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www.FUTURE-OBSERVATORY.blogspot.com JANUARY/30/2014 HEADLINES. By Mr. Andres Agostini

lbaCancer Researchers Identify New Drug to Inhibit Breast Cancer

Cancer Researchers Identify New Drug to Inhibit Breast Cancer

Russia, US to join forces against space threats
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_01_29/Russia-US-to-join-forces-against-space-threats-1145/

The rise of artificial intelligence
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/digital-life/digital-life-news/the-rise-of-artificial-intelligence-20140122-317g3.html

MIT and Harvard release working papers on open online courses
http://www.kurzweilai.net/mit-and-harvard-release-working-papers-on-open-online-courses?utm_source=KurzweilAI+Weekly+Newsletter&utm_campaign=cbb093c38b-UA-946742-1&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_147a5a48c1-cbb093c38b-282009765

13 Quotes That Show Why Libertarian Tech Billionaire Peter Thiel Is A Scary Genius
http://www.businessinsider.com/peter-thiel-quotes-2014-1?op=1#ixzz2rr4DD75T

Quantum cloud simulates magnetic monopole
http://www.nature.com/news/quantum-cloud-simulates-magnetic-monopole-1.14612

North Korea possesses two-thirds of the world’s rare earths
http://www.impactlab.net/2014/01/24/north-korea-possesses-two-thirds-of-the-worlds-rare-earths/

Recent discovery of quantum vibrations in microtubules inside brain neurons corroborates controversial theory of consciousness
http://www.impactlab.net/2014/01/21/recent-discovery-of-quantum-vibrations-in-microtubules-inside-brain-neurons-corroborates-controversial-theory-of-consciousness/

The internet population in China hit 618 million in 2013 with 81% connected via mobile internet
http://www.impactlab.net/2014/01/20/the-internet-population-in-china-hit-618-million-in-2013-with-81-connected-via-mobile-internet/

The Bitcoin ATM Has a Dirty Secret: It Needs a Chaperone
http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2014/01/bitcoin_atm/

Can Science Save Modern Art?
http://www.fastcodesign.com/3025595/asides/can-science-save-modern-art

Welcome to the 2020s (Future Timeline Events 2020–2029)

2070–2079 timeline
http://www.futuretimeline.net/21stcentury/2070-2079.htm

Lemur Studio Design develops mine detector in a shoe
http://www.gizmag.com/lemur-studio-saveonelife/30569/

CERN experiment produces first beam of antihydrogen atoms for hyperfine study
http://phys.org/news/2014-01-cern-antihydrogen-atoms-hyperfine.html

Architects build the jellyfish house around a floating pool

wiel arets architects build the jellyfish house around a floating pool

Monitoring Drugs Flowing in the Bloodstream
http://www.mdtmag.com/news/2014/01/monitoring-drugs-flowing-bloodstream

$1.7 million personal submarine lets you ‘fly’ underwater
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/17-million-personal-submarine-lets-you-fly-underwater/

Computing with silicon neurons: Scientists use artificial nerve cells to classify different types of data
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/01/140128094539.htm

10 technology trends to watch in 2014
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/10-technology-trends-to-watch-2014/

The year ahead: Hot ICT tech trends in 2014
http://www.marsdd.com/2014/01/28/year-ahead-hot-ict-tech-trends-2014/

5 Futuristic Trends That Will Shape Business And Culture Today
http://www.fastcoexist.com/3025012/futurist-forum/5-futuristic-trends-that-will-shape-business-and-culture-today

Stephen Hawking says there is no such thing as black holes, Einstein spinning in his grave
http://www.express.co.uk/news/science-technology/455880/Stephen-Hawking-says-there-is-no-such-thing-as-black-holes-Einstein-spinning-in-his-grave

Google’s Ray Kurzweil predicts how the world will change
http://jimidisu.com/?p=6013

Celebrating water cooperation: Red Sea to Dead Sea
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/01/celebrating-water-cooperation-r-201412072619203800.html

7 Trends For 2014
http://blogs.sap.com/innovation/innovation/seven-trends-2014-01242649

8 Quick Ways to Unlock Your Creative Potential
https://www.openforum.com/articles/8-quick-ways-to-unlock-your-creative-potential/?intlink=us-openforum-exp-mostrecent-3

Exploring Mars Habitability – Opportunity Updates Our Understanding of Our Planetary Neighbour

Exploring Mars Habitability – Opportunity Updates Our Understanding of Our Planetary Neighbour

DAILY QUOTE: By Michael Anissimov utters, “…One of the biggest flaws in the common conception of the future is that the future is something that happens to us, not something we create…”

RECOMMENDED BOOK:

Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies — and What It Means to Be Human by Joel Garreau
ISBN-13: 978–0767915038

Regards,

Mr. Andres Agostini
www.ThisSuccess.wordpress.com
www.xeeme.com/AAgostini

The Future of Spage-Age Management, Today! by Mr. Andres Agostini at http://lnkd.in/d7zExFi
T R A N S    7
This is an excerpt from the conclusion section o, “…The Future of Spage-Age Management, Today!..,” that discusses some management strategies. To read the entire piece, just click the link at the end of article:

BEGINNING OF EXCERPT.

Mr. David Shaw’s question, “…Andres, from your work on the future which management skills need to be developed? Classically the management role is about planning, organizing, leading and controlling. With the changes coming in the future what’s your view on how this management mix needs to change and adapt?…” This question was posited on an Internet Forum, formulated by Mr. David Shaw (Peterborough, United Kingdom) at http://lnkd.in/ba6xX-K on October 09, 2013.

This P.O.V. addresses practical and structural solutions, not onerous quick fixes. THIS P.O.V. WILL BE COMMUNICATED UNAMBIGUOUSLY AND EMPHATICALLY.

For instance, Stuart A. Copans asserted, “…Study the past if you would divine the future…” And Edmund Burke pointed out, “…You can never plan the future by the past…”
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To set the stage properly, I will start with an enlightening quote by Albert Einstein.

“…The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them…”

Or, it could be better noted:

“…The significant problems we face [today] cannot be solved [in the future] at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them [in the past]…”

One other thing that must now be considered is a primordial axiom that is instrumental and widely considered here. That is, “…everything is related to everything else…”

Working with the second largest oil group in the world (PDVSA, with 54,000 active employees. PDVSA is Citgo’s parent company), that group wanted me to only institute beyond-insurance risk management.
T R A N S      9
You see, when they were to incur in a loss (potential disruption), it did not suffice to them to have the indemnity payment from the insurance and reinsurance pool.

On January 1982 I officially started serious thinking about “…beyond-insurance risk management…” And since then all the way throughout this date. Conversely, insurance-based risk management is the old guard while beyond-insurance risk management is the vanguard.

Many experts and even scientists and futurists speak about empirical management with the sole perspective of unimplemented theoretical notions (that is, with too many unanswered questions and unlearned lessons). BUT THE MATTER IS, HAVE THEY REALLY EXERCISED THE ACTUAL RESPONSIBILITY OF DIRECTLY MANAGING A LARGE, GLOBAL ENTERPRISE SUCCESSFULLY? WHAT EXACTLY IS THE APPLIED EXPERIENCE IN THE FIELD THAT THEY POSSES?

QUESTION: What PRECISELY have said scientists and futurists directly manage in the practical theater of operations? How, in the world, can they speak with grounds about practical management solutions? What are the accurate details of their proven track record? Really?

QUESTION: In all truth, What are their applied methodologies?

Let’s see an example of a large misconception now.

A West-Coast Futurist states that organizations and people must have “…the capacity to adapt and learn now how to prepare for risks…” According to him, How exactly does one institute his futuristic “…risk management…”? Then, he suggests that a) Risk Monitoring, b) Risk Analysis, c) Risk Sensing and d) Risk Management are a function of Strategic Risk Forecasting. Indeed!
T R A N S     2
My long professional and practical experience in the fields of applied management, corporate planning and risk management consultation, strategy and associated services with major organizations and corporations extends to more than thirty years.

I have instituted all-encompassing beyond-insurance risk management (TAIRM) to more than a dozen of global institutions of unparallelled reputation hereunder.

That is, I have over thirty year of proven, practical “…beyond-insurance risk management…” experience.

Many of these institutions, including the WorldBank, have issued either written evidence or letter of references of the services provided.

Whenever I speak hereby about how I practice “…risk management…”, I will only be referring to scientifically-driven beyond-insurance risk management and never ever be referring to financially-driven risk management.
S U C C E S S
“…Management of Risk and Insurance…” does not ever equate to beyond-insurance risk management.

It is now important to assert that “…COSO Risk Management…” and “…Enterprise Risk Management…” are never beyond-insurance risk management.

“…Management of Captive Insurance Companies…” does not ever equate to beyond-insurance risk management.

“…‘Risk Management’ (so-called) by Insurance and Reinsurance Brokers…” does not ever equate to beyond-insurance risk management.

Under the financial focus, institutional and corporate firms “…transfer risks…” (so called) to insurance and reinsurance companies (suboptimal or ineffectual choice).

Under the TAIRM focus, institutional and corporate firms manage risks optimally through the systems approach with the applied omniscience perspective (optimal decision).

The word “…system…” is here used in its ample meaning and does not hereby refer to computer systems.

Receiving indemnity payments was observed as insidious mediocrity by this petroleum group. After all, one must realize that they are not a primarily financial system “player” but an institutional incumbent mostly exercising ownership and profit of fixed assets (organically). Obviously, the financial aspects and those of their liquid assets were also important to them.

The high-raking executives of most of these global institutions know that insurance and reinsurance companies have rampant financial ambitions as if they were investment banks.

And, as a consequence, many of them displace (divert) the legally-stipulated “premium reserves” (financial provisions to indemnify the losses to insureds and reinsureds) in order to seize additional and unlawful gains out of said reserves.

These insurance and reinsurance companies do the prior by financially reengineering the allocated portions of the premiums designated to pay for covered losses.

As many insurance and reinsurance companies doctor and manipulate the sacred premium reserves, they make extraordinary and illegitimate earnings while loosing great solvency and their ultimate ability to indemnify duly covered losses.

Most insurance and reinsurance companies view themselves as enjoying blood-related “family relationships” with banks, stock market firms and many other private “players” within the financial system.
trans 27
Global corporations do not want their corporate insurance policies to be subjected to outright malfeasance and other ups and downs (whether systemic or not) by any “agent” of the financial system, chiefly the insurance and reinsurance companies.

Consequently, management by insurance and reinsurance companies is never beyond-insurance risk management.

Thus, it was insidious mediocrity because this petroleum group’s executives strongly believed that these risks can be stopped before morphing into losses (disruption potentials) if a previous appropriate work was previously designed and in place.

As many governmental agencies and other prominent global corporations, PDVSA did not want a “…financial system…”-driven risk management option. All of these institutions wanted a central and on-site solution through systems approach with the applied omniscience perspective.

Yes, by law and in general, you still need “worker’s compensation,” “directors and officers,” “kidnap and ransom,” “legal expenses,” “product liability” and “life insurance.”

BUT IN ORGANIZATIONAL AND BUSINESS SETTINGS, “…Transformative and Integrative Risk Management…” (explained below) turns corporate and institutional insurance irrelevant and worthless. The great majority of corporate and institutional risks ─ through TAIRM ─ can be optimally managed without insurance and reinsurance. In the process, you are additionally making a huge saving by not paying exaggerated commissions and bonuses to insurance and reinsurance brokers. “Brokers” (“…sales reps…”) of what? Indeed!

We are all professionally and managerially concerned about legalistic and litigious: regulations, frameworks, zeitgeists and Weltanschauungs. But these are not the only perils requiring holistic countermeassuring.

And issues presented by violation of Governance, Compliance and Controls also required a much more holistic countermeassuring.

By way of illustration, only managing issues concerning Governance, Compliance, Controls and Intellectual Property is never ever “…beyond-insurance risk management…”

Nearly all lawyers and economists see “…risk management and insurance…” as a financial and legal approach.

Just about all accountants see “…risk management and insurance…” as a comptroller’s methodology.

The majority of actuaries see “…risk management and insurance…” as a statistical methodology.

Most auditors see “…risk management and insurance…” as a governance and compliance and intellectual property methodology.

To the highest degree, economists and financiers see “…risk management and insurance…” as a financial-transaction methodology.

The great majority of corporate planners see “…risk management and insurance…” as a strategy approach.

Nearly all human resources managers see “…risk management and insurance…” as a psychological approach.

CIOs, CISOs and CTOs, I.T. managers and I.T. risk managers see “…risk management and insurance…” as a computational methodology.

Almost all lawyers, economists, financiers, accountants, business administrators, auditors, corporate planners, actuaries, human resources managers, CIOs, CISOs, CTOs, I.T. managers and I.T. risk managers are not sufficiently right because their focus and pursuit fail to consider the physicist’ and engineer’s all-rounded criteria.
T R A N S     5
BEYOND-INSURANCE RISK MANAGEMENT AND TAIRM COMPREHENSIVELY CONSIDER LAWFULNESS (INCLUDING INTELLECTUAL PROPERTIES), GOVERNANCE, COMPLIANCE, CONTROLS, BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION, ACCOUNTING, AUDITING, STATISTICS, ACTUARIAL SCIENCES, CORPORATE PLANNING, HUMAN RESOURCES, ECONOMICS AND FINANCE, I.T. AND TECHNOLOGY, AS WELL.

EXTREMELY IMPORTANT:

Supplementary, Andres likewise indicates, “…Transformative and Integrative Risk Management (TAIRM) is also implemented in order to prevent technological surprises to the savvy organization seeking this advice and service by TAIRM, but also to create disruptively technological surprises (managerial ‘…Sputnik Moments…’) for the enterprise’s competitors…”

This notion is better understood when the axiom “… strategy is a function of a grander beyond-insurance risk management program and not the other way around…” is fully accepted and practiced.

In one line, Transformative and Integrative Risk Management (TAIRM) is absolutely “Skunkworks,” “Space Age,” “Wargaming” and Technocratic Management. Hence, non-status quo management. While others insist on “…thinking outside the box…” (inconsequential), TAIRM focuses on strong-sense and critico-creative thinking!

To illustrate this function and responsibility better, I.P. takes care of the tangible and intangible integrity of the operating building and corresponding premises and other assets, including the personnel. If one employee is selling secrets of trade or consuming illegal substances, I.P. is watching and acting upon.

I.P. does corporate counterintelligence and operates on it. I.P. incumbents are, for example, also responsible to designing, developing and instituting corporate plans pertaining to emergency preparedness, emergency response, disaster recovery, business restoration (partial function), business continuity (partial function) and business sustainability (partial function) to give you a brief idea.

I.P. also supervises and controls road and air ambulances and other medical and non-medical evacuation systems. I.P. is also responsible for preventive exercises and drills to massive evacuations in case of earthquakes, floods, fires and riots, among other perils.

Transformative and Integrative Risk Management fully contemplates, tackles, advises and operates on instrumental enhancement of the corporate provisions by Integral Protection organizations (sometimes called “departments” and others “divisions”). Have you ever seen an insurance or reinsurance company with these major duties before an organizational client?

And only and partly because of that, insurance and reinsurance companies are, by far, outside of the realm of beyond-insurance risk management and TAIRM.

TAIRM, too, has vast managerial applications for law enforcement and counter-terrorism “activities.” However, the majority of incumbents of public office are in the backyard playing political “games” and don’t possess neither a legitimate interest, nor an appropriate comprehension of techniques and methodologies, conducive to more stable “…national security…” doctrines and policies in actuality.

Many incumbents of public office don’t even have a designated budget to act upon.

Additionally and by way of example, Asian presidents are techies and fluidly communicate on Science, Technology, Engineering and Math issues (that is, STEM careers).

In the mean time, the counterparts in the West are chiefly held hostage to law, sociology and economics, with an overwhelming powerless feeling in technologically advanced conversations. All of this about the heads of state here have been publicly substantiated by Bill Gates.

Please remember: “… THE FUTURE IS NOT AN ECHO OF THE PAST…”

In today’s technologically-driven world, strategic trend evaluation cannot be done using only algorithms.

I do take into account both. I also practice “Analytics” and “Diagnostics” and have nascently become interested on what Cambridge University’ and Royal Society’s Sir Martin Rees, PhD. calls the “…Science of Complexity…”

Once again, TAIRM is vastly more into qualitative analyzes than quantitative analyzes.

You see, every problem has an underlying mechanism. Once you deeply comprehend how it operates, you can influence (via throughput) on the final outcomes (from known inputs to desired outputs) to your continuous advantage.

It can be logically argued that the term “…throughput…” has a Latin language equivalent by the term modus operandi. To this end, GE’s chairman and CEO Jack Welch, PhD. also mentioned, “…To get to the guts of why things happen…”

I have done extensive research globally throughout many places, institutions and years, from the U.S. marketplace, Lloyd’s of London, Swiss RE, Tokyo Marine Group, and way further beyond to make a lengthy story brief.

I have also become directly knowledgeable (not “bookish,” but factual, empirical and as per the educated battlefield practicalities) of beyond-insurance risk management practices by many large, industrial enterprises and agencies such as NASA.

The NASA Projects Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo and the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (Minuteman ICBM) initiative, comprehending that he or she or it cannot take those to the local insurance and reinsurance underwriter, yet these enterprises (management) initiatives have been successfully instituted.
NASA
To further illustrate the above, the Military-Industrial Complex and companies such as Boeing and Lockheed Martin, along with NASA ─ through their own methods ─ were pursuing their projects and programs without resorting to insurance and reinsurance companies at all.

I became knowledgeable with an in-all-truth polymath and an outright “Rocket Scientist,” a physicist, a systems engineer and a doctor in science, who was directly responsible for the reliability concerning: the NASA Projects Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. At NASA he was Dr. Wernher von Braun’s right hand! I treasure all of his e-mails, letters and other materials.
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To the utmost enhancement of my fortune, I have, for many years now, worked with the most daring, capricious and enlightened clients (minds) that one can imagine ever.

They all were seeking managerial and industrial “miracles” only (sic). WHILE GIVING THEM THEIR OUTRIGHT MIRACLES, I HAVE EXPERIENCED DRAMATIC OVER-LEARNING EXPERIENCES.

I once met a Scottish executive who told me that beyond-insurance risk management methodology by DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), NASA, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Royal Dutch/Shell Group was “…esoteric…” I still treasure his e-mail.

This so-called “esoteric” beyond-insurance risk management approach by DARPA, NASA, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Shell and a multitude of global corporations has been first instituted since the end of the 1950s. It is been in increasing utilization and betterment for about fifty-four years to this date.

What these institutions have successfully performed, transforming global civilizations and progress for Life, is un-apologetically and extremely uncomfortable for traditionalists whose ethos, cosmovisions and belief systems are fixed on the fossilized past and bonded to a myriad of obsolete assumptions, outdated notions and utter fallacies. The number of ignoramuses of supine ignorance is a breathtaking existential risk for humankind to deal with.

To further underpin this statement, I will share Peter Drucker’s quote, “…The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence; it is to act with yesterday’s logic…” And also that of Dr. Stephen Covey, “…Again, yesterday holds tomorrow hostage .… Memory is past. It is finite. Vision is future. It is infinite. Vision is greater than history…” And that of Sir Francis Bacon, “… He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils, for time is the greatest innovator …”

And that of London Business School Professor Gary Hamel, PhD., “…You cannot get to a new place with an old map…” And that of Alvin Toffler, “.….The future always comes too fast and in the wrong order…”

And that of Brad Leithauser, “…It reminds us that, in our accelerating, headlong era, the future presses so close upon us that those who ignore it inhabit not the present but the past …”

And that of Robert Kennedy, “…The future is not a privilege but a perpetual conquest…”

And that of Thomas Friedman, “…People are always [and wrongfully] assuming that everything that is going to be invented must have been invented already. But it hasn’t…” THIS QUOTATION IS HUGELY IGNORED.

ON THE FINAL ANALYSIS, WE MUST READILY ACCEPT FORCEFUL NOVEL REALITIES INSTANTANEOUSLY.

Dee Hock, CEO Emeritus of Visa International, stated: “…The problem is never how to get new innovative thoughts into your mind, BUT HOW TO GET OLD ONES OUT …”

As you know, Japanese corporations and institutions are into intensive Kaisen and Toyota Production System (TPS). Regarding advanced quality assurance and continuous improvement, these approaches have been demonstrated indispensable. But their practitioners are always attempting to manage risks through said approaches without any success.

TPS is also known as “…Thinking People System…”

Toyota’s CFO and the Production Director have their jaws dropped ─ while being observed by their own Chairman and CEO ─ when I carefully demonstrated to them the flaws of Kaisen and TPS in managing risks compared to the ample breadth and depth of scope by the “..Transformative and Integrative Risk Management…” (TAIRM).

Although they were in a major technical bewilderment, they hired me (as Mitsubishi Motors did before) to institute the advanced risk management of a self-funded and self-administered health-care benefit program for some seven-hundred Toyota employees and their respective eligible dependents. Both cases were turnkey undertakings.

TNT Express’ engagement was the implementation of advanced risk management of a self-funded and self-administered health-care benefit program for some five-hundred TNT Express employees and their respective eligible dependents. It was a turnkey undertaking.

Regarding a regional state, I implemented beyond-insurance risk management of a self-funded and self-administered and universal health-care benefit program for some 700,000 citizens (beneficiaries).

TAIRM has been extensively instituted ─ regarding numerous industrial and operational risks ─ in many petroleum joint ventures by corporations such as Shell, Statoil, Exxon, Mobil, BP, Conoco, ENI and Chevron, among others.

Global corporations are greatly into beyond-insurance risk management.

TAIRM seriously considers and utilizes, among many other systems, every Western and Eastern quality assurance methodologies (both from civilian and military spheres).
F U T U R E       S C I
Subsequently, I expanded, revised and enhanced greatly this practice, after twenty-one years of applied experience, and carefully designed, developed and created my own proprietary methodology and professional, trade secret, “…Transformative and Integrative Risk Management…” (TAIRM) back in 2005 (continually updated and upgraded to date).

a) “…HUMAN KNOWLEDGE IS DOUBLING EVERY TEN YEARS [AS PER THE 1998 STANDARDS]…” [*]

b) “…COMPUTER POWER IS DOUBLING EVERY EIGHTEEN MONTHS. THE INTERNET IS DOUBLING EVERY YEAR. THE NUMBER OF DNA SEQUENCES WE CAN ANALYZE IS DOUBLING EVERY TWO YEARS…” [*]

j) “…The world has profoundly changed … The challenges and complexity we face in our personal lives and relationships, in our families, in our professional lives, and in our organizations are of a different order of magnitude. In fact, many mark 1989 ─ the year we witnessed the fall of the Berlin Wall ─ as the beginning of the Information Age, the birth of a new reality, a sea change of incredible significance ─ truly a new era ─ Being effective as individuals and organizations is no longer merely an option ─ survival in today’s world requires it. But in order to thrive, innovate, excel, and lead in what Covey calls the new Knowledge Worker Age, we must build on and move beyond effectiveness [long-held assumptions, fallacies and flawed beliefs and faulty conventions]…Accessing the higher levels of human genius and motivation in today’s new reality REQUIRES A SEA CHANGE IN THINKING: a new mind-sets, a new skill-set, a new tool-set ─ in short, a whole new habit…”

END OF CITATION.

[*] All citations and quotations are from the Futuretronium Book.

NOTWITHSTANDING, THE HUMAN RACE MUST DECIDE WHICH DETERMINATION TO MAKE ABOUT SAID FORCES QUICKLY.

To the end above, Prof. Gary Hamel, Ph.D. argued, “…Denial is tragic. Delay is deadly …” And Albert Einstein determined, “…It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity … We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive.…”

And Dr. Aubrey de Grey, PhD. establishes, “…To solve a very complicated problem, you generally need a fairly complicated solution [in advance]…”

Churchill observed that we must get prepared when we cannot predict. Hence, we need to discern the dynamic (driving) forces reshaping the present and future and their impacts on our industries and organizations and professions TODAY.

This we, all managers, must do daily without a fail (and increasingly so).
T R A N S    4
The “…increasingly so…” MUST be nonlinear and supremely exponential. According to mathematics, nonlinear entails, “…not in a straight line…” (that is, that “grows” geometrically or exponentially).

Stated simply, nonlinear growth equates to most unevenly explosive growth.

“…Here and Now…” is, put simply, the endless entry point into the future.

As a result, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus commented, “…Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present …”

And as a consequence, German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche indicated, “…It’s our future that lays down the law of our today…” NIETZSCHE IS HEREWITH SUGGESTING THAT THE PRESENT IS A FUNCTION OF THE FUTURE.

Whatever is happening in the West, China is, at the moment and by way of example, drastically booming.

As an important point to note, the Futurist Gerald Celente advises, “…If you don’t attack the future [today], the future will attack you…” And John Galsworthy said, “…If you don’t think about the future, you cannot have one.…”
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Now, we must concentrate, as a laser-beam pointing precision, on the upsides by the Technological Singularity as well as the downsides by the Disruptional Singularity.

To have a quick and ready look into the future today, one can also ─ free of any obligations ─ join the Forum “…Becoming Aware of the Futures…” at http://lnkd.in/WUm7zA

Or one can also ─ free of any obligations ─ join the Forum “…Future Awareness…” at http://lnkd.in/bjg9UDd

Or one can also ─ free of any obligations ─ join the Forum “…The Disruptional Singularity…” at http://lnkd.in/dXgRkAT

As a manager to me so-called “…insurance…” is not “risk protection” but a financial device that just PARTLY indemnifies you from SOME losses and ONLY SOMETIMES.

AND “LOSS INDEMNITY” IS NEVER RISK MANAGEMENT.

In my case, a loss (disruption potential) is the un-managed and uncontrolled unleashing of pent-up energy. Once pent-up energy is unleashed, it can create (upside risks) or destruct (downside risks).

To cope with the future is to cope with changed changes (upside risks and downside risks) today. And the entirety of the planet is inundated with massive, increasing changed changes.

All incumbents and practitioners must perceive that management is turning itself into a highly scientific field and practice without a fail. Believe it or not, management is literally going into applied “…Rocket Science…”

By way of example, the expression “…Keep It Simple, Stupid…” has been radically replaced by “…Keep It Scientific, Savant…”

And notions as those of Thomas Paine’s “…common sense…” are now absurd and rendered ineffectual and counterproductive by representatives of institutions such as DARPA, NASA, MIT and Stanford University.

Common sense is radically replaced by SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE.

So called “…out of the box…” thinking is impious and outrageous mediocrity by the 21st-century standards and practices.

“…Out of the box…” thinking will bankrupt you easily.
T R A N S
And the “…power of simplicity…,” unless is applied by a consummated polymath, is a chat about rubbish.

Managing is an art, practice, technology and science.

Change is going abusively “…auto…” and “…techno…” and “…in vivo…” and “…infotech…” and “…cyborg…” and “…digital…” and “… neuro…” and “…bio…” and “…transbio…” and “…nano…” and “…nanotech…” I am not afraid to proclaim.

BEYOND THE MANAGERIAL CHALLENGES (DOWNSIDE RISKS) PRESENTED BY THE EXPONENTIAL TECHNOLOGIES AS IT IS UNDERSTOOD IN THE TECHNOLOGICAL SINGULARITY AND ITS INHERENT FUTURISTIC FORCES IMPACTING THE PRESENT AND THE FUTURE NOW, THERE ARE ALSO SOME GRAVE GLOBAL RISKS THAT MANY FORMS OF MANAGEMENT HAVE TO TACKLE WITH IMMEDIATELY.

THESE GRAVE GLOBAL RISKS HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH ADVANCED SCIENCE OR TECHNOLOGY. MANY OF THESE HAZARDS STEM FROM NATURE AND SOME ARE, AS WELL, MAN MADE. FOR INSTANCE, THESE GRAVE GLOBAL RISKS ─ EMBODYING THE DISRUPTIONAL SINGULARITY ─ ARE GEOLOGIC, CLIMATOLOGICAL, POLITICAL, GEOPOLITICAL, DEMOGRAPHIC, SOCIAL, ETHICAL, ECONOMIC, FINANCIAL, LEGAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL, AMONG OTHERS.

THE DISRUPTIONAL SINGULARITY’S MAJOR RISKS ARE GRAVELY THREATENING US RIGHT NOW, NOT LATER.

Vast hazards by the Disruptional and Technological Singularities are the combined downsides by and to the globalization.

New science and its intrinsic risks are further discussed herewith. Please see the following accordingly:

Sir Martin Rees, Ph.D. noticed, “…Science is emphatically not, as some have claimed, approaching its end; it is surging ahead at an accelerating rate. We are still flummoxed about the bedrock nature of physical reality, and the complexities of life, the brain, and the cosmos. New discoveries, illuminating all these mysteries, will engender benign applications; but will also pose NEW ETHICAL DILEMMAS AND BRING NEW HAZARDS. How will we balance the multifarious prospective benefits from genetics, robotics, or nanotechnology against the risk (albeit smaller) of triggering utter disaster? .… Science is advancing faster than ever, and on a broader front: bio-, cyber- and nanotechnology all offer exhilarating prospects; so does the exploration of space. BUT THERE IS A DARK SIDE: NEW SCIENCE CAN HAVE UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES; IT EMPOWERS INDIVIDUALS TO PERPETRATE ACTS OF MEGATERROR; EVEN INNOCENT ERRORS COULD BE CATASTROPHIC. THE ‘DOWNSIDE’ FROM TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY TECHNOLOGY COULD BE GRAVER AND MORE INTRACTABLE THAN THE THREAT OF NUCLEAR DEVASTATION THAT WE HAVE FACED FOR DECADES. AND HUMAN-INDUCED PRESSURES ON THE GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT MAY ENGENDER HIGHER RISKS THAT THE AGE-OLD HAZARDS OF EARTHQUAKES, ERUPTIONS, AND ASTEROID IMPACTS…”
T R A N S     13
To underpin the motion by Sir Martin Rees, see also the following.

The term [technological] singularity entered the popular science culture with the 1993 presentation at the VISION-21 Symposium sponsored by NASA Lewis Research Center and the Ohio Aerospace Institute, March 30–31, 1993, by Professor of Mathematics Vernor Vinge (San Diego University).

Correspondingly, Professor Vinge, PhD. indicated, “…Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended … Is such progress avoidable? If not to be avoided, can events be guided so that we may survive? These questions are investigated. Some possible answers [and some further dangers] are presented…”

An even deeper exploration on existential risks is better achieved through the reading of the following three materials:

1.- “…Our Final Hour: A Scientist’s Warning…” By Sir Martin Rees, PhD. at http://lnkd.in/bHkBp4S

2.- “…Existential Risks: Analyzing Human Extinction Scenarios…” By Professor Nick Bostrom, PhD. at http://lnkd.in/RsNRmm

3.- “…Prophets of Doom…” available at http://lnkd.in/bfpzAdx

THEREFORE, PRACTITIONERS AND INCUMBENTS FORCEFULLY NEED TO MOST URGENTLY AND CONCURRENTLY MANAGE A MYRIAD OF GLOBAL RISKS IN PARALLEL (SIMULTANEOUSLY) BY BOTH THE DISRUPTIONAL SINGULARITY AND THE TECHNOLOGICAL SINGULARITY. THIS IS ULTIMATELY AND DESPERATELY IMPORTANT!

ADDITIONAL MANAGEMENT CHALLENGES. PLEASE NOTICE THESE THREE PIECES:

There is, by way of example and for your consideration of increasing challenges to the management practitioner, this publication, “…Oxford Study – Half of U.S. Jobs Could Be Done by Computers…” At http://lnkd.in/b8mHPpG . Still, even more pervasive challenges to the management profession.

And there is also this article: “…Big nanotech: an unexpected future. How we deal with atomically precise manufacturing will reframe the future for human life and global society…” At http://lnkd.in/bd742Nh

And there is also this article: “…Is Your Job Under Threat From ROBOTS?.…Office Jobs Could Vanish By 2018…” At http://lnkd.in/difDxRd

Consequently, Dr. Gary Hamel, PhD. indicates, “…What distinguishes our age from every other is not the world-flattening impact of communications, not the economic ascendance of China and India, not the degradation of our climate, and not the resurgence of ancient religious animosities. RATHER, IT IS A FRANTICALLY ACCELERATING PACE OF CHANGE…”
trans 34
CONCLUSIONS

1.- Given the vast amount of insidious risks, futures, challenges, principles, processes, contents, contexts, practices, tools, techniques, benefits, rewards and opportunities, there needs to be a full-bodied practical and applicable methodology (methodologies are utilized and implemented to solve complex problems and to facilitate the decision-making and anticipatory process).

6.- Always institute beyond-insurance risk management as you boldly integrate it with your futuring skill / expertise.

7.- In my firmest opinion, the following must be complied this way (verbatim): the corporate strategic planning and execution (performing) are a function of a grander application of beyond-insurance risk management. It will never work well the other way around. TAIRM is the optimal mode to do advanced strategic planning and execution (performing).

Accordingly, Dr. Carl Sagan, PhD. expressed, “…We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows about science and technology…” And Edward Teller stated, “…The science of today is the technology of tomorrow …”

10.- In any profession, beginning with management, one must always and cleverly upgrade his / her learning and education until the last exhale.

An African proverb argues, “…Tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it…” And Winston Churchill established, “…The empires of the future are the empires of the mind…” And an ancient Chinese Proverb: “…It is not our feet that move us along — it is our minds…”

INCIDENTALLY, EVERY REALITY BEFORE THE MANAGER MUST BE BROUGHT UNDER OPTIMAL CONTROL.

As it ensues:

First! Once you realize that the most important thing to nurture is the rotational-and-translational motion revolting within and beyond the innermost core of / by you, you can do your ethics and morality. Now you have conquered bridge 1. Conquering this foundational pillar also implies that every facet and phase of your personal and professional life will be carried on with dogged solemnity.

Second! Once you do your ethics and morality, you can do your actionable knowledge for Life. Now you have conquered, and will be, as follows, securing control of bridge 2 for Life.

Third! Once your actionable knowledge is done by you, you can do your corporate planning and respective marshaled strategy. Now you have conquered, and will be, as follows, securing control of bridge 3 for Life.

Fourth! Once your corporate planning and respective marshaled strategy is done by you, you can do your systems hazard management. Now you have conquered and will be, as follows, securing control of bridge 4 for Life.
trans    21
Fifth! Once your systems hazard management is done by you, you can do your systems quality assurance management. Now you have conquered and will be, as follows, securing control of bridge 5 for Life.

Sixth! Once your cross-functional, interdisciplinary systems quality assurance management is done by you, you can do your systems reliability engineering. Now you have conquered and will be, as follows, securing control of bridge 6 for Life.

Seventh! Once your systems reliability engineering is done by you, you can do your systems risk management. Now you have conquered and will be, as follows, securing control of bridge 7 for Life.

Eighth! Once your systems risk management — with the applied omniscience perspective — is done by you, you can do your contingency planning lavishly (with thousand layers of redundancy in place) for Life. Now you have conquered, and will be, as follows, securing control of bridge 8 for Life.

Ninth! When your contingency planning is done by you, you can do your benefits (upsides and downsides). Now you have conquered, and will be, as follows, securing control of bridge 9 for Life.
trans 23
Tenth! When benefits are done by you and you become hyper-engaged into pervasively transformational self-renewal and self-challenging (in excelsis) of your own intellect, you can do your sustainability perpetually. Now you have conquered, and will be, as follows, securing control of bridge 10 for Life.

Eleventh! Now you can conceive and design your own profession and tenure while concentrating in capturing womb-to-tomb (so-called) “…success…” and its gargantuan sustainability effort. Now you have conquered, and will be, as follows, securing control of bridge 11 for Life.

Twelfth! Neither “…the secret,…”, nor the “…hidden secret,…”, nor the “…discrete secret…,” or any “…magnificent marketing stunts…” will warrant the oxygen and energy and vision that your mind, body, and souls require (sic). Now you have conquered management for Life.
trans 27
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769 — 1821) declared, “…No longer it is question simply of education … NOW IT BECOMES A MATTER OF ACQUIRING SCIENCE…”

THE MANAGER’S HYPOTHETICAL BLUEPRINT TO PRACTICAL SUCCESS CAPTURING:

(1) Picture mentally, radiantly. (2) Draw outside the canvas. (3) Color outside the vectors. (4) Sketch sinuously. (5) Far-sight beyond the mind’s intangible exoskeleton. (6) Abduct indiscernible falsifiable convictions. (7) Reverse-engineering a gene and a bacterium or, better yet, the lucrative genome. (8) Guillotine the over-weighted status quo. (69) Figure out exactly which neurons to make synapses with. (70) Wire up synapses the soonest. (71) Ask now more sophisticated questions to marshal upon.…”
trans 42
David, commented simply to you and by me:

“…I am no longer a captive to history.
Whatever I can imagine, I can accomplish.

I am no longer a vassal in a faceless
bureaucracy, I am an activist, not a drone.

I am no longer a foot soldier
in the march of progress.

I am a Revolutionary!…”

END OF EXCERPT.

Click here to view the entire writing at http://lnkd.in/bYP2nDC

Mr. Andres Agostini
Author of:
The Future of Scientific Management, Today!
The Future of Skunkworks Management, Now!
Futuretronium Book!
Superthinking!
Transformative and Integrative Risk Management!

END OF EXCERPT.

Please see the full article at http://lnkd.in/bYP2nDC

Peer-to-Peer Science

The Century-Long Challenge to Respond to Fukushima

Emanuel Pastreich (Director)

Layne Hartsell (Research Fellow)

The Asia Institute

More than two years after an earthquake and tsunami wreaked havoc on a Japanese power plant, the Fukushima nuclear disaster is one of the most serious threats to public health in the Asia-Pacific, and the worst case of nuclear contamination the world has ever seen. Radiation continues to leak from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi site into groundwater, threatening to contaminate the entire Pacific Ocean. The cleanup will require an unprecedented global effort.

Initially, the leaked radioactive materials consisted of cesium-137 and 134, and to a lesser degree iodine-131. Of these, the real long-term threat comes from cesium-137, which is easily absorbed into bodily tissue—and its half-life of 30 years means it will be a threat for decades to come. Recent measurements indicate that escaping water also has increasing levels of strontium-90, a far more dangerous radioactive material than cesium. Strontium-90 mimics calcium and is readily absorbed into the bones of humans and animals.

The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) recently announced that it lacks the expertise to effectively control the flow of radiation into groundwater and seawater and is seeking help from the Japanese government. TEPCO has proposed setting up a subterranean barrier around the plant by freezing the ground, thereby preventing radioactive water from eventually leaking into the ocean—an approach that has never before been attempted in a case of massive radiation leakage. TEPCO has also proposed erecting additional walls now that the existing wall has been overwhelmed by the approximately 400 tons per day of water flowing into the power plant.

But even if these proposals were to succeed, they would not constitute a long-term solution.

A New Space Race

Solving the Fukushima Daiichi crisis needs to be considered a challenge akin to putting a person on the moon in the 1960s. This complex technological feat will require focused attention and the concentration of tremendous resources over decades. But this time the effort must be international, as the situation potentially puts the health of hundreds of millions at risk. The long-term solution to this crisis deserves at least as much attention from government and industry as do nuclear proliferation, terrorism, the economy, and crime.

To solve the Fukushima Daiichi problem will require enlisting the best and the brightest to come up with a long-term plan to be implemented over the next century. Experts from around the world need to contribute their insights and ideas. They should come from diverse fields—engineering, biology, demographics, agriculture, philosophy, history, art, urban design, and more. They will need to work together at multiple levels to develop a comprehensive assessment of how to rebuild communities, resettle people, control the leakage of radiation, dispose safely of the contaminated water and soil, and contain the radiation. They will also need to find ways to completely dismantle the damaged reactor, although that challenge may require technologies not available until decades from now.

Such a plan will require the development of unprecedented technologies, such as robots that can function in highly radioactive environments. This project might capture the imagination of innovators in the robotics world and give a civilian application to existing military technology. Improved robot technology would prevent the tragic scenes of old people and others volunteering to enter into the reactors at the risk of their own wellbeing.

The Fukushima disaster is a crisis for all of humanity, but it is a crisis that can serve as an opportunity to construct global networks for unprecedented collaboration. Groups or teams aided by sophisticated computer technology can start to break down into workable pieces the immense problems resulting from the ongoing spillage. Then experts can come back with the best recommendations and a concrete plan for action. The effort can draw on the precedents of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, but it must go far further.

In his book Reinventing Discovery: The New Era of Networked Science, Michael Nielsen describes principles of networked science that can be applied on an unprecedented scale. The breakthroughs that come from this effort can also be used for other long-term programs such as the cleanup of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico or the global response to climate change. The collaborative research regarding Fukushima should take place on a very large scale, larger than the sequencing of the human genome or the maintenance of the Large Hadron Collider.

Finally, there is an opportunity to entirely reinvent the field of public diplomacy in response to this crisis. Public diplomacy can move from a somewhat ambiguous effort by national governments to repackage their messaging to a serious forum for debate and action on international issues. As public diplomacy matures through the experience of Fukushima, we can devise new strategies for bringing together hundreds of thousands of people around the world to respond to mutual threats. Taking a clue from networked science, public diplomacy could serve as a platform for serious, long-term international collaboration on critical topics such as poverty, renewable energy, and pollution control.

Similarly, this crisis could serve as the impetus to make social networking do what it was supposed to do: help people combine their expertise to solve common problems. Social media could be used not as a means of exchanging photographs of lattes and overfed cats, but rather as an effective means of assessing the accuracy of information, exchanging opinions between experts, forming a general consensus, and enabling civil society to participate directly in governance. With the introduction into the social media platform of adequate peer review—such as that advocated by the Peer-to-Peer Foundation (P2P)—social media can play a central role in addressing the Fukushima crisis and responding to it. As a leader in the P2P movement, Michel Bauwens, suggests in an email, “peers are already converging in their use of knowledge around the world, even in manufacturing at the level of computers, cars, and heavy equipment.”

Here we may find the answer to the Fukushima conundrum: open the problem up to the whole world.

Peer-to-Peer Science

Making Fukushima a global project that seriously engages both experts and common citizens in the millions, or tens of millions, could give some hope to the world after two and a half years of lies, half-truths, and concerted efforts to avoid responsibility on the part of the Japanese government and international institutions. If concerned citizens in all countries were to pore through the data and offer their suggestions online, there could be a new level of transparency in the decision-making process and a flourishing of invaluable insights.

There is no reason why detailed information on radiation emissions and the state of the reactors should not be publicly available in enough detail to satisfy the curiosity of a trained nuclear engineer. If the question of what to do next comes down to the consensus of millions of concerned citizens engaged in trying to solve the problem, we will have a strong alternative to the secrecy that has dominated so far. Could our cooperation on the solution to Fukushima be an imperative to move beyond the existing barriers to our collective intelligence posed by national borders, corporate ownership, and intellectual property concerns?

A project to classify stars throughout the university has demonstrated that if tasks are carefully broken up, it is possible for laypeople to play a critical role in solving technical problems. In the case of Galaxy Zoo, anyone who is interested can qualify to go online and classify different kinds of stars situated in distant galaxies and enter the information into a database. It’s all part of a massive effort to expand our knowledge of the universe, which has been immensely successful and demonstrated that there are aspects of scientific analysis that does not require a Ph.D. In the case of Fukushima, if an ordinary person examines satellite photographs online every day, he or she can become more adept than a professor in identifying unusual flows carrying radioactive materials. There is a massive amount of information that requires analysis related to Fukushima, and at present most of it goes virtually unanalyzed.

An effective response to Fukushima needs to accommodate both general and specific perspectives. It will initially require a careful and sophisticated setting of priorities. We can then set up convergence groups that, aided by advanced computation and careful efforts at multidisciplinary integration, could respond to crises and challenges with great effectiveness. Convergence groups can also serve as a bridge between the expert and the layperson, encouraging a critical continuing education about science and society.

Responding to Fukushima is as much about educating ordinary people about science as it is about gathering together highly paid experts. It is useless for experts to come up with novel solutions if they cannot implement them. But implementation can only come about if the population as a whole has a deeper understanding of the issues. Large-scale networked science efforts that are inclusive will make sure that no segments of society are left out.

If the familiar players (NGOs, central governments, corporations, and financial institutions) are unable to address the unprecedented crises facing humanity, we must find ways to build social networks, not only as a means to come up with innovative concepts, but also to promote and implement the resulting solutions. That process includes pressuring institutions to act. We need to use true innovation to pave the way to an effective application of science and technology to the needs of civil society. There is no better place to start than the Internet and no better topic than the long-term response to the Fukushima disaster.

Originally published in Foreign Policy in Focus on September 3, 2013

News this past week on Fukushima has not been exactly reassuring has it. Meanwhile the pro-Nuclear lobby keep counting bananas. Here I’ve gathered together some of the recent news articles on the unfolding crisis. Interested to hear some comments on this one.

Fukushima leak is ‘much worse than we were led to believe’ / Aug 22, 2013, BBC NEWS http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23779561
Serious: Japan hikes Fukushima radiation danger level / August 21, 2013 RT NEWS http://rt.com/news/japan-fukushima-level-three-762/
Japan’s nuclear crisis deepens, China expresses ‘shock’ / Aug 21, 2013/ reuters http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/21/us-japan-fukushima-severity-idUSBRE97K02B20130821
Worse than Chernobyl: The inner threat of Fukushima crisis / Aug 20, 2013/ RT http://rt.com/op-edge/chernobyl-fukushima-crisis-catastrophe-715/
Japan nuclear agency upgrades Fukushima alert level / Aug 21, 2013 / BBC NEWS http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-23776345
Fukushima apocalypse: Years of ‘duct tape fixes’ could result in ‘millions of deaths’ / Aug 18 2013 / RT http://rt.com/news/fukushima-apocalypse-fuel-removal-598/
Fukushima’s Radioactive Water Leak: What You Should Know / National Geographic, Aug 2013 http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2013/08/130807-fukushima-radioactive-water-leak/

The APS April Meeting 2013, Vol. 58 #4 will be held Saturday–Tuesday, April 13–16, 2013; Denver, Colorado.

I am very pleased to announce that my abstract was accepted and I will be presenting “Empirical Evidence Suggest A Need For A Different Gravitational Theory” at this prestigious conference.

For those of you who can make it to Denver, April 13–16, and are interested in alternative gravitational theories, lets meet up.

I am especially interested in physicists and engineers who have the funding to test gravity modification technologies, proposed in my book An Introduction to Gravity Modification.

** Note, APS is the publisher of the most prestigious physics journal in the world, Physical Review Letters. If you remember Robert Nemiroff published his ground breaking findings that quantum foam cannot exists, 3 photons and 7-billion year old gamma ray burst in the Physical Review Letters.

——————————————

Benjamin T Solomon is the author of the 12-year study An Introduction to Gravity Modification

FUKUSHIMA.MAKES.JAPAN.DO.MORE.ROBOTS
Fukushima’s Second Anniversary…

Two years ago the international robot dorkosphere was stunned when, in the aftermath of the Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami Disaster, there were no domestically produced robots in Japan ready to jump into the death-to-all-mammals radiation contamination situation at the down-melting Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

…and Japan is Hard at Work.
Suffice it to say, when Japan finds out its robots aren’t good enough — JAPAN RESPONDS! For more on how Japan has and is addressing the situation, have a jump on over to AkihabaraNews.com.

Oh, and here’s some awesome stuff sourced from the TheRobotReport.com:

Larger Image
- PDF With Links

1. Thou shalt first guard the Earth and preserve humanity.

Impact deflection and survival colonies hold the moral high ground above all other calls on public funds.

2. Thou shalt go into space with heavy lift rockets with hydrogen upper stages and not go extinct.

The human race can only go in one of two directions; space or extinction- right now we are an endangered species.

3. Thou shalt use the power of the atom to live on other worlds.

Nuclear energy is to the space age as steam was to the industrial revolution; chemical propulsion is useless for interplanetary travel and there is no solar energy in the outer solar system.

4. Thou shalt use nuclear weapons to travel through space.

Physical matter can barely contain chemical reactions; the only way to effectively harness nuclear energy to propel spaceships is to avoid containment problems completely- with bombs.

5. Thou shalt gather ice on the Moon as a shield and travel outbound.

The Moon has water for the minimum 14 foot thick radiation shield and is a safe place to light off a bomb propulsion system; it is the starting gate.

6. Thou shalt spin thy spaceships and rings and hollow spheres to create gravity and thrive.

Humankind requires Earth gravity and radiation to travel for years through space; anything less is a guarantee of failure.

7. Thou shalt harvest the Sun on the Moon and use the energy to power the Earth and propel spaceships with mighty beams.

8. Thou shalt freeze without damage the old and sick and revive them when a cure is found; only an indefinite lifespan will allow humankind to combine and survive. Only with this reprieve can we sleep and reach the stars.

9. Thou shalt build solar power stations in space hundreds of miles in diameter and with this power manufacture small black holes for starship engines.

10. Thou shalt build artificial intellects and with these beings escape the death of the universe and resurrect all who have died, joining all minds on a new plane.

I continue to survey the available technology applicable to spaceflight and there is little change.

The remarkable near impact and NEO on the same day seems to fly in the face of the experts quoting a probability of such coincidence being low on the scale of millenium. A recent exchange on a blog has given me the idea that perhaps crude is better. A much faster approach to a nuclear propelled spaceship might be more appropriate.

Unknown to the public there is such a thing as unobtanium. It carries the country name of my birth; Americium.

A certain form of Americium is ideal for a type of nuclear solid fuel rocket. Called a Fission Fragment Rocket, it is straight out of a 1950’s movie with massive thrust at the limit of human G-tolerance. Such a rocket produces large amounts of irradiated material and cannot be fired inside, near, or at the Earth’s magnetic field. The Moon is the place to assemble, test, and launch any nuclear mission.

Such Fission Fragment propelled spacecraft would resemble the original Tsolkovsky space train with a several hundred foot long slender skeleton mounting these one shot Americium boosters. The turn of the century deaf school master continues to predict.

Each lamp-shade-spherical thruster has a programmed design balancing the length and thrust of the burn. After being expended the boosters use a small secondary system to send them into an appropriate direction and probably equipped with small sensor packages, using the hot irradiated shell for an RTG. The Frame that served as a car of the space train transforms into a pair of satellite panels. Being more an artist than an *engineer, I find the monoplane configuration pleasing to the eye as well as being functional. These dozens and eventually thousands of dual purpose boosters would help form a space warning net.

The front of the space train is a large plastic sphere partially filled filled with water sent up from the surface of a a Robotic Lunar Polar Base. The Spaceship would split apart on a tether to generate artificial gravity with the lessening booster mass balanced by varying lengths of tether with an intermediate reactor mass.

These piloted impact threat interceptors would be manned by the United Nations Space Defense Force. All the Nuclear Powers would be represented.…..well, most of them. They would be capable of “fast missions” lasting only a month or at the most two months. They would be launched from underground silos on the Moon to deliver a nuclear weapon package towards an impact threat at the highest possible velocity and so the fastest intercept time. These ships would come back on a ballistic course with all their boosters expended to be rescued by recovery craft from the Moon upon return to the vicinity of Earth.

The key to this scenario is Americium 242. It is extremely expensive stuff. The only alternative is Nuclear Pulse Propulsion (NPP). The problem with bomb propulsion is the need to have a humungous mass for the most efficient size of bomb to react with.

The Logic Tree then splits again with two designs of bomb propelled ship; the “Orion” and the “Medusa.” The Orion is the original design using a metal plate and shock absorbing system. The Medusa is essentially a giant woven alloy parachute and tether system that replaces the plate with a much lighter “mega-sail.” In one of the few cases where compromise might bear fruit- the huge spinning ufo type disc, thousands of feet across, would serve quite well to explore, colonize, and intercept impact threats. Such a ship would require a couple decades to begin manufacture on the Moon.

Americium boosters could be built on earth and inserted into lunar orbit with Human Rated Heavy Lift Vehicles (SLS) and a mission launched well within a ten-year apollo type plan. But the Americium Infrastructure has to be available as a first step.

Would any of my hundreds of faithful followers be willing to assist me in circulating a petition?

*Actually I am neither an artist or an engineer- just a wannabe pulp writer in the mold of Edgar Rice Burroughs.


LEFT: Activelink Power Loader Light — RIGHT: The Latest HAL Suit

New Japanese Exoskeleton Pushing into HAL’s (potential) Marketshare
We of the robot/technology nerd demo are well aware of the non-ironically, ironically named HAL (Hybrid Assistive Limb) exoskeletal suit developed by Professor Yoshiyuki Sankai’s also totally not meta-ironically named Cyberdyne, Inc. Since its 2004 founding in Tsukuba City, just north of the Tokyo metro area, Cyberdyne has developed and iteratively refined the force-amplifying exoskeletal suit, and through the HAL FIT venture, they’ve also created a legs-only force resistance rehabilitation & training platform.

Joining HAL and a few similar projects here in Japan (notably Toyota’s & Honda’s) is Kansai based & Panasonic-owned Activelink’s new Power Loader Light (PLL). Activelink has developed various human force amplification systems since 2003, and this latest version of the Loader looks a lot less like its big brother the walking forklift, and a lot more like the bottom half & power pack of a HAL suit. Activelink intends to connect an upper body unit, and if successful, will become HAL’s only real competition here in Japan.
And for what?

Well, along with general human force amplification and/or rehab, this:


福島第一原子力発電所事故 — Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster Site

Fukushima Cleanup & Recovery: Heavy with High-Rads
As with Cyberdyne’s latest radiation shielded self-cooling HAL suit (the metallic gray model), Activelink’s PLL was ramped up after the 2011 Tohoku earthquake, tsunami, and resulting disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant. Cleanup at the disaster area and responding to future incidents will of course require humans in heavy radiation suits with heavy tools possibly among heavy debris.While specific details on both exoskeletons’ recent upgrades and deployment timeline and/or capability are sparse, clearly the HAL suit and the PLL are conceptually ideal for the job. One assumes both will incorporate something like 20-30KG/45-65lbs. per limb of force amplification along with fully supporting the weight of the suit itself, and like HAL, PLL will have to work in a measure of radiological shielding and design consideration. So for now, HAL is clearly in the lead here.

Exoskeleton Competition Motivation Situation
Now, the HAL suit is widely known, widely deployed, and far and away the most successful of its kind ever made. No one else in Japan — in the world — is actually manufacturing and distributing powered exoskeletons at comparable scale. And that’s awesome and all due props to Professor Sankai and his team, but in taking stock of the HAL project’s 8 years of ongoing development, objectively one doesn’t see a whole lot of fundamental advancement. Sure, lifting capacity has increased incrementally and the size of the power source & overall bulk have decreased a bit. And yeah, no one else is doing what Cyberdyne’s doing, but that just might be the very reason why HAL seems to be treading water — and until recently, e.g., Activelink’s PLL, no one’s come along to offer up any kind of alternative.

Digressively Analogizing HAL with Japan & Vice-Versa Maybe
What follows is probably anecdotal, but probably right: See, Japanese economic and industrial institutions, while immensely powerful and historically cutting-edge, are also insular, proud — and weirdly — often glacially slow to innovate or embrace new technologies. With a lot of relatively happy workers doing excellent engineering with unmatched quality control and occasional leaps of innovation, Japan’s had a healthy electronics & general tech advantage for a good long time. Okay but now, thorough and integrated globalization has monkeywrenched the J-system, and while the Japanese might be just as good as ever, the world has caught up. For example, Korea’s big two — Samsung & LG — are now selling more TVs globally than all Japanese makers combined. Okay yeah, TVs ain’t robots, but across the board competition has arrived in a big way, and Japan’s tech & electronics industries are faltering and freaking out, and it’s illustrative of a wider socioeconomic issue. Cyberdyne, can you dig the parallel here?

Back to the Robot Stuff: Get on it, HAL/Japan — or Someone Else Will
A laundry list of robot/technology outlets, including Anthrobotic & IEEE, puzzled at how the first robots able to investigate at Fukushima were the American iRobot PackBots & Warriors. It really had to sting that in robot loving, automation saturated, theretofore 30% nuclear-powered Japan, there was no domestically produced device nimble enough and durable enough to investigate the facility without getting a radiation BBQ (the battle-tested PackBots & Warriors — no problem). So… ouch?

For now, HAL & Japan lead the exoskeletal pack, but with a quick look at Andra Keay’s survey piece over at Robohub it’s clear that HAL and the PLL are in a crowded and rapidly advancing field. So, if the U.S. or France or Germany or Korea or the Kiwis or whomever are first to produce a nimble, sufficiently powered, appropriately equipped, and ready-for-market & deployment human amplification platform, Japanese energy companies and government agencies and disaster response teams just might add those to cart instead. Without rapid and inspired development and improvement, HAL & Activelink, while perhaps remaining viable for Japan’s aging society industry, will be watching emergency response and cleanup teams at home with their handsome friend Asimo and his pet Aibo, wondering whatever happened to all the awesome, innovative, and world-leading Japanese robots.

It’ll all look so real on a 80-inch Samsung flat-panel HDTV.

Activelink Power Loader — Latest Model


Cyberdyne, Inc. HAL Suit — Latest Model
http://youtu.be/xwzYjcNXlFE

SOURCES & INFO & STUFF
[HAL SUIT UPGRADE FOR FUKUSHIMA — MEDGADGET]
[HAL RADIATION CONTAMINATION SUIT DETAILS — GIZMAG]
[ACTIVELINK POWER LOADER UPDATE — DIGINFO.TV]

[TOYOTA PERSONAL MOBILITY PROJECTS & ROBOT STUFF]
[HONDA STRIDE MANAGEMENT & ASSISTIVE DEVICE]

[iROBOT SENDING iROBOTS TO FUKUSHIMA — IEEE]
[MITSUBISHI NUCLEAR INSPECTION BOT]

For Fun:
[SKELETONICS — CRAZY HUMAN-POWERED PROJECT: JAPAN]
[KURATAS — EVEN CRAZIER PROJECT: JAPAN]

Note on Multimedia:
Main images were scraped from the above Diginfo.tv & AFPBBNEWS
YouTube videos, respectively. Because there just aren’t any decent stills
out there — what else is a pseudo-journalist of questionable competency to do?

This piece originally appeared at Anthrobotic.com on January 17, 2013.

I was recently accused on another blog of repeating a defeatist mantra.

My “mantra” has always been WE CAN GO NOW. The solutions are crystal clear to anyone who takes a survey of the available technology. What blinds people is their unwillingness to accept the cost of making it happen.
There is no cheap.

Paul Gilster comments on his blog Centauri Dreams, concerning Radiation, Alzheimer’s Disease and Fermi;

“Neurological damage from human missions to deep space — and the study goes no further than the relatively close Mars — would obviously affect our planning and create serious payload constraints given the need for what might have to be massive shielding.”

Massive shielding.
This is the game changer. The showstopper. The sea change. The paradigm shift.
The cosmic ray gorilla. Whatever you want to call it, it is the reality that most of what we are familiar with concerning human space flight is not going to work in deep space.
Massive Shielding=Nuclear Propulsion=Bombs
M=N=B
We have to transport nuclear materials to the Moon where we can light off a nuclear propulsion system. The Moon is where the ice-derived Water to fill up a Massive radiation shield is to be found.
Massive Shield=Water=Lunar Base
M=W=L
Sequentially: L=W=M=N=B
So, first and last, we need an HLV to get to this Lunar Base (where the Water for the shield is) and we need to safely transport Nuclear material there (and safely assemble and light off the Bombs to push the shield around).

Radiation shielding is the first determining factor in spaceship design and this largely determines the entire development of space travel.

http://voices.yahoo.com/water-bombs-8121778.html?cat=15