Yodeller

We thing the speed of light is fast. But it really isn't when put into a meaningful context. For all mundane purposes it's other instantaneous or just doesn't matter at all.

By absolute comparison the speed of light is much, much faster than for example the speed of sound. But for us the speed of sound is actually really fast. Fast in a sense we can still easily comprehend. Fast in a sense that we can actually for example travel at that speed, and beyond. Even though only a small number of people have actually done so.

In normal situations the speed of sound can also be considered instantaneous. There is no (noticeable) delay perceiving sound for example when having a conversation with another person. But we can still observe the delay in quote mundane situations like when a lightning strikes several kilometers away. We aee the flash "instantaneously" but the sound can take several seconds to reach us.

Even in bigger scale of things when we could theoretically hear a sound from far away it can still travel that distance in time perceivable within a human lifetime. Like for example the sound our sun makes. The only reason we can't hear it is the fact that there is vacuum between us and the sun (which is a good thing as it would be as loud as a jet engine). Despite the distance the sound would "only" take 13 years to reach us from the sun.

But light. While we think it's instantaneous, the light is actually crawling through the space between distances that really matter. It takes years for it to reach us even from the closest stars outside pur solar system. And it can take billions of years for it to cross the universe. That's pretty dlow for something that is travelling at the absolute speed limit of the universe.

For years I've had pretty constant sleeping rhythm. Even suring weekends and vacations I tend to wake up relatively early even if my bed time can vary. I just don't seem to be able to sleep past certain time except in really special conditions.

But recently I have noticed the rhythm have been shifting for a bit later. Where earlier I was up by 6 o'clock the latest now it has drifted towards seven when I tend to wake up. And I don't think I usually stay up that much longer than before.

I didn't mind getting up that early. After getting used to it I kinda liked it. Being an early bird has it's perks. Luckily it's only a bit over a week before we once again switch to the winter time and my rhythm will be back to "normal". Maybe I just started adjusting to it a bit too early.

There are two kind of assumptions people make when discussing about things with others: either they assume the person doesn't know about the thing they are talking about or they think they already knew about it.

I hear a lot of the former one in my job. People come to me to tell about something they have just discovered, or thought about. Rarely do they tell me about something completely new. Of course it's my job to keep up with the matters so not many things in our fields come to me as a surprise. It's still assuring that others find those topics important, worth to bringing up to me.

Assuming the other way around is more dangerous. Even though I "know it all", I really don't always. If people keep assuming I already know and therefore don't bother bringing those topics up with me I will never know.

So it's better to appreciate whenever somebody brings up such topics. Even if I knew beforehand about it, it gives better incentive for people to keep telling me about things so I don't have to worry too much about missing something important.

There are many things at work I would like to push forward. There are many things people ask from me or suggest that we could do to improve things. If only there was enough time to so all that... and still have time to do the customer work.

The resources are finite, but there is always things to improve. It's just not possible to do everything. Some things improve productivity, or quality which both make us more profitable and appealing to the customers. Other things make the employees happy. That's also important as the competition for good workers is fierce in this industry.

I've always focused on the later. I have worked hard to make our developers life easier. Removing blockers and automating boring repetitive tasks as well as teaching them how to do things more efficiently.

Until my latest promotions it was an uphill battle. I was always fighting to get the resources to implement those changes. But now I find myself on the other side of the equation. I need to carefully evaluate all the ideas and request and judge which ones are worth doing.

NASA's Europa Clipper was launched today. It's destination is Jupiter where it will focus studying it's moon Europa to get a better idea of it's conditions and possibility of extraterrestrial life.

The project was first proposed back in 1997 while the Galileo probe confirmed there is vast oceans of liquid water under the moons icy surface. This fact sparked the interest of further studies to explore the possibility of there being suitable conditions for microbial life. But it wasn't until 2013 when the mission was finally approved.

This is quite exciting mission. Unfortunately we will still need to wait almost six years before the first results from the mission as it will take five and a half years for the probe to reach Jupiter.