Oil n’ Tech – A naive history

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Some industries are rooted in exploration, discoveries and deceptions. Here is the story of two of them.

Today I want to talk about two industries that seem to have no relation whatsoever. First of all, their birth is one century apart. Oil history emerged at the end of the 19th century, “Technology” at the end of the 20th.

The first one is deeply rooted in exploration, land and hardcore industry. It is physical, heavy, it has a dark n’ dirty product that can only be found deep in secluded grounds or under mountains of ocean water.

The second is made out of thin air, its value relying ultimately in its intellectual property. It is a service industry created in clean, whitewashed, cosy atmospheres of startup open spaces.

I want to talk about oil.

I want to talk about technology.

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Global warming. What can we really do about it ?

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Global warming is frightening, and hope is thin to contain it. So maybe we should start not only fighting it, but also preparing for it.

In my last, and more obscure, post about data-mining bias ( that you should of course read, see here ) I illustrated my argument with the example of extreme weather news reports. To sum it up, my point was that while the increasing regularity of extreme heat/frost waves is probably a consequence of global warming, one separate occurrence was absolutely not sufficient to prove anything about it.

In the meantime however, summer passed in the north hemisphere, and it was hot. Damn hot all around. And while still not proving anything “by itself”, it did make me think about global warming. And I am sure you did too.

Global warming is here. No doubt. What was once upon a time a scientific theory became a few decades ago a scientific and political issue. Now it is starting to turn into a scary and material reality for everyone. And it is probably just the beginning.

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