A.C. Flory's Blog, page 96

Happy Christmas Eve :)

I was born in Hungary, and for us, Christmas always meant Christmas Eve.

It’s a tradition my parents and I continued after coming to Australia, so The Offspring and I just finished my version of Duck a l’Orange, roast chicken with mushroom stuffing, braised brocolini and chocolate mousse cake for dessert. But life is all about compromise and adaptation so the presents won’t be opened until tomorrow morning, then we’ll join the rest of the family for a traditional [Aussie] Christmas lunch.

Wherever you are, and whenever you celebrate Christmas, don’t stress too much and just enjoy the company of loved ones [and good food].

Kellemes Karácsonyi Ünnepeket kívánunk mindenkinek!

-hugs-

Meeks

Filed under: Uncategorized

Is this the precursor to Innerscape?

I know you’re not supposed to blow your own trumpet but read this:

“…a private company called Paradromics is developing a cortical interface that uses arrays of microwire electrodes to record and stimulate clusters of neurons…”

“..A Columbia University team aims to develop a non-penetrating bioelectric interface that can transmit stimuli directly into the visual cortex…”

Those are just two projects being funded by DARPA which stands for ‘The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’. DARPA is an …’agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military’.

‘DARPA-funded projects have provided significant technologies that influenced many non-military fields, such as computer networking and the basis for the modern Internet, and graphical user interfaces in information technology.’

Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA

You can read the complete article on New Atlas here:

https://newatlas.com/darpa-brain-computer-interface-investment/50445/

No one’s come up with Kenneth’s ’embalming fluid’ interface yet, so for once I’m ahead of the game. God I love science fiction!

cheers

Meeks

Filed under: Innerscape Tagged: beginnings, brain, computer, DARPA, Innerscape, Interface, new, projects, science-fiction, technology

Innerscape Print Sales….THANK YOU!

I know who bought one set of the Innerscape print set, and I thank her most sincerely. Huge hugs going to you my friend.

Eyeballs please!

I need to know which of these 3 images is the easiest to read. Could you please rate all three with 1 being the best, 2 being second best and 3 being the worst. THANK YOU!

Image A

[image error]

Image B

[image error]

Image C

[image error]

cheers

Meeks

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: best, colour, grayscale, image, rate, worst

The City of Bones by Martha Wells

When asked, I’ve always said I prefer science fiction to fantasy because of the possibility, however remote, that some part of the story might be true. Or become true. Some day. Yet if I’m honest with myself, I have to admit that I do love sci-fan as well.

To me, sci-fan is pragmatic fantasy in which the real and the unreal blend seamlessly to create impossible worlds that we nevertheless accept as possible. Dune, by Frank Herbert is probably the best known example of sci-fan, closely followed by Tad Williams’ Otherland. And then there’s Robin Hobb’s Farseer saga. It’s more fantasy than science, and yet the life-cycle of the dragons is no more unbelievable than the metamorphosis of caterpillars into butterflies.

Well now I have a new sci-fan author to add to my pantheon – Martha Wells.

In The City of Bones, Wells tells the story of a young Krismen called Khat. He’s part of a species that was biologically engineered to survive in the Wastes after the land burned and the seas boiled away. But there are human survivors of the destruction as well, and the two species exist in an uneasy alliance against the deadly creatures of the Wastes.

Khat lives in Charisat, a human city, making a precarious living as a relic trader. Relic traders are like a combination of archeologist/palentologist/anthropologist, with a bit of a conman/thief added in, and relics are fragments from the lost world of the Ancients.

That would have been more than enough to grab my attention, but Wells weaves in history, politics, conspiracy, intrigue and a bit of classic who-dunnit to make the story an absolute page-turner. I loved it.

If you like sci-fan too then I strongly recommend The City of Bones.

The Kindle version is $2.25 on Amazon and there’s a paperback as well. 6/5.

Coal vs solar? No contest in China

The world is quickly abandoning coal, the dirtiest of fossil fuels. But that’s not the end of the road for coal mines—in many countries they’re coming back to life as solar farms. Over the weekend, the world’s biggest floating solar project began operating in the eastern Chinese city of Huainan, which accounted for nearly 20%…

via Dead coal mines everywhere are being reincarnated as solar farms — Quartz

Filed under: Climate Change, Uncategorized Tagged: Australia, China, coal, floating, India, mines, power, re-use, Solar, top-ten

Lest I forget – Thursday, December 7, 2017

I’m hopeless with dates so I wanted to commemorate the day on which marriage equality became law, here in Australia. I’m so proud.

Neural network needs help with novel writing

I couldn’t resist this one. A neural network [human brain-like computer] needs thousands of ‘first sentences’ from novels to learn how to write a first sentence of its own. Think of this as teaching baby to become Shakespeare.

Awesome NZ police video

I stumbled on this hilarious recruitment video via Twitter today – thank you Twitteratti! It made me laugh and feel good. Hope you enjoy it too.

Elon Musk wins his bet in South Australia!

[image error]As a long time fan of renewable energy, the latest news about Elon Musk fills me with glee. He bet that he could install a megabattery in South Australia in 100 days, and he’s come in ahead of schedule!

The story began last year when South Australia suffered a massive storm that destroyed infrastructure meant to allow Australian states to ‘share’ energy on a huge network. Due to some market manipulation on pricing, and a toothless watchdog asleep at its post [yes, AEMO I’m looking at you] South Australia suffered crippling blackouts, off and on, for weeks.

As the South Australia government is Labor and had invested heavily in wind farms, the Liberals in the national government went on a renewable energy bashing spree without offering up one, single practical solution. And then Elon Musk spoke up and shamed them all. He said that he could create a mammoth battery capable of storing the energy from the wind farms until needed. Then he bet the cost of the battery – $50 million dollars – that he could make good on his promise in 100 days. If he lost, he would carry the cost of the project.

Well guess what? -big grin- South Australia has a $50 million dollar bill to pay!

More importantly, all the dinosaurs in our government advocating for dirty coal power stations have been silenced, at least for a while.

You can read the whole story here:

https://futurism.com/elon-musk-megabattery-australia/

Today really has been a good day. Thank you, Elon Musk.