Winding Down
An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week's net, technology, science and other news
by Alan Lenton
6 March 2022
All the news has been swamped by the events in Ukraine these last two weeks, but I managed to limit myself to one piece only and dredged out a few non-war pieces to keep things up to date. Hopefully I’ll have a bit more stuff next week...
Cheers!
Alan Lenton
Publishing schedule: The next issue is due on 13 March.
Credits: Thanks to readers Fi and Barb for drawing my attention to material for Winding Down.
Updates:
The US Federal Aviation Administration has now come out with a statement warning that 5G networks near US airports may interfere with radio altimeters on Boing 737 aircraft. Why didn’t anyone think of this -before- the stuff was deployed!
https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/24/faa_5g_737/
Essays:
I didn’t know how to characterise this story – it’s part history, part reportage, part travelogue. In 1909 a chunk of the Seven Mile Bridge, part of the railway built between 1905 and 1912 connecting Miami to Key West, 150 miles in the south was completed. Seven Mile Bridge really was seven miles long passing over the Atlantic. Awesome.
The rail link lasted 35 years and was eventually largely destroyed in 1935 by a category 5 hurricane. The bridge survived, but was effectively abandoned. Now it has been partially taken over and restored as a ‘linear park’.
The whole thing is an amazing story with some great pictures. I wish I could get over there to go on it!
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/in-florida-keys--century-old-bridge-reopens-as-tropical-high-line-180979611/
Antarctic:
Ernest Shackleton’s last expedition to the Antarctic in 1914 is generally considered to be one of the last of the heroic expeditions to uncharted lands. It failed when the ship, the ‘Endurance,’ got trapped in the pack ice and was eventually crushed and sunk. Incredibly, Shackleton’s party of 27 trekked across to the opposite side of the continent, and then Shackleton and several expedition members sailed a small open boat 800 miles to a whaling station on South Georgia Island to get help for the rest of the crew.
I used to teach people to sail in boats that size, but mostly on inland waters. I can tell you it’s the most incredible feat I’ve ever heard of.
Shackleton’s ship sank in 10,000 feet of water and has never been found. Now, however, an expedition with all the latest equipment has set off to find it – it’s probably the most famous shipwreck after the Titanic. The really nifty thing is that the expedition has a web tracker so you can keep an eye on where they are and what they are doing...
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/track-marine-archaeologists-searching-icy-antarctic-seas-ernest-shackletons-endurance-180979581/
https://endurance22.org/the-expedition#ship-tracker (The tracker is near the bottom of this page – AL)
Jobs:
Now we are into the third year of the epidemic I gather that a lot of people are fed up with their current jobs and looking for a change. If that’s the case I have just the job for you! Not only that, but those run ins with the sysadmin/bastard operator from hell (BOFH) while trying to get the likes of Zoom and Webex working will stand you in excellent stead for the job I have in mind.
I would emphasise that it’s neither an office job nor a home based job and it does involve outside activity, so you will be required to breath fresh air! Take a look and see if the job appeals to you...
https://www.usajobs.gov/job/638596000
Ukraine and the Web:
Over the last week there have been a number of calls for Russia’s top level domains to be disabled. One’s immediate reaction is YES! That was mine anyway, but then I stopped to think about it properly.
This is a tangled web (so to speak) of political issues, ethical issues, and technical issues. Your view and weighting of the issues my vary, but here for what it is worth is mine.
Politically, the war has been launched by the Russian government (effectively Putin). But the government is not in any sense ‘the people’ and there are already signs of grass roots demonstrations.
Ethically there is absolutely no doubt. The Russians are the aggressors, and we should do everything we can to support the Ukrainians. How we support them is another matter, and different people will have different ideas – including deleting Russian domains.
Technically there is no question that it would be possible to delete the top level domains, and it must weigh heavily that elements of the Ukrainian leadership have requested that this be done. However, I haven’t seen any convincing indication of how this would affect the Russian government’s ability to govern.
I simply don’t believe that the Russian government don’t have their own internal networks that are entirely separate from those of the Web. In that case the only people who would be affected would be those who want to organise effectively against what their government is doing in their name.
I note that cloud service providers are also starting to come under pressure to pull out of Russia. I rather like the idea, but I would want to see it properly thought out first.
The important thing to remember in this is that we all want to help stopping the Russians from killing, maiming, and destroying Ukrainian people and buildings. We may disagree on the best way to do it, but that’s because we want to be effective!
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/03/ukraine-wants-russia-cut-off-from-core-internet-systems-experts-say-its-a-bad-idea/
https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/01/ukraine_icann_domains/
Pictures:
AI art has come a long way. It’s capable of drawing things you would never have thought of! So I’d like to draw your attention to a piece about the current state of the art, complete with some pretty stunning pictures...
https://www.theverge.com/2021/12/6/22820106/ai-art-app-dream-synthetic-media-wombo
You might also like to try your own hand at it using the web app!
https://app.wombo.art
Quotes:
“I had an interest in death from an early age. It fascinated me. When I heard ‘Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall’, I thought, ‘Did he fall or was he pushed?’”
P D James, writer of detective stories
Scanner:
UK internet pioneer Cliff Stanford has died
https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/28/demon_internet_founder_dies/
See the trailer to the long-awaited King Crimson documentary (But only if, like me, you like King Crimson! -AL)
https://boingboing.net/2022/02/02/see-the-trailer-to-the-long-awaited-king-crimson-documentary.html
1st sighting of ‘ball lightning’ in England uncovered
https://www.space.com/first-ball-lightning-sighting-recorded-england
I’ve been waiting 15 years for Facebook to die. I’m more hopeful than ever (by Cory Doctorow)
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/24/ive-been-waiting-15-years-for-facebook-to-die-im-more-hopeful-than-ever
Why Isn’t Jupiter a Star?
https://www.sciencealert.com/jupiter-is-bigger-than-some-stars-so-why-isn-t-it-one
Historic Allies and Enemies of Great Britain (GB has fought over 120 wars since 1707 -AL)
https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/Friend-or-Foe-Allies-Enemies-of-Britain/
Made to measure: how we estimate inflation across the UK (by The Office for National Statistics – AL)
https://blog.ons.gov.uk/2021/11/17/made-to-measure-how-we-estimate-inflation-across-the-uk/
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 March 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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