Since I read this article in June, I have been keeping up with the increasingly important sunspot spotting event happening globally. The picture above shows the sun at its most active in 2001, potentially the most active period for sunspots in the past 1000 years.

Dark spots, some as large as 50,000 miles in diameter, typically move across the surface of the sun, contracting and expanding as they go. These strange and powerful phenomena are known as sunspots, but now they are all gone.

Although periods of inactivity are normal for the sun, this current period has gone on much longer than usual and scientists are starting to worry (June 08)—at least a little bit.

Dana Longcope, a solar physicist at MSU, said the sun usually operates on an 11-year cycle with maximum activity occurring in the middle of the cycle. The last cycle reached its peak in 2001 and is believed to be just ending now, Longcope said. The next cycle is just beginning and is expected to reach its peak sometime around 2012. But so far nothing is happening. “It’s a dead face,” Tsuneta said of the sun’s appearance.

In the past, they observed that the sun once went 50 years without producing sunspots. That period coincided with a little ice age on Earth that lasted from 1650 to 1700.

That time is called the Maunder Minimum where there was only 50 observed sunspots when you’d expect to see 40,000 - 50,000. It also corresponded to a period of extremely low cosmic radiation hitting earth which impacts temperatures.

Geophysicist Phil Chapman, the first Australian to become an astronaut with NASA, said pictures from the US Solar and Heliospheric Observatory also show that there are currently no spots on the sun. He also noted that the world cooled quickly between January last year and January this year, by about 0.7C.

“This is the fastest temperature change in the instrumental record, and it puts us back to where we were in 1930,” Dr Chapman noted in The Australian recently.

Fast forward from June 08 to today. The solar cycle has started, but it hasn’t started conclusively that’s for sure. The sun is still dead. It started off with one or two small spots however scientists are split between whether they are the start of a new solar cycle or left overs from the previous record breaking cycle. This cycle is between the 3rd and 12th slowest recorded solar cycle ever. This is going against NASA’s and NOAA’s 2006/07 Predictions for an extremely active solar cycle.

But as you can see here - the sun is very very quiet. What does that mean? Opinions vary from nothing to the coldest period since the 1600’s, stay tuned.

Well a few days behind schedule.. But non the less I’ve spent some time and redesigned the blog to match V8 of the mainsite..

Took a little longer than I had expected, but I got busy tweaking more than just the header. I also got distracted creating a new blog header. Which to be quite honest was a lot of fun, and I’m sure a lot of you out there are scratching your heads wondering what the heck that is. Heh.

In regards to the russian nuke controller (as MaxPower referred to as), this is actually a picture I took earlier this year at springeight of a russian synthesizer. There was lots of really cool ol’skool gear at this museum, and I recommend checking out the rest of the pictures from it. Some weird and wacky stuff, and lots of it is still being used to this day!

Anyways.. Expect some falling rocks in the next few days as I continue to tweak / pull apart various pieces of the blog…

Next up.. Comments on the mainsite!

Microsoft has released Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2, which they say is ‘ready for average users to try’. That is good enough for #29 on the Google Buzz o meter, but more importantly is this one feature:

In the newest “beta” test version of Microsoft’s forthcoming Internet Explorer 8, which was made available Wednesday, a mode called InPrivateBrowsing lets users surf without having a list of sites they visit get stored on their computers.

The beta also introduces an additional InPrivateBlocking mode, which can block third-party content from appearing on Web sites. InPrivateBlocking can also keep some types of ads from appearing — including those served up by Microsoft’s own advertising platform,

Users surfing with InPrivateBlocking turned on can review a list of which companies are trying to display or collect data. Users also can click a link to read more and decide case by case whether to permit certain ones to go ahead

Not surprisingly, internet advertisers are spooked

If IE8 blocks programs that track how many times an ad is seen — a calculation that helps determine payments to advertisers and publishers — that could also bring down the Web ad marketplace, Zaneis noted.

Merry internet geeks are already calling InPrivateBlocking - ‘porn mode’ and suggest it will play havoc with analytics engines. Good for me the surfer, bad for me the website/blog editor.

I run Firefox 3.0.1 currently but I’ll give this beta a go, see how she runs.

I was reading a financial blog frequented by 20 - 30 something (generally) males, when I noticed this banner ad. The site, RareDaily is “a popular email newsletter featuring the newest and hottest in fine dining, nightlife, and men’s style in New York City, Los Angeles, and Miami.”

Who cares? Indeed, these sites are pretty common.

But the banner ad is what got me.

Coolest bars. Check. Sign up today for a coming (in Nov 08?!?) nightlife guide. Check. Guy going to get some from a hot chick. Check. Wind power in the background. Uhhh.

I’m trying to decide if A) the wind turbine was shopped in and if so, why, unless wind turbines are now the height of sexy or B) some photog out there actually set the scene with a wind turbine in the background, which would imply that wind mills are sexy.

Conclusion, wind power is sexy.

For those of you who frequent the R4NT blog but don’t make it over to the Magazine, I wanted to take this opportunity to give a big up to Adrian’s article on MSTRKRFT, which is the first R4NT version 8 article.

He does a great job highlighting the MSTRKRFT set and I enjoyed the video which is included as well. It looks like that the scene at Falmes Central was pretty decent.

Also, loved the mention of BBC’s Radio 1 MSTRKRFT Essential Mix which was a great show.

For anyone who doesn’t know BBC Radio 1, is by far the best radio station on the planet. BY FAR. I may be biased, as my Friday and Saturday nights when I lived in London used to be filled with just turning on the radio and pumping some Dance Anthems, Pete Tong, Judge Jules and Essential Mix for a few hours, but I don’t think so. Best. Station. Ever.