I especially liked his comments on setting projects for his PhD students. they have to be more advanced than what Google or Microsoft are doing but not totally science fiction stuff – A hard job these days I reckon.
Other interesting points was that 2-3% of the worlds energy is consumed by server farms. So the proposal is to put the server farms by the windmills and solar plants since data is so cheap to transmit. Servers need to get more intelligent so that they run closer to 100% utilisation (rather than current 30%) by switching themselves off etc.
He forsees the world running on simple low power terminals. Yep. bring back the Wyse50’s 🙂 But more likely to be mobile phones! Especially after his trip to Soweto to see how they are using phones there.
Also discussed the idea that every moving object would have a sensor hooked into a vast database so your phone could be measuring CO2 etc.
Digital Alternatives
A revealing chart showing global hectares available per person and current usage levels with the USA standing out as usual.
Evan Davis was first on, causing a small cry of dissent from the packed lecture theatre when he suggested that somehow economists should be treated like seismologists that is seismologists are not blamed for causing volcanoes – worryingly I think he thought it was a reasonable comparison (Maybe he should have gone to Ben Goldman’s talk on How the media promote public misunderstanding in science), then he suggested that economists are life’s reasonable people so perhaps he was joking after all.
Moving on he suggested that we all familarise ourselves with the wikipedia entries for:-
Then moving on to suggest that economics is studying the world through a prism of simplicity with currently to much emphasis on precision and forecasting & comparing economics to the stylised London Underground map simple but not geographically accurate. An excellent speaker with no powerpoint back up!
Next up was Michael Kitson who started up with the quote on economics by Thomas Carlyle -Dismal Science. He then moved into audience participation with the The Ultimatum Game, the most popular figure chosen was £50 whereas apparently economists would predict 1p. Then he moved onto protectionism arguing that it is needed quoting from Kicking away the ladder by Chang then an interesting slide showing that Wal-mart was the biggest engine for growth in the USA (not the hi-tech industry). A good speaker with good use of powerpoint.
Finishing with Willy Brown outlining the effects of the National minimum wage in the 10 years of its operation in the UK. The most amazing for me was that the gender wage gap in low paid workers has been eliminated and that two million employees have benefited directly without any measurable impact on employment levels (contrary to the doom mongers on its introduction). A nice observation in his work at the minimum wage commission is just how badly managed most workers are.
In question time Evan Davis replied to one questioner with the rather good expression “The government should be a referee not a player”
A good evening the theatre was 100% full with a good mixture of people.
Last nights lecture here in Cambridge was given by the redoubtable Peter Wothers, a superb talker & experimentalist, Its title was “Gods, Devils and Alcohol – Their Influence in Chemical Nomenclature” a sub title might be “With reference to shampoo ingredients accompanied with assorted explosions and fiery happenings”.
The lecture theatre was totally packed, Peter gets rave reviews as a lecturer, you can see why if you do a search for him on YouTube
He got into his stride with the fascinating history of The seven metals (and how embarrasing it was for the later folks when it was discovered there were more than 7). Plus how Newton was so obsessed with 7 that the rainbow was made to have 7 colours.
Each metal in the ancient world had an associated planet and symbol.
Metals of Antiquity with their planets and signs.
We then moved on to the unfortunate monks who were fed Antimony, anti (against) mony (monks). Then all the confusion from the area of Greece that gave us Magnesium and the lode stones Magnes. Then Lavoisier’s mistake when discovering Hydrogen (Hydro – gen – producer of water) and Oxygen which was mistakenly thought to be the acid producer. Cobalt (Kobold – mine spirits), The Nile giving as Nitre, Ammonia from sal-ammoniac – salt of Ammon-where the camels urine was collected from which it was made. Alcohol (Al- kohl Kohl is a powder which somehow gets converted to spirit ), Methyl same root as Mead.
Plus the unfortunate tale of Hamburg where Phosphorous was discovered (1669) only to be bombed with 200 tons of the stuff in 1943.
Selenium is interesting named after Selene the sister of Eos (whose lover got eternal life but not youth see my post). Interestingly Selenes lover Endymion did get eternal youth. However, he was always asleep! but still sired a good few children 🙂
We were then treated to his demonstration of a hydrogen balloon being ignited – an almighty bang! a river of flame from allowing Ether fumes to descend along a metal channel, almighty flashes from Sodium in water and his signature flash bang of a nitro cellouse coated devil being ignited – all with warning to the students on how to do them in classrooms once they graduate.
Hydrogen filled balloon about to explodeA trail of Ether vapour burning
A fantastic evening and I must say a brilliant clear lecturer. Chemistry students in Cambridge are lucky to have him!
Last night I went to a couple of excellent talks here in Cambridge. The University talks are one of the big reasons for living in Cambridge, Here is my personal list of talks. Top notch speakers excellent bright youthful audiences and free drinks afterwards whilst chatting with the leading experts of the day.
The first talk was The Business of Fairtrade . by. Ms Harriet Lamb CBE Executive Director (She graduated from Trinity Hall were the talk was given – Silly folks at Trinity Hall have taken down the web page! so no links). An excellent speaker explaining how they have now increased public awareness to over 70% with £480m sales in the UK. Apparently Sainsbury’s saw a 6% uplift in banana sales when they moved over to 100% Fairtrade. Another fact more coffee was sold in cafes than from retail for the first time last year.
I hadn’t appreciated that for a producer to be involved they first need to find a buyer, intriguing that small farmers co-ops are dealing direct with Sainsbury’s! they also need a bank account, register as a co-op, get export licences and the worst of all get a loan to support to them until the first harvest. Any of these is quite a problem.
Fairtrade coffee bean prices
However, for those who get in the effect can be tremendous as Fairtrade acts to give a guaranteed base price for their crop. Here is a graph demonstrating this for Arabica Coffee beans.
Tremendous discussion afterwards, especially regarding Cambridge City’s Fairtrade status (Public meeting at Friends Meeting House on 20Nov 2008).
I skipped the drinks and hurried onto….
Who wants to live forever? Exploring the impact of extreme ageing
I was easily the oldest one here!. We were first reminded that ageing may be curable but it hasn’t been cured! and the difference between development and ageing is that Development means functions improve with time whereas ageing is about functions dimiishing with time 🙂
Thymus reduction with age
A suitable gasp went up when Klaus Okkenhaug after explaining the role of The Thymus in producing T protector sales and then pointing out the Thymus starts reducing in size from when you are born and in fact at 40 is already 1/2 its original size.
Aubrey de Grey pointed out that ageing is very bad for you in fact 90% of deaths in the West are due to ageing! Interestingly the biggest cause of deaths in the audience demographic is suicide.
Guy Brown pointed out that death is now preceded by 10 years of ill health and that currently 25% die with dementia by 2050 this will increase to 50% (dementia is strongly age related hence as we live longer more will get it).
Which brings me to my post’s title – the story of Tithonus who wished for eternal life to spend with his beloved goddess Eos in Greek myth. However, he didn’t get eternal youth so progressively withered away to be eventually made into a cricket (the crickets chirping is meant to represent old mens grumblings!).
A really excellent evening, especially listening to Richard Faragher afterwards reciting his experience in killing the worlds oldest living creature, some mollusc which apparently was in excess of 450 years old and smelt like a rotten tooth! Another factoid is that whales are now dying naturally which were tagged with harpoons from the whaling days – the harpoons apparently were date stamped by their manufacturers.
A great Cambridge evening and nice to know what awaits me in 20 years if I’m lucky!
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