Winding Down
An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week's net, technology, science and other news
by Alan Lenton
27 September 2020
Welcome to a new issue of Winding Down. It’s a bit shorter than usual, because we had a family emergency while I was in the middle of writing it. Because of that I’m pretty certain there is unlikely to be an issue next week. There’s also a scheduled break due on 25 October, which happens to be when here in the UK we move from summer time to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).
What we do have for you this week is an update on the 737 Max saga, two essays, one on finance and climate change, and one on 5G networks. Other items include Tesla suing the US government over the recently imposed import duty on Chinese imports, A new international group for internet comms regulators. There’s some drone snapshots of Britain under lock down and a video of an impressive display of fire dancing, and there’s a quote about the state of the UN and WHO.
The Scanner section has pointers to material on Alaskan volcanoes’ link to the rise of the Roman Empire, Microsoft’s .NET stuff, the shift to online shopping in the UK, an urgent Windows Server patch, SETI and the pandemic, long lasting quantum states, remote working in Barbados, and a meeting of smoke and storms.
I hope you find something useful in it!
Stay Safe,
Alan Lenton
Publishing schedule: No issue 4 October and 25 October (Summertime ends)
Credits: Thanks to readers Fi and Barb, for drawing my attention to material for Winding Down.
Updates:
I was beginning to think that I was going to have to scrap this section for lack of material. But good old Boeing have come up with the goods. Not only that, but it’s our old friend the 737 Max!
The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has issued a notice of proposed rule making (NPRM) which allows public comments on a new proposed set of rules governing the changes to be made to the 737 Max before it allows the aircraft to fly again. The British Airline Pilots’ Association (BALPA) has pointed out that one of the proposed fixes could well lead to a rerun of the Ethiopian Airlines crash! Details at the URL.
Oh and incidentally the designation of the 737 Max is being changed, presumably so that passengers won’t realise they are flying on a 737 Max, until it starts to nosedive into the ground! The new designations are: 737-7, 737-8 and 737-9, or, in the case of Ryan Air 737-8200.
https://www.theregister.com/2020/09/23/boeing_737_max_faa_balpa/
Essays:
Two essays again for your weekend reading this week, on two wildly differing topics!
The first is from The Conversation. Actually, I marked it down as something that I needed to draw people’s attention to when it came out in February, but then Barbara got carted off to intensive care, and it sort of got lost in the works. Now, though, it’s resurfaced, and I’m happy to recommend it.
It’s about the fact that, because of the way the financial system works, three financial firms have it in their power to change the direction of the climate crisis. As usual with Conversation pieces, it’s written by experts for non-experts! (Incidentally, you still aren’t a financial wiz even if you managed to make a profit on futures and successfully ran a planetary exchange in Fed2!). Highly recommended.
https://theconversation.com/three-financial-firms-could-change-the-direction-of-the-climate-crisis-and-few-people-have-any-idea-131869
The second essay is rather more aimed at techies and it’s about the technical issues of 5G networks and their promise of URLLC. OK, I admit it, I had to look up URLLC on duckduckgo – it stands for Ultra-Reliable Low-Latency Communications! So now you know.
I’m no expert on wireless networks, but I’m a sucker for well argued pieces debunking hype. Go for it if you find the topic interesting!
https://disruptivewireless.blogspot.com/2020/09/low-latency-and-5g-urllc-naked-emperor.html
Politics:
Interesting things are happening in the US regarding the recent trade actions against China. For a start, Tesla has sued the US government to end the tariffs on Chinese components coming into the country. And, it wants the tariffs it’s already paid handed back! It also turns out that Telsa isn’t the only one to take the US government to court – Volvo, Ford, and Mercedes-Benz have also filed against the US government over the tariffs on Chinese made components. We are obviously going to be living in interesting times!
https://www.theregister.com/2020/09/24/tesla_chine_lawsuit/
And, as another pointer for the future I note that the ‘Five Eyes’ alliance (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the USA) are extending their remit and setting up an organisation to “share intelligence, case theories and investigative techniques to better coordinate investigations across international borders”. Something like this is long overdue given the international sweep of the big digital corporations. I would expect that Facebook and Google would be high on their initial hit list.
To be honest I can’t say that I’m wildly enthusiastic about the information sharing – the tendency of these sort of bodies to indulge in feature creep is fairly obvious...
https://www.theregister.com/2020/09/03/multilateral_mutual_assistance_and_cooperation_framework_for_competition_authorities/
Pictures:
The BBC has some interesting pictures of the UK during lockdown over the summer. All the pictures are taken from drones and they’re at:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-54181848
And a video – moving pictures, no less – of stunning fire dancing in Ukraine. You won’t regret watching this!
https://boingboing.net/2020/09/20/synchronized-fire-dancers-really-put-on-a-show.html
Quotes:
This week’s quote throws an interesting light on the crisis in the United Nations and the World Health Organisation:
“We are suffering from the incompatibility of 20th century multilateralism and 21st century geopolitics. The latter is marked by renewed great-power rivalries, lack of consensus in practically all international themes, absence of global leadership, the collapse of a supposed liberal world order, ballooning nationalism, governments brazenly turning to authoritarian methods, discord inside democracies, and reluctance of states to abide by the international norms that had hitherto prevailed, for better or worse. Talk of reforming the UN in these conditions seems deluded.”
Marcos Peckel in El Espectador
https://mailchi.mp/worldcrunch/united-nations-security-council-politics-1407024?e=c8be2ccc15
Scanner:
Huge Volcanic Eruption in Alaska Linked to Rise of The Roman Empire in New Study
https://www.sciencealert.com/alaskan-volcano-eruption-linked-to-fall-of-roman-republic-says-study
You won’t need .NET Standard... except when you do need it: Microsoft sets out latest in ever-changing story
https://www.theregister.com/2020/09/16/no_more_net_standard_microsoft/
How the COVID-19 Pandemic has accelerated the shift to online spending in the UK
https://blog.ons.gov.uk/2020/09/18/how-the-covid-19-pandemic-has-accelerated-the-shift-to-online-spending/
US cybersecurity agency issues super-rare emergency directive to patch Windows Server flaw ASAP
https://www.theregister.com/2020/09/21/cisa_zerologon_emergency_windows_patch/
What can SETI scholars learn from the Covid-19 pandemic?
https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2020/07/10/what-can-seti-scholars-learn-from-the-covid-19-pandemic/
Scientists just found a way to make quantum states last 10,000 times longer
https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-find-a-way-to-get-quantum-states-lasting-up-to-10-000-times-longer
If you can work remotely, Barbados want you to come and stay for a year
https://boingboing.net/2020/07/09/if-you-can-work-remotely-barb.html
A meeting of smoke and storms
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/147293/a-meeting-of-smoke-and-storms
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
27 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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