Rare sighting of a column chart taking a dip at Hove Beach.

#dataviz

A&UPod - Asynchronous and Unreliable Episode 2 Episode 2

Episode 2 of Asynchronous and Unreliable podcast is now live! Mission critical systems expert Jon Berger discusses the future of code efficiency www.asynchronousunreliable.com/asynchronous...

Some years ago I read Laura Vanderkam's book "All the Money In the World" which is on this very subject. I still think about it all the time

FFS. Nothing takes me out of a film faster than failure to even do the most basic research. The Statue of Liberty is on an ISLAND. It is not buried in a jaunty angle in the sand.

A good reminder that this is probably a good time to re-read The Phoenix Project

The big question is, is there a proper plan for DC design cooperation with the UK grid? Google is working with several grids in the US to build grid balancing AI DCs blog.google/innovation-a... (demand side response aka flexibility). These are the future. Gas powered is rushed, not strategic.

And I'd argue it wouldn't be a good/future proof data centre. Google is already building grid balancing AI DCs in the US. It requires using GPUs/hardware and designing services so that it is commercially viable to turn up/down. As I say that's not pie in the sky because Google is already doing it

So whoever I vote for is likely a throwaway. The Conservative looks OK actually & is the most likely alternative. There's actually a vote Green sign in our street. I don;t like the Green's policies (despite the name of my book) but I like the effect they might have on Labour, who have no chance here

A&UPod - Asynchronous and Unreliable Episode 1 - Transcript Episode 1

Shownotes and transcript: www.asynchronousunreliable.com/asynchronous...
Youtube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=boe1...
Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/5JifWvK...
Apple: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a...

Cloud good/Cloud bad? It's not as easy as that as my @oreilly.bsky.social co-author Sara Bergman and I discuss on new tech podcast, Asynchronous and Unreliable. (links in the comment)

Just as there is an effective tax for folk who take a graduate loan, a tax specifically for folk who draw a state pension, with a lower bound a chunk above the state pension so it doesn't apply to pure pensioners and encourages some saving? So the state pension becomes a floor rather than topup?

I wish Tussauds would fail and flood the market with cheap mannikins. I noticed a charioteer at Colchester Roman Circus Museum appeared to be Jackie Chan. The tour guide confirmed he was cheap from the collapse of a local waxworks. Only Jackie & Obama left & the latter was too tall for the costume

A&UPod - Asynchronous and Unreliable Episode 1 - Transcript Episode 1

Shownotes and transcript: www.asynchronousunreliable.com/asynchronous...
Youtube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=boe1...
Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/5JifWvK...
Apple: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a...

The first episode of Asynchronous and Unreliable weekly podcast is now live!!!! See comments for links.

Sara Bergman & I discuss all the things, including efficiency in all its forms & whether you should run calmness retreats based on the principles of distributed systems.

Hugely fun to record!!!

The evolution of the internet (arguably humanity's greatest invention) has a tonne of useful real life examples of conflicts and resolutions in the growth of a critical distribution system for a variable resource (bandwidth in that case). I do need to write that book at some point ;-)

Vaccines Are Saving the World! But Did Content Delivery Networks Do It First? How did we get through the massive web traffic increases of the Covid-19 crisis without the Internet crashing to a halt? Because of creative use of CDNs.

Ha! Yes I was leaping somewhat to the end there ;-) But it isn't really the end. We kind of do have a good example of a highly successful system that does more with less and responds to varying conditions already blog.container-solutions.com/content-deli...

Without energy efficiency, the EU would need — and pay — 31% more for energy today.

Since 2000, efficiency has removed 265 Mtoe of demand from the market entirely.

The best protection against a price shock is not finding cheaper oil and gas. It's needing less of it.

BTW the irony is I would have said the USA exemplified a distributed culture and China a centralised one!

The problem with fiction is we still want a superhero but heroes are SPOFs and they don't scale. I guess Buffy scaled out and just ended ;-)

We even have a fab real world analogy which is the internet (decentralised, scalable & so resilient we don't even notice). I suspect you rightly want to see a more distributed and resilient culture promulgated via scifi? ...

Which are that societies have a cultural background strategy that pervades their culture (games in that book's case) and which ultimately defines their success in their context. IMO FFs exemplify one culture (centralised, command & control) & renewables another (decentralised, context specific)

I have a lot to say on this post, which means I'll need a thread @solarchase.bsky.social. I write scifi and non fiction about both the energy transition and resilient systems. I suspect what you're describing is somewhat analogous to Iain Banks' thoughts in The Player of Games...

Lift up the receiver, I'll make you a believer

The trade off is they are constantly being repaired ;-) But you have reliability, which is everything. The irony is Farageland (where I live) is very cheap, pleasant, and commutable

The Greater Anglia service from Clacton to London is fantastic (except at the weekend, when it's all bus replacement, but at least you are warned of that). It is damn expensive for a 90 min run though (£50 off-peak day return last week) which feels it is cutting off a resource for a depressed area

Also interesting. 4 photos of Vance on the main pg vs 1 of Trump (smaller and below the fold). An editorial statement being made?

What a hero image. I often feel the BBC has lost its way but its coverage of the Moon mission has been excellent.

Positive, always the top story, loads of coverage.

(for the non-retailers, the main image at the top of a site is called the hero. Rarely has that been more appropriate).

Ha! That's an interesting point. A lot of the most powerful tech changes do require some major identity changing. There you go, giving me something to talk about :-) BTW I'd love to have you on my new podcast, Asynchronous and Unreliable www.asynchronousunreliable.com

The top part of the Moon is illuminated. The gray cratered surface stands out against the blackness of space. The Earth appears in the far distance as an upside-down crescent moon shape. There is some lens flare in the top part and center of the image. Credit: NASA

okay i change my mind, THIS is one of the best and most beautiful images from artemis ii

Interesting!