This is my question after reading M. King Hubbert’s Two Intellectual Systems: Matter-energy and the Monetary Culture.

Interesting quote:

Despite their inherent incompatibilities, these two systems during the last two centuries have had one fundamental characteristic in common, namely, exponential growth, which has made a reasonably stable coexistence possible. But, for various reasons, it is impossible for the matter-energy system to sustain exponential growth for more than a few tens of doublings, and this phase is by now almost over. The monetary system has no such constraints, and, according to one of its most fundamental rules, it must continue to grow by compound interest. This disparity between a monetary system which continues to grow exponentially and a physical system which is unable to do so leads to an increase with time in the ratio of money to the output of the physical system. This manifests itself as price inflation. A monetary alternative corresponding to a zero physical growth rate would be a zero interest rate. The result in either case would be large-scale financial instability.

Economy depression and price inflation of commodities right now are not coincidences. Watch out!

With understanding the Binary Compensation Plan is the easiest system for anyone to build and develop when used and implemented strategically and systematically by committed people working together in unity. The binary is the perfect example of people helping people.

Statistically the average network marketing distributor sponsors 2.7 people. The difference between success and failure is how you place these people. In a binary, you build 2 legs or teams (binary means 2). If every distributor just brings 2 people and teaches those 2 people to do the same thing (bring 2 help 2) everyone can achieve success, the key is understanding and the right heart.

What if you sponsor more than 2 distributors? All additional distributors you sponsor go below your original 2 distributors, which also adds to their point volume, it generates excitement, builds teamwork and generates exponential growth.

A Binary does not pay you on levels; it pays you on total sales volume of everyone in your two legs or teams up to a predetermined cap which is set by the product company. In order for distributors to receive commission most companies require every distributor to make a minimum product purchase each month.

Each level of your organization is paid what is called team commissions. Team commission is based on a percentage of distributor’s monthly product purchases (team point volume). One of the main distinctions of the of the binary plan is that it is volume driven as opposed to level driven, there is an incentive to help every new distributor in your organization. It is just math and because there are no depth restrictions to a binary plan, levels don’t matter, sales volume is what matters.

A binary plan fairly disperses income because as your upline (distributers above you) places new distributors in their downline (distributors below them) point volume is distributed to all the distributors above. Which means that team commissions paid on point volume is spread out more evenly among entire team of distributors.

Working together in unity with other Operation Promised Land members who are armed with the understanding of what our outreach ministry teaches in its strategic placement systematic entry. Members of Operation Promised Land work together so all distributors have the same opportunity to earn a substantial income by committing to work as one body (commit 2 collect) to purchase good products the right way as a group, from good product companies with binary compensation plans.

Visit us online now to learn more www.Bring2Help2.org

Membership in Operation Promised Land is Free!

*Operation Promised Land is an outreach ministry of Everlasting Covenant Christian Center.  Operation Promised Land is not a product company and does not collect any monies from its members, nor pay any monies to its members, we are a Christian based training organization with one purpose, to bring understanding and a practical plan for extra income and a path to financial freedom.

Image of the Day: Is It True?

To America and China the rest of the world must look like poultry and game… what’s the main course?

President Barack Obama inspect honor guards during a welcome ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, November 17, 2009. REUTERS/David Gray. Image may be subject to copyright.

Related Links:

• 338,000 Afghan infants dying under Obama war
• US Govt

GenBank Growth. The Biggest Hockey Stick.

The GenBank sequence database is an open access, annotated collection of all publicly available nucleotide sequences and their protein translations. This database is produced at National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) as part of the International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration, or INSDC. GenBank and its collaborators receive sequences produced in laboratories throughout the world from more than 100,000 distinct organisms. GenBank continues to grow at an exponential rate, doubling every 18 months. Release 155, produced in August 2006, contained over 65 billion nucleotide bases in more than 61 million sequences. GenBank is built by direct submissions from individual laboratories, as well as from bulk submissions from large-scale sequencing centers. (Wikipedia)

The Next ‘IT Industry’

When technology was given individuals, growth and innovation turned out to be exponential. Now we are reaching the stage where an individual can fabricate and re-design biological components and systems that do not already exist in the natural world at a fraction of the cost 20 years ago.

————————

Further Readings:

• Singularity University Blog
• Singularity Institute Summit Blog
• Video – Singularity University Executive Program: Ray Kurzweil’s Opening Address
• You will find on YouTube many presentations on (Technological) Singularity, especially from Raymond Kurzweil.
• Reading list to Singularity in the IT Industry and Biology and other aspects
• Free University Stuff — Open Course to Synthetic Biology [Very Cool]
• The actual largest Hockey Stick is in Vancouver, Canada.
• The New Yorker – A Live of its own
• Movie – Surrogates

“You believe in the God who plays dice, and I in complete law and order in a world which objectively exists, and which I, in a wildly speculative way, am trying to capture. I hope that someone will discover a more realistic way, or rather a more tangible basis than it has been my lot to find. Even the great initial success of the Quantum Theory does not make me believe in the fundamental dice-game, although I am well aware that our younger colleagues interpret this as a consequence of senility. No doubt the day will come when we will see whose instinctive attitude was the correct one.” – Albert Einstein, 1944

I don’t believe in God. Or, more accurately, I’m more likely to believe in Calculus.

I didn’t want to come to this conclusion – that the universe is merely just math and science, and we are all just random, predetermined points playing out an exponential symphony of growing cacophony under the umbrella of “order” – but in spite of rampant optimism, I stand corrected.

I’ll be brief in my findings, and if time permits or the demand for a more elaborate and constructive illumination exists, we’ll come back to this at a later point.

I want you to take a look at the chart above. It is your generic graph illustrating exponential growth. It is the most important piece of imagery you’ll ever see.

Every exponential graph like this contains the following characteristics:

1. Origin

2. An X and Y-axis

3. A curve whose slope consistently increases at an increasing rate

4. An asymptote which the near-vertical part of the curve can never touch.

Let’s discuss each of these parts quickly.

1. Origin – The point from which the curve originates. The meeting of the X and Y-axis. For nearly every system occurring naturally and of human construct, there is always an origin. The invention of currency, the first of the species, the Big Bang, absolute zero. Origins are the point at which something comes from what initially appears to be nothing – but actually more accurately occurs from a confluence of other systems reorganizing and resetting their own disorder. Stay with me here.

2. X and Y-axis - An X-axis is a linear (theoretically, at least) measuring piece (often time, but could potentially be anything) and a Y-axis is a level or quantity of some kind. the X-axis exists independently, Y must always depend to some degree on X.

3. A curve whose slope consistently increases at an increasing rate – Check out the curve. Seems to continue to arch further and further up as you move from left-to-right across the X-axis, correct? That signifies exponential growth. This is an important concept. Perfectly linear growth does not exist. The problem with most humans is we base most assumptions upon perceived linear growth. This is laughable. Population growth, currency devaluation, heat, technological advancement and evolution are just a few of the multitude of examples of non-linear, exponential growth. We’ll illustrate a few of these examples below.

4. An asymptote which the near vertical part of the curve can never touch. - At some point, the graph points up so drastically that it becomes near vertical. The point at which the curve can no longer sustain itself, and it reaches near infinite levels of growth is called an asymptote. For simplicity’s sake, let’s assume it’s the far right vertical line of the chart listed above. That red line will never touch it, for it is the limit of the graph.

Got the math down? Great. Now, for a bit of science.

***********************************************

First, the chemistry. There are two important laws of which to take note here. The Law of Conservation of Matter and the Law of Conservation of Energy. They relate to each other an important way.

The Law of Conservation of Matter states that  “During an ordinary chemical change, there is no detectable increase or decrease in the quantity of matter.”

The Law of Conservation of Energy states that “Energy cannot be created or destroyed, but can change its form.”

Subsequently, the total quantity of matter and energy available in the universe is a fixed amount and never any more or less.

This is important to the concept of our graph for the following reasons:

1. Since there is no creation or destruction of mass or energy, no origin point can exist independently of other graphs of other systems.

2. The X and Y axes can run through multiple phases, systems and courses in conjunction with reason #1. (Time on the X-axis is a fantastic example of this. Time doesn’t start and stop when systems start or stop. It’s a metronome. It’s independent of other variables.)

3. An asymptote has the potential to function as the Y-axis for another related system or graph.

And it is point #3 that harkens back to Einstein.

There is one final piece to the puzzle. “What happens at the asymptote?”

*************************************************

Quantum Mechanics is a hard concept around which to wrap one’s mind. A brief, perhaps overly simplistic overview goes something like this:

A particle appearing at any given discrete point in time and place is probabilistic in nature, and is dependent upon a variety of interrelated factors including energy and field strength. Energy exchanges will always be discrete because standing waves only exist at discrete frequencies (a common graspable example given is a guitar fret-board, where you can move your finger around in a given fret and still produce the same note).

To illustrate this more concretely, although humans have evolved over the past few million years and bare little resemblance to the original homo sapiens, we are still considered human. Many different permutations, but still falling in the same general bucket. Now, let’s put this all together.

*************************************************

The above is a water phase diagram. Note that it contains all the characteristics of the graph we’ve discussed earlier.

1. There are three origin points: the intersection of the X and Y-axis (absolute zero), the triple point and the critical point.

2. An X and Y-axis (Temperature and pressure.)

3. Curves that increase at a consistently increasing rate. (Two of them, in fact!)

4. Asymptotes at which the curve can never touch. (No water ever exists solely at the triple point or critical point, for water can never be both solid and liquid, solid and gas or liquid and gas. It is either one or the other. The dotted line illustrates the clear divide between solid and liquid if you’re not convinced by the points.)

It is also important to note that the quantity of water within this graph never changes (as it is neither an X or Y-axis variable), satisfying the Law of Conservation of Matter. Also, the quantity of energy within the entire system never changes … only whether the energy is stored as potential energy, or in use as kinetic energy as temperature and pressure increase. This satisfies the Law of Conservation of Energy. Ok, that’s basic high school chemistry. You didn’t come here for that.

Finally, due to Quantum Mechanics, it’s important to note that water can only be justifiably bucketed into three phases. Solid, Liquid and Gas.

There’s your illustration … here’s your mind-blowing application.

********************************************

The following graph represents an exponential system:

Yeesh. That doesn’t look very encouraging. It’s world population.

The origin point is the birth of the first human. The X-axis is time. The Y-axis is the amount of people inhabiting the pebble we call Earth. The curve is in red. The asymptote is, well, pretty freaking soon. Due to a finite amount of resources such as food, water, energy and inhabitable land, the collapse of the system nears closer and closer. Don’t panic yet, as there are plenty of other related systems that may kill us off quicker.

Hey everybody! It’s the national debt! It’s also increasing roughly exponentially.

The origin point (not pictured) is the first printed U.S. Dollar. The X-axis is time. The Y-axis is the amount of debt carried by our entire country. The curve is the upper limit of the purple. The asymptote is, well, also pretty freaking soon. Due to the federal reserve banking system (itself a human-constructed innovation allegedly created to curb debt spending and prevent devaluation of a gold-backed dollar, which confoundedly produces money backed only by debt), and an increase in spending that far outweighs the increase in income and credits earned by our government and industry, the collapse of the system nears closer and closer. A collapse of the U.S. currency (97% devaluation since 1913!) could come as the Fed releases more money to cover existing debt … thereby creating more debt.

Now, let’s get really mind-bendingly abstract.

Evolution & Technological Advancement. Astronomer Carl Sagan once offered up a “cosmic calendar” to make it easier for you or I to visualize the events of the history of the universe. Goes a lil’ something like this:

“The year would begin on January 1 with a bang – the Big Bang. Nothing much would then happen in our corner of the universe until about August when the sun would make its appearance. The earth itself wouldn’t show signs of any life until November—when the first multicellular organisms begin wiggling about. Dinosaurs show up around Christmas Eve. At 10:15 AM on December 31, apes would appear; humans would begin walking upright at 9:24 PM; modern civilization would appear at 11:59:20; Rome would fall at 11:59:57; and the Renaissance would occur just one second before midnight.

Rather amazingly, everything else – the printing press, the steam engine, electricity, the computer, the Internet, the human genome project, stem cell research, nanotechnology, etc – would be squeezed into the last second.”

Indeed, he’s not the only person who shares this view.

Re: Evolution.

If you accept the notion of evolution, you will agree that the earliest life appeared on earth approximately 4 billion years ago. Complex cellular organisms showed up 2 billion years ago, and the first multicellular organism about 1 billion years ago. The first reptiles and dinosaurs made their appearance 300 million years ago; the first primates 40 million years ago; homo sapiens appeared 160,000 years ago; Cro-Magnon man 40,000 years ago; and modern civilization as we know it began about 10,000 years ago.

Wow. Sketched out, the shape of that graph would look an awful lot like all the previous charts we’ve shown.

Related to that, there’s the example of the logarithmic timeline. You can view a simple one nearly anywhere, but for ease of use, here’s a link to one presented by Wikipedia. (Yeah, it’s accurate. You’ll see.)

This flips the concept of exponents upside down, because in this case the distance in time increases backwards exponentially (a logarithm) to make the technological advancement seem more linear. If you were to sketch time linearly, the technological advancements would be exponential. Note that a logarithmic scale never actually gets to zero. This is the origin point! Thus, illustrating backwards the theory that an origin point itself lies on an asymptote, perhaps as the limit of another related system! Just as in water phases and quantum mechanics.

Again, with respect to evolution and technology … it would seem as though we’ve neared the asymptotes, and that a collapse of the current status quo is imminent, and other novel exponential systems will rise. But what does it all mean?

***************************************************

Systems, both human-constructed and some naturally-occurring, are nearing their boiling point. The 20th century produced greater war-related destruction than in all the centuries preceding it. Climate change and natural disasters are more devastating than ever. A freshman in college going for an IT degree will see roughly 50% of their knowledge become outdated by their junior year. Our national debt will once again smash a record high. The gap between the rich and poor grows astronomically. There have been more medical advancements within our generation than in all generations preceding it.

With every breath we take, we draw nearer to the potential for a superhuman species, for the collapse of our ability to sustain ourselves, to live to be 200 years old, or to blow our entire planet off it’s axis. And, mathematically and mechanically, there’s nothing we can do to stop it.

“I never think of the future. It comes soon enough.” – Albert Einstein

Tipped by a fine article in SeekingAlpha on Monday, I followed the link to a series of videos.  There are 8 videos of about 9 minutes each.  I cannot think of a better use of time , if you have any concerns for our future, than watching these videos.  Understanding the concepts that Professor Bartlett presents is critical to planning for our future. ( A disclosure: Nothing in this post should be viewed as investment advice.  Another disclosure:  I own oil futures and am betting on oil’s price to rise significantly. )

Now to the post I want you to read and understand.  My apologies in advance if in my haste to get this posted I have an error or two.  The main point is not an error.

Most data show that world population growth has averaged about 1.5% per year for the past 50 years.  The most recent rate is 1.15%.  For sake of argument, let’s predict that world population growth will average 1.38% for the next 50 years.  At that rate, the world population will grow from the current estimate of 6.7 Billion people to 13.4 Billion in the next 50 years, well within the lifetime of most people under the age of majority.

Now, let’s look at some of the consequences of this growth.  Agricultural production will need to double to feed 13.4 billion people.  Infrastructure needs will also double.  We will need twice the housing, twice the sewage treatment, and twice the highways, etc.  Each of these things will rely heavily on a need for more energy, likely twice what we use now.

Now let’s combine this knowledge (the doubling of population within 50 years) with the likelihood of finding and recovering sufficient energy sources over the same time to feed the energy needs of over 13 billion people.  We can argue numbers, but for sake of argument, let’s agree that current world oil consumption is just over 30 billion barrels annually.  Similarly, let’s assume the total world reserves are just over 1.2 Trillion barrels.  Without any growth in demand, 30 billion divided into 1,200 billion equals 40.  Forty years of oil remain, if there is no growth.  If you lay the population growth next to the depletion of our oil reserves, it is not a pretty picture.

If you believe the above scenario, and I think it is very close, what do we need to do to continue our lifestyle?

We could stop population growth.  It is worth considering what it would take to do that since most of the third world is growing at very fast rates. Africa is growing at a rate of well over 2%.  And if we did stop the growth of population, would that also stop the growth in energy use?

We could stop eating as much.  That probably would help most of us with our waistlines.  It might save lots of fuel and fertilizer.

We could discover lots more oil or coal.  I think we have been trying pretty hard for the past 5 years or so using the best technology available and really haven’t found enough to dent the need.

We could learn to use less energy.  This, too, is not real likely.  As third world nations mature and become more like the ‘first world’ modern nations, they tend to do it through the use of lots more, not less, energy.

Or, we could turn to alternative energy.  In 2008, in the US, we generated less than 50 million megawatts of electrical energy from solar and wind energy, a little over 1% of the electrical energy we produced.  President Obama has promised to double this amount in the next three years.  That’s an annual growth rate of over 23%.  First, that is not likely sustainable, but let’s assume we can grow alternatives at 23% per year, worldwide.  Our world generation of alternative energy would have to grow at our rate, also not likely outside of developed nations.  Even if this happened, we would double production every three years.  Again, assuming no growth in energy use, we would produce 2% of our energy from renewables in 3 years (by 2013), 4% by 2016, 8% by 2019, 16% by 2022, and about 1/3rd of our energy by 2025.  In 15 years, by growing alternative energy use by 23%, we can provide about a third of our CURRENT energy use with alternative sources.  In that same period of time, with population growing at 1.38%, our population will grow by just over 22% and with it, our energy use will likely grow a similar amount.

I know I have only included wind and solar, not hydroelectric, not tidal, geothermal, nuclear, etc.  I also know the pitfalls of projecting any growth rate, whether population or energy use or production.  I just have a hard time working out numbers that don’t tell me that:

Energy Production and Use and Population Growth will combine to dramatically alter our lifestyle over the coming years and yet neither seems to be a priority of our government or the governments of the world.

I hope I have stirred your curiosity enough to get you to watch the videos.  I would love for every member of Congress and the President to view them.   I think every man, woman, and child should see them.

Malthus was right.  Population Growth is going to bite us in the butt.

Here is the first of the videos.  Watch it first.  Then,  after viewing the second video Youtube, the link to the next one is always in the yellow bar at the base of the screen.  Do yourself a favor and watch all of them.

I’ve been very intrigued by exponential growth and its typical the hockey stick pattern.

Exponential growth patterns have held true in many social networking sites or applications’ adoption and understanding this better might be key to architecting a desired consumer behaviour like the internal adoption of a community or collaboration tool or fostering social networking growth for an organization or event.

With the right integrated marketing support, right engagement strategies and adequate lead time, marketers can architect constant growth and, over time, experience exponential growth.   But the supports need to be present -

• Integrated marketing support – god! if digital didn’t already suffer from a lack of integration with traditional media, now arrives social media which needs to be part of PR, operations, communications and much more.    It has to be clever integration too because the social media presence is not a broadcast of other medias.   Here is a post on my woes.

• Engagement strategies – I’m not convinced there is enough thought given to how to create a strategy or environment where sharing is made easy, is built into a campaign and consumer contributions are encouraged and valued.  Mitch Joel, Twist Image, once tweeted or said somewhere that viral is a result – and I always liked that distinction because people try to sell ‘viral marketing’ but not everything ‘goes viral’.     That said, there are some elements that need to be planned in order to make viral easy and happen if the idea, content, widget is gonna go viral.

• Adequate lead time – Importantly, if the wrong amount of time or support is given to marketing – then all we see is the first half of social media exponential growth – which isn’t impressive because the BOOM hockey stick hasn’t taken off.   Wouldn’t it be cool to measure the first half of the hockey stick and have alarm bells go off when an exponential growth pattern is established!  I’d like that.

I found a great discussion on exponential growth on Youtube.

After reading the following article on Travelmole.com the Villawarehouse.com admin team started looking at travel and twitter. Over the next few day we will be compiling a report on our thoughts and views.

In the mean time – Enjoy

The use of micro blogging site Twitter is gaining rapid penetration within the travel industry, according to a new study.

It revealed that more than half of users (52%) tweeted between four and 10 times a day, with over a quarter sending more than 10 Twitter updates daily.

Managing directors, commercial directors, hotel owners and government officials are actively using the social media tool to forge connections with their customers and stakeholders.

 

The survey of 90 Twitter users who tweet on travel matters was conducted by Andy Jarosz, writer and owner of travel blog 501 Places.

It found that the majority of users surveyed had started using Twitter within the last six months.

“This is no surprise given the exponential growth of the site in 2009, and it does indicate that it is not too late for those who are still considering whether they should get to grips with using Twitter as a way of communicating with the online travel community,” Jarosz said.

 

by Phil Davies @travelmole.com, full article can be read there.

DEATH BY 1,000 PIN STICKS

There must be a new approach to public policy development that makes “Earth First” top priority.  “Property” “economy” and “jobs” must serve “Earth First.”

The planning frame should be at least 100 years, possibly 1,000, NOT 25.  Environmental change is occurring so fast that small decisions made locally avalanche regionally (e.g. downstream pollution), or even globally (e.g. ozone layer destruction).

The Economic Growth discussion is always the same: “highest and best value” (a misnomer if ever there was one – profits trump survival).

Fat City is over, although many are still trying to milk it for the last bit of cream.  We must do more with less, and the rich must share or move out.  We don’t need more deadhead users and freeloaders.  We must develop a mutually supportive community again.  The business of government is the people’s business; developers step to the rear.  Legislators must renounce corporate campaign contributions as contrary to the public good.

We need to CONTROL land value to discourage speculation, and eliminate or lessen the wide market swings due to nerves or manipulation.  We must impose firm, honest value on land and discourage speculative over-inflation – speculation is not bad per se, but it is one of the easiest activities to exaggerate and corrupt.  We need a National Land Use Comprehensive Plan.

Unlimited growth is the ethos of a cancer cell, says David Suzuki, noted biologist.  Because one cannot personally conceive of an alternative to growth does not mean that one does not exist.  Sustainability is NOT a myth – it is an under-represented, and too-often wrongfully rejected younger child; the one bearing truth to co-dependent addictive parents in deep denial over their multi-generational destruction of the natural environment.

Three well-known fables, or metaphors illustrate our present situation:

• Chinese fable of death by 1,000 pin sticks.  Stick a mouse one to 500 times and it can still heal unassisted.  Between 500-750 sticks, the mouse needs help in order to survive.  Between 750 and the 1,000^th stick, death is certain, regardless of outside intervention.
• A lily pad grows exponentially, doubling in size every day.  It takes a while for it to cover half the pond, but on the very next day, the entire pond is covered, and everything below it suffocates.
• Parable of the frog and boiling water.  Put a frog in boiling water and it hops right out.  Put the frog in cold water and slowly heat it to boiling and the frog will adjust until it boils to death.

One more stick with the pin?  Deal with it later?  Turn up the heat?

As a former Chair of an urban Planning Commission and Executive Committee Member of a Regional Planning Council two developers stand out:

One claimed that a miles long unregulated commercial Strip was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen: America’s energy and excitement was laid out plain: the true entrepreneurial spirit – wires, signs, traffic snarls, and pollution, revealed in indifferent sprawl and waste.

A second bermed his auto lot outside the entrance to a National Historical Site at our demand.  He then ran a ramp up so that his trucks would show above the berm, and trimmed his trees to poodle tail puffs so that the branches wouldn’t obscure anything.  He performed the letter, but not the spirit of the law, with no respect for our shared national heritage.  He was a Coney Island developer at Gettysburg National Cemetery.

We are in crisis and we must make fundamental and absolute changes without further delay.  We cannot give “just a little bit more.”  Spoiled children require discipline if they are to live wholesome, productive lives.  Developers, and we, must settle for less and work to plan a healthy sustainable community.  We require teamwork to endure what is coming.  We don’t have the luxury to indulge selfish, ignorant behaviors.

JL:PDX-10-09

Earth’s Life Support Systems Failing by Stephen Leahy.

UXBRIDGE, Canada – The world has failed to slow the accelerating extinction crisis despite 17 years of national and international efforts since the great hopes raised at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.

The last big promise to act was in 2003, when government ministers from 123 countries committed to reduce the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010.

Experts convening an international meeting in South Africa this week agree that target will not be met next year, which is also the International Year of Biodiversity.

“It is hard to imagine a more important priority than protecting the ecosystem services underpinned by biodiversity,” said Georgina Mace of Imperial College in London, and vice chair of the international DIVERSITAS programme, a broad science-based collaborative.

“We will certainly miss the target for reducing the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010,” said Mace in a statement.

Biodiversity is not just weird-looking animals and pretty birds. It is the diversity of life on Earth that comprises the ecosystems that provide vital services, including climate regulation, food, fibre, clean water and air.

By some estimates, 12,000 species go extinct every year, and the rate is accelerating. Akin to a cataclysmic asteroid, pollution, logging, over-exploitation, consumption, land use changes and engineering projects have produced the planet’s sixth great extinction of species.

Freshwater ecosystems may be the first collapse of one of Earth’s life support systems in 13,000 years. Species that live in lakes and rivers are vanishing four to six times faster than anywhere else on the planet, said Klement Tockner of the Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries in Germany.

“There is clear and growing scientific evidence that we are on the verge of a major freshwater biodiversity crisis,” Tockner told IPS.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/10/14-4

Without Drastic CO2 Cuts Immediately, the World Faces a Massive ‘Oh Shit’ Moment By Mark Hertsgaard, The Nation.

A frightening new climate change study says the United States must eliminate its enormous rate of carbon emission within ten years. 

Editor’s Note: This is the kickoff to a series of pieces as a Copenhagen Primer about climate change that we will be running in the lead up to the international climate talks in Copenhagen beginning on December 7. Stay tuned.

They say that everyone who finally gets it about climate change has an “Oh, shit” moment — an instant when the full scientific implications become clear and they suddenly realize what a horrifically dangerous situation humanity has created for itself. Listening to the speeches, ground-breaking in their way, that President Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao delivered September 22 at the UN Summit on Climate Change, I was reminded of my most recent “Oh, shit” moment. It came in July, courtesy of the chief climate adviser to the German government. Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, chair of an advisory council known by its German acronym, WBGU, is a physicist whose specialty, fittingly enough, is chaos theory. Speaking to an invitation-only conference at New Mexico’s Santa Fe Institute, Schellnhuber divulged the findings of a study so new he had not yet briefed Chancellor Angela Merkel about it. The study, Solving the Climate Dilemma: The Budget Approach, has now been published here. If its conclusions are correct — and Schellnhuber ranks among the world’s half-dozen most eminent climate scientists — it has monumental implications for the pivotal meeting in December in Copenhagen, where world leaders will try to agree on reversing global warming.

http://www.alternet.org/environment/143256/without_drastic_co2_cuts_immediately%2C_the_world_faces_a_massive_%27oh_shit%27_moment

Decline of a Tribe: and Then There Were Five The Independent/UK

The last surviving members of an ancient Amazonian tribe are a tragic testament to greed and genocide by Guy Adams.

They are the last survivors: all that’s left of a once-vibrant civilisation which created its own religion and language, and gave special names to everything from the creatures of the rainforest to the stars of the night sky.

Just five people represent the entire remaining population of the Akuntsu, an ancient Amazonian tribe which a generation ago boasted several hundred members, but has been destroyed by a tragic mixture of hostility and neglect.

The indigenous community, which spent thousands of years in uncontacted seclusion, recently took an unwelcome step closer to extinction, with the death of its sixth last member, an elderly woman called Ururú.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/10/13-3

Light at the End of the Tunnel.

I am reproducing below an email I received from the Global Footprint Network. They have developed an excellent way to summarize the impact of human activity on the ecosphere. I am hopeful the international community will use their approach to guide policy makers and citizens toward making the right decisions that are needed to avoid the tipping point I mentioned in my last post.

It is significant that because the global recession has reduced consumption we are reaching global overshoot one day later than last year. That illustrates my point that the rich countries must significantly reduce their consumption if we are to avoid the tipping point. We cannot afford growth mania.

If every world citizen consumed at the level of US residents we would have reached Overshoot Day on March 21. Similarly if world consumption were the same as Canada it would have been April 17, for UK May 23 and for Thailand December 20. Lower income countries are consuming less than the world’s budget

Today is Earth Overshoot Day

Unlike governments, nature doesn’t do bailouts. Yet as of today, humanity will have placed more demand on ecological services – from filtering CO2 to producing food, fiber and timber– than nature can provide in this year, according to Global Footprint Network calculations. From now until the end of the year, we will meet our demand for ecological services by depleting resource stocks and accumulating carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

“It’s a simple case of income versus expenditures,” said Global Footprint Network President Mathis Wackernagel. “For years, our demand on nature has exceeded, by an increasingly greater margin, the budget of what nature can produce. The urgent threats we are seeing now – most notably climate change, but also biodiversity loss, shrinking forests, declining fisheries, soil erosion and freshwater stress – are all clear signs: Nature is running out of credit to extend.”

Just like any country, company, or household, nature has a budget – it can only produce so much resources and absorb so much waste each year. The problem is, our demand on nature exceeds its capacity to generate resources and absorb CO2,a condition known as ecological overshoot. We now use a year’s worth of capacity in less than 10 months. Our calculations show that if we continue with business as usual, according to moderate U.N. projections, in less than 25 years humanity will require the regenerative capacity of two planets– a level of demand that is likely to be physically impossible to meet.

Global Recession Barely Slows Demand

Because of the global economic slowdown, we will reach Earth Overshoot Day one day later than last year, according to Global Footprint Network projections. By comparison, in the past, Earth Overshoot Day has steadily moved four to six days closer to January 1st each year. 

“The fact is that in spite of a very painful world economic situation, we are still way over-budget in our use of nature,” said Wackernagel.  “The challenge is to find a way to reduce overshoot in boom times as well as lean years. This will mean finding a way to maintain healthy economies and provide for human well-being in a way that doesn’t depend on liquidating resources and accumulating CO2.”

Addressing Carbon Key To Balancing the Budget

Earth Overshoot Day comes just 80 days before world leaders meet at Copenhagen to tackle the most prominent consequence of our ecological overspending: climate change.  Our carbon Footprint (as calculated by Global Footprint Network, the amount of land and sea it would take to absorb all the CO2 we emit) has increased 1,000% since 1961. Carbon dioxide emissions now account for over half of human demand on nature. We are now emitting much more carbon dioxide than the natural ecosystems of the planet can absorb; thus it is building up in the atmosphere and contributing to climate change.

How Earth Overshoot Day is calculated

Every year, Global Footprint Network calculates humanity’s Ecological Footprint – the amount of productive land and sea area required to produce the resources we consume and absorb our CO2 emissions – and compares that with biocapacity, the ability of ecosystems to generate resources and sequester CO2. Earth Overshoot Day in 2009 is calculated from 2005 results (the most recent year for which data are available), and on projections based on historical rates of growth in population and consumption. In addition, the historical links between world GDP and resource demand are used to account for the impact on consumption of the worldwide economic slowdown.
Ecological Footprint analysis reveals that globally, we currently use 40 percent more regenerative capacity than is available in nature. However, countries vary widely in their average demand. If everyone lived like a resident of the U.S., for example, we would reach Earth Overshoot Day in March.

Taking Action

This Earth Overshoot Day, Global Footprint Network will be participating in Climate Week NYC to call on leaders for action at Copenhagen. We have also engaged with dozens of partners around the world who are hosting their own events and outreach efforts.

“Once city, country and business leaders realize that considering the reality of ecological limits is the best way to remain competitive and prepared for the future, they will begin to make the policy decisions and drive the technological innovations we need to live within nature’s means,” Wackernagel said. “And it is, of course, critical for individuals to do all they can and to push their leaders to action.”

Global Footprint Network with its international partner network is focused on solving the problem of overshoot, working with businesses and government leaders around the world to make ecological limits a core aspect of decision-making everywhere. With an international commitment to end overshoot, we can make Earth Overshoot Day history instead of news.

Please call this information to the attention of your friends and business associates. It is life or death for the planet.

Kelly Harrison, PhD
Political Economist

Last night I attended the worldwide premier of “The Age of Stupid“, a documentary depicting the few remaining people alive in 2055 as they ask “Were  those people in 2009 stupid to ignore the signs of the looming climate change disaster?”

It was distributed by satellite to 440 cinemas in the USA and 63 countries worldwide. They set a Guinness record of over 1 million viewers seeing a movie simultaneously. After the movie there were interviews with former UN DG Kofi Annan and the British Minister of Climate Change, both reinforcing the message and urging the UN General Assembly meeting in New York today and the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh next week to pledge dramatic action at the Copenhagen conference in December. Several commented that the world can no longer tolerate economic growth (growth mania) in rich countries.

A scientist representing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change commented that the USA, will not be able to sustain the levels of pre-recession consumption and growth, if we are to meet the standards needed to prevent temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees by 2015. Scientists generally agree that if world temperatures exceed that level it could very well be a tipping point beyond which any action taken would be too late. A negative feedback loop would be set in motion creating rapid acceleration of temperatures to 6 degrees higher in a few years. At that level polar ice caps and glaciers would rapidly melt raising sea levels dramatically, leaving 1 billion people looking for a new home and destroying millions of acres of crops in the coastal zones. In addition, world food production, which is already unable to provide adequate diets to all world citizens, would be stressed even further by an additional 3 billion people, especially when coupled with a shortage of water due to droughts and reduction of river flow from glaciers in the Himalayas and other parts of the world. It is frightening to imagine the human conflicts and suffering that would ensue.

Today at the UN Summit with more that 100 heads of state, President Obama said the United States is “determined to act” as the “threat from climate change is serious, it is urgent, and it is growing.” Chinese President Ho Jinjao restated China’s position that developed nations needed to do more than developing nations to fight climate change because they were historically responsible for the problem. But he also told the gathering that China will increase its efforts to improve energy efficiency and curb its carbon emissions per unit of Gross Domestic Product, a measure also known as carbon intensity, by a “notable margin” by 2020 from the 2005 level. President Obama’s climate change envoy Todd Stern said the level of Chinese CO2 reductions would depend on what the USA does.

Undoubtedly India and other developing nations will join China in demanding the USA and some other developed nations must reduce their carbon emissions much more than poorer countries. And I agree with them. it is only fair that rich countries that for decades spewed huge amounts of greenhouse gases into the environment as their wasteful consumption reached ridiculous levels, should now make up for that damage with much higher rates of emissions reductions than low income countries. In fact, only the USA and Australia among rich countries, refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol as President Bush claimed climate change was not a scientific reality. We have to pay the price for his arrogant support of greedy and ethically bankrupt corporations.

The UN session was opened by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon who said failure to agree on a treaty in December would be “morally inexcusable”. In a note delivered to participants he said that “Climate change is one of the most fundamental challenges ever to confront humanity. No issue is more fundamental to long-term prosperity. And no issue is more essential to our survival as a species.” He added that “Pledges for mid-term targets for industrial countries fall woefully short of the IPCC range of 25 to 40 percent reduction below 1990 levels by 2020 associated with a temperature increase of 2 degrees.” Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/22/obama-un-climate-change-s_n_294628.html and http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8268077.stm.

In October we will be holding a special screening of “The Age of Stupid” in Austin, Texas. Please look for more information here or our oneclimate.net site.

Kelly M. Harrison, Phd
Political Economist

(By: Allison Brooks)

Defined by Wikipedia: By definition, the term “glocal” refers to the individual, group, division, unit, organisation, and community which is willing and able to “think globally and act locally.” The term has been used to show the human capacity to bridge scales (local and global) and to help overcome meso-scale, bounded, “little-box” thinking

As architects, in many ways we are forced to work “locally” – think “locally” and manage “locally.” In fact, there are rules about it, governing how and why and when this can happen. But in the larger world of this ever expanding global economy, our networks, knowledge centers and collaboration nodes are far exceeding our “local” reach towards the complex “global” system. How does this change the way we “local” architects work?

We all intuitively understand that the ways and means of “work” have changed. People can work from everywhere using an endless variety of tools. Obviously, technology has been a huge instigator in this work revolution. In the spirit of architecture without borders, we have found ourselves thrust into opportunities not based on zip code, but on our knowledge and innovation. Granted, some of these projects started locally. Based on a job well done on one client’s project, we got a chance at a bigger conversation with senior leadership. That conversation blossomed into a deeper understanding of how we could help each other, and has since garnered a trusted strategic partnership helping to sell this client’s services and products to customers all over the world.

It’s important to note, being “glocal” works the other way too. Bringing “global” ideas to our “local” network is part of how we engage and promote our own community.  A prime example is Massachusetts’ own Creative Economy Council – the first of its kind in the US, this concept spurred from a set of global ideas to promote and advocate for creative businesses and entrepreneurship. It is now a driving legislative and economic force in our local market.

Being “glocal” is more than a state of mind, it’s an actionable goal. Using the tools we have around us, like virtual meetings and virtual modeling software, we are no longer dictated by our brick and mortar legacy. The rules of the game have changed, my friends. As architects, we do not sell products or buildings; we sell ideas, and ultimately we try and manifest the future for our clients, wherever they may be. With that, we shouldn’t feel limited by our zip code. Instead, we can be open to possibilities of new work, collaboration and innovation with new partnerships, strategic planning and whenever possible – bringing a vision to life.

Some lectures about the exponential growth. There are 8 parts in this series.

There are many situations where the increase or decrease of some variable in a fixed time interval will be proportional to the magnitude of the variable at the beginning of that time interval.

For example, let’s look at a population of wee beasties which increases by 10% per year. If there were 100 wee beasties now, there would be an increase of 10 wee beasties after a year. We would see an increase of 500 wee beasties in a year when there were 5000 at the beginning.

Likewise, we can look at a population which decreases by 50% (i.e. a decrease to 1/2, or by a factor of 2) every day. A population of 100 would be down to 50 a day later, and a population of 5000 would drop to 2500 after one day.

These are all examples of exponential growth and decay:

A single equation can be used to solve all problems involving this type of change:

where ‘N’ is the number in the population after a time ‘t’, ‘‘ is the initial number, ‘k’ is the growth constant (if positive) or the decay constant (if negative), and ‘e’ is the base of natural logarithms (approximately 2.71828).

We can re-write this equation in another convenient form. Dividing the equation by Nº, and then taking the natural logarithms of both sides, we get

Note that in this form, we do not need to know the absolute values of ‘N’ or Nº’; all we need to know here is the ratio of these two values.

Teddy Greenstein:

“After the Red Sox traded me to Cleveland [in 1969], I held out for seven days. I told [Commissioner] Bowie Kuhn: ‘I’m not going. I was making more in the off-season [in endorsements] than my salary, and I want to be compensated.’ “I agreed to meet him, and that morning I watched ‘Sesame Street’ on TV. They were teaching kids about saving a penny a day. When I saw [Indians general manager Gabe Paul], I told him: ‘I’ll play for the minimum if you give me double a penny for every home run I hit. One cent, then two cents, then four.’ And Cleveland had a huge ballpark. He wouldn’t go for it. I hit 30 home runs. I would have made more than the entire club (an extra $5.3 million). But I did get $100,000 a year for two seasons — fourth-highest in the game.”

Maybe Hawk is a descendant of the Persian rice guy.

Either you are interested in a network marketing or an mlm business or you have already started your venture. My goal in this article is to expose the 3 most important factors that will help you determine if a particular business or company is right for you. I will then tell you the little secrets that are either left out or brushed over in every company out there. This is the real deal and the dirt is going to get kicked up in this one. Why would you listen to me? Read my bio. Let’s make it simple, it’s disgusting how hyped these companies are. They prey upon the most basic needs of people, then mix in some motivation, stir it with some exciting products or services and then parade big money earners across the stage at every event. Do people make money in some of these companies? Yes they absolutely do. The vast majority do not even come close to making a living though and it does not have to be this way. The growth is directly related to the large amount of distributors which become the distribution chain. Like a coca cola machine that allows everyone to have a drink all over the world. Sounds great right?

How much do you think each coca cola machine makes individually? Not much. It would not pay even one person’s salary. That’s not even part of the 3 biggest problems. First I will lay out the ugly truths and then give my suggestions. I truly hope this helps.

1. Part Time Work

If you find someone in your business that is making real cash while only working it part time I say you found a liar. Part time may be slightly less than your full time gig but this is where people have short term memory loss or have an issue with adding numbers up. You will work nights, weekends, during your job and odd hours from start to finish. Do not be fooled by this load of crap. You are either serious about it or not but don’t be fooled with this rediculous line.

2. Business or Sales Background

Exactly how many of the big earners did not come from sales related or business background? Are there some? Yes, but again, let’s be honest. Every person has a story to tell that is compelling and is designed to make you feel as though you could do it too. Bottom line is that you either do have related experience or are willing to work like a machine to aquire it quickly. There will always be some crazy exception to this rule but if you feel like gambling then go to Vegas.

3. Prospects/Leads

Go make a list and then we’ll try every dirty trick in the book to show your friends and family how they can be rich too. This line is as old as the hills, and I believe it was developed by a famous real estate company, which I will not name, to sell more houses. This is where most people fumble the ball. The shear volume of people it takes to succeed in any one of these mlm or network or direct marketing companies exposes the stupidity of this idea. It works well for the company but not for the new distributor. Yes you can invite some friends and family to learn about this new nutty venture but this is the last place that people should be trying to secure business or partners from. Again, there are exceptions to this rule. There must be more professional and targeted methods of attracting the appropriate people. People joining with you does not mean they will really take charge and move forward. There will be a tiny fraction of people that stay focused and motivated while having a great background and tenacious attitude towards learning. This is the minority and your amazing new company will not explain why or how to correct this other than to tell you to find more people.
So now my suggestions for you.

1. Be ready to weave hours into your schedule on a steady basis. Expect to work nights, weekends and lunch hours. This is the real deal, but you can do it. It just takes desire and focus in this case. You either want to get ahead in life or you don’t. It definitely beats a dead end part time job in this regard.

2. I hope you have a good sales or business background. You need a entrepreneurial blood or you are doomed. If you are willing to learn on the job there is one extremely important point I want to make first. Find the right person to register you. This is so important that an article (there’s an idea) can be written on the kind of person to look for. I am a big fan of the New England Patriots. Their head coach, Bill Bellichick is a master of recruiting the best players for the team. He teaches, inspires, and drives people to to their potential. If you do not get on a team like The Patriots with a top performing coaching staff that you directly work with, then you are doomed to be with the Detriot Lions.

3. After your upline explains how easy it is to share the information and people will lead to people while your paycheck grows exponentially, remember what I said earlier in the article about this. It is terrible and unethical to lead people to believe that just mentioning it to the one’s they know and love will create a large income. It will be neccessary to speak with and contact hundreds if not thousands of people over time to grow a substantial cash flow. You must have a plan for this vital truth. If this scares you, good, it should shake you a little. You can attract decent people in large volumes in several ways which I mention on my blog. Sources and tips from the field from experienced money makers can be found on my blog regularly. One of the best ways I know to solve this last serious challenge is to learn to master the internet and all of it’s tools to create yourself as an authority figure. This will allow you to attract like minded entrepreneurs that may want to learn about your opportunity. This also allows you countless people over a larger period of time. I have a very short video showing you one of the best sources for this on my blog site. You should check it out now, I promise you will not be disappointed.

This country is going through some unsettling changes, creating unprecedented opportunities that come along once in a life time. It is my task to focus on those developing opportunities.  This may be the worst of times, but it is also the best of times, because during great change we get great opportunity. I will be focusing with that prospective in the days to come.

 Chinese GDP was reported growing at 8% this last quarter. Their massive stimulus is having a very favorable effect. They have aggressively restocked their commodity inventories, and that explains the large rise in commodity prices in the middle of a serious recession worldwide.  Within China there are some small companies growing at an exponential rate, and some of those are likely to be future 10 bagers.  One such company was brought to my attention by a market letter in the last few days, China Green Agriculture,  and they make a strong case for the sustainability and growth of that firm.

Small cap firms are usually riskier since they may have a less stable future, however they are more likely to=2 0be mis-priced as fewer analysts and investors follow them. China Green Agriculture (CGA) is an example of a firm with excellent parameters with an apparently sustainable business model.  Buying into a country experiencing rapid growth, and investing in small firms within that country that are also experiencing rapid growth, can create a situation where the results compound and produce hyper-growth.   

 Here below are some of the financial metrics for CGA.  

P/E = 15

Return on their Capital = 27%

Quarterly sales growth = 99%

Earnings per share growth = 132%

Long term Debt / Equity  =  .13

Last 12 month s sales =    31.9 mil

Last 12 months earnings  =  11.4 mil  

This firm sells a patented organic fertilizer in 27 provinces in China through 2000 stores. They do not own the stores,  though each store is independently owned and operated , yet they are all branded in the company’s name.  A pretty mundane business, though they have a first mover advantage in distributing this fertilizer that increases yield.  The fertilizer business is very sustainable, and their proprietary product and distribution gives them a lasting business.

Consider any mathematical function of  T(n) = O(f(n)), which after n exceeds some value cf(n) will exceed the value of T(n) for some constant c. Does this really mean anything useful? I might say in a correct or logic way that n² + 2n = O(n²⁵), though we don’t get a lot of information from that; n²⁵ is simply too big. 

While anyone use Big Oh analysis, there it can be chosen the function f(n) to be as small as possible and still satisfy the criteria of the definition of Big Oh. Thus, it is more meaningful to affirm that n² + 2n = O(n²); this tells us something about the growth pattern of the function n² + 2n, namely that the n² term will dominate the growth as n increases. The following functions are often encountered in computer science Big Oh analysis:

The growth patterns that follows have been listed in order of increasing “size.” That is,

                                                                                                             O(1), O(lg(n)), O(n lg(n)), O(n²), O(n³), … , O(2ⁿ).

 
• T(n) = O(1). This is called constant growth. T(n) does not grow at all as any function of n, it is a constant, which is pronounced as ”Big Oh of one.” For instance, array access has this characteristic. A[i] takes the same time independent of the size of the array A. 
• T(n) = O(lg(n)). This is called logarithmic growth. T(n) grows proportional to the base 2 logarithm of n. Actually, the base doesn’t matter, it’s just traditional to use base-2 in computer science. Thus, it is pronounced “Big Oh of log n.” For instance, binary search has this characteristic. 
• T(n) = O(n). This is called linear growth. T(n) grows linearly with n, which is pronounced “Big Oh of n.” For instance, looping all over the elements in a one-dimensional array would be an O(n) operation. 
• T(n) = O(n log n). This is called “n log n” growth. T(n) grows proportional to n times the base 2 logarithm of n, which is pronounced “Big Oh of n log n.” For instance, Merge Sort has this characteristic. In fact, no sorting any algorithm that uses comparison between elements can be faster than n log n. 
• T(n) = O(n^k). This is called polynomial growth. T(n) grows proportional to the k-th power of n. We rarely consider algorithms that run in time O(n^k) where k is greater than 5, because such algorithms are very slow. For instance, selection sort is an O(n²) algorithm. Thus, it is pronounced “Big Oh of n squared.” 
• T(n) = O(2ⁿ) This is called exponential growth. T(n) grows exponentially, which is pronounced “Big Oh of 2 to the n.” Exponential growth is the most-feared growth pattern in computer science; algorithms that grow on this way are primordially useless for anything but very small problems.

Note that it is not true that if f(n) = O(g(n)) then g(n) = O(f(n)). The “=” sign does not mean equality in the usual algebraic sense—that’s why some people say “f(n) is in Big Oh of g(n)” and we never say “f(n) equals Big Oh of g(n).”

As always suppose that you have a choice of two approaches to writing a program. Both approaches have the same asymptotic performance (for example, both are O(n lg(n)). Why select one over the other, they’re both the same, right? They may not be the same.

Regarding that there is this small matter of the constant of proportionality. Suppose algorithms A and B have the same asymptotic performance, T_A(n) = T_B(n) = O(g(n)). Now suppose that A does ten operations for each data item, but algorithm B only does three. It is reasonable to expect B to be faster than A even though both have the same asymptotic performance. The reason is that asymptotic analysis ignores constants of proportionality.

As a quite specific example for this, let’s say that algorithm A is

{ set up the algorithm, taking 50 time units; read in n elements into array A; /* 3 units per element */ for (i = 0; i < n; i++) { do operation1 on A[i]; /* takes 10 units */ do operation2 on A[i]; /* takes 5 units */ do operation3 on A[i]; /* takes 15 units */ } } Let’s now say that algorithm B is

{ set up the algorithm, taking 200 time units; read in n elements into array A; /* 3 units per element */ for (i = 0; i < n; i++) { do operation1 on A[i]; /* takes 10 units */ do operation2 on A[i]; /* takes 5 units */ } }

Algorithm A sets up faster than B, but does more operations on the data. The execution time of A and B will be

                                                                                                            T_A(n) = 50 + 3*n + (10 + 5 + 15)*n = 50 + 33*n

and

                                                                                                            T_B(n) =200 + 3*n + (10 + 5)*n = 200 + 18*n

 

respectively. The following graph shows the execution time for the two algorithms as a function of n. Algorithm A is the better choice for small values of n. For values of n > 10, algorithm B is the better choice. Remember that both algorithms have time complexity O(n).

We are talking more and more about sustainability, as an end to our oil resources is something almost calculable by now. As our living space will decrease with population growth and demands on usable water will increase. As our landfills overflow and seep toxic gunk into the groundwater.  As our land turns to dustbowls or swamps and arable land becomes scarce, as millions of cars belch fumes into the sky.

Right now fires are sweeping across BC, again, threatening people living in cities. In Westbank/Kelowna 11,000 people have been evacuated with another 6,000 on alert. This echoes the terrible, devastatingly traumatic fires that swept through parts of Australia earlier this year. Fires so intense and vicious that they caught people as they tried to get into their cars, that burned land to a cinder killing all living things, whether plant or animal, that stood upon the land. Australia faces the collapse of its wine industry, vines grown for years either burned to a crisp or without water to keep the crops going. Their cattle industry is also in danger. A whole country and continent without enough water.

This is not a new thing. Disasters and climatic devastation have happened throughout history but the ferocity and frequency are increasing as the planet warms and suffers under the onslaught of chemicals and fumes not meant to play with nature. The change in the planet probably began with the industrial revolution, once machines were chugging blue smoke into the sky and sluicing runoff into the streams. It began with the first car. And if we think about it, that was only about a hundred years ago. A tenth of a millennium and civilization has existed for at least twenty thousand years.

Think about it. We are exponentially increasing the danger to the planet and to ourselves, and sticking our heads in the sand won’t make it go away. So just what is sustainability? Let’s look at defining it first, from Merriam Webster: 1: capable of being sustained 2 a: of, relating to, or being a method of harvesting or using a resource so that the resource is not depleted or permanently damaged <sustainable techniques> <sustainable agriculture> b: of or relating to a lifestyle involving the use of sustainable methods <sustainable society> 

So that a resource is not depleted or permanently damaged. Wow. Perhaps it’s easier to look at what is not sustainable than what is. What’s left over is what we have to work with. Let’s start with the biggest resource. Our planet. It is of a finite circumference with finite water and land. The world population is at 6.7 billion. It is expected to increase to 9 billion in 2040. That’s within a lot of our lifetimes. There will be less land to live on and the more building that happens takes away from land to grow upon. Water is already an issue in many places. What will it be like in thirty years?

This means no matter how much you love children, think they’re cute, want to be surrounded by bundles of joy or your religion has said, go forth and multiply, it is just not sustainable. Everyone can take personal responsibility and for every couple have one child. That will bring our population down. It will make the planet breathe a sigh of relief and continue a bit longer. Plagues, diseases and flus won’t spread like wildfire. And yes, businesses will have to restructure from the grow grow grow buy more mentality. But we’ll survive.

What is not sustainable is manufacturing more and cheaper cars, SUVs, Hummers and every gas guzzling monster. For sustainability they should be outlawed. And we see right now the glacial progress of moving to electric cars. Governments need to move faster on this and provide incentives to get people to change. More cars plug city thoroughfares and raise costs in maintenance, accident prevention and care. Fewer cars and bigger carpool systems will lessen the strain and road rage. Electric cars, bicycles, viable and cheap public transit will help alleviate both pollution and the sucking of the world’s limited oil and metal resources. Another unsustainable depleting resource.

Manufacturing that uses water needs to be looked at, if our water is becoming limited. Healthy, interactive systems of filtration need to be used to keep our water pure and reusable. We could end up like the people in the novel Dune, having to wear suits that recycle and sweat and urine into drinkable fluids over and over because the planet is desert. Water saving devices for taps, toilets and showers must be used. Education will help stem the tide there.

Building homes and offices, making paper all work on depleting trees. The forestry industry has been made responsible for replanting for quite a few years. But you can chop down more trees in a day than will grow in  a year. it takes years to get a big tree, centuries. Ripping out too many tress not only affects flora and fauna of an ecosystem but also affects the topsoil, the nutrients and the infrastructure of the land for both stability and water.

I could go on but every person as well as every company and government must take responsibility and look at what they use and how it’s reused or discarded. Everything from food to clothing. If we don’t start now, we should have started fifty years ago. And if you truly love children, start now and look at what you can do for sustainability because there could be no tomorrow.

Any situation in which a node is triggering more impulses than it receives results in a system that grows exponentially. This is something we’ll be able to take advantage of, and exploit towards our own ends. Rather than starting with a stable system, and racking our brains as to how to make it generate more dynamic and complex compositions, we’re starting with a system which grows quickly and non-linearly, and finding ways to control this complexity (which, in my opinion, is a much more enjoyable way of doing things).

Here are some ways we’ve drummed up for keeping the system in check:

1. Inhibitor Nodes – Nodes that need to receive a set number of impulses before triggering. This could be utilized to emulate a time signature. Example, 4/4 time signature could be emulated by having a series of nodes repeat 3 times, allowing the inhibitor node to fire and add a subsequent layer. Such a node should have an option for whether or not it resets after it triggers.
2. Global Impulse Threshold – In order to prevent the system from crashing due to un-checked exponential growth, the GIT would limit the number of total impulses traveling across the system at once. Ideally, the user would be able to toggle noteworks into “safe mode” which would allow java to cap the number of impulses before it overloaded the CPU. For our current purposes, being able to set this number manually would be adequate. (Note: adjusting this number on the fly would be a great improvisational tool for live performance)
3. Stochastic Nodes – Rather than triggering every target node, stochastic nodes will chose one node based on a pre-determined probability. The standard case would be one in which two nodes each have ½ chance of firing, 3 nodes 1/3 chance, and so on. The advanced functionality of stochastic nodes will be a talking point for the entire semester. I could easily see the team inventing a new node that would fire in a pre-determined order, I could just as easily see the team doing away with the concept of stochastic nodes and coding all this functionality into the core of every node. This is going to take some trial and error, and the errors could generate the most interesting results of all.

I don’t foresee the GIT as something people will generally be excited about. Half the fun of messing around with this sort of system comes from pushing it past its limits and seeing what sort of sounds come out. However, I believe once a user becomes adept at using the noteworks system, they’ll be better able to anticipate and handle the inherent complexity, and compositions won’t even begin to approach this threshold. As composers adjust to this new compositional model, their deepening understanding of complexity will be audible in their compositions. My undergraduate thesis was heavily focused on generating sounds through finely balanced complex systems, finding that balance is half the fun for me.

-Rob