This week, it’s back to daylight savings time. When I was a kid, I used to think I hated daylight savings time, and then I found out it was the non-daylight savings time I hated.

So, why not just stay on daylight savings time all year round? Or, why not just do away with daylight savings time, and have the 10:00 PM news come on at 11:00 PM, and get the schools to start an hour later, which would automatically move rush hour back an hour, and…

Living on Elvis Time

In a famous experiment, Michel Siffre, a French cave explorer, spent six months in a cave, with no clues to tell him what time of day it was. His biological clock eventually settled on a 25-hour day instead of a 24 hour day.

One theory was that the earth used to have a 25-hour day before the moon started slowing down the rotation, back before our ancestors evolved legs and crawled out of the ocean. Another theory was that humans were transplanted from Mars a long time ago in a cosmic crisis far away, but that’s delving into Arthur C. Clarke territory.

The closest I’ve come to Siffre’s experiment is having a week off at Christmas, when I find myself staying up later each night and rising later each morning, until I’m on what I call “Elvis Time,” because, like, the king lived in a sort of bizarre reverse time where he and his friends and the Memphis Mafia slept all day and stayed awake all night.

But, anyway, it’s great to be driving home from work before the sun sets, and it really makes me think how wonderful the people in Longyearbyen, Norway must be feeling right about now.

Here Comes the Sun

Longyearbyen, Norway bills itself as the northernmost town in the world–about 600 miles from the North Pole. And every year about this time in March, the sun returns after last being seen in October. After a few weeks of increasingly longer days, the nights will give way to solid daylight from April till next September.

Read More: daylight savings time, Elvis, Norway

At the beginning of the year, French diplomat and ICANN board member Jean-Jacques Subrenat invited me to expound upon the trends listed in his post, 2008: What Can We Expect.

In his post, Jean-Jacques speculates what events and trends are likely to take front stage and center in 2008…trends with aftershocks that will shake the world beyond the year.

Among other things, Jean-Jacques’ well-thought list covers the United Nations’ proclamation of 2008 as the International Year of Languages to promote unity in diversity and global understanding.

He also covers the significance of the 2008 U.S. presidential election, tries to make sense of the looming recession, points out global zones of tension, and pays homage to expanding forms of communication which are affecting cultures in even the remotest corners of the world.

Here’s my list…

New York Times Square Ball

On the night of December 31, for the first time ever, a bunch of people stood in New York City’s Times Square and watched a lighted ball drop from a pole.

Call me crazy, but I’m convinced the ball drop thing’s going to catch on big time, for years to come.

What’s that? Oh, that was New York, 1908. Sorry. My bad. Let’s fast forward to 2008…

The Empire Shifts East

People tend to look at empires through polarized geo-stationary lenses. But, while most people think the Fall of Rome put an end to the Roman Empire, some realize the Empire survived; it just shifted west and eventually set up shop in the New World.

Last year, many recognized the beginning of another Empire shift when Halliburton moved headquarters to Dubai.

Ahhhh…Remember when New York was the Empire State? Those were the days, no? Alas, those days are gone.

While the United States is funding many a war-profiteer’s bon-voyage, while Freedom Tower still struggles (after 7 years!) to crawl out of its own basement, while we refuse to chunk a chimp from the Oval Office…Dubai, Shanghai, and Singapore have grown some truly impressive skylines that are pure twilight eye candy.

In 2008, I think more people will realize, for worse AND better, that the Empire is setting sail for a new home.

Blended Families

The death of the traditional, nuclear, one-race family used to be feared. Now it’s beginning to be embraced. Several trends are contributing to the phenomenon: Cross culture marriage. Cross culture adoption. Cross culture remarriage after having children. Cross culture same-sex remarriage with cross culture adopted step children. And, maybe most of all, less fear of change.

Of course, some will no doubt associate the breakdown of the nuclear family with the decline of morality in America. In contrast, I’ve noticed that the rate of lynchings has dramatically declined since the mid twentieth century heyday of the nuclear family. So, I say blend away!

Food Inflation

The USA grows an unimagineable amount of corn, and we eat even more. Think high fructose corn syrup…yes, it’s made from corn. And it’s in your soda, chips, ketchup, hamburger bun, special sauce, and what do you think the cow who provided your all-beef patty ate? LOTSA CORN!

All that corn takes a lot of fertilizer to grow. The fertilizer is made out of oil. It’s spread by tractors with engines that require oil. The trucks that transport the corn from Iowa to the rest of the country use oil. The price of oil has gone up. And smarty-pants George W. Bush is now promoting the switch to use more ethanol — which is made from corn which requires so much oil to produce.

More oil to grow more corn with more of the corn going into your gas tank instead of your love handles. Connect the dots. Your Big Mac Attack is going to cost more in 2008.

Welcome Surprises

In addition to the above trends, there are a few other trends that I’m hoping will reach critical mass and begin to snowball in 2008. How about a drastic decline in the popularity of Corporate broadcast “news”? I put “news” in quotes because so much of it is broadcast brainwashing picked and chosen with far too much priority placed on promoting or censoring ideas instead of imparting information objectively.

And, to end with a really vague prediction, I’ll hazard that advances in ambient intelligence, nanotechnology, and wireless networks will continue to blend together in unpredictable and spectacular ways that will change the daily routines of millions of people.

Read More: trends, 2008, empire, blended families, food inflation

Sorry for the lack of posting, but it’s been vacation time!!!

This summer, we met my parents and my sister’s family at Navarre Beach, Florida, for a week in the sand.

And, I took some 3D stereo images while I was there…

Stereoscopic Imagery

Supposedly, British scientist and inventor Charles Wheatstone discovered stereoscopy in 1838. Wheatstone constructed a stereoscope that displayed 3D images from two 2D pictures. Soon, stereoscopes, along with collections of stereo image cards, were the conversation piece in middle-class Victorian parlors.

As TV became the main entertainment in adult living rooms, the popular ViewMaster upgraded stereoscopic images with color film and easy-load discs targeting the children’s market.

A few years ago, I stumbled on a cheap way to create your own stereo images. Just tape a couple of disposable cameras together, base to base. Make sure the lenses are in the same horizontal plane.

Next, just aim through one of the view finders and press both camera buttons at the same time.

Viewing 3D Images

You can buy special viewers to see your images, or you can learn to “free-view” the images without a viewer.

The most popular free-viewing method is the cross-eyed method: Cross your eyes, relax your vision until there are three images, then focus on the center image.

Here’s one of my own images to try it out on (click picture for a larger image pair):

You can view a few more homemade 3D vacation pictures here: Navarre Beach 3D Pics.

Read More: Navarre, stereoscope, stereogram, 3D, vacation

One tenth of the world’s fresh water is stored in the ice cap resting on top of Greenland. There’s so much water stored there that if it all melts, the world’s oceans will rise 23 feet. So, if you want to still get around New York City and London, either start breaking out the sandbags or ordering a lot of gondolas…

Recently, what sounds like thunder in Greenland is actually the sound of huge, cracking ice, as Greenland’s massive cap of frozen water is melting away faster than scientists thought possible.

Enough ice has already melted to expose a new island, dubbed Warming Island, that was previously buried beneath the ice cap.

Greenland’s Expanding Melt Zone

Because global warming occurs faster near the polar regions than near the equator, the effects in Arctic Greenland are much more obvious than most places on earth. But once the ocean levels rise significantly, that may change.

Greenland’s melt zone has expanded 30 percent in the last 30 years, and in the past 15 years, average winter temperatures have risen by 9 degrees.

The more the surface of Greenland’s ice cap melts, the faster the ice sheet slides towards the ocean. Twelve years ago, the glacier where the Swiss Camp research station is located was moving 4.5 miles per year. Now it’s moving toward the ocean at 9 miles a year.

Although a warmer Greenland may flood New York and shut down ocean currents that provide Western Europe’s mild winters, there is a bright side: Greenland’s once frozen-solid harbors are now ice-free year round, so tourism is booming, and the fishing is great!

Read More: Greenland, global warming, climate change

While you’re busy getting to those Six Sights to See Before They’re Gone, you can start planning future vacations to see some sights that aren’t quite here yet, but promise to be spectacular when they arrive…

Burj Dubai

In February 2007, the United Arab Emirates’ Burj Dubai passed the USA’s Sears Tower as the building with the most floors. By September, it will likely pass Taiwan’s Taipei 101 Tower as the tallest building in the world.

Currently, construction on Burj Dubai has reached over 1,500 feet and 130 floors. But, due to competition, the final height is being kept secret.

At a minimum, plans call for the structure to reach 2,651 feet with 162 floors. But, several inside sources have placed the final height between 3,000 and 3,300 feet, with over 216 floors.

When completed in 2008, a hotel decorated by Giorgio Armani will occupy the bottom 37 floors. The next 64 floors will contain 700 private apartments (which sold out within 8 hours of going on sale), and the rest of the floors will house corporate offices.

Add an indoor/outdoor observation deck on the 124th floor, an outdoor swimming pool on the 78th floor, and the world’s fastest elevator (a double-decker that can go 40 mph), and you’ve got a fun skyscraper!

Intercontinental Bering Strait Link

The continents of Asia and North America haven’t been connected since the end of the last ice age. That’s when the Bering Land Bridge disappeared beneath an ocean rising with glacial melt off — about 11,000 years ago. But soon, the continents may get joined again…

Engineers and architects have dreamed about connecting earth’s two largest landmasses for over a century. But, the Bering Strait has some of the worst weather on Earth. And in addition to strong winds and arctic temperatures, some very large icebergs float through the region. So, the challenges of building a 55-mile Bering Straight Bridge are formidable.

That’s why some are suggesting a Bering Strait Tunnel instead of a bridge.

The proposed 64-mile tunnel would be twice as long as Europe’s Chunnel, and it would take 10-15 years to complete. In addition to a transportation link, the tunnel would double as a pipeline for supplying the U.S. with oil, natural gas, and electricity from Siberia.

Although the cost of the total project would be $65 billion, it would save North America and Russia $20 billion a year in electricity costs, in part due to Hydro OGK’s plans to build two 10-gigawatt tidal plants in the Okhotsk Sea by 2020.

London Array Offshore Wind Farm

The London Array is expected to become the world’s largest offshore wind farm when it’s complete in 2010.

A consortium of energy companies is building the farm about 12 miles from the Kent and Essex coasts in the outer Thames Estuary. Up to 271 turbines are planned, arranged in a grid covering 94 square miles. Undersea cables will connect the wind farm with an onshore substation on the North Kent Coast.

The wind farm will provide enough energy to power a quarter of the homes in Greater London. By comparison, a fossil fuelled power station would expel an extra 1.9 million tonnes of CO2 per year to produce the same electricity.

The World Archipelago

Off the shore of Dubai, another construction project is taking shape: The World. The project is a man-made archipelago of 300 islands in the shape of a world map.

The World is the brainchild of Sheikh Mohammed, Dubai’s ruler. Mohammed, no stranger to building islands, has already commissioned the Palm Islands…the three largest artificial islands in the world.

Each of The World’s 300 islands ranges in size from 5 to 21 acres, and is being built with sand dredged from the sea. The entire World project will cover an area of about 20 square miles.

As of March 2007, The World was about 90 percent complete. Average price for an island? $25 million.

Aeroscraft Flying Luxury Cruise Ship

It’s not a Blimp, and it’s not a plane. It’s the Aeroscraft — a flying 650-foot-long cruise ship that’s kept in the air with lift from an aerodynamic body, huge rear propellers, and 14 million cubic feet of helium.

With an acre-sized cabin, passengers will have roomy staterooms and plenty of room to stroll around the deck. And with a top speed of 174 miles per hour, and a flight ceiling of 8000 feet, they’ll find their spot in the sky perfect for sight seeing as they sail around the world.

Unlike conventional aircraft, the Aeroscraft doesn’t need a runway. The ship can take off and land vertically, so it can fly to areas lacking extensive transportation facilities or large ground crews.

The Aeroscraft can also be configured as a freight ship. Using less fuel than a plane, and flying much more quietly, it will be able to haul 400 tons of cargo from Japan to California in a day and a half.

A prototype, built by California’s Worldwide Aeros Corporation, should be complete by 2010.

Space Hotels

Las Vegas company Bigelow Aerospace may be the first company to put a private space hotel in orbit. Pioneering work in expandable space station modules with flexible outer shells (conserving space while being launched), the space technology startup company has tentative plans to launch an orbital resort.

The working name is CSS (Commercial Space Station) Skywalker, and the expected price for a night’s stay will be around $1 million. But it could be in orbit by 2015.

And if you want to travel even further, plans for hotels on the moon are already taking shape. But, completion date is 2050, so you’ve still got a little time to pack and save for the trip…

Read More: Burj Dubai, London Array, Bering Strait Bridge, The World Islands, Aeroscraft, CSS Skywalker, Bigelow Aerospace