Winding Down
An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week's net, technology, science and other news
by Alan Lenton
11 October 2020
There’s quite a lot of stuff in Winding Down this week. We start with some airline looney tales, and then become more serious with a chemistry simulation program that looks at how life first got started. There’s some good news on the algorithm/ML transparency front, and a look at a 450-key keyboard (yes, really). Essays this week cover the South Sea Bubble, rocket software, and the post World War II economic boom. Then we have a look at Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, and a side issue about an old glow-in-the-dark clock.
Pictures includes a nice rocket picture/video, and some videos of kinetic sculptures. There are two quotes, one that I couldn’t resist, and one about Excel.
Finally Scanner has URLs looking at some history on the relationship between god and the state, a newly discovered mass extinction event, Rubik’s Cube, a new type of fusion reactor, Tokyo public parks, and the Google vs Oracle API copyright battle.
Stay safe!
Alan Lenton
Publishing schedule: No issue 25 October (Summertime ends in the UK)
Credits: Thanks to readers Fi and Barb, for drawing my attention to material for Winding Down.
Aerospace:
Well maybe not exactly aerospace, but it is related. As you’ll be aware the airlines (especially international flights) have been badly hit by the pandemic. I think their latest set of ideas for replenishing their finances are truly warped.
Take, for instance the ‘flights to nowhere’ which are being run by Taiwanese and Australian airlines. Basically, you choose the class you want to ‘travel’ pay your fare and board, and then the airliner takes off, flies around for several hours, and then lands back where it took off from. You have to be a real air travel junkie to take that offer up.
Not to be outdone, Singapore Airlines have turned one of their Airbus A380 airliners into a restaurant for the weekend. Just think of it – a chance to have a plastic dish of soggy microwaved food and a plastic glass of warm white wine.
I just can’t wait to try it out – especially as you can watch an ‘in-flight’ movie at the same time!
Although come to think of it, if all the airlines adopted this technique for their grounded Boeing 737-MAX airliners, it would be a major contribution to air safety!
https://www.theregister.com/2020/09/30/a380_restaurant/
Chemistry:
Ever wondered how life physically got started on Earth? Most people have at some time. Well now you can have a look at a chemical simulation which looks at this issue. It’s called AllChemy and you can download it free of charge and run it on your own computer. There are a couple of limitations on what you need to run it – in particular, Mozilla Firefox web browser isn’t supported.
The simulation starts out with up to six chemicals that we know existed on the Earth when life was just getting going – ammonia, water, nitrogen, methane, hydrogen cyanide and hydrogen sulfide. Then using only known biological chemical reactions it runs to see what could be produced in the way of chemicals used by living entities.
As soon as I have a bit more time available, I plan to try out the simulation – the full version with the full six starting products running over seven generations apparently turns up over 36,000 products!
https://tol.allchemy.net
https://www.sciencealert.com/a-new-chemical-tree-of-the-origins-of-life-reveals-our-possible-chemical-evolution
Computers & Computing:
A big hand for the municipal governments of Amsterdam and Helsinki. Why? Because they have introduced online AI registries that offer some insight into inner working of some of the algorithms and machine learning systems that they use. I’m sure I don’t need to tell my readers how important this is for transparent governance...
https://www.theregister.com/2020/10/01/amsterdam_helsinki_ai_store/
Devices:
I thought I was a keyboard freak, but even I was stunned at a review of a 450-key keyboard! I have a very nice Cooler-Master keyboard (Cherry MX-Brown keys, if you must know – I prefer to hear a click when I press a key...). There’s a picture of the keyboard with the article. I think I would need a second desk to put it on.
Maybe when I win the lottery ...
https://boingboing.net/2020/09/17/433-mechanical-keyboard.html
Essays:
Why do all the best essays come out when I take a week off? I was asked a few weeks ago whether I expect my readers to read every bit of all the essays that I recommend. The answer is no. I merely hope that something I suggest will pique their interest and lead them to take a look. I try to recommend pieces whose writers are knowledgeable and able to explain their subject in terms non-experts can understand. I realise that I have a wide range of interests since I’ve always been an autodidact, which means that I read material well outside my former ‘trade’ as a programmer/game designer/sociologist.
This week the first essay I’d like to draw your attention to is from Richard Stallman, one of the key players in the original open source movement. He was asked whether rockets should only have open source software. As he points out software does not generate a thrust to drive the rocket, and goes on to look at the wider issue of software in devices. I recommend this because it’s a lucid, short explanation of when and where software used in devices e.g. rockets, should be open source.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-rocket.html
World economies are taking a real beating from the pandemic, and economic articles are full of comparisons with financial ‘bubbles’ and ‘bursting’. The terms, as most people know, come from what is generally considered to be the first financial crash – the South Sea Bubble. However, surprisingly few people have any idea what actually happened in 1720 and what the South Sea Company did (or didn’t do).
Well, now is your chance to find out because The Conversation has a piece explaining what happened and why – very readable, very informative!
https://theconversation.com/300-years-since-the-south-sea-bubble-the-real-story-behind-the-iconic-financial-crash-143861
The final essay I want to recommend to you is from Aeon magazine. It’s a look at the post World War II economic boom. It argues that for that period (from the start of the 1950s to the end of the 1970s) the forces of democracy and capitalism were in a balance which allowed growth across all classes.
It’s an interesting thesis, and one which I have some sympathy with. Take a look and see what you think...
https://aeon.co/essays/postwar-prosperity-depended-on-a-truce-between-capitalism-and-democracy
Science:
The Centauri Dreams blog has an interesting piece on the immensity of space, featuring both the Hubble original deep field work and the material that’s coming out of TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite). The article is really rather interesting in its own right, but what really caught my eye was a comment, a beautiful, almost poetic piece by Henry Cordova dated October 8. It’s actually looking at the other end of the scale and it’s about his exploration of the radium/phosphorous glow-in-the-dark hands on his grandmother old alarm clock. Strongly recommended!
https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2020/10/08/thoughts-on-immensity/
Pictures:
A very nifty video of a rocket passing in front of the moon. Includes a description of how it was taken.
https://www.sciencealert.com/photographer-describes-crazy-steps-taken-to-capture-rare-rocket-and-moon-footage
I thought that you might feel like something a little more restful, so take a look at a couple of videos of kinetic sculptures that rely on their balance and ultra-low friction to achieve their effect. I wish I could make something that wonderful!
https://boingboing.net/2020/09/20/hypnotic-wooden-kinetic-sculptures.html
Quotes:
“I connect, therefore I am.” – a Linux computer logging on to the internet (with apologies to Rene Descartes,)
“If there were health and safety rules for software, Excel would be up there with radium cigarettes and arsenic gobstoppers.”
Rupert Goodwins in The Register 7 October 2020
https://www.theregister.com/2020/10/06/excel/
Scanner:
God, government and Roger Williams’ big idea [The origins of the idea of the separation of church and state – AL]
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/god-government-and-roger-williams-big-idea-6291280/
A new mass extinction event has been discovered, and it triggered the rise of the dinosaurs
https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-identified-the-mass-extinction-that-triggered-the-dawn-of-the-dinosaurs
A brief history of the Rubik’s Cube
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/brief-history-rubiks-cube-180975911/
Nuclear fusion reactor could be here as soon as 2025 [A very optimistic look -AL]
https://www.space.com/nuclear-fusion-reactor-sparc-2025.html
Tokyo public parks are prepared for the next natural disaster
https://www.spoon-tamago.com/2020/09/29/tokyo-public-parks-disaster-preparedness/
After ten years, the Google vs Oracle API copyright mega-battle finally hit the Supreme Court – and we listened in
https://www.theregister.com/2020/10/07/google_oracle_api/
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
11 October 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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