A.C. Flory's Blog, page 23

The Future of Power Storage – is concrete?

As we all race to reduce or eliminate fossil fuels from our lives, MIT has come up with a possible solution that is both elegant and cheap: create a supercapacitor by adding carbon black to concrete!

Image courtesy of MIT and New Atlas.

Okay, so what’s a supercapacitor? Essentially, it’s a kind of battery:

‘Supercapacitors, of course, can charge up and discharge almost immediately, so power density and output is generally much higher than you’d get with a standard lithium battery.’

https://newatlas.com/architecture/mit-concrete-supercapacitor/

As transport is one of the biggest hurdles to a renewable future, roads that could fast-charge cars as they drive along would be a dream come true. Now think of all the other ways in which we use concrete:

drivewayshousing slabspillarswalls and floors in commercial buildingsside-walkswater tanksswimming pools…

You get the idea. If this breakthrough pans out in the real world, its uses are almost unlimited, especially as:

carbon black is such a cheap additive, andcarbon black ‘self assembles’ into the equivalent of electrodes inside the concrete.

‘This process takes advantage of the way that water and cement react together; the water forms a branching network of channels in the concrete as it starts to harden, and the carbon black naturally migrates into those channels. These channels exhibit a fractal-like structure, larger branches splitting off into smaller and smaller ones – and that creates carbon electrodes with an extremely large surface area, running throughout the concrete.’

https://newatlas.com/architecture/mit-concrete-supercapacitor/

There are still a lot of unknowns though, one of which is how this ‘battery’ would react if it became wet. Would it electrocute anyone who touched it?

Given how cheap and useful this concrete battery could be, I suspect that scientists will overcome any safety problems tout suite because the benefits are so obvious. The climate crisis may have been created by our short-sighted greed, but I’m starting to feel more positive about the clever ape’s ability to fix what we’ve messed up.

cheers,
Meeks

Howl’s Moving Castle by Hachiko Chan

This is where I have to confess to loving the animated movies of Hayao Miyazaki, the genius behind Studio Ghibli. Top of the list is Howl’s Moving Castle. This is the Disney trailer [I assume Disney bought the rights to the movie]:

Now see what Hachiko Chan created using the Elder Scrolls Online housing components and a ton of creativity:

I love how-to videos, but Hachiko Chan’s high speed how-to left me speechless. Well, as speechless as I ever get.

I hope you enjoy these videos as much as I did.

cheers,
Meeks

Sherwood Ltd – an unexpected gem

I just finished uploading a review of Anne R. Allen’s ‘Sherwood Ltd’ to amazon.com, so you won’t be able to see it there just yet. But I really loved the book and want to share, so here’s what I wrote:

‘I bought the first three books of the Camilla Randall series as a ‘bundle’, hoping they’d be a nice change from my usual fare of science fiction. They were. The first book was lighthearted, often tongue-in-cheek, and definitely funny in spots, but it was the second book, this one, that I could not put down.

Sherwood Ltd is the story of Camilla Randall’s descent from pampered heiress/socialite to starving writer in a warehouse. Travelling to the UK to get her book published is Camilla’s last ditch effort to turn her life around, but instead she hits rock bottom in a strange country where no-one is as they seem, and betrayals go hand-in-hand with unexpected friendships.

The story is as much psychological thriller as murder mystery, and I loved how dark, and deep it became. But the author is no slouch in the murder mystery department either. The clues, and red herrings, grow deeper as the story progresses, but it’s not until the last 25% of the story that you start to guess who really dunnit, and by that stage you’re so invested in the Camilla Randall character that you feel like an impotent ghost silently screaming ‘don’t do it! look out!’

There is an element of romance that runs through the story, but only in so far as sexual attraction and the need to be loved are core human traits. So while the ending is perfect, it is not your stereotypical ‘happy ending’. For which I am truly grateful.

And last but not least are the stories of Robin Hood and his Merry Men. The myths and legends of the gentleman robber of Sherwood Forest weave their way through the narrative and are echoed by the characters in the present day, giving the story a depth and charm that I found irresistible.

Anne R. Allen is a new author to me, but I intend to read everything else she’s written because…when you find a good writer, that’s what you do.
Highly recommended.’

My review on amazon.com

This is the cover:

And this is the URL of the Kindle version: https://www.amazon.com/Sherwood-Ltd-Camilla-Randall-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B00M9LD2W6/ref=sr_1_1?crid=ZBRZ3SO3KEDV&keywords=Sherwood+Ltd&qid=1690784239&s=digital-text&sprefix=sherwood+ltd%2Cdigital-text%2C745&sr=1-1

Apologies for the long URL but I like to show people exactly what link they are clicking on. You can never be too careful these days.

Ok, that’s it. I hope you enjoyed the review, and I really do recommend the story.

cheers,
Meeks

Copyright: protect yourself, protect your work

I’m not a proper ‘artist’, but I do spend an awful lot of time, and effort, creating my digital collages, so the last thing I want is for that time and effort to be hijacked in order to train an AI. As a result, starting with today’s image, every graphic I post online will have a watermark on it. A bit like this:

Hint: the watermark is near the arm.

I created the watermark using Corel Draw X8 and the transparency tool. Once the watermark image was transparent enough, I grouped it with the other vectorized image components and flattened the lot using the ‘Convert to Bitmap’ option. This effectively flattens the various images into one, single image that can no longer be separated into its component parts.

If someone wanted to re-use this image without my permission, they could cut out the watermark, but they would not be able to reproduce the patterning behind it. It would be possible to copy-paste a section from another part of the graphic to cover the hole, but I’m hoping that would take too much effort for a human to do.

But what about that image guzzling AI?

Again, I don’t know exactly how AI’s are trained, but I am assuming that an AI looking at that image would simply see one more transparency amongst many. I am hoping it would not know the meaning of the watermark. Or, even if it were trained to find watermarks, I’m hoping it would not be able to distinguish the pattern of the watermark from the other texture patterns covering the rest of the image. Fingers crossed.

And now a word about respecting the copyright of others.

When I first started creating graphics using digital collage, they were just for fun, and I never thought I’d need to prove that all the bits and pieces came from ‘free’ images. I would happily flatten a whole group of image snippets [see above], without knowing, or caring that I was losing the connections to the original images. After all, I wasn’t trying to make money from them…

It was not until I decided to try my hand at Redbubble that I realised I’d have to redo ALL my graphics using images I could trace to their source. That was a horrendous job because I had to find new source material that would work in terms of colour, texture, light, and shade. I had to look at a lot of images before I found ones suitable.

These are two of the new images I used to create the ‘Six and Little Miss’ above:

Bits and pieces of this image formed the background for the Six. Its filename is ‘red-leather-texture-1535311.jpg’. When I do a search on that filename, I get:

So if I’m ever queried about the image I used, I can prove that it came from freeimages.com, and that it was free.

This next image was a little harder to track down:

When I typed the filename into search, it did NOT lead to this image. Instead, I had to do a Google Image Search which found the image all right, but with multiple sources. As I knew I’d only used freeimages.com and pixabay for my images, I finally tracked it down to pixabay. This is the copyright info. I found for the image on pixabay:

As you can see, the critical part for me was that the content license allows me to ‘modify or adapt’ the image into new works.

I won’t take you through each and every image I used, I’ll just say that I’ve spent a lot of time kicking myself for my short-sightedness. You’ll be pleased to know I now have a sources folder for easy reference… -smacks head-

As I only use a very small part of most photos, I’m not sure whether my paranoia is justified or not, but I’d rather do the work now than face copyright infringement charges later on. I’m also a little ticked off by the possibility that the people who provided the data to train AI probably didn’t care where the images came from at all.

cheers,
Meeks

No more poop to pickup!

Read the whole article on New Atlas

I have to admit this pooch is kind of cute in a creepy way, but why pay that much for a dog-alike when you could have this:

…for a fraction of the price. She does poop, but at least she doesn’t cost me any electricity.

Have a great weekend,
Meeks

Becoming your own and only best fiction editor

As another Indie who does her own editing [with invaluable help from my beta reader!], this post by Alicia really resonated with me. Along with the specific techniques Alicia made, I’d like to add the immense value of reading your work out loud. It’s the best way I’ve found to divorce me-the-writer from me-the-editor. It really does work.

liebjabberings

JUST DON’T SAY ‘EVERYONE NEEDS A PROFESSIONAL EDITOR’

As a response to large numbers of books and manuscripts that are unsatisfactory – riddled with spelling errors, full of factual mistakes, awkward – the opposite generalization has taken root: ‘Everyone needs a professional editor.’

It is a truism, and not true.

What every book NEEDS is professional-LEVEL editing.

Distinction or difference?

The problem is a combination of skills and awareness, and one or both can be missing for a particular author, and both can be purchased for a price if the author cares to listen to someone else about their own work.

In principle, it should be recommended to younger, less experienced authors. At least while they’re getting well started.

Some will never outgrow the need for an external editor; some may prefer to let such an editor do the ‘detail work.’ This applies to indies.

Authors submitting to traditional…

View original post 818 more words

Dahlia flower extract and Type 2 Diabetes

Researchers at the University of Otago, New Zealand, have discovered that three compounds found in the dahlia flower work together to reduce the effects of both Type 2 Diabetes and Pre-Diabetes, often known as ‘insulin resistance’.

The Dahlia flower extract works by lowering inflammation in the hypothalamus of the brain. This has the effect of making the insulin you have more effective – in both mice and a small cohort [13] of human subjects. And there were no harmful side-effects, in either the mice or the humans!

You can find the complete details in this New Atlas article.

If further research validates these findings, and the relevant compounds can be extracted and sold commercially, the Dahlia could end up becoming one mankind’s prettiest saviours.

cheers,
Meeks

Tukti Family – Stranger Danger

My subconscious seems to be obsessed with the Tukti at the moment, so I’m going with the flow. And maybe, just maybe there’ll be a story about them one of these days.

cheers,
Meeks

Would you live in any of these houses?

I love innovative architecture, but only if it also allows itself to become a home. Of all the houses featured in this video, I found only two that I, personally, could call ‘home’. The first is a semi-underground dwelling that still manages to feel light and airy:

You can see this one at 7:53 minutes. If I were to build this design here in Australia, I’d do away with the portholes, add a wide overhang and install fire-resistant shutters to ensure the house survived bushfires.

The second building isn’t a house at all, it’s an apartment complex:

You can find this one at 10:26 minutes. Each apartment has it’s own outdoor area which is angled so that none of them overshadow, or directly overlook, any other outdoor area. For me, this would be a great place to retire with just enough space to potter around and not feel hemmed in, whilst retaining the ability to interact with other residents if I wanted to.

So, what do you think? Are there any houses you could see yourself living in?

cheers,
Meeks

We made jam doughnuts. :D

The Offspring and I love jam doughnuts, especially the ones you can buy hot, so it should come as no surprise that I’ve always wanted to make some. But yeast dough and I do not make a great partnership. The Offspring, however, seems to have a feel for it, and this is the proof:

I deliberately photographed the mess to prove that we really did make them. And they were delicious. Sinful but delicious.

And the man we have to thank for this miracle? John Kirkwood, a retired chef from the UK. Not only is John a great cook, he’s a brilliant teacher whose how-to videos show you all the little steps, and little tricks, that newbies don’t know.

Here’s the video we followed:

The only point at which we diverged from John’s how-to was with the jam. We didn’t wait for the doughnuts to cool down and filled them while they were still almost too hot to handle. Were they delicious? -smirk- Remember that messy picture? We had twice as many doughnuts to start with.

cheers,
Meeks