WINDING DOWN
An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week's net and technology news
by Alan Lenton
Apologies for the absence of an edition last week - bug fixing has to come first, though, especially when there is a possibility that it could cause data corruption!
I was pleased to see that the data and voice recorders from the Air France plane that went down in the mid-Atlantic a couple of months ago have been recovered and appear to be OK. At least there is a chance of finding out what went wrong. By the way, have you ever wondered why they don't make the whole plane from the tough stuff they make the recorders out of? It's because the plane would be too heavy to take off. Come to think of it, even if wasn't too heavy, the people inside would still be mashed up by the deceleration forces when it hit the ground/water/etc even if the plane survived.
OK, that's enough of crashes. There's quite a lot in this edition, something for (nearly) everyone, you might say, so let's get down to it, people...
Shorts:
You've read the books, you've seen the movies... But, are you really, really, prepared to handle a Zombie Apocalypse? No? Then the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), one of the most respected public health organizations in the world, has just the information for you!
Of course, it just so happens that the preparations needed for zombie apocalypses are very similar to those for more mundane apocalypses - earthquakes, volcanoes, and the like, not to mention non-apocalyptic disasters like tornados and flooding.
Someone at the CDC has come up with a very neat, and amusing, way of getting people to prepare for the hurricane and tornado seasons - well worth a read, even if you live outside an area likely to affected - or should that be infected! Definitely recommended.
http://emergency.cdc.gov/socialmedia/zombies_blog.asp
Here in the sleepy UK, we don't tend to have such natural apocalyptic events, but the politicians do their best to make up for that. Currently they have, in spite of complete ignorance about the topic, issued a set of regulations on the use of cookies.
The Information Commissioner, who is responsible for enforcing the regs, has issued a fatuous advice document for those trying to figure out what they are supposed to be implementing. At least they had the grace to call it a draft. It looks like it was written by a bureaucrat whose only knowledge of the subject was a quick scan of allaboutcookies.org. It's a pity they didn't take the trouble to read it properly. Still the result does make clear that no one in any government organization knows anything about the subject.
Doesn't exactly fill one with confidence on the government's ability to run the economy...
http://blogs.wsj.com/tech-europe/2011/05/09/confusion-surrounds-u-k-cookie-guidelines/
http://www.allaboutcookies.org/
The west may prefer leaders who have a 'classical' (aka legal) background, but interestingly not everyone takes that view. I already knew that China's leadership group included several engineers, but I didn't realize that eight out of their top nine government officials are scientists or engineers. The president, Hu Jintao is a hydraulic engineer, and premier, Wen Jiabao is a geomechanical engineer, for instance.
By comparison, only 22 out of 535 members of the US Congress have science or engineering backgrounds, and only two could be considered to be experienced scientists or engineers! I can't even think of a single person with a science/engineering background in the UK's legislature, although it's possible there is someone keeping a low profile.
Maybe this is because we don't value science and engineering in our societies, and that reflects itself in what subjects children choose to take in college? Bill Gates had some interesting things to say about this in the Washington Post, which are worth a look.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/23/AR2007022301697.html?nav=rss_print/outlook
http://singularityhub.com/2011/05/17/eight-out-of-chinas-top-nine-government-officials-are-scientists/
And, talking about education, here's a warning for kids in the northern climes. Snow days are likely to become a thing of the past in the near future. And, no, it's not because of climate change. It's all the fault of the internet (of course). It seems that schools have finally realized that their teachers can conduct on-line classes when snow keeps their pupils away from school.
Of course there are problems. Not only will some children not have computers or internet access, but remote teaching requires a very different set of teacher skills to classroom teaching. You don't get any feedback from the class for a start. And, of course, there is the question of where the money will come from to pay for proper studio facilities and teacher training in the present economic climate? And what if internet connections are also out in some parts of the class catchment area?
Speaking as an adult, though, I think it's a nice idea that deserves to succeed.
http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-05-internet-days.html
I couldn't help a slight smirk when I read that France's official file-sharing monitoring firm has had its contract suspended after being hacked! France operates a three strikes rule, after which you get reported to a judge who can take fairly drastic action like cutting you off from the internet. That's another example of ignorant politicians making laws on issues they don't understand.
The only way you could enforce such a penalty is to imprison the person in a Faraday Cage! As long as people have access to a computer, or even a modern phone, they will have access to the internet...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/05/17/french_piracy_monitor_hacked/
Which reminds me, I see that the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is seeking to build a more resilient cloud infrastructure. This reminds me of the original reason for the research to set up the internet, commissioned by DARPA forty years ago - to set up a resilient network capable of surviving attacks. The only difference is the original was to be capable of surviving nuclear attack, and the latter is to survive cyber attack. As the French say 'Plus ça change plus c'est la même chose' (The more things change, the more they stay the same). I wonder if that applies to surrendering as well?
http://www.informationweek.com/news/government/cloud-saas/229500774?cid=nl_TW_security_2011-05-18_text
Do you use Dropbox? I know a lot of people who do. It seems pretty safe and secure - the files are all encrypted when they are stored. All is not what it seems, though, as security researcher Christopher Soghoian has pointed out. Yes, it's true your files are encrypted. What they don't tell you, though, is that Dropbox allows its employees access to unencrypted copies of the users' encrypted data! My mum used to call this lying through omission. Pretty good description I think. Useful as Dropbox is, I would suggest you refrain from keeping anything confidential in it.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/05/16/dropbox_ftc_not_good_enough/
The bibliophiles among you will be aware that you can tell how bad a shape a book is in from its smell. They range from the newly printed smell of printers ink over a faint smell of saffron from the paper, with a slight sickly smell from the binding glue. Older books, especially if they've been stored for a while, have a definite musty smell. In the case of very rare books the smell of money overwhelms everything else.
Well, it turns out that the smell can be analyzed to determine the condition of a book without damaging it. This will help libraries with book preservation, which is an important, if generally unseen, activity. I have to approve of anything that helps keep books in good condition!
And Winding Down? Well that smells of a seriousness of purpose, with a hint of laughter, a touch of irreverence, the cutting edge of science, a dollop of sociology, and a whiff of politics. What this suggests is that the author is suffering an attack of synaesthesia!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/6554567/The-smell-of-old-books-analysed-by-scientists.html
Homework:
A classic example of how not to produce benchmark for programs surfaced late last month. Douglas Crockford, senior JavaScript architect at Yahoo! produced a new JavaScript benchmark program. For those of you who don't know, JavaScript is the computer language that does all the clever things in your browser for web sites. For instance, when you move your cursor over a word and get a drop down box, that's JavaScript at work.
His benchmark produced some interesting and unusual results, with Microsoft's upcoming IE 10 at the top and Google's Chrome at the bottom. Usually benchmarks give the results the opposite way round. Why was this? Well it appears that the benchmarks are measuring how long a program that Crockford considers to be a perfect JavaScript program would take.
Unfortunately, there is no one single best way to write any non-trivial program, in any language. In the case of JavaScript, the situation is made even worse by the fact that the language contains both brilliant and dire features for its proponents to use. Which bits are which is a matter of opinion.
The truth is that web users are not interested in a doubly theoretical benchmark - run against a theoretically 'best' program on a theoretical web site. What they want to know (if speed matters to them, and it seems it does, from a the data we have) is which browser gives the best performance on real world sites as they expect more and more rich media, from increasing powerful computers and portable devices.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/04/22/douglas_crockford_javascript_benchmark/
Two TED videos for you to look at this week. The first is by Sean Carroll about entropy. Don't be put off by the word, especially if you've tried to figure out what it means before, and failed to understand the concept. Sean's explanation is the best I have ever seen. Well worth a look.
The second video is Fiorenzo Omenetto talking about the new uses found for that most ancient and desirable of materials, silk. As always a fascinating talk (actually, I only tell you about the ones I find fascinating...) though I had to strain a bit, because I found his accent and talking speed a bit difficult. However, it was well worth the effort. Recommended.
http://www.ted.com/talks/sean_carroll_distant_time_and_the_hint_of_a_multiverse.html
http://www.ted.com/talks/fiorenzo_omenetto_silk_the_ancient_material_of_the_future.html
OK, your sums homework for this week is to predict what happens when you have a fully loaded 747-8 hurtling down the runway at 200 mph and something goes wrong with the engines, so you have to slam on the brakes to stop before the end of the runway, and you don't have any reverse thrust? When you've figured it out, you can test your prediction against what actually happened by viewing the video at the URL. No cheating, mind you. I will know and chastise you in the next issue if you peek before doing the sums!
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-20060716-71.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20&tag=nl.e703
Geek Toys:
This is not just for geeks - it's the world's first 100 watt equivalent LED replacement bulb! I don't know about you, but I -hate- the mercury ridden replacements for the old Edison invented incandescent light bulbs. Did you know you are supposed to evacuate the room until the vapor disperses if you break one? The sooner these new bulbs get into full global production, the better.
http://www.gizmag.com/worlds-first-100-watt-equivalent-led-replacement-bulb/18659/
I want one of these. Full stop. No arguments. It's a 'gear ring' from Kinekt. It's impossible to describe, you'll have to look at the picture. I don't, as a rule, wear rings even when I got married. But this is different, and I will make an exception for it, and wear it as my wedding ring...
http://www.kinektdesign.com/product-gear-ring.php
Did you know that the classic HP model 12c financial calculator has just turned 30 years old? You can still get one from HP's on-line store for a mere US$69.99,. Before you do so, though, unless you regularly program in the Forth language, I suggest that you pop along to the Wikipedia entry on Reverse Polish Notation.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/05/06/hp_12c_turns_30/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_Polish_notation
And while we are talking retro, take a look at acko.net's Termkit - but only if you are a Mac type at the moment - if you are a 'nix-head, you'll have to wait until it's been ported. The terminal gives you all the advantages of the windows metaphor with the power of the command line. I rather like the look of it - it beats my standard way of firing up an XWindow terminal every time Gnome comes up on my Linux desktop.
http://acko.net/blog/on-termkit
I see that the late Jerry Garcia's custom Alambic guitar is up for auction. If you missed picking up Jimi Hendrix's favorite guitar last Xmas, then this is a chance to get something similar. On the other hand it's probably a bit of overkill if all you want it for is to use it with Guitar Hero...
http://www.gizmag.com/lucky-13-alembic-guitar-from-grateful-deads-jerry-garcia-to-be-auctioned/18630/
http://www.gizmag.com/jimi-hendrix-favorite-guitar-for-sale/16966/
Finally, here's a really nice toy that the Canadians have been playing with for some time. No it's not the legendary stealth canoe, rumored to be the basis of their navy. It's Big Becky, a 4,000 ton boring machine that's just chomped its way through over 10 kilometers of rock at the Niagara Falls. It looks like great toy, but I'm not sure where I'd keep it. The tool shed is a little on the small side, you understand, but I'm sure I'll find something. Maybe I could leave it outside and claim it's a sculpture!
http://www.thestar.com/business/article/991036--massive-boring-machine-big-becky-emerges-from-under-niagara-falls?bn=1
Scanner:
World's servers process 9.57ZB of data a year
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9216481/World_s_servers_process_9.57ZB_of_data_a_year
What Carthage tells us about Amazon, Fukushima and the cloud
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/05/11/local_vs_global_cloud/
Mystery jet crash data recovered
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/europe/05/16/france.jet.crash/index.html
White House releases comprehensive Cyberspace policy
http://www.informationweek.com/news/government/policy/229500703?cid=nl_TW_security_2011-05-18_text
Facebook busted in clumsy smear on Google
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-05-12/facebook-busted-in-clumsy-smear-attempt-on-google/
Acknowledgements
Thanks to readers Barb, Fi, 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
22 May, 2011
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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