British physicist and engineer (1824-1907)
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Lt Gen (Ret.) Steven L. Kwast welcomes Jonathan Drake back to ask the question Kepler and Maxwell never thought was strange: what are the heavens declaring? Spoiler. They are declaring the glory of God, in patterns precise enough to govern physics and beautiful enough to fold into a sunflower. Drake walks through his essay calling the ether the fingerprint of God, the toroidal Fibonacci pattern that shows up in magnetic fields, weather systems, and watersheds. The thread that pulls it all together is grounding. Source, radiation, return. Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Lover, beloved, and the love between them. Why does water flow downhill, why does lightning fork, why do circuits need a ground? Because the Trinity itself grounds back to itself in perfect relationship. From there it gets wild and useful. Sin as short circuiting. Counter space and the dielectric as the missing language of physics. Tesla claiming no distance exists in the medium. Kwast's AI trained only on God's physics rather than human bullshit, and what that means for spotting lies in real time. They close with reading lists for the brave and Lord Kelvin's wager that science honestly pursued leads straight to God.
Quand un bateau avance sur l'eau, il laisse derrière lui un étrange motif en forme de V. Ce phénomène paraît banal, mais il cache en réalité une loi physique fascinante : quel que soit l'objet qui se déplace à la surface de l'eau — un canard, une planche de surf ou un immense porte-conteneurs — l'angle de ce V reste pratiquement toujours le même. Environ 39 degrés au total, soit un peu moins de 20 degrés de chaque côté. Ce motif porte un nom : le “sillage de Kelvin”.Ce mystère fut résolu en 1885 par William Thomson, célèbre physicien écossais à qui l'on doit aussi l'échelle de température Kelvin et le concept de zéro absolu.Pour comprendre ce phénomène, il faut imaginer ce qui se passe lorsqu'un objet glisse sur l'eau. Il crée des vagues dans toutes les directions. Mais toutes ces vagues ne se déplacent pas à la même vitesse. Contrairement aux sons ou à la lumière, les vagues de surface obéissent à des règles complexes : certaines avancent vite, d'autres lentement, selon leur longueur.Le résultat est surprenant. Les vagues produites par l'objet finissent par se regrouper dans une zone bien précise derrière lui. Elles se renforcent mutuellement dans certaines directions et s'annulent ailleurs. Ce mécanisme d'interférences crée alors cette forme caractéristique en V.Mais pourquoi exactement 39 degrés ? Lord Kelvin a démontré mathématiquement que, dans l'eau profonde, les vagues les plus visibles ne peuvent pas sortir d'un cône d'environ 19,5 degrés de chaque côté de la trajectoire. Si l'on additionne les deux côtés du V, on obtient environ 39 degrés.Et c'est là le plus étonnant : cet angle ne dépend presque ni de la taille ni de la vitesse du bateau. Un petit canard et un gigantesque supertanker produisent donc théoriquement le même angle de sillage.Pendant plus d'un siècle, cette règle fut considérée comme universelle. Mais récemment, les chercheurs ont remarqué que certains bateaux très rapides semblaient produire des sillages plus étroits. En réalité, le sillage complet garde bien la structure prédite par Kelvin, mais certaines vagues deviennent moins visibles à haute vitesse, donnant l'impression d'un angle plus petit.Le sillage de Kelvin est aujourd'hui étudié dans de nombreux domaines. Il aide les ingénieurs navals à concevoir des bateaux plus efficaces et permet même aux satellites de repérer des navires depuis l'espace en observant les motifs laissés sur l'océan.Ainsi, derrière le simple V tracé par un bateau se cache une magnifique démonstration des lois des vagues, des mathématiques et de la physique des fluides. Hébergé par Acast. Visitez acast.com/privacy pour plus d'informations.
Episode: 1568 Lord Kelvin's miscalculation of the age of the earth. Today, a Victorian scientist miscalculates the age of the earth.
En 1704, Isaac Newton calculaba en un manuscrito secreto una posible fecha del último día de la Tierra: año 2060. No fue el único: desde los estoicos hasta Lord Kelvin, cada época ha calculado el fin a su manera, como intuyendo que el planeta tiene una cuenta regresiva cuyo tic tac podemos detectar. Pero sólo en 1952, en una pizarra de Múnich, el físico Winfried Schumann descubre que el planeta tiene un pulso real. Un tic tac a razón de 7,8 pulsos por segundo que desde 2023 se acelera. ¿Es el tic tac del clima, como bomba de relojería? Charlamos del tiempo que nos queda, de contaminación con efectos 'positivos' inesperados y de geoingeniería para cambiar el tiempo con la física Mar Gómez.
On today's classic ID the Future out of the vault, astrobiologist Guillermo Gonzalez and host Casey Luskin discuss the idea of undirected panspermia. Gonzalez explains the basic idea and what the best current evidence says about its plausibility. The occasion is his chapter on panspermia in the anthology The Comprehensive Guide to Science and Faith, co-edited by Casey Luskin, associate director of Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture. Undirected panspermia is the idea that the first life on our planet came from outer space, carried by chance processes from a faraway living planet on space dust, asteroids, or comets either from within our solar system, or from another star system to here. The idea of panspermia was inspired by the extreme difficulty of satisfactorily explaining the chance origin of life on planet Earth. Two of the idea's earliest proponents, Gonzalez notes, were the scientists Lord Kelvin and Svante Arrhenius, each with a different take. Gonzalez argues that our increasing knowledge about the conditions of interstellar space renders the idea of life successfully hitchhiking around trillions of miles and millions of years from a faraway star system to our big blue marble unlikely in the extreme. Source
“I would say a fundamental discovery really becomes true when you can apply it to something concrete.” In this conversation, recorded after two hectic days following the prize announcement, new physics laureate Michel Devoret reflects on the excitement of seeing the fruits of research. He also talks about his co-laureate John Clarke, one of his role models, together with Lord Kelvin. Devoret describes how he woke on announcement day to find that the world already knew the news: “I had completely forgotten that October was the Nobel Prize month!” © Nobel Prize Outreach. First reactions terms of use: https://www.nobelprize.org/ceremonies/streams-terms-of-use Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Einstein's Fridge: How the Difference Between Hot and Cold Explains the Universe (Scribner, 2021) tells the incredible epic story of the scientists who, over two centuries, harnessed the power of heat and ice and formulated a theory essential to comprehending our universe. “Although thermodynamics has been studied for hundreds of years…few nonscientists appreciate how its principles have shaped the modern world” (Scientific American). Thermodynamics—the branch of physics that deals with energy and entropy—governs everything from the behavior of living cells to the black hole at the center of our galaxy. Not only that, but thermodynamics explains why we must eat and breathe, how lights turn on, the limits of computing, and how the universe will end.The brilliant people who decoded its laws came from every branch of the sciences; they were engineers, physicists, chemists, biologists, cosmologists, and mathematicians. From French military engineer and physicist Sadi Carnot to Lord Kelvin, James Joule, Albert Einstein, Emmy Noether, Alan Turing, and Stephen Hawking, author Paul Sen introduces us to all of the players who passed the baton of scientific progress through time and across nations. Incredibly driven and idealistic, these brave pioneers performed groundbreaking work often in the face of torment and tragedy. Their discoveries helped create the modern world and transformed every branch of science, from biology to cosmology.“Elegantly written and engaging” (Financial Times), Einstein's Fridge brings to life one of the most important scientific revolutions of all time and captures the thrill of discovery and the power of scientific progress to shape the course of history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
Einstein's Fridge: How the Difference Between Hot and Cold Explains the Universe (Scribner, 2021) tells the incredible epic story of the scientists who, over two centuries, harnessed the power of heat and ice and formulated a theory essential to comprehending our universe. “Although thermodynamics has been studied for hundreds of years…few nonscientists appreciate how its principles have shaped the modern world” (Scientific American). Thermodynamics—the branch of physics that deals with energy and entropy—governs everything from the behavior of living cells to the black hole at the center of our galaxy. Not only that, but thermodynamics explains why we must eat and breathe, how lights turn on, the limits of computing, and how the universe will end.The brilliant people who decoded its laws came from every branch of the sciences; they were engineers, physicists, chemists, biologists, cosmologists, and mathematicians. From French military engineer and physicist Sadi Carnot to Lord Kelvin, James Joule, Albert Einstein, Emmy Noether, Alan Turing, and Stephen Hawking, author Paul Sen introduces us to all of the players who passed the baton of scientific progress through time and across nations. Incredibly driven and idealistic, these brave pioneers performed groundbreaking work often in the face of torment and tragedy. Their discoveries helped create the modern world and transformed every branch of science, from biology to cosmology.“Elegantly written and engaging” (Financial Times), Einstein's Fridge brings to life one of the most important scientific revolutions of all time and captures the thrill of discovery and the power of scientific progress to shape the course of history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science
Einstein's Fridge: How the Difference Between Hot and Cold Explains the Universe (Scribner, 2021) tells the incredible epic story of the scientists who, over two centuries, harnessed the power of heat and ice and formulated a theory essential to comprehending our universe. “Although thermodynamics has been studied for hundreds of years…few nonscientists appreciate how its principles have shaped the modern world” (Scientific American). Thermodynamics—the branch of physics that deals with energy and entropy—governs everything from the behavior of living cells to the black hole at the center of our galaxy. Not only that, but thermodynamics explains why we must eat and breathe, how lights turn on, the limits of computing, and how the universe will end.The brilliant people who decoded its laws came from every branch of the sciences; they were engineers, physicists, chemists, biologists, cosmologists, and mathematicians. From French military engineer and physicist Sadi Carnot to Lord Kelvin, James Joule, Albert Einstein, Emmy Noether, Alan Turing, and Stephen Hawking, author Paul Sen introduces us to all of the players who passed the baton of scientific progress through time and across nations. Incredibly driven and idealistic, these brave pioneers performed groundbreaking work often in the face of torment and tragedy. Their discoveries helped create the modern world and transformed every branch of science, from biology to cosmology.“Elegantly written and engaging” (Financial Times), Einstein's Fridge brings to life one of the most important scientific revolutions of all time and captures the thrill of discovery and the power of scientific progress to shape the course of history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Good Sunday morning to you,I am just on a train home from Glasgow, where I have been gigging these past two nights. I've had a great time, as I always seem to do when I go north of the wall.But Glasgow on a Saturday night is something else. My hotel was right next to the station and so I was right in the thick of it. If I ever get to make a cacatopian, end-of-days, post-apocalyptic thriller, I'll just stroll through Glasgow city centre on a Friday or Saturday night with a camera to get all the B roll. It was like walking through a Hieronymus Bosch painting only with a Scottish accent. Little seems to have changed since I wrote that infamous chapter about Glasgow in Life After the State all those years ago. The only difference is that now it's more multi-ethnic. So many people are so off their heads. I lost count of the number of randoms wandering about just howling at the stars. The long days - it was still light at 10 o'clock - make the insanity all the more visible. Part of me finds it funny, but another part of me finds it so very sad that so many people let themselves get into this condition. It prompted me to revisit said chapter, and I offer it today as your Sunday thought piece.Just a couple of little notes, before we begin. This caught my eye on Friday. Our favourite uranium tech company, Lightbridge Fuels (NASDAQ:LTBR), has taken off again with Donald Trump's statement that he is going to quadruple US nuclear capacity. The stock was up 45% in a day. We first looked at it in October at $3. It hit $15 on Friday. It's one to sell on the spikes and buy on the dips, as this incredible chart shows.(In other news I have now listened twice to the Comstock Lode AGM, and I'll report back on that shortly too). ICYMI here is my mid-week commentary, which attracted a lot of attentionRight - Glasgow.(NB I haven't included references here. Needless to say, they are all there in the book. And sorry I don't have access to the audio of me reading this from my laptop, but, if you like, you can get the audiobook at Audible, Apple Books and all good audiobookshops. The book itself available at Amazon, Apple Books et al).How the Most Entrepreneurial City in Europe Became Its SickestThe cause of waves of unemployment is not capitalism, but governments …Friedrich Hayek, economist and philosopherIn the 18th and 19th centuries, the city of Glasgow in Scotland became enormously, stupendously rich. It happened quite organically, without planning. An entrepreneurial people reacted to their circumstances and, over time, turned Glasgow into an industrial and economic centre of such might that, by the turn of the 20th century, Glasgow was producing half the tonnage of Britain's ships and a quarter of all locomotives in the world. (Not unlike China's industrial dominance today). It was regarded as the best-governed city in Europe and popular histories compared it to the great imperial cities of Venice and Rome. It became known as the ‘Second City of the British Empire'.Barely 100 years later, it is the heroin capital of the UK, the murder capital of the UK and its East End, once home to Europe's largest steelworks, has been dubbed ‘the benefits capital of the UK'. Glasgow is Britain's fattest city: its men have Britain's lowest life expectancy – on a par with Palestine and Albania – and its unemployment rate is 50% higher than the rest of the UK.How did Glasgow manage all that?The growth in Glasgow's economic fortunes began in the latter part of the 17th century and the early 18th century. First, the city's location in the west of Scotland at the mouth of the river Clyde meant that it lay in the path of the trade winds and at least 100 nautical miles closer to America's east coast than other British ports – 200 miles closer than London. In the days before fossil fuels (which only found widespread use in shipping in the second half of the 19th century) the journey to Virginia was some two weeks shorter than the same journey from London or many of the other ports in Britain and Europe. Even modern sailors describe how easy the port of Glasgow is to navigate. Second, when England was at war with France – as it was repeatedly between 1688 and 1815 – ships travelling to Glasgow were less vulnerable than those travelling to ports further south. Glasgow's merchants took advantage and, by the early 18th century, the city had begun to assert itself as a trading hub. Manufactured goods were carried from Britain and Europe to North America and the Caribbean, where they were traded for increasingly popular commodities such as tobacco, cotton and sugar.Through the 18th century, the Glasgow merchants' business networks spread, and they took steps to further accelerate trade. New ships were introduced, bigger than those of rival ports, with fore and aft sails that enabled them to sail closer to the wind and reduce journey times. Trading posts were built to ensure that cargo was gathered and stored for collection, so that ships wouldn't swing idly at anchor. By the 1760s Glasgow had a 50% share of the tobacco trade – as much as the rest of Britain's ports combined. While the English merchants simply sold American tobacco in Europe at a profit, the Glaswegians actually extended credit to American farmers against future production (a bit like a crop future today, where a crop to be grown at a later date is sold now). The Virginia farmers could then use this credit to buy European goods, which the Glaswegians were only too happy to supply. This brought about the rise of financial institutions such as the Glasgow Ship Bank and the Glasgow Thistle Bank, which would later become part of the now-bailed-out, taxpayer-owned Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS).Their practices paid rewards. Glasgow's merchants earned a great deal of money. They built glamorous homes and large churches and, it seems, took on aristocratic airs – hence they became known as the ‘Tobacco Lords'. Numbering among them were Buchanan, Dunlop, Ingram, Wilson, Oswald, Cochrane and Glassford, all of whom had streets in the Merchant City district of Glasgow named after them (other streets, such as Virginia Street and Jamaica Street, refer to their trade destinations). In 1771, over 47 million pounds of tobacco were imported.However, the credit the Glaswegians extended to American tobacco farmers would backfire. The debts incurred by the tobacco farmers – which included future presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson (who almost lost his farm as a result) – grew, and were among the grievances when the American War of Independence came in 1775. That war destroyed the tobacco trade for the Glaswegians. Much of the money that was owed to them was never repaid. Many of their plantations were lost. But the Glaswegians were entrepreneurial and they adapted. They moved on to other businesses, particularly cotton.By the 19th century, all sorts of local industry had emerged around the goods traded in the city. It was producing and exporting textiles, chemicals, engineered goods and steel. River engineering projects to dredge and deepen the Clyde (with a view to forming a deep- water port) had begun in 1768 and they would enable shipbuilding to become a major industry on the upper reaches of the river, pioneered by industrialists such as Robert Napier and John Elder. The final stretch of the Monkland Canal, linking the Forth and Clyde Canal at Port Dundas, was opened in 1795, facilitating access to the iron-ore and coal mines of Lanarkshire.The move to fossil-fuelled shipping in the latter 19th century destroyed the advantages that the trade winds had given Glasgow. But it didn't matter. Again, the people adapted. By the turn of the 20th century the Second City of the British Empire had become a world centre of industry and heavy engineering. It has been estimated that, between 1870 and 1914, it produced as much as one-fifth of the world's ships, and half of Britain's tonnage. Among the 25,000 ships it produced were some of the greatest ever built: the Cutty Sark, the Queen Mary, HMS Hood, the Lusitania, the Glenlee tall ship and even the iconic Mississippi paddle steamer, the Delta Queen. It had also become a centre for locomotive manufacture and, shortly after the turn of the 20th century, could boast the largest concentration of locomotive building works in Europe.It was not just Glasgow's industry and wealth that was so gargantuan. The city's contribution to mankind – made possible by the innovation and progress that comes with booming economies – would also have an international impact. Many great inventors either hailed from Glasgow or moved there to study or work. There's James Watt, for example, whose improvements to the steam engine were fundamental to the Industrial Revolution. One of Watt's employees, William Murdoch, has been dubbed ‘the Scot who lit the world' – he invented gas lighting, a new kind of steam cannon and waterproof paint. Charles MacIntosh gave us the raincoat. James Young, the chemist dubbed as ‘the father of the oil industry', gave us paraffin. William Thomson, known as Lord Kelvin, developed the science of thermodynamics, formulating the Kelvin scale of absolute temperature; he also managed the laying of the first transatlantic telegraph cable.The turning point in the economic fortunes of Glasgow – indeed, of industrial Britain – was WWI. Both have been in decline ever since. By the end of the war, the British were drained, both emotionally and in terms of capital and manpower; the workers, the entrepreneurs, the ideas men, too many of them were dead or incapacitated. There was insufficient money and no appetite to invest. The post-war recession, and later the Great Depression, did little to help. The trend of the city was now one of inexorable economic decline.If Glasgow was the home of shipping and industry in 19th-century Britain, it became the home of socialism in the 20th century. Known by some as the ‘Red Clydeside' movement, the socialist tide in Scotland actually pre-dated the First World War. In 1906 came the city's first Labour Member of Parliament (MP), George Barnes – prior to that its seven MPs were all Conservatives or Liberal Unionists. In the spring of 1911, 11,000 workers at the Singer sewing-machine factory (run by an American corporation in Clydebank) went on strike to support 12 women who were protesting about new work practices. Singer sacked 400 workers, but the movement was growing – as was labour unrest. In the four years between 1910 and 1914 Clydebank workers spent four times as many days on strike than in the whole of the previous decade. The Scottish Trades Union Congress and its affiliations saw membership rise from 129,000 in 1909 to 230,000 in 1914.20The rise in discontent had much to do with Glasgow's housing. Conditions were bad, there was overcrowding, bad sanitation, housing was close to dirty, noxious and deafening industry. Unions grew quite organically to protect the interests of their members.Then came WWI, and inflation, as Britain all but abandoned gold. In 1915 many landlords responded by attempting to increase rent, but with their young men on the Western front, those left behind didn't have the means to pay these higher costs. If they couldn't, eviction soon followed. In Govan, an area of Glasgow where shipbuilding was the main occupation, women – now in the majority with so many men gone – organized opposition to the rent increases. There are photographs showing women blocking the entrance to tenements; officers who did get inside to evict tenants are said to have had their trousers pulled down.The landlords were attacked for being unpatriotic. Placards read: ‘While our men are fighting on the front line,the landlord is attacking us at home.' The strikes spread to other cities throughout the UK, and on 27 November 1915 the government introduced legislation to restrict rents to the pre-war level. The strikers were placated. They had won. The government was happy; it had dealt with the problem. The landlords lost out.In the aftermath of the Russian Revolution of 1917, more frequent strikes crippled the city. In 1919 the ‘Bloody Friday' uprising prompted the prime minister, David Lloyd George, to deploy 10,000 troops and tanks onto the city's streets. By the 1930s Glasgow had become the main base of the Independent Labour Party, so when Labour finally came to power alone after WWII, its influence was strong. Glasgow has always remained a socialist stronghold. Labour dominates the city council, and the city has not had a Conservative MP for 30 years.By the late 1950s, Glasgow was losing out to the more competitive industries of Japan, Germany and elsewhere. There was a lack of investment. Union demands for workers, enforced by government legislation, made costs uneconomic and entrepreneurial activity arduous. With lack of investment came lack of innovation.Rapid de-industrialization followed, and by the 1960s and 70s most employment lay not in manufacturing, but in the service industries.Which brings us to today. On the plus side, Glasgow is still ranked as one of Europe's top 20 financial centres and is home to some leading Scottish businesses. But there is considerable downside.Recent studies have suggested that nearly 30% of Glasgow's working age population is unemployed. That's 50% higher than that of the rest of Scotland or the UK. Eighteen per cent of 16- to 19-year-olds are neither in school nor employed. More than one in five working-age Glaswegians have no sort of education that might qualify them for a job.In the city centre, the Merchant City, 50% of children are growing up in homes where nobody works. In the poorer neighbourhoods, such as Ruchill, Possilpark, or Dalmarnock, about 65% of children live in homes where nobody works – more than three times the national average. Figures from the Department of Work and Pensions show that 85% of working age adults from the district of Bridgeton claim some kind of welfare payment.Across the city, almost a third of the population regularly receives sickness or incapacity benefit, the highest rate of all UK cities. A 2008 World Health Organization report noted that in Glasgow's Calton, Bridgeton and Queenslie neighbourhoods, the average life expectancy for males is only 54. In contrast, residents of Glasgow's more affluent West End live to be 80 and virtually none of them are on the dole.Glasgow has the highest crime rate in Scotland. A recent report by the Centre for Social Justice noted that there are 170 teenage gangs in Glasgow. That's the same number as in London, which has over six times the population of Glasgow.It also has the dubious record of being Britain's murder capital. In fact, Glasgow had the highest homicide rate in Western Europe until it was overtaken in 2012 by Amsterdam, with more violent crime per head of population than even New York. What's more, its suicide rate is the highest in the UK.Then there are the drug and alcohol problems. The residents of the poorer neighbourhoods are an astounding six times more likely to die of a drugs overdose than the national average. Drug-related mortality has increased by 95% since 1997. There are 20,000 registered drug users – that's just registered – and the situation is not going to get any better: children who grow up in households where family members use drugs are seven times more likely to end up using drugs themselves than children who live in drug-free families.Glasgow has the highest incidence of liver diseases from alcohol abuse in all of Scotland. In the East End district of Dennistoun, these illnesses kill more people than heart attacks and lung cancer combined. Men and women are more likely to die of alcohol-related deaths in Glasgow than anywhere else in the UK. Time and time again Glasgow is proud winner of the title ‘Fattest City in Britain'. Around 40% of the population are obese – 5% morbidly so – and it also boasts the most smokers per capita.I have taken these statistics from an array of different sources. It might be in some cases that they're overstated. I know that I've accentuated both the 18th- and 19th-century positives, as well as the 20th- and 21st-century negatives to make my point. Of course, there are lots of healthy, happy people in Glasgow – I've done many gigs there and I loved it. Despite the stories you hear about intimidating Glasgow audiences, the ones I encountered were as good as any I've ever performed in front of. But none of this changes the broad-brush strokes: Glasgow was a once mighty city that now has grave social problems. It is a city that is not fulfilling its potential in the way that it once did. All in all, it's quite a transformation. How has it happened?Every few years a report comes out that highlights Glasgow's various problems. Comments are then sought from across the political spectrum. Usually, those asked to comment agree that the city has grave, ‘long-standing and deep-rooted social problems' (the words of Stephen Purcell, former leader of Glasgow City Council); they agree that something needs to be done, though they don't always agree on what that something is.There's the view from the right: Bill Aitken of the Scottish Conservatives, quoted in The Sunday Times in 2008, said, ‘We simply don't have the jobs for people who are not academically inclined. Another factor is that some people are simply disinclined to work. We have got to find something for these people to do, to give them a reason to get up in the morning and give them some self-respect.' There's the supposedly apolitical view of anti-poverty groups: Peter Kelly, director of the Glasgow-based Poverty Alliance, responded, ‘We need real, intensive support for people if we are going to tackle poverty. It's not about a lack of aspiration, often people who are unemployed or on low incomes are stymied by a lack of money and support from local and central government.' And there's the view from the left. In the same article, Patricia Ferguson, the Labour Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for Maryhill, also declared a belief in government regeneration of the area. ‘It's about better housing, more jobs, better education and these things take years to make an impact. I believe that the huge regeneration in the area is fostering a lot more community involvement and cohesion. My real hope is that these figures will take a knock in the next five or ten years.' At the time of writing in 2013, five years later, the figures have worsened.All three points of view agree on one thing: the government must do something.In 2008 the £435 million Fairer Scotland Fund – established to tackle poverty – was unveiled, aiming to allocate cash to the country's most deprived communities. Its targets included increasing average income among lower wage-earners and narrowing the poverty gap between Scotland's best- and worst-performing regions by 2017. So far, it hasn't met those targets.In 2008 a report entitled ‘Power for The Public' examined the provision of health, education and justice in Scotland. It said the budgets for these three areas had grown by 55%, 87% and 44% respectively over the last decade, but added that this had produced ‘mixed results'. ‘Mixed results' means it didn't work. More money was spent and the figures got worse.After the Centre for Social Justice report on Glasgow in 2008, Iain Duncan Smith (who set up this think tank, and is now the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions) said, ‘Policy must deal with the pathways to breakdown – high levels of family breakdown, high levels of failed education, debt and unemployment.'So what are ‘pathways to breakdown'? If you were to look at a chart of Glasgow's prosperity relative to the rest of the world, its peak would have come somewhere around 1910. With the onset of WWI in 1914 its decline accelerated, and since then the falls have been relentless and inexorable. It's not just Glasgow that would have this chart pattern, but the whole of industrial Britain. What changed the trend? Yes, empires rise and fall, but was British decline all a consequence of WWI? Or was there something else?A seismic shift came with that war – a change which is very rarely spoken or written about. Actually, the change was gradual and it pre-dated 1914. It was a change that was sweeping through the West: that of government or state involvement in our lives. In the UK it began with the reforms of the Liberal government of 1906–14, championed by David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill, known as the ‘terrible twins' by contemporaries. The Pensions Act of 1908, the People's Budget of 1909–10 (to ‘wage implacable warfare against poverty', declared Lloyd George) and the National Insurance Act of 1911 saw the Liberal government moving away from its tradition of laissez-faire systems – from classical liberalism and Gladstonian principles of self-help and self-reliance – towards larger, more active government by which taxes were collected from the wealthy and the proceeds redistributed. Afraid of losing votes to the emerging Labour party and the increasingly popular ideology of socialism, modern liberals betrayed their classical principles. In his War Memoirs, Lloyd George said ‘the partisan warfare that raged around these topics was so fierce that by 1913, this country was brought to the verge of civil war'. But these were small steps. The Pensions Act, for example, meant that men aged 70 and above could claim between two and five shillings per week from the government. But average male life- expectancy then was 47. Today it's 77. Using the same ratio, and, yes, I'm manipulating statistics here, that's akin to only awarding pensions to people above the age 117 today. Back then it was workable.To go back to my analogy of the prologue, this period was when the ‘train' was set in motion across the West. In 1914 it went up a gear. Here are the opening paragraphs of historian A. J. P. Taylor's most celebrated book, English History 1914–1945, published in 1965.I quote this long passage in full, because it is so telling.Until August 1914 a sensible, law-abiding Englishman could pass through life and hardly notice the existence of the state, beyond the post office and the policeman. He could live where he liked and as he liked. He had no official number or identity card. He could travel abroad or leave his country forever without a passport or any sort of official permission. He could exchange his money for any other currency without restriction or limit. He could buy goods from any country in the world on the same terms as he bought goods at home. For that matter, a foreigner could spend his life in this country without permit and without informing the police. Unlike the countries of the European continent, the state did not require its citizens to perform military service. An Englishman could enlist, if he chose, in the regular army, the navy, or the territorials. He could also ignore, if he chose, the demands of national defence. Substantial householders were occasionally called on for jury service. Otherwise, only those helped the state, who wished to do so. The Englishman paid taxes on a modest scale: nearly £200 million in 1913–14, or rather less than 8% of the national income.The state intervened to prevent the citizen from eating adulterated food or contracting certain infectious diseases. It imposed safety rules in factories, and prevented women, and adult males in some industries,from working excessive hours.The state saw to it that children received education up to the age of 13. Since 1 January 1909, it provided a meagre pension for the needy over the age of 70. Since 1911, it helped to insure certain classes of workers against sickness and unemployment. This tendency towards more state action was increasing. Expenditure on the social services had roughly doubled since the Liberals took office in 1905. Still, broadly speaking, the state acted only to help those who could not help themselves. It left the adult citizen alone.All this was changed by the impact of the Great War. The mass of the people became, for the first time, active citizens. Their lives were shaped by orders from above; they were required to serve the state instead of pursuing exclusively their own affairs. Five million men entered the armed forces, many of them (though a minority) under compulsion. The Englishman's food was limited, and its quality changed, by government order. His freedom of movement was restricted; his conditions of work prescribed. Some industries were reduced or closed, others artificially fostered. The publication of news was fettered. Street lights were dimmed. The sacred freedom of drinking was tampered with: licensed hours were cut down, and the beer watered by order. The very time on the clocks was changed. From 1916 onwards, every Englishman got up an hour earlier in summer than he would otherwise have done, thanks to an act of parliament. The state established a hold over its citizens which, though relaxed in peacetime, was never to be removed and which the Second World war was again to increase. The history of the English state and of the English people merged for the first time.Since the beginning of WWI , the role that the state has played in our lives has not stopped growing. This has been especially so in the case of Glasgow. The state has spent more and more, provided more and more services, more subsidy, more education, more health care, more infrastructure, more accommodation, more benefits, more regulations, more laws, more protection. The more it has provided, the worse Glasgow has fared. Is this correlation a coincidence? I don't think so.The story of the rise and fall of Glasgow is a distilled version of the story of the rise and fall of industrial Britain – indeed the entire industrial West. In the next chapter I'm going to show you a simple mistake that goes on being made; a dynamic by which the state, whose very aim was to help Glasgow, has actually been its ‘pathway to breakdown' . . .Life After the State is available at Amazon, Apple Books and all good bookshops, with the audiobook at Audible, Apple Books and all good audiobookshops. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theflyingfrisby.com/subscribe
Good Sunday morning to you,I am just on a train home from Glasgow, where I have been gigging these past two nights. I've had a great time, as I always seem to do when I go north of the wall.But Glasgow on a Saturday night is something else. My hotel was right next to the station and so I was right in the thick of it. If I ever get to make a cacatopian, end-of-days, post-apocalyptic thriller, I'll just stroll through Glasgow city centre on a Friday or Saturday night with a camera to get all the B roll. It was like walking through a Hieronymus Bosch painting only with a Scottish accent. Little seems to have changed since I wrote that infamous chapter about Glasgow in Life After the State all those years ago. The only difference is that now it's more multi-ethnic. So many people are so off their heads. I lost count of the number of randoms wandering about just howling at the stars. The long days - it was still light at 10 o'clock - make the insanity all the more visible. Part of me finds it funny, but another part of me finds it so very sad that so many people let themselves get into this condition. It prompted me to revisit said chapter, and I offer it today as your Sunday thought piece.Just a couple of little notes, before we begin. This caught my eye on Friday. Our favourite uranium tech company, Lightbridge Fuels (NASDAQ:LTBR), has taken off again with Donald Trump's statement that he is going to quadruple US nuclear capacity. The stock was up 45% in a day. We first looked at it in October at $3. It hit $15 on Friday. It's one to sell on the spikes and buy on the dips, as this incredible chart shows.(In other news I have now listened twice to the Comstock Lode AGM, and I'll report back on that shortly too). ICYMI here is my mid-week commentary, which attracted a lot of attentionRight - Glasgow.(NB I haven't included references here. Needless to say, they are all there in the book. And sorry I don't have access to the audio of me reading this from my laptop, but, if you like, you can get the audiobook at Audible, Apple Books and all good audiobookshops. The book itself available at Amazon, Apple Books et al).How the Most Entrepreneurial City in Europe Became Its SickestThe cause of waves of unemployment is not capitalism, but governments …Friedrich Hayek, economist and philosopherIn the 18th and 19th centuries, the city of Glasgow in Scotland became enormously, stupendously rich. It happened quite organically, without planning. An entrepreneurial people reacted to their circumstances and, over time, turned Glasgow into an industrial and economic centre of such might that, by the turn of the 20th century, Glasgow was producing half the tonnage of Britain's ships and a quarter of all locomotives in the world. (Not unlike China's industrial dominance today). It was regarded as the best-governed city in Europe and popular histories compared it to the great imperial cities of Venice and Rome. It became known as the ‘Second City of the British Empire'.Barely 100 years later, it is the heroin capital of the UK, the murder capital of the UK and its East End, once home to Europe's largest steelworks, has been dubbed ‘the benefits capital of the UK'. Glasgow is Britain's fattest city: its men have Britain's lowest life expectancy – on a par with Palestine and Albania – and its unemployment rate is 50% higher than the rest of the UK.How did Glasgow manage all that?The growth in Glasgow's economic fortunes began in the latter part of the 17th century and the early 18th century. First, the city's location in the west of Scotland at the mouth of the river Clyde meant that it lay in the path of the trade winds and at least 100 nautical miles closer to America's east coast than other British ports – 200 miles closer than London. In the days before fossil fuels (which only found widespread use in shipping in the second half of the 19th century) the journey to Virginia was some two weeks shorter than the same journey from London or many of the other ports in Britain and Europe. Even modern sailors describe how easy the port of Glasgow is to navigate. Second, when England was at war with France – as it was repeatedly between 1688 and 1815 – ships travelling to Glasgow were less vulnerable than those travelling to ports further south. Glasgow's merchants took advantage and, by the early 18th century, the city had begun to assert itself as a trading hub. Manufactured goods were carried from Britain and Europe to North America and the Caribbean, where they were traded for increasingly popular commodities such as tobacco, cotton and sugar.Through the 18th century, the Glasgow merchants' business networks spread, and they took steps to further accelerate trade. New ships were introduced, bigger than those of rival ports, with fore and aft sails that enabled them to sail closer to the wind and reduce journey times. Trading posts were built to ensure that cargo was gathered and stored for collection, so that ships wouldn't swing idly at anchor. By the 1760s Glasgow had a 50% share of the tobacco trade – as much as the rest of Britain's ports combined. While the English merchants simply sold American tobacco in Europe at a profit, the Glaswegians actually extended credit to American farmers against future production (a bit like a crop future today, where a crop to be grown at a later date is sold now). The Virginia farmers could then use this credit to buy European goods, which the Glaswegians were only too happy to supply. This brought about the rise of financial institutions such as the Glasgow Ship Bank and the Glasgow Thistle Bank, which would later become part of the now-bailed-out, taxpayer-owned Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS).Their practices paid rewards. Glasgow's merchants earned a great deal of money. They built glamorous homes and large churches and, it seems, took on aristocratic airs – hence they became known as the ‘Tobacco Lords'. Numbering among them were Buchanan, Dunlop, Ingram, Wilson, Oswald, Cochrane and Glassford, all of whom had streets in the Merchant City district of Glasgow named after them (other streets, such as Virginia Street and Jamaica Street, refer to their trade destinations). In 1771, over 47 million pounds of tobacco were imported.However, the credit the Glaswegians extended to American tobacco farmers would backfire. The debts incurred by the tobacco farmers – which included future presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson (who almost lost his farm as a result) – grew, and were among the grievances when the American War of Independence came in 1775. That war destroyed the tobacco trade for the Glaswegians. Much of the money that was owed to them was never repaid. Many of their plantations were lost. But the Glaswegians were entrepreneurial and they adapted. They moved on to other businesses, particularly cotton.By the 19th century, all sorts of local industry had emerged around the goods traded in the city. It was producing and exporting textiles, chemicals, engineered goods and steel. River engineering projects to dredge and deepen the Clyde (with a view to forming a deep- water port) had begun in 1768 and they would enable shipbuilding to become a major industry on the upper reaches of the river, pioneered by industrialists such as Robert Napier and John Elder. The final stretch of the Monkland Canal, linking the Forth and Clyde Canal at Port Dundas, was opened in 1795, facilitating access to the iron-ore and coal mines of Lanarkshire.The move to fossil-fuelled shipping in the latter 19th century destroyed the advantages that the trade winds had given Glasgow. But it didn't matter. Again, the people adapted. By the turn of the 20th century the Second City of the British Empire had become a world centre of industry and heavy engineering. It has been estimated that, between 1870 and 1914, it produced as much as one-fifth of the world's ships, and half of Britain's tonnage. Among the 25,000 ships it produced were some of the greatest ever built: the Cutty Sark, the Queen Mary, HMS Hood, the Lusitania, the Glenlee tall ship and even the iconic Mississippi paddle steamer, the Delta Queen. It had also become a centre for locomotive manufacture and, shortly after the turn of the 20th century, could boast the largest concentration of locomotive building works in Europe.It was not just Glasgow's industry and wealth that was so gargantuan. The city's contribution to mankind – made possible by the innovation and progress that comes with booming economies – would also have an international impact. Many great inventors either hailed from Glasgow or moved there to study or work. There's James Watt, for example, whose improvements to the steam engine were fundamental to the Industrial Revolution. One of Watt's employees, William Murdoch, has been dubbed ‘the Scot who lit the world' – he invented gas lighting, a new kind of steam cannon and waterproof paint. Charles MacIntosh gave us the raincoat. James Young, the chemist dubbed as ‘the father of the oil industry', gave us paraffin. William Thomson, known as Lord Kelvin, developed the science of thermodynamics, formulating the Kelvin scale of absolute temperature; he also managed the laying of the first transatlantic telegraph cable.The turning point in the economic fortunes of Glasgow – indeed, of industrial Britain – was WWI. Both have been in decline ever since. By the end of the war, the British were drained, both emotionally and in terms of capital and manpower; the workers, the entrepreneurs, the ideas men, too many of them were dead or incapacitated. There was insufficient money and no appetite to invest. The post-war recession, and later the Great Depression, did little to help. The trend of the city was now one of inexorable economic decline.If Glasgow was the home of shipping and industry in 19th-century Britain, it became the home of socialism in the 20th century. Known by some as the ‘Red Clydeside' movement, the socialist tide in Scotland actually pre-dated the First World War. In 1906 came the city's first Labour Member of Parliament (MP), George Barnes – prior to that its seven MPs were all Conservatives or Liberal Unionists. In the spring of 1911, 11,000 workers at the Singer sewing-machine factory (run by an American corporation in Clydebank) went on strike to support 12 women who were protesting about new work practices. Singer sacked 400 workers, but the movement was growing – as was labour unrest. In the four years between 1910 and 1914 Clydebank workers spent four times as many days on strike than in the whole of the previous decade. The Scottish Trades Union Congress and its affiliations saw membership rise from 129,000 in 1909 to 230,000 in 1914.20The rise in discontent had much to do with Glasgow's housing. Conditions were bad, there was overcrowding, bad sanitation, housing was close to dirty, noxious and deafening industry. Unions grew quite organically to protect the interests of their members.Then came WWI, and inflation, as Britain all but abandoned gold. In 1915 many landlords responded by attempting to increase rent, but with their young men on the Western front, those left behind didn't have the means to pay these higher costs. If they couldn't, eviction soon followed. In Govan, an area of Glasgow where shipbuilding was the main occupation, women – now in the majority with so many men gone – organized opposition to the rent increases. There are photographs showing women blocking the entrance to tenements; officers who did get inside to evict tenants are said to have had their trousers pulled down.The landlords were attacked for being unpatriotic. Placards read: ‘While our men are fighting on the front line,the landlord is attacking us at home.' The strikes spread to other cities throughout the UK, and on 27 November 1915 the government introduced legislation to restrict rents to the pre-war level. The strikers were placated. They had won. The government was happy; it had dealt with the problem. The landlords lost out.In the aftermath of the Russian Revolution of 1917, more frequent strikes crippled the city. In 1919 the ‘Bloody Friday' uprising prompted the prime minister, David Lloyd George, to deploy 10,000 troops and tanks onto the city's streets. By the 1930s Glasgow had become the main base of the Independent Labour Party, so when Labour finally came to power alone after WWII, its influence was strong. Glasgow has always remained a socialist stronghold. Labour dominates the city council, and the city has not had a Conservative MP for 30 years.By the late 1950s, Glasgow was losing out to the more competitive industries of Japan, Germany and elsewhere. There was a lack of investment. Union demands for workers, enforced by government legislation, made costs uneconomic and entrepreneurial activity arduous. With lack of investment came lack of innovation.Rapid de-industrialization followed, and by the 1960s and 70s most employment lay not in manufacturing, but in the service industries.Which brings us to today. On the plus side, Glasgow is still ranked as one of Europe's top 20 financial centres and is home to some leading Scottish businesses. But there is considerable downside.Recent studies have suggested that nearly 30% of Glasgow's working age population is unemployed. That's 50% higher than that of the rest of Scotland or the UK. Eighteen per cent of 16- to 19-year-olds are neither in school nor employed. More than one in five working-age Glaswegians have no sort of education that might qualify them for a job.In the city centre, the Merchant City, 50% of children are growing up in homes where nobody works. In the poorer neighbourhoods, such as Ruchill, Possilpark, or Dalmarnock, about 65% of children live in homes where nobody works – more than three times the national average. Figures from the Department of Work and Pensions show that 85% of working age adults from the district of Bridgeton claim some kind of welfare payment.Across the city, almost a third of the population regularly receives sickness or incapacity benefit, the highest rate of all UK cities. A 2008 World Health Organization report noted that in Glasgow's Calton, Bridgeton and Queenslie neighbourhoods, the average life expectancy for males is only 54. In contrast, residents of Glasgow's more affluent West End live to be 80 and virtually none of them are on the dole.Glasgow has the highest crime rate in Scotland. A recent report by the Centre for Social Justice noted that there are 170 teenage gangs in Glasgow. That's the same number as in London, which has over six times the population of Glasgow.It also has the dubious record of being Britain's murder capital. In fact, Glasgow had the highest homicide rate in Western Europe until it was overtaken in 2012 by Amsterdam, with more violent crime per head of population than even New York. What's more, its suicide rate is the highest in the UK.Then there are the drug and alcohol problems. The residents of the poorer neighbourhoods are an astounding six times more likely to die of a drugs overdose than the national average. Drug-related mortality has increased by 95% since 1997. There are 20,000 registered drug users – that's just registered – and the situation is not going to get any better: children who grow up in households where family members use drugs are seven times more likely to end up using drugs themselves than children who live in drug-free families.Glasgow has the highest incidence of liver diseases from alcohol abuse in all of Scotland. In the East End district of Dennistoun, these illnesses kill more people than heart attacks and lung cancer combined. Men and women are more likely to die of alcohol-related deaths in Glasgow than anywhere else in the UK. Time and time again Glasgow is proud winner of the title ‘Fattest City in Britain'. Around 40% of the population are obese – 5% morbidly so – and it also boasts the most smokers per capita.I have taken these statistics from an array of different sources. It might be in some cases that they're overstated. I know that I've accentuated both the 18th- and 19th-century positives, as well as the 20th- and 21st-century negatives to make my point. Of course, there are lots of healthy, happy people in Glasgow – I've done many gigs there and I loved it. Despite the stories you hear about intimidating Glasgow audiences, the ones I encountered were as good as any I've ever performed in front of. But none of this changes the broad-brush strokes: Glasgow was a once mighty city that now has grave social problems. It is a city that is not fulfilling its potential in the way that it once did. All in all, it's quite a transformation. How has it happened?Every few years a report comes out that highlights Glasgow's various problems. Comments are then sought from across the political spectrum. Usually, those asked to comment agree that the city has grave, ‘long-standing and deep-rooted social problems' (the words of Stephen Purcell, former leader of Glasgow City Council); they agree that something needs to be done, though they don't always agree on what that something is.There's the view from the right: Bill Aitken of the Scottish Conservatives, quoted in The Sunday Times in 2008, said, ‘We simply don't have the jobs for people who are not academically inclined. Another factor is that some people are simply disinclined to work. We have got to find something for these people to do, to give them a reason to get up in the morning and give them some self-respect.' There's the supposedly apolitical view of anti-poverty groups: Peter Kelly, director of the Glasgow-based Poverty Alliance, responded, ‘We need real, intensive support for people if we are going to tackle poverty. It's not about a lack of aspiration, often people who are unemployed or on low incomes are stymied by a lack of money and support from local and central government.' And there's the view from the left. In the same article, Patricia Ferguson, the Labour Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for Maryhill, also declared a belief in government regeneration of the area. ‘It's about better housing, more jobs, better education and these things take years to make an impact. I believe that the huge regeneration in the area is fostering a lot more community involvement and cohesion. My real hope is that these figures will take a knock in the next five or ten years.' At the time of writing in 2013, five years later, the figures have worsened.All three points of view agree on one thing: the government must do something.In 2008 the £435 million Fairer Scotland Fund – established to tackle poverty – was unveiled, aiming to allocate cash to the country's most deprived communities. Its targets included increasing average income among lower wage-earners and narrowing the poverty gap between Scotland's best- and worst-performing regions by 2017. So far, it hasn't met those targets.In 2008 a report entitled ‘Power for The Public' examined the provision of health, education and justice in Scotland. It said the budgets for these three areas had grown by 55%, 87% and 44% respectively over the last decade, but added that this had produced ‘mixed results'. ‘Mixed results' means it didn't work. More money was spent and the figures got worse.After the Centre for Social Justice report on Glasgow in 2008, Iain Duncan Smith (who set up this think tank, and is now the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions) said, ‘Policy must deal with the pathways to breakdown – high levels of family breakdown, high levels of failed education, debt and unemployment.'So what are ‘pathways to breakdown'? If you were to look at a chart of Glasgow's prosperity relative to the rest of the world, its peak would have come somewhere around 1910. With the onset of WWI in 1914 its decline accelerated, and since then the falls have been relentless and inexorable. It's not just Glasgow that would have this chart pattern, but the whole of industrial Britain. What changed the trend? Yes, empires rise and fall, but was British decline all a consequence of WWI? Or was there something else?A seismic shift came with that war – a change which is very rarely spoken or written about. Actually, the change was gradual and it pre-dated 1914. It was a change that was sweeping through the West: that of government or state involvement in our lives. In the UK it began with the reforms of the Liberal government of 1906–14, championed by David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill, known as the ‘terrible twins' by contemporaries. The Pensions Act of 1908, the People's Budget of 1909–10 (to ‘wage implacable warfare against poverty', declared Lloyd George) and the National Insurance Act of 1911 saw the Liberal government moving away from its tradition of laissez-faire systems – from classical liberalism and Gladstonian principles of self-help and self-reliance – towards larger, more active government by which taxes were collected from the wealthy and the proceeds redistributed. Afraid of losing votes to the emerging Labour party and the increasingly popular ideology of socialism, modern liberals betrayed their classical principles. In his War Memoirs, Lloyd George said ‘the partisan warfare that raged around these topics was so fierce that by 1913, this country was brought to the verge of civil war'. But these were small steps. The Pensions Act, for example, meant that men aged 70 and above could claim between two and five shillings per week from the government. But average male life- expectancy then was 47. Today it's 77. Using the same ratio, and, yes, I'm manipulating statistics here, that's akin to only awarding pensions to people above the age 117 today. Back then it was workable.To go back to my analogy of the prologue, this period was when the ‘train' was set in motion across the West. In 1914 it went up a gear. Here are the opening paragraphs of historian A. J. P. Taylor's most celebrated book, English History 1914–1945, published in 1965.I quote this long passage in full, because it is so telling.Until August 1914 a sensible, law-abiding Englishman could pass through life and hardly notice the existence of the state, beyond the post office and the policeman. He could live where he liked and as he liked. He had no official number or identity card. He could travel abroad or leave his country forever without a passport or any sort of official permission. He could exchange his money for any other currency without restriction or limit. He could buy goods from any country in the world on the same terms as he bought goods at home. For that matter, a foreigner could spend his life in this country without permit and without informing the police. Unlike the countries of the European continent, the state did not require its citizens to perform military service. An Englishman could enlist, if he chose, in the regular army, the navy, or the territorials. He could also ignore, if he chose, the demands of national defence. Substantial householders were occasionally called on for jury service. Otherwise, only those helped the state, who wished to do so. The Englishman paid taxes on a modest scale: nearly £200 million in 1913–14, or rather less than 8% of the national income.The state intervened to prevent the citizen from eating adulterated food or contracting certain infectious diseases. It imposed safety rules in factories, and prevented women, and adult males in some industries,from working excessive hours.The state saw to it that children received education up to the age of 13. Since 1 January 1909, it provided a meagre pension for the needy over the age of 70. Since 1911, it helped to insure certain classes of workers against sickness and unemployment. This tendency towards more state action was increasing. Expenditure on the social services had roughly doubled since the Liberals took office in 1905. Still, broadly speaking, the state acted only to help those who could not help themselves. It left the adult citizen alone.All this was changed by the impact of the Great War. The mass of the people became, for the first time, active citizens. Their lives were shaped by orders from above; they were required to serve the state instead of pursuing exclusively their own affairs. Five million men entered the armed forces, many of them (though a minority) under compulsion. The Englishman's food was limited, and its quality changed, by government order. His freedom of movement was restricted; his conditions of work prescribed. Some industries were reduced or closed, others artificially fostered. The publication of news was fettered. Street lights were dimmed. The sacred freedom of drinking was tampered with: licensed hours were cut down, and the beer watered by order. The very time on the clocks was changed. From 1916 onwards, every Englishman got up an hour earlier in summer than he would otherwise have done, thanks to an act of parliament. The state established a hold over its citizens which, though relaxed in peacetime, was never to be removed and which the Second World war was again to increase. The history of the English state and of the English people merged for the first time.Since the beginning of WWI , the role that the state has played in our lives has not stopped growing. This has been especially so in the case of Glasgow. The state has spent more and more, provided more and more services, more subsidy, more education, more health care, more infrastructure, more accommodation, more benefits, more regulations, more laws, more protection. The more it has provided, the worse Glasgow has fared. Is this correlation a coincidence? I don't think so.The story of the rise and fall of Glasgow is a distilled version of the story of the rise and fall of industrial Britain – indeed the entire industrial West. In the next chapter I'm going to show you a simple mistake that goes on being made; a dynamic by which the state, whose very aim was to help Glasgow, has actually been its ‘pathway to breakdown' . . .Life After the State is available at Amazon, Apple Books and all good bookshops, with the audiobook at Audible, Apple Books and all good audiobookshops. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theflyingfrisby.com/subscribe
When two Internet cables in the Baltic Sea were reported as broken last November, researchers at the RIPE NCC turned to RIPE Atlas to examine the damage. In this episode, Emile Aben discusses what his analysis uncovered about the impact of these and similar incidents in the months that followed, and how the Internet remained resilient against them.Show notes00:44 - TeleGeography build and maintain massive data sets that are used to monitor, forecast, and map the telecommunications industry. Their submarine cable map is a valuable resource in tracking Internet cable incidents.00:52 - Some early reports on these incidents from Mobile Europe, Reuters, The Register01:08 - Visual guide from the Guardian exploring circumstances surrounding incidents in the Baltic Sea.01:13 - RIPE Atlas01:36 - On RIPE Labs: Does the Internet Route Around Damage? - Baltic Sea Cable Cuts; A Deep Dive Into the Baltic Sea Cable Cuts02:13 - First episode of the RIPE Labs podcast: Measuring Damage on the Internet03:14 - Emile's earlier articles on the Ukraine: The Ukrainian Internet05:25 - RIPE Atlas anchors12:40 - Help expand RIPE Atlas coverage! Learn more about what's involved in hosting a RIPE Atlas anchor.27:05 - The Internet in North Korea - Hanging by a Single Thread?32:50 - Lord Kelvin said both that "To measure is to know" and "If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it". Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Having weathered the Holidays, flu and chest colds, the start of another academic term, and scheduling hurly-burly, our intrepid Professors are back at, this time in an episode that had no fixed agenda (and thus not purpose or end). For Dr. Jenkins Byzantine course see here: https://tinyurl.com/LuxchristiByzantium And Dr. Moritz's article on AI here (https://tinyurl.com/JMoritzAI) and on Lord Kelvin here (https://tinyurl.com/MoritzKelvin)
Having weathered the Holidays, flu and chest colds, the start of another academic term, and scheduling hurly-burly, our intrepid Professors are back at, this time in an episode that had no fixed agenda (and thus not purpose or end). For Dr. Jenkins Byzantine course see here: https://tinyurl.com/LuxchristiByzantium And Dr. Moritz's article on AI here (https://tinyurl.com/JMoritzAI) and on Lord Kelvin here (https://tinyurl.com/MoritzKelvin)
Fundamentals of Metric Monitoring podcast episode with speaker Fred Schenkelberg Following along the idea stated by Lord Kelvin, "...when you can measure what your are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it...", we have organizations measuring reliability performance. Not that measuring something is managing it, those are two different activies. […] The post Fundamentals of Metric Monitoring appeared first on Accendo Reliability.
Der englische Gelehrte Lord Kelvin soll 1900 verkündet haben, alles Wesentliche sei bereits entdeckt und die Physik somit fast am Ende. Doch Kelvin war kein überheblicher Forscher - den behaupteten Unsinn hat er nie gesagt. Lorenzen, Dirk www.deutschlandfunk.de, Die USA wählen
Het absolute 0-punt is de laagste temperatuur denkbaar. Dat punt, 273 graden onder nul, werd berekend door de Britse natuurkundige Lord Kelvin. Toen duidelijk was dat er in theorie een laagste temperatuur bestaat, begon de race om dat punt ook in de praktijk te bereiken. Wetenschappers gingen aan de slag met het afkoelen van gassen. Ruim een eeuw geleden werd met vloeibaar helium het nulpunt op een paar graden na bereikt. De wetenschap heeft het nu voor elkaar om tot zelfs een miljoenste graad boven het absolute nulpunt te koelen. Hoe doen ze dat? En, zal de wetenschap die allerlaagste temperatuur ooit bereiken?Presentatie: Laura WismansGast: Dorine Schenk & Hendrik SpieringRedactie en montage: Elze van DrielHeeft u vragen, suggesties of ideeën over onze journalistiek? Mail dan naar onze ombudsman via ombudsman@nrc.nlZie het privacybeleid op https://art19.com/privacy en de privacyverklaring van Californië op https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Is there anything in the universe that is not moving? Neil deGrasse Tyson and comedian Chuck Nice answer fan questions about stillness, humans on Mars, and what songs they would add to the Voyager Golden Record. NOTE: StarTalk+ Patrons can listen to this entire episode commercial-free here:https://startalkmedia.com/show/cosmic-queries-space-travelers-delight/Thanks to our Patrons Scott Nelson, Bjørn Furuknap, Paul Robinson, Jonasz Napiecek, Micheal Briggs, Blake Wolfe, Brett Maragno, Adam Stephensen, Cicero Artefon, and Paul Lesperance for supporting us this week.
Hoje é dia do "Influencers da Ciência", um Spin-Off do podcast "Intervalo de Confiança". Neste programa trazemos o nome de Influencers que de fato trouxeram algo de positivo para a sociedade, aqueles que expandiram as fronteiras do conhecimento científico e hoje permitiram o desenvolvimento de diversas áreas.Esse mês celebramos o aniversário de 200 anos de um dos nomes mais importantes da ciência: Sir William Thompson, o famoso Lord Kelvin. Sim, ele mesmo, da unidade de medida de temperatura. Apresentado por Kézia Nogueira, esse episódio fala sobre a vida e obra daquele que formulou as duas primeiras leis da termodinâmica, contribuiu para a unificação da física então existente, expandindo seus limites.A Pauta foi escrita por Sofia Massaro. A edição foi feita por Leo Oliveira e a vitrine do episódio feita por Tatiane do Vale em colaboração com as Inteligências Artificiais Dall-E, da OpenAI. A coordenação de redação e de redes sociais é de Tatiane do Vale. A seleção de cortes é de responsabilidade Júlia Frois, a direção de Comunidade de Sofia Massaro e a gerência financeira é de Kézia Nogueira. As vinhetas de todos os episódios foram compostas por Rafael Chino e Leo Oliveira.Visite nosso site em: https://intervalodeconfianca.com.br/Conheça nossa loja virtual em: https://intervalodeconfianca.com.br/lojaPara apoiar esse projeto: https://intervalodeconfianca.com.br/apoieSiga nossas redes sociais:- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iconfpod/- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/IntervalodeConfianca- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/iconfpod- X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/iConfPod
In this episode I spoke to Nigel Banks, Technical Director at Octopus Energy. Nigel is author of Fabric Fifth which many now see as the common sense approach to retrofitting and decarbonising homes. Nigel spoke in a personal capacity. I was extremely grateful he came on the show. I have been critical of Octopus in certain regards but am also well aware they are doing important work. It was a pleasure to have Nigel speak on my show. I also chatted with Dan Kelly, Managing Director at Dartmoor Energy. Dan has nine years experience with heat pump systems as well as being a qualified PAS2035 retrofit coordinator and assessor. For me, the episode helps illustrate that the fa bric first mantra has possibly led the UK down the wrong path. And it could be argued there has been a waste of Government funds, essentially tax payers money. The most vehement of fabric first advocates, to me, clearly do not understand why the forefathers of thermodynamics got excited about heat pumps: things which used work to do heat rather than things which use heat to do work. The former being able to reach well above the 100 percent efficiency cap of the later. It highlights how many are not taking ownership of their own learning and understanding what people like Lord Kelvin knew back in 1852.It has been far too easy for people to disseminate "fabric first". Quite honestly it is often laziness and highlights a lack of professional developmentIt is totally understandable that consumers do not understand the science of heat but for those involved in the discourse, especially if they are being paid and funded via money from the tax payer they need to take ownership of their own learning and bring them selves up to speed. What's discussed:UKREiiF event, and lack of heat pump knowledgeFramework lists for Social Housing and Local AuthoritiesConflicts of interest regarding PAS2035Cavity Wall Insulation (and Zone 4)LA's are stuck between a rock and a hard placeHeat Pump Optimisers such as Passiv UK and HomelyTackling fuel poverty at scaleThe able to pay market vs the fuel poverty marketTrust Mark - does it work? Possibly notUnconscious incompetenceI'd like to thank Grundfos for sponsoring this season of BetaTalkSupport the Show.
Foundations of Amateur Radio In the early 1920's long distance communication using radio was a growing interest. At the time it was thought that communication that we take for granted today, over long-distance HF, was limited to long wave or extremely low frequencies, the lower the better. With that restriction came massive antennas and high power transmitters, available only to commercial and government stations. Then radio amateurs let the cat out of the bag by discovering that so-called "short wave" radio could be heard all across the globe. As an aside, today, "short wave" seems quaint, because we've discovered that even shorter waves can be used to communicate, right down to nanometre communication as shown by NASA in its XCOM technology demonstration on the 12th of May, 2019. On a daily basis we use 120 mm and 60 mm waves when we use 2.4 and 5 GHz Wi-Fi for example. As a result of the discovery of short wave radio, a gold-rush emerged. There was a hunger in the community for radio, businesses and communities adopted the new medium, there were radio courses being taught in Universities, church services and other forms of entertainment started filling the airwaves. Comedy, talk shows, music, concerts, serials and dramas spread across the electromagnetic spectrum and radio amateurs who had discovered the phenomenon were running the risk of being pushed aside by commercial interests willing to pay for access. As I've said before, in many countries at the time, amateur radio was actively discouraged, sometimes it was even illegal. Before we continue, I should quote some statements made about radio before the gold-rush which at the time was seen as "Telegraphy Without Wires". In 1865 a Boston Post editorial proclaimed: "Well-informed people know it is impossible to transmit the voice over wires and that were it possible to do so, the thing would be of no practical value." Lord Kelvin, President of the Royal Society, said: "Radio has no future." and went on to say: "Wireless is all very well but I'd rather send a message by a boy on a pony", he also said: "Heavier-than-air machines are impossible." and "X-Rays will prove to be a hoax." Not all statements aged as badly. The New York Times said in 1899: "All the nations of the earth would be put upon terms of intimacy and men would be stunned by the tremendous volume of news and information that would ceaselessly pour in upon them." Back to the IARU. Before a business trip to Europe, the board of directors of the ARRL asked their President, Hiram Percy Maxim, to encourage international amateur relations, which on 12 March 1924 resulted in a dinner given, at the Hotel Lutetia in Paris according to Hiram, a "certain dining room" by "the most distinguished radio men of Europe." Hiram goes on to say that: "This A.R.R.L. President has sat in at a good many very impressive radio meetings in the past, ranging from Maine to California, but he has never sat in at a meeting where there was quite as much thrill as at this meeting in Paris where the amateurs of nine different countries sat down together." The countries were, France, Great Britain, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Luxembourg, Canada and the United States. Hiram remarks that "Denmark was represented by a letter in which regret was expressed at the inability to have a representative present and asked that the amateurs of Denmark be counted in." You should dig up a copy of the May 1924 edition of QST to get a sense of occasion where the ARRL president compares the thrill of the "hamfest" to the atmosphere during that dinner and pities those who have never experienced it. During the meeting it was decided to form an organisation which was going to be called the International Amateur Radio Union. A temporary committee was formed that appointed Hiram Maxim as the chair and Dr. Pierre Corret as secretary to take charge of the details to create a permanent organisation. The final decision was to call for a general Amateur Congress on the Easter Holiday of 1925 where the IARU would be formalised. On the 14th of April, 1925, 250 radio amateurs from 23 countries met in Paris and over the next four days the details of the new Union were hammered out. Among those details were that the organisation was chiefly for "the coordination and fostering of international two-way amateur communication, that it should be an organisation by individual memberships until strong national societies had been formed in the principal nations and a federation would be feasible, and that its headquarters would be located in the USA." The constitution was written over a day and night session and by the morning of the 17th of April, every delegate had a copy and then the hard work began, approving the constitution, section by section, by the entire Congress. On the morning of the 18th, elections were held and Hiram U1AW was elected international president, Gerald G2NM, international vice-president, Jean F8GO and Frank Z4AA councillors-at-large and Kenneth U1BHW international secretary-treasurer. With the election complete, the IARU was officially in business. The new constitution was published in English, French and Esperanto. Why Esperanto, you ask? In the middle of 1924, the ARRL adopted Esperanto as its official auxiliary language. According to Clinton B. DeSoto, W1CBD, author of a fabulous book "Two Hundred Meters And Down - The Story of Amateur Radio", that might have been the highest official recognition that language ever received. Credit to Clinton for much of the time line and wording I've shared here. I'll leave you with one final quote from his book. Clinton W1CBD writes: "One day amateur television is bound to come, however remote though that day may be. It is, indubitably, inevitable that one day amateurs will be able to see each other, as well as talk with each other; and when that day comes the development of amateur radio as a social institution will have taken another great step forward - at least according to present standards. But by then the standards will have changed, and amateurs will have something more to work toward, and the ultimate will still not have arrived. There are always new goals, new horizons. May it fall to amateur radio to march many steps toward the goal of complete knowledge ere its footprints are lost in the sands of time!" I'm Onno VK6FLAB
“La radio no tiene futuro. Las máquinas voladoras que pesan más que el aire son imposibles. Se demostrará que los rayos X son un engaño” Lord Kelvin. Frases así fueron dichas en un tiempo en el que la radio apenas emergía como un invento que se veía con recelo. Hoy, hay más 35 millones de dispositivos de audio. ¿Quieres saber cómo llegamos a esto? No te pierdas la segunda parte de la historia de la radio. Óyelo en www.urosarioradio.co y Spreaker.
Φωτιές στην Χιλή Η ιδέα της θερμοκρασίας Κελσίου και Φαρενάιτ Η ιδέα ενός χαμηλότερου ορίου Jacques Charles, Joseph-Louis Gay-Lussac, Lord Kelvin Το τριπλό σημείο του νερού Γιατί 273.15 βαθμοί; Αρνητικές θερμοκρασίες (what?!) Post-show: Apple Vision Pro Επικοινωνία: notatop10.fm/contact
This episode explores the journey of natural philosophy from encompassing multiple fields in the ancient world to becoming synonymous with physics by the mid-19th century. It discusses the works of pioneers like Isaac Newton, Lord Kelvin, and Robert Boyle, and delves into philosophical debates and concepts that continue to influence modern scientific thinking. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_philosophy
The latest podcast in the Ahead of the Curves series, supported by Stifel Europe, is on the subject of Experts and Expertise.Responding to an AI enthusiast who had Tweeted a picture of 'what the rest of the Mona Lisa looked like' the picture above appeared as a response with the caption - "Ever wonder what Venus de Milo's Arms look like? With the power of AI our team has recreated it."AI promises many things, most of which involve taking over from experts, professionals, and even great sculptors. Is it getting too smart for its own good? And is our judgment - borne of years of sometimes bitter experience - going to see it heavily regulated?How can you tell when you're dealing with a genuine expert? Real expertise must pass three tests. First, it must lead to performance that is consistently superior to that of the expert's peers. Second, real expertise produces concrete results. Brain surgeons, for example, must be skilful with their scalpels but must also have successful outcomes with their patients. A chess player must be able to win matches in tournaments. Finally, true expertise can be replicated and measured in the lab. As the British scientist Lord Kelvin stated, “If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it.”We've interviewed three experts in their fields - three individuals at the top of their professional game. They are intentionally diverse: psychology, investment banking and paediatric surgery. If - for whatever reason - you venture into their fields - they come heartily recommend. (I must apologize that they are all men. It just worked out like that. And it won't happen again) What I've asked all three of them is first, what the nature of their expertise consists of, secondly how they acquired that superior competence and thirdly if they feel that the advent of Artificial Intelligence - Chat GPT and its spawn - will mean that their like becomes redundant in years to come. Will their like get chucked onto the scrap heap of history? Dr Tomas Chamorrow-Premuzic is a psychologist and professor of Business Psychology at Columbia University. His new book I Human is about AI and questions what makes us Homo sapiens unique. Gareth Hunt is an investment banker at Stifel and leads their Law Firms and Litigation Finance advisory team in Investment Banking. He's especially interested in how artificial intelligence might erode the status and need for professionals including lawyers. Bruce Richard is a retired paediatric surgeon who specialised in the repair of cleft lip and palate in children. It took him a long while to become an expert in his field. He talks about robotics in surgery and the difficulties of passing on that expertise to coming generations of surgeons in training. We even get to discuss the medical ethics and in and outs of The Brazilian Butt Lift.
"There is nothing new to discover in physics", declared the British physicist Lord Kelvin in 1900. That is no longer true. Today it is becoming increasingly clear that there are problems that physics, as we know it, doesn't seem to be able to solve. Perhaps we just need more data, perhaps we need a new fundamental theory of reality. In this six-part series, host Miriam Frankel from The Conversation will take you on a mind-blowing journey from the smallest to the largest conundrums, exploring curled-up dimensions, consciousness and parallel universes along the way. We will discover the greatest mysteries facing physicists today – and discuss the radical proposals for solving them. The first episode will be available on March 8. Great Mysteries of Physics is produced by Hannah Fisher with sound design by Eloise Stevens. You can sign up to The Conversation's free daily email here.Great Mysteries of Physics is a podcast series supported by FQXi. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Como bien decía Lord Kelvin “lo que no se mide, no se mejora”. Por dicho motivo, si queremos evolucionar la cultura preventiva y el liderazgo en seguridad y salud en nuestra organización, es clave disponer de métodos que nos permitan analizar nuestro punto de partida inicial. Lee el artículo en https://prevencontrol.com/prevenblog/donde-esta-tu-organizacion-en-cuanto-a-cultura-preventiva/
Florence Nightingale and her team were nursing four miles of patients.
Lord Kelvin nem hitt a repülőgépben és a röntgensugárzásban, de van, aki egykor úgy gondolta, hogy központi csillagunk szénből áll. Néha a legnagyobb elméink, legelismertebb tudósaink és gondolkodóink is tesznek olyan előrejelzéseket, amik később hibásnak bizonyulnak: listánkban olyan jóslatokat és megnyilatkozásokat gyűjtöttünk össze, amiket később maga a tudomány cáfolt meg. https://parallaxis.blog.hu/2022/11/28/re_parapod_ep9 https://soundcloud.com/parallaxisuniverzum/re_parapod_ep9 https://youtu.be/zSwITL5c4Gg A Parallaxis Patreon oldalán támogatóink számára még a premier előtt elérhetővé tesszük podcastjeink legújabb epizódját! https://www.patreon.com/parallaxis Podcastjeink epizódjai elérhetőek Facebookon, Soundcloud- és YouTube-csatornánkon, valamint Google Podcasts-en, iTunes-on és Spotify-on is! Kattints és válassz platformot! https://parallaxis.blog.hu/2021/07/16/podcast_platformok
Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Prizes for ML Safety Benchmark Ideas, published by joshc on October 28, 2022 on LessWrong. “If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it.” – Lord Kelvin (paraphrased) Website: benchmarking.mlsafety.org – receiving submissions until August 2023. ML Safety lacks good benchmarks, so the Center for AI Safety is offering $50,000 - $100,000 prizes for benchmark ideas (or full research papers). We will award at least $100,000 total and up to $500,000 depending on the quality of submissions. What kinds of ideas are you looking for? Ultimately, we will are looking for benchmark ideas that motivate or advance research that reduces existential risks from AI. To provide more guidance, we've outlined four research categories along with example ideas. Alignment: building models that represent and safely optimize difficult-to-specify human values. Monitoring: discovering unintended model functionality. Robustness: designing systems to be reliable in the face of adversaries and highly unusual situations. Safety Applications: using ML to address broader risks related to how ML systems are handled (e.g. for cybersecurity or forecasting). See Open Problems in AI X-Risk [PAIS #5] for example research directions in these categories and their relation to existential risk. What are the requirements for submissions? Datasets or implementations are not necessary, though empirical testing can make it easier for the judges to evaluate your idea. All that is required is a brief write-up (guidelines here). How the write-up is formatted isn't very important as long as it effectively pitches the benchmark and concretely explains how it would be implemented. If you don't have prior experience designing benchmarks, we recommend reading this document for generic tips. Who are the judges? Dan Hendrycks, Paul Christiano, and Collin Burns. If you have questions, they might be answered on the website, or you can post them here. We would also greatly appreciate it if you helped to spread the word about this opportunity. Thanks to Sidney Hough and Kevin Liu for helping to make this happen and to Collin Burns and Akash Wasil for feedback on the website. This project is supported by the Future Fund regranting program. Thanks for listening. To help us out with The Nonlinear Library or to learn more, please visit nonlinear.org.
Link to original articleWelcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Prizes for ML Safety Benchmark Ideas, published by joshc on October 28, 2022 on LessWrong. “If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it.” – Lord Kelvin (paraphrased) Website: benchmarking.mlsafety.org – receiving submissions until August 2023. ML Safety lacks good benchmarks, so the Center for AI Safety is offering $50,000 - $100,000 prizes for benchmark ideas (or full research papers). We will award at least $100,000 total and up to $500,000 depending on the quality of submissions. What kinds of ideas are you looking for? Ultimately, we will are looking for benchmark ideas that motivate or advance research that reduces existential risks from AI. To provide more guidance, we've outlined four research categories along with example ideas. Alignment: building models that represent and safely optimize difficult-to-specify human values. Monitoring: discovering unintended model functionality. Robustness: designing systems to be reliable in the face of adversaries and highly unusual situations. Safety Applications: using ML to address broader risks related to how ML systems are handled (e.g. for cybersecurity or forecasting). See Open Problems in AI X-Risk [PAIS #5] for example research directions in these categories and their relation to existential risk. What are the requirements for submissions? Datasets or implementations are not necessary, though empirical testing can make it easier for the judges to evaluate your idea. All that is required is a brief write-up (guidelines here). How the write-up is formatted isn't very important as long as it effectively pitches the benchmark and concretely explains how it would be implemented. If you don't have prior experience designing benchmarks, we recommend reading this document for generic tips. Who are the judges? Dan Hendrycks, Paul Christiano, and Collin Burns. If you have questions, they might be answered on the website, or you can post them here. We would also greatly appreciate it if you helped to spread the word about this opportunity. Thanks to Sidney Hough and Kevin Liu for helping to make this happen and to Collin Burns and Akash Wasil for feedback on the website. This project is supported by the Future Fund regranting program. Thanks for listening. To help us out with The Nonlinear Library or to learn more, please visit nonlinear.org.
Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Prizes for ML Safety Benchmark Ideas, published by Joshc on October 28, 2022 on The Effective Altruism Forum. “If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it.” – Lord Kelvin (paraphrased) Website: benchmarking.mlsafety.org – receiving submissions until August 2023. ML Safety lacks good benchmarks, so the Center for AI Safety is offering $50,000 - $100,000 prizes for benchmark ideas (or full research papers). We will award at least $100,000 total and up to $500,000 depending on the quality of submissions. What kinds of ideas are you looking for? Ultimately, we will are looking for benchmark ideas that motivate or advance research that reduces existential risks from AI. To provide more guidance, we've outlined four research categories along with example ideas. Alignment: building models that represent and safely optimize difficult-to-specify human values. Monitoring: discovering unintended model functionality. Robustness: designing systems to be reliable in the face of adversaries and highly unusual situations. Safety Applications: using ML to address broader risks related to how ML systems are handled (e.g. for cybersecurity or forecasting). See Open Problems in AI X-Risk [PAIS #5] for example research directions in these categories and their relation to existential risk. What are the requirements for submissions? Datasets or implementations are not necessary, though empirical testing can make it easier for the judges to evaluate your idea. All that is required is a brief write-up (guidelines here). How the write-up is formatted isn't very important as long as it effectively pitches the benchmark and concretely explains how it would be implemented. If you don't have prior experience designing benchmarks, we recommend reading this document for generic tips. Who are the judges? Dan Hendrycks, Paul Christiano, and Collin Burns. If you have questions, they might be answered on the website, or you can post them here. We would also greatly appreciate it if you helped to spread the word about this opportunity. Thanks to Sidney Hough and Kevin Liu for helping to make this happen and to Collin Burns and Akash Wasil for feedback on the website. This project is supported by the Future Fund regranting program. Thanks for listening. To help us out with The Nonlinear Library or to learn more, please visit nonlinear.org.
this enlightening sermon, Dr. Michael Youssef introduces an inspiring concept known as the "Second Law of Godly Dynamics." Contrasting with Lord Kelvin’s second law of thermodynamics, which states that matter inevitably moves from order to disorder, Dr. Youssef’s second law suggests that the life of a believer progresses from disorder to divine order. Watch to uncover how this powerful principle operates in our spiritual lives and how it can transform your walk with God. Key Themes Examined: Introduction to the Second Law of Godly Dynamics: Understanding the positive trajectory of a believer’s life. Jacob’s Journey from Shechem to Bethel: The contrast between a place of temptation and a place of divine presence. The Role of God’s Grace in Transformation: God’s grace protects us from spiritual disarray. Practical Steps for Spiritual Renewal: Remember past blessings, release false idols, and reaffirm God’s promises. The Promise of God’s Everlasting Faithfulness: An exploration of how God’s promises are fulfilled across generations. Key Points Expanded: Jacob’s Transition from Shechem to Bethel: In the sermon, Shechem symbolizes the temptations and distractions that pull us away from our spiritual focus. Bethel, in contrast, represents a return to a place where God’s presence is palpable and our commitment to Him is renewed. Jacob’s journey from Shechem to Bethel illustrates a significant spiritual transition from chaos to order through God’s grace. Remember, Release, and Reaffirm: Dr. Youssef emphasizes three crucial actions for spiritual growth—remembering God’s past blessings, releasing false idols, and reaffirming our covenant with Him. These steps are essential for moving from spiritual stagnation to a renewed and vibrant faith life. God’s Everlasting Promise: The sermon concludes with a reflection on God’s unwavering promise to Jacob and his descendants, culminating in the arrival of Jesus Christ. This promise, which spans generations, highlights God’s commitment to guiding and sustaining His people through all circumstances. Scripture: Genesis 35:1-15 Download
Quickie with Bob: Friction; News Items: The Neuroscience of Politics, Cozy Lava Tubes, Video Games and Well-Being, Invisible Dark Matter; Who's That Noisy; Your Questions and E-mails: Lord Kelvin, Green Methane, Universe Isotropy; Science or Fiction
Quickie with Bob: Friction; News Items: The Neuroscience of Politics, Cozy Lava Tubes, Video Games and Well-Being, Invisible Dark Matter; Who's That Noisy; Your Questions and E-mails: Lord Kelvin, Green Methane, Universe Isotropy; Science or Fiction
Šta je tamna materija? Kako je otkrivena? Kako su još krajem 19. veka Lord Kelvin i Poenkare došli do prvih ideja da postoji nedostajuća masa u svemiru koju ne vidimo, a koja nam je neophodna da bismo opisali kretanja zvezda? Šta su rotacione krive galaksija i kako smo na osnovu posmatranja brzina kretanja zvezda u galaksijama zaključili da galaksijama nedostaje masa? Kako je na osnovu upoređivanja vidljive i dinamičke mase Fritz Zwicky došao do sličnog zaključka i kako toj "nedostajućoj masi" dao naziv "tamna materija" 1930-ih godina? Kako je izračunao (i zašto je pogrešio) broj koji nam govori koliko puta više ima tamne materije od vidljive, barionske materije?Šta su nam novo donela radio posmatranja, a posebno posmatranja atomskog vodonika na 21 cm talasne dužine? Kako su Vera Rubin i W. Kent Ford, Jr. otkrili većinu univerzuma i došli do dobrog broja odnosa tamne i vidljive materije? Na koje još načine možemo da indirektno detektujemo tamnu materiju? Kako smo otkrili njeno postojanje preko gravitacionih sočiva, kako preko anizotropije u kosmičkom mikrotalasnom pozadinskom zračenju i zašto nam anizotropija u CMB-u daje zaključak da je najverovatniji opis Univerzuma onaj koji nudi Lambda-CDM model? Kako MOND ne uspeva da objasni Svemir i zašto je danas paradigma o postojanju tamne materije opšte prihvaćena u nauci? Šta je hladna, a šta topla tamna materija? Kako na čestičnom nivou tragamo za tamnom materijom? Koji su načini indirektne potrage za WIMP-ovima? Kako posmatranjem gama zračenja iz centra Mlečnog puta (ili drugih galaksija) možemo da dođemo do indirektne detekcije tamne materije? Kako tamna materija interaguje međusobno na čestičnom nivou? Koji eksperimenti postoje namenjeni direktnoj detekciji mnogobrojnih kandidata za čestice tamne materije? Sve ovo i još mnogo drugih tema vezanih za tamnu materiju možete čuti u ovoj epizodi Radio Galaksije. Gošća je bila Jovana Petrović, doktorantkinja astrofizike koja se bavi gama zračenjem iz centra Mlečnog puta na Matematičkom fakultetu u Beogradu i game math dizajnom u kompaniji Playstudios Europe. Support the show
Nombreuses sont les théories scientifiques cherchant à comprendre comment la vie a pu apparaître et se développer à la surface de la Terre. La panspermie est l'une d'entre elles.La vie venue d'une autre planèteLa panspermie est une théorie selon laquelle les premiers micro-organismes vivants viendraient de l'espace et auraient été apportés sur Terre par divers moyens.Une telle idée avait déjà été exprimée, voilà environ 2.500 ans, par le philosophe grec Anaxagore. La théorie est ensuite un peu délaissée, pour ne réapparaître qu'au XIXe siècle.Le physicien anglais Lord Kelvin imagine alors que, sous l'effet d'une collision avec d'autres corps célestes, des morceaux de roche aient pu se détacher d'une planète où la vie serait apparue. De petits organismes, enfermés dans ces roches, auraient pu voyager dans l'espace et atterrir sur notre planète.Au début du XXe siècle, le chimiste suédois Svante Arrhenius donne plus de consistance à cette théorie, en rappelant que certains micro-organismes ont survécu dans un bain d'azote liquide et que le souffle provoqué par la lumière des étoiles aurait pu propulser des particules de vie dans l'espace.La panspermie est moins mise en avant de nos jours, même si elle a encore des adeptes, dont certains imaginent même que des maladies ont pu être apportées sur Terre par des virus venus de l'espace.Une théorie qui se défendMême s'ils ne sont pas très nombreux, les tenants de la panspermie ont pourtant des arguments à faire valoir. En premier lieu, une telle théorie rendrait mieux compte de l'apparition de la vie sur Terre.En effet, pour certains scientifiques, le temps qui s'est écoulé entre la formation de la Terre et celle des premiers organismes vivants ne serait pas assez long pour permettre la mise en place d'un processus aussi complexe.Par ailleurs, il n'est pas impossible que certaines planètes proches de la Terre, comme Mars, aient pu accueillir la vie à un moment de leur histoire. Enfin, les comètes et certains astéroïdes pourraient se révéler d'excellents véhicules pour le transport intersidéral de ces particules de vie. Hébergé par Acast. Visitez acast.com/privacy pour plus d'informations.
Nombreuses sont les théories scientifiques cherchant à comprendre comment la vie a pu apparaître et se développer à la surface de la Terre. La panspermie est l'une d'entre elles. La vie venue d'une autre planète La panspermie est une théorie selon laquelle les premiers micro-organismes vivants viendraient de l'espace et auraient été apportés sur Terre par divers moyens. Une telle idée avait déjà été exprimée, voilà environ 2.500 ans, par le philosophe grec Anaxagore. La théorie est ensuite un peu délaissée, pour ne réapparaître qu'au XIXe siècle. Le physicien anglais Lord Kelvin imagine alors que, sous l'effet d'une collision avec d'autres corps célestes, des morceaux de roche aient pu se détacher d'une planète où la vie serait apparue. De petits organismes, enfermés dans ces roches, auraient pu voyager dans l'espace et atterrir sur notre planète. Au début du XXe siècle, le chimiste suédois Svante Arrhenius donne plus de consistance à cette théorie, en rappelant que certains micro-organismes ont survécu dans un bain d'azote liquide et que le souffle provoqué par la lumière des étoiles aurait pu propulser des particules de vie dans l'espace. La panspermie est moins mise en avant de nos jours, même si elle a encore des adeptes, dont certains imaginent même que des maladies ont pu être apportées sur Terre par des virus venus de l'espace. Une théorie qui se défend Même s'ils ne sont pas très nombreux, les tenants de la panspermie ont pourtant des arguments à faire valoir. En premier lieu, une telle théorie rendrait mieux compte de l'apparition de la vie sur Terre. En effet, pour certains scientifiques, le temps qui s'est écoulé entre la formation de la Terre et celle des premiers organismes vivants ne serait pas assez long pour permettre la mise en place d'un processus aussi complexe. Par ailleurs, il n'est pas impossible que certaines planètes proches de la Terre, comme Mars, aient pu accueillir la vie à un moment de leur histoire. Enfin, les comètes et certains astéroïdes pourraient se révéler d'excellents véhicules pour le transport intersidéral de ces particules de vie. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Episode: 2235 John Perry, Lord Kelvin, Earth's age, and the role of conduction and convection. Today, we see history evolving.
In perhaps his most comprehensive interview to date, Saifedean talks to Lex Fridman about the history of money, the foundations of economics, and why bitcoin represents a pathway to a more peaceful and prosperous world. Starting from Lex's question “What is money?”, Saifedean draws on insights from his most recent book, The Fiat Standard, to take the listener on a four-hour historical journey. He explains how money emerged as a market good; why the gold standard developed in Britain and spread across the world; and the intriguing historical circumstances that led to government-controlled fiat money becoming the global medium of exchange. By asking fundamental questions about money, the purpose of economics, and the technical foundations of bitcoin, Lex prompts Saifedean to present a first-principles case for free exchange, non-aggression and bitcoin. Their conversation also includes Saifedean's reflections on his upbringing in Palestine, how to make the most of our short time on earth, and advice to younger generations. ResourcesLex Fridman on Twitter.Lex Fridman's podcast website.Carl Menger's Principles of Economics: the founding text of the Austrian School, published in 1871.Human Action by Ludwig von Mises, published in English in 1949.Critical overview of John Maynard Keynes' The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money in the Journal of Libertarian Studies.Saifedean Twitter thread on scientists who dismissed flight as impossible at the time the Wright brothers were inventing the airplane. Includes comments by Lord Kelvin and the New York Times.Graphic showing technological progress in Britain during the gold standard. For further discussion, see The Bitcoin Standard section: Innovations: “Zero to One” versus “One to Many”, and episode 74 of The Bitcoin Standard Podcast: The Real Drivers of Technological Progress.Saifedean paper on the decline of the aviation industry since the 1970s. For further discussion see chapter 10 of The Fiat Standard on Fiat Fuels.The Bitcoin Standard Podcast episode 108: A New World Monetary Order The ramifications of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.Bitcoin Net Zero paper by Nic Carter and Ross Stevens. See page 38 for comparison of bitcoin network energy consumption compared with tumble driers and other common household appliances.Saifedean's first book, The Bitcoin Standard.Saifedean's second book, The Fiat Standard.
Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: A Bird's Eye View of the ML Field [Pragmatic AI Safety #2], published by ThomasWoodside on May 9, 2022 on The Effective Altruism Forum. This is the second post in a sequence of posts that describe our models for Pragmatic AI Safety. The internal dynamics of the ML field are not immediately obvious to the casual observer. This post will present some important high-level points that are critical to beginning to understand the field, and is meant as background for our later posts. Driving dynamics of the ML field How is progress made in ML? While the exact dynamics of progress are not always predictable, we will present three basic properties of ML research that are important to understand. The importance of defining the problem A problem well-defined is a problem half solved. John Dewey (apocryphal) The mere formulation of a problem is often more essential than its solution, which [...] requires creative imagination and marks real advances in science. Albert Einstein I have been struck by how important measurement is... This may seem basic, but it is amazing how often it is not done and how hard it is to get right. Bill Gates If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it. Lord Kelvin (paraphrase) For better or worse, benchmarks shape a field. David Patterson, Turing award winner Progress in AI arises from objective evaluation metrics. David McAllester Science requires that we clarify the question and then refine the answer: it is impossible to solve a problem until we know what it is. Empirical ML research, which is the majority of the field, progresses through well-defined metrics for progress towards well-defined goals. Once a goal is defined empirically, is tractable, and is incentivized properly, the ML field is well-equipped to make progress towards it. A variation on this model is that artists (writers, directors, etc.) come first. They help give ideas, and philosophers add more logical constraints to those ideas to come up with goals or questions, and finally scientists can help make iterative progress towards those goals. To give an example: golems, animate beings created from clay, were a common symbol in Jewish folklore, and at times could create evil. There are many other historical stories of automatons creating problems for humans (Pandora, Frankenstein, etc.). More recent stories, like Terminator, made the ideas more concrete, even as they included fantasy elements not grounded in reality. More recently, Bostrom (2002) recognized the possibility for existential risk from AI, and grounded it in the field of artificial intelligence. Since then, others have worked on concretizing and solving technical problems associated with this risk. For completeness, it's worth mentioning that sometimes through tinkering people find solutions to questions people were not posing, though many of those solutions aren't solutions for interesting questions. Metrics As David McAllester writes, machine learning and deep learning is fundamentally driven by metrics. There are many reasons for this. First, having a concrete metric for a problem is a sign that the problem has been compressed into something simpler and more manageable (see the discussion of microcosms below), which makes it more likely that progress can be made on it. By distilling a problem into a few main components, it is also far clearer when progress has been made, even if that progress is relatively small. Unlike human subjective evaluation, most metrics are objective: even if they do not perfectly track the properties of a system that we care about, it is obvious when somebody has performed well or poorly on an evaluation. Metrics can also be used across methods, which makes different approaches directly comparable rather than relying on many different measuring sticks. High-quality datasets and benchmarks ...
Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: A Bird's Eye View of the ML Field [Pragmatic AI Safety #2], published by Dan Hendrycks on May 9, 2022 on The AI Alignment Forum. This is the second post in a sequence of posts that describe our models for Pragmatic AI Safety. The internal dynamics of the ML field are not immediately obvious to the casual observer. This post will present some important high-level points that are critical to beginning to understand the field, and is meant as background for our later posts. Driving dynamics of the ML field How is progress made in ML? While the exact dynamics of progress are not always predictable, we will present three basic properties of ML research that are important to understand. The importance of defining the problem A problem well-defined is a problem half solved. John Dewey (apocryphal) The mere formulation of a problem is often more essential than its solution, which [...] requires creative imagination and marks real advances in science. Albert Einstein I have been struck by how important measurement is... This may seem basic, but it is amazing how often it is not done and how hard it is to get right. Bill Gates If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it. Lord Kelvin (paraphrase) For better or worse, benchmarks shape a field. David Patterson, Turing award winner Progress in AI arises from objective evaluation metrics. David McAllester Science requires that we clarify the question and then refine the answer: it is impossible to solve a problem until we know what it is. Empirical ML research, which is the majority of the field, progresses through well-defined metrics for progress towards well-defined goals. Once a goal is defined empirically, is tractable, and is incentivized properly, the ML field is well-equipped to make progress towards it. A variation on this model is that artists (writers, directors, etc.) come first. They help give ideas, and philosophers add more logical constraints to those ideas to come up with goals or questions, and finally scientists can help make iterative progress towards those goals. To give an example: golems, animate beings created from clay, were a common symbol in Jewish folklore, and at times could create evil. There are many other historical stories of automatons creating problems for humans (Pandora, Frankenstein, etc.). More recent stories, like Terminator, made the ideas more concrete, even as they included fantasy elements not grounded in reality. More recently, Bostrom (2002) recognized the possibility for existential risk from AI, and grounded it in the field of artificial intelligence. Since then, others have worked on concretizing and solving technical problems associated with this risk. For completeness, it's worth mentioning that sometimes through tinkering people find solutions to questions people were not posing, though many of those solutions aren't solutions for interesting questions. Metrics As David McAllester writes, machine learning and deep learning is fundamentally driven by metrics. There are many reasons for this. First, having a concrete metric for a problem is a sign that the problem has been compressed into something simpler and more manageable (see the discussion of microcosms below), which makes it more likely that progress can be made on it. By distilling a problem into a few main components, it is also far clearer when progress has been made, even if that progress is relatively small. Unlike human subjective evaluation, most metrics are objective: even if they do not perfectly track the properties of a system that we care about, it is obvious when somebody has performed well or poorly on an evaluation. Metrics can also be used across methods, which makes different approaches directly comparable rather than relying on many different measuring sticks. High-quality datasets and benchmarks concret...
Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Mysterious Answers to Mysterious Questions, published by Eliezer Yudkowsky on the LessWrong. Imagine looking at your hand, and knowing nothing of cells, nothing of biochemistry, nothing of DNA. You've learned some anatomy from dissection, so you know your hand contains muscles; but you don't know why muscles move instead of lying there like clay. Your hand is just . . . stuff . . . and for some reason it moves under your direction. Is this not magic? It seemed to me then, and it still seems to me, most probable that the animal body does not act as a thermodynamic engine . . . The influence of animal or vegetable life on matter is infinitely beyond the range of any scientific inquiry hitherto entered on. Its power of directing the motions of moving particles, in the demonstrated daily miracle of our human free-will, and in the growth of generation after generation of plants from a single seed, are infinitely different from any possible result of the fortuitous concourse of atoms[.]1 [C]onsciousness teaches every individual that they are, to some extent, subject to the direction of his will. It appears, therefore, that animated creatures have the power of immediately applying, to certain moving particles of matter within their bodies, forces by which the motions of these particles are directed to produce desired mechanical effects.2 Modern biologists are coming once more to a firm acceptance of something beyond mere gravitational, chemical, and physical forces; and that unknown thing is a vital principle.3 Lord Kelvin This was the theory of vitalism ; that the mysterious difference between living matter and non-living matter was explained by an Élan vital or vis vitalis. Élan vital infused living matter and caused it to move as consciously directed. Élan vital participated in chemical transformations which no mere non-living particles could undergo—Wöhler's later synthesis of urea, a component of urine, was a major blow to the vitalistic theory because it showed that mere chemistry could duplicate a product of biology. Calling “Élan vital” an explanation, even a fake explanation like phlogiston, is probably giving it too much credit. It functioned primarily as a curiosity-stopper. You said “Why?” and the answer was “Élan vital!” When you say “Élan vital!” it feels like you know why your hand moves. You have a little causal diagram in your head that says: But actually you know nothing you didn't know before. You don't know, say, whether your hand will generate heat or absorb heat, unless you have observed the fact already; if not, you won't be able to predict it in advance. Your curiosity feels sated, but it hasn't been fed. Since you can say “Why? Élan vital!” to any possible observation, it is equally good at explaining all outcomes, a disguised hypothesis of maximum entropy, et cetera. But the greater lesson lies in the vitalists' reverence for the Élan vital, their eagerness to pronounce it a mystery beyond all science. Meeting the great dragon Unknown, the vitalists did not draw their swords to do battle, but bowed their necks in submission. They took pride in their ignorance, made biology into a sacred mystery, and thereby became loath to relinquish their ignorance when evidence came knocking. The Secret of Life was infinitely beyond the reach of science! Not just a little beyond, mind you, but infinitely beyond! Lord Kelvin sure did get a tremendous emotional kick out of not knowing something. But ignorance exists in the map, not in the territory. If I am ignorant about a phenomenon, that is a fact about my own state of mind, not a fact about the phenomenon itself. A phenomenon can seem mysterious to some particular person. There are no phenomena which are mysterious of themselves. To worship a phenomenon because it seems so wonderfully mysterious is to worship y...
Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Local Validity as a Key to Sanity and Civilization, published by Eliezer Yudkowsky on the AI Alignment Forum. (Cross-posted from Facebook.) 0. Tl;dr: There's a similarity between these three concepts: A locally valid proof step in mathematics is one that, in general, produces only true statements from true statements. This is a property of a single step, irrespective of whether the final conclusion is true or false. There's such a thing as a bad argument even for a good conclusion. In order to arrive at sane answers to questions of fact and policy, we need to be curious about whether arguments are good or bad, independently of their conclusions. The rules against fallacies must be enforced even against arguments for conclusions we like. For civilization to hold together, we need to make coordinated steps away from Nash equilibria in lockstep. This requires general rules that are allowed to impose penalties on people we like or reward people we don't like. When people stop believing the general rules are being evaluated sufficiently fairly, they go back to the Nash equilibrium and civilization falls. i. The notion of a locally evaluated argument step is simplest in mathematics, where it is a formalizable idea in model theory. In math, a general type of step is 'valid' if it only produces semantically true statements from other semantically true statements, relative to a given model. If x = y in some set of variable assignments, then 2x = 2y in the same model. Maybe x doesn't equal y, in some model, but even if it doesn't, the local step from "x = y" to "2x = 2y" is a locally valid step of argument. It won't introduce any new problems. Conversely, xy = xz does not imply y = z. It happens to work when x = 2, y = 3, and z= 3, in which case the two statements say "6 = 6" and "3 = 3" respectively. But if x = 0, y = 4, z = 17, then we have "0 = 0" on one side and "4 = 17" on the other. We can feed in a true statement and get a false statement out the other end. This argument is not locally okay. You can't get the concept of a "mathematical proof" unless on some level—though often an intuitive level rather than an explicit one—you understand the notion of a single step of argument that is locally okay or locally not okay, independent of whether you globally agreed with the final conclusion. There's a kind of approval you give to the pieces of the argument, rather than looking the whole thing over and deciding whether you like what came out the other end. Once you've grasped that, it may even be possible to convince you of mathematical results that sound counterintuitive. When your understanding of the rules governing allowable argument steps has become stronger than your faith in your ability to judge whole intuitive conclusions, you may be convinced of truths you would not otherwise have grasped. ii. More generally in life, even outside of mathematics, there are such things as bad arguments for good conclusions. There are even such things as genuinely good arguments for false conclusions, though of course those are much rarer. By the Bayesian definition of evidence, "strong evidence" is exactly that kind of evidence which we very rarely expect to find supporting a false conclusion. Lord Kelvin's careful and multiply-supported lines of reasoning arguing that the Earth could not possibly be so much as a hundred million years old, all failed simultaneously in a surprising way because that era didn't know about nuclear reactions. But most of the time this does not happen. On the other hand, bad arguments for true conclusions are extremely easy to come by, because there are tiny elves that whisper them to people. There isn't anything the least bit more difficult in making an argument terrible when it leads to a good conclusion, since the tiny elves own lawnmowers. One of the mar...
«Lo que no se define no se puede medir. Lo que no se mide, no se puede mejorar. Lo que no se mejora, se degrada siempre.» Esta cita del físico y matemático británico William Thomson, más conocido como Lord Kelvin nos habla de la importancia de medir las cosas, de tener números, datos o indicios que podamos analizar y de los cuales podamos sacar conclusiones. Siempre con el objetivo de detectar qué estamos haciendo bien y qué estamos haciendo mal. Y como no podía ser de otra forma, el branding de un negocio, la estrategia de marca, también debe revisarse periódicamente para ser ajustada y mejorada. Por muy intangible que pueda parecer… Hoy, en Cómo Diferenciarse, hablamos de métricas para mejorar tu estrategia de marca y de qué puntos son fundamentales analizar para saber si tu branding es un activo para el crecimiento de tu negocio. Soy Toni Colom. Diseñador gráfico especializado en branding para negocios digitales. Y en este podcast comparto todo lo que sé y lo que voy aprendiendo sobre diseño y branding, con el objetivo de ayudarte a crear una marca auténtica y honesta que te permita diferenciarte de tu competencia. Recuerda que he creado el Curso de Branding Mínimo Viable porque quiero ayudarte a lanzar y validar este proyecto que tienes en mente. Así que, si quieres adquirir los conocimientos básicos para desarrollar los elementos mínimos que necesita tu marca, puedes adquirir el Curso de Branding Mínimo Viable en esta página. También hemos hablado de: Episodio 101 Planeta M: Audio branding, Mozart y la guitarra de Metallica.Episodio 22 Random Mastermind: Avanzando cursos y vuelta a LinkedIn.Episodio 119: ¿Cómo te ayuda el branding a ganar dinero? Recuerda que tu feedback es muy importante para mi! Así puedo saber quien eres, qué temas te gustaría que tratara en los siguientes episodios y cuál es tu opinión sobre el contenido de hoy. Si te apetece podemos seguir con esta conversación a través de correo electrónico, a través de redes sociales (dónde me puedes encontrar con el usuario @tonicolom, o a través del grupo de Telegram del podcast. Muchas gracias por escucharme. Un abrazo y hasta pronto! La entrada Métricas para mejorar tu estrategia de marca #123 se publicó primero en Toni Colom.
Devocional Cristiano para Jóvenes - PERSIGUE TUS SUEÑOS Fecha: 15-07-2020 Título: LORD KELVIN Autor: Dorothy E. Watts Locución: Ale Marín http://evangelike.com/devocionales-cristianos-para-jovenes/
Full Spectrum - Trance, Psytrance, Progressive, Breaks, Bass, EDM - Mixed by frequenZ phaZe
"The sun is the past, the earth is the present, the moon is the future. From an incandescent mass we have originated, and into a frozen mass we shall turn. Merciless is the law of nature, and rapidly and irresistibly we are drawn to our doom. Lord Kelvin, in his profound meditations, allows us only a short span of life, something like six million years, after which time the suns bright light will have ceased to shine, and its life giving heat will have ebbed away, and our own earth will be a lump of ice, hurrying on through the eternal night. But do not let us despair. There will still be left upon it a glimmering spark of life, and there will be a chance to kindle a new fire on some distant star. This wonderful possibility seems, indeed, to exist[...], the cheering lights of science and art, ever increasing in intensity, illuminate our path, and marvels they disclose, and the enjoyments they offer, make us measurably forgetful of the gloomy future." - Nikola Tesla, The Problem of Increasing Human Energy TRACKLIST || 01. Denis Kenzo - After Dark [A State Of Trance] || 02. AudioStorm - Monumental Architecture [Superordinate Music] || 03. Alfonso Muchacho, Aguizi & Fahim - Anova (Alfonso Muchacho Mix) [Superordinate Music] || 04. Lily Pita - Unlimited [Mistique Music] || 05. Martin Cloud - Treverse [BOX4JOY] || 06. Andromedha - The Hike [Silk Music] || 07. Leo G - Supersonic (Gai Barone Remix) [Pure Progressive] || 08. Alpha 9 - The Night Is Ours (Extended Mix) [Armind (Armada)] || 09. Ashley Wallbridge - Goa (Extended Mix) [Armada Trice] || 10. Armos & Lucid Blue - Call Of The Wild [Suanda Music] || 11. Roman Messer & Denis Sender ft. Cari (Radio Edit) - Don't Give Up [Suanda Music] || 12. Sam Foster - Moon Train [Black Delta Records] Never miss an episode! Subscribe to the Full Spectrum podcast, find the latest releases at https://ffaze.com
The buzz: Hurry! Calling all manufacturers! We're mid-way into our 4th industrial revolution. If your manufacturing facility isn't taking advantage of the exponential advances in technology, exploding big data and amazing innovations, the handwriting is on the wall: you'll soon be obsolete. What will it take to catch up? First, learn to harness the power of in-memory computing, IoT, wearable technologies, additive manufacturing and predictive capabilities. Next, stop underestimating the changing dynamics of your customers' expectations (your competition isn't). Want to know more? The experts speak. Mark Frank, Deloitte: “Nothing is impossible. Some things are just less likely than others” (Jonathan Winters). Timothy Day, Johns Manville: “If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it” (Lord Kelvin). Rick Imber, SAP: “The secret of success is doing what you have to do, better than you have to do it” (Unknown). Join us for Transporting Your Factory into the Future Now–Part 1.
The buzz: Hurry! Calling all manufacturers! We're mid-way into our 4th industrial revolution. If your manufacturing facility isn't taking advantage of the exponential advances in technology, exploding big data and amazing innovations, the handwriting is on the wall: you'll soon be obsolete. What will it take to catch up? First, learn to harness the power of in-memory computing, IoT, wearable technologies, additive manufacturing and predictive capabilities. Next, stop underestimating the changing dynamics of your customers' expectations (your competition isn't). Want to know more? The experts speak. Mark Frank, Deloitte: “Nothing is impossible. Some things are just less likely than others” (Jonathan Winters). Timothy Day, Johns Manville: “If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it” (Lord Kelvin). Rick Imber, SAP: “The secret of success is doing what you have to do, better than you have to do it” (Unknown). Join us for Transporting Your Factory into the Future Now–Part 1.