Winding Down
An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week's net, technology, science and other news
by Alan Lenton
30 October 2022
This has got to be good going – two issues of this rag without a break! By the way, did the Brits among you remember to put the clocks back an hour last night?
And what do we have for you this week? Starting off, we have a piece on the evolution of skin in relation to the sun, Then we move onto the year of the Linux Desktop. (This is a hardy annual that has appeared every year since at least 1994...) Next we look at something that has only become a factor recently – the cost of using our cookers to make meals!
Other items covered include long COVID research, testing London, quantum computation and the human brain, plus solar flares and datacentres,
Pictures features a nice landscape picture, and a NASA picture of the sun smiling! This week’s quote is about the Noble Prize.
Finally, scanner contains links to material on online reviews, Intel, Oracle, hibernating bears, replacing TCP, the world’s first hot-air balloon restaurant, and the ideas of Freeman Dyson.
Enjoy!
Alan Lenton
Publishing schedule: Next issue 6 November
Credits: Thanks to Fi for editing, correcting errors, etc.
Stop Press:
As we go to press the news is out that Elon Musk has finally taken control of Twitter. As the old saying goes ‘Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad.’ If you want to know what Musk has let himself in for take a look at this piece in The Verge.
https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/28/23428132/elon-musk-twitter-acquisition-problems-speech-moderation
Essays:
Science alert has a fascinating piece about the evolution of skin in relation to the sun. It is fairly simple evolution (in so far as any evolution is simple). I would imagine most of my readers already know the gist of it . However I would recommend reading this to bring everything together – especially if you have to argue with racists of various persuasions.
https://www.sciencealert.com/human-skin-didnt-always-fear-the-sun-not-until-a-huge-change-10000-years-ago
Earlier this month the Register published an interesting piece on that old hoary chestnut, ‘The year of the Linux desktop’. Don’t yawn – the author makes a good case. The basic premise is that the reason the Windows desktop is more popular than Linux is because Windows got there first. There is also the matter of familiarity. And one thing he doesn’t mention – most of the big blockbuster games only run on Windows. Linux mega-game designer/programmers are few and far between!
The author argues that with the move to -rented- cloud based desktops switching between Linux and Windows desktops becomes easier. That’s probably true, but it’s not the issue. The issue is will they -want- or be motivated to make the change? Unfortunately it misses out on the sociology and psychology that’s involved if people are going to ditch something they have grown up using. It may be that people just moving into their teens who have grown up using phones and the likes of iPads as their everyday computers will make the change.
Definitely worth a read, though, for its useful insights.
https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/14/year_of_linux_desktop/
Energy:
I guess that we are all concerned about our energy use, if only because it costs so much more now. There is plenty of advice out there, most of it by people who have no credentials for the advice they offer. Frankly, I have little faith that wearing a warm coat while making a cooked breakfast will make a dent in my energy bill!
Thus it was with some relief that I spotted that my old stalwart, The Conversation, had asked Amin Al-Habaibeh, Professor of Intelligent Engineering Systems, Nottingham Trent University, to do some mini experiments and come up with some figures for the relative efficiency of a few options (air-fryers, a thermos cooker, and a pressure cooker) for cooking some common foods.
He did that and also explained what Kilowatt hours are, and for each device worked out how long you would have to use them for the savings from use to cover the cost of buying the device. He also took an infrared picture of a saucepan of boiling water on a hob, so you can see just where the heat goes when you do that.
Very basic, but exactly the right way to go about it!
https://theconversation.com/air-fryers-and-pressure-cookers-how-you-can-save-money-on-your-cooking-bills-192303
Health:
The Conversation has an interesting piece on the ‘brain fog’ that seems to hit some long COVID sufferers. Some researchers used stem cells to grow small amounts of brain cells, and then infected them with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Examining the cells afterwards, they discovered that a lot of the synapses (the links between the cells) had vanished. This was far more than would normally be expected, and maybe a clue to some of the problems caused by long COVID.
It’s difficult to come up with a cure, if you don’t know what the problem is, but hopefully this research will help not only long COVID sufferers, but also with sufferers from other brain related problems.
https://theconversation.com/long-covid-how-lost-connections-between-nerve-cells-in-the-brain-may-explain-cognitive-symptoms-192702
London:
The Londonist recently had an article on, as they aptly put it, ‘The place where London is tested.’ It seems that there is a very large building on the outskirts of London belonging to University College London (aka UCL). It’s called the PEARL building (Person-Environment-Activity Research Laboratory) and it’s used for running simulations to find out how people react with different environments that are planned, so things can, if necessary, be adjusted to improve the interaction. It’s big enough to easily fit in passenger aircraft and double decker busses. Take a read, it’s fascinating – even if you dislike London!
https://londonist.com/london/technology/pearl-ucl-research-dagenham
Quantum Computation:
Physorg has a fascinating little piece on some research indicating that human brains, in certain circumstances use quantum computation. It involved all sorts of different specialities, but the main thrust seems to have been developed from work on quantum gravity and systems entanglement. All stuff at the cutting edge, and I couldn’t even begin to explain it!
Nonetheless, it’s worth a read as a possible harbinger of things from SciFi into the realm of the ‘real’...
https://phys.org/news/2022-10-brains-quantum.html
Solar Flares:
Just how well are data centres protected against EMP caused by solar flares? I for one didn’t even know that solar flares could cause the sort of level of EMP that could damage equipment in a data centre. However, according to a report published recently, this is the case for storms with a G5 rating.. The report indicated that G5 level solar storms occur roughly every 25 years.
More worrying are some of the lesser and more frequent storms that knock out power supplies.
That normally wouldn’t be a problem, because data centres have standby generators. But in cases like the March 1989 one that knocked Hydro-Quebec’s transmission lines offline for nine hours, there is a danger of running out of fuel and being unable to urgently source more because of the general level of damage the storm has caused...
https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/24/datacenter_solar_storm_emp/
Pictures:
There’s a rather nice picture of sunrise over the Rio Grande River as it flows through the Santa Elena Canyon. See what you think of it.
https://photocontest.smithsonianmag.com/photocontest/detail/sunrise-in-santa-elna-canyon/
There’s also a wonderful picture of the sun from NASA – it’s smiling!
https://www.sciencealert.com/nasa-spotted-the-sun-smiling-and-its-the-most-joyous-thing
Quotes:
‘HOW DO YOU WIN A NOBEL PRIZE?’
Laureates often get asked this question, and their standard reply is “work hard and follow your passion.”
https://phys.org/news/2016-10-nobel-prizes.html
Scanner:
Gelsinger takes axe to Intel after chip sales slump, profit nosedives
https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/28/intel_layoffs_results/
Oracle’s Larry Ellison shares fears of bankrupting Western civilization with healthcare
https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/21/ellison_oracle_healthcare/
Hibernating bears have a secret superpower hiding in their blood
https://www.sciencealert.com/hibernating-bears-have-a-secret-superpower-hiding-in-their-blood
There is a path to replace TCP in the datacenter
https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/27/replace_tcp_datacenter/
Aboard the world’s first hot-air balloon restaurant
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/hot-air-balloon-restaurant
Freeman Dyson’s legacy
https://www.space.com/freeman-dyson-sphere-sci-fi-seti-legacy.html
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
30 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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