The weekly newsletter for Fed2 by ibgames

EARTHDATE: July 17, 2011

Official News page 12


WINDING DOWN

An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week's net and technology news
by Alan Lenton

We don't really have monsoons here in the UK, it just rains all the time, Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter. Except when you are at work, then it's hot, hot, hot, and we don't have aircon, because it's never hot in the UK.

It's raining now, but I suspect the sun will indeed shine tomorrow!

OK - this week. With the advent of Google+, I thought it might be time to do a somewhat more extended piece on Google. In the event that became a roundup of smaller pieces...


Roundup: Google

Google+ has only being going for a couple of weeks (and yes, I got an invite in the first couple of days <smirks>) and for most of that time it was restricted access by invitation only. Despite that it is already estimated to have passed the 10 million user mark, and be well on the way to the first 20 million.

But the current incarnation of Google+ is only the start. Google has ambitious plans to use its expertise and information to become a people orientated service that makes its social, computing and search tools a seamless whole.

My take? I like it. And at last it looks like I might see the end of my LinkedIn account, the quality of which has massively deteriorated in recent years.

Here are a selection of useful articles about Google+. I'd especially recommend you read the Wired article. It's fascinating, it's absolutely fascinating, and sets things in context, even if it is a bit longer than what I usually recommend. The tips for beginners is also well worth a gander when you first start.
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/06/inside-google-plus-social
http://www.cio.com/article/685930/10_Google_Tips_for_Beginners?source=IFWNLE_nlt_daily_2011-07-16
http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20078672-264/study-google-population-explodes-to-10-million/
http://33bits.org/2011/07/03/google-and-privacy-a-roundup/
http://www.apnews.com/ap/db_45587/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=NTJY0Xmg&src=cat&dbid=45587&dbname=Headlines&detailindex=0

The main problem with social networks is privacy. That's PRIVACY. Facebook are notorious for their inability to handle privacy. Not really surprising, since they are only a social networking company, and the only way they can really make money is to invade their users' privacy and sell users to marketers. AOL tried this model in the '90s, and look where they are now. Mind you, Google have also got their fingers burned in the past. Remember the Buzz affair? It was a would be social application that revealed who its members had been chatting to and mailing. I suspect Google will not have to go down the privacy invasion route, because Google+ is not the whole thing, it's part of a system, and the whole is greater than the parts - ergo, no part has to make the money by itself - the money comes from the whole.

Google have clearly learned from the Buzz affair and Google+'s accounts have extensive and finely grained privacy settings. Some people won't like the rule that you have to give your real name, but that's OK with me - there are plenty of places on the net where you can sound off anonymously, thus protecting yourself, should you so wish. Google+ is for real people. As Lauren Weinstein points out in his blog entry "Google+'s 'Identity' Controversy: No Easy Answers", it's early days, and as Google+ grows we may be able to get some answers to what is an extremely thorny question.
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000880.html
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000882.html

Finally, I'd like to draw your attention to a post from Google's Data Liberation Front announcing that they've just delivered a Google takeout. The Front are dedicated to making it easier to take your data in and out of Google. Currently they've fixed it so that in one fell swoop you can get data from Buzz, Contacts and Circles, Picasa Web Albums, Profile, and Stream at the same time.

As the guy in the video said. "We believe that if you can get your data out, we have to work harder to want to make you stay in." Spot on, but where did they get those clothes?
http://dataliberation.blogspot.com/2011/06/data-liberation-front-delivers-google.html

Actually, I forgot, that wasn't the last bit on Google. This week I gave a talk on 'Working for Startups' to Reading Geek Night. I actually stepped in to the slot when the organizer put out an urgent plea on Google+ for speakers at very short notice. The guys from Reading ( Reading, UK that is) were really nice and they even extended my 20 minutes to 30 minutes after I ran out of time. It wasn't my fault I ran over, honest guv, I just didn't have an opportunity to time it properly. I now have a Reading Geek circle on Google+ :)
http://readinggeeknight.com/event/21/ (I've no idea where the glasses came from!)


Shorts:

Living in Europe and thinking of storing your personal data with a US based cloud, like, for instance, Microsoft's Office 365? Perhaps you should consider carefully what you are storing. Last month, at the London launch of Office 365, Gordon Frazer, managing director of Microsoft UK, admitted that cloud data, regardless of where it's actually stored, can be obtained by US authorities using the Patriot Act.

It's fairly obvious, if you think about it. If it's a US company storing your data, it doesn't matter where they store it, they are bound by the laws of their own country - in this case the USA. However, this is the first time anyone from a US based business has confirmed the fact. US citizens have some protection (though, I suspect, not as much as they should have) against arbitrary seizing of their data. Non-US citizens have zilch, and no requirement that they even be informed...
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/igeneration/microsoft-admits-patriot-act-can-access-eu-based-cloud-data/11225

Still over this side of the pond, here in the UK Big Brother Watch has been using Freedom of Information requests to discover that more than 900 police personnel were caught illegally accessing information in police databases in the last three years. And that only represents the ones that were caught! Offenses ranged from accessing info about a neighbor, passing on info about an ex-wife, to disclosing information about the supply of class A drugs to third parties.

Of course this doesn't include the more recent stuff about newspapers buying this sort of information off policemen...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/07/12/police_data_breaches_900_over_3_years/


Homework:

In a remote cave in West Texas the setting for the 10,000 year clock is nearing completion, while the construction of the clock itself is proceeding apace. It's a pretty ambitions project - a clock that will run non-stop without human intervention for 10,000 years.

The clock will be mainly fabricated from stainless steel, with ceramic bearings, and draw its power from the temperature difference between the cave interior and the outside world. It looks like a nifty bit of engineering, although I have my doubts whether stainless steel can last 10,000 years without at least sagging under its own weight.

Still, I sure the engineers have looked into that. Maybe the 10,000 year clock is a device whose time has come!
http://www.gizmag.com/10000-year-clock/19001/

Difficult to decide whether put this into homework or geek toys! It's called the Universe Sandbox, and it's a simulation program to allow you to play with gravity at the biggest levels - that of the universe. You can build objects ranging from asteroids through to galaxies, and watch what happens when they collide. Brilliant physics, great fun, and Newton's Law Rules OK!
http://universesandbox.com/

The Eden Project, located in an old clay mine in the depths of Cornwall, England, is by any count, an impressive piece of work. A vast collection of geodesic type domes holds over a million plants. I went there with some friends a few years back, and found the engineering stunning. I was less impressed by the plants.

I couldn't really figure out why until we got to the tropical dome. As it happens, when I was a child we lived for several years in Singapore in what was then a small clearing in the jungle. It took only a few minutes to realize what was wrong with the artificially created rainforest at the project - no noises (except screaming kids). Their rainforest has no animals, no insects, no birds... Sad, but that's apparently the only way they can preserve it as it is.

Still it's well worth a visit - but you also need to go and see two other nearby attractions.

The first is the Lost Gardens of Heligan, a fabulous outdoor tropical garden that relies on the local microclimate to sustain itself. The gardens once belonged to the manor of the local aristo, but they required a lot of staff to keep the estate up. At the start of the First World War the staff all signed up with the army - there is a room which you can visit and see where they all signed their names before setting off. No one came back when the war finished, they were all dead, together with millions of others. With no one to tend the ornamental gardens the estate deteriorated and the plants ran riot.

Now they have been rescued by volunteers and permanent staff and made available to the public. I highly recommend a trip to see it - it's a functioning micro-economy as well as an amazing place - but be prepared to do plenty of walking.

The other place to go, especially if you are a geek, is the Telegraph Museum at Porthcurno. Before the Internet there was telegraph, and Porthcurno is the place where all the cables came ashore. Indeed it's now the place where all the undersea fibre comes ashore. In World War Two, the whole establishment was moved into caves and tunnels under the cliffs, lest the Germans bomb it. It was through the telephone exchange here that Roosevelt and Churchill talked to one another over secure phone links.

The cave's now a museum open to the public, with the most amazing collection of Victorian and 20th Century telegraph instruments, displays and paraphernalia. When I visited, there was a guy who had actually worked there in WWII, and he showed me the whole system from start to finish. I suspect I was the only person with any knowledge of what was involved who had been there that day. When I finally emerged, blinking in the sunlight, my hands covered in that blue ink stuff they used to use on the tapes, I found the rest of my party had been waiting for over half an hour for me to catch up. Ooops!
http://www.gizmag.com/eden-project-largest-greenhouse-in-the-world/19177/
http://www.heligan.com/
http://www.porthcurno.org.uk/


Geek Toys:

At last! A computer heatsink/fan system that won't seize up with a pile of grungy fluff after a year or so... It's a special design of fan that bonds onto the top of the hot running chip. The fan itself is a sort of spiral design (the article has a picture) that pulls in cool air from above at its center, picks up the heat from the bottom, and expels it via the channels in the spiral 'blades'. It's very efficient, and because there are no stationary heat sink fins, there is nothing for the fluff to pile up against.

But that's not all, the device scales up, and because it's more efficient, the inventor thinks that it might be possible to get something in the region of a 30% reduction in power usage for larger versions in air conditioners! Now that is well worth a little further research.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/07/12/air_bearing_heat_exchanger/


Scanner:

DOJ: We can force you to decrypt that laptop
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20078312-281/doj-we-can-force-you-to-decrypt-that-laptop/

Former CIA Director: Build a new Internet to improve cybersecurity
http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20110706_1137.php?oref=topnews

It's time to end the war on salt
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=its-time-to-end-the-war-on-salt


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
17 July, 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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