Internet portal UniverseToday.com reported yesterday on article published in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics journal. The article is a study of what might have happened if chlorofluorocarbons (the chemical compounds responsible for so-called ozone hole effect) were not banned.
It is now clear, that with the Montreal Protocol (The first ever international protocol on regulation of chemical pollutants) we did save our children and grand-children from very unpleasant future.
But the real message of Montreal Protocol is simply that: “It Can Be Done!” We can join our forces and agree on common action, when facing really disastrous outcomes. As stated in the original article Montreal Protocol is a “remarkable international agreement that should be studied by those involved with global warming and the attempts to reach international agreement on that topic.”
I remember the times when the media was full of environmental activists calling for action on regulating the mentioned chemicals and it was looking equally hopeless as today’s fight(s) to regulate plastic pollutants, global warming or even increasing poverty levels and political destabilization. I think Montreal Protocol should be consider a “seed of hope “ and a template for many other following, positive, common actions.
You can check the original article on Universe Today: Here
It all started with a groundbreaking book of Marshal T.Savage “The Millennial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps”,which marked the beginning of the first “Millennial Project”. The Millennial Project (TMP) is a comprehensive plan for space development, beginning with the terrestrial cultivation of an environmentally sustainable civilization and Post-Industrial culture and culminating, far in the future, in the colonization of our immediate stellar neighborhood. The book itself was by far the most comprehensive study of all the requirements necessary to begin with a real colonization of space by then. And it still is one of the most inspiring reading concerning the subject out-there. TMP does no only consider technological blueprints of the actual space-fares and space habitats as it was done by then by most of the “space programmes”. Rather than that it is considering all the socio-political and cultural aspects of such an endeavour.
Savage proposed to build sustainable floating cities on sea, that could serve as a massive training centers for future space colonists.A foundation to accomplish this mighty goal was established.
“Foundation is the starting phase of the The Millennial Project. It’s objective is to establish a social and economic infrastructure upon which subsequent phases are based by communicating TMPs vision of the future to the global society, rallying those inspired by it to concerted action, developing the financial and industrial systems needed to accomplish it, and establishing the initial physical communities and facilities to host them. It is also the starting point of a cultural transformation intended to evolve the current dominant western culture and civilization into something more functionally suited to the concerted development of space and a more sustainable way of life on Earth.”
But the first Millennial Project was based on building sustainable habitats on sea shores first. The project developers found themselves competing with the leisure industry developers for the most expensive estate on earth and the programme eventually failed. Abandoned by Savage himself.
The Second Phase
The TMP2 project is a project of the Living Universe Foundation community to continually update and revise the content of the original plan as described by Marshal T. Savage in his book The Millennial Project. It is based on foundations Wiki and I think this is exactly what Wikis should be about. A massive collaboration environment to achieve complex goals. I think the Wiki is not very populated in the moment, but with a little promotion it can change in the close future. So we’ve build the encyclopedia and now we have to colonize the space.Check the link and find out more on: TMP 2.0
* 1930’s First computers
* 1950’s First remote connections between computers
* 1969 ARPANET (the first real computer network and a basis of todays internet)
* 1972 The actuall term “internet” used for the first time and first e-mail sent
* 1983 TCP/IP architecture universally adopted
* 1989 Archie. The first metadata search engine
* 1991 Gopher and hypertext
* 1992 Delphi (first commercial on-line service)
* 1993 Mosaic (the first graphical browser)
* 1994 World Wide Web Consortium formed
* 1998 The release of Windows98 and the rise of PCs
* 27th December 2008 Mohammed Ali Rogers threw a digital snowball on Ming C’ (Does Ming C’ want to throw back?)
We really don’t want to end it like this, do we?
So this is going to all my facebook friends. Please don’t throw snowballs on me! Do not invite me for digital cup of tea! Do not send me electronic kisses and do not ask me to take “which celebrity are you?” quitz! I really don’t want to share my (and yours) data with some weird application to do all those things. What I want is to talk to you. And I want to talk about things I was never been able to talk about before. In a way I was never been able to do before. Social media is a chance to meet the people who matter to us. To stay in contact with friends, that could be long forgotten. It is a chance to transform our lifes and thus transform the society and the world around us. Social Media is changing the equation. We cease to be consumers and we start to be marketers. We cease to be voters and we start to be policy makers.I want to use this great new tool to change the world around me. I want to be heard and I want to be understood. I don’t want to waste my information overloaded time throwing digital snowballs. Instead, I would like to know about your favorite blog or book. I would like to join some local group to get out and meet some real people. I would like to hear about the crazy idea you had this morning! The 90’s are over my friend. Now there are people out-there who actually listen to you. Don’t waste your time replying to all those tacky apps and better do something that have sense. I think with facebook we’ve reached something of a critical mass of users to really change the way we create our social realities. There is a bunch of good applications outhere (Like NetworkedBlogs I installed today), that really make a difference. In the end of the day. Lot of those tacky requests were not even send by your friends and you are just talking to the machine programmed to waste your time.
A fresh new initiative of Alternative Channel TV and the organization committee of 2009 China Europa business convention.
TV China Europa is a new web TV about sustainable urban development launched in English, French and Chinese. The web 2.0 platform offers reports on urban sustainable developments, energy, automotive,air, waste and water management.
In their own words; “Designed as a web 2.0 video platform, China Europa TV is an interactive and participative web based TV, which enables Internet users to suggest their videos related to urban sustainable development and participate in the debate on sustainable cities of tomorrow.”
A short history of modularity and a vision for next 10 years
A strange capsular object is appearing behind a window of a dark room.The capsule is an automatic car, that was just moments ago driving itself on computerized automated highway.The doors are opening and the car is docking-in to became a seamless part of the interior design of the building.A man steps in,while talking to the computer; “I’m home.”
This is a famous scene from the movie Minority Report. And it is also the most extreme example of modular design. Modular design is not a new concept. From the beginning of industrial era modular systems has been used everywhere where customization was in need.Architecture is using modular concepts for more than a century.Using prefabricated metallic frames or even whole concrete block walls. Cars and computers are the most typical and also most advanced modular designs.Every car and every computer is a device build entirely of exchangeable and fully customisable separate modules. Since the beginning of the domestic computer era this approach expanded to ever increasing number of domestic appliances. So we are using the modular technology to build our technology, design and architecture, but we are not making them modular and inter-compatible themselves. Making them look anything, but “Minority Report” like.
Of course there are some attempts of modular design existing already. Like iPod/iPhone, with its wide range of docks and compatible devices or the Modu cell phone concept.
A very nice functioning example of modular design is the Modu cell phone. Modu is a fully functional little cellphone/mediaplayer that can be slotted inside other devices in flash-card style.
All this concepts are limited to themselves. Using modular design to create a stand-alone devices or limiting the modularity to determined range of devices. I believe next decade will bring a boom in modular designs and will create a need for standardization. As the software industry slowly moves from stand-alone devices to seamless cloud computing, the device design will have to keep on track.
Another well known example of modular design is the International Space Station
So the cloud of modular devices, will be a necessary secondary effect of the virtual software cloud. I think there is no doubt that such technology, will appear in the close future. And indeed it is appearing already. The advances in 3D printing of electronics, will also speed up the development of customizable electronics modules. And once one of the standards hits the market hard, there will be nothing in the way to stop the real “Modular Revolution”.
After electronics you may expect the modularity to move to transportation, interior design, urban developments and so on.
As the standards will have to be widely accepted to achieve a wide range of compatibility between the devices and architectural solutions, I can see a trend in Open Source Technology. Build on a same collaborative principles as Open Source Software and using the industries existing expertize.
It is time to elevate our real world technologies to the standards of the information society.
The evident advantages of modular designs are in their practicality in our daily lives, but there will be some other side effects as well. Modular systems can be used to create a completely new form of transportation and construction services, with high levels of automation and less hard-physical labour involved. New forms of modular transport systems, could move goods around our towns without a need of thousands of cars polluting our environment.
You would not need an extra charger for each of your devices, but instead you could build a low-voltage network inside your flat to safe the energy.
Modular design of furniture and interior design, will create lasting values. As you can rebuild the modules in always new forms and concepts, people will be more likely to re-use or re-sell their old crap instead of throwing it away.
This is very important aspect of modular design:Re-usability.
Just imagine you could take appart all your interior design, furniture, domestic electronics etc., anytime you get bored of them.Build interiors according to your taste and need.(Picture above;Modular Kitchen by Fevzi Karaman.)
In similar manner as we are building children playgrounds today.
The possibilities are endless and the future will be modular. Without any doubt.
Star Wars Cops? What? This is just so amazing. Kevin Rubio’s “Troops” is just the number one low cost, with a message ! I can’t help myself . I find these Imperial Troopers so reminiscent of the American Troops in Iraq. I’m blown away. I don’t believe the Americans are behaving like that on the ground in Iraq (in majority of the cases), but the “War on Terror” policy makers do! Pure ignorance and violence, without any empathy for human (or alien) life whatsoever.
This is a wonderful independent fun movie,that is (in a way) “praying on” the famous Star Wars franchise.And can only do so for a simple reason. The producers did not make a penny from this movie.
As the global warming makes once ice-clogged Arctic passageways easier to traverse there are new possibilities of the commercial exploitation of Arctic coming to existence. Countries like Russia, Canada,Norway,UK,Greenland and even France and China are already making claims of parts of Arctic territory. Most of the coutries with massive military and atomic arsenal.
According to scientific research 13 % of worlds oil is located behind the Arctic circle and even bigger percentage of natural gas (up to 30%). By now it doesn’t look like there is much will for diplomatic solution of the appearing conflicts. Instead US,Russia,Norway and Denmark are already planning to build military training centers in the zone.
So, apart of the evident environmental destruction by the industrial exploitation of one of the last untouched pieces of this planet, we can also face a new territorial war.Unseen from the end of World War 2. This is a very dangerous appearing global reality. If we will start with a massive indusrialization of the polar areas, it will be not only a possible point of no return for our planet, but also a final hit for UN under which autority is Arctic area according to international agreements.
Every small child is learning this fact in the school, but apparently the world leaders are still not aware of it.
You can read more on the website of the Arctic Council
The 2nd chapter’s title “Lonely Robot”, just cannot be more accurate. I instantly remembered about a short movie I saw on Youtube time ago.
Android 207.
Isn’t that funny that you can remember about little android lost in the labyrinth, while watching a documentary about actual (very recent) political and social events.
Something must be wrong no? I am not an android. Are You?
I just love sci-fi movies for their ability of certain juxtaposition to our present society. The more into the future you go, the more abstraction appears in fantastic pseudo-realities of sci-fi cinema. The more juxtaposition to our world today!
Alex Rivera’s Sleep Dealer is not trying to reach into a far future and we can painfully see the accusations (of) and hidden messages to our present society.
You know the standardized opening chapter about the history of internet in virtually every book about the Internet ever printed? You think You know the ARPANET story? Ooooooooooh,sooo booooooooring. So watch this video and find out at last how it really happened.
Internet portal UniverseToday.com reported yesterday on article published in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics journal. The article is a study of what might have happened if chlorofluorocarbons (the chemical compounds responsible for so-called ozone hole effect) were not banned.
