Monthly Archives: December 2016

Dec 24

I realised last night that writing is good for my mental health.

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I realised last night that writing is good for my mental health.

This is a statement that a lot of writers will find odd, so let me explain.

After a bad retail experience while doing my grocery shopping amid the chaos of Christmas Eve, I felt anxious, and was considering abandoning my plans for the evening. Lately, though, I’ve found that I hold myself to the standards of the characters in my books, and they would definitely have faced the fear and gone ahead; so I did too.

Which is funny, because I’m very aware that the characters in my books are drawn out of elements of myself. So I used a part of myself to motivate myself to be better than I am.

I write noblebright fantasy, which means that my leading characters exhibit courage, perseverance, and kindness to a greater degree than most real people (though certainly there are real people like that). In using them as my model, I’m strengthening the best aspects of myself.

But it doesn’t just work that way. I’ve heard that horror writers are generally extraordinarily nice people, and I suspect that it’s because they draw out the darker parts of themselves into the light, externalise them so that they’re no longer driven by them unawares – and perhaps so that they have a clear model to steer away from, as I have one to steer towards in my more noble characters.

So, in summary: pay attention to the voices in your head. It can improve your mental health.

Dec 22

Quick, think of six things that could go wrong in this scenario.

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Quick, think of six things that could go wrong in this scenario.

Now pick one and write a story.

Originally shared by Singularity Hub

Recently, the non-profit institute OpenAI unveiled a virtual world for AI to explore and play in. Dubbed Universe, the goals of the project are as vast as its name: to train a single AI to be proficient at any task a human can do with a computer.

http://suhub.co/2hZQ9uZ

Dec 22

This is potentially very important.

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This is potentially very important.

Originally shared by Greg Batmarx

A solar-powered plane that is to be flown to the edge of space has been officially unveiled. The SolarStratos plane is powered by 22 sq m (237 sq ft) of solar panels and will be flown to an altitude of 25,000 m (82,000 ft) to demonstrate and explore the potential of the technology.

Our goal is to demonstrate that current technology offers us the possibility to achieve above and beyond what fossil fuels offer says project founder and pilot Raphaël Domjan in a press release. Electric and solar vehicles are amongst the major challenges of the 21st century. Our aircraft can fly at an altitude of 25,000 m and this opens the door to the possibility of electric and solar commercial aviation, close to space.

The solar-electric plane is said to have an environmental footprint that is equivalent to that of an electric car and is aimed at offering an alternative to using large quantities of energy or helium as a means of reaching the stratosphere. It is 8.5-m (27.9-ft) long, has a wingspan of 24.8 m (81.4 ft) and weighs in at just 450 kg (992 lb).

The solar panel array charges a 20 kWh lithium-ion battery, which powers a 32-kW electric motor that in turn drives a 2.2-m (7.2-ft) propeller. SolarStratos says it is able to fly continuously for over 24 hours, which is more than enough to cover the expected two-and-a-half hours it will take to reach space, 15 minutes cruising at peak altitude and three hours to return to the Earth.

The project began in 2014, after Domjan had the idea during the solar-powered boat crossing of the Atlantic on his PlanetSolar round-the-world journey. Beyond the project’s demonstrative and exploratory tech goals, it is hoped that it will inspire people and to help uncover new scientific knowledge.

The SolarStratos plane and operational hangar were unveiled at an event in Payerne, Switzerland, to around 300 guests, including ambassadors, partners, government representatives and members of the media.

The project is currently in the development phase, but the first roll tests, touch-and-go landings and test flights are due to take place in January next year.

All being well, medium-altitude flights will follow later in the year and initial stratospheric flights in 2018. The mission itself is also scheduled for 2018.

http://newatlas.com/solarstratos-solar-plane-unveil/46828/

Dec 22

We are in an energy transformation moment, and it looks unstoppable. Fortunately.

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We are in an energy transformation moment, and it looks unstoppable. Fortunately.

Originally shared by Greg Batmarx

The cost of solar panels is dropping exponentially, and solar power is now 80% cheaper than it was in 2010. A new startup plans to make it even more of a threat to fossil fuels, while also making panels much more efficient.

Using a particle accelerator, a machine that speeds up sub-atomic particles to nearly the speed of light, Rayton Solar slices up ultra-precise pieces of silicon, the key material used to make most solar panels. In typical manufacturing, a clunky cutting process wastes much of the material. When making a 200 micron-thick wafer of silicon, another 200 microns of the material ends up as sawdust.

The new patented process eliminates that waste.

Once you have a certain energy level of the particle and you shoot it at a block of silicon, it will penetrate at a certain depth into that silicon says Andrew Yakub Rayton Solar’s 29-year-old CEO. That’s how we do our cutting at such a precise depth.

By preserving the material, Rayton is able to use higher-quality silicon, something that wasn’t economic for companies to do in the past.

The new panels are 25% more efficient. That leads to a reduction in other costs, less land is needed, and less other equipment. And the panels themselves are also 60% cheaper to manufacture.

That dramatic drop in cost could help the solar industry grow much faster than it already is. Rayton has proven the process in the lab, and is currently running an equity crowdfunding campaign to build a pilot manufacturing line (it plans to do this in the U.S.; the low cost of the new process makes it economic to build here). Then it plans to quickly scale.

Solar has hit the threshold where it’s just about become the cheapest source of energy says Yakub. It’s just about to cross that threshold. And with a slight technological improvement like this, it will push it over that limit and allow for the widesacle adoption worldwide of solar. It would be the economic solution anywhere you are. We see this happening with or without Rayton’s technology. But our technology will speed it up significantly.

It’s something that will happen, he says, whether or not the next administration supports renewable energy.

In regards to Trump, I see him not having an effect on the solar industry he says. Because the economics are there. If the economics are there, the natural market forces will take control. I don’t see it as something that the government can have much control of.

https://www.fastcoexist.com/3066337/this-startup-uses-a-particle-accelerator-to-make-solar-panels-much-much-cheaper

Dec 20

Like all technologies, this has a wide range of possibilities, from astonishing to terrifying.

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Like all technologies, this has a wide range of possibilities, from astonishing to terrifying. And like all technologies, it will be used for good and ill, competently and incompetently.

A big part of what the future will look like depends on who is in control, which is, to me, the more important question.

Originally shared by Singularity Hub

We’re moving from biological to digital evolution, which means we control how we evolve

http://suhub.co/2i5Z9iL

Dec 19

I recently learned that Cosmopolitan started out as a “serious” magazine that published some speculative fiction.

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I recently learned that Cosmopolitan started out as a “serious” magazine that published some speculative fiction. It may yet loop back around, as women’s magazines defy the stereotype that you can either be interested in politics or interested in makeup, but not both.

Originally shared by Jennifer Ouellette

“Women’s publications have been offering substantive, worthwhile political takes for years now. That we still find this development remarkable is a measure of how our culture has segregated “women’s issues” from politics at large.” http://qz.com/866305

http://qz.com/866305
Dec 18

Culture is a thing with a lot of mixture in it.

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Culture is a thing with a lot of mixture in it.

Originally shared by Kevin Kelly

My photos of the Other Tibet. This area is culturally Tibetan in west Sichuan, China. But instead of a high dry plateau, it’s a rugged, lower terrain of fertile valleys. These pictures are from the valleys around the town of Danba. The folk here like to say, “We are Tibetan but not like the Tibetans of Tibet.” They speak Tibetan, but eat Chinese. Their homes are Tibetan but their crops are Chinese. They are in between, and their own tribe, so to speak. I was the only tourist.

https://goo.gl/photos/RmtgfcDpSsDKGrUa6

https://goo.gl/photos/RmtgfcDpSsDKGrUa6

Dec 18

I’ve been watching DC’s Legends of Tomorrow lately, and I have thoughts.

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I’ve been watching DC’s Legends of Tomorrow lately, and I have thoughts.

While it doesn’t have quite the heart of The Flash or Supergirl, it’s a worthy show despite the large quantities of cheese and many plot holes. It’s an ensemble cast – something I generally enjoy, especially if it’s well done, and the writers do some things well with it.

Most notably, they avoid the tropes of That One Kickass Woman or That One Black Character. There are two kickass women, one of whom is also one of the two black characters, which fixes the tropes much more than you might think. Because when you have two of some kind of character – like two criminals, or two physicists, both of which the show also has – you can make them different from each other, and all of a sudden you don’t have a single person standing in for their whole group of people and the implication that the group is all alike – if you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. They can be fully realised, complex characters with their own stories, who also happen to be physicists, or criminals, or black, or kickass women. That becomes one dimension of a multidimensional character. (There’s only one character who isn’t straight, though, unless Snart is asexual, which I’m starting to suspect.)

There is a terrible shortage of nerds on the show, despite a bit of Trek love at one point. Nobody has mentioned Doctor Who so far, even though there’s a British guy with a time machine; and when they went to the 1980s, nobody referenced Back to the Future, either.

Still, despite the occasionally clunky SFX, self-contradicting plot and abundant ham-and-cheese, I’m enjoying it. I’m going to watch some more right now, in fact.