Winding Down
An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week's net, technology, science and other news
by Alan Lenton
31 October 2021
Maybe it’s because the pandemic seems to be lasting for ever and I’m getting jaded, but all the news seems to be of the ‘more of the same’ ilk at the moment. You know the sort of thing I mean. Big tech companies are not nice, Boeing screws something up, Facebook makes money from disinformation, self-driving cars aren’t, the space station springs a leak, a Dune movie opens in the cinemas... Life is becoming a circle of repetitions.
Nonetheless, I did manage to find one or two things to tell you about, starting, as is traditional, with more tales of Boeing.
Enjoy!
Alan Lenton
Publishing schedule: Next Issue 7 November...
Credits: Thanks to readers Fi and Barb for drawing my attention to material for Winding Down.
Updates:
I’m starting to wonder whether I should change the title of this section from ‘Updates’ to ‘Boeing Updates’...
So this week two updates on Boeing issues. The first is about the Boeing 737-Max affair. The 737-Max chief technical pilot has been charged with obstructing US aviation safety regulators. If he is found guilty he could spend up to 20 years in prison. The prosecutor is claiming that he supplied the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) with “materially false, inaccurate, and incomplete information”.
I find it difficult to believe that this guy decided all on his own not to mention that the software for the MACS had been changed...
https://www.theregister.com/2021/10/15/boeing_737_max_tech_pilot_charged_mcas/
The other update concerns Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner space capsule. Readers will probably recall that it’s been dogged by problems, but at least it hasn’t killed anyone. NASA has confirmed that it’s definitely not going to be launched for the remainder of this year, and that it’s suffering from corrosion.
It seems that it couldn’t cope with the hot sticky weather at the Kennedy Space Center, which caused valves in the propulsion system to corrode. One would have thought that the engineers at Boeing would have been aware of the fact that Florida has hot humid summer weather, it’s not as though this is a new phenomena...
https://www.theregister.com/2021/10/21/boeings_starliner_fail/
Aerotech:
I carefully avoided using the phrase ‘Pigs might fly!’ in the story about Starliner. That’s because a pig did in fact fly in the early days of aviation history. To be precise on 4 November 1909, John Moore-Brabazon chose a piglet from the yard of the Rose & Crown pub in Leysdown, named it Icarus II and strapped it into his Short Brothers biplane.
They took off and zoomed around returning to base on the Isle of Sheppey after a three and a half mile flight. That might not sound like a long flight, but remember that the first powered flight was only six years earlier!
So remember, pigs do, and have, flown!
https://londonist.com/london/history/pigs-might-fly
Big Tech:
Well the companies at the top of the heap have all been in the news over the last fortnight.
Amazon have until tomorrow to convince the US congress that they didn’t lie when they appeared before one of its sub-committees. Naughty boys – every one knows that lying is the prerogative of politicians...
https://www.theregister.com/2021/10/18/amazon_congress_competition/
Then there is a case brought by the US government against Google in Texas, in which it is claiming that Google and Facebook ‘colluded’ to smash Apple’s privacy protections. Clearly the government believes that it is the only one allowed to smash privacy protections!
https://www.theregister.com/2021/10/22/google_facebook_antitrust_complaint/
And, of course, there’s the Facebook Papers...
The topic is massive – far too big to cover here, but the independent has a short piece explaining what the Facebook Papers are and how the disclosures are being published.
In the meantime Facebook is changing its name to Meta, so, if the name is anything to go by, you will be able to be abused in hi-res, zillions of colours, and 3D. Just what you always wanted...
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/what-are-facebook-papers-explained-b1944772.html
https://www.theregister.com/2021/10/29/zuckerberg_meta_facebook/
Radioactivity:
Atlas Obscura has a rather interesting piece about a Canadian team that hunts down radioactive objects. It turns out that before people knew about radioactivity all sorts of radioactive materials were used in household objects. I was aware of the fact that uranium was used to give glass objects, like vases, for instance, a green colour, I’ve also seen old adverts for spas with radium waters and radium pills. Even as late as the Second World War the hands on watches and instrument panels were often painted with substances like radium so they would glow and could be read in the dark.
The article is really interesting, take a look :)
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/museums-radioactive-artifacts
Pictures:
Two pictures from NASA’s Apod site this week.
The first is a picture of what is known as ‘the bat’ nebula. It’s a nice picture, and, unlike most of these named astronomical pictures, it looks something like its name!
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap211027.html
The second is a 180 degree panorama of the Northern Lights – officially called a Rorschach Aurora. It’s a beautiful picture – take a look for yourself...
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap211030.html
Quotes:
“A politician was a person with whose politics you did not agree. When you did agree, he was a statesman.”
David Lloyd George, English politician 1863-1945 (Source Oxford Dictionary of Quotations – fifth edition
Scanner:
Facebook sues scraper who sold 178 million phone numbers and user IDs
https://www.theregister.com/2021/10/25/facebook_sues_man_for_scraping/
Facebook’s greatest misses: The five nastiest bits from recent leaks
https://www.theregister.com/2021/10/26/facebook_q3_2021/
Empowering users of GPL software
https://lwn.net/Articles/873415/
Google deliberately throttled ad load times to promote AMP, claims new court document
https://www.theregister.com/2021/10/26/google_deliberately_throttled_ad_load/
First, stunning whistle blower leaks. Now a shareholder lawsuit lands on Zuckerberg’s desk
https://www.theregister.com/2021/10/28/facebook_investors_lawsuit/
Tesla recalls ‘self-driving’ software update that made cars ‘Undrivable’
https://www.vice.com/en/article/7kbzaz/tesla-recalls-self-driving-software-update-that-made-cars-undrivable
U.S. Congress Investigates Publisher Restrictions on Library E-Books
http://blog.archive.org/2021/09/24/u-s-congress-investigates-publisher-restrictions-on-library-e-books/
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
31 October 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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