The Guardians Solution

Below is a link to an article from a supposedly serious newspaper about how to deal with climate change.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/interactive/2012/oct/01/50-months-climate-interactive

They've basically asked 50 people how they would solve the global warming problem, which of course is bound closely with energy policy. I'd genuinely recommend looking at all 50 comments, you'll either find it hilarious or depressing.

You'd hope that there's a higher level of discussion going on in DECC...

Even home 2d printing isn't all that great

3d printing used to be known mainly as "rapid prototyping", it's now being used ever more for "rapid manufacturing" and this makes a lot of sense for low volume products.

Various parts of the media, from geek websites to the FT, have been putting forward the notion that 3d printing will revolutionise manufacturing by putting a 3d printer in everyone's home and allowing for decentralised manufacturing. I don't see how this is even remotely plausible.

I always think of home inkject/ laser printers when the notion is put forward. Would anyone seriously consider printing and binding a book at home to be preferable to ordering it online and having it delivered the next day. Consider the cost, time, reliability and hassle. Even for a custom book you would still be better off going with something like blurb.co.uk (think about the difference in quality, TCO and cost of you own time). And this is with technology which is fundamentally a lot simpler to 3d printing and has had decades to mature and become dirt cheap.

I can imagine industrial scale 3d printers, which would be the equivalent of the printing machinery used by the likes of blurb, being used more widely for spare parts and such but the notion of it being done at home seems fanciful to me.

Assumptions

The problem with the discussion here is that the study made some assumptions. Whether or not the're correct can be debated but the position of the authors is that it's correct to have a high level of perceived risk about climate change. They knew going into the study that the level of perceived risk in the population is lower than they considered correct. In order to explain this they considered two hypotheses. One that people were too scientifically illiterate to appreciate the risk and secondly that people's ability to perceive risk is biased by their social environment (peers don't believe it so it's best if they don't either). The first hypothesis was proved incorrect and the second one correct.

It would have been interesting if as a control they considered the belief in god or evolution instead of just risk associated with nuclear, although that is a bit different to perceived risk... Maybe risk of eternal damnation then?

Only Texts

The part that bothers me is that they're only bloody text messages, informal communications which would easily be taken out of context.

The important part of the investigation is what caused the spill in the first place not some comments from one engineer to another after the fact.

Whatever about him, I certainly make sarcastic, black comments to colleagues which would have no use to a formal investigation and could easily be misconstrued. And he's not a scum sucking lawyer so he shouldn't be expected to have the same appreciation for the legal requirements.

From the sound of the linked article google are thinking of opening a visitor type shop at one of their big offices. Hardly a sign that google are desperate to move offline.

I'm a bit annoyed with myself for clicking on an article with the "open and shut" warning.

Matt Assay and his google bashing is getting a bit old. Fair play to the register for labelling his posts as "open and shut" so they are easy to ignore.