Modernising Old Films

We can make old films look much more modern using AI. This is a great article on the technique used on early 1900s films 

"Using a variety of publicly available algorithms, Shiryaev colorized and sharpened the film to 4K resolution (that’s 3,840 horizontal pixels by 2,160 vertical pixels) and bumped the choppy frame rate up to 60 frames per second, a process known as frame interpolation."

The 2018 film They Shall not Grow old using WW1 footage used similar techniques as described here. But even in 4 years the AI technology has improved hugely. 

Archive historical footage is one thing. But is there a market for films upscaled in the same way? Would the Marx Brothers with realistic colours, smoother motion and sharper faces be watched by more people? I think the great Pathe news footage upscaled could make some great documentaries. The wired article goes into interesting detail about what counts as improvements and what is just being made up of the AI algorithm.

The value of these sorts of changes I am not sure about. The cost of them has been falling rapidly though. Due primarily in the last few years to improvements in the algorithms and hardware.

The recent crypto crash has put large numbers of GPU's onto the market cheap. In some cases these are located beside renewable power supplies for cheaper electricity. These tend to be remote locations with not great internet speeds. Old films can be moved around on USB sticks as they are not real time bandwidth dependant. At some point I think the price of Bitcoin will go low enough that a container filled with GPUs currently using, close to free, night time wind energy will have a greater return upscaling old films than mining.

The 15 year global warming pause that didn't happen

There is a nine year old article that is doing the rounds online. about how there was no increase in global temperature for 15 years

Here is what jumps out at me that is wrong in the article and its current interpretation

1. It is 9 years old. And those posting it don't mention the clear increases since.

2. They don't mention the changes before 1998

3. Or indeed the increase in the 15 years the article says there was no increase

4. "it is expected to address the fact that 1998 was the hottest year on record" 1998 wasn't the hottest year by 2013

You could claim the Hadcrut data, the IPCC use, is flawed in some way that means we should ignore it. But then you can't post the article as it uses Hadcrut data. 

It is weird a 9 year old article has resurfaced and those posting it are only looking at the data for this exact 15 year period. And even then not actually looking at it. The code for these graphs is here

Combined Solar and Wind Farms in Ireland

I was talking to a wind energy guy and he expects loads of these wind farms to get solar added soon.

He explained to me 

• The cost of connecting to the grid is already covered. 
• Sun tends to be best when wind is lowest. Daytime and the summer both have lower levels of wind.
• These land owners do business with electricity companies already. Setting up that relationship is a big challenge that is already covered.
• Most of the land wind farms are on now is fairly hilly and not of huge value for farming. Herd reduction is not huge from solar farms.

There are about 300 wind farms in Ireland

The one solar farm we have generates enough electricity for 3600 homes. 

There are about 2 million homes and apartments in Ireland. Which would be 3600 houses* 300 farms is about 1 million homes. That solar farm is 25 hectares. If all the wind farms had the same size solar added thats 300*25 hectare is 7500 hectares or 75,000,000 square meters. 75 square km. Which is a fair chunk of land

But the solar farms would be spread out 

This calculation is very back of the envelope. There are also all sorts of constraints about how much solar power can reasonably be put into the grid. Windless nights happen and electricity has to be available then so backup to wind and solar is needed. Also I am not sure if it is not just more efficient to put the same panels in Morocco but given the points above it is probable Irish Government subsidies will go to Ireland.

It seems a lot of solar power will be added to what are now wind farms soon.