Winding Down

An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week's net, technology, science and other news
by Alan Lenton
21 February 2021

This issue of Winding Down is very abbreviated, because I am only part way through a major piece on the current state of the internet, which has been laid bare by the recent Australia/Google/Facebook punch up. Since what I am thinking is going on is probably heretical, I need to work on it carefully! The analysis will be in next week’s issue, probably taking up most of it.

In the meantime I do have a few goodies for you in the form of still pictures from the latest Sony World Photography Awards and a really cool picture of the Golden Gate Bridge – well a bit of it, at any rate. There are also two videos – one of a ship breaking up in the Black Sea, and one of ducks – lots of ducks.

And, of course, there is a quote, this one from Lauren Weinstein on the Google agreement with Australia’s News Corp. (Note: I don’t necessarily agree with the quote, but it’s an important view held by a lot of people...)

Finally there are a bunch of Scanner URLs covering circles in space, wandering magnetic poles, a data quality tool, dead professors, airline safety, DNA test source code, library fines (or lack of them), and a dubious chocolate spending spree!

Have fun, but stay safe!

Alan Lenton

Publishing schedule: Erratic...

Credits: Thanks to readers Fi and Barb for drawing my attention to material for Winding Down.

Pictures:

New Atlas are offering a selection of the top pictures in the 2021 Sony World Photography Awards. I wasn’t that impressed by this year’s offering. Apart from anything else, photos of the backs of lone climbers standing on the top of rugged terrain gazing at yet more rugged terrain are pretty passe nowadays!

However, there were a few that I thought were rather nice – try numbers 7, 19, and 20 and see what you think.
https://newatlas.com/photography/sony-world-photography-awards-2021-national-winners-gallery/

It’s not very often you get live footage of a tragedy as it happens, but BoingBoing has just that. The video is of waves breaking the Ukrainian freighter MV Arvin in half in the Black Sea. Why the other ships in sight didn’t rush to help remains a mystery...
https://boingboing.net/2021/02/15/security-camera-footage-of-wave-breaking-freighter-in-half.html

On a happier note I’d draw your attention to a pretty amazing picture from the Smithsonian Magazine. It’s a picture of the top of one of the supports of the San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge poking up through the clouds. A very classy picture!
https://photocontest.smithsonianmag.com/photocontest/detail/above-the-crowd/

Next, another video, this time an amusing one, also from BoingBoing. All I want to say is it’s about ducks. Yes ducks! I was amazed and I couldn’t stop laughing, though I suspect if I’d been caught in the resulting traffic jam I probably wouldn’t have found it quite so funny...
https://boingboing.net/2021/02/17/thousands-of-ducks-totally-ducked-up-a-street-in-thailand.html

And finally, in this section, a selection of pictures of the Mt Etna eruption. Apparently, this time around it was also throwing stones at the local villages, but, unfortunately there were no pictures of that particular incident! Happily nobody seems to have been hurt in the spat, and the locals are now sweeping up the debris.
https://phys.org/news/2021-02-sicilian-village-ash-stones-mt.html

Late Breaking: Just saw this video taken through one of the windows of the Boeing 777 that dropped debris after taking off from Denver airport! Really frightening.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6vTuJzweVM&feature=youtu.be

Quotes:

“The ultimate losers in the battle between news organizations, Facebook, and Google, isn’t any of those. It’s ordinary users, who will be impotent observers as the Internet they’ve come to know collapses around them in a sea of pay-to-link sites that will bleed the Web dry.”
Lauren Weinstein – Co-Founder People For Internet Responsibility

Scanner:

Astronomers are mystified by these ghostly, unexplained circles seen in space
https://www.sciencealert.com/astronomers-are-genuinely-mystified-by-these-ghostly-circles-seen-in-space

Ancient relic points to a turning point in Earth’s history 42,000 years ago
https://phys.org/news/2021-02-ancient-relic-earth-history-years.html

This new open source tool could improve data quality within the enterprise
https://www.techrepublic.com/article/this-new-open-source-tool-could-improve-data-quality-within-the-enterprise/

FAA files reveal a surprising threat to airline safety: the U.S. Military’s GPS tests
https://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/aviation/faa-files-reveal-a-surprising-threat-to-airline-safety-the-us-militarys-gps-tests

Accused murderer wins right to check source code of DNA testing kit used by police
https://www.theregister.com/2021/02/04/dna_testing_software/

Libraries are going fine-free
https://reasonstobecheerful.world/libraries-eliminating-overdue-fines/

Choc horror: The UK’s Information Commissioner probes its own mammoth £6,248 Hotel Chocolat spend
https://www.theregister.com/2021/02/09/ico_hotel_choclat_expense/

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
21 February 2021

Alan Lenton is a retired 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.