We need to learn quickly to keep up with the massive change around us so we don't get run over. We need to outrun change.
Max Roser sent the following tweets on January 7:
Max Roser ?@MaxCRoser [1 of 2] Travel times from London in 1914
- to California 10-20 days
- to Nigeria: ±20 days
- to Sydney: 30-40 days pic.twitter.com/iAqvPynUqr
Continue reading “Long distance travel times now and 100 years ago”
When I look at the political news or any news in general I get very pessimistic about our future.
In contrast, when I look at the amazing things happening beyond the headlines in today’s newspaper I feel incredibly optimistic.
Consider that private companies are developing the technology for space exploration. Consider the energy revolution created by hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling. Consider radical changes in technology that are making so many things easier, faster, and cheaper. Consider that anyone that wants to do so can publish their own book, distribute their own music, or create a feature movie.
As a tiny illustration, look at my company and pastimes. Technology allows me to run a high quality CPA practice without any staff. In my spare time I am a publisher and journalist. Anyone in Europe or North America or most of Asia could easily do the same and at minimal cost.
(Cross post from my other blog, Nonprofit Update.)
When I look at long-term economic trends I am incredibly optimistic.
For yet one more explanation of why that is the case, consider a column by Glenn Reynolds at USA Today: Actually, things are pretty good / Free markets and free inquiry have changed the historic ‘norms’ of poverty and violence.
Until relatively recently, an illness-filled short life of dirt-eating poverty was the normal condition for practically everybody on the planet. In the last 100 or 200 years life has gotten radically better for practically everyone.
A few recent articles that fascinate me. Amazing things engineers can do. Pondering the lack of discretion from red-light revenue generators. Air Force use of civilians to pilot drones flying in combat zones.
10/20 – Link from Behind The Black – What the engineering wizards can figure out amazes this office-living accountant. Check out the huge machine that puts an entire bridge section in place.
Well, since I saw the video, the account has been closed. What it showed was a huge machine that advanced it self to the next pylon and pulled over the gap an entire bridge section and put it in place.
11/20 – Tymshft – Can robots issue citations? More importantly, can people issue citations? –
Continue reading “Update on the wide open frontier of technology – 12/3”
For a thumbnail overview of the radical reduction in time it takes to travel long distances over the last 500 years, look at the time to cross the Atlantic Ocean from Europe to America, provided by Robert Bryce in his book Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper: How Innovation Keeps Proving the Catastrophists Wrong.
Update – Another post on transatlantic crossings on October 1, 2018: Cost and time to cross the Atlantic has dropped by more than 90% in the last 500 years.
He points out at location 1582 of the Kindle edition: Continue reading “Time to cross the Atlantic – 500 year history”
Robert Bryce dives deep into the astounding technological and economic advances of the last 200 years as he ponders Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper: How Innovation Keeps Proving the Catastrophists Wrong.
Yet one more reason the neo-Malthusians are wrong in predicting imminent collapse, according to Mr Bryce is
..that we are wringing more and more value out of the energy that we consume.
Consider that in Continue reading “The dramatically improved efficiency of dramatically increased amount of travel in America over 40 years”
Lots of fun news in the past week about the wide open frontier of space exploration. Three huge developments are:
What I describe in this post is the reason I am so wildly optimistic about the future. The astounding progress here stands in stark contrast to the foolishness and ridiculousness we see dominate the news every hour of every day.
The absolute best news:
11/24 – New York Post – The new space race is a private-sector affair – Editorial celebrates Blue Origin successfully recovering a first stage, SpaceX has already flown several resupply missions to the International Space Station, and Boeing & Virgin Galactic are also in the game.
The more competitors, the better.
First stages can be recovered after launch:
Robert Bryce dives deep into the astounding technological and economic advances of the last 200 years as he ponders Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper: How Innovation Keeps Proving the Catastrophists Wrong.
Innovation leading to technological advances creates wealth, improves health, and makes everyone better off. Some people in some places have been left behind by the dramatic economic improvements of the last two centuries. The best way to make life better for those folks is to continue innovating and make cheap, small, fast, highly economical tools and resources available to them.
The book as so many explanations and illustrations. I’d love to describe dozens of things that caught my eye. I will mention merely a few.
You will often see the foolish and erroneous statement that we only have X years of some resource left on the planet. When you look at the built-in calculation you see the presence of the silly fallacy of dividing known reserves by current consumption.
The reason that calculation is so foolish is it completely ignores exploration that finds new fields, innovation in recovering more resources, and economic changes that make it worthwhile to gather something that was uneconomical before.
Consider for a moment the idea that we are going to run out of oil because at current consumption rates will use up all the proven reserves in however many years. The formula is
A few articles on the wide open frontier of drones: counter-measures and regulation.
9/16 – Sputnick News – Anti-Drone Defense System That Can Fight Micro-UAVs Revealed in London – A company reveals product which they claim can take over control of a drone and force it to land. They claim this is a scalable defensive tool which could be used to protect anything from a small group of people to a large military base.
Very cool.
My guess on the counter-counter measure? Encryption of the signal to the drone.
Nov ’15 – The Atlantic – Playing Defense Against the Drones – Long read on how people as varied as prison wardens, celebrity wedding planners, security firms protecting individuals, and gun clubs are responding to intrusive drones. Great background on where regulation stands in the US (minimal rules on amateurs, stringent rules on business use, and more rules to come).
Continue reading “Wide open frontier, drone edition – 10/27”
A few of many articles on drones that caught my eye: precision of military drone strikes and possible weaponization of drones by law enforcement in North Dakota.
The second and third articles I’ll mention have a visible bias and agenda. Do I also have multiple biases and agendas?
You better believe I do. Read any five consecutive blog posts and you will quickly see my point of view.
The difference between those articles and this blog is that I’m not pretending to be objective.
8/27 – Wall Street Journal – Hacker Killed by Drone Was ‘Secret Weapon’ – This cyberwar stuff is going kinetic.
Amazon’s Prime Day sale marks an amazing anniversary. Autonomous robotic ‘cheetah’ can jump over obstacles as it is running. Other fun news from the astounding open frontier of technological innovation.
5/29 – Washington Post – Oh cool, now this robotic cheetah can make running leaps – Extremely cool. A mechanical cheetah that can run is an amazing step. Compound that with been able to clear barriers half its height.
Watch the slow-motion and you can see the complexities of calculations needed to position and push-off for the jump, having to pull in the rear legs to clear, having to absorb the force of the landing, and then resuming the run.
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=_luhn7TLfWU]
Amazing.
7/15 – The Economist Espresso (via email thus no on-line link) – Amazon at 20: bargains and much, much more –
Continue reading “News from the open frontier of technology – 7/15”
Bruce Schneier has a series of articles that ponder the risks and rewards of jumping into cloud computing. That is the concept of storing your data and computing power with an on-line service provider.
(This discussion is cross-posted from my other blog, Nonprofit Update, because understanding cloud issues is a major part of keeping up with the massive change around us.)
Some things to consider:
6/10 – Schneier on Security – Should Companies Do Most of Their Computing in the Cloud? (Part 1) – The answer is complicated. The efficiencies and cost savings are real and a major advantage.
On the other hand, there may be legal issues, such as your government creates far higher privacy standards than the country where your data will be stored or another country places severe restrictions on data you store there. Continue reading “Thoughts on jumping into cloud computing”
The shale revolution is transitioning into a manufacturing stage where production can be turned on and off based on minor price fluctuations.
6/1 – Donald Luskin and Michael Warren at Wall Street Journal – The Shale Boom Shifts Into High Gear / Oil production is becoming a modern manufacturing process, with frackers using the ‘just-in-time’ approach
Think of it as Moore’s Law applied to oil production.
Combine two factors, increased efficiencies and rapid depletion. Continue reading “Oil exploration and production moves to manufacturing stage”
Several fun articles on space and one on self-driving trucks
4/18 – Commented previously that SpaceX’s third try to recover a Falcon booster rocket failed. It came down too fast, was unstable, and exploded. SpaceX already knows the problem. Elon Musk sent a tweet on 4/18 that said
Cause of hard rocket landing confirmed as due to slower than expected throttle valve response. Next attempt in 2 months.
Problem identified. I am sure the solution will be implemented 5 or 6 weeks before the next launch.
Very cool.
5/6 – Spaceflight Now – Video: Dragon test articles flies pad abort profile – Continue reading “More good stuff on the open space and technology frontiers – 5/12”
The Wall Street Journal features a brief debate today asking Do Cryptocurrencies Such as Bitcoin Have a Future?
If you haven’t thought about the idea of Bitcoins much and don’t know what cryptocurrencies are, the Yes and No positions will provide a lot of brain expanding ideas. If you have pondered the issue enough to sorta’ kinda’ have an answer to the question, you may still find the article to be worth a read. If you already have a position, check out the arguments from the other side.
There’s an idea that we don’t make anything in the U.S. anymore. Well, we do import a huge portion of the good stuff we enjoy everyday. Yet we still make a huge amount of stuff here.
Check out this indicator of total industry production in the US. The peak production level is today:
This is from the St. Louis Federal Reserve, which has a humongous database called the Federal Reserve Economic Data, or FRED.
What does the index above cover? From the FRED site:
The Industrial Production Index (INDPRO) is an economic indicator that measures real output for all facilities located in the United States manufacturing, mining, and electric, and gas utilities (excluding those in U.S. territories).(1)
So industrial production in the U.S. is at a record level. Cool.
Want to check out manufacturing only? Okay, here is it: Continue reading “Has the U.S. just stopped making stuff? Yeah, I’d think so too if industrial output in the U.S. wasn’t at all time record high.”