Winding Down
An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week's net, technology and science news
by Alan Lenton
12 January 2020
Sunday again, and it’s time for another issue of Winding Down. Stuff this week includes updates on the Colorado drones, Boeing 737s, the US Federal Aviation Authority, and the latest on the Quadriga affair.
There are also stories on Climate Change and Arms Dumps, Stradivarius violins, Apple v the FBI (yet again), space launch failures caused by management, not to mention pictures on annual sales in the 20th Century, and rock stars with their parents! The quote is from the late Stephen Hawking.
In the Scanner section there are URLs pointing to material on a rescued Satellite Receiving Station, military cyborgs, Enterprise Resource Planning disasters, the origins of the solar wind, 3D printed alloys, and Internet companies not stopping awful content.
Enough stuff there for all tastes, I reckon!
Credits: Thanks to readers Andrew, Barb and Fi for drawing my attention to material for Winding Down.
Updates:
Quite a lot of updates this week!
We start with drones. Drones in Colorado, to be exact. We still don’t know who is flying these drones but last week one came too close (within 100 ft) for comfort to a helicopter flying medical supplies. This has got the powers that be moving to find out what’s going and investigating with a little more urgency. Maybe they will have more news as to the ownership and purpose by this time next week!
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/01/09/us/colorado-nebraska-drones-trnd/index.html
https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/local-news/colorado-to-deploy-more-teams-to-investigate-mystery-drones-after-close-call-with-medical-helicopter
And so to Boeing... It seems that it’s not just its planes with Max in the name that are being grounded. The latest problem is with the 737 Next Generation family. Apparently if the pilots set their autopilot to the approach to certain runways, at a number of specific airports, the cockpit screen go blank. Yikes!
It’s a software bug we are told, but it seems to me that things go deeper than that if we want to look at the range of problems Boeing is facing. I suspect that it’s a consequence of the fact that in recent years Boeing has moved from being an engineer driven company to a management driven company bent of maximising short term shareholder value. How they are going to get out of the hole they’ve dug themselves into I really don’t know. I’m just thankful that I don’t have to fly around on business any more!
Oh, and while we are on the subject of Boeing, I note that it isn’t doing much better on the space front. Its Starliner capsule docking test failed because of a faulty timer...
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/01/08/boeing_737_ng_cockpit_screen_blank_bug/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-50817124
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/12/20/boeing_starliner_failure/
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/3859/1
In the meantime the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is admitting that it allowed the 737 Max aircraft to continue flying after the first crash despite knowing that there was a risk of further crashes. The FAA boss, Steve Dickson admitted this was a mistake... Some mistake!
No wonder the authorities in other countries are no longer prepared to accept FAA airworthiness certifications for new models, but plan to run their own tests as well before allowing the planes to fly in their own territories.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-50750746
Remember the Quadriga Canadian crypto-coin exchange that went bust some time ago after the owner died in mysterious circumstances? It seems that people who are owed money (a lot of money) are attempting to have the body exhumed and forensically examined to see if it is indeed the boss, and if so how he died <cue doom laden music>.
Lots of opportunity for headlines with word play on ‘crypt’ and ‘digging up’ in this story!
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/12/16/dead_coin_exec_exhumation
Military:
I was surprised to discover that Climate Change may be causing arms dumps to blow up! Already in the last two years two arms depots have exploded while in the middle of a heat wave.
In addition, Cyprus lost its electricity supply in July 2011 when 98 shipping containers full of confiscated Iranian munitions parked near its main power station exploded after months of cooking in the hot sun.
The whole issue is made worse because while professional armed forces have munitions experts on the payroll, para-military groups which abound in places like the Middle East don’t have such experts, so that explosive materials are frequently stored in inappropriate places.
Unfortunately, it seems that the situation is only going to get worse in the foreseeable future...
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-change-may-be-blowing-up-arms-depots/
Music:
I think nearly everyone has heard of Stradivarius violins. They were made by Antonio Stradivari some 300 years ago, and are considered to be the best ever made. Three hundred years is a long time, and only about half of them have survived. Of the survivors, a number are no longer in a fit state to play.
And the rest? Well they won’t last forever, so a new project is under way at the Museo del Violino in Cremona in Italy to fully digitise the sound of a Stradivarius violin. It’s an ambitious project, but when complete, hopefully, it will preserve the sound of these extraordinary instruments for posterity.
https://www.popsci.com/story/technology/saving-the-stradivarius-sound/
Security:
I see the FBI are at it again, demanding that Apple unlock encrypted iPhones. They just don’t get it. Something is either properly encrypted, or it’s not. If it is properly encrypted, you can’t decrypt it without the key. There is no such thing as an encryption that the FBI can decrypt without knowing the key.
The next question from the powers that be is, “Why do you want secure encryption for your messages?”
The answer is simple: “Privacy.”
The next question, inevitably, is, “Why do you need privacy if you are not doing anything illegal?”
My answer to that is, “If you think that people don’t need, or are not entitled to privacy, then presumably you would have no objections to me installing internet cams in your toilet/bathroom/bedroom?”
I’ve yet to meet anyone who said “Go ahead!”
At the end of the day, the fact is that encryption is all or nothing, you can’t have things nearly, but not quite encrypted. In this case my question is “Why don’t you go and ask the NSA to crack it for you?” That’s, after all, what they are there for. Could it be that the FBI can’t make a good enough case for the NSA to spend the time breaking it?
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/01/08/fbi_pushes_backdoors_iphone/
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/12/10/us_congress_encryption_backdoor_hearings/
Space:
The Space Review recently did a piece on launch failures caused by management. It includes material on the Space Shuttle, the US Air Force Atlas program, and commercial programs. It makes fascinating reading. Engineers versus management all too often...
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/3851/1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFZwI10HEsw (for those of you who like watching expensive big bangs...)
Pictures:
Some more vintage pictures from Considerable this week.
The first is pictures of the January, post Christmas sales in the UK from the 1900s to the 1980s. I’d forgotten just how frenzied they were! If you want to get an idea of technical progress, take a look at the televisions that shoppers are holding, and then at your LED TV hanging on the wall!
https://www.considerable.com/entertainment/retronaut/january-sales-big-lines-history/
The second batch is a set of pictures of rock stars with their parents. The picture of Eric Clapton with his grandmother is a total classic!
https://www.considerable.com/entertainment/retronaut/rock-stars-vintage-photos/
Quotes:
Stephen Hawking when asked what his IQ score was, responded:
“I have no idea. People who boast about their IQ are losers.”
Reported in The Register
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/12/18/nerds_hate_speech/
Scanner:
A cheery New Year tale: How the Dundee Satellite Receiving Station might rise once more
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/01/02/dundee_satellite_station/
The US Military wants cyborg super soldiers, but we’re not ready, expert warns
https://www.sciencealert.com/the-us-military-is-moving-towards-cyborg-super-soldiers
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) disaster zone: The mostly costly failures of the past decade
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/12/12/erp_disaster_zone_the_mostly_costly_failures_of_the_past_decade/
The closest ever approach to the sun has shown us the origin of solar wind
https://www.technologyreview.com/f/614820/the-closest-ever-approach-to-the-sun-has-shown-us-the-origin-of-solar-wind/
For stronger 3D-printed titanium alloys – just add copper?
https://newatlas.com/materials/stronger-3d-printed-titanium-alloy-copper/
Why can’t Internet companies stop awful content?
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/11/why-cant-internet-companies-stop-awful-content/
Footnote
Please send suggestions for stories to alan@ibgames.com and include the words Winding Down in the subject line, unless you want your deathless prose gobbled up by my voracious Thunderbird spam filter...
Alan Lenton
alan@ibgames.com
12 January 2020
Alan Lenton is an on-line games designer, programmer and sociologist, the order of which depends on what he is currently working on! His web site is at http://www.ibgames.net/alan/index.html.
Past issues of Winding Down can be found at http://www.ibgames.net/alan/winding/index.html.
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