Community Power

There’s much to think about for the future. When I think about energy production, I see it as community-based. Imagine households taking a weekly walk to drop off food waste.

In an anaerobic digester, bacteria breaks down the food waste and releases methane as a byproduct. The methane is then captured and used as a renewable source of energy. After the digestion process, the leftover material can be composted and used as a natural fertiliser.

Benefits

  • Locally-created energy equals less transmission loss, since it’s not travelling far
  • Energy can be sold back to the grid, allowing communities to generate funding beyond the council tax and central government funding
  • Social cohesion as there’s a common goal, where interests and incentives are aligned
  • A job creator, attracting new talent and up-skilling local talent

Things to think about

  • Initial investment
  • It still generates Co2 and N2o and methane as an output
  • How much power could a square mile of waste generate?

Misbehaving

We experience life in terms of changes, we feel diminishing sensitivity to both gains and losses, but losses sting more than equivalently sized gains feel good.

Key Traits

My key traits according to a tool on myworldofwork.co.uk

Investigative

You’re curious and good at asking the right questions. You like to observe, explore ideas and solve problems. Work which involves thinking, research or facts and figures may suit you.

Practical

You’re good at fixing, making and building things. You like working with your hands. Working with tools, machinery, animals or plants might suit you. You’re rational, independent and ambitious.

Organiser

You always make sure things are accurate down to the smallest detail. You’re great at organising tasks and following instructions. You might enjoy working with data, planning or record keeping.

Machines Like Me

This particular sentence in the book struck me. It says,

We talked about luck, the hold it had over a child’s life – what he is born into, whether he is loved, and how intelligently. After a pause Miranda said “and when it’s all against him, whether someone can rescue him”.

Misinformation

We often blame technology for human nature. It’s fashionable now to blame social media for spreading propaganda, but people spread propaganda long before social media ever existed. Humans didn’t need Twitter and Facebook to spread lies and genocidal hatred before World War II.

Opportunity Cost

“How much could I lose?” is not merely a financial question. If I make this choice:

– How much time could I lose?

– How much sanity could I lose?

– How much reputation could I lose?

– How much happiness could I lose?

Opportunity cost is about a lot more than money.

Long Lost Quote

Some years ago, my eyes locked onto a bus stop advertisement. It was a clear inoffensive statement.

As someone who forgets their own birthday, there was no chance I’d remember the ad for later. I ended up spending ages googling what I thought I read, without much luck.

Years later, I stumbled across it again 🙂

In a society that profits from your self doubt, liking yourself is a rebellious act.

Caroline Caldwell

Containers & Kubernetes

I think I understand it.

An application being built for Mac, Windows and Linux would mean three different architectures it must conform to. Three different iterations of the application. A container houses absolutely everything an application needs to run, meaning the package in one container can run on all three operating systems. This would cut down dev time significantly, focusing on quality and user experience rather than back-end drab that incurs time and money.

Plant Coffee Shop

It’s not about a creating a profitable empire, it’s about bringing people together.

– Community focus

– Classes for plant care, kids can paint pots and grow seedlings

– Coffee and cake

– Art section

– Bring in authors, poets, artists. Give them space to create

– Be the first to donate plants and support when something negative happens in the area. Be a force for good. Restore faith in humanity

– Take a plant / leave a plant section

– Old folks encouraged to gather on Wednesday afternoons. More tea, less isolation.

– Small offering of package-free bulk foods. Instil less waste philosophy.

– I’d probably need a £1m endowment to do this without any dependencies. And anyway, how does one value the output, the social cohesion?

Partisanship

I think what religion and politics have in common is that they become part of people’s identity. And it’s challenging to have a fruitful argument about something that’s part of one’s identity. By definition they’re partisan.