Winding Down
An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week's net, technology, science and other news
by Alan Lenton
16 January 2022
Winding Down is back – a week later than I intended, due to the famous ‘circumstances beyond my control’.
But first, here is my one and only prediction for 2022: It’s that 99% of all predictions made by pundits for 2022 will be proved wrong!
Oh! By the way, according to a survey by CodingGame, a third of all software developers are, like me, self taught!
And after what has been the second miserable year in a row, with what looks like another one to come, I thought you might like a round up of cheerful things that happened in the last year!
https://reasonstobecheerful.world/the-year-in-cheer-2/
And so, on with the show...
Have fun!
Alan Lenton
Publishing schedule: Next Issue 23 January 2022.
Credits: Thanks to readers Fi and Barb for drawing my attention to material for Winding Down.
Essays:
I doubt that there are very many, if any, of my readers who didn’t see the pictures of the riot in the US Capitol last January. Mostly the press portrayed it as a bunch of weirdos and looneys and concentrated on displaying the most eccentrically dressed. A typical far right politics affair.
In the last year, though, some 730 of the rioters have been arrested and a study of the these people indicates that only 13% of them are the sort of right wing protesters one normally finds on these sort of demonstrations. It turns out that half of those who have been arrested are business owners, CEOs from white-collar occupations, doctors, lawyers and architects...
Clearly something different is afoot and the Slate article is rather chilling in the information it brings together, both about the participants, and about the wider implications.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/01/january-6-capitol-riot-arrests-research-profile.html
5G:
Remember those nutters who keep insisting 5G is dangerous, and who persist in attacking masts and installations? Well, it turns out that there -might- well be dangers! Of course, the dangers have nothing to do with those claimed by the nutters...
It seems that the 5G C-band is rather close to the frequencies used by aircraft radio altimeters – 3.7-3.8 GHz for the 5G C-band and 4.2-4.4 GHz for the altimeters. Consequently, when 5G goes live in the US next week, 50 airports will have a 5G ‘No Go’ zone surrounding them.
Seems to be getting more and more complex, not easier, to fly safely in the USA, especially when you add in the propensity for US armed forces to jam GPS for ‘training exercises’.
So the moral of this story is don’t waste time trying to use your shiny new 5G mobile phone in or near the likes of New York’s JFK airport and its environs.
https://www.theregister.com/2022/01/10/50_us_airports_5g_buffers/
Banking:
Recent outages by the major cloud computing providers seem to have woken up the UK’s financial regulators to the fact that the major banks have shifted a lot of their computing load into the cloud. Since the regulators have, in the past, concentrated on what the banks are doing with their on-premises computers, the recent outages were something of a wake up call.
The result? The regulators are starting to take a closer and harder look at the operations of the major cloud computing providers. Specifically Amazon, Microsoft and Google. They’re currently looking at an “operational resilience perspective”, but no doubt the question of cloud security will also rear its head in the not too distant future.
My take? Make sure you keep some cash in your wallet!
https://www.theregister.com/2022/01/11/uk_financial_cloud_dependence/
Statistics:
I guess most of us know that statistics with small data sets can be unreliable. What’s less well known is that large data sets can have problems as well. Basically, when you have a large data set it’s more difficult to know whether you actually have a representative sample.
I’m not a statistician, so I’m not going to try and explain it here, but the piece at PhysOrg explains it very well. Definitely worth a read!
https://phys.org/news/2021-12-paradox-big-vaccination-surveys.html
Supply Chains:
Supply chains and their problems have been in the news a lot over the last year or so, with the prominent gaps on the supermarket shelves being obvious to anyone shopping. Sadly, there haven’t been any shortages in the pundit supply chain...
Fortunately, The Conversation managed to get hold of a couple of supply chain experts, who actually know what the problems are and how likely there are to be solutions to the specific problems in the near future. And the prognosis is not good. There is a strong possibility that the shortages in some things and overstocking in others is likely to continue throughout this year.
The article covers a wide range of topics that affect supply chains and also offers a look at what some of the supply chains are doing to stabilise themselves. Well worth a read on a topic that is affecting all of us!
https://theconversation.com/supply-chains-in-2022-shortages-will-continue-but-for-some-sellers-the-problem-will-be-too-much-stock-174085
Pictures:
Our picture this week has, in one form or another been around for nearly 400 years – it’s Rembrandt’s ‘The Night Watch’. But this isn’t an ordinary photo of Rembrandt’s masterpiece – it’s 717 gigapixel photo! And just for the record, the file size is 5.6 terabytes!
https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/stories/operation-night-watch/story/ultra-high-resolution-photo
Quotes:
A short, but very pertinent quote from security guru Bruce Schneier:
“Security is a process, not a product.”
You can read the whole article at https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2000/04/the_process_of_secur.html
Scanner:
What’s entering the Public Domain in 2022: The Sun Also Rises, Winnie-the-Pooh, Buster Keaton comedies & more
https://www.openculture.com/2021/12/whats-entering-the-public-domain-in-2022.html
We all nearly missed the largest underwater volcano eruption ever detected
https://www.sciencealert.com/we-almost-missed-the-largest-underwater-volcano-eruption-recorded
Developer creates ‘Quite OK Image Format’ – but it performs better than just OK
https://www.theregister.com/2021/12/21/quite_ok_image_format/
What will 2022 bring in the way of misinformation on social media? 3 experts weigh in
https://techxplore.com/news/2021-12-misinformation-social-media-experts.html
Secure boot for UK electric car chargers isn’t mandatory until 2023 – but why the delay?
https://www.theregister.com/2022/01/11/electric_car_charging_security_uk/
China’s ‘Artificial Sun’ just broke a major world record for plasma fusion
https://www.sciencealert.com/china-s-artificial-sun-just-broke-a-major-world-record-for-plasma-fusion
Three ways to celebrate the Public Domain in 2022
http://blog.archive.org/2021/12/08/three-ways-to-celebrate-the-public-domain-in-2022/
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
16 January 2022
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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