Winding Down
An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week's net, technology, science and other news
by Alan Lenton
1 November 2020
First off this week a piece about an amazing bookshop in China, and, while we are on the subject of China, a piece about its new Digital yuan currency, then there is a piece on digital currency scams. Next we move onto Linux v. Windows, could it be that Linux is winning?
This week’s essay is a very good analysis of the impending break up of the internet, after that we take a look at the history of the Walther PPK gun, and next we have a look at the history of the theremin – now 100 years old.
Then, a security warning, a selection of pictures and a barbed quote from Oscar Wilde. Finally, Scanner has URLs pointing you to material on networking theory and superspreading, Google and Mozilla, spacesuits, weaponizing radioactive foxes, Tom Lehrer, alien planets, and finally supermarionettes!
You should find something interesting in that lot!
Stay safe!
Alan Lenton
Publishing schedule: No issue – 29 November
Credits: Thanks to readers Fi and Barb, for drawing my attention to material for Winding Down.
Architecture:
To be truthful, I wasn’t sure whether this piece should go into the architecture or the pictures section. It’s about a stunning new bookshop in the Chinese city of Chengdu. This is the bookshop that the artist M. C. Escher would have designed! You have to look at the photographs – I can’t describe it in words.
As someone who spent several years in the 1970s as the manager of bookshop in Islington, London, I’m insanely jealous!
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/gorgeous-bookstore-china-creates-other-worldly-space-180976143/
Blockchain & Digital currency:
China has, in the last few years, made it clear that it plans to create a digital currency – the Digital yuan. Now it’s just announced a significant trial – a lottery to give 50,000 winners 2,000 Digital yuan to spend. But, and this is the kicker, they need to use China’s digital wallet application to spend it.
And, of course, that enables the state to track what the users of the wallets are spending it on.
If the trial works out OK, does any one want to take bets on how long before non-digital specie vanishes in China, and every one has to use the trackable digital alternative?
https://www.theregister.com/2020/10/12/digital_yuan_giveaway/
And while we are on the subject of digital currencies, those of you who do have some digital currencies, or are thinking of investing, might like to take a look at a piece about common cryptocurrency scams.
I know, I know, you would never fall for something like that. But remember, everyone who ever fell for a scam has at sometime said, “I would never fall for something like that!”
https://screenrant.com/cryptocurrency-common-scams-warning-signs-tips-avoid/ [via ADVFN weekly cryptocurrency newsletter]
Computers & Computing:
I thought the readers of this rag might be interested in a piece by open source prophet Eric Raymond. It’s his take on the Linux v Windows desktop wars, and he is of the opinion that Linux is well on the way to winning.
And for once I agree with him.
What he is basically arguing is that with the new options in Windows 10 to switch into Linux, the Windows 10 desktop will become just that – a desktop running over the top of Linux, rather than being a standalone operating system.
For those of you not familiar with it, that’s exactly the way Linux works at the moment. Linux is the operating system, and you choose one of a number of competing desktops that suits you. I use one called Xfce. It’s an architecture that suits the modern trend of using the cloud for the computing back end and having the desktop running on whatever device you are using to access it.
Definitely recommended (in spite of it being by Eric Raymond!)
http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=8764
Essays:
‘The Hill’ has a useful essay on the gradual break up of the Internet into two (or more) fragments. It contends that with China’s success at creating its own internet, which it controls, and the recent moves by the Trump administration to control or ban TikTok and WeChat, we already have the makings of two quasi-national internets. One lead by China, and one lead by the USA.
Personally, I’d suggest that, with laws like GDPR, the EU is also well on the way to creating a third pole. Frankly, I’m not surprised. It was fairly obvious to me what was going to happen when we found out that my multi-player game, ‘Federation’, was being blocked by what became known as ‘The Great Firewall of China’.
I wasn’t really surprised. Coming from a sociology/politics background I was well aware that the rulers of any sovereign nation need to be able to control what goes on within their borders, even if for tactical reasons they choose not to at any given time.
Anyway, take a look into the suggested future for the internet as analysed in the essay. I think you’ll find it interesting.
https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/518762-is-the-internet-falling-apart [The essay – AL]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Firewall [Wikipedia entry on the ‘Great Firewall of China – AL]
https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/06/usa_clean_network_plan/ [supplementary reading – AL]
Guns & Spies:
With the death of Sean Connery, suddenly movie spies and James Bond movies in particular have moved back into the limelight. I thought I’d do something slightly different, and draw your attention to a piece in New Atlas about the Walther PPK, the gun used both by James Bond and real spies...
It’s an interesting story – take a look.
https://newatlas.com/technology/walther-ppk-classic-spy-gun-history/
Music:
It’s 100 years since the theremin was invented! Moog – purveyors of fine synthesisers – it turns out, actually got their start building and selling theremins. For those of you who haven’t come across it, the theremin is a musical instrument that you play by waving your hands near it. It specialises in producing spooky music!
You can hear it playing Debussy’s ‘Claire de Lune’ at the URL. Amazing stuff! Watch the hand movements while you listen...
https://newatlas.com/music/moog-theremin-claravox-centennial/
Security:
Important! Are you using the Chromium versions of Nano Adblocker, or Nano Defender? If so, you should remove them now. They recently changed owners and the new owner has added malicious code to the app. ArsTechnica has an article giving the details.
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/10/popular-chromium-ad-blockers-caught-stealing-user-data-and-accessing-accounts/
Pictures:
As usual we also have some pictures for you to look at – a total of twenty of them to be exact. I especially liked numbers 1, 4, 7, 16, and 17.
https://newatlas.com/photography/winners-2020-siena-international-photo-awards-gallery/
Quotes:
A quote from Oscar Wilde this week -
“Every great man nowadays has his disciples, and it is always Judas that writes the biography.”
Scanner:
Networking theory and superspreader events
http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/32/33#subj22
Kick Google all you like, Mozilla tells US government, so long as we keep getting our Google-bucks
https://www.theregister.com/2020/10/21/mozilla_google_antitrust/
The hunt for spacesuit materials that can resist destructive lunar dust
https://newatlas.com/space/esa-spacesuit-materials-lunar-dust/
The unsuccessful WWII plot to fight the Japanese with radioactive foxes
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/unsuccessful-wwii-plot-fight-japanese-radioactive-foxes-180975932/
Tom Lehrer releases all of his catchy and savage musical satire into the Public Domain
https://www.openculture.com/2020/10/tom-lehrer-releases-his-all-of-catchy-and-savage-musical-satire-into-the-public-domain.html
Alien planets around 1,000 nearby stars could be looking straight back at Earth!
https://www.sciencealert.com/plenty-of-exoplanets-could-be-looking-straight-back-at-us-too
The Marvellous Mod World of Sci-Fi Supermarionettes
https://www.messynessychic.com/2018/09/05/the-marvellous-mod-world-of-sci-fi-supermarionettes/
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
1 November 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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