Winding Down

An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week's net, technology, science and other news
by Alan Lenton
17 July 2022

Welcome back to another issue of Winding Down. This week we update the info on the Musk/Twitter dance, while essays looks at the rejection of science and at older people and TikTok. Then we look at a new catalyst that might actually help prevent climate change, faster than light space travel, and the Uber files. Pictures are of the bottom of a sink hole in China, and, inevitably, from the James Webb Space Telescope, and the quote is from Konrad Lorenz.

I've added a couple of extra 'Scanners' which you can save till next week because we are having that week off. The links cover natural gas, period tracker and apps, Azure, quantum internet tech, AI and patents, lab-grown meat, Hive smart gadgets, and too much of a good thing!
Enjoy!

Alan Lenton

Publishing schedule: No issue next week. Next issue 31 July.

Credits: Thanks to Fi Craig for drawing my attention to material for Winding Down and for editing it for spelling, grammar, etc.

Updates:

Last week I mentioned Elon Musk's attempts to get out of Twitter free, on the grounds that their fake account numbers are inaccurate. Well the management of Twitter have finally lost patience and they are suing Musk for the one billion dollar break up fee. Who is in the right over the numbers, I wouldn't know. But what is clear is that the questions Musk has should have been raised under 'due diligence', but, as The Register pointed out, "The technology mogul waived the need for any business due diligence, and only started picking holes in Twitter's performance and financials after the board called his bluff and accepted the takeover deal."
https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/13/twitter_sues_elon_musk/

Essays:

Why is it that so many people are rejecting science? It's a massive problem and it's causing unnecessary deaths. An essay in Science Alert has some psychologists take a look at the causes. They identify four causes:

Distrust in the information source
Tribal loyalties
Information goes against personal beliefs
Information is not being presented in the right learning style

The authors look at each of these problems in turn and discuss what can be done - and what doesn't work in each case.

An interesting piece although it is obvious that there are limits to what can be done in each case.
https://www.sciencealert.com/distrust-in-science-is-causing-harm-but-these-researchers-have-a-plan

The Conversation recently published an interesting essay about how older people are turning to TikTok to dispel myths about aging. It certainly dispels the myths that insisted older people don't understand technology and/or social media. I'm not sure I agree with the article's characterisation as 'old' being anyone over 60, though!

Definitely worth a read...
https://theconversation.com/go-glammas-how-older-people-are-turning-to-tiktok-to-dispel-myths-about-ageing-184688

Climate Change:

Given the current weather patterns, I think we are all definitely aware of climate change! There are two parts to this problem - the consumer end and the production end. Most of the stuff I've seen seems to be targeted at the former, while the industrial end still seems to be churning out crud. Much of the reason for this is politics and influence.

However, to be fair, that's not the whole reason. Sometime stuff is essential, but there is no way of cleaning up the process at the moment. In spite of this I've noticed that there are a number of reports of new catalysts in the scientific press. Most recently I spotted one from researchers at the University of Manchester.

It is a catalyst that turns methane into liquid methanol at ambient temperature and pressure. If this can be scaled up it has a good chance of becoming what is known as 'a holy grail of catalysis'. Not only does it convert a potent greenhouse gas that is often an industrial waste material, but the result is a valuable fuel. And because it works at ambient temperature and pressure it will be a cheaper way to deal with processes.

More details at:
https://phys.org/news/2022-06-holy-grail-catalysisturning-methane-methanol.html

Space Travel:

No, I haven't been reading Science Fiction! But recently, two theoretical solutions to the speed problem have come to light. I'm not even going to try to explain this, you can read it for yourself, but remember the version described in detail would take hundreds of times the mass of Jupiter just to drive a spaceship a hundred meters wide at the speed of light!
https://www.sciencealert.com/faster-than-light-travel-could-work-within-einstein-s-physics-astrophysicist-shows

Transport:

Wow! The UK Guardian newspaper got its hands on a massive collection of more than 124,000 files dealing with just what Uber was doing in the period while it was getting to be a force to be reckoned with. This is well worth a read, almost the 'definition of ethically challenged'. However, while you do so bear in mind that the regulated taxi service in most big cities had become a sort of medieval trade guild.

The truth is that Uber wouldn't have been able to get away with these sort of activities if the existing 'official' services hadn't completely failed to meet the public's needs and expectations...
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/jul/10/uber-files-leak-reveals-global-lobbying-campaign

Pictures:

The first set of pictures I have for you this week are of what it is like at the bottom of a very large sinkhole in China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. Forest and jungle, descent by rope, caves, rivers - the story they are part of is well worth a read as well!
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/china-new-sinkhole-discovery

I guess this week of all weeks, failing to mention the first set of pictures from the James Webb Space telescope would be unforgivable, even if most of my readers will have already seen them! However the set I've chosen to draw your attention to is part of a story about how the telescope will change astronomy for ever!
https://theconversation.com/james-webb-telescope-a-scientist-explains-what-its-first-amazing-images-show-and-how-it-will-change-astronomy-186668

Quotes:

"It is a good morning exercise for a research scientist to discard a pet hypothesis every day before breakfast. It keeps him young."

Konrad Lorenz - zoologist 1903-1989

Scanner:

Do you know what's in your natural gas? This small study wanted the answer [Ugh! - AL]
https://www.sciencealert.com/your-natural-gas-could-be-a-soup-of-chemicals-that-causes-a-bunch-of-health-problems

The abortion privacy dangers in period trackers and apps
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-61952794

Supply chain blamed amid claims of Azure capacity issues
https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/04/azure_capacity_issues/

Physicists find the 'Missing Link' that could provide Quantum Internet Technology
https://www.sciencealert.com/physicists-find-the-missing-link-that-could-provide-quantum-internet-technology

AI inventors may find it difficult to patent their tech under today's laws
https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/09/ai_patent_feature_1/

Can we grow meat in a lab?
https://metafact.substack.com/p/can-we-grow-meat-in-a-lab

Hive to pull the plug on smart home gadgets by 2025
https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/12/hive_camera_support_end/

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
17 July 2022

Alan Lenton is a retired on-line games designer, programmer and sociologist (among other things), 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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