My robot Valentine: Could you fall in love with a robot?

Imagine it’s Valentine’s Day and you’re sitting in a restaurant across the table from your significant other, about to start a romantic dinner. As you gaze into each other’s eyes, you wonder how it can possibly be true that as well as not eating, your sweetheart does not – cannot – love you. Impossible, you think, as you squeeze its synthetic hand...

Asia literate schooling in the Asian century [Book review]

In her introduction to this edited collection, Christine Halse lays out the purpose of the book as being about addressing three questions for education in contemporary times: What does Asia literacy mean?; Why is it important?; and How might or ought schools do Asia literacy? As a literacy educator it was these three questions that led to my interest in first reading and then reviewing the book. On numerous occasions I’ve felt the expectation that an expertise in Asia literacy should be a part of my toolbox. And yet I’ve always considered Asia literacy to be the responsibility of those who profess to know about – or have some expertise in – history, politics, or studies of society. But here was an edited collection with chapters from a variety of scholars who have informed my work over many years, framing schooling as a noun that could be described qualitatively as more or less Asia literate. As such, I took on the challenge to open up to these ideas and to the opportunity to think again about literacy and the use of this term in pairings such as Asia literacy. I had my own question to add to those of the editor. Can, or even should, literacy be used to describe the skills, capacities and understandings required for citizens to “reflect and explore cultural differences in the Asian region” (Asia Literacy Teachers’ Association of Australia, n.d.) in ways that support engagement within and with Asian peoples and their cultures?

Long time, no see? (DIY walking)

Building on the launch of an early prototype at Balance Unbalance 2013, we now offer a fully realised experience of the ‘Long Time, No See?’ site specific walking/visualisation project for conference users to engage with on a do it yourself basis, either before, during or after the event. ‘Long Time, No See?’ is a new form of participatory, environmental futures project, designed for individuals and groups. It uses a smartphone APP to guide processes of individual or group walking at any chosen location—encouraging walkers to think in radical new ways about how to best prepare for ‘stormy’ environmental futures ahead. As part of their personal journeys participants’ contribute site-specific micro narratives in the form of texts, images and sounds, captured via the APP during the loosely ‘guided’ walk. These responses are then uploaded and synthesised into an ever-building audiovisual and generative artwork/‘map’ of future-thinking affinities, viewable both online at long-time-no-see.org (in Chrome) (and at the same time on a large screen visualisations at QUT’s Cube Centre in Brisbane Australia). The artwork therefore spans both participants’ mobile devices and laptops. If desired outcomes can also be presented publicly in large screen format at the conference. ‘Long Time, No See?’ has been developed over the past two years by a team of leading Australian artists, designers, urban/environmental planners and programmers.

Analysis of cool roof coatings for residential demand side management in tropical Australia

Cool roof coatings have a beneficial impact on reducing the heat load of a range of building types, resulting in reduced cooling energy loads. This study seeks to understand the extent to which cool roof coatings could be used as a residential demand side management (DSM) strategy for retrofitting existing housing in a constrained network area in tropical Australia where peak electrical demand is heavily influenced by residential cooling loads. In particular this study seeks to determine whether simulation software used for building regulation purposes can provide networks with the ‘impact certainty’ required by their DSM principles. The building simulation method is supported by a field experiment. Both numerical and experimental data confirm reductions in total consumption (kWh) and energy demand (kW). The nature of the regulated simulation software, combined with the diverse nature of residential buildings and their patterns of occupancy, however, mean that simulated results cannot be extrapolated to quantify benefits to a broader distribution network. The study suggests that building data gained from regulatory simulations could be a useful guide for potential impacts of widespread application of cool roof coatings in this region. The practical realization of these positive impacts, however, would require changes to the current business model for the evaluation of DSM strategies. The study provides seven key recommendations that encourage distribution networks to think beyond their infrastructure boundaries, recognising that the broader energy system also includes buildings, appliances and people.