. Every second a human is born and the same instant a human life ends. It is as if you have a vantage point from where you watch Earth and see life pop up and dissolve breathlessly.

In the time it takes for you to breathe in and out, there are countless births and deaths. Life is coming and going but goes on forever.

Don't get me wrong, I do not feel sad or depressed in any way while watching these clocks and thinking about the implications of these numbers going up or down. Thanks to these pages I feel connected to life itself and reminded of my own evanescence.

Here are some more:

World Clock by Poodwaddle
worldometers
livepopulation.com

peace