New 8 m mirror

[glenc (Glen)]

Viganella Italy

In November 2006 the town set up a giant, computer controlled mirror on the mountainside, a sheet of steel 8 m wide and 5 m high, in order that the village, located in a narrow valley, would get direct sunlight in the middle of winter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viganella

... the hamlet will no longer have to suffer from a complete absence of direct sunlight for 83 days a year, from November 11 to February 2.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...449727,00.html

It is now operating.

[Harb]

What a wonderful op for solar panels on the roofs of those buildings to supply power at night for lights.......no need steer the panels for 8 hours....

cheers
John

[spacezebra (Petra)]

What an excellent project for the town.

Cheers Petra

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

They're lives will be totally changed. Great story.
Remember when the Russians were going to do something similar?
But they were going to put the mirror in orbit.

[tbentley]

When I first read this I just knew that it would be a hoax so off a googling I went. Well I found out two things; firstly I can't find any evidence that it is a hoax (personally I would have thought that if 200 people were that desperate for sunlight they would have just moved) and secondly some judges are so bloody harsh!

'Pregnant' black guy needed a week off: "A young South African was fined by a local court for taking time off from work and trying to cover it with a fake gynaecologist's certificate attesting he was pregnant and needed a week off. A magistrate's court in Vereeniging, near Johannesburg, fined 27-year-old Charles Sibindana 1000 rand ($180) for the brazen forgery, the SAPA news agency reported. Sibindana stole a medical certificate from a health centre used by his pregnant girlfriend, but was apparently unaware that only women consulted gynaecologists. Magistrate Bruno Van Eeden warned Sibindana "not to walk around faking sick letters from gynaecologists".

I mean, what does a guy have to do to get a sicky these days! I hope Johnny Howard never takes his IR reforms this far.

Travis