Newsletter Volume 31 Issue 10, Oct 2019
From The Editor
“Open Educational Resources (OER) are educational materials and resources offered freely and openly for anyone to use and under some license to adapt, copy and redistribute.” The above quote is from a paper by Saleem A, Department Member, Bharathiar University, Coimbatore, Tamilnadu, INDIA. This paper gives a good summary of the international OER movement and provides links to other OER papers in this series. See below Open Educational Resources
“Shergold’s motivation was not cost cutting or smaller government ideology, but rather motivated by the search for better ways to secure wider input from citizens and civil society, and from public servants, to the making of policy..” This quote is from The Mandarin’s October 9, 2019 THE BIG INTERVIEW where Martin Stewart-Weeks interviews Professor Peter Shergold, the former Australian Public Service chief and national president of the Institute of Public Administration Australia. See below, Peter Shergold was the accidental public servant. Apprenticed to a titan at the age of 40, he learned to lead through listening. His own legacy is the reimagining of public impact
“The cryptocurrency Bitcoin is limited by its astronomical electricity consumption and outsized carbon footprint. A nearly zero-energy alternative sounds too good to be true, but as a professor explains, it all comes down to our understanding of what makes transactions secure.” This quote is from a September 30, 2019 ScienceDaily Article from Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, which explains why the system developed in their Distributed Computing Lab (DCL) represents a paradigm shift in how we think about cryptocurrencies. See below, Researchers invent low-cost alternative to Bitcoin.
“The Siberian Trap eruptions were a causal factor in Earth’s largest mass extinction event (at the end of the Permian period), when 96% of Earth’s marine species and 70% of terrestrial life ceased to exist.” The above quote is from an October 23, 2019 Climate Explained collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer questions about climate change. In this case, the question asked was: “Everyone is going on about reducing our carbon footprint, zero emissions, planting sustainable crops for biodiesel etc. Is it true what the internet posts say that a volcano eruption for a few weeks will make all our efforts null and void?”. See below, New Climate Science Facts.
Current Issue
Articles in the current Issue cover:
Open Educational Resources
“By promoting OER, community colleges can create sustainable academic resources for students and provide professional development opportunities for faculty. A wealth of public domain and fair use learning materials are currently available via the internet that faculty can repurpose for use in their classes to replace some of the books required for purchase by students.”
Peter Shergold was the accidental public servant. Apprenticed to a titan at the age of 40, he learned to lead through listening. His own legacy is the reimagining of public impact
“Shergold has come a long way, since the Hawke Government asked for some help to rebalance multicultural policy, in the evolution of his public service vocation. And you get the sense that he’s not done yet..”.
Researchers invent low-cost alternative to Bitcoin
“ We take a minimalist approach. We realize that players don’t need to reach consensus; they just need to prevent malicious behavior when it manifests,”
New Climate Science Facts
“Perhaps the strongest evidence for answering whether our (human) emissions or volcanoes have a stronger influence on climate lies in the scale of greenhouse gas production. Since 2015, global anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions have been around 35 to 37 billion tonnes per year. Annual volcanic CO? emissions are around 200 million tonnes”.
QESP Blog
Study warns of security gaps in smart light bulbs
(QESP Editor’s Note: An October 23, 2019 ScienceDaily Article from University of Texas at San Antonio warns that “Smart bulbs are expected to be a popular purchase this holiday season. But could lighting your home open up your personal information to hackers? Now researchers have conducted a review of the security holes that exist in popular smart-light brands. According to the analysis, the next prime target could be that smart bulb that shoppers buy this coming holiday season”.)
See Study warns of security gaps in smart light bulbs
Events
Consensus Software Awards
World’s Most Successful Awards
2019 Awards Presentations
The second round of 2019 Consensus Software Awards will be presented at the end of October. There are now 9 Awards Programs with new ones for FinTech, Blockchain, Agriculture, Education and Cognitive. See www.consensus.com.au
If you would like to receive further information, please email.
Quotes
Quote of the Day
To recognize that nature has neither a preference for our species nor a bias against it takes only a little courage. – James Randi
Quote from Yesteryear
The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt. – Bertrand Russell
Ted Smillie