Unlike the crackpot, loony conspiracy theorists and the conflicted, self-interested right-wing old-media columnists I tend to believe the numbers, especially when they come from so many sources over so many years. In fact it just becomes more obvious that things are a-changing, climate-wise. Open a window and or a door and see for yourself. Even if you doubt that humanity is to blame (and there’s plenty of evidence to say it is) we still have to do something. Soon. Like right now.
I’ve been following this subject (global warming theory) since the mid-70′s and although I didn’t rate it a pressing issue at the time (I may have scoffed, to be honest) the evidence was pretty convincing by the end of the ’80s. And it was even more compelling by the end of the ’90s. Coupled with the coming of “peak oil” it was quite obvious that we should rein in our fossil fuel dependence, cut down on resource waste generally and look as a global society towards a more sustainable way of life.
And now another 10 years have passed and we are still tied to coal, gas and oil. Indeed we (in Australia at least, if not the developed world in general) allow the big miners free rein to lobby, bully and coerce our Governments to do anything but the right thing. Are we collectively blind, or plain stupid? No matter how you look at it the time for action is here, if it isn’t already too late…
Weather News – Climate check-up ‘screams world is warming’
A report on the world’s climate has confirmed that 2009 was one of Australia’s hottest years on record and provides more evidence of global warming.
Three hundred scientists from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association compiled the report, which the association’s data centre chief Deke Arndt says paints a compelling picture.
“It’s basically the annual check-up that looks at the year that ended in a climate perspective and so you can kind of think of that as we all go to the doctor for our annual check-up,” Mr Arndt said.
“But because 2009 was the end of a decade we wanted to take stock of a longer-term view.”
The list of last year’s extreme weather events includes a flood in Brazil that left 376,000 people homeless, heavy rainfall in England that damaged 1,500 properties and three intense heat waves in Australia, one of them coinciding with the Victorian bushfires that killed 173 people.
South Australia and New South Wales had their warmest year on record as la nina conditions changed to el nino.
Maximum temperatures were generally above normal throughout Australia, adding up to the second hottest year since temperature started being record in 1910.
Mr Arndt says the signs of global warming are undeniable.
“Each of the last three decades has been substantially warmer than the decade before it,” he said.
“On a decade scale, that is very clear. The 1980s was the warmest decade on record as of December 31, 1989, but every single year in the 90s was warmer than that decade’s average temperature.”
NOAA – National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – NOAA: Past Decade Warmest on Record According to Scientists in 48 Countries
Based on comprehensive data from multiple sources, the report defines 10 measurable planet-wide features used to gauge global temperature changes. The relative movement of each of these indicators proves consistent with a warming world. Seven indicators are rising: air temperature over land, sea-surface temperature, air temperature over oceans, sea level, ocean heat, humidity and tropospheric temperature in the “active-weather” layer of the atmosphere closest to the Earth’s surface. Three indicators are declining: Arctic sea ice, glaciers and spring snow cover in the Northern hemisphere.
Global Warming — Research Issues
The increase in greenhouse gases caused by human activity is often cited as one of the major causes of global warming. These greenhouse gases reabsorb heat reflected from the Earth’s surface, thus trapping the heat in our atmosphere. This natural process is essential for life on Earth because it plays an important role in regulating the Earth’s temperature. However, over the last several hundred years, humans have been artificially increasing the concentration of these gases, mainly carbon dioxide and methane in the Earth’s atmosphere. These gases build up and prevent additional thermal radiation from leaving the Earth, thereby trapping excess heat.
Unlike the crackpot, loony conspiracy theorists and the conflicted, self-interested right-wing old-media columnists I tend to believe the numbers, especially when they come from so many sources over so many years. In fact it just becomes more obvious that things are a-changing, climate-wise. Open a window and or a door and see for yourself. Even if you doubt that humanity is to blame (and there’s plenty of evidence to say it is) we still have to do something. Soon. Like right now.
I’ve been following this subject (global warming theory) since the mid-70′s and although I didn’t rate it a pressing issue at the time (I may have scoffed, to be honest) the evidence was pretty convincing by the end of the ’80s. And it was even more compelling by the end of the ’90s. Coupled with the coming of “peak oil” it was quite obvious that we should rein in our fossil fuel dependence, cut down on resource waste generally and look as a global society towards a more sustainable way of life.
And now another 10 years have passed and we are still tied to coal, gas and oil. Indeed we (in Australia at least, if not the developed world in general) allow the big miners free rein to lobby, bully and coerce our Governments to do anything but the right thing. Are we collectively blind, or plain stupid? No matter how you look at it the time for action is here, if it isn’t already too late…
Weather News – Climate check-up ‘screams world is warming’
A report on the world’s climate has confirmed that 2009 was one of Australia’s hottest years on record and provides more evidence of global warming.
Three hundred scientists from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association compiled the report, which the association’s data centre chief Deke Arndt says paints a compelling picture.
“It’s basically the annual check-up that looks at the year that ended in a climate perspective and so you can kind of think of that as we all go to the doctor for our annual check-up,” Mr Arndt said.
“But because 2009 was the end of a decade we wanted to take stock of a longer-term view.”
The list of last year’s extreme weather events includes a flood in Brazil that left 376,000 people homeless, heavy rainfall in England that damaged 1,500 properties and three intense heat waves in Australia, one of them coinciding with the Victorian bushfires that killed 173 people.
South Australia and New South Wales had their warmest year on record as la nina conditions changed to el nino.
Maximum temperatures were generally above normal throughout Australia, adding up to the second hottest year since temperature started being record in 1910.
Mr Arndt says the signs of global warming are undeniable.
“Each of the last three decades has been substantially warmer than the decade before it,” he said.
“On a decade scale, that is very clear. The 1980s was the warmest decade on record as of December 31, 1989, but every single year in the 90s was warmer than that decade’s average temperature.”
NOAA – National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – NOAA: Past Decade Warmest on Record According to Scientists in 48 Countries
Based on comprehensive data from multiple sources, the report defines 10 measurable planet-wide features used to gauge global temperature changes. The relative movement of each of these indicators proves consistent with a warming world. Seven indicators are rising: air temperature over land, sea-surface temperature, air temperature over oceans, sea level, ocean heat, humidity and tropospheric temperature in the “active-weather” layer of the atmosphere closest to the Earth’s surface. Three indicators are declining: Arctic sea ice, glaciers and spring snow cover in the Northern hemisphere.
Global Warming — Research Issues
The increase in greenhouse gases caused by human activity is often cited as one of the major causes of global warming. These greenhouse gases reabsorb heat reflected from the Earth’s surface, thus trapping the heat in our atmosphere. This natural process is essential for life on Earth because it plays an important role in regulating the Earth’s temperature. However, over the last several hundred years, humans have been artificially increasing the concentration of these gases, mainly carbon dioxide and methane in the Earth’s atmosphere. These gases build up and prevent additional thermal radiation from leaving the Earth, thereby trapping excess heat.
Kidding about Cancellara, he doesn’t need any help in riding fast. This new model Brammo is an interesting motorbike, though – 160km/h performance and 160km range. Coupled with an electric motor’s “instant-on” torque delivery it would be more than tempting, I should think. If you didn’t want to stick with pedalling, of course.
Brammo’s second-generation electric motorcycle: the Empulse 10.0 streetfighter
“We thought, well, the average commute is 26 miles, so a 42 mile range should give you comfort. Well it turns out that when it gets to half full, people fill it up. Some people like me take it all the way down to the end. We’re finding with electric vehicles that people are more conservative.”
Despite range concerns, the bike became a modest success – but Brammo never expected it to find an audience among the petrolhead community. “We kinda thought the Harley guys and the Ducati guys would not be that crazy about it,” says Bramscher, “Turns out they loved the Enertia, they just want a little more.”
The 2011 Brammo Empulse
And more they will get. “The driving force around this vehicle was some new technology we’ve developed in the powertrain,” says Bramscher, “which is an all-around system that includes a more efficient battery and a more efficient controller, a more efficient motor and then our own vehicle control unit. So it’s really a full Brammo drivetrain. And that, in combination with the battery technology, gets us all the way up to a 100-mile average range.
Kidding about Cancellara, he doesn’t need any help in riding fast. This new model Brammo is an interesting motorbike, though – 160km/h performance and 160km range. Coupled with an electric motor’s “instant-on” torque delivery it would be more than tempting, I should think. If you didn’t want to stick with pedalling, of course.
Brammo’s second-generation electric motorcycle: the Empulse 10.0 streetfighter
“We thought, well, the average commute is 26 miles, so a 42 mile range should give you comfort. Well it turns out that when it gets to half full, people fill it up. Some people like me take it all the way down to the end. We’re finding with electric vehicles that people are more conservative.”
Despite range concerns, the bike became a modest success – but Brammo never expected it to find an audience among the petrolhead community. “We kinda thought the Harley guys and the Ducati guys would not be that crazy about it,” says Bramscher, “Turns out they loved the Enertia, they just want a little more.”
The 2011 Brammo Empulse
And more they will get. “The driving force around this vehicle was some new technology we’ve developed in the powertrain,” says Bramscher, “which is an all-around system that includes a more efficient battery and a more efficient controller, a more efficient motor and then our own vehicle control unit. So it’s really a full Brammo drivetrain. And that, in combination with the battery technology, gets us all the way up to a 100-mile average range.
Well I’m all for it myself. Never loved big cars and big engines myself – it seemed a bit odd to ride around on a lightweight bike yet invest in an overweight, oversized motorcar – so I have so far kept the feisty four-cylinder faith. But this turbo twin from FIAT looks like both a blast from the past and a peek at the future. Fast and fun yet frugal. Can’t beat it, I reckon. Until we ween ourselves off petrol (and other liquid fuels) completely here’s an effective answer: downsize the car and the engine whilst squeezing out ever-better performance and efficiency.
Fiat 500 TwinAir two-cylinder turbo review | evo
It’s a Fiat 500. Not the sort of car that normally gets us excited. But like so many things in life, it’s what’s inside that counts. In this case, because it has the Italian firm’s new 900cc single turbo two-cylinder engine under its retro bonnet.
Well I’m all for it myself. Never loved big cars and big engines myself – it seemed a bit odd to ride around on a lightweight bike yet invest in an overweight, oversized motorcar – so I have so far kept the feisty four-cylinder faith. But this turbo twin from FIAT looks like both a blast from the past and a peek at the future. Fast and fun yet frugal. Can’t beat it, I reckon. Until we ween ourselves off petrol (and other liquid fuels) completely here’s an effective answer: downsize the car and the engine whilst squeezing out ever-better performance and efficiency.
Fiat 500 TwinAir two-cylinder turbo review | evo
It’s a Fiat 500. Not the sort of car that normally gets us excited. But like so many things in life, it’s what’s inside that counts. In this case, because it has the Italian firm’s new 900cc single turbo two-cylinder engine under its retro bonnet.
It’s not just Tesla that needs to rethink its strategy and cashflow – it’s founder has seemingly and conveniently gone through $US1.5B in just a few years. Nice to have big dreams and deep pockets, eh? If only, if only.
Elon Musk’s Financial Car Wreck – Forbes.com
But Musk, who sold his previous company, PayPal, to eBay ( EBAY – news – people ) for $1.5 billion, now says he’s broke.
“About four months ago, I ran out of cash,” he wrote in a court filing dated Feb. 23, and first reported by VentureBeat, a Silicon Valley blog. Musk, whose other business interests include SpaceX and SolarCity, said he’s been living off personal loans from friends since last October.
Of course, Musk’s disclosure came in a filing as part of his divorce from novelist Justine Musk, so perhaps it is advantageous to be out of money at the moment.
It’s not just Tesla that needs to rethink its strategy and cashflow – it’s founder has seemingly and conveniently gone through $US1.5B in just a few years. Nice to have big dreams and deep pockets, eh? If only, if only.
Elon Musk’s Financial Car Wreck – Forbes.com
But Musk, who sold his previous company, PayPal, to eBay ( EBAY – news – people ) for $1.5 billion, now says he’s broke.
“About four months ago, I ran out of cash,” he wrote in a court filing dated Feb. 23, and first reported by VentureBeat, a Silicon Valley blog. Musk, whose other business interests include SpaceX and SolarCity, said he’s been living off personal loans from friends since last October.
Of course, Musk’s disclosure came in a filing as part of his divorce from novelist Justine Musk, so perhaps it is advantageous to be out of money at the moment.
Not so sure about this one. One for the underwear-obsessed, perhaps. Imagine your undies emailing your GP to make an appointment. The mind boggles.
Chemical sensors printed on elastic could lead to ‘smart’ underwear
As the technology to support wearable electronics advances, researchers are investigating new ways of making our clothing more “intelligent” – from smart shirts for theater ushers to the development of clothing that can respond to the wearer’s emotive state. So would it surprise you to learn that your humble underpants could one day save your life? A new study has shown that printed sensors on the elastic band of your underpants could monitor biomarkers in your sweat and tears, make autonomous diagnoses and even administer life-saving drugs.
Not so sure about this one. One for the underwear-obsessed, perhaps. Imagine your undies emailing your GP to make an appointment. The mind boggles.
Chemical sensors printed on elastic could lead to ‘smart’ underwear
As the technology to support wearable electronics advances, researchers are investigating new ways of making our clothing more “intelligent” – from smart shirts for theater ushers to the development of clothing that can respond to the wearer’s emotive state. So would it surprise you to learn that your humble underpants could one day save your life? A new study has shown that printed sensors on the elastic band of your underpants could monitor biomarkers in your sweat and tears, make autonomous diagnoses and even administer life-saving drugs.
Whilst the idea below is for general health readings and the (rather creepy) suggestion is that employers may wish to monitor staff health, one early-adopting group could be athletes. Imagine having your fitness level and cardio performance plus a GPS unit implanted into your body. You may still have a display unit on a watchband or handlebar but the ‘guts’ of the monitoring system is in you. Fancy going that far? I reckon it’s not that far away.
Implantable & wearable monitoring devices for the tech-savvy generation
Jarno Riistama from Tampere University of Technology (TUT) believes that an increase in health problems as a result of modern living will encourage us to be more health conscious. However, he estimates it will be another ten years or so before implantable measurement devices for human use are commercially available because of the rigorous testing and approval processes.
In addition to the implantable devices, researchers at Tampere have developed wearable ‘strips’ that measure functions such as EKG directly from the skin. The signals, which are comparable to those produced by existing measurement devices such as pulse counters, are sent wirelessly from the device, removing the need for cumbersome cables.
Whilst the idea below is for general health readings and the (rather creepy) suggestion is that employers may wish to monitor staff health, one early-adopting group could be athletes. Imagine having your fitness level and cardio performance plus a GPS unit implanted into your body. You may still have a display unit on a watchband or handlebar but the ‘guts’ of the monitoring system is in you. Fancy going that far? I reckon it’s not that far away.
Implantable & wearable monitoring devices for the tech-savvy generation
Jarno Riistama from Tampere University of Technology (TUT) believes that an increase in health problems as a result of modern living will encourage us to be more health conscious. However, he estimates it will be another ten years or so before implantable measurement devices for human use are commercially available because of the rigorous testing and approval processes.
In addition to the implantable devices, researchers at Tampere have developed wearable ‘strips’ that measure functions such as EKG directly from the skin. The signals, which are comparable to those produced by existing measurement devices such as pulse counters, are sent wirelessly from the device, removing the need for cumbersome cables.
I’m happy if it eventually happens, that we boot up all sorts of computing devices into some sort of embedded multifunctional browser – but it’s hardly the first time it’s been suggested – and of course Google has some irons in the fire here, too.
The biggest problem is booting up in the first place – and loading some sort of magical universal suite of device drivers irrespective of the device. Whether we load a browser on top of that or not I don’t personally care.
Your Browser in Five Years – PCWorld
“You’re going to see tremendous innovation in the browser space in the coming years,” says Linus Upson, Google’s vice president of engineering. “We really want the Web as a platform to get to the point where you can do anything on the Web that you can do on Windows, the Mac, or the iPhone.”
Filed under future, technology by Rob.
I’m happy if it eventually happens, that we boot up all sorts of computing devices into some sort of embedded multifunctional browser – but it’s hardly the first time it’s been suggested – and of course Google has some irons in the fire here, too.
The biggest problem is booting up in the first place – and loading some sort of magical universal suite of device drivers irrespective of the device. Whether we load a browser on top of that or not I don’t personally care.
Your Browser in Five Years – PCWorld
“You’re going to see tremendous innovation in the browser space in the coming years,” says Linus Upson, Google’s vice president of engineering. “We really want the Web as a platform to get to the point where you can do anything on the Web that you can do on Windows, the Mac, or the iPhone.”
Filed under future, technology by Rob.
The “robo-car” concept – where the car takes control and interacts with and responds to the road environment automatically – has much to offer. Better traffic flow, safer driving and improved fuel consumption for starters. The downside is loss of human control, but we already effectively given that up when we get on a plane, a bus or a train. We may believe to a greater or lesser extent that a human has ultimate “control” but the point is that with public transport we opt out of direct “hands-on” involvement – we just take a seat and get off when we want.
So a robo-car is simply a smaller, nimbler and more personalised form of the larger concept of public transport. And the core technologies are already there: cruise control, collision avoidance and GPS for starters. If we added RFIDs and a car-based WiFi network into the equation we’d effectively have an Internet of cars where the cars become “packets” and we simply get inside and add an address. The routing would happen automagically and if problems appeared we’d be rerouted via the best path.
OK, the car-mad who like that feeling of control – those for whom the mechanics of acceleration, braking and cornering are a practised skill, be they good at it or not – will have to find other outlets, but for the bulk of us it’s a compromise that’s probably going to happen. And in consequence it opens up a whole world of possibilities – greater efficiency, reduced road trauma, savings in hospital costs – you name it. We may end up with “trains” of cars on the freeway instead of a log jam.
Robocars – not that far away at all
I’m not sure we have perfect trust – or faith – in all of these devices and the software that will integrate them but I see a day when these and other perhaps more robust technologies (like embedded RFIDs in road furniture and signage) fall into place to regulate and control traffic flow. It may start with control in low-speed and low-risk environments and work from there and priority could be given to drivers who hand over to robo-control. So there would be a carrot – you get a smoother run as well as less angst behind the wheel.
The “robo-car” concept – where the car takes control and interacts with and responds to the road environment automatically – has much to offer. Better traffic flow, safer driving and improved fuel consumption for starters. The downside is loss of human control, but we already effectively given that up when we get on a plane, a bus or a train. We may believe to a greater or lesser extent that a human has ultimate “control” but the point is that with public transport we opt out of direct “hands-on” involvement – we just take a seat and get off when we want.
So a robo-car is simply a smaller, nimbler and more personalised form of the larger concept of public transport. And the core technologies are already there: cruise control, collision avoidance and GPS for starters. If we added RFIDs and a car-based WiFi network into the equation we’d effectively have an Internet of cars where the cars become “packets” and we simply get inside and add an address. The routing would happen automagically and if problems appeared we’d be rerouted via the best path.
OK, the car-mad who like that feeling of control – those for whom the mechanics of acceleration, braking and cornering are a practised skill, be they good at it or not – will have to find other outlets, but for the bulk of us it’s a compromise that’s probably going to happen. And in consequence it opens up a whole world of possibilities – greater efficiency, reduced road trauma, savings in hospital costs – you name it. We may end up with “trains” of cars on the freeway instead of a log jam.
Robocars – not that far away at all
I’m not sure we have perfect trust – or faith – in all of these devices and the software that will integrate them but I see a day when these and other perhaps more robust technologies (like embedded RFIDs in road furniture and signage) fall into place to regulate and control traffic flow. It may start with control in low-speed and low-risk environments and work from there and priority could be given to drivers who hand over to robo-control. So there would be a carrot – you get a smoother run as well as less angst behind the wheel.
What a business to be in: Mining. Prospecting takes effort and cost and of course you need to buy the rights and licences and build infrastructure to get it out of the ground and move the ore or oil or whatever to a port or a local customer. So it’s not a short-term play, is it? It’s a long-term investment – 5, 10 even 20 years. Indeed mining companies use net present value (or NPV) to assess the relative value of competing proposals. NPV provides an estimate of the future value of any investment for which there is an expected cost and subsequent income stream; it’s a way to fairly assess what a mine or other investment will be worth over time. Assumptions are made in that calculation that take into account tax regimes, political stability and variables like interest and exchange rates. That’s to say that risk is built into the NPV.
Given that the Australian Government’s “great big new tax” is not at all new – it’s been flagged for years – and that the risk has always been there we can assume it was factored in for at least the last 2 years, probably waaay more. If mining companies haven’t done their due diligence on this I’d be very surprised. Very, very surprised. Indeed I’d be re-thinking share ownership in such grossly incompetent companies right now. But let’s face it, they are neither incompetent nor unaware. They are just self-interested.
And with all of the fuss made by the miners and the Federal Opposition to the introduction of what has been generally assessed by economists as a reasonable and fair resource rent tax that addresses the cyclical nature of commodity prices, guess what? The Aussie dollar has fallen. By strange coincidence a weaker dollar means that payments made to Aussie miners in appreciating currencies will now be worth more. So they as exporters get the benefit of soaring commodity prices (remembering that their mining costs are generally quite fixed, so this is where “super profit” comes into it) as well as a falling Aussie Dollar. In contrast of course imports are now more expensive because of the falling dollar. Importers will now suffer declines as exporters rub their hands.
No wonder miners are campaigning so hard. If the government caves in they win and if they keep up the utterly deceitful lobbying they win again. Worse case, they pay a fairer share of tax. Of course many other factors are driving the dollar down, most importanly being the relative strength of the $US. But it all helps, doesn’t it?
The last point to be made (by me, anyway) is that the cost of these mining projects doesn’t just fall on the miners. They will lobby hard for the State and Federal governments to pick up as much infrastructure cost as they can get away with… things like railways, roads and ports – even the growth of whole towns – are often funded by the taxpayer, not the miners. Yes there are exceptions but not many. Mines may be a boon to a local community and generate jobs when times are good but they generate huge costs, too. And what happens when the mine inevitably closes? The people lose their jobs and incomes and the supporting infrastructure is left where it is… often as a ghost town. So what exactly do these miners want? A free ride?
Here’s a tip, buy mining shares whilst the boom is on. And get out before the next bust.
Trade balance swings to surplus
The recent sharp decline in the Australian dollar will also be a relief for manufacturing exporters, and is even a positive for mining earnings since so many commodities are priced in US dollars. The local currency fell 10 per cent against its US counterpart last month.
What a business to be in: Mining. Prospecting takes effort and cost and of course you need to buy the rights and licences and build infrastructure to get it out of the ground and move the ore or oil or whatever to a port or a local customer. So it’s not a short-term play, is it? It’s a long-term investment – 5, 10 even 20 years. Indeed mining companies use net present value (or NPV) to assess the relative value of competing proposals. NPV provides an estimate of the future value of any investment for which there is an expected cost and subsequent income stream; it’s a way to fairly assess what a mine or other investment will be worth over time. Assumptions are made in that calculation that take into account tax regimes, political stability and variables like interest and exchange rates. That’s to say that risk is built into the NPV.
Given that the Australian Government’s “great big new tax” is not at all new – it’s been flagged for years – and that the risk has always been there we can assume it was factored in for at least the last 2 years, probably waaay more. If mining companies haven’t done their due diligence on this I’d be very surprised. Very, very surprised. Indeed I’d be re-thinking share ownership in such grossly incompetent companies right now. But let’s face it, they are neither incompetent nor unaware. They are just self-interested.
And with all of the fuss made by the miners and the Federal Opposition to the introduction of what has been generally assessed by economists as a reasonable and fair resource rent tax that addresses the cyclical nature of commodity prices, guess what? The Aussie dollar has fallen. By strange coincidence a weaker dollar means that payments made to Aussie miners in appreciating currencies will now be worth more. So they as exporters get the benefit of soaring commodity prices (remembering that their mining costs are generally quite fixed, so this is where “super profit” comes into it) as well as a falling Aussie Dollar. In contrast of course imports are now more expensive because of the falling dollar. Importers will now suffer declines as exporters rub their hands.
No wonder miners are campaigning so hard. If the government caves in they win and if they keep up the utterly deceitful lobbying they win again. Worse case, they pay a fairer share of tax. Of course many other factors are driving the dollar down, most importanly being the relative strength of the $US. But it all helps, doesn’t it?
The last point to be made (by me, anyway) is that the cost of these mining projects doesn’t just fall on the miners. They will lobby hard for the State and Federal governments to pick up as much infrastructure cost as they can get away with… things like railways, roads and ports – even the growth of whole towns – are often funded by the taxpayer, not the miners. Yes there are exceptions but not many. Mines may be a boon to a local community and generate jobs when times are good but they generate huge costs, too. And what happens when the mine inevitably closes? The people lose their jobs and incomes and the supporting infrastructure is left where it is… often as a ghost town. So what exactly do these miners want? A free ride?
Here’s a tip, buy mining shares whilst the boom is on. And get out before the next bust.
Trade balance swings to surplus
The recent sharp decline in the Australian dollar will also be a relief for manufacturing exporters, and is even a positive for mining earnings since so many commodities are priced in US dollars. The local currency fell 10 per cent against its US counterpart last month.
Just found this (from a couple of years back) and thought I’d re-post. We’ve had the GFC, isn’t it about time for another oil price shock?
Into the time machine we go…
At last an Aussie newspaper wakes up and realises that whilst personal car use is subsidised we will continue to over-use petrol and over-invest in vehicular infrastructure, effectively running down public transport at the same time. You can’t have it both ways as the SMH says. Excellent. About time.
Make note – this is not the “Drive” section! It’s in “Business“. Can’t have such logical thoughts expressed in the motoring section, can we?
In a nutshell, we have as a community, indeed as a global community, undervalued and underpriced petrol. Whilst we generally leave the market to decide pricing, in fact by providing community-owned infrastructure (roads, for example) at cost or below and by propping up car manufacturers with subsidies we have chosen short-term growth and employment over long-term sustainability. It’s a distorted market because the true cost of using oil is not addressed in the price paid – the community carries the can on much of the infrastructure and the ‘clean up’ of health and environmental impacts.
Since the ‘oil shock’ of 1973 we have steadily increased the price by means of taxes as well as producer cartel activity, however consumers have protested politically and driven the cost down when it should be going much higher. We have even gone to war over the damned stuff in order to keep Joe Public happy with the end user price. In my opinion, anyway!
Filed under cars, future, petrol by Rob.
Just found this (from a couple of years back) and thought I’d re-post. We’ve had the GFC, isn’t it about time for another oil price shock?
Into the time machine we go…
At last an Aussie newspaper wakes up and realises that whilst personal car use is subsidised we will continue to over-use petrol and over-invest in vehicular infrastructure, effectively running down public transport at the same time. You can’t have it both ways as the SMH says. Excellent. About time.
Make note – this is not the “Drive” section! It’s in “Business“. Can’t have such logical thoughts expressed in the motoring section, can we?
In a nutshell, we have as a community, indeed as a global community, undervalued and underpriced petrol. Whilst we generally leave the market to decide pricing, in fact by providing community-owned infrastructure (roads, for example) at cost or below and by propping up car manufacturers with subsidies we have chosen short-term growth and employment over long-term sustainability. It’s a distorted market because the true cost of using oil is not addressed in the price paid – the community carries the can on much of the infrastructure and the ‘clean up’ of health and environmental impacts.
Since the ‘oil shock’ of 1973 we have steadily increased the price by means of taxes as well as producer cartel activity, however consumers have protested politically and driven the cost down when it should be going much higher. We have even gone to war over the damned stuff in order to keep Joe Public happy with the end user price. In my opinion, anyway!
Filed under cars, future, petrol by Rob.
OK, ultimately this is all about security, privacy and copyright – those
dogged old fashioned concepts from last century. In essence we are perhaps
just a few technological steps away from a complete and utter loss of our
physical control over images, sounds, thoughts and ideas. Physical
manifestations of science, art, craft or thought have up to recently
provided a reliable means by which we can control – and often profit by –
our creativity. However the digital world has steadily chipped away at the
necessity for a physical presence for our art. Recorded music, like words
and images, is now transmissable without regard for – or containment on – a
discrete physical object. And whilst we still “need” an object to “play”
the art on, the cost and size of that object is diminishing as rapidly as
our disregard for copyright. Increasingly we have to wield a big stick to
protect from theft things which don’t naturally feel “stealable”. When you
can do it so easily, quickly and simply, without leaving home and without
taking someone else’s physical “property”, it no longer feels “wrong”. It’s
just a soft copy, after all.
Now we can all see good and bad in this, and we can all see that there’s a
growing mismatch between the virtual and “real” worlds. And as
copyright-owners we could fight against copyright “theft” whilst feeling
“right” about our position, needing to eat and pay for housing as we do.
But what about tomorrow? What if the physical barriers continue to erode?
What if convergence, connectivity and miniaturisation lead us to a state
where everything is captured, remembered and shared, just by default?
I recently commented on the rise of a global human connectedness via a
convergence of our mobile devices, the internet and embedded image
capturing devices. In essence this is something new for geographically
dispersed humanity – that we can be somewhere, almost anywhere on the
planet, have a thought or experience – good or bad – and share it globally
as voice, text or image. Or as any form of data, really. That mass human
connectedness may (to cite a few possibilities) breakdown social, political
and economic barriers; subject our leaders and authority figures to a new
level of poular critique; or create a ‘Lithium state’ where the banal and
the merely average will rule. (Daily Telegraph readers will recognise that
state.) I’m sure there are many more options here and I certainly don’t
know all of the possible outcomes. I’ll leave you to think of some more.
What I would like to do now is throw another thought into the mix – that we
are entering a new, powerful era of connected common – as in shared –
memory. Memory that doesn’t get forgotten, doesn’t go away and doesn’t take
much effort to retrieve. I would go so far as to suggest that the
combination of stored thoughts, expressions and experiences with our
aforementioned mass connectedness will lead to a new type of shared
(perhaps ‘pseudo’ or ‘meta’?) human consciousness. Simply, a
hyper-awareness of a larger “self” beyond our own narrow vision. Hmm,
that’s not so simple either, is it? It may not even be desirable. Not that
we will have any choice, it will just arrive. The rock, having been pushed,
is rolling downhill.
So just how does this pseudo-hyper-meta human consciousness come about?
Just work backwards with me for a moment. Think ‘pre-book’. Human written
language existed prior to the book of course, but there was an explosion of
thought – and of the communication of thoughts – that came about because of
the sheer (relative) ease with which thoughts, ideas and explanations could
be stored on a physical page and accurately communicated across distances.
If you like, imagine yourself further back in time, before there was a
written language. We may have etched the odd number on a tablet for
accounting (or taxation) purposes but we had no way to write down what we
thought, or to document a simple ‘how-to’. We could talk about it, of
course, and pass it on – but error (good or bad) was inevitable (as shown
by the well-known “Chinese whispers” exercise). Of course we had ways and
means to minimise those errors, memory aids if you like, but essentially we
had to learn a narrative by rote before we could pass it on, Illiad-syle.
And if your verbal language skills weren’t too flash then you relied on
others to do the job, and to intepret what was meant. So it was inevitably
filtered, distorted and controlled information. Now come back to this
century and look at how we are changing our world, step-by-step. Firstly,
we are generally better educated and by and large can read and write. We
can just about all read – perhaps even write – entire books, if we so
choose. (And apologies to those who can’t, who may have a disability by
birth or circumstance, or live in a situation where basic education isn’t a
given.) Now layer on top of that the connectedness we have achieved
already, the mobility and the access to data. We can use that connectedness
for any purpose, of course, but what I wish to explore is the prospect of
accurate hyper-access to a vastly increased scope of information. Never
before in human history have we been able to access our “written” (or
saved, if you like) word, our accumulated wealth of knowledge, so readily,
so easily, wherever we may be. That alone will accelerate human
technological – and possibly social – development. We have stepped well
outside of our genome and into a wider phenotypical world of extended
ability and influence.
OK, that’s all a given, isn’t it? Big deal. But step forward to a brave new
world where every step we take is recorded in sound and vision. Where our
entire lives (possibly excepting – possibly – personal moments of our
choosing) are recorded and stored for later analysis. Our patterns of
behaviour, our thoughts, our art, our expression – kept for good. Not
filtered, enhanced and written down in a book but simply recorded,
unchanged, and made available upon request. Whilst much of our lives will
presumably be subject to some restriction and made “offlimits” to wider
analysis, our public steps will be broadly available. Our work, our
hobbies, our inventions, our preferences, our habits, our perspectives –
all observed and recorded. We see this trend already reflected in the
growth of stored knowledge and meta-data on the World Wide Web. We see the
possibilities that come about with crowd-sourcing, effectively putting the
masses to work, with or without pay, Wiki-style. We see the social media
revolution, capturing our lives bit-by-bit. We see GPS and camera
technology embedded in laptops, cell phones and bike hemets. We see the
cloud, convergence and miniaturisation. Add it all up. Everything connects
and converges into smaller, shared devices that we quite literally wear, or
at least carry around. That’s just a step or 2 away from bio-embedded
technology and constant, pervasive data capture.
It used to be that security-conscious bodies (especially large corporates
and defence establishments) simply banned cameras and cell phones from
their premises. But cell phones became a business necessity, so they had to
come in. And now it’s difficult to buy a cell phone without a camera, so
they are in too, even if by stealth. But what happens when we ourselves
save all of our vision, all our audio – all of what we do – to local
electronic memory, or to cloud, with every step we take? It may sound
slightly weird, but it becomes less strange with every generation of
ever-more-powerful personal memory device. As our converged, location-aware
smart-camera-phone shrinks to watch-size, or becomes simply part of your
sunglasses frame, so it becomes expected. Why not converge all devices onto
contact lenses? Why not simply embed in our bodies a chip that transmits
and receives signals from sensors anywhere in or on our body? And make that
data available to others?
Some of this will just happen. Some products will be outlawed. But this
converged connectedness will happen to a greater rather than lesser degree;
it may lead to a new meta-conscious state where ideas are shared
exponentially, and it may provoke a security and privacy backlash. Indeed
perfect, highly retrievable and super-communicated memory will certainly
test our copyright laws. If you can hear or look at it, it’s copied to the
cloud, immediately. Some people will chose not to transmit, but many more
will like to share. How will Rupert Murdoch put a wall around that?
OK, ultimately this is all about security, privacy and copyright – those
dogged old fashioned concepts from last century. In essence we are perhaps
just a few technological steps away from a complete and utter loss of our
physical control over images, sounds, thoughts and ideas. Physical
manifestations of science, art, craft or thought have up to recently
provided a reliable means by which we can control – and often profit by –
our creativity. However the digital world has steadily chipped away at the
necessity for a physical presence for our art. Recorded music, like words
and images, is now transmissable without regard for – or containment on – a
discrete physical object. And whilst we still “need” an object to “play”
the art on, the cost and size of that object is diminishing as rapidly as
our disregard for copyright. Increasingly we have to wield a big stick to
protect from theft things which don’t naturally feel “stealable”. When you
can do it so easily, quickly and simply, without leaving home and without
taking someone else’s physical “property”, it no longer feels “wrong”. It’s
just a soft copy, after all.
Now we can all see good and bad in this, and we can all see that there’s a
growing mismatch between the virtual and “real” worlds. And as
copyright-owners we could fight against copyright “theft” whilst feeling
“right” about our position, needing to eat and pay for housing as we do.
But what about tomorrow? What if the physical barriers continue to erode?
What if convergence, connectivity and miniaturisation lead us to a state
where everything is captured, remembered and shared, just by default?
I recently commented on the rise of a global human connectedness via a
convergence of our mobile devices, the internet and embedded image
capturing devices. In essence this is something new for geographically
dispersed humanity – that we can be somewhere, almost anywhere on the
planet, have a thought or experience – good or bad – and share it globally
as voice, text or image. Or as any form of data, really. That mass human
connectedness may (to cite a few possibilities) breakdown social, political
and economic barriers; subject our leaders and authority figures to a new
level of poular critique; or create a ‘Lithium state’ where the banal and
the merely average will rule. (Daily Telegraph readers will recognise that
state.) I’m sure there are many more options here and I certainly don’t
know all of the possible outcomes. I’ll leave you to think of some more.
What I would like to do now is throw another thought into the mix – that we
are entering a new, powerful era of connected common – as in shared –
memory. Memory that doesn’t get forgotten, doesn’t go away and doesn’t take
much effort to retrieve. I would go so far as to suggest that the
combination of stored thoughts, expressions and experiences with our
aforementioned mass connectedness will lead to a new type of shared
(perhaps ‘pseudo’ or ‘meta’?) human consciousness. Simply, a
hyper-awareness of a larger “self” beyond our own narrow vision. Hmm,
that’s not so simple either, is it? It may not even be desirable. Not that
we will have any choice, it will just arrive. The rock, having been pushed,
is rolling downhill.
So just how does this pseudo-hyper-meta human consciousness come about?
Just work backwards with me for a moment. Think ‘pre-book’. Human written
language existed prior to the book of course, but there was an explosion of
thought – and of the communication of thoughts – that came about because of
the sheer (relative) ease with which thoughts, ideas and explanations could
be stored on a physical page and accurately communicated across distances.
If you like, imagine yourself further back in time, before there was a
written language. We may have etched the odd number on a tablet for
accounting (or taxation) purposes but we had no way to write down what we
thought, or to document a simple ‘how-to’. We could talk about it, of
course, and pass it on – but error (good or bad) was inevitable (as shown
by the well-known “Chinese whispers” exercise). Of course we had ways and
means to minimise those errors, memory aids if you like, but essentially we
had to learn a narrative by rote before we could pass it on, Illiad-syle.
And if your verbal language skills weren’t too flash then you relied on
others to do the job, and to intepret what was meant. So it was inevitably
filtered, distorted and controlled information. Now come back to this
century and look at how we are changing our world, step-by-step. Firstly,
we are generally better educated and by and large can read and write. We
can just about all read – perhaps even write – entire books, if we so
choose. (And apologies to those who can’t, who may have a disability by
birth or circumstance, or live in a situation where basic education isn’t a
given.) Now layer on top of that the connectedness we have achieved
already, the mobility and the access to data. We can use that connectedness
for any purpose, of course, but what I wish to explore is the prospect of
accurate hyper-access to a vastly increased scope of information. Never
before in human history have we been able to access our “written” (or
saved, if you like) word, our accumulated wealth of knowledge, so readily,
so easily, wherever we may be. That alone will accelerate human
technological – and possibly social – development. We have stepped well
outside of our genome and into a wider phenotypical world of extended
ability and influence.
OK, that’s all a given, isn’t it? Big deal. But step forward to a brave new
world where every step we take is recorded in sound and vision. Where our
entire lives (possibly excepting – possibly – personal moments of our
choosing) are recorded and stored for later analysis. Our patterns of
behaviour, our thoughts, our art, our expression – kept for good. Not
filtered, enhanced and written down in a book but simply recorded,
unchanged, and made available upon request. Whilst much of our lives will
presumably be subject to some restriction and made “offlimits” to wider
analysis, our public steps will be broadly available. Our work, our
hobbies, our inventions, our preferences, our habits, our perspectives –
all observed and recorded. We see this trend already reflected in the
growth of stored knowledge and meta-data on the World Wide Web. We see the
possibilities that come about with crowd-sourcing, effectively putting the
masses to work, with or without pay, Wiki-style. We see the social media
revolution, capturing our lives bit-by-bit. We see GPS and camera
technology embedded in laptops, cell phones and bike hemets. We see the
cloud, convergence and miniaturisation. Add it all up. Everything connects
and converges into smaller, shared devices that we quite literally wear, or
at least carry around. That’s just a step or 2 away from bio-embedded
technology and constant, pervasive data capture.
It used to be that security-conscious bodies (especially large corporates
and defence establishments) simply banned cameras and cell phones from
their premises. But cell phones became a business necessity, so they had to
come in. And now it’s difficult to buy a cell phone without a camera, so
they are in too, even if by stealth. But what happens when we ourselves
save all of our vision, all our audio – all of what we do – to local
electronic memory, or to cloud, with every step we take? It may sound
slightly weird, but it becomes less strange with every generation of
ever-more-powerful personal memory device. As our converged, location-aware
smart-camera-phone shrinks to watch-size, or becomes simply part of your
sunglasses frame, so it becomes expected. Why not converge all devices onto
contact lenses? Why not simply embed in our bodies a chip that transmits
and receives signals from sensors anywhere in or on our body? And make that
data available to others?
Some of this will just happen. Some products will be outlawed. But this
converged connectedness will happen to a greater rather than lesser degree;
it may lead to a new meta-conscious state where ideas are shared
exponentially, and it may provoke a security and privacy backlash. Indeed
perfect, highly retrievable and super-communicated memory will certainly
test our copyright laws. If you can hear or look at it, it’s copied to the
cloud, immediately. Some people will chose not to transmit, but many more
will like to share. How will Rupert Murdoch put a wall around that?
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