Consumption Week 31

Trend Compendium 2050: Six megatrends will shape the next decades

https://www.rolandberger.com/en/Insights/Global-Topics/Trend-Compendium/

1. People & Society → Population – Migration – Education & Labor – Values
2. Politics & Governance → Global Risks – Geopolitics – Future of Democracy
3. Environment & Resources → Climate Change & Pollution – Biodiversity – Resources & Raw Materials
4. Economics & Business → Global Trade & Value Chains – Power Shifts – Energy Transformation – Debt Challenge
5. Technology & Innovation → Value of Innovation – Frontier Technologies – Humans & Machines
6. Health & Care → Global Health Challenges – Healthcare of the Future – Caregiving

Tags: Trends, Future

National Risk Register 2023

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-risk-register-2023

Tags: Risks, Future, Geopolitics, Threats

[My First Million] My 6-Step Process To Find +$1,000,000 Business Ideas

• Business Ideation
  • Process
    1. Find problems
    2. Size of demand
    3. Current leaders
    4. Leader weaknesses
    5. Business models
    6. Problems to solve
  • Links
    • ideationbootcamp.co
    • similarweb.com (for traffic/demand levels/patterns)
    • annualreports.com (for insights/trends, weakness)
    • gov.uk/government/organisations/companies-house
    • trends.co
• Be interesting and build community
  • Consume as if you were to write a report and remember one interesting fact (a hook) from each piece of media etc you consume - something you can retell
  • Have a passion to talk about (even if obscure)
  • “Why do you think that?”
  • Strong opinions loosely held - but be able to clearly explain why you have that opinion and research to have supporting evidence
  • Host events to invite people to - e.g. business book club, hustle convention

Tags: Business, Entrepreneurship, Market Research, Personal Development, Social, Networking, Consumption, Relationships

The Top Performing S&P 500 Sectors Over the Business Cycle

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/the-top-performing-sp-500-sectors-over-the-business-cycle/

See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_S%26P_500_companies

See also: https://wikitable2csv.ggor.de/ (Wikipedia table to CSV for analysis)

Tags: Business, Investing, Economic Cycles

Top 5 Crazy Innovations for Reusing Waste

https://youtu.be/895ixEFT3X8

• Fertiliser from NUFs (night soil), batteries from beer or wastewater, glue from bark, and plastic from food waste

Tags: Reuse, Innovation, Sustainability, Batteries, Agriculture, Plastic, Waste

Why E-Bikes, EVs and Laptops Are Catching Fire

https://www.wsj.com/articles/lithium-ion-batteries-fire-explained-1e5cbe9c

• A wonderful little animation.

Tags: Batteries, Safety, EVs

MIT engineers developed a new type of concrete that can store energy

https://www.fastcompany.com/90930786/mit-engineers-developed-a-new-type-of-concrete-that-can-store-energy

• MIT engineers developed the new energy storage technology—a new type of concrete—based on two ancient materials: cement, which has been used for thousands of years, and carbon black, a black powder used as ink for the Dead Sea Scrolls around 2,000 years ago.

Tags: Batteries, Energy Storage, Concrete

These moisture-sucking materials could transform air conditioning

https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/07/26/1076731/materials-air-conditioning/

• A stream of air passes through a channel and over a thin layer of desiccant, which pulls moisture out of the air. Next, the now-dry air goes through an evaporative cooling step, which lowers the temperature of the air (basically the same way sweat cools your skin). In the evaporative cooling step, the air is split into two streams. One runs past a thin layer of water, which absorbs energy and drops the air’s temperature. That cooler, humid air is used to cool a metal surface, which in turn sucks heat out of the other stream of still-dry air. The humid air gets funneled outside, and the cool, dry air is blown into the building. The company’s approach should be able to cut annual electricity use by a total of between 50% and 80% compared with a conventional air conditioning system, depending on the environment.
• A desiccant cooling system needs a section that can regenerate the desiccant, releasing the water into another stream of air that in turn is released outside. Blue Frontier instead uses a heat pump to regenerate its desiccant. The heat pump adds energy demand, but while the cooling system can run continuously during a hot summer day, the regeneration system can run in the evening or overnight, when there’s less stress on the grid and electricity prices are lower. Offsetting the regeneration will mean that Blue Frontier’s system could help reduce peak power demand by between 80% and 90%.

Tags: Cooling

What is the best clothing to keep you cool?

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230802-what-is-the-best-clothing-to-keep-you-cool

• The Bedouin’s secret is wearing loose-fitting black clothing, especially if it’s windy. The loose black clothes heat up the space between the fabric and the skin, promoting an upward air current – like a chimney – and providing cooling relief. The amount of heat gained by a Bedouin exposed to the hot desert is the same whether he wears a black or a white robe.
• If you are going to be wearing tight-fitting clothing, then stick with white.
• Fabrics with texture – such as seersucker or pique, a fabric often used in sports polo shirts – also help to lift clothing off your skin, rather than staying snug and tight-fitting.
• In dry heat, wicking alone may be enough because the sweat will be absorbed from your body and evaporate in the heat. When it’s humid and hot, the air around you is already saturated with water vapour, meaning the sweat your clothes just soaked up doesn’t have anywhere to go.
• Cotton and polyester absorb and reflect the majority of the infrared that hits them – nearly 99% – meaning they often appaer white in infrared images. But these materials also allow 30-40% of visible light through. This combination can cause the body to warm up faster than it otherwise would.
• Cotton absorbs moisture but it doesn’t dry quickly. Linen has excellent breathability, but like cotton it is slow to dry.
• Merino wool is breathable and wicks moisture without retaining odour.
• Nylon and polyester wick moisture and dry quickly – but they retain odour. Nylon has a higher moisture absorption and better wicking capabilities than polyester, but is slower to dry.
• Bamboo, which is a low conductor of heat, and doesn’t compromise on comfort.
• The key is a material that’s opaque to visible light – reflects and doesn’t absorb sunlight – but transparent in the infrared – allowing heat to leave the body rather than trapping between the material and the skin
• Perhaps, the best way to stay cool in the heat when it comes to clothing is actually just wearing wet clothes. Water needs heat energy to evaporate, and as it makes this transition from a liquid to a gas, it uses the heat coming from your body, cooling your skin and lowering your body temperature.

Tags: Clothing, Cooling

The Plan to Build an Island Using Only Electricity

https://youtu.be/6ZsNdf8s6nY

• Pretty cool concept. Using an electric current generated by solar PV to cause minerals within seawater to amass on a metal rod (similar to a how a battery works), from which corals will grow and build a structure upon which (eventually) a city could be built and humans could live.

Tags: Electricity, Oceans, Future, Innovation, Science Fiction

Greenhushing, explained: Why companies have stopped talking about their climate pledges

https://grist.org/language/greenhushing-climate-pledges-greenwashing-lawsuits/

• Nearly a quarter of large companies from around the globe have decided not to publicize their milestones on climate action, according to a report from South Pole last fall.
• Keeping quiet makes it hard to scrutinize what companies are doing, and also makes it more difficult for them to learn from one another’s mistakes.
• Companies may be unsure about how to comply with this legislation and are afraid of being sued: they therefore give up talking about their targets altogether.

Tags: Greenwashing, Climate, Advertising, PR, Propaganda

Revealed: Fossil Fuel Giants Are Using British Influencers to go Viral

https://www.desmog.com/2023/07/27/fossil-fuel-oil-gas-giants-shell-bp-using-british-influencers-to-go-viral/

• DeSmog analysed examples of more than 100 influencers being paid to promote fossil fuel firms worldwide since 2017, from the US to Malaysia, in campaigns that have reached billions of people.
• Our analysis uncovered promotional material from two PR firms representing Shell, boasting of the success of their online advertising. One of the PR companies claimed that content fronted by UK inventor Colin Furze reached nearly a billion people, while another claimed that a campaign with explorer Robert Swan OBE made Shell’s audience “31 percent more likely to believe” that the oil company is “committed to cleaner fuels”.
• In 2022, a Harvard University paper found that a “green innovation” narrative was one of the key social media tactics deployed by fossil fuel companies. Analysing 2,325 social media posts from 22 major European polluters, the report found that 72 percent of posts from oil and gas firms tried to emphasise their spending on green technology. As the study also pointed out, however, these firms invested just 1.7 percent of their annual capital expenditures in low carbon technologies between 2010 and 2018.

Tags: Greenwashing, Climate, Advertising, PR, Propaganda, Social Media

Charted: America’s Import Reliance of Key Minerals

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/charted-americas-import-reliance-of-key-minerals/

Tags: Resources, Trade, Geopolitics, Supply Chain

Visualizing the World’s Space Debris by Country Responsible

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/space-debris-by-country/

Tags: Space, Waste

[The Jordan Harbinger Show] 871: Julian Walker | How Conspiracy Theories Make Society Sick

• Conspiracies are like religions - they can give disenfranchised, scared people purpose, reason, community, feelings of power and superiority, and rituals.
• Often the conspiracy targets those you already dislike, e.g. natural health advocates blame pharma companies, anarchists blame the government, luddites blame technology.
• Sometimes it’s just profiteering - create a community and it’s easier to sell. This is especially true when your other income stream has been shut down (e.g. COVID shutting down yoga studios).

Tags: Conspiracies

The 17 Secrets to a Successful Relationship

https://youtu.be/ak4j5pVHDGg

1. Pick someone you feel profoundly grateful ever decided to look your way. Start from a sense that you are the lucky one - and that they are superior (the truth is irrelevant).
2. Make sure you fancy them. Check out that you have compatible areas of perversion - and little interest being normal in bed.
3. Allow yourselves both to admit, from an early stage, that you are ‘mad’; heavily distorted by your pasts, unable to understand yourselves, prone to irrational assumptions - and unsteady in your assessments of reality.
4. Make apology the most regular of occurrences. Say sorry about everything all the time and reduce the price of an admission to almost zero.
5. Remove all pride from your character. You were an idiot then, you are an idiot now, you will be an idiot tomorrow. There’s no other option for a human being. Make jokes.
6. Regularly explore how you have disappointed one another. Let them sometimes hate you and you them. Don’t be frightened by anger moderately expressed. The enemy of love is stifled emotion, not maturely explored authenticity. Listen very carefully when they tell you how they feel.
7. Never describe them categorically as this or that (insulting trait). Only ever say: I feel you are this or that… Observe the difference.
8. Get good at sensing the fear beneath your angry moods, then express the fear gently rather than acting out the anger.
9. Reduce expectations of perfection. It’s going to get horrible at times. Allow for major frustrations. You will want to kill them and they you. Don’t.
10. Accept you will have crushes on others. Let them wash over you - and, if the mood is right, share them with the partner.
11. If there are children, recognise that love will suffer hugely. Look forward to properly picking up the baton again in 15 years.
12. Become the sort of person who has no embarrassment about being ‘needy.’ Accept the child in you and look after their needs in the relationship.
13. Read up about attachment theory - and keep the concepts close at hand.
14. Stop being defensive; stop needing to maintain a proud hold on your own dignity. Laugh continually at your foolishness - and apologise for it.
15. Accept that they can’t save you from your own disturbances. Try to be happy in yourself and if you are not, don’t redirect the blame. Observe how often your rocky patches are projected versions of your own life crises. Get a therapist.
16. Don’t expect everything from love.
17. Be very prepared (though reluctant) to leave. Remain out of choice, never desperation.

Tags: Relationships, Dating, Love

[The Art of Manliness] The Most Insightful Personality Test

• Motive, not personality
• Red (power), blue (intimacy), white (peace), yellow (fun)
• Seems similar to the 4 animals personality test
• I also skim-read the book - I think it’s a lot more useful to go through all the different strengths/weaknesses/traits etc (of which I found ~200 for each colour) and reflect on which you are and which you want to work on.

Tags: Personalities, Personal Development, Reflection