Winding Down

An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week's net, technology, science and other news
by Alan Lenton
9 July 2023

A mixed bag for you all this week! We start with material on the COVID-19 clinical research ‘Recovery trial’, then move on to the best use of an AI chatbot I’ve seen so far, and take a look at the Antikythera Mechanism. Then there is the matter of less alcohol in the traditional British pint of beer, and a discussion of the safety of space tourism in the light of the Titan sub disaster.

Lots of pictures this week – the Moon, Saturn, black Londoners, Japanese art, and a volcano... And the quote is from George Orwell.

Finally Scanner contains pointers to material on Starlink, the hottest day on record, police cracking encrypted phones, the ‘Y’ chromosome, radioactive street paving, and the problems with lab grown meat.

Enjoy!

Alan Lenton

 

Next issue will be published on 23 July, because next Sunday I’m going to the Chiswick Cheese Market!

 

Credits: Thanks to Fi for editing, correcting errors, etc.

Essays:

The Conversation have a great story about how the Recovery Trial became the largest COVID-19 trial and completely transformed COVID-19 treatment. Together a clinical trialist, the director of Wellcome, who happened to meet on a Number 18 London bus, and a specialist in emerging infectious diseases, got together to use the UK National Health Service database and used the best available scientific methods available figure out which of the suggested medicines actually worked.

It’s a fantastic story – Highly recommended!
https://theconversation.com/the-inside-story-of-recovery-how-the-worlds-largest-covid-19-trial-transformed-treatment-and-what-it-could-do-for-other-diseases-184772

AI:

I’d like to tell you a story about a useful way of using AI chatbots! I think you will laugh as much as I did. It’s the story of the Jolly Roger Telephone Company and the fightback against evil scammers and telemarketers. For a mere $23.80 a year, you can arrange for such scum to be connected to one of the company’s chatbots.

You provide the number of the phone you want to protect and specify which chatbot, and the Jolly Roger Telephone company does the rest. Fabulous! (And you can listen in!)
https://www.theregister.com/2023/07/03/jolly_roger_telephone_company/

Archaeology:

The Smithsonian has an interesting article about the ancient Greek device called the Antikythera Mechanism. It’s the basis for the Archimedes Dial in ‘Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny’. The Antikythera Mechanism is dated at more than 2,000 years old and seems to be a clock-like device for charting the cosmos, predicting events like eclipses, and tracking the movement of the sun and the moon.

Unfortunately we don’t have all the bits, and part of what we do have is badly corroded. This is because we found the thing in the shipwreck of an ancient Greek trading vessel. Take a look at the URL, it’s an interesting summary about what we have discovered about this, so far, unique device.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-real-history-behind-archimedes-dial-in-indiana-jones-and-the-dial-of-destiny-180982435/

Booze:

Bad news for the boozers amongst my readers... The alcohol in your drink is not what it used to be! It seems that the brewers have been surreptitiously lowering the amount of alcohol in your beer, while keeping the prices up. Government regulations specify that all alcohol products above 1.2% must advertise their strength on the label. However, there is a clause that says the value only has to be within 0.5% of the true value.

So beer producers can reduce the strength a little, but not reveal that on the label. The article cites the case example of Molson Cours who reduced the strength of Carling from 4% to 3.7% but carried on marketing and labelling it as 4%!
https://theconversation.com/how-drinkflation-affects-the-price-of-your-pint-209167

Swearing:

It seems the F-word, though frowned upon by anyone in authority, is, nonetheless one of, if not the, most versatile in the English language. The use of the word goes back a very long way in history. One of the earliest written uses known is by a monk writing in the margin of a manuscript in 1528. I suspect it was in verbal use even before that.

Inews.co.uk has an fascinating discussion on the topic.
https://inews.co.uk/opinion/ducking-hell-f-word-most-versatile-english-language-2396454

Space:

Space.com has a very alarming discussion on the implications of the Titan sub disaster for the space tourist industry. It seems that both are, to put it mildly, extremely lightly regulated, if at all. In both cases there were, for instance, no independent certifications for ferry fare-paying passengers.

How long I wonder, before we get a similar disaster in the space tourist milieu, and what, if any, steps are going to be taken to ensure the sub disaster isn’t repeated?
https://www.space.com/titan-submersible-tragedy-lessons-space-tourism

Pictures:

As is traditional, when the Moon is nearer to the Earth in its elliptical orbit there are plenty of pictures to choose from. Space.com has a reasonable selection – including the obligatory one that also includes the Statue of Liberty!
https://www.space.com/buck-moon-supermoon-photos
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-66091619

I love the Spoon & Tamago site. It has provided so many goodies in the past, but this time they have surpassed themselves with pictures of some of the 120 artworks throughout the Tokyo offices of GREE! My favourite? The fifth floor pictures!
https://www.spoon-tamago.com/gree-tokyo-office-art-project/

The Londonist has a selection of vintage photographs of black Londoners, some dating back to 1933. Interesting snapshots of a bygone era...
https://londonist.com/london/art-and-photography/black-history-london-photos-vintage

Moving forward in time, the James Webb Space Telescope has just produced the best image I’ve seen yet of Saturn and its rings. A classic picture.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/see-the-james-webb-telescopes-first-image-of-saturn-and-its-rings-180982479/

And finally, no selection of pictures would be complete without a picture of a volcano. So, here is one of the Fagradalsfjall volcano in Iceland, which is likely to erupt soon.
https://boingboing.net/2023/07/06/live-webcams-are-tracking-the-fagradalsfjall-volcano-in-iceland-which-might-erupt-soon.html

Quotes:

“All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.”

George Orwell in the book ‘Animal Farm’

Scanner:

SpaceX Starlink satellites had to make 25,000 collision-avoidance maneuvers in just 6 months – and it will only get worse
https://www.space.com/starlink-satellite-conjunction-increase-threatens-space-sustainability

It’s official: Monday was the hottest day on Earth since records began
https://www.sciencealert.com/its-official-monday-was-the-hottest-day-on-earth-since-records-began

Cops’ total pwnage of ‘secure’ EncroChat nets 6,500+ arrests, €740m in funds – so far
https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/27/encrochat_eu_arrests/

The Y chromosome is vanishing. A new sex gene could be the future of men
https://www.sciencealert.com/the-y-chromosome-is-vanishing-a-new-sex-gene-could-be-the-future-of-men

Florida moves forward on radioactive road paving plan as Gov. DeSantis signs new law
https://www.npr.org/2023/06/30/1185280180/florida-roads-radioactive-desantis-signs-law

Lab-Grown meat has a big problem very few people know about
https://www.sciencealert.com/lab-grown-meat-has-a-big-problem-very-few-people-know-about

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 July 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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