Sample from DisplayStruct

Been busy doing a little layout tool for superstruct.

Following the Oedipus2020 outbreak, a lot of cloud drifters aren't able to see the results, though.
Oh, well, while we consider a fix, here's a taste:

Thank Goodness I'm on Cirrus!

Oedipus Blinds Drifters

The IdEst cloud drifter app has been effectively blinded by a specifically tailored attack by a newly identified virus dubbed Oedipus2020*. The IdEst custodian, Macrowaft, has long maintained a maverick approach to cloud computing, preferring to provide carefully controlled and tailored packages for its clients, claiming that it provides a much higher quality experience.

Yet it is one of these packages ('Moonshine', which handles vision requirements) that has been exploited.

Following the recent success in thwarting a serious communications threat, LexLothar, designated spokesbeing for the Laokoon Swarm was quick to defend their product. "Laokoon 7 cannot operate where it is not invited", she explained. "The default policies of Macrowaft packages usually prevent all third party collabaration offers. In the case of Laokoon 7, it was an offer that should not have been refused."

"As a result, Oedipus has established itself in a significant sector of the skyscape."

Macrowaft declined to comment.

*Oedipus was a character in a play by Sophocles who put his eyes out in punishment when he learnt of his incestuous relationship with his mother.

- Goitres

...mind you, this could stuff my plan to display all superstructs!

Losing Perspective

I can't believe what some loonies are saying.

A return to the 'sustainable' population levels of the 1900's!!?
'Voluntary' extinction??

Apart from the small issues of the abrupt departure of eight billion souls, there's the small matter of the circumstances in which those levels would be reached!

"There are some levels of existence we are prepared to accept."

- The Architect from 'The Matrix: Reloaded'

No there isn't. I don't think anyone really has a clue about how conditions will degrade with just one of these doozies breathing down our necks, let alone five (or even the four that's prompted the 'return to the good old days' meme).

Well, maybe some do. That's why the grief rockers like that raptureholic 'IgDrip' are already spouting such gibberish about 'coming on over' (to the right hand side of the GEAS population graph)

They've given up. Worse, I can see they're going to be running malicious interference on those who haven't. (I thought we'd got over that a decade ago?)

*sigh* Welcome to 'Outlaw Planet'

Watching the Meter

Our neighbours have a friendly rivalry going with us over our respective domestic power sourcing solutions.

They have solar cubes. We have a mix of solar cubes and spheres (technology upgrade in progress). Their's are mounted on the roof and garage. Ours are in a solar farm up in the Simpson desert somewhere.

Now, I'm all for home solar. Forget the FUD about safety issues emanating from certain quarters, most kits are installed in sealed modules that are not about to be tinkered with by the average user anyway. No, that we didn't follow suit with a lot of people when solar power became a cheap and viable option was a matter of practicality as much as anything else. Being situated on a fairly small city plot, we don't have a huge area available for such things. Furthermore, our roof is a cluttered mess, courtesy of an upper storey renovation we did some years ago. So, as much as I like the ideas espoused by the 'reclaim your roof' movement, I'll have to cheer from the sidelines on that one!

They still get power when the grid goes off. We get to watch them spend their high days and holidays struggling with one recalcitrant item or another without going through the roof or falling off. (Of course, after the chuckles have been had, such occasions usually call for a potluck pitch in)

What with transmission and service fees v DIY and local generation, they probably come out a little ahead in operating margins.

At least, we get to take it with us when we ever move! This makes it a popular option with the rental market.

Either way, the solar providers have a market for their kits.

So it goes. We win , they win. And the ball goes back and forth.

It seemed to land squarely in our side of the court the other day when I received the power bill.

Yes... bill! With the rebates we get from our existing Verdantor installations, we usually run at a modest profit (at least, enough to make me think we'll have paid off the admission and service fees in about five years)

So, I'm not used to power bills.

It seems that a couple of our units got damaged in a recent heavy hailstorm. Hailstorms. In a desert? Well, it happens, as they say.

Still, when your assets are a couple of thousand kilometres away, there's always the lingering suspicion that you are not being told the whole story. I got the title deeds out and checked the GPS locations so I could run a quick check with the 'I-spy' site and, sure enough, my units are not looking too happy, the upshots being:
1. Replacements are going to have to be paid for
2. no power income in the meantime

Lost that point.

Then again, the solar spheres we are getting as replacements are 10% more efficient...

Tell Stories

There are, as I'm only beginning to appreciate, just so many ways people are tackling this, and just so much I can do.

It is my nature to gather my thoughts together before putting them on the table. This allows me to get details sorted, it also risks putting too much of the load on my shoulders. With a load this heavy, however, that way results in a breakdown:

While I collate my thinking on power struggle, let me offer a piece of advice I heard from a wise man many years ago.

By all means share. Reach out. Contribute to others' efforts.

But it will be that much more effective if you can overcome homophily: the love of sameness.

That wise man's advice ... ah! here it is, in full. The bit I want to point is this:

I’d been hoping the internet could be a solution to these problems. After all, it’s now possible to read the newspapers in another country, to read the blogs of people who live in these countries and hear what they’re thinking about. We can go to flickr and see the photos that people take, we can surf youtube and watch the videos that are making people laugh in other countries. Shouldn’t this help us connect with people around the world?

That’s what I thought a few years ago. I helped start a website called Global Voices, which is basically a site designed to help you find citizen media from other countries, especially the developing world. Want to know what people in China are talking about online? We filter through thousands of Chinese blogs, try to find the conversations that are interesting, translate them into English… and then into over a dozen other languages. If you read the site, you’ll end up getting a much better sense for what the hot topics are in other parts of the world… and you may find yourself emotionally invested in someone else’s blog, and by extension in their life and ideas.

[Reach out: ]But you probably won’t. That’s one of the biggest things we’ve discovered with the project - it’s hard to care, even if you want to. I can point you to a lively conversation taking place in another corner of the blogosphere and even if you can read the language, you’re probably not going to connect with the conversation. You don’t have the context. And beyond that, you don’t have any connection to the people or events involved.

It’s not your fault. Human beings are tribal by nature. There’s a sociological phenomenon called “homophily” - it’s the tendency of birds of a feather to flock together. Let people organize themselves and people will form into groups, usually by race, nationality, religion, level of education. In the US, there’s a lot of mobility - people move all the time - and we’re starting to see this happen politically - Bill Bishop calls it “The Big Sort”. It ends up meaning that left-leaning people live with other leftists, conservatives with other conservatives and we’ll each understand less about each other. We do this with information as well. If information affects people like us, we pay attention to it - if not, we’re almost hard-wired not to care.

It turns out that there’s an art to getting people to care. It’s about telling stories, stories that introduce us to people we care about, whose pasts we speculate about, whose future we worry about. Most of the world’s problems can’t be summed up by a single story about a single person… but unless you can attach a story to a problem, it’s likely that you won’t get anyone to pay attention to the larger problem. The problem with this art is that it can turn into a trick. The trick works by oversimplifying, turning stories into good versus evil, black and white. If we tell the story and lose the subtlety, at a certain point we’re lying.

We’ve got the infrastructure that makes it possible to connect to one another, to tell stories to one another, to share films and family photos and things that make us laugh or cry with people anywhere in the world. And so far, we’re pretty bad at using it. At the worst, we use it to hurt each other - think of the guy in Lagos who wants to rip you off while promising you millions of dollars… or the guy in London who makes sport out of humiliating and punishing him.

So here’s where I’m asking for help - we need bridge figures, people who can help build connections between cultures. We need xenophiles, people who are interested in the whole world and in building conversations that break out of the homophily trap. We need tools that let us use this infrastructure to connect. Help me figure out how to bridge people and how to build these tools.

- Ethan Zuckerman

In the end, the art of superstructing is the art of 'xenophily'

So, tell stories.

Drowning

Drowning in superstructures.

So much to do... so little time.
So much information!!
Where do we start? Where do we end?
More practically, how do we share out a tangled-interlocking mess like this?
It'll settle down, but at the moment, everyone's pitching in all over the place.

I suppose a site like Superstruct, if it is to work at all, will demonstrate 'emergent properties' as it reaches certain critical masses. At this early stage, the main emphasis is 'gaining mass': ideas are being laid out, and tended, and groomed for presentation. There is, as yet, little of the cross-fertilisation that is needed to make them take flight.

That would include me as well. Despite the little interdiction, I have still been able to throw a few crumbs into the stew: the notion of an online forum to allow refugees of a particular origin to retain a sense of identity, and to give them a voice.

I will need to start stirring the pot soon.

Somebody Doesn't Want You To Read This!

Are you receiving this?

The GEAS Superstruct foundation has been requesting help in identifying solutions to the superthreats they have identified, and it would seem that one of those threats is fighting back: within minutes of accessing the site and getting an account started, I find my cloud space has been flagged as a potential spam farm, and my activities have been restricted until I can persuade the powers that be in blogspot otherwise. Others have apparently reported difficulties accessing their accounts.

Whoever it is that is 'spinning the grief' gets marks for cheekiness!

Oh well, if the strategy these days is to make friend and foe indistinguishable, I suppose this is to be expected.

Getting Perspective

There's nothing like a graph to put flesh on figures.

GEAS population projections 2015-2100

This is a summary of the GEAS population projections to 2100. It seems that one threat or two are relatively weatherable (although bear in mind that even a *slight* dip in this graph is measured in tens of millions of people.) There's a strong knock-on effect, however, and the 'grief' will get exponentially worse so that, by the time all five of the threats are in play, it's good night from us!