Winding Down
An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week's net, technology, science and other news
by Alan Lenton
23 April 2023
Just a short issue this week. It seemed like no one was doing very much at all, or at least not reporting on it! I managed to dig out a few interesting piece covering alerts, cloud computing, no interview hiring, accidental foods, and floating solar panels,. There’s pictures from the World Press Photo competition, and a quote from the late Kurt Vonnegut.
Scanner has URLs pointing to info on Microsoft/Twitter, fractures in space-time, the British economy, a super-capacitor, re-using a data centre’s heat, Canada’s polar bear jail, and Earth’s magnetic field.
Enjoy!
Alan Lenton
Publishing schedule: No issue for the next two weeks because we have two sequential holiday weekends in the UK. Next issue 14 May.
Credits: Thanks to Fi for editing, correcting errors, etc.
Alerts:
Calling all UK readers – keep a eye on your mobile phone at 3pm today, because that is when the UK government is testing its emergency alert service. That means you can ignore it, this time. Oh! And by the way, the rumours that it will go off every time a member of the UK government resigns or is kicked out of the cabinet are entirely false, probably.....
https://www.gov.uk/alerts
Essays:
I’d like to draw your attention to an excellent piece about the role of cloud computing by Rupert Goodwins in The Register. Basically he is arguing that rising, and ongoing, hosting costs, taken with a falling the costs of computing hardware – not to mention the difficulties in moving services to a different host – are going to change the way services are provided in the future.
A very interesting piece of analysis.
https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/20/column/
Employment:
The ‘Reasons to be Cheerful’ web site has a really fascinating piece on what is known as ‘No Interview Hiring’. I’d never heard of it before, but apparently it seems to be taking off. The idea is that instead of the lengthy hiring process involving CVs, interviews HR, tests, and the like, if you have a job going you give it to the first person who wants the job and can handle the requirements!
See what you think...
https://reasonstobecheerful.world/body-shop-open-hiring-no-resume-interview/
Food:
The Great British Chefs website has an interesting article on popular foods that were invented by accident. Fascinating – French Fries, Ice Lollies, Chocolate Chip Cookies, Worcestershire sauce, and Yoghurt, to name but a few. Fascinating stuff – take a look.
https://www.greatbritishchefs.com/features/foods-which-were-invented-by-accident
Solar Energy:
Are floating solar panels the future for clean energy? That’s the question this piece in the Smithsonian Magazine asks. Its answer is a fairly unequivocal yes. Basically its solution is to have solar panels covering 30% of the surface area of the world’s reservoirs. It’s an interesting idea, which could work, assuming the assuming the safe disposal of all those panels once they reach the end of their working life can be assured.
Take a look at the article and see what you think!
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/are-floating-solar-panels-the-future-of-clean-energy-production-180981830/
Pictures:
This week our selection of pictures is taken from the BBC website’s report on the World Press Photo competition. Sadly none of the pictures are very cheerful...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-65340265
Quotes:
This issue’s quote is from author the late Kurt Vonnegut who in 2006 replied to letters from school children with this advice:
“Make your soul grow.”
Read the background here:
https://boingboing.net/2023/04/19/kurt-vonneguts-2006-advice-to-high-schoolers-who-wrote-him-make-your-soul-grow.html
Scanner:
Microsoft drops Twitter from its advertising platform
https://mashable.com/article/microsoft-drops-twitter-from-advertising-platform
Faint gravitational waves may be from primordial fractures in space-time
https://www.space.com/gravitational-waves-fractures-space-time-early-universe
This one weird trick could fix the British economy
https://takes.jamesomalley.co.uk/p/free-the-paf
A novel ultramicro supercapacitor with ultrahigh charge storage capability
https://techxplore.com/news/2023-03-ultramicro-supercapacitor-ultrahigh-storage-capability.html
Heat from an Amazon Data Center is warming Dublin’s buildings
https://reasonstobecheerful.world/data-center-heat-green-energy/
Inside Canada’s polar bear jail
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/churchill-polar-bear-jail
NASA is tracking a huge, growing anomaly in Earth’s magnetic field
https://www.sciencealert.com/nasa-is-tracking-a-huge-growing-anomaly-in-earths-magnetic-field
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
16 April 2023
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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