Story of the month ...

March 2013: They don't know what they are doing! I was walking downhill when I saw him coming up the street. I just had come out of NOAA's building in Silver Spring, MD, and was walking toward my hotel to pick up my car and leave for another destination. It wasn't a big surprise to see him there, because he works in the area. Yes, there was only a slot of a minute or so where our worldlines could cross. He obviously was coming back from lunch. He, of course, was very surprised to see me there. He had no idea that I was in town. We had not met in a long time. Immediately, our conversation progressed to geodesy and the Global Geodetic Observing System, i.e. GGOS. He aired his frustration and stated that since I left everything is falling apart: "They don't know what they are doing!" I only could confirm that I also had the impression that things are falling apart around GGOS. Considering how important geodesy is today for our global civilization, it is hard to believe that this is happening. It is hard to believe thay such crucial infrastructure depends on voluntary contributions of many. We would not accept, for example, an electricity system based on voluntary contributions. Jokingly, I repeated my thought that we need a thriller where bad guys take out all GPS satellites. Power would fail almost immediately and many other things would go bad. He proposed that the bad guys spammed the GPS satellites; which could have an effect worse than simply taking them out. Will we see this movie before it happens in reality, maybe not due to bad guys but rather due to people stopping their "voluntary" contributions?

If you have a story, thought, or picture worth to be considered as story, thought or picture of the month, please feel free to inform me about it by sending an e-mail to hpplag@unr.edu.