Winding Down
An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week's net, technology, science and other news
by Alan Lenton
20 September 2020
Welcome back to a new issue of Winding Down, with, as usual, a mixed bag of stories. We start with a couple of essays, one on hi-tech eyewear, and a second one on the future of consumer experiences. We then move onto a little bit of one of my favouritely named historical events – The Defenestration of Prague. Moving on we look at net-neutrality in the EU, this year’s Ig Nobel awards, and recorded music then and now, the pictures section has a selection of travel pictures, and the quote is about Vietnam’s plebiscite on the abolition of its monarchy.
Scanner contains URLs pointing to material on an IBM job advert, Linux distributions, broadband speed tables, Covid-19 and blood clots, working from home, renting a property for 809 years (and still going strong), and the mysterious ‘Blue Whirl’ flame (so mysterious that I’d never previously heard of it...).
I hope you all find something useful in the newsletter!
Alan Lenton
Credits: Thanks to readers Fi and Barb, for drawing my attention to material for Winding Down.
Essays:
The first essay this week is about wearing hi-tech glasses, a new generation of which will be coming onto the market in the next couple of years. They will be much more sophisticated and fashionable looking than previous attempts, and have much more sophisticated hi-tech features, some of which will undoubtedly be played down.
If you are the sort of person tempted by the idea of hi-tech Ray-Ban lookalikes, you definitely need to read this essay. Highly recommended.
https://creativegood.com/blog/20/smart-glasses-arent.html
The second essay is about consumer business economics after the pandemic fades, whenever that may be. Don’t tune out, it’s very readable in spite of the topic! It’s about consumer experiences, and the different ‘ages’ of consumer experiences from buying the bits to make things through to buying experiences. And for the post-pandemic future? The next level in consumerism? Paying to perform for their friends...
I freely confess that I’m not convinced, but then I’m an old fogey who likes putting things together from scratch :) See what you think, it’s an easy to read, non-jargon riddled, piece.
https://theconversation.com/the-experience-economy-will-not-fully-recover-consumers-will-pay-to-perform-in-future-instead-146265
History:
We haven’t had any history material for a while, so I thought I’d draw your attention to a 17th Century event – The Defenestration of Prague. When I was at school the teaching of history was abysmally boring – I have vague memories of writing essays on strip farming and four crop rotation, not to mention endless lists of kings and queens.
One thing that stuck in everyone’s memory, though, was what was known as The Defenestration of Prague!
In 1618 Prague was in the Kingdom of Bohemia, which was part of the Holy Roman Empire. Basically the Empire was catholic, while Bohemia was protestant, and in those days people took their religions seriously. Following a dispute about the building of protestant chapels on royal land, the emperor dissolved the estates assembly and sent four catholic lords to meet with the assembly.
Meetings tended to be rowdy in those days and in the ensuing fracas two of the lords were thrown out of the window by the protestants. The drop from the window was about 70 feet on to a hard surface. Amazingly the two lords survived. Catholic propagandists put this down to divine intervention indicating divine approval of the emperor’s actions. Protestant propagandists put it down to the fact that (so they claimed) there was a large dung heap directly under the window, which they also claimed indicated the divine view of the emperor’s actions!
In the event, the defenestration was one of the key events which lead up to the Thirty Years War.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defenestrations_of_Prague
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_Years’_War
Internet:
Something rather interesting happened in the EU this week. The organisation’s top court, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), came out in favour of net neutrality!
Basically, what it said was that the regulations specify that no company has the right to limit people’s right to an open internet. Those rights were obtained ‘via their internet access service’. In other words the ISP may not favour for applications over others. It’s a bit more complicated than just that, but effectively, it vetoes any possibility of moving to a US style of internet access.
The Register explains the detail much better than I could – take a look!
https://www.theregister.com/2020/09/16/net_neutrality_lives_in_europe/
Ig Nobel Prizes:
For those of you who’ve never heard of the Ig Nobel Prizes, they are awarded to the those who push the boundaries of science in ‘unusual ways!’ The winners receive a paper cube and a ten trillion dollar bill from Zimbabwe.
This year prizes were awarded for, among other things, work on French kissing is situations of high income inequality, and identifying narcissists by their eyebrows, to name but a few.
Of particular note this year was the award for medical education. As the Guardian newspaper so ably put it, “Boris Johnson shared the medical education prize with Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and a choice selection of other world leaders for demonstrating during the Covid-19 pandemic that politicians can have a more immediate effect on life and death than scientists and doctors can.”
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/sep/17/frozen-poo-and-narcissists-eyebrows-studies-win-ig-nobel-prizes
Music:
In my lifetime music has gone from something you listened to on the radio (including under the bedclothes after tranny radios were invented) to vinyl, then tape with the Walkman and its imitators,. After that came digital music and CDs, and now we have streaming online over the internet!
Such changes were not without their critics. Indeed the very idea of recorded music had its critics like John Philip Souza who made an impassioned attack on recorded music at a hearing on copyright in 1906.
You can hear a part of it, read by an actor, at the URL. I particularly liked the image of millions of mothers suddenly ceasing to ‘croon their babies to sleep’ and switching on a phonograph instead!
Of course live music is still popular and thriving (pandemics permitting) and most successful bands have a ‘live album’ in their recording work. Live album... Hmmm – something of a contradiction in terms there! But nonetheless, I’m listening to Pink Floyd’s live ‘Pulse’ album as I write this (sadly the LED on the box stopped flashing years ago...).
http://www.openculture.com/2020/08/composer-john-philip-sousa-denounces-the-menace-of-recorded-music-1906.html
Pictures:
I expected travel pictures to be thin on the ground this year, with all the travel lockdowns, but it seems not. There were no less than 13,685 entries for the 2020 Agora Travel2020 competition. I guess you’re unlikely to catch the Covid-19 virus perched on the top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere!
New Atlas selected 27 of the best of those pictures, and has presented them as a gallery (though not without a few comments about the latest trends in holiday pics). My favourites? Numbers 8 and 14
https://newatlas.com/photography/agora-best-travel-photos-of-2020-competition-winners/
Quotes:
This week we lighten up a bit with a quote from a piece in ‘The Conversation’ written by Stephen Harris:
“When the Diem’s regime in Vietnam held a plebiscite on the abolition of the monarchy in 1955, 5.7 million out of 5.3 million eligible voters supported the republic. A majority of a staggering 107%.”
https://theconversation.com/barbados-plans-to-remove-the-queen-as-head-of-state-without-a-referendum-is-that-a-wise-idea-146363
Scanner:
IBM job ad calls for 12 years’ experience with Kubernetes – which is six years old
https://forums.theregister.com/forum/all/2020/07/13/ibm_kubernetes_experience_job_ad/
Why Linux still needs a flagship distribution
https://www.techrepublic.com/article/why-linux-still-needs-a-flagship-distribution/
Anyone else noticed that the top countries for broadband speeds are well-known tax havens? No? Just us then?
https://www.theregister.com/2020/09/03/cable_broadband_speeds/
Why blood clots are a major problem in severe Covid-19
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/why-blood-clots-are-major-problem-severe-covid-19-180975678/
A memo from the distant future... June 2022: The boss decides working from home isn’t the new normal after all
https://www.theregister.com/2020/06/19/future_history_of_work_from_home/
London is still paying rent to the Queen on a property leased in 1211 [an axe, a knife, 6 horseshoes, and 61 nails – AL]
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/london-is-still-paying-rent-to-the-queen-on-a-property-leased-in-1211
The mysterious ‘Blue Whirl’ flame is actually 3 different flames combined
https://www.sciencealert.com/three-different-flames-combine-to-generate-the-mesmerising-blue-whirl
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
20 September 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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