Winding Down
An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week's net, technology, science and other news
by Alan Lenton
28 May 2023
Just a short issue this week, since it’s a holiday weekend!
In spite of that we cover an excellent essay on Artificial Intelligence, not to mention satellite problems, and food innovations that came into existence because of war. There’s also a note about the money in unused transport passes in London.
The pictures are some gorgeous aerial photographs of all sort of things, especially urban areas like London and New York, and the quote is from Catherine Deneuve.
Finally the Scanner section points to material on inactive Google accounts, farmers/crops/solar panels, an ICANN proposal, electric two-wheelers, a Van Gogh painting, and Tesla photographs...
Enjoy!
Alan Lenton
Publishing schedule: Next issue will be published on 4 June.
Credits: Thanks to Fi for editing, correcting errors, etc.
Essays:
There’s been lots of stuff written about Artificial Intelligence (AI) recently, especially since the release of ChatGPT. The bulk of it is either terrified about what it means for the future, or glibly triumphal. Fortunately, Neil Saunders, Senior Lecturer in Mathematics, University of Greenwich has written an excellent essay on the issue in The Conversation. Key take away? We need to stop treating AI like it was a human!
A brilliant essay – Highly recommended.
https://theconversation.com/evolution-is-making-us-treat-ai-like-a-human-and-we-need-to-kick-the-habit-205010
Astronomy and Cosmology:
Space Insider has a useful little piece about problems with the plethora of satellites orbiting our planet. As they move across the sky the light reflected from them appears on long timed astronomy photographs as bright streaks. It’s bad enough at the moment, but there are an estimated total of 400,000 satellites planned for low Earth orbit in the coming years.
As the article points out, it’s a classic case of the ‘tragedy of the commons’.
https://www.space.com/satellite-megaconstellations-astronomy-dark-skies
Food:
Atlas Obscura has a piece on food innovations that came about through war. I suspect everyone knows about spam, though you may not know that the US Army bought 150 million pounds of the stuff during World War II. Also invented during that war were microwave ovens (by accident) and air fryers, not to mention freeze dried fruit, Cheetos and instant coffee!
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/military-food-inventions
Money:
Wow! Transport for London (TfL) who run the busses, railways, and tubes (aka subways for USA readers) are sitting on a massive £400 million in Oyster Travel Cards! Since it became possible to just tap in and out with your bank card the bulk of travellers switched to that – one less card to carry around. Relatively few Oyster Card owners have bothered to claim back the remaining money, resulting in this windfall.
In case you are wondering why people haven’t claimed their money back, it’s probably because the average balance left on unused cards is a mere £3.46.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-50304437
Pictures:
Lots of pictures this week. Take a look at Jason Hawkes online portfolio of aerial imagery. It’s fantastic – I wish I could take pictures like that! Warning – The urban ones are best looked at full screen.
https://www.jasonhawkes.com/Stock-Links/thumbs
Quotes:
This week’s quote comes from the French actress Catherine Deneuve:
“Why would I talk about the men in my life? For me, life is not about men.”
– talking about writing her biography in 1997.
Scanner:
Potentially serious issues with Google’s announced inactive accounts deletion policy
https://lauren.vortex.com/2023/05/16/google-inactive-accounts-deletion
Farmers may not have to choose between crops and solar panels
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/farmers-may-not-have-to-choose-between-crops-and-solar-panels-180981495/
Red Alert: ICANN and Verisign proposal would allow any government in the world to seize domain names
https://freespeech.com/2023/04/19/red-alert-icann-and-verisign-proposal-would-allow-any-government-in-the-world-to-seize-domain-names/
Electric two-wheelers are set to scoot past EVs in road race
https://www.theregister.com/2023/05/18/electric_scooters_vehicles_asia/
Van Gogh painting gets a new name thanks to an eagle-eyed chef
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/van-gogh-red-cabbages-onions-garlic-180982155/
Tesla workers shared images from car cameras, including “scenes of intimacy”
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/04/tesla-workers-shared-images-from-car-cameras-including-scenes-of-intimacy/
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
28 May 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.
If you have any questions or comments about the articles on my web site, click here to send me email.