Winding Down
An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week's net, technology, science and other news
by Alan Lenton
6 June 2021
Here we go with another edition of Winding Down. For your perusal we have material on Boeing, climate change, security and the internet, Starforge, Amazon, Comcast, car makers’ chip woes, and no less than two pieces on working from home.
Pictures covers a US Army film on data processing from 1957, the world’s oldest customer complain letter, and a Japanese typewriter. The quote is about fake news.
Finally there are pointers to material on a dangerous, and big, volcano, computer processor chip flaws, city ‘fingerprints’, the Epic vs Apple trial, nuclear weapons secrets exposed, design patterns and climate change, and finally a SETI observatory on the moon.
Phew! Go for it!
Alan Lenton
Publishing schedule: Next issue 13 June
Credits: Thanks to readers Fi and Barb for drawing my attention to material for Winding Down.
Updates:
Well, I thought it was about time our old friend Boeing figured again. Turns out that they have just been fined US$17 million after it was discovered that they had fitted uncertified sensors to their 737 Max and NG airliners, and had been doing this for four years before they were caught.
What I don’t understand is why no one has been jailed over the whole 737 Max business. I’m absolutely sure that if I walked into a supermarket and killed 346 people I would have been jailed for the rest of my life...
https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/27/boeing_fined_737_max_uncertified_hugs_sensors/
Essays:
With the current easing of the pandemic in the Western countries, the problem of climate change is back on the agenda. One of the key ways in which it has been suggested that we tackle climate change is the concept of net zero, which I sure you’ve heard of by now.
However, a groups of climate scientists have looked at this more closely and they think that the concept is a dangerous trap which won’t work. They have written a convincing critique of the idea in ‘The Conversation’, which I’d suggest is well worth reading, although it is by no means a short piece.
https://theconversation.com/climate-scientists-concept-of-net-zero-is-a-dangerous-trap-157368
Our other essay for this week is a piece on digital security in the age of the internet. In it the authors argue that security is an architectural issue and should be based on the principles of zero trust and least privilege.
https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/27/security_architecture/
Astronomy and Cosmology:
I’d like to draw your attention to a brilliant piece of work called Starforge which produces massive numerical simulations. In particular, it’s first simulation which has been named ‘The Anvil of Creation’. It’s a simulation of what happens in the way of star formation when you have a 20,000 solar mass of a giant molecular cloud.
It’s presented as a set of videos that are well worth watching!
http://starforge.space/movies.html
Big Tech:
Some of you (especially those in the USA) might have noticed that both Amazon and Comcast have recently announced projects involving devices on the internet. Both have been described as ‘stealing’ users internet bandwidth. But, it seems, it’s not as simple as that. And both are completely different. So to clarify things here is an good explanation by Lauren Weinstein, which I’ve lifted from one of his newsletters:
“Amazon “stealing” your data is not the same as what Comcast is doing.
There is some confusion about what Comcast is doing when it sets up public Wi-Fi using customers’ in-home modems, vis-a-vis what Amazon’s new data “stealing” scheme is doing. There are big differences.
1) Comcast is setting up essentially a separate virtual LAN for the public Wi-Fi that does not interact with your normal data flows.
2) Comcast is adjusting for that secondary usage so that it has no impact on your usage costs or usable bandwidth.
Amazon is just taking your data without your affirmative permission, to service their other customers.”
OK? And here is Ars Technica’s take on the Amazon grab.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/05/amazon-devices-will-soon-automatically-share-your-internet-with-neighbors/
Cars:
You may have read in the press about the supply chain problems that car manufactures are having when it comes down to sourcing silicon chips. What it boils down to is simple. Car manufacturers haven’t yet realised that their vehicles have become, in effect, computers on wheels! The result? Car makers’ development cycles are completely out of sync with those of chip manufacturers. Add to that the fact that world wide the number of devices requiring chips is increasing semi-exponentially.
Obviously the chip fabs need to expand, but it can take up to two years to build a new chip fabrication facility, and the auto makers are at the back of the queue, at least until they start to develop the same sort of characteristics as the big purchasers. Still, to look on the bright side – a shortage of computer chips for car manufacturers will make it more difficult to add devices designed to defeat the pollution testing!
https://www.theregister.com/2021/06/01/automakers_pc_chip_shortage_explained/
Working from Home:
Two pieces for you to look at on this topic, both UK based. The first is a piece from the UK Office of National Statistics. It looks at what data is available and what are the existing sources from before the pandemic and what are newly available resources that have recently come into being. It even make a stab at a few predictions...
A useful survey of sources on home working.
https://blog.ons.gov.uk/2021/05/17/working-from-home-comparing-the-data/
The second piece is from The Register and reports on a survey about working from home. Seems that many Brits really like it, and want the right to work at home enshrined in law. Employers fall into two categories – city centre businesses where office space costs an arm and a leg (and your first born if it’s in London). These companies do want home working in some form.
Those based out in the provinces, though, where prices are a little more relaxed want their workforce firmly back under their thumb – in the office.
I’ve no idea what the outcome is going to be, but sure as anything, work is not going to be the same again...
https://www.theregister.com/2021/06/03/hybrid_working_survey/
Pictures:
Our first one this week is a video of a 1957 film from the US Army about data processing on an IBM 705 mainframe. Towards the end army brass give some ideas about what they think data processing is going to be used for in the future...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32iPITuZraU
Our second piece is even older – it’s a customer complaint letter dated from 1750 BC and it’s a video about the letter. All I can say is that not much changes!
https://www.openculture.com/2021/05/hear-the-earliest-recorded-customer-complaint-letter-from-ancient-sumeria-1750-bc.html
Ever wondered what a Chinese or a Japanese typewriter would look like? All those ideographs.. Well now you can find out, with a short video about a Japanese typewriter (plus a little bit of history).
https://www.openculture.com/2021/04/behold-the-1940s-typewriter-that-could-type-in-english-chinese-japanese.html
Quote:
“When the floodgates open, democratic speech is in danger of drowning beneath a tide of fake letters and comments, tweets and Facebook posts. The danger isn’t just that fake support can be generated for unpopular positions, as happened with net neutrality. It is that public commentary will be completely discredited. This would be bad news for specialist AstroTurf companies, which would have no business model if there isn’t a public that they can pretend to be representing. But it would empower still further other kinds of lobbyists, who at least can prove that they are who they say they are.
We may have a brief window to shore up the flood walls. The most effective response would be to regulate what UCLA sociologist Edward Walker has described as the “grassroots for hire” industry. Organizations that deliberately fabricate citizen voices shouldn’t just be subject to civil fines, but to criminal penalties. Businesses that hire these organizations should be held liable for failures of oversight. [...]”
— Bruce Schneier and Henry Farrell [quoted in LWN.net magazine May 27, 2021]
Scanner:
New measurements reveal the full danger of the world’s largest volcano
https://www.sciencealert.com/new-measurements-reveal-the-full-danger-of-world-s-largest-volcano
FYI: Today’s computer chips are so advanced, they are more ‘mercurial’ than precise – and here’s the proof
https://www.theregister.com/2021/06/04/google_chip_flaws/
Cities have unique microbial ‘fingerprints’, first study of its kind reveals
https://www.sciencealert.com/cities-are-teeming-with-thousands-of-species-of-unknown-microbes-scientists-find
The Epic vs Apple trial is wrapping up, but the battle has just begun...
https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/26/the_epic_vs_apple_trial/
US soldiers expose nuclear weapons secrets via flashcard apps
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2021/05/28/us-soldiers-expose-nuclear-weapons-secrets-via-flashcard-apps/
How new design patterns can enable cities and their residents to change with climate change
https://phys.org/news/2021-02-patterns-enable-cities-residents-climate.html
Why astronomers want to build a SETI observatory on the moon (long article)
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/why-astronomers-want-build-seti-observatory-moon-180975966/
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
6 June 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.
If you have any questions or comments about the articles on my web site, click here to send me email.