science – Page 3

Dance to the tension of a world on edge

December 31, 2016 — leslie dean brown

Have you ever noticed that we humans are becoming ever more stressed?

We live in a world where the tiniest provocative remark can result in the most horrific retaliatory acts of violence imaginable. Look the wrong way, say or do the wrong thing and you could be the next target. Why is that so?

But many of us still don’t know why. “He must be crazy”, they’ll say. Why are people so stressed? Many people still can’t answer this.

Sometimes it is said that society itself is decaying, but no one knows why. I know that even when I studied science, I could never figure it out. I could never seem to connect the dots.

And then one day while I was travelling in Tonga, I came across this book with an intruiging title called “future shock”. I read it in about two or three days. It completely altered my world view.

[Read more…]

Farming Mars

December 12, 2016 — leslie dean brown

Another one wants to colonise Mars! Sorry, I can’t help myself:

Breakthroughs happen only when we stretch our physical limits

To make Planet Earth survivable, we envision what’s possible on Mars.

The Mars Farm Odyssey is an international consortium of like minds: companies, researchers, NGOs and government groups from the United States to China. We connect bleeding edge technologies and science in Controlled Environment Agriculture to feed a planet of 10 billion Earthlings at home and on Mars.

http://fluxiot.com/marse.io/

Whenever I see people talking about colonising Mars, I just have to speak up. And sorry for the language that is going to come, but I feel very passionate about this.

Dreamers! I think you’ll find that Earth, even in the “semi fucked” state that it’s in, is a far better home for people. Nicer. Easier. Cheaper. Better. Better ROI. Easier for people to adjust to.

Sorry to disappoint you, but there is not enough rocket fuel on this planet for 10 billion people… not only that, but the more people you get there, the more you are going to fuck things here. The fable “the dog and the bone comes to mind”.

And if it did work, if it was self-sufficient on Mars for a few hundred or thousand people, Marslings are only going to be telling Earth people about sustainability. They’d be telling *us* not to fuck our air, water and food supply. They’d be telling us to plant more trees and buy less stuff.

I think we should only go when we can do it sustainably.

Good luck with it, seriously. I wish you good luck. And note that I’m not saying it can’t ever be done. But just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should.

James Hansen:

December 10, 2016 — leslie dean brown

Why I must speak out about climate change:

Top climate scientist James Hansen tells the story of his involvement in the science of and debate over global climate change. In doing so he outlines the overwhelming evidence that change is happening and why that makes him deeply worried about the future.

[Published on 7 Mar 2012]

Take a look at this latest graph.

December 7, 2016 — leslie dean brown

Go on, have the balls to actually look at it:

See where we are? We’re right at that point where we don’t want to be. That’s where we are. The appropriately red-coloured line that is beneath all the others (well beneath).

Look, I don’t claim to know much about climate science. I know about materials science. But if there’s one thing scientists know how to do, it’s to respect others’ areas of expertise. Especially the expertise of other scientists.

It’s a bit like the song:

“What you don’t know you can feel it somehow” — U2

We know that there are others who are cleverer than us. And we respect that knowledge.

So I admit that I don’t know how the Earth’s climate fully works. But this latest graph worries me. This graph worries me a lot.

Because its pretty darn obvious to anyone what is going on in this graph.

I don’t think the Earth is completely screwed just yet. But if we don’t change NOW, then it will be.

I think the Earth’s climate is remarkly resilient considering all we’ve thrown at it over the last century.

But all I know is, if man thinks he can change local environments —on a global scale mind you— without global consequences, well then he is sorely mistaken.

That is not the way this world works. That is not how any world works.

Because this is the graph of all graphs. This graph should be printed on the insides of all petrol tank lids.

Every time you wish to use your car, you should be thinking of this graph!

Every time you want to fly somewhere, you should be thinking of this graph!

Every time you eat meat, you should be thinking of this graph!

This is the “climate emergency” graph that James Hansen is referring to.

And what do I see? In reality? In reality, I look around today, and I see bugger all people talking about this problem. And yet it is a big problem. A very big problem.

People should be talking about this over their lunch break and their coffee break. And for some reason they’re not. They’re just not.

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Are computers infallible?

December 5, 2016 — leslie dean brown

We all know that computers can “crash”.

But can anyone provide a really good explanation of why memory corruption occurs? And are computer calculations infallible?

Allow me to share with you a little story. When I was studying thermodynamics at university, a very strange thing happened: a relatively old computer essentially made a mistake!

What happened was this. We were in the laboratory, measuring a quantity for an experiment and then tabulating the results in an excel spreadsheet with the aid of an old computer.

But one of those cells refused to play nicely. It didn’t produce the appropriate result. It was way off. Not just a little off. It was way, way off. It was so far off we couldn’t help but notice it.

The excel spreadsheet has failed. Either the software or the hardware had failed. Something had clearly failed. How can the same mathematical algorithm generate one inconsisent result among many rows of similar cells?

We investigated further. We looked at the individual cells but the equations in each one were all identical. We looked at the references to the other cells and they were all correct.

I remember looking at conditional formatting, number format and a load of other things. Nothing. Everything should have worked. And none of us were excel juniors. We were advanced users! [Read more…]