Brett's list of bits
It turns out that computers can see patterns that humans can't. That's not ideal if you're trying to building a computer program that recognises what people can and reacts the same way.
Posted: March 24, 2015 @ 14:28
Let's coat every building with these! And then have some sort of energy storage for overnight. Or something. At least it's a start!
Posted: March 24, 2015 @ 14:26
This article references a documentary about climate change denial ("Merchants of Doubt") and subsequent email exchanges between said deniers trying to work against the film's message. Sad, sad, people.
Posted: March 24, 2015 @ 10:14
The country goes 75 days without burning any fossil fuels to generate electricity. That's pretty cool.
Posted: March 24, 2015 @ 08:58
Most probably, yes. Greater transparency leads to more people looking at problems with fresh eyes and more potential fixes. But existing powerbrokers will then have a problem.
Posted: March 23, 2015 @ 11:46
Although it is resources-boom driven, Perth has many of the same problems as Vancouver. Hopefully we'll think of a smart way to make cities more livable for the people who are actually there.
Posted: March 22, 2015 @ 15:06
And yeah, you shouldn't be afraid of heights if you're working on them.
Posted: March 22, 2015 @ 15:05
There have been so many things written (all bad) about the F-35 over the years - and yet we (Australia) are still going to buy some. Seriously?
Posted: March 22, 2015 @ 08:02
This stuff is really important. Our politicians need to understand that what the law enforcement agencies are shoving down our throats is the thin end of the wedge.
Posted: March 17, 2015 @ 14:19
An interesting read. Most surprising factoid: that per-capita spending on startups in Perth is $2.69 compared to $9.09 on the Melbourne Cup. Ouch.
Posted: March 13, 2015 @ 11:51
And by extension, shame on Australia too for not meeting our obligations to asylum seekers. And for keeping them in sub-human conditions. It's clearly ok for us to use the UN to criticize other nations but when it us in the firing line - that's apparently no good.
Posted: March 9, 2015 @ 18:18
This may seem a little boring but it's an excellent blog post about how car dashboard displays should be contextually aware - not only with what speed the car is traveling at but also where the driver is sitting so that information can be display in the best possible way.
Posted: March 5, 2015 @ 15:15
...but the US says that China shouldn't have it.
This is stupid - the US was asking technology companies to put back doors into their products so that intelligence and law enforcement agencies could "track terrorists" and "find criminals". But this would weaken the products - and back doors could be exploited by anyone else, including those terrorists and criminals; generally making everything less safe.
But when China wants to do the same thing, the US is all "no - you can't do that" - becaus...
This is stupid - the US was asking technology companies to put back doors into their products so that intelligence and law enforcement agencies could "track terrorists" and "find criminals". But this would weaken the products - and back doors could be exploited by anyone else, including those terrorists and criminals; generally making everything less safe.
But when China wants to do the same thing, the US is all "no - you can't do that" - becaus...
Posted: March 1, 2015 @ 08:01
Clearly this starts well before anyone enters the workforce. I wonder what type of cultural change is required to wipe out this type of bad behaviour.
Posted: February 26, 2015 @ 13:08
Turns out - quite a bit. And not necessarily unnoticeable - even on cheap(ish) speakers.
Posted: February 24, 2015 @ 13:17
Think again... The food creation industry has got some very neat tricks to take natural ingredients and make them into very interesting chemicals that are then used in food. And because they are "based on" actual plants and animal byproducts they can disguise how they are described on the labels.
Posted: February 23, 2015 @ 12:46
Turns out that there are some things that can't be easily recycled. Or recycled at all. So what do you do with wind turbine blades when they reach the end of their useful life?
Posted: February 23, 2015 @ 12:42
Your hard drive or USB thumb drive stores a lot of data. But compared to the data density in nature (even with loads of redundancy) it's nothing.
Posted: February 23, 2015 @ 10:18
A long read (from a speech he made) but worth it. Lots of stuff about how copyright is harmful; copying things is only going to get easier (even physical things thanks to 3D printing) and why DRM sucks (duh).
Posted: February 16, 2015 @ 10:03