WINDING DOWN
An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week's net and technology news
by Alan Lenton
There was rejoicing in the corridors of schools of this country as it was announced that the education IT quango 'BECTA' is being abolished by the new government as a cost cutting measure. I used to be the chairman of the governing board of the local primary school. I hated BECTA. Vastly overpaid, they were in cosy with the computer suppliers and would never, ever, recommend any open source software or anything by small suppliers. They once negotiated a 'deal' with Microsoft that forced schools to pay Microsoft for Windows licenses on all computers in a school, whether they ran Windows or not.
Goodbye and good riddance to them and their 220,000 UK pounds a year (about US$318,000) chief executive.
A couple of years ago I introduced the Scanner section so I could give you urls for stuff that I didn't have room to mention in the main part of Winding Down. The problem is that I now find that there is more than I can fit in the Scanner section! So, we now have another section 'Snarks', which carries headlines, but no urls. Just look through it, and if something looks interesting to you (we all have different interests) then you can hunt for it by putting the item into your fav search engine to find out more.
This is all part of a nice problem - there is a lot more going on, and it's more spread out than it was when I first started this award winning publication, so there's a lot more bits to cover. 'Award winning' do I hear you ask? Of course. Only last week I awarded myself a large Gin & Tonic for finishing the edition on time...
Finally, lots of brownie points and gold stars to GlaxoSmithKline for their decision last week to open to the public the designs behind 13,500 chemical compounds that it said may be capable of inhibiting the parasite that causes malaria. Hopefully this will encourage - perhaps force would be a better word - the other big pharma companies to follow suit with drug patents they may hold for malaria and other third world scourges!
Shorts:
Well, last week's lead off piece about the birth of science was somewhat more contentious than I expected! The original author, Bob Parks, had letters arguing that science started when it was discovered how to make fire. Parks made a valid point that the origin of firemaking is not dateable, whereas we do accurately know the date of the eclipse that Thales of Miletus explained. Additionally I would suggest that the ability to create fire is technology, not science. While most technology these days is based on science, it doesn't have to be. It can be based on chance discoveries, folklore, common usage, etc.
In addition WD reader Jaap Sperling also wrote in, taking issue with the calculation of the age of science. He pointed out, "...I haven't done the maths, but I'm sure that without a year 0, the year in which something turns xxx5 years old is not a year ending in 5 if it began "BCE". Secondly, was it on 28 May 595 BC then it will be around the 9th of June (remember the 11 days they stole from the Brits in 1752?). Of course, this might have been corrected for already..."
Actually it was a bumper post bag this week (two e-mails), because reader Occy forwarded me a newsletter about air and ocean logistics!
http://www.bobpark.org/
Are you worried about people snooping on what topics you are researching? If you are, then Google (who else) have just the service for you. SSL encrypted searches, which uses the same encryption you use to make online payments, to encrypt your search requests, and the results.
Personally, I make tracking what I'm working on more difficult by at least once a day opening my dictionary (The Oxford English Dictionary, of course) at random each day and picking the 14th full entry from the top to feed into Google :) However, I note that using the encrypted version of Google is an easy way to get searches on Google.com, rather than Google.co.uk. Note that the url is https://www.google.com - the 'www' is important. Forget it and you will get the unencrypted version!
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/21/google_search_ssl_encryption/
And talking about security, there were red faces all round at IBM this week after it was discovered that the USB sticks they handed out at the IBM AusCERT security conference were virus infected! IBM didn't say which virus it was, just that most scanners would detect and neutralize it. They did say that it first appeared in 2008, so it's pretty old. In the mean time, IBM are asking the recipients to send their USB sticks back.
Being given infected USB sticks seems to be something of a hazard at AusCERT conferences. In 2008 the Australian telco, Telstra managed to dish out infected USB drives. Maybe they were seeing if the attendees were really paying attention, or just going for the freebies? Just checking, so to speak.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/21/ibm_usb_malware_snafu/
I see the US government's uber-blue-sky research organization DARPA believes in covering all bases. At the same time as developing tools to get round block lists and copyright restrictions, it is also working on stealthed secure communications over the Internet. Then, of course there is SMITE, described in last week's edition of this magnificent newsletter. A month or so ago I also mentioned a DARPA project called RUM - Remote Underground Munitions.
I think they must have some sort betting pool going to see who can get the wackiest idea and name/initials past the bean counters...
http://www.informationweek.com/news/government/security/showArticle.jhtml?article
ID=225200088&cid=nl_tw_security_2010-05-26_t
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/21/darpa_vs_block_lists_dpi/
I noticed a piece in 'The Register' (always a good read for techies, by the way) to the effect that Zappos.com's sister site - 6pm.com - managed to lose a cool US$1.6 million when a blunder in the site's pricing engine caused it to sell some of the product line at a mere US$49.95 over night. I'd never heard of Zappos.com so out of curiosity I took a look at their site. Sheesh! No wonder they lost so much money, they sell high priced shoes and accessories to brand junkies with more money than sense. My favorite ludicrous item was a pair of 'Mosley Tribes' Cheyne Polarized sunglasses for an eye watering US$325.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/24/zappos_6pm_pricing_blunder/
http://www.zappos.com/search/sunglasses/filter/hide:productTypeFacet/%22Eyewear
%22/category
Facet/%22Eyewear%22/subCategoryFacet/%22Sunglasses%22/
personalityFacet/%22Sport%22/sort/price/desc
Google's PacMan logo game, which I reported on last week, was so popular that it is now permanently available here <http://www.google.com/pacman/>. One authority has calculated that it cost US employers a massive 4.8 million hours of employee work time (about 549 years). That comes out at about of US$120 million in lost productivity at an average of US$25/hour. Not bad for a small freebie logo game! Nice to see that a truly innovative game can still pac them in, 30 years later!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/10153286.stm
Spare a chortle for 'Wired' magazine. Always one to be first onto the bandwagon, they have started producing an edition for Apples iPad reader/tablet/oversized phone/thingie/whatever. Since it's designed for the iPad, it was decided to produce a video advertising and showing how to use the Wired reader app. (Written manuals are so uncool, you understand...)
Unfortunately, the 'video' comes as flash file. Why unfortunately? Because the iPad doesn't, and according the Apple CEO, Steve Jobs, never will, support Flash players. Still you can play it on any smart phone running Google's Android operating system! Oh, and the Wired issue costs US$5 to buy and read...
http://www.physorg.com/news194092048.html
I see the Murdoch empire is moving slowly but surely to a position of self extinction. Not content with their plan to start charging for reading content, they also putting up search walls around the Times and Sunday Times. This means that nothing other than their front pages will appear on Google. These days a lot of news is written by freelancers, so I suspect that one of the key things for the paper is going to be the haemorrhaging of freelancers. After all, how can you build up a reputation as a hard hitting journalist if no one can find your stories?
There's also the problem that if your stories aren't indexed by any search engine, how will anyone know that you have them? Most people only use one of the main search engines (I use Google), they don't even use a second engine, and they are certainly not going to go and use some sort of special Murdoch media engine (Murdoogle?).
Those who the gods wish to destroy...
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/search_wall_for_uk_times_
2nUoLywlXq1RPPUIPSPLbJ
Homework:
'The Atlantic' has an interesting, and short, piece about the distribution of smart people in urban areas, and its implications. 'Smart' in this case is defined as having a college degree, and the research is unusual, in that it looks at the geographical locations of the degree holders. As you would expect, San Francisco, and New York are well out in front with 7,031 and 6,357 college degree holders/square mile, respectively.
And a nice little extra - you can down load the spread sheet on which researcher, Rob Pitingolo, based his analysis and draw your own conclusions directly from the data. Clearly Mr Pitingolo is not a climate scientist!
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/05/the-density-of-smart-people/57384/
Ars Technica has an interesting summary of an article in the 'Journal of Applied Psychology', about how people handle clashes between their religious beliefs and science which contradicts those beliefs. It seems that few people want to be seen as anti-science, and so a variety of reasons for discounting scientific research that goes against beliefs are found. Common ones include scientists corrupted by industry (anti-vaccination advocates*), and the topic isn't one that is amenable to scientific analysis (only lab work is science, which rules out evolution, geology, and astronomy for starters.)
The particular experiment under discussion is one that involves presenting a group of college students with scientific material abut a topic (in this case homosexuality) and then finding out how they cognitively handled it. Probably the most fascinating result was that subjects on both sides of the debate came away with their views on the subject strengthened! The article is well worth a read, and make some useful points about the applicability of the experiment.
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/05/when-science-clashes-with-belief-
make-science-impotent.ars
'The Space Review' has an article on the Galaxy 15 'zombie' satellite that is currently drifting around out of control in a definitely ungeosynchronous orbit amid other communications satellites. The article takes a look at the general problems with debris of one sort and another in this highly congested and very valuable band of space. It also covers the problems of electromagnetic interference, which is becoming a problem within the orbit. Finally looks a few possible solutions to these problems, which, judging from the present situation can only get worse if nothing is done. A good solid read for anyone interesting in these issues.
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1634/1
Geek Toys:
Remember the 3TB hard drives I told you all about last week? Well here's a little something to back them up to. Hitachi Maxwell have just demonstrated a 50TB capacity LTO-class tape which you will be able to use to back up no less than 16 of the hard drives to! Way to go, but make sure that you can store the cartridges properly or else your digitized complete collect of all Tops bubblegum cards issued in the 20th Century will become as nothing!
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/24/hitach_maxell_perp_tape/
Snarks:
The EU is planning stronger data protection and copyright laws... Italian police find dossiers on 'enemies' in a raid of Scientology offices in Turin... Tomorrow (31st May) is QuitFaceBookDay... Dell have jumped into the tablet/mobile phone fray with a mini - 5" - touchscreen device... PC shipments are up 20%, fueled by consumer demand for machines capable of running Windows 7... The US Dept of Justice is making moves to start an inquiry into Apple's hold over the digital music business... Dell are begging the new UK government not to give the National Health Service IT project the chop... The USAF's hypersonic X-51A Scramjet broke the records for hypersonic flight with a three minute Mach 6 flight... Researchers uncovered a database containing 44 million stolen gaming credentials... Bagpipes scare off sewer rats...
Scanner:
IBM patents turning off car engines when the lights are red
http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p
=1&u=/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=%2220100125402%22.
PGNR.&OS=DN/20100125402&RS=DN/20100125402
Interview with GoogleTV's top engineer
http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=224900708&pgno=1
UK.gov issues death warrant for ID cards
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/27/id_cards_bye_then/
Glaxo offers free access to potential malaria cures
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/jan/20/glaxo-malaria-drugs-public-domain
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703341904575266583403844888.html
NBC says "No" to the iPad, wants people to pay
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/nbc_says_no_to_ipad_wants_people_to_pay.php
Acknowledgements
Thanks to readers Barb, Fi, Jaap, Occy, and to Slashdot's daily newsletter for drawing my attention to material used in this issue.
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 Spamato spam filter...
Alan Lenton
alan@ibgames.com
30 May, 2010
Alan Lenton is an on-line games designer, programmer and sociologist, the order of which depends on what he is currently working on! His web site is at http://www.ibgames.net/alan.
Past issues of Winding Down can be found at http://www.ibgames.net/alan/winding/index.html.
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