Winding Down
An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week's net, technology, science and other news
by Alan Lenton
23 August 2020
Welcome to Winding Down. This week we have a wide variety of material for you – and nothing at all about Boeing!
We start with an astronomy puzzle, then come down to earth with a piece on the Apple v Epic lawsuit, plus Apple trying to squeeze rent reductions on its stores in the UK. There’s news of a new maps dataset for the UK, lockpicking, and some essays.
I should just explain about the essays. I frequently come across pieces that are more in the line of extended analysis of things happening in the world. They tend to be a lot longer than the short news pieces I usually refer you to but they cover a wide variety of subjects, some of which I don’t cover as news. I’ve put them in a separate section because they are longer and more analytical, so you know you will need a bit more time to read if one looks interesting to you.
This issue and the next one are catching up on essays so there are three of them in the section, covering cities, hi-tech war, and the future of movie distribution.
Apart from that there is also a bunch of pictures of classy looking London water fountains, and a very freaky video of bats. The quote returns this week with one about computer languages, and scanner URLs point to hacking, drought, Windows 10, SETI possibilities, dodgy Chrome extensions, 3D car dash displays, and a chocolate factory problem.
Several of readers sent me references to that last item. Makes me wonder just what sort of readership I have...
Reminder – no Winding Down next weekend.
Alan
Credits: Thanks to readers Fi and Barb, for drawing my attention to material for Winding Down.
Astronomy & Cosmology:
Space website reports on an interesting phenomenon recently discovered by astronomers – it’s a cloud of gas that seems to be pulsing in sync with a small black hole. At one level this is not unusual, objects close to one another are often linked in one way or another. However, this is different since the synchronised objects are something in the region of 100 light years apart – much too far apart for any of the known causes of linkage to work.
My suggestion for what’s going on? It’s one of wormholes linking the two of them! Maybe I’ll write a science fiction story about it...
https://www.space.com/mysterious-gamma-ray-heartbeat-gas-cloud.html
Big Tech:
Slate website has a useful discussion on what promises to be one of the most important legal battles in the tech industry over the next year or so. Game company Epic have filed an anti-trust lawsuit against Apple. The issue at stake is very simple. It is whether the likes of Apple have the right to force software vendors to use their app store, and to charge the vendor for each sale made in the store. In the case of Apple that’s a whopping 30% of the sale price for doing nothing!
This, my friends is going to be the big one, and it will set the rules for a long time to come!
https://slate.com/technology/2020/08/epic-fortnite-apple-app-store-lawsuit-dmca.html
And while we are on the topic of Apple, which recently became the first US company ever to reach US$2 trillion in value, it is pleading with landlords to slash the rents on it’s stores in the UK!
https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/03/apple_uk_retail_rents_negotiation/
Datasets:
If you are a map freak, or like playing with datasets, then the new UK Ordinance Survey maps dataset is for you. And the really good news is that you can have free access to the UK maps for up to £1,000 (US$1,300) worth a month. Sounds like a good deal to me. Go for it! Details in ‘The Register’.
https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/01/os_data_hub/
Essays:
Aeon magazine has an interesting essay about the relationship between cities, their hinterland, and the environment in which they are situated. The author, Sam Grinsell is a historian of the built environment, and he argues that the mental picture most people have of a sharply delineated city does not reflect reality.
In his view the city changes the hinterland through its requirements – food and other goods – and the city itself it defined by the physical land on which it is built. The author looks at Alexandria in Egypt and Edinburgh in Scotland as examples, tracing their development through history.
https://aeon.co/essays/cities-are-a-borderland-where-the-wild-and-built-worlds-meet
I’m sure most people have noticed that over the last forty to fifty years the weapons of war have become far more sophisticated, leading to the concept of ‘hi-tech’ wars. Indeed most of the wars fought by the USA and European countries have been of that nature.
The MIT Technology Review has published an excerpt from a book by David Kilcullen in which he argues that the very technical advances that were originally used by western forces to achieve that superiority have now become so ubiquitous that they spell the end of the technical ability to fight hi-tech war.
Take for example the GPS. Virtually every mobile phone in existence now has this, making pin point artillery fire available to any one with artillery and a suitable placed spotter. Another example – the capabilities of military drones may currently be ahead of the non-military variety, but who doubts that the facilities available to military drones will soon be available to re-engineered non-military versions?
https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/03/11/905388/the-end-of-high-tech-war/
Finally in this section I’d like to draw your attention to an interesting piece about the future of cinema, taking the different strategies being adopted by two US$200 million movies currently waiting in the wings. One is Disney’s ‘Mulan’ and the other is Warner Bros ‘Tenet’.
Basically, Disney is going for the streaming release, while Warner Bros opt for a cinematic release, and in the meantime the pandemic continues but lockdowns are starting to be relaxed. The essay on the New Atlas website looks at the likely trajectories of these two movies and what they mean for the future of such potential blockbusters.
https://newatlas.com/home-entertainment/mulan-tenet-future-cinema-theatrical-digital-disney-warner/
Security:
Normally stuff in this section is all about hi-tech security, encryption, hacking and all that sort of stuff. This week, however, I want to talk about physical locks, in particular the lock on your front door. It seems that the front door lock may be a little more vulnerable to being picked that we all thought.
‘Security researchers’ have figured out a way to pick locks by recording the sound of the key being inserted! It’s quite a hassle – you need to set up the recording equipment, I’d guess a highly directional microphone, and then take the recording home/back to the lab to process the sound of the key lifting each of the tumblers in the lock.
Then you have to make a key, or more likely several possible keys, from the processed sounds... It’s a nice idea, but pretty impractical when it comes down to it. I suggest sticking to learning to lock pick the low tech way if you really want to become a locksmith...
https://www.sciencealert.com/researchers-can-break-locks-just-from-the-sound-of-a-key-being-inserted
Pictures:
Some pictures from my own city – London – this week. They are pictures of some of the more intriguing fountains in the city. I especially liked the Revolving Torsion one (number 2). See what you think.
https://londonist.com/london/great-outdoors/londons-most-beautiful-fountains
On the other hand, if your tastes run more to the dark and freaky, try this little video of bats in which the video is displayed upside down! They definitely look dark and freaky!
https://boingboing.net/2020/08/20/upside-down-video-of-hanging-b.html
Quotes:
Quotes is back this week with an absolutely spot on quote from Bjarne Stroustrup, the original author of the C++ programming language, about programming languages:
“...there are only two kinds of languages: the ones people complain about and the ones nobody uses.”
Quoted in O’Reilly Programming Newsletter 08/15/2020
Scanner:
When it comes to hacking societies, Russia remains the master at sowing discord and disinformation online
https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/06/china_russia_disinformation_black_hat/
A third of the U.S. faces drought
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/147118/a-third-of-the-us-faces-drought
It’s been five years since Windows 10 hit: So... how’s that working out for you all? [Five years of added crud from my point of view – AL]
https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/29/five_years_of_windows_10/
Astronomers reveal glorious catalog of objects that could host alien intelligence
https://www.sciencealert.com/astronomers-release-startling-catalogue-of-objects-best-suited-for-seeking-extraterrestrial-intelligence
FYI: There are thousands of Chrome extensions with so, so many fake installations to trick you into using them
https://www.theregister.com/2020/05/28/chrome_web_store_fraud/
3D car dash displays are breaking out of science fiction into the GV80
https://newatlas.com/automotive/genesis-gv80-continental-3d-dash/
Malfunction at Swiss chocolate factory sends out plume of cocoa ‘snow’
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2020/aug/19/swiss-chocolate-lindt-spruengli-olten-factory-plume-of-cocoa-powder-malfunction
Can’t deal with the news? Here are 10 hopeful stories you need right now
https://www.sciencealert.com/can-t-deal-with-the-news-here-are-10-hopeful-stories-you-need-right-now
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
23 August 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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