The Future Via Tech

I haven’t been blogging much of late, as I’ve really spent more time with the quicker tweets on Twitter. But, this article which I saw in Allen Kupetz’s fine blog Future of Less, was so good, that I felt compelled to post.

The Coming Tech-led Boom
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052970203471004577140413041646048-lMyQjAxMTAyMDMwMDEzNDAyWj.html

Three breakthroughs are poised to transform this century as much as telephony and electricity did the last.By MARK P. MILLS AND JULIO M. OTTINOIn January 1912, the United States emerged from a two-year recession. Nineteen more followed—along with a century of phenomenal economic growth. Americans in real terms are 700% wealthier today.In hindsight it seems obvious that emerging technologies circa 1912—electrification, telephony, the dawn of the automobile age, the invention of stainless steel and the radio amplifier—would foster such growth. Yet even knowledgeable contemporary observers failed to grasp their transformational power.In January 2012, we sit again on the cusp of three grand technological transformations with the potential to rival that of the past century. All find their epicenters in America: big data, smart manufacturing and the wireless revolution.Information technology has entered a big-data era. Processing power and data storage are virtually free. A hand-held device, the iPhone, has computing power that shames the 1970s-era IBM mainframe. The Internet is evolving into the "cloud"—a network of thousands of data centers any one of which makes a 1990 supercomputer look antediluvian. From social media to medical revolutions anchored in metadata analyses, wherein astronomical feats of data crunching enable heretofore unimaginable services and businesses, we are on the cusp of unimaginable new markets.The second transformation? Smart manufacturing. This is the first structural shift since Henry Ford launched the economic power of "mass production." While we see evidence already in automation and information systems applied to supply-chain management, we are just entering an era where the very fabrication of physical things is revolutionized by emerging materials science. Engineers will soon design and build from the molecular level, optimizing features and even creating new materials, radically improving quality and reducing waste.Devices and products are already appearing based on computationally engineered materials that literally did not exist a few years ago: novel metal alloys, graphene instead of silicon transistors (graphene and carbon enable a radically new class of electronic and structural materials), and meta-materials that possess properties not possible in nature; e.g., rendering an object invisible—speculation about which received understandable recent publicity.This era of new materials will be economically explosive when combined with 3-D printing, also known as direct-digital manufacturing—literally "printing" parts and devices using computational power, lasers and basic powdered metals and plastics. Already emerging are printed parts for high-value applications like patient-specific implants for hip joints or teeth, or lighter and stronger aircraft parts. Then one day, the Holy Grail: "desktop" printing of entire final products from wheels to even washing machines.The era of near-perfect computational design and production will unleash as big a change in how we make things as the agricultural revolution did in how we grew things. And it will be defined by high talent not cheap labor.Finally, there is the unfolding communications revolution where soon most humans on the planet will be connected wirelessly. Never before have a billion people—soon billions more—been able to communicate, socialize and trade in real time.The implications of the radical collapse in the cost of wireless connectivity are as big as those following the dawn of telegraphy/telephony. Coupled with the cloud, the wireless world provides cheap connectivity, information and processing power to nearly everyone, everywhere. This introduces both rapid change—e.g., the Arab Spring—and great opportunity. Again, both the launch and epicenter of this technology reside in America.Few deny that technology fuels economic growth as well as both social and lifestyle progress, the latter largely seen in health and environmental metrics. But consider three features that most define America, and that are essential for unleashing the promises of technological change: our youthful demographics, dynamic culture and diverse educational system.First, demographics. By 2020, America will be younger than both China and the euro zone, if the latter still exists. Youth brings more than a base of workers and taxpayers; it brings the ineluctable energy that propels everything. Amplified and leavened by the experience of their elders, youth and economic scale (the U.S. is still the world's largest economy) are not to be underestimated, especially in the context of the other two great forces: our culture and educational system.The American culture is particularly suited to times of tumult and challenge. Culture cannot be changed or copied overnight; it is a feature of a people that has, to use a physics term, high inertia. Ours is distinguished by incontrovertibly powerful features, namely open-mindedness, risk-taking, hard work, playfulness, and, critical for nascent new ideas, a healthy dose of anti-establishment thinking. Where else could an Apple or a Steve Jobs have emerged?Then there's our educational system, often criticized as inadequate to global challenges. But American higher education eludes simple statistical measures since its most salient features are flexibility and diversity of educational philosophies, curricula and the professoriate. There is a dizzying range of approaches in American universities and colleges. Good. One size definitely does not fit all for students or the future.

January 2012

We've been birding and blogging at West Campus for two and a half years now, compiling quite a list of bird species, and documenting seasonal changes in the process. Occasionally we submit a list to e-bird, a website developed by Cornell University for the purpose of collecting and sharing data on bird sightings. (see end of blog post)

Usually when we contribute a list to e-bird it's because we've either seen something "good" that we want to share, or because we've done a thorough survey, such as the Christmas Count or a hawk watch. Advocates of e-bird would like us birders to get in the habit of submitting ALL of our birding efforts, to better document year-round bird activity in our favored "hot-spots".

Although we understand the reasons, we don't necessarily always have the time. Ultimately e-bird is happy to get whatever data we citizen scientists are willing to volunteer. As an end-user of e-bird data I certainly appreciate a plethora of birding reports. For example, over the semester break I was birding in Florida, and was able to check the reports of other e-birders to plan my stops.

I checked for species, such as the Florida Scrub-Jay (Florida's only endemic bird), and the Red-cockaded Woodpecker (a vulnerable species). Searches can also be made by specific location, such as Sanibel Island or the Anhinga Trail within Everglades National Park. Ultimately, e-bird is just one of many tools a birder can use to find good places to go birding.


We finally have some snow cover, and look what shows up...

I haven't posted our list here on the blog in over a month - feeder activity has been s-l-o-w, but I'll list the birds we've seen since the start of the new year. Many of these birds are using our assorted feeding stations, placed in the courtyard where we can observe. I'll just write "feeder" after these species.

West Campus bird list for the first three weeks of 2012:

1. Wild Turkey - feeder
Canada Goose
Turkey Vulture
Red-tailed Hawk
5. Merlin
Ring-billed Gull
Herring Gull
Mourning Dove - feeder
Rock Pigeon
10. Downy Woodpecker - feeder
Red-bellied Woodpecker - feeder
Blue Jay - feeder
American Crow
European Starling
15. Black-capped Chickadee - feeder
Carolina Wren
American Robin
Northern Cardinal - feeder
Dark-eyed Junco - feeder
20. Song Sparrow - feeder
White-throated Sparrow - feeder
Fox Sparrow - feeder
American Goldfinch
House Finch - feeder
25. House Sparrow - feeder

Here's a link to e-bird. http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ You'll see there's a lot to explore, and Cornell continues to improve the user interface as well as the data-generating possibilities.

The Launch of COLLIDE !

So much great stuff going on right now at CMC. There is much to celebrate. Let me give you an example.

This weekend, on Sunday night, we saw the launch of a new campus church at Brock University called Collide ( www.wearecollide.ca), which is a planting of Central Community Church in St. Catharines, ON in cooperation with Southridge Community Church (MB). In fact, the cooperation and partnership of these two churches is a Kingdom story in and of itself.

Anyways, it meets in the Isaac’s Pub on campus at 7 pm on Sundays. Led by Roy Olende ( of Red Frogs fame and no stranger to this blog ) it is off to a flying start.

Meet Roy!

 So, let me tell you about it.

Due to his servants heart and sheer likeability, and the amazing impact of Red Frogs on the Brock campus, Roy has found enormous favour from the student union and the administration, alike. They have grasped the fact that Red Frogs has added value to the U, and that it makes a positive difference. As a result, doors have swung open for Collide.

Isaac’s is a great venue for a campus church. High ceilings, an intimate space that offers room for growth, good acoustics and sound system and good accessibility all add up to a win. And its not bad looking, to boot.

The worship leading was low key. Talent helps when you want to go low key, and the two guys that led worship on the guitar and bass had it. They did a solid job.

Roy spoke. Gentle, passionate, genuine… people are drawn in by  the warmth of his personality as well as the great stuff he has to say.  And what he had to say was worth listening to. It was about being real, being genuine and about the magnetism of Jesus, Himself. It was about being more like Him.

The group was set up with tables. I know from varied experience that tables and table discussion can be incredibly powerful. However, if it is not done right, it can be detrimental. A big part of Roy’s efforts leading up to this launch is preparing his student core to lead discussions after his message. Tables work well when an effort is made to proactively overcome people’s natural reticence of sitting at a table where people do not know each other. In the wrong context ( I can think of current examples) it can lead to ‘cliquishness” which can put a damper on what the Holy Spirit wants to do.

However, the group all broke up to partake of the refreshments and then gathered again at tables to talk about what Roy talked about. The idea behind this is to encourage students to think about how they would apply what they just heard – as well as give them the opportunity to discuss it.

This emerging generation is increasingly allergic of just being talked to , but they want to engage it for themselves as well. As a result, a number of our ministries have taken the cue and worked with it, to great effect. Epic Church at U of A, and The Embassy at Humber College are two examples of where this works very well.  

More to come....