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"Independence Day": Core Values  
They're baaaaack. Just when you thought humanity's future was already dimmed with tough problems like climate change, terrorism and reality TV, bad guys from a distant planet show up to ruin everyone's whole summer. It's "Independence Day: Resurgence."

What's the deal? It seems that the invading aliens, with their ugly praying mantis heads and restless flagella for swatting flies, are here for... our planet's core. That's right: They've come to pump out the Earth.

Two decades ago these same aggressive aliens swooped down on our planet like space-faring locusts, to stripmine our resources and obliterate life. Not the gentlest of agendas for sure. One of the truly memorable lines in the original "Independence Day" was uttered when the U.S. president, clearly discomfited by the havoc and destruction, asked these unattractive creatures "What do you want us to do?" The answer was both candid and concise: "Die."

Bummer. But twenty years later, getting rid of us is not what drove them to drive here. They want Earth's core as an energy source for their spacecraft.

Now that's an interesting idea that might qualify as the mother of all fracking schemes. But what in Earth's core could interest these interstellar insectoids anyway? Is there some terrific source of energy hunkered down in our planet's hot-and-heavy center?

Well, since the 1930s we've known that there are actually two cores down there, imaginatively known as the inner and the outer. Both are mostly metal -- iron and nickel. Thanks to the pressure of all that's above it, the inner core is a solid sphere about 1500 miles in diameter. It's a hot, supersized cannonball that would be difficult to pump out, for sure. Imagine trying to get the pit out of an avocado with a hypodermic needle.

The outer core, a gooey layer roughly 1,400 miles thick that surrounds the inner core, is liquid and less dense. Not liquid like water of course, but more akin to the hot magma that oozes out of volcanoes. It's this layer -- one presumes -- that is the target of the aliens' unauthorized drilling project.

But how do you power your interstellar spacecraft with molten metal? Iron, it turns out, is the most stable of the elements -- you can't fission it or fuse it. But of course there is all that heat energy, given that the outer core is a scalding 7,000 F or more. You can compute just how much heat energy we're talking about using nothing more than freshman physics, and it works out to 800 thousand joules per pound.

Admittedly, that's not a number you'll be bandying about at the water cooler, but I urge you to compare it to the energy per pound of regular-test gasoline, which is 22 million joules.

In other words, this is more than a misguided alien attempt to purloin low-test fuel from Earth: they're going for no-test.

Clearly, this doesn't make too much sense. (Which could be said of the aliens' military technologies, too. But there's no time for that now.)

Then again, let's be fair: There aren't many movie-goers who expect "Independence Day" to be an extra credit exercise in STEM education. And frankly, leaving aside all the funky science, the cosmic-scale visual imagery of this sci-fi potboiler is worth the admission. For fans of the original film, there's the pleasure of seeing the always-compelling Brent Spiner topped by his now-trademark Leonardo da Vinci hairdo. And everyone can enjoy the offhand personality of Jeff Goldblum who, I note, is still able to amble double-jointed into any scene.

Undoubtedly you'll sleep better at night knowing that Earth's core -- while handy for keeping our planet's magnetic field going -- is unlikely bait for mucus-riddled visitors from afar. Just keep them away from your local service station.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

 
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How to Turn Anxiety Into Excitement  

Trying to calm down during a bout of anxiety is likely futile. Instead, try saying: “I am excited.” Because anxiety and excitement are both arousal emotions and have similar symptoms, it's easier to get from one to the other than to completely shift gears into calmness. In this short video, staff writer Olga Khazan explores this theory with Alison Wood Brooks, a professor at Harvard Business School who has researched this phenomenon, and tests it out for herself at karaoke.

 
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The Russia Paradox: How To Deal with an Aggressive, Yet Weak Power  
Ahead of this week's NATO summit in Warsaw, what is the best way to proceed with Russia? Which aims should the West and the Kremlin be pursuing? And what can be done to end the current crisis? One thing is clear: We need strategic patience.  
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After five years of travel to Jupiter, NASA's Juno spacecraft...  

After five years of travel to Jupiter, NASA's Juno spacecraft entered into the massive planet's orbit late last night. For a sense of scale, the Great Red Spot you can see here at bottom left is far larger than all of planet Earth! Jupiter was most likely the first planet formed after our sun and the technology aboard Juno could lead us to have a better understanding of the origins of our solar system. This Overview was created from a composite of imagery fro the Hubble Telescope that shows the entire surface of the planet at once. /// The focus of Daily Overview is usually on Earth, but this exciting event inspired us to look outwards for a moment, rather than back at ourselves. Beyond changing the way we see our planet, we believe an inquisitive gaze into the greater universe that surrounds us can do wonders for our yearning to explore and to help us find the perspective that we need. /// Image courtesy of @NASA

 
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PBS Kinda Sorta Faked Its July 4 Fireworks Show  
After being called out for editing its live broadcast of the fireworks in Washington, DC, to show fireworks bursting in clear air — on a night in which the weather was dominated by fog, low clouds and misting rain — PBS called it "the patriotic thing to do."  
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Kai Surf by Blaine Connolly  

Kai Surf by Blaine Connolly

Blaine Connolly: Photos

 
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r0B0t: Bringing home a robot baby  
Roboticist Angelica Lim programmes robots to be more human - what happened when she brought one home?  
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https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/jul/03/essex-cork-house-redshanks-stilts-marcus-taylor-lisa-shell  
Redshank beach house review in deepest Essex, cork tiles are back  

This bijou coastal retreat on stilts owes a debt to wartime sea forts

Dotted about the coastal waters of Britain, in the approaches to major ports, are some of the most astounding and least visited works of 20th-century architecture. These are the Maunsell sea forts, platforms for anti-aircraft guns built in the second world war, posses of four-legged pods that stand in the sea like HG Wells aliens gone for a paddle. They have been influential, especially on the 1960s visionaries Archigram, who in turn inspired the hi-tech architecture of Richard Rogers and others.

The sea forts lie behind Archigram's most potent single idea, for “Walking Cities”, which fantasised about buildings wandering the Earth. Which never happened, but now another Maunsell-flavoured future has arrived, if rather small, in the form of a seaside retreat on stilts for an artist couple, designed by the architect Lisa Shell. One aspect undreamt by futurists of the past is that an artefact of the 21st century should come covered (as it is) in such a venerable material as cork.

The cork permits the fantasy that, if the floods got really bad, the building could float away

It is an arresting fusion of nature and technology, of shelter and exposure

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jul/01/the-soup-kitchen-putting-londons-air-quality-on-the-menu  
The soup kitchen putting London's air quality on the menu  

Free colour-coded menu is changed daily according to air pollution levels at pop-up scheme that aims to raise awareness of problem

“I see the air is good today,” says the security guard, as he sips his cup of bright green pea soup. “I can tell by the flavour.”

Staff and visitors here at the central London headquarters of the Royal Institute of British Architects (Riba) have been treated to daily free soup from the Pea Soup House, a pop-up installation in the lobby that serves colour-coded soup which matches the government's Daily Air Quality Index (DAQI).

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Empty gesture? Renzo Piano's €600m cultural Acropolis for austerity Athens  

It was launched to great fanfare. But now the 20-hectare temple to culture stands vacant, its shelves built for 2 million books empty, its gates locked. Can this wildly ambitious civic gesture succeed?

A wafer-thin canopy floats at the top of a hill in Athens, hovering like a sheet of paper caught in the coastal breeze. Held in place by a gossamer grid of columns and wires, and crowned with a central mast, the structure has more in common with the world of sails and rigging in the nearby harbour than the weighty domain of buildings on land a feeling that might be explained by the preoccupation of its designer, Renzo Piano.

“What I really do in life is sailing,” says the 78-year-old Genoese architect, standing on the roof of his latest €600m cultural complex, which combines a new national library and opera house in one gargantuan artificial hillside, topped with the thinnest concrete roof the world has ever seen. “The ingredients are the same in architecture: light and air and breeze.”

Making a good building is an important civic gesture. It makes you believe in a better world

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Science and Sustainability Management: Twenty Years of Columbia's Earth Institute  
This fall, Columbia University's Earth Institute will mark its 20th anniversary. I have been reflecting on what we have accomplished in both research and education over these past twenty years. There were two central ideas that animated the creation of this university-wide institute. The first was to promote basic understanding of earth system science, and the second was to apply that knowledge to decisions made by governments and businesses around the world. To build the institute, we began the process of creating a community of environmental scientists, social scientists, lawyers, policy and management analysts, health experts, and engineers who came to know each other and together engage in scholarship. What we have twenty years later is a uniquely interdisciplinary institute and a world leader in the basic and applied knowledge required to achieve sustainability.

The Earth Institute seeks to match the complexity of the challenges of global sustainability with a holistic approach that transcends particular academic disciplines and the traditional intellectual boundaries of schools and departments. We now offer a model for the collaboration of faculty and researchers that is unique in its reach and effectiveness--not only within our university, but also globally. We have a long history of research focused on understanding the planet; at our core is the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, which has been seeking fundamental knowledge about the natural world since 1949. Lamont is the scientific heart of the Earth Institute. Another key aspect of our work is our willingness to engage directly with stakeholders in practical efforts to improve environmental quality by introducing new approaches to addressing real-world problems. We evaluate the effectiveness of these strategies and try to learn from our successes and failures.

We also created a number of education programs that require students to learn environmental science and social science along with applied policy and management analysis: the Master of Public Administration (MPA) in Environmental Science and Policy, the undergraduate major in Sustainable Development, the Master of Science in Sustainability Management, the Master of Arts in Climate and Society, the MPA in Development Practice, and the PhD in Sustainable Development. Another new science-based master's degree is now under development by research faculty at our Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, which will apply cutting-edge environmental science, observation, and analytic methods to the real-world sustainability challenges faced by government and industry.

Each of these educational programs requires master's students, undergraduates, and doctoral students to learn about the physical dimensions of sustainability. The curriculum of these programs recognizes the need for corporate and government decision makers to know enough science to manage the work of scientists. In a world that is constantly increasing its organizational and technological complexity, we need managers who understand both management and science. This requires education programs that emphasize the complex and systemic nature of sustainability issues and focus on the practical skills necessary to deal with such issues.

CEOs are expected to understand complex business models, finance, performance measures and supply chains, but now also need to learn more about the science and technology the modern global economy depends on. They also need to learn how to gauge the impact of their operations on the ecosphere and the risks posed by ecological disruption on their organizations. Our education programs are an effort to address the needs of the growing renewable resource-based economy and the important role of today's professionals in engaging, managing, and regulating sustainability practices.

This same theme of increased complexity also drives our interdisciplinary research agenda. We produce the science that's necessary to understand how the planet works and how human beings are affecting natural systems. From my perspective, this basic science must form the foundation for the actions that we take to safeguard the planet and to sustain our economy. The Earth Institute's research ranges from the basic science of paleoclimatology, in order to understand the long history of climate change, to hands-on work with local governments to help them improve their daily water supply. We develop earth system models and vulnerability assessments to help adapt to the climate change now underway, as well as forecasting tools that help us develop methods to mitigate climate change. Our research involves an ocean-going vessel that collects data on the ocean and the earth beneath it. We use big data analytics, social impact assessments, economic models, legal evaluations, and mobile applications. We measure arctic ice sheets, conduct fieldwork in rainforests, and strap air monitors on the backpacks of urban high school students. We study earthquake hazards in Bangladesh, melting ecosystems in the Antarctic Peninsula, conservation in Myanmar, forests in Puerto Rico, and sewage in the Hudson River.

But while environmental research is important, so too is the communication of what we learn. When I was in graduate school, the environmental disaster at Love Canal was underway and I observed New York State's health and environmental officials struggle to communicate toxicity data to the residents of Love Canal. When I went to EPA, I was charged with developing a program to manage citizen-government interaction at Superfund's toxic waste sites. We conducted dozens of case studies around the country, and everywhere we looked we observed miscommunication. The political, economic, scientific and emotional dimensions of toxic waste cleanup made reasoned conversation impossible. It was as if stakeholders spoke different languages and required a translator. Misunderstanding and conflict was rampant. As good bureaucrats, we created a new position to help bridge the gap between scientists and non-scientists: the Community Relations Coordinator. Their job was similar to that of a social worker, but instead of navigating the social service system to help people in need, Superfund Community Relations Coordinators would explain environmental science to non-scientists. They would also explain community concerns and values to scientific experts. This need to understand and communicate the basic science of environmental issues was important in the 1980s and is even more important today.

Many of the people leading our corporations and our governments do not have much background in science and technology. Economists, policy scholars, and lawyers who do not understand ecology or environmental science conduct much of the research on environmental policy issues. On the other side of the divide, while environmental science research often has profound implications for public policy or corporate management our scientists struggle to bring that information to bear on decision-making.

You can see that misunderstanding is a two-way street. Scientists are not experts at communicating with decision makers and decision makers are rarely scientific experts. Many scientists do not have a deep understanding of politics, economics, finance or management. Some scientists' lack of sophistication and understanding of how the world is governed has contributed to the denial of climate science by decision makers. When climate scientists present their information and projections on global warming, they often present it along with proposed solutions that are politically or economically infeasible. Before approaching decision makers with scientific results, we need to involve economists, political scientists, lawyers and management experts to develop realistic solutions.

The idea of the Earth Institute was to conduct research that integrates science, policy, and management, and to train students to understand enough science to communicate with scientists and manage their work more effectively. In twenty years we have had many successes and many failures in attempting to work across fields and integrate our efforts. We have also been joined by scores of similar schools and institutes around America and the world. We still have a long way to go, and this task seems more important to me than ever.

It is more important because there are several billion people who want to live like we do in the United States, but do not. Their demands create political pressure for rapid economic development. The World Wide Web has guaranteed that even the poorest people on the planet see the wealth of the developed world. And they want it; if not for them, for their children. So the pressure on the planet's finite resources and on the earth's ecosystems, climate, and water will only increase over the next several decades. To manage the increasing level of economic output without destroying the planet will require a sophisticated understanding of the planet's ecological and environmental dynamics. More importantly, it will also require that this knowledge influence and constrain management decision-making. The Earth Institute's central mission is to work with colleagues around the world to research and develop this base of knowledge. Related to that central mission is our goal of educating students to apply that knowledge in practical, day-to-day decision making.

As exciting as all of this is, our goal is to ensure that the type of questions we ask, the data we collect, the models we build, and the analyses we produce become routine parts of public, NGO, and corporate decision making all over the world. The less novel we become, the more successful we will be. My hope is that business schools, law schools, and public policy schools all over the world start adding science to their curricula. Our goal is for the sustainability offices in many organizations to be integrated into the regular functions of CEOs and COOs. In the 1990s many companies had "international desks" to help navigate the emerging global economy; by 2010 those offices were largely gone. Today, every desk is an international desk. In the next generation I believe that sustainability will become as routine as "international" is today. Managers will need science literacy along with knowledge of global finance, and all competent managers will be sustainability managers.

The key is not to focus on science, technology, engineering, and math in a vacuum. These fields must be connected to creative arts, communication, law, management, and policy analysis. The Earth Institute is trying to make those connections. It's not easy to do, but I believe we are succeeding, and if we are to make the transition to a renewable resource-based economy, we need to develop decision processes and social systems that are rooted in scientific reality.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

 
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Jupiter has new visitor _ a solar-powered spacecraft  
 
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Finding Daft Punk The evolution of electronica  
How has music evolved so dramatically? We tread the tricky path from tape to techno...  
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Perilous Plebiscites: Brexit Vote Underscores Limits of Direct Democracy  
Brexit sheds light on the problems created when the idea of direct democracy is abused. In our complex 21st century world, we have no choice but to delegate authority for most decision-making to our elected representatives.  
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Jupiter has new visitor _ a solar-powered spacecraft  
 
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Grade-school students teach a robot to help themselves learn geometry  

Full Text:

Computer technology has become integral to the learning process. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, at the end of the last decade, some 97 percent of U.S. teachers had one or more computers located in the classroom every day, and the ratio of students to computers in the classroom every day was a little over 5 to 1. With the advent of tablet and hand-held computing devices, this ratio is fast approaching 1 to 1. Up until very recently, mainstream educational software for computing devices in the classroom has been designed based upon a style of interaction utilizing the traditional WIMP (window, icon, menu, pointing device) paradigm. Student engagement is then an isolated one-on-one experience, individual student to individual machine. To better engage students with their environment through educational technologies, researchers have begun exploring a variety of solutions that provide more embodied and tangible interactions -- ranging from collaborative activities surrounding an interactive tabletop to interactive robots that teach language learning.

Image credit: Pete Zrioka, Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, Arizona State University

 
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Plankton  

Full Text:

A microscopic image of plankton. Plankton (singular plankter) are a diverse group of organisms that live in the water column of large bodies of water and can't swim against a current. They provide a crucial source of food to many large aquatic organisms, such as fish and whales. These organisms include drifting or floating bacteria, archaea, algae, protozoa and animals that inhabit, for example, the pelagic zone of oceans, seas, or bodies of fresh water. Essentially, plankton are defined by their ecological niche rather than any phylogenetic or taxonomic classification. Though many planktonic species are microscopic in size, plankton include organisms covering a wide range of sizes, including large organisms such as jellyfish.

Image credit: NSF Collection

 
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Classic Wham Track Gets A Terrifying Heavy Metal Twist  
You've probably never heard Wham quite like this before.
"Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" has been given a serious heavy metal makeover in a cover that's...

Read more: Gif, Heavy Metal, Wham, Wake Me Up Before You Go Go, Leap Frog Records, Weird News News

 
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Un nuovo giorno è arrivato / A new day has come (Primrose Hill, London, United Kingdom)  

AndreaPucci posted a photo:

Regno Unito, Londra, Primrose Hill, Inverno 2016

Primrose Hill è una collina di 78,1 metri situata sul lato nord di Regent Park a Londra. Anche il quartiere circostante ha lo stesso nome. Il vertice collina ha una delle migliori viste di Londra. E' una delle zone residenziali più esclusive e costose a Londra e molte celebrità hanno la loro residenza qua vicino. Primrose Hill è stata soggetto diispirazione per film, tv e musica. Gli Oasis hanno scattato qui la foto in bianco e nero per la copertina del singolo "Wonderwall" quella dove una ragazza viene mostrata attraverso una cornice.

Primrose Hill is a hill of 78.1 metres located on the northern side of Regent's Park in London, and also the name given to the surrounding district. The hill summit has one of the best views of London. As one of the most exclusive and expensive residential areas in London and it's home to many celebs. Primrose Hill has been immortalized in movies, tv and music. Oasis took the black and white photo for the cover of the single “Wonderwall” here where a girl is shown through a frame.

 
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How Blockchain Helps Brooklyn Dwellers Use Neighbors' Solar Energy  

A project called TransActive Grid is testing a new way to trade solar power among neighbors. For now only credits are being traded — not actual energy — using the technology that underpins bitcoin.

 
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How Was Your Day … Recovering Heroin Addict?  
"Sobriety isn't perfection. The bad stuff doesn't just go away when you decide to start living right."  
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The Documentary Filmmaker Who's Not Afraid to Lie  
Penny Lane's work - both hilarious and insightful - focuses on smart, lying men.  
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Spacecraft Juno Slows Down for its First Orbit of Jupiter  
In this exclusive interview, the project manager of one of Juno's instruments explains how the spacecraft will slow down prior to its insertion into Jupiter's orbit.

-- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com  
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r0B0t: There's a Clear Difference Between Robot-Generated and Human-Generated Art  

Accomplishments in artificial intelligence often suffer from the problem of moving goalposts: As soon as a machine or algorithm can accomplish something that has traditionally been the province of humans, we generally dismiss it. To replicate something with a machine is to show that it has always been mechanical, we just had the wrong machines. One aspect of human behavior that has reliably eluded mechanical reproduction is the creation of art. In the wonderful Spike Jonze movie Her, we are presented with a future in which A.I. is so advanced that it can produce an operating system that its hero falls in love with, but even that level of technological achievement is not enough to mechanize his job as a writer of romantic correspondence. Or as summarized more or less by many a person: “Sure, a computer can win at Go. But it could never write a poem or compose music that would make you weep!”

Well, we have some potentially disturbing news for those of you hanging your hats on those kinds of declarations. Google recently announced that their Magenta project, which makes use of new hot advances in machine learning called “deep neural nets,” has created a 90-second melody based on the input of four notes. (No word on whether it has made anyone cry, though.) A small competition we ran several weeks ago at Dartmouth College, the Turing Tests in Creative Arts, shows just how close we are to making robots who can make art. Our goal was to challenge the A.I.interested world to come up with software that could create either sonnets, short stories, or dance music that would be indistinguishable to a human audience from the same kinds of artistic output generated by humans. While we didn't get many submissions, those that did come in were very thoughtful, especially in the case of sonnets and dance music.

The dance music portion compared algorithmic DJ-ing to human DJ-ing. The human DJs were hidden from sight as students listened and danced. After each set, the dancers were asked to guess human or machine; two entries were statistically indistinguishable from the human DJs. This is interesting but perhaps not surprising. All of us, especially those who are college-age, have been listening (perhaps primarily) to computationally inflected and composed music for a long time. This artistic form is one that has already blended into computer-based production; our perception of the nature, and production, and attribution of art and culture evolves with acculturation.

In the case of the literary challenges, a panel of judges each reviewed a collection of sonnets or short stories and were asked to pick out those that were generated by a machine. While there were no winners for sonnets or stories (i.e., the judges were able to distinguish the machine-generated sonnets), in the case of the former, the programs were so smart and sophisticated that we couldn't help but wonder if in a future running of the competition we would have a winner.

The sheer number of sonnets an A.I. bot can generate is astounding (countably infinite if you want to get technical!). The winning entry, from a team at the University of Southern California's Information Sciences Institute was fantastic, and the runner-up from University of California at Berkeley also produced interesting work.

Here is an example of what Berkeley's generator came up with:

Kindred pens my path lies where a flock of
feast in natures mysteries an adept
you are my songs my soft skies shine above
love after my restless eyes I have kept.

A sacrament soft hands that arch embowed
stealing from nature her calm thoughts which throng
their little loves the birds know when that cloud
anticipation is the throat of song.

I love you for in his glorious rise
on desert hills at eve are musical
the ancients knew a way to paradise
pulses of the mystic tale no fable.

With sudden fear when immortality
might be like joy the petty billows try.

And another (for more, see here):

Of reckless ones haggard and spent withdraws
like clouds that gather and look another
know that neer again the fierce tigers jaws
the universe which was either neither.

Bed the peasant throws him down with fetters
who could have guessed thine immortality
not alone that thou no form of natures
you for love hath stained if to have served by.

Random from the orient view unveils
I would I bind thee by its hostile threat
I sit beneath thy looks resigned that smiles
and many maiden gardens yet unset.

This shade of crimson hue rushed on the thin
alpine flood above the dune stood the grin.

So what if an art-producing machine could pass as human? Or more accurately, so what if the output of a program, created by humans, could produce art that an average person would accept as human-generated? This more detailed description is important, for cast in that manner, it reveals the artistic output for what it is—not the thoughtless and mechanistic production of an emotionless entity, but rather a natural next step in the already-rich collaboration between machine and human when it comes to producing art.

Yes, that's right: Machines and humans have been working together to make art for some time. The presence of machine has already been particularly influential in the realm of literary products. When the technology of writing came to be (requiring the invention or discovery of mark-making tools and surfaces to record and store meaningful signs), new possibilities in narrative form arose—narratives where perhaps memorization need not influence the product. Movable type and the printing press was another great influence, then the typewriter, democratizing forces in the creation of literature, bringing new voices and forms to the written medium. Most recently, consider the effects of word processing or “authoring” software on literary production. Who among us doesn't feel compelled to change things so that we will satisfy Microsoft Word and produce a document clean of its automatically determined infelicitous word choices! Don't kid yourself, for many of the documents we turn out are already collaborations with machines and, arguably, always have been.

Of course, some literary products lend themselves more readily to machine collaboration than others. Short narratives about the outcome of a baseball game can be readily created from a reasonably detailed box score. The same is true of certain financial reports. These kinds of products are in essence formulaic, but the same is true of some forms of poetry like the sonnet. A Shakespearean sonnet is basically a high-level algorithm: three four-line stanzas in iambic pentameter, each with rhyme scheme ABAB, ending with a rhyming couplet. It's just that for centuries, humans have been the ones executing the pattern. Now, with a good deal of thought and some creative applications of natural language processing principles, a smart team of information scientists can engage a machine as a collaborator.  Part of the winning entry sifts through opening words as well as a database of near-rhymes, the latter a tacit acknowledgment that a signature of the human implementation is the ability to not always follow the rules. It's cleverer than the Microsoft Word Assistant, but is hardly a solitary poetry-creating automation. The human might not be in the loop after the input is given, but the human is surely deeply represented in the design. And that is why it is successful.

So what still remains for machines to conquer? One of the judges remarked that the sonnets he picked out as machine-made didn't seem to be about anything—even if the words all went together well and there were coherent phrases or even fully formed lines around a given subject. In short, what was lacking was a narrative. Narrative is difficult to articulate in an algorithm (but we'll continue to aim for it in next year's competition). In fact, as the essence of storytelling, it is arguably one of the most human of activities. Thus, while these experiments surely celebrate successes in the context of human creativity on the computer, in their failings, they ultimately may help us recognize and celebrate what it means to be human.

This article is part of Future Tense, a collaboration among Arizona State University, New America, and Slate. Future Tense explores the ways emerging technologies affect society, policy, and culture. To read more, follow us on Twitter and sign up for our weekly newsletter.

 
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r0B0t: The Rosetta orbiter's days are officially numbered  

Mark your calendars and stock up on tissues: On Sept. 30, the European Space Agency's Rosetta orbiter will crash into a cometary cemetery. After two years circling Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and doing some great science, the spacecraft will be no more. Rosetta is perhaps most famous for being the mothership of Philae, a robot that made history as […]  
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Lens Interference 16.  

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NASA's Juno spacecraft prepares for cosmic date with Jupiter  
 
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Juno Closes in on Jupiter  
This is the final view taken by the JunoCam instrument on NASA's Juno spacecraft before Juno's instruments were powered down in preparation for orbit insertion on July 4.  
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NASA's Juno spacecraft prepares for cosmic date with Jupiter  
 
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Playing a science-based video game? It might be all wrong  
Playing 'Spore' is a good way to explore evolution.'Spore' screenshot

By Alex Leith, Michigan State University

You look down from the sky, manipulating the world and seeing how it responds to your changes. You are able to alter vegetation and climate while watching their effects on the surrounding organisms. In this way, and many others, digital games provide excellent opportunities for players to learn about complicated subjects, including the concept of evolution through natural selection. Even games designed for fun and not specifically for education can provide rich, concise, dynamic representations of complex science, technology, engineering and math topics.

Since I was young, digital games have successfully supplemented the educational process in a range of topics, including math, science and biology. Research shows that if these games are going to actually teach those concepts, they must represent them accurately. Games that include incorrect depictions teach the wrong lessons.

Since Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace, evolution has been understood as a process based on genetic differences between individual organisms of the same species. There are three key principles:

1. 
   
2. Organisms with genetic advantages for their environment are more likely to survive and reproduce, while organisms whose genes make their bodies less suited will die more quickly and reproduce less effectively.
   
3. Because these characteristics are genetic, they are passed on to offspring.
   
4. Organisms with genes that improve their survival will have more successful offspring, which will in turn pass on their advantages to the next generation.
   

Some colleagues and I looked into how well current games could serve as educational tools, specifically about evolution. We examined how Darwinian evolution was represented in 22 games, which we located either through game databases like GameSpot or IGN, or through Google searches. Most games got evolution at least partly wrong. Only five accurately represented all three key principles of evolution.

The five that got it right

"Creatures" provides a rare example of the three principles. In that game, players create cartoon-like creatures called "norns," through a process that allows norns to be altered not just in terms of appearance, but at the genetic level. For the most accurate representation of evolution, the game offers a play mode called "wolfling run." In that mode, players cannot directly affect their norns, but can observe their relative fitness for a particular in-game scenario. The potential variations in both norn creation and the environment they must survive in provide for an astonishing number of evolutionary possibilities.

Maxis, best known for creating the "SimCity" game series, and its spinoff "The Sims" collection, also made a set of games called "SimEarth" and "SimLife." Like "SimCity," both give players top-down control of a world. "SimEarth" was designed for players to make major changes to the weather, landscape and animals to create an environment. Players were then able to see how the animals would fare in this created environment. "SimLife" was more specific: it has players engage with the animals (rather than merely creating them) to learn about the biology surrounding their survival.

We also found two academically oriented games that loosely presented the three mechanics of evolution: "Selection Game" and "Who Wants to Live a Million Years" (which was later renamed "Charles Darwin's Game of Survival"). The two games were designed to be simple tools that could be played quickly in places like museums. Despite the limited mechanics present in such games, they still clearly show each element of the evolution process.

Market success doesn't mean accuracy

The most commercially popular game we found didn't quite get evolution right. "Spore" left out something many other games did, too: Organisms' genetic differences didn't affect their survival rates. Instead, organisms whose genes were unfit for the environment would not necessarily die more often, in keeping with evolutionary principles. Rather, players could intervene and increase an organism's likelihood for success by, say, helping it move more intelligently and strategically, beyond the scope of its genetically predisposed movements.

Nevertheless, "Spore" does a reasonable job presenting the broader concept of evolution to players, and is the best such game made this century. ("Creatures," "SimEarth," and "SimLife" are all from the 1990s.) "Spore" is also still available for purchase, so it is the only game readily usable by the average educator or student.

But other findings were disappointing. Most games inaccurately portrayed evolution, usually in the same way Spore did - allowing player intervention to save organisms that were unfit for survival.

For these other games, evolution becomes more akin to mutation during a single organism's life than a process that occurs through generations. In "E.V.O.: Search for Eden" and "L.O.L.: Lack of Love," players earn points they can spend to modify their organisms. In "Eco," at the end of each level, the player arbitrarily changes an attribute, though not necessarily one that affects an organism's survival prospects. In each of these cases, what the game calls "evolution" is actually external genetic manipulation, rather than inheriting particular traits.

These inaccuracies may confuse those unsure of what evolution actually is. If other scientific subjects are similarly poorly depicted in video games, the potential educational benefits of these games could be lost. However, as game designers become more adept at modeling scientific themes, it could herald an educational revolution.

Alex Leith, Doctoral Candidate in Media and Information Studies, Michigan State University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

 
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Down to Earth: NASA's kilo-kitty balloon lands after 46 days  

100 day target still out of reach

NASA's super-pressure balloon project has once again fallen short of its 100-day target, but still managed to set some records on the way.…

 
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r0B0t: Amazon's robot worker challenge won by AI-powered suction arm - TechRepublic  

TechRepublic

Amazon's robot worker challenge won by AI-powered suction arm TechRepublic ... packing goods. Without automation, Amazon would be unable to ship items to millions of people each day and as the retail giant moves towards its goal of using drones to deliver packages within 30 minutes, it needs to continue to streamline delivery ... New warehouse robots roll out after Amazon corners marketArkansas Online Robotic arms race for online retailersFort Wayne Journal Gazette Adrian Weckler: Robots helped to cause Brexit - and they're not done yetIrish Independent all 9 news articles »

 
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starter of green olives, black olives, capers, buffalo mozzarell by irina grigorii  

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starter of green olives, black olives, capers, buffalo mozzarella, artichokes and red Chili peppers filled with tuna on blue

irina grigorii: Photos

 
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Photos of the Day: July 4, 2016  

Explore the news of the day with these images from around the world.  
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girl and lady by superchinois801

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r0B0t: Robot arm wins Amazon's tech award  
A mechanical arm created by a Dutch team of roboticists wins Amazon's Picking Challenge award.  
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r0B0t: Beauty and the bot: Artificial intelligence is the key to personalizing aesthetic products - The Globe and Mail  

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Beauty and the bot: Artificial intelligence is the key to personalizing aesthetic products The Globe and Mail Physical beauty is subjective and often difficult to define. But for the robot jury of Beauty.AI, an online competition billed as “the first international beauty contest judged by artificial intelligence,” beauty is calculated by a set of complex ...

 
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r0B0t: Robots could replace low-skilled migrant workers - Daily Mail  

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Robots could replace low-skilled migrant workers Daily Mail Summarising the findings, author Adam Corlett explained: 'Looking at those sectors with the highest proportion of EU migrants, we find that some such as cleaning and domestic staffing face relatively low prospects for automation, while others ... and more »

 
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VIEW: JUNO MISSION NASA TV CONTINUOUS COVERAGE LIVE TODAY! 10:30 PM Eastern Juno Spacecraft Enters Polar Orbit Around Jupiter  
 
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'Hidden' Agenda of China's Mission to Unexplored Far Side of the Moon --"Site of Solar System's Largest Impact Crater"  
 
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Alma finds a swirling, cool jet that reveals a growing, supermassive black hole  
Astronomers have made the surprising discovery of a jet of cool, dense gas in the center of a galaxy located 70 million light years from Earth. The jet, with its unusual, swirling structure, gives new clues to a long-standing astronomical mystery -- how supermassive black holes grow.  
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The Furniture Makers' Company looks to boost UK furniture exports with new award scheme  

Furnishing industry charity, The Furniture Makers' Company has revealed a new award that aims to increase exports of UK furnishing manufacturers.

The Export Award, which is open to any furnishings company that manufactures in Britain, has been introduced to help combat the current trade deficit of £3.3bn, according to figures from The Office for National Statistics.

“Recognise and champion companies”

Through the award, The Furniture Makers Company will acknowledge companies that already excel in export, and promote them as an example to other manufacturers.

Paul von der Heyde, chairman of the Manufacturing Guild Mark Committee, says: “The goal of the Export Award is to recognise and champion companies that are flying the flag for British manufacture in export markets.

Demand for UK design

“The UK has a great tradition of fine furniture, bedding and furnishing design and manufacturing and, while imitations are often manufactured overseas, there is an increasing demand for ‘the real thing'.”

Heyde is included among the panel of judges, alongside Ben Burbidge, master of the Worshipful Company of Furniture Makers; chief executive of the British Contracts Furniture Association, Jeremy Stein; chairman of the British Furniture Association, Jeremy Stein and Stephen McPartland MP, who is the chair of the All Party Parliamentary Furniture Industry Group.

When assessing applicants, judges will consider factors such as any development initiatives; growth; techniques; long term commitment and relevant accreditations.

To apply, applicants should fill out an entry form on The Furniture Makers' Company website before 31 August. More information is available here.

The post The Furniture Makers' Company looks to boost UK furniture exports with new award scheme appeared first on Design Week.

 
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Tatty Devine designs for Royal London Hospital  

Jewellery designer Tatty Devine has designed a series of site specific installations at The Royal London Hospital's new building.

Vital Arts, the arts organisation for Barts Health NHS Trust has commissioned the works, which are entitled All That Glitters May Be Bones and now cover the children's imaging department.

X-rays and bones

Tatty Devine, which is known for its laser cut acrylic jewellery, has created thousands of bright acrylic pieces along the theme of x-rays and bones.

Waiting areas, corridors and treatment rooms have all been redesigned so that they're less frightening and more engaging for children according to Vital Arts.

Tatty Devine partner Rosie Wolfenden says the installations: “Will help make hospital visits a better experience for children, especially those within our local community.

“It was fantastic to realise our ideas in such a different environment and we hope it makes people smile for years to come.”

Representing patient demographics

Barts Health lead paediatric radiographer at NHS Trust Martin Shute says: “Working closely with Vital Arts and Tatty Devine at the beginning of the project meant that the artists understood exactly how all the spaces within the imaging department are used, and the specificity of our patient demographics.

“The variety of colour serves to distinguish separate areas, including a soothing pink area for breastfeeding mothers, and an Autumnal palette for the adolescent waiting room, which, again, is different from the softer hues in the waiting area for our youngest patients”.

Royal London has worked with many artists and designers in recent years including Morag Myerscough, Tord Boontje and Chris Haughton.

The post Tatty Devine designs for Royal London Hospital appeared first on Design Week.

 
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Small businesses could lose financial support following EU referendum  

Small UK businesses could lose financial opportunities and support as a result of the EU referendum result, according to business lender Funding Circle.

£100 million for British businesses

On 20 June, prior to the EU referendum, it was announced that the European Investment Bank (EIB) would provide £100 million to support small British businesses, working with UK-based lender Funding Circle. Funding Circle provides loans of roughly £50,000 to businesses sized on average 30 people or less.

“It's very unlikely to happen now”

But following the majority Leave result on 24 June, co-founder at Funding Circle James Meekings told the Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) Committee which assesses spending by governmental department BIS that the £100m funding project is now “at risk”.

“The deal with the EIB was a start to create a multi-billion pound programme for getting more funds into UK business,” Meekings says. “The programme is at risk. If I'm honest, it's very unlikely to happen now.”

According to Meekings, loans to Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) employ roughly 60% of people across the country.

Too soon to speculate

In a statement, the EIB says it is yet to come to any decisions about its ties with the UK.

It says: “At present, the EIB's shareholders have not requested the Bank to change its approach to operations in the UK.

“It is premature to speculate on the impact of the referendum result on the EIB, including the Bank's future relationship with the UK Government and its future engagement to support long-term investment in the UK without clarity on the timing, circumstances and conditions of a withdrawal settlement.”

Small businesses earn less than £8.4 million

The majority of design consultancy businesses fall under the SME category small businesses are defined by Europa as those with a staff count of maximum 50, and a turnover of maximum €10 million (£8.4 million), while a medium-sized business is one with maximum 250 staff, and a turnover of maximum €50 million (£42 million).

Government backing necessary

Meekings adds that with doubts around funding from Europe, UK-based banks like the British Business Bank will need to be utilised, and the UK Government should be “putting more money in” to help SMEs.

“To date, we have had £60 million from the British Business Bank,” he says. “During this time of uncertainty, the British government should be backing small businesses.”

“Our question is what are the programmes that the Government could put in place given this new world of uncertainty to help get public funds and encourage growth and money directly into small businesses?” he says.

Businesses need “certainty”

Marcus Stuttard, head of AIM, the London Stock Exchange's international market in place to help small companies grow, told the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee that the business community is looking for “certainty” so that they can “plan”.

“We would expect that companies will delay making investment decisions and therefore requesting finance as well,” he says. “The greatest thing we can all do is remain collaborative and provide as much certainty as quickly as possible.”

Samir Desai, chief executive officer at Funding Circle, says in a statement that investors are unlikely to be affected in the “short term”.

“Many of our UK small businesses do not trade with the European Union and are unlikely to be immediately affected,” says Desai. “Our small business customers have been trading for ten years on average, and have experienced economic volatility before. We have conducted rigorous stress tests on our loanbook which show that even in the most stressed conditions, investors will continue to earn positive returns.”

“The value design brings to the economy is undeniable”

Deborah Dawton, chief executive officer at the Design Business Association, says of the design industry following the referendum vote: “UK design is world leading UK design is still a potent business asset and a sound commercial investment.”

According to the UK Government, between 2013 and 2014 the creative industries' value to the economy grew at almost double the rate of other UK industries, with design including product, graphic and fashion increasing the most at 16.6%. It also states the value of the creative industries was £84 billion in 2014 and accounted for 5% of the UK economy.

“The value design brings to the economy is undeniable,” says Dawton. “It is fundamentally important that this continues to be recognised.”

Creative Industries Federation to host post-referendum events

Creative Industries Federation (CIF) adds that while access to regional and sector-specific funding is a key concern for those working in the industry following Brexit, as is access to markets, IP protection and freedom of movement of talent.

In reaction to the vote, the organisation has announced it will be holding a series of “practical” events around the UK which will aim to “bring the sector together”, “marshal opinions” and “come to decisions” about the future.

The first meeting takes place in London on 7 July. A venue is yet to be announced.

The post Small businesses could lose financial support following EU referendum appeared first on Design Week.

 
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[CasaGiardino] ♡ The Wedding Book  
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Lisa by Thomas Ruppel  

Lisa by Thomas Ruppel

Juli 2016

Thomas Ruppel: Photos

 
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Northern blue butter  

Northern blue butterfly (Plebejus idas) collected in Churchill, Manitoba, Canada, and photographed at the Centre for Biodiversity Genomics (sample ID: 04HBL003084; specimen record: http://www.boldsystems.org/index.php/Public_RecordView?processid=LCH084-04)

 
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NASA's Juno spacecraft prepares for cosmic date with Jupiter  
 
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The Lion by Rebeca Saray  

The Lion by Rebeca Saray

Trabajo de mi curso de una semana en Sao Paulo, esta vez la parte creativa en exteriores --- Septiembre, Octubre y Noviembre)**** 17 y 18 Septiembre MADRID Taller Fotografía y retoque Intensivo (Estudio y exterior, beauty y fotografía creativa) 24 y 25 Septiembre VALENCIA Taller exteriores "Fotografía creativa y retrato" Valencia 01 y 02 Octubre BARCELONA Taller Fotografía y retoque intensivo Noviembre MEXICO TODA LA INFORMACIÓN CURSO 66 horas (Fotos de muestra, making of, etc..en el siguiente enlace) http://www.rebecasarayworkshop.com/…/curso-nivel-2-moda-y-b… INFORMACIÓN Y RESERVAS: info@rebecasarayworkshop.com ♥TAMBIËN PUEDES ENCONTRARME EN ♥ SUSCRIBETE AL CANAL DE YOUTUBE para consejos de fotografía y videotutoriales gratuitos: www.youtube.com/dosis WORKSHOPS // VIDEOTUTORIALES & ACCIONES: http://www.rebecasarayworkshop.com/ SNAPCHAT: rebeca_saray INSTAGRAM: https://instagram.com/rebecasaray/ TWITTER: https://twitter.com/rebecasaray GRUPO EN FACEBOOK PARA SUBIR VUESTROS TRABAJOS REALIZADOS CON MIS VIDEOS https://www.facebook.com/groups/rebecasaray/

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Alabaster by Laura Sheridan  

Alabaster by Laura Sheridan

Model - My Fragility Costume - Agnieszka Osipa Photography - Laura Sheridan's Art

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Americans: 'Our Crown Jewel National Park System Worth $92 BILLION to Us!'  
When America declared our independence from the British Crown 240 years ago today, we cut ourselves off from the "dowry" of Crown Jewels protected in the Jewel Vault in the Tower of London. Including the Imperial Crown of State -- adorned with the Second Star of Africa, part of the largest diamond ever mined in history, 2,783 other diamonds, 17 sapphires, 277 pearls, 11 emeralds and 5 rubies -- a total of 142 spectacular items are protected as Crown Jewels, "enduring symbols of 900 years of monarchy." Every year approximately 2 million Britons and foreign tourists gape at them from behind a glass partition.


When we took our independence from Britain we eschewed the trappings of monarchy including this Imperial Crown of State, and created a new system of government and a new system of Crown Jewels - National Parks.

In contrast, America's Crown Jewels are spread out across our country like a vast network of precious gems available for every American and millions of foreign visitors to enjoy . The system of living, breathing landscapes and historic sites to which President Abraham Lincoln made the first deposit of Yosemite Valley in 1864, now stands at 411 units valued at $92 billion, according to a recent study.


The ethereal vision of Yosemite Valley that Albert Bierstadt portrayed in his paintings inspired President Lincoln to set aside the valley as our fist state park, later expanded to become Yosemite National Park.

With the great man-made monuments of Europe behind them, Americans in the "new world" chose a system of values based on land, creating our Crown Jewels from the glorious swaths of nature they encountered as they pushed west. Today our "Crown Jewel" National Park System ranges from the diamond hard face of "the Great One" - Mount Denali in Denali National Park, Alaska to the welcoming turquoise waters of the US Virgin Islands National Park and archaeological records dating back to 800 BC. From Independence Hall in Philadelphia where the US Constitution was debated and signed to George Washington Carver's Secret Garden at his birthplace National Monument in Diamond, Missouri, our historical sites serve as guideposts, continually refining our progress towards a nation "with liberty and justice for all."

Last week President Obama added another jewel to our treasury, creating the Stonewall Inn National Monument in New York City as a tribute to the efforts of the LGBT community to have their human rights recognized. Our Crown Jewels support our lives by purifying our air and water, providing habitat for wildlife, absorbing storm surge and protecting us from the effects of climate change. As valuable as they are, Britain's crown jewels cannot lay claim to those qualities.


I can hardly wait to explore the trail to his Secret Garden at George Washington Carver National Monument in Diamond, Missouri when I speak at Carver Day on Saturday, July 9.

So today I rejoice in the knowledge that the American people truly recognize and prize our Crown Jewel National Park System. A study released last week by the National Park Foundation shows that Americans assign a value of $92 BILLION to the System and the services provided by its caretaker agency, the National Park Service. The study showed that even people who do not visit national parks value them highly and say they'd be prepared to pay higher taxes to protect them.

These results perfectly illustrate the complete unacceptability that our Congress assigns a meager annual budget of approximately $3 billion to the parks, resulting in a huge deficit of funds to adequately care for and protect them, to maintain the roads and restrooms (I learned that each stall at Grand Canyon south rim uses one mile of toilet tissue every day!) hire biologists and wildlife managers, and park rangers to tell the stories of history and nature. It is only appropriate that we create an endowment for the Park System that honors the park service's mission to protect them in perpetuity instead of having to depend on an anemic annual budget.

I am trusting that this report will spur a different conversation about the future of our Crown Jewels. I hope it exposes the Park Service's attempts to allow a greater corporate presence in our national parks in exchange for money, as proposed by the current director in a pending order. Like a poison pill that will go into effect after he leaves office at the end of this year, the order proposes a shift to commercialize our crown jewels in ways that have not been allowed in 152 years and was not intended by their 19th Century founders. If managers at the Tower of London suddenly decided to give corporations titular ownership of the Crown Jewels in exchange for money, today's uproar over the outcome of Brexit might seem comparatively mild.


Bear Lake - oh what a feeling!

In Estes/Rocky Mountains National Park a few weeks ago, I sat on a bench overlooking idyllic Bear Lake and watched visitors strolling by on the trail. From the youngest babies and eager young children clutching their Junior Ranger notebooks and making notes, to elderly family members walking with a cane, no one seemed rushed or stressed. Everyone smiled and said hello to me as I sat quietly enjoying the forest and the lake, the ambience of singing birds and quaking aspen leaves.

Seeing a young mixed couple going around for the second time, I asked what they'd think if they knew there was a move afoot to allow a greater corporate presence in our parks.

"What?!" they blurted simultaneously. "That's dumb. We come out here to get away from the corporate world."

Exactly.

As we celebrate our Independence from Britain and all other foreign powers today, let us remember the words of our founding father Thomas Jefferson, in one of his last letters:

". . . let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them," he said of Independence Day and the Declaration of Independence in June 1826. He died the following month.

Let us demand of Congress that they allocate the budget required by the Park Service to appropriately care for our Crown Jewels. I have no issue with corporations contributing to the support of our parks, but God forbid that they have an ego big enough or rude enough to want to impose their "brand" on our collective treasures. For shame! Whatever else happens, it is our patriotic duty to defend our parks "for the benefit of this and future generations."

Happy Independence Day!

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

 
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How being Down Under helped me see Brexit the right way up  
I've just arrived back from Australia, where I was sharing Forum for the Future's work at the first Sustainable Brands conference in the region.

I left London on the day that 52% of the UK population voted to leave the EU. I left with a very heavy heart, dumbstruck that such a body blow to one of the most important integration projects since World War 2 had been delivered. For the next few days I would wake (admittedly, at totally the wrong time for my UK-based body clock) with a profound sense of loss, which took a few seconds to pin-point to the outcome of the vote.

I now realise that travelling to the other side of the world has actually helped me begin to make sense of what's happened, and, critically, begin to understand what needs to happen next.

First: We ignore inequality at our peril. The voting demographics of the Referendum reflected a huge divide between the haves and have-nots, the urban and rural or ex-industrial populations, and age groups. London has become a prosperous, multi-cultural bubble, disconnected from other parts of the UK despite being the home of its national government.

Even though my family comes from the Midlands, where the Leave campaign romped home, I failed to really notice - by that I mean internalise - that the high street of the town I grew up in is now reduced to a string of charity shops, and that when a job is advertised in the new, local Costa Cafe, hundreds apply, and that job goes to someone with a Master's degree. I failed to notice that the digital revolution is just mumbo jumbo to a vast swathe of over-60s, and has delivered precisely nothing for them.

Contrast this with Australia, where huge efforts are now underway to deliver a meaningful reconciliation plan, designed to address the huge inequalities that exist between the native aboriginal people, and within the broader Australian society. Plans such as the one being delivered by Bupa, the global healthcare company. Australia is taking inequality very seriously.

Without facing inequality head on, any hope we have of delivering broader environmental progress is probably doomed.

What next? We need to ensure that action taken by business, NGOs, government and civil society is guided by goals that deliver simultaneously for all strata of society and the environment. Which is why in these turbulent times, the Sustainable Development Goals have never been more important.

Second: A functioning, progressive national government is useful, but not essential for progress towards sustainable development. Cut scene back to Australia, where for two years, from September 2013 to September 2015, it was governed by Tony Abbott, a climate denier who famously described the science around climate change as 'crap'. During this time, some of the passionate sustainability champions I met in Sydney, described how they didn't feel comfortable sharing their profession with 'non-susty' types, and just kept quiet about what they did for a living.

And yet, whilst they stayed under the political radar, they remained busy. Busy promoting renewable technology as the sensible transition pathway for a coal-dependent economy, busy innovating and testing sustainability solutions, such as bugs that turn waste into fuel. Busy creating a movement of sustainability advocates, who, now that Mr Abbott is gone, are unleashing their energy and passion with vigour on Australia's businesses and government.

The political vacuum that is emerging in the UK (which some may argue has been here for some time), is no reason not to push ahead with a powerful sustainable development agenda. Businesses remain committed, so is civil society (well, elements of it), and nothing has changed for the NGOs.

What next? We must harness the levers for change that remain as strong as they were before June 24th. To do this, we need to employ systems thinking and innovation to understand our sustainability challenges from the inside - examining the linkages and interactions between and among different actors to diagnose exactly where the barriers and opportunities for collaborative action lie, and how best to push those levers to accelerate change.

We will continue to push ahead with our global initiatives that bring stakeholders together to transform entire systems that we all depend on - these include the Protein Challenge 2040, Cotton 2040, the Living Grid and the Net Positive Project. We will harness the energy of business, civil society and others, and leave a spare seat for national government, hoping that sometime soon they may want to focus on progress, rather than each other.

Third: Even if, and maybe when, the button that triggers Article 50 is pushed, the UK is still part of a global economy. Here's my last reflection from Australia: It is a very long way away from anywhere. It has access to all the resources it needs. It could theoretically exist as an isolated outpost in the Southern Hemisphere.

But! We live in an interconnected society. An interconnected economy. As Forum's Futures work has demonstrated time and again, one decision made today has multiple long-term ramifications that echo across the world. Even if project globalisation halted tomorrow, there are global links that connect us in ways that didn't exist before. Perhaps these links will burst apart under isolationist-type pressures. I doubt it though.

For me, this is why the Leave campaign argument that leaving the EU would give the UK more control over its economic destiny was such piffle. The UK may well leave the EU, but its complex web of connections - societal, economic and environmental - don't recognise state borders and won't all get sucked into the waves of the English Channel. These connections are strong. What binds us unites us, and it's folly to think otherwise.

What next? Yes, the UK will feel the EU's wrath at this ridiculous vote, but the UK is part of a system. We don't exist in isolation. While elements that bind part of our system might weaken, others can grow stronger. At Forum we will be concentrating on harnessing the power of parts of the system that are passionate for progressive change. From citizen innovators to enlightened trusts and foundations, which happen to be in the UK but are certainly part of a global economy, these are individuals and organisations that won't let a miscalculated vote undermine the positive forces for change. And neither will Forum.

So, thank you Australia. Thank you to all the wonderful people I met. Being Down Under for a few days has definitely helped me see things the right way up, and I now face the challenging times ahead for the UK with a renewed sense of optimism.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

 
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