Winding Down
An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week's net, technology, science and other news
by Alan Lenton
9 October 2022
I’m back! Somewhat later than I intended, but hopefully now more regularly than Winding Down has been recently. This issue, like the next few, is playing catch up. So there are three essays for your edification, on the topics of experts, GDP, and so called ‘dark data’. The communications section has a piece on underwater telephony, and there are no less than three pictures for you to look at! There is a quote from Ada Lovelace about Babbage’s Analytical Engine, and a warning quote about what to do after death!
Scanner has URLs pointing to materials on supply chains, ancient Maya cities, a polemic in favour of the Rust programming language, a problem with solar panels in lots of sunshine, a Moody’s report on riskiest sectors, and a prognosis for social media.
Enjoy!
Alan Lenton
Publishing schedule: Next issue 16 October
Credits: Thanks to Fi for editing, correcting errors, etc.
Essays:
With so much crud on the net at the moment it is often difficult to figure out whether what you are reading is an expert analysis, or dangerously wrong. I often have this problem, because I am a generalist, which means I read all sorts of stuff that I have no expertise in.
Generally I am careful about where I read it – sources I have respect for, but note that that doesn’t mean I necessarily find myself in agreement with those sources. Sometimes it is very difficult to tell whether the person you are reading/listening to is an expert or not. There are certain professions that you can assume are lying until proven right. Politicians immediately spring to mind here – honest versions are just fairly rare. Scientists are a difficult case since they are incredibly jargon ridden and often making up new words and phrases to explain their discoveries.
Thus it was with some interest that I approached an article in ‘The Conversation’ with the intriguing title of ‘Five ways to tell if someone is an expert, or just confident – from an actual expert’. And the author has some credentials as an expert – she is Thora Tenbrink, Professor of Linguistics, Bangor University.
She offers five tests you can apply to see whether the person concerned is an expert:
1. How likely is it that this person is an expert?
2. How does this person communicate in general?
3. Does the person go into depth?
4. Is anybody actually certain about the topic?
5. Can they provide information flexibly?
Take a look – I think the article is fascinating, educating and very useful.
https://theconversation.com/five-ways-to-tell-if-someone-is-an-expert-or-just-confident-from-an-actual-expert-188244
My second essay recommendation for this week is a piece, also in The ‘Conversation’ discussing just how relevant the much bandied around ‘GDP’ is as a measure of progress in the modern world. GDP (Gross Domestic Product) was invented in the Second World War in the USA as an aid to figure out how much the government could afford to spend on the war effort.
GDP is supposed to be a measure of the size of the country’s economy, and is something which trips easily off the tongues of politicians. At this stage it’s wise to remember that successful politicians are indeed experts... They are experts at convincing the people that they know how to run the country.
Over half a century later, GDP is beginning to show its age and slavish adherence to it as a measure of progress is not wise. So, take a look at the essay – it’s really rather good at explaining what GDP is, and what it failings are!
https://theconversation.com/beyond-gdp-changing-how-we-measure-progress-is-key-to-tackling-a-world-in-crisis-three-leading-experts-186488
And finally in this section, yet another intriguing piece from ‘The Conversation’ – this time about the carbon cost of unused digital data. There is an enormous amount of this ‘dark data’ around. Data centres full of it according to the author, and all, or most, of it needing power to keep it in existence even if it is never going to be used again.
At least that is what the essay claims.
I’m not so sure, but I may be a bit behind the times. Is this all being kept in volatile storage, rather than stuff like hard drives and magnetic tape? It must be costing businesses a lot of money. Why aren’t they aware of it? In the current economic climate I would have though every nook and cranny of data space would have been examined for savings!
Still, it makes an interesting read, and I would guess it is at least partially true, perhaps because auditing hasn’t caught up yet, and also because government mandates are usually written in terms which make it easier to say ‘We will keep the lot, just in case.’ rather than actually sorting it out.
Definitely worth a read though.
https://theconversation.com/rk-data-is-killing-the-planet-we-need-digital-decarbonisation-190423
Communication:
It’s now possible, at least to a limited extent, to send text messages under water using your mobile phone. I thought that was rather clever. I’m not an underwater person, but I am aware of the communication problems under water and safety implications, and this system, if it proves robust, will be a big help.
It’s ingenious because it is an app that uses acoustic signals! Nice work!
https://www.sciencealert.com/finally-theres-now-a-way-to-send-text-messages-on-your-phone-underwater
Pictures:
Three pictures for you to eyeball this week. They are all from the 19th Annual Smithsonian Magazine Photo Contest.
The first is a rather classic picture of the Milky Way arching over Monument Valley in the USA.
https://photocontest.smithsonianmag.com/photocontest/detail/milky-way-arching-over-monument-valley/
The second is from Bangladesh and shows children playing among the rice drying tents in Brahmanbaria.
https://photocontest.smithsonianmag.com/photocontest/detail/children-playing-in-the-rice-mill/
The last one is a composite of three pictures of the USA’s Grand Canyon taken at different times and blended in together.
Impressive!
https://photocontest.smithsonianmag.com/photocontest/detail/night-to-day-toroweap-lookout-grand-canyon/
Quotes:
“The Analytical Engine weaves algebraic patters just as the Jacquard loom weaves flowers and leaves.”
Ada Lovelace of Babbage’s mechanical computer
Greg Egan offered wise advice: ‘After dying, we strongly recommend that you do not disclose any personal information to superficially angelic-looking interlocutors, as this is likely to be a phishing attempt. Type the URL for paradise manually into your soul’s browser, and double-check for a padlock symbol.’ (Twitter, 23 September – via Ansible Newsletter 423)
Scanner:
Supply chain normality returns for PCs but not servers, says Dell
https://www.theregister.com/2022/09/09/supply_chain_dell/
Ancient Maya cities were dangerously contaminated with mercury
https://phys.org/news/2022-09-ancient-maya-cities-dangerously-contaminated.html
In Rust we trust: Microsoft Azure CTO shuns C and C++
https://www.theregister.com/2022/09/20/rust_microsoft_c/
When the sun switches off the solar panels
https://techxplore.com/news/2022-08-sun-solar-panels.html
Moody’s turns up the heat on ‘riskiest’ sectors for cyberattacks
https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/03/moodys_cyber_risk_ratings/
Social media is probably doomed
https://lauren.vortex.com/2022/10/04/social-media-is-probably-doomed
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
9 October 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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