Winding Down
An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week's net, technology, science and other news
by Alan Lenton
18 December 2022
Last issue of Winding Down in what has been a very turbulent year for me! This issue has updates on the Twitter/Musk saga, and how-to info on the alternative – Mastodon. There is an essay suggesting that there are ways to find out if we are living in a digital simulation – using current technologies. We also take a look the legal implications of a woman getting pregnant in space, a little bit of statistics (or lack of it), and humans and the nature of time.
Pictures cover a temple, a lake, and a Geminid meteor. The quote is from Arthur C Clarke.
Scanner has material covering exoplanets, Starshield, leap-seconds, satellites and war, quantum mechanics, Bron-Yr-Aur, and how plants took root on land.
Enjoy!
Alan Lenton
Publishing schedule: Winding Down will return on 8 January 2023
Credits: Thanks to Fi for editing, correcting errors, etc.
Updates:
The expensive antics of Elon Musk continue to dominate the social network’s scene. This week’s selection includes kicking journalists he disagrees with off Twitter, blocking information about where his private plane is (even though the information is in the public domain), trying to suppress info about how to move over to join the alternative Mastodon social network, and blocking an Indian social network.
One of the results is that Reddit now has a subreddit entirely dedicated to tracking Elon Musk’s jet!
https://fortune.com/2022/12/16/elon-musk-plane-tracking-subreddit/
And another result is that EU politicians are now starting to take a closer look at what is going on in Twitter.
https://www.livemint.com/news/world/twitter-bans-journalists-european-union-turns-up-the-heat-on-elon-musk-10-points-11671191300869.html
I think that’s enough about Musk and Twitter for the year, but if you are considering moving over to Mastodon, perhaps because the people you normally follow on Twitter have moved there, then I would point you to the Social Media section for advice on how to join and set up an account.
Essays:
An unusual essay from ‘The Conversation’ this week. It’s called ‘How to test if we’re living in a computer simulation’. The essay not only goes through the issues, but also proposes real experiments to test the issue, some of which can be made with already existing tools. A fascinating piece and definitely recommended reading!
https://theconversation.com/how-to-test-if-were-living-in-a-computer-simulation-194929
Social Media:
If you fed up with Musk’s messing around with Twitter or perhaps all the people you follow have left in disgust, then you are probably considering Mastodon as an alternative. Mastodon is not the only alternative, but it does seem to be the most popular, so here are some URLs about Mastodon, and how to set up a new account on the service.
https://joinmastodon.org
https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/what-is-mastodon-the-alternative-social-network-now-blocked-by-twitter/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/12/17/how-to-join-mastodon/
Space:
Somehow a fascinating piece in The Space Review got lost in the works by me. It’s a look at what the implications are, in the light of the US Roe v Wade case being overturned, if a woman get pregnant in space. It raises important questions which sooner or later we are going to have to answer. Highly recommended.
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4434/1
Statistics:
As the UK comes out of one of its periods of cold weather, which everyone is complaining about, I thought I would remind you that last summer we were complaining about a heatwave! Undoubtedly, it’s only a matter of time before questions are asked about how many people died as a result of the excessively cold period.
However, it turns out not be quite as easy to pin that sort of thing down as most people think. The figures won’t be available for a while yet, and they probably won’t tell us what we want to know. Why? Well the UK Office of National Statistics (ONS) actually wrote a piece about how difficult it is to get exact figures after the record-breaking heatwave in July. Have a read, it’s fascinating, and you don’t need a statistics background to understand the problems.
https://blog.ons.gov.uk/2022/08/01/how-many-people-died-in-the-uks-recent-heatwave/
Time:
Scientists studying how the human brain keeps track of time have come up with a theory that neurons in the hippocampus thought to represent temporal information are also responsible for sticking our memories together in the right sequence.
According to the researchers, “... time cells in the human brain are ‘multi-dimensional,’ capable of encoding information in relation to time but also responding to different kinds of sensory information or stimuli.
It’s possible, the team thinks, that the multi-dimensional behaviour of these time neurons might be what records the ‘what’, ‘where’, and ‘when’ of experiences, stitching elements together to make up coherent memories from a jumble of inputs.”
https://www.sciencealert.com/time-cells-in-the-human-brain-encode-the-flow-of-time-scientists-say
Pictures:
Two nice landscape pictures from the Smithsonian Magazine this week.
The first is of the Byodo-In Temple in Hawaii. It is a replica of a similar temple in Japan. Very relaxing!
https://photocontest.smithsonianmag.com/photocontest/detail/byodo-in-temple-7/
The second is a picture of Lake Tahoe taken after the sun has just set on a windless evening. Another relaxing view!
https://photocontest.smithsonianmag.com/photocontest/detail/sunset-stillness/
And one meteor picture. A great picture of one of the Geminid meteors taken from the Blue Moon Valley, Yunnan, China...
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap221216.html
Quotes:
Two quotes from Science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke.
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
“How inappropriate to call this planet Earth when it is clearly Ocean.”
Scanner:
Astronomers find that two exoplanets may be mostly water
https://phys.org/news/2022-12-montreal-astronomers-exoplanets.html
SpaceX reveals ‘Starshield’ satellite project for national security use
https://www.space.com/spacex-starshield-satellite-internet-military-starlink
The world is going to lose the leap second. Here’s why
https://www.sciencealert.com/the-world-is-going-to-lose-the-leap-second-heres-why
The growing importance of small satellites in modern warfare: what are the options for small countries?
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4492/1
Bron-Yr-Aur, Machynlleth, Wales
Led Zeppelin wrote some of their most iconic songs at this little 18th-century Welsh cottage.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/bron-yr-aur
Scientists solve 100-year-old mystery about how plants took root in land
https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-solve-100-year-old-mystery-about-how-plants-took-root-in-land
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
18 December 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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