In 2010, in the USA, datacentre electricity use was 2% of the national total electricity use. Worldwide, datacentres use about 30 billion watts of electricity, roughly equivalent to the output of 30 nuclear power plants. This is probably on a rapid exponential growth rate (anyone know?) so while it's astonishing to see so much energy being used to power the computronium, it's also a huge opportunity for energy savings. 

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[from: Google Plus Public Activity Feed for Julian Bond]

Low power FM radio transmission of found and donated sounds within a 10 mile radius in the middle of one of the darkest and really quite remote places on earth in Galloway Forest in Dumfriesshire. Including transmissions from a Russian woman cosmonaut who didn't come back. The found sounds are transmitted once and then deleted. The whole project is then linked with a book festival in one of the most out of the way towns nearby.

My kind of art project.

http://www.thedarkoutside.com/index.php/radio-transmissions/
http://www.wigtownbookfestival.com/
http://thewire.co.uk/index.php?page=articles&article=9822

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[from: Google Plus Public Activity Feed for Julian Bond]

Thoroughly enjoying the book, so here's the online discussion.
http://bit.ly/raptureofthenerds
The first time I met Cory IRL, was shortly after the first couple of episodes of "Jury Duty" had appeared that later became the early chapters. I think it might have been an NTK meet in London or perhaps one of the not a conferences in London for people who hadn't made it to the O-Reilly Emerging Tech conference. That must date it to 2001 or so, so this book has had quite a long gestation period.

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[from: Google Plus Public Activity Feed for Julian Bond]

What is http://so.cl ?
[from: Google Plus Public Activity Feed for Julian Bond]

Perhaps the problem here is that "Reality has a dystopian bias"
[from: Google Plus Public Activity Feed for Julian Bond]

I find this story too weird to leave alone. Now I don't have a lot of time for Obama, but you kind of know that back in the day he was a blunted basketball player who liked big black butt and listened to Outkast. And secretly, he still is, You just have try and bury the image of him and Michelle dancing round the white house bed to Bees in the Trap. He doesn't have time any more to follow it himself but he's got a posse of homies who keep him up to date with what's going down in the hood so he can keep up appearances with a snappy tweet and stay on top of the urban vote.

Meanwhile in Russia, 
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/09/putin-weak-cranes-russia-opposition_n_1868193.html

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[from: Google Plus Public Activity Feed for Julian Bond]

http://youtu.be/ZuQMaUGmEn0 The full album of Mala in Cuba, dropped today, 10th Sept. 320kb available for free from the usual sources in 3.. 2.. 1..
I really don't understand how anyone can make any money from selling packaged music any more. If it's not streamable for free, it's downloadable for free.

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[from: Google Plus Public Activity Feed for Julian Bond]

So when, as a Westerner, I watch the destruction of the Tie Xi district, it's impossible not to think of what was done in the 1980s to South Wales, to Sheffield, to the East End, Detroit, Ohio...we've heard the angry plaint of one worker, sent home with no pension after 30 years of service, who tells one of the film's many shabby offices that 'they said we had a job for life. Pensions, health care, a safety net. Doesn't seem likely now. They don't care if you get sick, much less if you die - and forget about a pension...Next thing you know, the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) will be renaming itself the Republican Party'. In China, too, the neoliberal restructuring has destroyed similar lives, thrown similar people on a similar scrapheap, with a similar total lack of support.

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[from: Google Plus Public Activity Feed for Julian Bond]

Thing is, when I landed on this miserable rock, there were only 4.5 billion humans on Earth. I had everything staked out - I was gonna conquer America, penetrate the Bermuda Triangle, play speed garage on the Great Wall of China!

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[from: Google Plus Public Activity Feed for Julian Bond]

I have weird theories and draw parallels between the two; how salt and pepper can be used as high and low shelving EQ and cooking is compression that flattens out the palette, amalgamating all the elements. The presentation of the meal is mastering.

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[from: Google Plus Public Activity Feed for Julian Bond]

Contour +2, wow! http://contour.com/products/contour-plus-2

The GoPro camera http://gopro.com/ was awesome and it was amazing to see how fast it made it into mainstream commercial tv like BBC2 nature programs. And also of course all those youtube videos of the wingsuit and stuff. Well it looks like Contour just raised the stakes significantly and all for $399.99

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[from: Google Plus Public Activity Feed for Julian Bond]

Ah, K-Pop, you so awesome. Nevermind Psy and Gungnam style, let's have a big warm welcome for Girls Generation!
GIRLS' GENERATION ????_PAPARAZZI_Music Video

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[from: Google Plus Public Activity Feed for Julian Bond]

On the retroptimism of the RNC. Bring back retro-futurism, we need a nice old-fashioned future.

Lovely Simon Reynolds piece on the hauntological ghost world of the Republican Party that is now completely divorced from reality, running on the fumes of it's own nostalgia.

Just take a look at the two major players.

Mitt Romney, born 1947, 21 in 1968. Formative music should have been Jefferson Airplane, Hendrix, Grateful Dead. Was probably Monkees. But grew up as one of the kids in Mad Men. His 10 year old self will remember his mother's certainties as stuck in 50s America. So inherent retromania is hardly surprising. 

It's Paul Ryan that is truly confusing. Born 1970, his mum should have had big hair and shoulder pads in 1980. But perhaps he was actually conceived at Woodstock. Formative influence at 21 might have been grunge. If he'd been in the UK he might have caught the energy flash. First sexual experience was probably watching Ron Jeremy.

The difference in ages does make you think Mitt might be the father Paul never had? So we get 50s certainties, grabbed and internalised by a 10 year old, re-inforced in the negative reaction to flower power, and then becoming a father figure.

Finally these two messed up psyches want to be the stern parental figures for the whole world, wagging their fingers and telling us to sit on the naughty step.

So did the Democratic party absolutely nail it (as Reynolds apparently thinks) with this video that turns them into a 50s Black and White newsreel? Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan Would Take Us Back--We Can't Afford That

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[from: Google Plus Public Activity Feed for Julian Bond]

9 Ways of thinking about science.
I approve of this message. I particularly liked "Science as Aesthetic".

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[from: Google Plus Public Activity Feed for Julian Bond]

In praise of the female roles in Blake's 7 and sadness at the inability of modern SciFi to have so few strong women who do anything other than provide some eye candy and romantic interest.

The real thing about Blake's 7 and Dr Who from that era was that all alien planets looked like a sandy tank-training ground in Surrey that's only a short van journey from Shepperton or White city studios and cheap for on-location filming. So it's entertaining (to me at least) that apparently Mars is exactly like that.

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[from: Google Plus Public Activity Feed for Julian Bond]

Seriously hot, Naga Chilli, dark chocolate bar. Discovered at the Benington Lordship Chilli festival over the weekend. As the owner described it, it does come on strong, grow to a peak and then plateau for a good 10 minutes.

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[from: Google Plus Public Activity Feed for Julian Bond]

Electric Bicycle market worldwide is huge, less so in the USA. Shock!

From the "X market will be Y big in Z years" school of analyst reports comes this tidbit. 2012 world sales of E-Bikes is 30 million with 92% being in China and only 89,000 in the USA.

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[from: Google Plus Public Activity Feed for Julian Bond]

"To these guys a race-deciding mistake is going a foot off-line once in a 45-minutes spent at lap-record pace."

Superb and enthralling MotoGP race at the weekend. And a dramatic contrast with WSB which while fun to watch was actually about who made the fewest mistakes. And boy did they all make a lot of mistakes.

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[from: Google Plus Public Activity Feed for Julian Bond]

Nothing to see here[1]. Move along. 

[1] At least not a whole lot of ice anyway
[2] Seriously, you can come and sail up my north west passage any time.

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[from: Google Plus Public Activity Feed for Julian Bond]

Two news reports, a day apart. Compare and contrast:

Afghanistan music festival organisers hope for repeat of last year's success
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/26/afghanistan-music-festival-organisers-success

with

Taliban behead 17 Afghan partygoers. Officials say 15 men and two women killed as punishment for attending a mixed-sex party with music and dancing
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/27/taliban-behead-17-afghan-partygoers

I weep for you, Afghanistan.

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[from: Google Plus Public Activity Feed for Julian Bond]