MisEntropy

Earth vs. Rest of the Universe

 

[Via Reddit]

The possible negatives of clean energy

In November 2009, Scientific American - with an eye on then upcoming Copenhagen Summit - published a manifesto piece titled "A Path to Sustainable Energy by 2030."

It was a bold vision charting out how to get no less than all of the world's energy requirements through wind, water and solar power (WWS.) Eschewing even nuclear power, the authors had an uncompromising vision considering "only technologies that have near-zero emissions of greenhouse gases and air pollutants over the entire life cycle, including construction, operation and decommissioning."

The piece went into some detail about how to overcome the hurdles that will no doubt present themselves along the way. The authors went as far as to provide projections of the availability of metals that would be required in turbine gearboxes. Smartly they also anticipated and provided for the possibility that "the U.S. could be trading dependence on Middle Eastern oil for dependence on Far Eastern metals."

I am no climate skeptic - but even I found myself believing the plan a bit too far-fetched. Not because it wasn't desirable, but because it was unrealisable.

I also forgot all about it, until I found this letter by Paul Roetling of Grand Island, NY to the editors in this month's edition of Scientific American:

I found it surprising that in “A Path to Sustainable Energy by 2030,” Mark Z. Jacobson and Mark A. Delucchi do not mention the effects of the suggested energy sources on climate. The authors propose to absorb about six terawatts of energy from about 60 terawatts available in the wind, or about 10 percent of its total energy. Because the winds, at least near the U.S., usually flow around highs or lows, where the speed and related Coriolis force tend to maintain the pressure difference, I can easily envision that absorbing the energy will change the rate at which the pressure centers collapse. How this would change the weather, I do not know, but it must make a change to give us some of the energy. Possibly, the weather change would be an improvement, but as a believer in Murphy’s Law, I would be surprised. About 100 years ago dumping garbage into the ocean was justified because the oceans were infinite compared to the effect, so no one calculated how much was allowable. Let’s be smarter this time! Why not do the calculations before we cause more problems?

Paul's astute observations lends weight to my own belief that we have to reduce our energy consumption as a species rather than just pin our hopes on finding alternatives to all our energy needs.

All of our choices, no matter how carefully we consider and plan for them, will have externalities. Some of them we can surmise - most of them we cannot. Not until it's too late, ie.

[Original pic by Insight Imaging: John A Ryan Photography]

How to put together a corporate social media policy in 5 minutes

PolicyTool for Social Media is a policy generator that greatly simplifies the task of creating a working social media policy. Answer about a dozen and odd questions and before you can hop across to Facebook, your policy is ready for your to copy paste anywhere.

Based on my answers (and relative lack of paranoia) here's what a policy for my own company (if and when I start one) would look like:

MisEntropy Social Media Policy

This policy governs the publication of and commentary on social media by employees of MisEntropy and its related companies ("MisEntropy"). For the purposes of this policy, social media means any facility for online publication and commentary, including without limitation blogs, wiki's, social networking sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr, and YouTube. This policy is in addition to and complements any existing or future policies regarding the use of technology, computers, e-mail and the internet.

MisEntropy employees are free to publish or comment via social media in accordance with this policy. MisEntropy employees are subject to this policy to the extent they identify themselves as a MisEntropy employee (other than as an incidental mention of place of employment in a personal blog on topics unrelated to MisEntropy).

Publication and commentary on social media carries similar obligations to any other kind of publication or commentary.

All uses of social media must follow the same ethical standards that MisEntropy employees must otherwise follow.

Your real followers on Twitter

[From Geek and Poke]

What fiction writers can teach us about writing creative briefs

Recently, Guardian invited prominent authors to list out their 10 rules for writing fiction. It became a popular feature, collating the wisdom of several authors and even overflowed into a part two.

Reading it, I wondered if a few of these rules can be picked out and applied to something closer home - like writing a creative brief. It does seem like a stretch as the two activities are possibly diametrically opposite, if nowhere else but in our own minds.

Still, armed with my own thoughts on writing creative briefs, I set out to trawl the entire list and came up with this - 10 rules for writing creative briefs from fiction writers.

I have copied each rule and tweaked it - minimally - to suit our need. My own edits in the rule are italicised. The author's name and the corresponding rule number (from their list) are mentioned in brackets for reference.

1. Keep your exclamation points ­under control. (Elmore Leonard, 5)
2. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip. (Elmore Leonard, 10)
3. Do change your mind. Good ideas are often murdered by better ones. (Roddy Doyle, 8)
4. Learn poems by heart. (Helen Dunmore, 5)
5. Have regrets. They are fuel. (Geoff Dyer, 6)
6. Beware of clichés. Not just the ­clichés that Martin Amis is at war with. There are clichés of response as well as expression. There are clichés of observation and of thought – even of conception. Most creative briefs, even quite a few adequately written ones, are ­clichés of form which conform to clichés of expectation. (Geoff Dyer, 8)
7. When information becomes free and universally accessible, voluminous research for a creative brief is devalued along with it. (Jonathan Franzen, 5)
8. Style is the art of getting yourself out of the way, not putting yourself in it. (David Hare, 3)
9. Ignore all proferred rules and create your own, suitable for what you want to say. (Michael Moorcock, 10)
10. If it reads like a creative brief, rewrite it. (Elmore Leonard, summation)

Of course, these rules are my own version of what I think these fiction writers would say to us. I would love to hear what other rules you would pick out.