Winding Down

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

Well here we are with only a week or so to go before the possible final end of the lockdown in the UK. There are three possible outcomes:

A definitive end to the lockdown which will annoy everyone because it took so long (unlikely).
A definitive continuation of the lockdown which will annoy everyone (unlikely, but marginally more possible).
A fudge which will annoy everyone and will be widely ignored by the general population (most likely option).

In the meantime here is this week’s selection of news/info/analysis to keep you sane...

Alan Lenton

Publishing schedule: Next issue is on the summer solstice – 20 June

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

Updates:

The British Government has been forced to delay its attempted grab of all the digital patient data held by the doctors around the country! At the end of last week the British Medical Association and the Royal College of GPs refused to endorse the data grab on the grounds that patients had not been informed of the grab and therefore were not aware that they could opt out.

At the start of this week the health secretary was claiming in parliament that the vast majority of people were in favour – even though no attempt had been made to tell them about it!

Shortly afterwards, the government announced a delay of two months – “We have decided we will proceed with the important programme, but we will take some extra time, as we have conversed with stakeholders over the past couple of days.”

Last time the government tried something like this, and the public -were- informed, so many people opted out that the project had to be abandoned!
https://www.theregister.com/2021/06/04/bma_and_royal_college_of/
https://www.theregister.com/2021/06/08/uk_gov_delays_gp_data_grab/
https://www.theregister.com/2021/06/09/matt_hancock_nhs_data_grab/

Astronomy and Cosmology:

Here is something useful for those of you into rocket launches, sky events, space missions, and the like. It’s a calendar of events from Space.com covering the rest of 2021. Very useful.
https://www.space.com/32286-space-calendar.html

Computers (after a fashion):

Ever heard of some stuff called ‘Physarum polycephalum’? No? Well it’s a slime mold, which turns out to have some very interesting abilities. Boffins recently tested its ability to navigate mazes, and were amazed(!) to find that it had the ability to find the fasted route through the maze. Oh! And it can do fractals as well.

Even better, a different group of scientists discovered that the mold can efficiently solve the travelling salesman problem...

I guess that’s why most people think travelling salesmen are a slimy bunch!
https://www.sciencealert.com/this-creeping-slime-is-changing-how-we-think-about-intelligence

Cryptocurrencies:

You probably haven’t heard of ‘Chia’. It’s a cryptocurrency that instead of using ‘proof of work’ for its mining, uses ‘proof of space’. No, not space of the sort Elon Musk is trying to own, but digital storage space. This has the advantage that it isn’t burning up all that polluting coal to generate electricity to mine new cryptocurrencies like bitcoin.

What it has done though, is to cause the European demand for disk drives to go through the roof – 240% growth of 10TB and above drives in Europe in the last quarter . And those are enterprise grade drives. Consumer grade drives saw an annual increase of 167% – that’s around a quarter of a million units sold.

I shall be watching this with interest!
https://www.theregister.com/2021/06/08/chia_cryptocurrency_creates_euro_hdd_boom/

Health:

Wow! The US Washington State is offering free joints to those getting their Covid vaccinations! That’s got to be tempting – even for some anti-vaxers...

Recreational use of cannabis is legal in the State of Washington, but even so...

[Note for Brits: Washington State is in the top left hand corner of the USA. The Washington on the other side of the map is Washington DC where the politicos hang out. When the USA was founded, what would become Washington DC was more or less in the geographical middle of the parcel of states making up the fledgeling country. It was also a swamp. I’ve never really been clear about which of these two facts was the reason for putting the politicians there. AL]
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/06/08/us/free-weed-joint-washington-state-vaccinated-trnd/index.html

Pictures:

The first lot of pictures this week is a great set of stills of this week’s solar eclipse. None of them, unfortunately, show a ‘ring of fire’ shot , but even so they are still well worth a look. Very nice.
https://www.space.com/sunrise-solar-eclipse-2021-nasa-photos

Next we have something rather unusual. It’s a map of the internet, but not the usual lines imposed on a world map. Instead it defines things like Google and its associated bits as physical pseudo-land areas on a map. It’s difficult to explain – you need to see it! The accompanying text has a link to a high resolution version of the map – that’s the best way to look at it.

Impressive!
https://www.openculture.com/2021/06/a-beautiful-high-resolution-map-of-the-internet-2021.html

Finally in this section a trip back in history to look at some of the best photographs I’ve ever seen of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.
https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2016/04/photos-of-the-1906-san-francisco-earthquake/477750/

Quote:

This issue’s quote comes from the English historian A. J. P. Taylor:

“The First World War had begun – imposed on the Statesmen of Europe by railway timetables. It was an unexpected climax to the railway age.”

Scanner:

Google ad biz shenanigans smacked down by French competition regulators
https://www.theregister.com/2021/06/08/google_ad_biz_told_non/

Most Americans overestimate their ability to spot fake news, study shows [Could this be fake news? – AL]
https://www.sciencealert.com/most-americans-are-overestimating-their-ability-to-spot-fake-news-survey-finds

Fueling up for fusion power
https://hackaday.com/2021/06/02/fueling-up-for-fusion-masts-super-x-jets-deuterium-tritium-experiments-for-iter-and-more/

Lightning has powerful air cleaning properties, surprising analysis reveals
https://www.sciencealert.com/study-shows-how-lightning-actually-helps-earth-s-atmosphere-clean-itself

Israeli study shows why open office spaces harm focus, productivity
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/israeli-study-shows-why-open-office-spaces-harm-focus-productivity-670290

Airbnb boss: ‘Cornwall’s more popular than London’
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-57240212

Biden Calls for Government-Wide 2FA, Energy Star-Type Labels for Software [Good luck with that! – AL]
https://uk.pcmag.com/security/133354/biden-calls-for-government-wide-2fa-energy-star-type-labels-for-software

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
13 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.

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