Journal 1, August 30

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/08/28/hurricanes.gates.gray/index.html

As soon as I went to CNN's technology news page, the top story instantly stood out at me. This article is about Bill Gates and other scientists attempting to invent something to control ocean temperatures during hurricane season to weaken hurricanes. This invention seems very impractical, considering the economic uncertainty discussed briefly in the article. If this invention was put in place, and no hurricanes formed that year, a lot of money would be spent to do basically nothing. However, if it could actually weaken a hurricane and reduce the damage done when the storm hits land, it could be a groundbreaking invention.

This isn't the first instance of controlling the weather the world has seen, though. According to this article, China has done work with creating clouds in order to make it rain, usually the day before an important event, so that the skies will be clear and blue for the event, as opposed to rainy. Weather control is a powerful creation, if you ask me. The invention Bill Gates is creating is different, though. The Chinese attempt to control the weather in order to boost morale/public opinion by essentially creating a better atmosphere for important events. Bill Gates is attempting to tame Mother Nature, though, and prevent damage from hurricanes. This venture is amazing, and I think that important things like this should happen in the world. It will take time to develop anything of this magnitude, but the human race has the capacity to do great things like this, and more and more inventions and discoveries are coming up that would've been though insane and ridiculous years ago. Overall, I think this particular invention is impractical, given the information in the article. Considering it could be very expensive, and would probably not eliminate the hurricane, or affect the outer areas, but weaken the center, it could be very useful, but might not be the best thing to invest money in. On the other hand, Bill Gates is the kind of person who could put that kind of money into something like this, so I think it's great that inventions like this are coming about and the human race is progressing, and creating whatever can be fathomed with the resources we have.