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First looking at weather patterns, it appears that if there is nuclear fallout, where could you want to be? Remember weather patterns start in the West or North West and move across the country and change throughout the year, but always for the most part blow from East to West. So if you live East of the West coast you could be in trouble if a Western city gets nuked. Then there are the East Winds in CA, which are called the Santa Ana Winds which are hot, fast moving and dry, the worst possible conditions for fires. As we see every few years in the Southern CA mountains.

So then perhaps you might wish to live on the West coast, fairly good weather all year and the wind blows the other way. But you would want to live far from any major city on the West coast. Not in LA, Not near the Nuclear Power plants, Not near the Military bases of Pt Mugu, Camp Pendleton or Vandenburg AFB. So where? Probably on the coast between Humbolt, CA and mid state OR. But alas there are huge faults along the West coast and the OR Coastline is riddled with issues from liquefaction to offshore Tsunami generating Earthquake faults.

San francisco gets huge Earthquakes as we know and LA is not immune either and neither is the central valley of CA with its issues after proof in the Coalinga Fault. Living between the Russian River and OR Coastline near the coast would be okay even with these issues. Also you would not be down wind from any fallout and you are not a target. Safe in that you have fish for food and lumber for heat and no need for much of anything like power, surrounded by capable woods people.

You would have lots of rain and no water that would be polluted running off from areas of fallout. Of course from an attack by sea from the Pacific side in the case of invasion, you would not be in the best spot, we are not expecting any wars, yet 20 years from now will china be our biggest trading partner or will 2 billion of them like this piece of real estate? If we were attacked for some reason you would have air support from all the Navy and Air guard Bases along the Pacific coast. Where are other good spots? If seattle was not hit by a weapon of mass destruction then you still have Earthquakes and remember MT. Saint Helen. There are some cities inland on the I-5 freeway surrounded by mountains, but they are close to volcanoes too?

Where else would be good? Well not phoenix, not Las Vegas and reno is over the hill from CA and gets all its left over weather. Boise has issues too. Although there are other cities in ID worthy of mention. Salt lake is on a huge Earthquake fault. How about Helena MT, drought plagued and fire issues. Kellogg ID, superfund area. Billings out of water, Bozeman? Well too close to the State Park and there are issues with the volcanoes there too. Butte, MT also too close. Casper WY out of water and down wind in case of Volcanic Activity from Yellow Stone. Also think if Portland, SF or LA are not hit with nukes then we like, Four Corners, Elko NV, Battle MT (armpit) are doable with large underground water supply but it has arsenic in it. Winnamucka NV many not be safe either, but has thermal activity for power. ND and SD seem safe too, but winter weather is tough. Ogalla underground aquifer is being drained fast and could cause Earthquake from collapse. Western NE, not good, denver either in case of water supply issues in future or fallout from volcano in Yellow Stone. How about in the Northern Section of AZ? Flagstaff has harsh weather, fire season. Winslow AZ is okay, with rail and FWY, but isolated. Of course these are only a few western states really and well we have identified several great locations with everything you need to survive.

Having studied the FEMA reports and the regional issues of each area and state and the disaster plans, we are well served by such data, but it falls short and a comprehensive plan of attack needs to be considered, because many people living in a region will need supplies, such as we see after major Hurricanes. Which by the way leaves us to wonder if there are in fact any safe cities on the entire Eastern Seaboard, Gulf coast or West FL coastlines. As we saw in the black out of 2003, the Hurricanes and loss of power, the many fires in drought areas of CA, AZ, NV, MT, ID, OR, NM these are all big issues.

When multiple disasters hit, and transportation is down, power is out, water turned off, dams broken, bridges out, etc. Then what? Well, for some it will be their demise, others have adequately planned. Some of the safest cities are sitting near large underground water supplies and generate their own power or have co-generation plants, which are co-ops near by. Those mid western cities near large rivers are not safe due to the issues with flooding, as we have seen and continue to see every three to five years some town gets it. The water is fresh and clean in those areas and very soft, but when it floods, it is a disaster and very dangerous too.

Some would say it is probably unnecessary to have a major disaster plan, however it is a good exercise anyway, in planning. Things of importance are fresh water supply uncontaminated, food supply, encapsulated market, not over populated, no problems with contaminated air from normal weather patterns know and comparable to the last 200 years, out side of a fire zone and a defendable location. Also of secondary importance out side the risk of major seismic activity, travel from major highways causing and influx of others trying to get away thus bringing in diseases or viruses or using up local natural resources. Worst places to be D.C., state capital cities with lots of military bases close by, cities on major freeways with bridges and no other ways around for over 40 miles or passes on mountain ranges.

The cities which do not make the safest cities are denver, Dallas, Mobile, Biloxi, seattle, Chicago, NYC, orlando, Tampa, Las Vegas, Salt lake, LA, etc. Cities with no way to get out the population quickly are of problem, for instance DC with its daily grid lock or Los Angeles, atlanta, SF, etc. Cities, which rely on outside sources to get in important stuff are bad. Not to mention you are more likely to die from an auto wreck, although on the plus side they have the cleanest and best filtrated water supplies. That of course a trade off from the polluted air around you which could also kill you before your average life expectancy figure.

Port cities and cities with big major airports, which are hubs for major airlines are bad too. Cities that are big but do not have fed banks are one click down on the list too. Think of the logistics by train too. Cities which are down river close to major railroad bridges, which handle lots of interstate trains are bad too. Port cities get an extra bad deal. Cities which are close to port cities which are over 2 million population are dangerous too. Large cities near borders of mexico are dangerous if they have over 2 million populations.

San Diego County, San antonio, phoenix, austin TX, Houston, even throw in Tucson, El Paso, Yuma all bad. Already at a fresh water problem time due to droughts and over populations. Santa Monica is bad and LAX is a bad area to be near. A problem at the sewer treatment plant near LAX could be devastating with chlorine gas and weather patterns, with a weapon of mass destruction. Worrisome also to our scenario of possibilities is the major computer brain areas. Like Silicon Valley, seattle, VA and other Internet hubs, which would also include Boston.

I would like to see a comprehensive plan to save American lives if an attack or Mother Nature event occurs, one which encompasses the entire country. Perhaps this is a good job for our war planners at the Pentagon, to try a reverse order plan, it would help them learn where best to minimize vulnerabilities and an action plan against International Terrorists or Catastrophic Mother Nature Events.

I have been to every city in the united States over 10,000 population. Where have you lived? Have you lived thru a natural disaster? Many of us have. The Hurricanes alone last year alone added 40 more million people to that list, it was a costly year for FEMA, but we made it through and showed resilience. So where are you safe? The answer might be nowhere or everywhere and preparation and quality of first reponders may hold that key. What were your concerns, and immediate needs during that period in your life when you faced such uncertainty? What would you tell others who plan to protect the property and lives of America, too the first responders, planners and those entrusted to protect humanity in the times of need?

"Lance Winslow" - online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; www.WorldThinkTank.net/. Lance is a guest writer for Our Spokane Magazine in Spokane, washington

The HD Media future

Everyone knows that media format wars have historical significance in the world of technology. Remember the most notorious battle between the Beta max and the VHS? The winner of such battles will make millions even billions. Later we had the upgrade of tape to CD, a revolution in music. In 1980 the Philips/Sony compact disc standard was finalized and nobody has looked back for the last 26 years (until mp3's came along).

Well as ever there is a new media battle but who will win again is yet unknown. This modern forest of technological mass has produced a new insurgency: THE HIGH DEFINITION WAR. Blu-ray vs HD-DVD are two competing formats which are eventually going to replace DVD's. As you look around at your local electric retailers you can see changes happening in the broadcast world, not only are we changing from our conventional CRT screens to Flat screen but also to HD ready TV. The impact this has on our lives is not as large as black and white to colour, but nevertheless a change that will definitely be a benchmark for future media.

Why New formats?

The reason we have introduced these new formats is that your traditional DVD can hold a maximum of 9.4 GB (Dual Layer) of information. This is not enough for HD broadcast as the information required is higher, being a resolution of 1920x1080. Blu-ray discs can hold 50 GB (Dual Layer) and HD-DVD 30 GB (Dual Layer).

These new discs cannot be played on normal DVD players but on new HD media players of which examples are Samsung BDP 1000 (Blu-Ray), Sony Playstation 3 (Blu-Ray), Toshiba HDXA1 (HD-DVD). This means spending more money for better resolution.

price

This is always important especially when new models of media come out; at first it is always expensive as supply out strips demand. The players are expensive, the cheapest being the Playstation 3 supposedly retailing at 549. Blu-Ray media also being expensive; similar to DVD's when they first came out (taking inflation into consideration), blank media costing from 11.99 to 24.99.

To play a Blu-ray Disc on a PC has brought about a price concern. The fact that you have to purchase a HDCP (High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection) Graphic card, along with a HD monitor, not to mention a Blu-ray Drive and media, controversially may bring about decrease in sales. This is presently being contested with new Laptops and PCs that are Blu-ray compatible, look at the New Vaio VGN-AR21S.

The HD players need to be up to scratch on price. The Toshiba HD-DVD player retailing at almost half the price of the Blu-ray Samsung player creates even more competition between the two media. This could encourage sales of HD-DVD over Blu-ray, even though it's rumoured that Toshiba will be making a loss initially.

Prices of movies doesn't seem to be as high as anticipated; a Blu-ray movie 'House of flying daggers' from amazon.com will set you back $19.95 (10.68). This may encourage sales. Movies in HD-DVD identical in price, yet Blu-ray is a larger size disc.

Upscaling

Another problem HD may face is that the new DVD players have the upscaling technology ie. DVD is played at 480p but upscalers upgrade the image to 720p or 1080i. This produces a picture which is of high quality to the untrained eye, in fact even the trained eye has difficulty distinguishing between the two. The difference is seen on a 50 inch HD projector and looking right up close. So the question is will 1080p be much different to 1080i? Will people fork out the added expense when they know that a cheaper DVD upscaler will create more or less the same effect?

Media backup

software and hardware companies have invested a lot of money in subsidising HD media. Samsung, Panasonic, Mitsubishi, LG, Sony, TDK, JVC and Sharp support Blu-ray and Toshiba and Microsoft back HD-DVD. Hollywood movie studios Disney, Paramount, Warner, Sony, Eagle rock, Fox and MGM and Lions gate support Blu-ray also. None of these large companies would take such a gamble if they didn't know that this is what the consumer wants.

PlayStation 3

Sony love to bring out their own media whether its Sony Duo Sticks or Sony mini Discs. Their hunger to dominate the consumer market has always been there and this is nothing different. The Playstation 3 will play Blu-Ray discs, still having the ability to play older media like DVDs and CDs. The success of the predecessor's PS1 and PS2 will give much anticipation to the release of this new console and is what Sony are hoping will convert people to use Blu-Ray. A Sony spokesman has predicted that Blu-Ray will dominate the HD market within 12 months.

The encouraging feature with HD-DVD is the name, everyone's ears will ring with the name and automatically assume that this is a high definition movie. Asking someone in the street what 'Blu-ray' is will bring looks of confusion, along with the fact that both will produce similar quality pictures.

Region Coding

Region coding with Blu-Ray may put people off; the fact that you may not be able to watch a new release from the states or Japan on your European locked regional player will raise eyebrows.

REGION 1 South America, North America, East Asia (except China)
REGION 2 Europe and Africa
REGION 3 China, Russia other Countries

Multiregional configurations on DVD players has encouraged sales worldwide especially with worldwide films from Bollywood, Japan (manga) and South America.

So far the HD-DVD camp has not announced region coding just yet, and if they don't then this will be very advantageous for consumers.

future Proof

Realistically you only need about 15-20 GB for a feature length film in High definition but who would have known that DVD's could not be able to hold enough for high definition. Theoretically they can with MPEG-4 Compression. In any case media like Blu-ray will hopefully be future proof in years to come.

Conclusion

The timescale and price are the two main issues here, how quick we will universally change to HD and whether this is affordable. From a consumer point of view the necessity for HD doesn't seem imperative, after all VHS was around for 20 odd years twice that of DVD (so far). You could argue that technology is changing exponentially and that changes occur quicker.

As for the battle between the two media there may be compromise ahead. A UK firm has announced a solution to the media war. London-based New Medium Enterprises (NME) has developed a low-cost, multilayer DVD disc that can store Blu-ray content on one layer and HD DVD content on another. This would leave the consumer with the choice of buying either type of player to play the one disc.

The key setback I feel with the looming HD change is the cheaper alternative to a Blu-Ray player or HD-DVD player, the DVD upscaler. Do people want to get rid of those hundreds of DVDs they bought to replace them with an expensive alternative, especially when they might not even notice the difference in picture quality?

However I do feel that HD is encouraged with consoles such as the Playstation 3. Blu-ray is its main format and may revolutionise the games industry.

Jay Jeetley is a writer for the website http://www.Blu-raychoice.com, a resource for Blu-ray news, movies, forums and media.

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