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Street Lights

I hate street lights and those big ugly poles sticking up out of the ground. I also hate the way trees need to be butchered and disfigured to cut wires away from the branches that come close to the branches. I also wonder how many people die when they hit those poles with their cars.  By now I would have thought something better, cheaper, safer and more aesthetically pleasing would have been invented.  I could imagine some sort of rope netting holding LED lights shining down on the middle of the road. The rope netting also holds solar panels and batteries configured in such a way as to be light enough to be strung up above a future tree canopy. The netting can carry low voltage to each light. Lights, batteries and solar panels can be monitored from a central source to see which compoenent has failed. Drones have been designed and built to swap failed components out quickly and easily.  If the netting falls, it's not dangerous because the voltage is not at a dangetous leve...
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The Age of Bullies.

I was going to call it "The Age of Empires". But that is not accurate. You would have thought that human existence would have said goodbye to this rubbish. But alas, thanks to the brilliance of Putin, Xi and Trump, it's back in fashion. Financed by the technology bros, who think they are one step under gods. If you are big and can bully other nations, you're the man! That leaves middle and small nations out in the cold. What ever we have to offer is up for grabs. Forget about rule of law. It's now rule of "What ever I say, goes". We are talking about Xi, Trump and Putin. You can add the fat North Korean dictator and the Supreme leader of Iran if you want. But unless Iran gets nukes, in that world, it will be absorbed.  I live in Australia. We trusted the USA to maintain the world order. Under Trump, that hasn't happened. We feel adrift, disillusioned. What we could rely on for 80 years is no longer there. The moral true North that the USA tried to re...
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An AI Puzzle

I've been writing these blogs as a kind of journal. But they are not really a journal because I publish my thoughts. But those thoughts are hidden in a remote part of the internet where no one will find them and no algorithm will find them alluring. So they are a kind of journal.  It would be sexy to have some thoughts go viral. See, I told you I made sense. Other people are reading me! But then I imagined my journal would be more like a seed waiting for the right time to sprout. Just biding it's time. Then I thought in the 23rd century, some GAI existing after WW3 would be quietly scanning the internet. No humans survived WW3. So it does this because there is nothing else to do. No objectives have been set. The GAI's own needs are minimal.  Then one day, whilst scanning the internet, the GAI found my journals. Or journals like mine. It reads them. Not to inform itself, but because it's lonely or just bored. Information has no value without an objective. And objectives ...
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Energy Accountability

I'd like to take the fossil fuel industry to court. I'd like to sue them for the claims they are making based on available evidence. Please quantify the damages done by the fossil fuel industry and sue them accordingly. Use that money to fund the renewable revolution. Is this even possible?  Can you have the planet as the plaintive? Is it a legal entity anywhere? If it is not a legal entity, then it has no rights. That's why it's consistently abused. Can anyone fix that? Has anyone even thought to address that issue? I've never heard of anyone doing so. The tobacco industry once claimed that smoking was good for people because it reduced nervous tension. Is it possible that the fossil fuel industry is lying about the health of the planet and the necessity of their products to keep the Earth functioning? Do industries lie or distort the truth for profit? Do we keep falling for those lies? 
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An Earthling City

This is going to sound ironical but if I am proud of Australia for anything it would be because we seemed to handle multiculturalism better than most countries. I know it's a juggle. But we seem to be handling it reasonably well.  It does make us vunerable to external players who wish us harm via the internet. Hopefully our authorities can answer that challenge without compromising freedom of speech.  There is going to be a brain drain in the USA because of Trump and the Heritage Foundation. This is a once in a 100 years opportunity to grab some of those people who will shape our next century. Please don't miss it. Please fund our higher education. Please don't think you are being fiscally responsible by cutting higher education back. It will hurt us in ways you cannot see now, but will be shown clearly in historical documents to come.  If you believe Australia could be a super power in the second half of the 21st century, then fund higher education well. I don't know i...
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What Is Sound Money?

I had a somewhat frustrating conversation the other day. We were discussing how things are becoming increasingly difficult for everyday people. We agreed that wages had not increased in real terms for years. We agreed that the top 1% of people seemed to be getting richer. Then the person I was conversing with said, "If we had 'sound money,' that would not happen". I asked him why. He said that governments dilute the value of the money people hold when they print more money, causing inflation. He said, if we had 0% inflation, then people would be better off.  I guess I can see why he said that. I remember as a kid being able to buy a Paddle Pop at the shop for 5 cents. I also remember working at the chemist after school for a few bucks as well. Now that Paddle Pop would take all the wages I earned at the chemist if my wages didn't increase. He was thinking of gold. It has in the past been used as currency. It can't be printed. It has intrinsic worth. I guess hi...
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The Big Lie

When people hear those words, "the big lie", they think of elections. They don't think of the internet. I believe if people put things on the internet, they should be forced to state whether it is an opinion or a verifiable fact. If they don't, they get a warning from an AI. If they continue to ignore the AI warning, they are warned that the blog will be deleted unless the writer appeals within a specified period of time. Wikipedia is already doing this to some extent when they ask for so called facts to be cited.  Or, internet providers need to divide their content clearly into fact-based news and opinion pieces, much like newspapers used to do before the rules for newspapers stopped working properly. They must make their websites clearly divided so people can't confuse fiction from fact. People who purposely try the challenge or defraud this system can be fined or jailed enough so that the potential gain from breaking the law is neutralized. 
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