Well, can't recall off the top of my head the html to link this; I'm lazy, like most point & clickers, but here is the link for those that don't mind to type... not in the mood to refresh my brain at the moment....

www.abcnews.go.com/wire/World/Reuters19990531_948.html

The reason this causes the hairs on the back of my neck to stand up is that several months ago, an article in the "raw" news feed at abcnews.com had an article about solar peak activity complicating y2k problems.. I read it right after coming in to work, then went back a few minutes later to print it out to show to a co-worker, and it was gone... I never found reference to it again. Searching on solar flare activicty, I found Gary's comments about the additive problem, and linked into here, where I have been lurking for a while.

My gut feel is that begining about now, with this article, the government is going to begin slowly raise the threshold... by the time the DGI's feel the heat, they'll already be cooked....

Hope this one doesn't get censored too... printed it out right away this time :)

-- Carl (slowlygi@stubborn.com), May 31, 1999

Answers

Link: Solar storm peak seen in 2000

Carl,

Whatever happened to that article you read several months ago was not government censorship; this latest article has nothing to do with government "raising the threshold" and is not going to get suppressed or censored either.

The Sun is not part of a conspiracy. Its activity is openly visible to anyone in the world with suitable equipment, which many thousands of astronomers have.

(Note: Do NOT directly view the Sun without suitable equipment. Do NOT try to overcome your eyes' natural tendency to avoid looking directly at the Sun. Direct viewing can rapidly, but painlessly, scar your retinas, producing permanent damage wherever your eyes' lenses focus the Sun's image on your retinas. [You wouldn't go totally blind; you'd just lose a certain percentage of visual acuity, impairing your reading ability for the rest of your life, e.g.] If you want to find out more, consult recent issues of _Sky & Telescope_ or _Astronomy_ magazine. Every month they have ads for the equipment for solar viewing.)

Reports of solar activity have been continuously available on the Internet for years, (and in the pre-Internet scientific media for decades). See Sunspots and the Solar Cycle at www.sunspotcycle.com, and The NASA Space Weather Bureau at www.spaceweather.com.

There are several earlier forum threads about solar storms. I'll post links later when I have more time than I do now.

-- No Spam Please (nos_pam_please@hotmail.com), June 01, 1999.

"DOD braces for space storms - Atmospheric disruptions in 2000 could interfere with satellite, comm systems"

http://www.ntgov.com/gcn/gcn/1998/october19/33.htm

-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), June 01, 1999.