No I’m not dead, just in the Twilight Zone

In case you were wondering I’m not dead. (Hey, if I was dead this would be a pretty cool trick.) Nor was I in the hospital for the last week or so.

The fact is my computer decided go absolutely nertz and it has been in the shop since then, putting me into the twilight zone for a short spell. Heck, the darn thing still is as I write this. I’m using a Mac Mini on loan from a friend. Which is a godsend for someone who loves being in touch with the world via the internet.

While I did not end up in corner drooling and gibbering like an idiot, this whole experience did get me wondering about just how dependent we have become to all things digital and computerized —in my case the Internet, Facebook and writing my column with a Mac desktop computer. I dealt with my withdrawal by reading lots of books. So far I’ve read six. (I read very fast.) Now, with this loaner, I can do my thing again on an admittedly slower and older machine.

Everything in this 21st century life is run by computers of one kind or another. Our computerized air traffic control system that tracks every plane in the sky is a prime example. Traffic lights govern the ebb and flow of the nations ground transportation 24-7. Without computer control there would be vehicular chaos.

Speaking of cars. They now are considered rolling computers. Everything from engine performance, brakes, steering and all those Bluetooth, cellular digital doohickeys so many go ga-ga about are all computerized and then some. And, according a report I watched on 60 Minutes last Sunday, modern car cars can be hacked and controlled by remote. The demonstration done in Seattle area parking lot was chilling — turning on wipers, sounding the vehicle’s horn, applying the brakes and even taking over the throttle by remote control against the driver’s wishes.

In this case the culprit was 60 Minutes journalist Lesley Stall. Although the story claimed no car has been hacked in real life, it is only a matter of time in my opinion before some joker does just that, which ruins my wishful dream to have a computer-driven cars and trucks on the road like something from the TV cartoon Jetsons of the 1960s. (Although many of those flew.) Darn! Just another childhood dream gone down the tubes.

It also got me thinking, are we vulnerable to a collapse of our computerized society? Answer: yes. Yes, we are very vulnerable to having it all wiped out. An event that would plunge everyone affected back the 19th century. How? It is called Electromagnetic Pulse or EMP for short. It comes it two ways. One is in the form of a high altitude nuclear weapons air burst over a country or region. The result would fry everything — from cars to your digital watch — with a circuit board or microchip in the affected area. Everything.

No. 2 is far more frightening and millions of times more powerful than a nuclear bomb: our sun. A huge explosive outburst from sunspots or a massive Coronal Mass Ejection, or CME, flung out into space in our direction could wreak havoc on a global scale. Sometimes smaller solar events have been known to blank out radio and even satellite communications. Currently, our sun is in an active phase. So this could happen and could be more disastrous than a nuclear bomb going off high in our atmosphere.

A solar storm like a CME has been pretty common as of late, hence all the hardware floating between us and the sun providing Earth with something an early warning alert system. One such probe is the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, called SOHO. Check it out online at sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov.

Launched in 1995 as joint mission of NASA and Europe’s ESA, the probe’s mission is to study the sun’s core, surface, outer corona and its solar wind in real time. There are others out there doing the same thing and most are very accessible to the public via the Internet. Start by going to NASA’s website and exploring.

The sun is something to behold and respect for all its power. Which is in reality the solar system’s largest nuclear fusion reactor. It has the power to support life on this earth and has done so for 600 million years of the Earth’s 4.5 billion-year existence. It also has the power to send human civilization back to the Dark Ages with one Earth-directed burp. That’s something to think about the next time you pick up a smartphone or turn on your computer.

Wasilla resident Daniel D. Grota retired from the U.S. Army after more than 21 years of service.