A.C. Flory's Blog, page 110
February 9, 2017
Prof. Hans Rosling, teacher extraordinaire
The world has lost a giant intellect with the death of Professor Hans Rosling, the statistician who breathed life into data and gave humanity an enormous gift. His entertaining and optimistic approach to data analysis is inspirational. His teaching methods will live on in every person who had the good fortune to hear him speak, […]
via Life and Death: The Next Big Thing — Honie Briggs
Statistics and math are not the same beast. Math is about precise relationships, stats is about patterns, and Professor Rosling was about helping people recognize the patterns created by statistics.
Human beings are very good at pattern recognition, but usually that skill is restricted to the small scale – my house, my world, my life. Statistics gives us a tool with which to recognize patterns on a large scale – our country, our planet, humankind. And you don’t have to be a maths wiz to do it. All you need is basic math and logic.
If I could change one thing about education right now, it would be to teach each child about statistics. Maybe then, we would not have a world in which every fact is open to ‘interpretation’.
But don’t watch Professor Rosling’s videos just for his brilliant, visual ways of displaying stats, watch them for the content. However dissatisfied we may be with our world in 2017, I was gobsmacked to learn that the Industrial Revolution – a period in Western history that saw terrible disruptions to the life of the common man – was also the start of an incredible climb up out of poverty. It gives me hope that the Era of Automation will actually lead to an even better standard of living for all of us, not just a few.
Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: education, global, graphs, Hans-Rosling, Industrial-Revolution, poverty, statistics
February 8, 2017
#Australia – new climate change predictions
Sitting here with the aircon turned on, and a hot north wind blowing outside, it’s hard not to be afraid, especially after seeing this graph:
[image error]
The graph charts temperatures over the last 100 years – from 1910 to 2010. Not surprisingly, blue represents years of below average cold and red represents years of above average heat. And no, it wasn’t your imagination – summers really have been getting hotter.
My growing up years [1950s to 1970s] were mild. We did get the odd hot day in Melbourne. We even experienced the odd heatwave, but they were unusual events. I know, because we did not even own a fan back then! Now, I can’t imagine living without an air-conditioner.
Unfortunately, heat is not the only thing that’s changed. Nor will it be the only thing that gets worse. I highly recommend reading the complete report from the Climate Council:
https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/uploads/1b331044fb03fd0997c4a4946705606b.pdf
You can also read an abbreviated, ‘highlights of’ article about the report here:
Now think about these facts – every year for the last three years has been the hottest on record. That means since we’ve been measuring and recording temperature.
According to the Climate Change deniers and skeptics, what we’re experiencing is just another ‘cycle’ in the earth’s climate history. We’ve had ice ages, now we’re having a period of heat. The one thing they’re not ‘having’ is that this period of heat might be caused by humans rather than natural fluctuations.
So let’s take that perspective to its natural conclusion: the world may be getting hotter and climate may be getting more extreme, but it’s not our fault so there’s nothing we can do about it except ‘suck it up’ [and hope we all survive].
To me, that is the most terrifying, defeatist outlook possible. Yes, it does allow for ‘business as usual’, but only because disaster is inevitable so we may as well make money while we can.
By contrast, almost all of the actual climate change scientists say that this distopian outlook is not inevitable. It will take a lot of work, and things will get worse before they get better, but there’s a good chance that we’ll survive…if we clean up the mess we’ve made.
As one of the canaries in the coal mine, I much prefer the optimistic outlook, don’t you?
But why do I imply that Australians are canaries in the coal mine? Isn’t that fate reserved for the island nations of the Pacific?
Um, no, actually. Australia has quite a delicate climate. Yes, I know, how can deserts and bushfires be delicate? What I mean is that we already experience extremes thanks to our geography which means that climate change will have less work to do to make extreme turn into unbearable.
But it is the Australia inhabited by this generation’s grandchildren, 2090, where the heat will really be on, if greenhouse gas emissions worldwide fail to meet current reduction targets.
By that year the report predicts Darwin will have a staggering 265 days each year above 35C.
That quote was taken from the news.com.au article, but the data comes from the Climate Council report [linked above].
Melbourne won’t fare so badly in terms of temperature, but we’ll have other worries – such as increased droughts and a great many more bushfires. If we continue with business as usual, life will be close to unbearable for our children and their children. This is not some dystopian, science fiction plot line I’ve come up with to give you all a good scare. This is real, my friends, and becoming harder to fix with every day we procrastinate.
Back in 2009, eight years ago now, Malcolm Turnbull lost the leadership of the Liberal Party because he supported the Rudd, Labor government, in its attempts to get a Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme up and running. Many Australians honoured Turnbull for that, seeing him as a politician of integrity. Many Australians supported his return to the leadship of the Liberal party for the same reason. I know I did. 
February 7, 2017
#3D printing on a LARGE scale
I wouldn’t be much of a sci-fi writer if I didn’t keep up with technology, so I’ve had a love affair with 3D printing since I first heard about it, but the technology is changing so fast, I’m constantly being surprise. This is my surprise for the day:
Those are actual, standard sized structures, printed by huge machines. But, as if that were not surprise enough, the material used to build them is made out of a combination of industrial waste and cement, so it’s recycling on top of everything else.
Colour me gobsmacked.
The video below is an animation of how the process is supposed to work:
The video goes for almost five minutes, but the music is pretty and I couldn’t stop watching. I work with words, ideas and computers, so I’m fascinated by this technology, but I can’t help wondering about those whose jobs will be made obsolete by 3D printing. What of them?
If I had a crystal ball, I’d say that some of the manual workers of the world will become artisan crafts people – I think there will always be a demand for crafts – but only a small percent of builders and brickies labourers will be able to make that transition. What of the rest?
I think our whole way of thinking about work is going to have to change. Any thoughts?
cheers
Meeks
Filed under: technology Tagged: 3D, China, future, houses, large-scale, manual-jobs, printing, technology, unemployment
Daily Life Realistic Animated Illustrations
Watch closely and be amazed. Still photo or animation? My favourite is the Delicatessen.
February 5, 2017
Augmented Reality – it’s just around the corner
Vuzix knows that people don’t want to be embarrassed when they put something on their face. So the company is working hard to ship a pair of augmented reality smartglasses this year that will be thin enough to wear comfortably. The Rochester, N.Y.-based company unveiled its latest models, the Blade 3000 smart Sunglasses and the…
via Vuzix aims to ship thin augmented reality smartglasses in 2017 — VentureBeat
In Innerscape, Episode 5, I write about the NCTU agent following a digitally projected ‘map’ to his destination. In the trailer above, the guy wearing the AR smart glasses does the same thing. The details are obviously different, but the concept is the same. I am so chuffed. 
February 4, 2017
#Solar powered micro-grid + #Tesla batteries = the future?
Just found this amazing article on New Atlas. It concerns a small island being powered almost exclusively by a micro-grid made up of solar panels and Tesla batteries. The batteries can be fully charged in 7 hours and can keep the grid running for 3 days without any sun at all:
Why do I find this so exciting? Distributed systems, that’s why.
“And what’s that?” you ask, eyes glazing over as you speak.
In computing, which is where I first heard the term, a distributed systems is:
… a model in which components located on networked computers communicate and coordinate their actions by passing messages.[1] The components interact with each other in order to achieve a common goal.
Distributed computing also refers to the use of distributed systems to solve computational problems. In distributed computing, a problem is divided into many tasks, each of which is solved by one or more computers,[3] which communicate with each other by message passing.[4]
Okay, okay. Here are some nice, juicy examples instead:
the internet,
your mobile phone network
MMOs [massively multiple player online games] like the one I play,
virtual reality communities, and even
the search for extra terrestrial intelligence [SETI].
There are heaps more examples I could name, but the point is that all these systems rely on the fact that the power of the group is greater than the power of its individual components. In fact, the world wide web could not exist at all if it had to be run from just one, ginormous computer installation.
So distributed systems can be insanely powerful, but when it comes to powering our cities, we seem to be stuck on the old, top-down model in which one, centralised system provides energy to every component in the system – i.e. to you and me and all our appliances.
Opponents of renewables always cite baseload as the main reason why renewables won’t work in highly developed countries. What they don’t tell you is that to create baseload, they have to create electricity all the time. That means burning fossil fuels all the time and creating pollution all the time.
Centralised power generation also does something else – it concentrates the means for producing this energy in one place, so if there is a malfunction, the whole grid goes down. But that’s not all. If all power is produced in one place, it’s all too easy to strike at that one place to destroy the ‘heart’ of the whole system. It can happen. If you read the whole article on New Atlas, you’ll learn that the supply of diesel to the island was once cut, for months. When the diesel ran out, so did the electricity. Now imagine an act of sabotage that destroys the power supply to a city of millions. It hasn’t happened yet, but I think it’s just a matter of time.
By contrast, distributed processing means that you would have to destroy virtually every component of the system to shut it down completely. A good example of this is our road system. In most areas, if one part of the road is closed for whatever reason, we can still get where we want to go by taking a detour. It may take us a little bit longer, but we get there in the end. Something very similar happens with the internet. Digital information is sent in ‘packets’ which attempt to find the quickest route from point A to point X, usually via point B. However if point B goes down, the packets have multiple alternate routes to get to X. Why should power generation be any less efficient?
In the past, electricity could not be stored, so it had to be generated by big, expensive power plants. That volume of electricity still can’t be stored, but in the future, it may not have to be. I foresee a time when neighbourhoods will become micro-grids, with each house/building contributing to the power needs of the whole neighbourhood. Surplus power generation will be stored in some form of battery system [it doesn’t have to be Tesla batteries, but they obviously work well in distributed systems] to provide power 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. More importantly, the type of micro-grid used could be flexible. Communities living inland with almost constant sunshine would obviously use solar, but seaside communities might use wave power, others might use hydro or geothermal.
But what of industry?
I may be a little optimistic here, but I think that distributed power generation could work for industry as well. Not only could manufacturing plants provide at least some of their own power, via both solar and wind, but they could ‘buy in’ unused power from the city. The city, meanwhile, would not generate power but it’s utilities companies could store excess power in massive flywheels or some other kind of large scale storage device. And finally, if none of that is enough, companies could do what utility companies already do now – they could buy in power from other states.
In this possible future, power generation would be cheaper, cleaner and much, much safer. All that’s required is for the one-size-fits-all mindset to change.
Distributed is the way of the future, start thinking about it today. 
February 2, 2017
Stubbing your toe will hurt – that is a fact
First came the Women’s March. Now comes the March for Science. Given the ongoing protests sweeping the US, one might assume that scientists are organizing to voice their general disagreement with Donald Trump’s policies—or perhaps that they simply want to protect their grants and jobs from federal funding cuts. But what’s at stake is much…
via The March for Science isn’t partisan or anti-Trump—it’s pro-facts — Quartz
This article is about facts and the threat facing science in tRump’s America. Not ‘alternate facts’ but the kind that always hurt, no matter how much you may try to explain them away. One such fact is that the US became great because of its science. The only way to make it great again is to give science, and facts, the respect they deserve.
Filed under: My soap box, Uncategorized Tagged: facts, protests, science, Trump
January 31, 2017
#Solar still – cheap and efficient
Yet another example of solar technology surging ahead for use in under-developed countries. This particular device is super efficient at distilling pure water from contaminated or salt water:
Rather than heating the bulk of a body of water, the new device focuses its energy on just the surface water, which evaporated at 44° C (111° F). That allows the still to reach a reported efficiency of 88 percent, which the team believes is a record for thermal efficiency. As a result, the device could produce between 3 and 10 liters (0.8 and 2.6 US gal) of purified water per day, compared to the 1 to 5 liters (0.3 to 1.3 US gal) per day possible with most commercial stills of comparable size currently available.
The device also does something else, it provides self-sufficiency:
“The solar still we are developing would be ideal for small communities, allowing people to generate their own drinking water much like they generate their own power via solar panels on their house roof,” says Zhejun Liu, co-author of the study.
http://newatlas.com/inexpensive-efficient-solar-still/47652/
I live in a big city with all the amenities required for modern living, but a part of me longs to go off grid. Ah well, maybe one day.
January 28, 2017
Meet Guest Author A.C. Flory…
“Hi, my name is Andrea, and I’m a writer,” she said, stumbling over her words. That’s me, A.C. Flory, science fiction writer and introvert extraordinaire. I’m not stereotypically shy, and if you as…
Source: Meet Guest Author A.C. Flory…
Pink-faced self-promotion with a lot of help from my friend, Chris, The Story Reading Ape. Being forced to write about myself was hard, very hard, but I think I also received a boost to my self-confidence so…there ya go.
January 27, 2017
The best historical who-dunnit…EVER!
Okay, I know the title of this post is a little over the top, but January must be the month for brilliant books. Seriously, I’ve just finished ‘A Star in the Sky’ and I’m in awe of the author’s talent. Under the ‘Look Inside’ you’ll find the review I just left for ‘A Star in the Sky’ on Amazon. 5/5 of course.
Not only does the author, Zichao Deng, [d.z.c. for short] make the world of the ancient Mayans come alive in all its barbaric splendour, he’s also created a murder mystery which could only have occurred in that time!
This is no ordinary murder disguised with a thin vineer of history. Every clue, every backward step, every twist and turn of the plot is woven out of the facts of that world:
The man who died was poisoned,
The poison was the same poison as used on darts, but he was not shot,
In fact, there did not appear to be any way for him to have been poisoned at all,
The politics of the situation could have seen the death explained away as ‘magic’, but
The female doctor who is charged with investigating the death refuses to allow either politics or superstition to get in the way of the facts, or logic.And, like the very best who-dunnits, the clues are there all along, but the great reveal doesn’t happen until the very end. In fact, there are two reveals and the second is even more astonishing than the first.
‘A Star in the Sky’ kept me reading when I should have been doing other things, and that was despite not dumbing down the names and Mayan words sprinkled gently throughout the story.
I love alien sounding names, so I had no trouble with the female doctor being called ‘Lady Tz’unun’. I likewise had no trouble with the name of the Queen – Sak K’uk – at least, not inside my own head. As a reader, all I wanted to do was identify the character, so who cares whether my pronunciation was accurate or not? And those names were part of the reason I knew I was not in Kansas any more.
Another thing I loved about ‘A Star in the Sky’ was the richness of the characters. Lady Tz’unun may be the Sherlock Holmes of the story, but her servant Three Rabbits, plus the Queen’s councillor, the Ti’sakhuun are all part of an ensemble cast that just work, individually and as group. The story is finished but I still want to know more about them, and I definitely want to know more about their slice of history.
I sincerely hope that Zichao Deng has more murder mysteries for Lady Tz’unun and her team to solve. Simply brilliant.
My review won’t go live on Amazon for a few more hours, so I’ll just leave you with a concept drawing done by the author himself:
[image error]
You’re welcome
