Memia 2022.35: Carbon conundrum🛫🌳// hi-res exoplanet🔭🪐// the internet has an immune system🗑️// apps, not Arxiv🧠// but is it “Art”?🖼️//power yoga🧘// billionaire preppers💸
1,000 year sentences in 8.5 hours
Kia ora,
Welcome to this week’s Memia newsletter, your regular scan across emerging tech and the future as it unfolds, viewed from Aotearoa New Zealand. Thanks for being here!
(Actually, this week’s Memia comes to you from the other side of the world in the UK where I am on a seagull-in-out visit to family for the first time since before the Covid-19 pandemic…great to be here, even if only for a short time!)
The combined effects of long-haul travel and a touch of jetlag mean that this week’s newsletter is a bit late and a bit less verbose than usual… still lots of links, though.
(Also, FYI next week I will be in transit on the way home to Aotearoa so please expect the weekly newsletter on Thursday morning, not Wednesday!)
Weekly roundup
The most clicked links in last week’s newsletter (6% of openers each) was the Curt Skelton DIY deepfake and the sobering footage of the dried out riverbed in Chongqing.
(Also paid subscribers thanks for your patience, last weekend’s scheduled ⏩Fast Forward Aotearoa instalment #13 is still in production due to travel…!)
🛫🌳Carbon conundrum
First things first, thanks to Shaun Ryan for responding my request last week for links to native forest carbon offset (/biodiversity investment) links to attempt to compensate my conscience emissions on this trip: Trees That Count is a project managed by environmental charity Project Crimson, helping Kiwis plant more native trees across Aotearoa and contribute towards carbon sequestration:
The website calculator estimates that the CO2 emissions of my round trip from Ōtautahi to London could be balanced by around 35 native trees over 50 years. At NZ$10 per planted tree, that equates to only $350… bargain!
But of course, there is some sleight of hand here…this week I came across this informative LinkedIn thread started by Catherine Knight asking:
“Has anyone done any studies/calculations in the NZ context of rates of sequestration of new plantings of indigenous forest over say a 100 year span and also for restored wetlands? And what area of either/both we would need to:
a) offset our gross national emissions
b) offset emissions in any given district or region (as this is increasingly being suggested as a viable option to cut emissions at a district/regional scale)”
Jamie Heather of Carbon Critical answers:
“The short(ish) answer is:
- Native forestry done at scale in NZ could perhaps be assumed to capture about 5 tonnes CO2 per year per hectare over 100 years or so (best case)
- With NZ emissions currently at ~80 MtCO2e/yr, we would need to plant about 16 million hectares (or 59% of the total land area) in native trees to reach net-zero emissions.
Exotic trees grow much faster and bigger, and are much superior from a carbon sequestration perspective (but not biodiversity), provided they are well planned and well managed. If you want to explore different possibilities, check out this carbon calculator: https://net-zero.nz
(Also check out this Interactive article from Stuff which provides more data and insights: Root and Branch: What trees can and can’t do to address the climate change crisis.)
(And in case you were wondering…we definitely *don’t* want to plant millions of hectares with Pinus Radiata.)
BUT: environmental scientist Mike Joy points out:
“…trees do not offset fossil fuel emissions, this is a different carbon cycle. You can mitigate carbon lost to atmosphere by all the trees we we have chopped down and wetlands we have drained but not one single gram of fossil carbon; that cycle was at least 85 million years ago….a tree is a wonderful thing the only bad tree is one that is planted on the false premise that it mitigates burning fossil fuels”
So YES, there will be 35 new native trees planted soon but NO, the CO2 from my trip will remain in the atmosphere(…/biosphere) for long afterwards.
Fundamentally, it seems there’s no long term fossil-fuel carbon offset solution which doesn’t involve stopping burning fossil fuels or direct air capture. (But nonetheless we still need to plant more trees…!)
🔭🪐Hi-res exoplanet
Astronomers at the University of Exeter in the UK directed the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) towards an exoplanet known as HIP 65426:
ZME Science goes deeper on why this is a big deal:
“By directly imaging and producing spectra of exoplanets, astronomers can produce much more precise measurements and even find out what these planets’ atmospheres are made of. In turn, this can inform us what physical processes occur in these worlds, which can determine whether or not they are habitable. Only two dozen or so exoplanets have been directly imaged thus far.
The new direct imaging of HIP 65426 b showed that the exoplanet’s surface is burning at a toasty 900 degrees Celsius, despite being incredibly far away from its star, completing a full orbit in 630 Earth years. The high temperature is caused by internal processes left over from its formation just 14 million years ago — this is very much still a baby planet on a geological timescale.”
🚀Artemiss X2
The Artemis maiden launch was shelved again. The naysayers are out… ArsTechnica frame Artemis as NASA trying to launch:
“…a rocket largely cobbled together from the space shuttle, which itself was designed and built more than four decades ago.”
Oof…certainly puts Elon Musk’s achievements with SpaceX on a higher pedestal again.
🗑️The internet has an immune system
If you haven’t been following this story, Kiwi Farms (formerly known as CWCki Forums - nothing to do with Aotearoa but annoyingly causing collateral brand damage) is a particularly toxic internet forum with a heritage in the memetic cesspits that were/are 4Chan/8Chan.
If you have a strong stomach, Ben Collins chronicles the recent history:
*However*, after a concerted social media campaign to #DropKiwiFarms went sufficiently viral, internet infrastructure company CloudFlare changed its position and removed services from the site - and thereafter no other significant DDoS provider would touch them.
(By removing their protections from the site, activists and hackers are free to DDoS it, effectively taking it down off the internet.)
And, at the time of writing, it appears that Kiwi Farms is now off the internet.
Ryan Broderick in Garbage Day sums up the significance of what’s happened here, A Website Is A Street Corner:
“It’s pretty much what always happens to websites like this. And, in many ways, it’s exactly what should happen. Express yourself freely online, but also know that if enough people hate your website and deem it too racist, too violent, or too dangerous to exist, it will eventually become your burden to keep it online. And it turns out that burden is pretty heavy.“
It turns out that the internet has an immune system?
[Weak] signals
OK I’m just going to rip through this week’s crop of signals from the future without much commentary… click through to read more!
4 scenarios
I’m always scanning for scenarios framing potential futures… here’s a summary of 4 Scenarios for the Digital World of 2040:
Peace in the Digital Space, for the Common Good
A Balance of Power in Digital Space
Digital Insecurity on a Controlled Scale
The Global Digital Space Collapses, Regional Alternatives Rise:
“A few years after a wave of global-scale attacks which in some cases generated major human and economic consequences, the unfettered expansion of the digital space has resulted in total collapse by 2040. The global model has become untenable, due to uncontrolled data localization, technological monopolies dictating conditions, toothless international law, and ineffective national rights. It is therefore deeply questioned by states and citizens. New spaces, based on a national or regional approach, have been built. Beyond the legal aspects, they rely on differentiated technologies to avoid systemic effects. Quality and safety are regulated, potentially at the expense of price and innovation, and interfaces are controlled. By losing its universal specificity, the digital space has aligned itself with the physical space, for better or for worse.“
📼More text-to-video
Following on from last week’s extrapolation from text-to-image generative AI, CogVideo is:
“the largest pre-trained transformer for text-to-video generation in the general domain, which is of 9.4 billion parameters.”
Here’s a demo screenshot of what it can do already:
Robot takeover
🖼️But is it “Art”?
I found this hilarious… (but others don’t, apparently)
🧠Apps, not Arxiv
Speaking of AI…
aigrant.org is an initiative co-funded by Nat Friedman – ex-CEO of GitHub and Daniel Gross – who ran ML projects at Apple
It's time for AI-first products!
Products, not papers. Tinkering, not training. Apps, not Arxiv.
The AI Grant program:
$250,000 for your AI-first product startup
$250,000 in cloud credit from Azure
Early access to Stability.ai models
A week in San Francisco with amazing people
Apply here by October 1st, 2022
This taxonomy of potential AI products in 2022 is really helpful:
🧘Power yoga
(Pleased with that pun, eh😇).
Lenovo Yoga Glasses will launch in China by the end of this year - a “USB-C monitor made for your face” the glasses will put a Full HD OLED screen in front of each of your eyes.
Sony Playstation VR 2 launch date
Also, in response to Meta’s Quest Pro (non-)announcement, Sony confirmed that the next generation of PlayStation VR 2 will launch in early 2023:
(Incidentally, those hand controllers will be museum pieces very soon with new haptic glove technology about to go mainstream… maybe from Aotearoa-based Stretchsense).
Satellite surveillance
Space nuclear reactor
Modular nuclear reactor
Contact sales
Australian company Defendtex is openly marketing these autonomous, swarming devices on their website (“Contact Sales Manager”). How the defence industry crosses over to Shopify will be a trend to track for the next decade...
(Top spotting Brett Roberts).
1,000 year sentences in 8.5 hours
This is a piece of dystopian sci(-fi): future biotechnology could be used to trick a prisoner's mind into thinking they have served a 1,000 year sentence, a group of scientists have claimed.
Mind expanding
What I’ve been reading on the plane:
Reading list
Also, two notable books added to my reading list this week:
UK environmentalist George Monbiot was interviewed on RNZ at the weekend, talking about his new book Regenesis: Feeding the World Without Devouring the Planet:
💸Billionaire preppers
Also check out this extract from Douglas Rushkoff’s forthcoming book about Billionaire Preppers:
“Finally, the CEO of a brokerage house explained that he had nearly completed building his own underground bunker system, and asked: “How do I maintain authority over my security force after the event?” The event. That was their euphemism for the environmental collapse, social unrest, nuclear explosion, solar storm, unstoppable virus, or malicious computer hack that takes everything down.
This single question occupied us for the rest of the hour. They knew armed guards would be required to protect their compounds from raiders as well as angry mobs. One had already secured a dozen Navy Seals to make their way to his compound if he gave them the right cue. But how would he pay the guards once even his crypto was worthless? What would stop the guards from eventually choosing their own leader?
The billionaires considered using special combination locks on the food supply that only they knew. Or making guards wear disciplinary collars of some kind in return for their survival. Or maybe building robots to serve as guards and workers – if that technology could be developed “in time”.”
Dark. (But also darkly hilarious when you look at it from a slightly different angle…)
Rollcall
Two shout outs around the motu this week:
🏆KEA Kaila
Yay! One of my favourite Aotearoans1 Kaila Colbin was formally recognised for her gigantic contribution to our future at last week's KEA awards. Totally deserved award. Can’t wait to see what you focus your unbounded intelligence and energy on *next*, friend!
Te Uru Kahika
Also noting the launch of the new “N-Cap” webform from the new Te Uru Kahika initiative coordinating data collection across regional and local councils:
“The Regional Sector Webform (N-Cap) is a separate recording system that requires manual calculation of [synthetic nitrogen fertiliser usage]…which guides you through how to create the required records – this includes information such as the farm business entity, fertiliser purchases, landholding, land use along with dates, volume, and types of synthetic nitrogen application.”
For anyone who’s worked within the fragmented data interoperability of Aotearoa’s agricultural production and environmental regulation systems, this is a significant step forward to achieve a single point of entry for the environmental compliance process… big ups to Sam Ragnarsson and team for wrangling the complexities and getting this first POC launched, hopefully extensible to a wide variety of other regulatory contexts soon…
Nuggets and gems
As usual, a few pieces of in-flight entertainment to share:
Potatoes!
Imagining utopia
The possibilities from generative AI architecture are only just beginning:
Dab
⛰️Mountain views
Finally, just under 3 years ago I was standing at the 4,200m Annapurna Base Camp in Nepal, blown away by the scale of the massive 8,000-meter-plus mountains still towering above me. This was just before Covid (timing!) so I haven’t been back to Nepal since — however Everest Base Camp and a few other trails are top of my bucket list (providing I plant enough trees, natch…)
So thanks Ollie Bruce for tagging Memia in on this spectacular video:
(And while on the topic, the Netflix documentary Nothing Is Impossible on Nepali mountaineer Nimsdai Purja who managed the incredible quest to summit all 14 of the world’s 8,000-meter peaks in only seven months. That man is *FIT*. (Plus, allegedly he managed to summit Annapurna with a hangover…!)
See you again next week one day late and hopefully back in Aotearoa!
Ngā mihi
Ben
Some people hate “Aotearoan” as an (anglicised) Te Reo alternative for “New Zealander”… but I reckon language is a living memeplex and this looks inevitable to me right now so leaning into it…. but hit me up with your alternative suggestions for the Memia style guide?
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