Fed2 Star - the newsletter for the space trading game Federation 2

The weekly newsletter for Fed2
by ibgames

EARTHDATE: November 23, 2014

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WINDING DOWN

An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week’s net, technology and science news

by Alan Lenton

This week we bring you news of seismologists being acquitted of manslaughter in Italy, politicians and trolls, taxing Bitcoin, the downside of fitness bracelets, MUD – the first multi-player game, the Tau Zero Foundation, a speedy golf cart, a 300 mph maglev train, and a look at underground London (including a plug for Dave Aaronovitch’s book ‘Rivers of London’). If that’s not enough, then there are URLs pointing to governing the internet, the NSA, a pre-digital computer, Apple dumping txts, ISPs removing customers’ email encryption, and ethernet patents.

In case you’re wondering, no, there wasn’t an issue last week, but I’m hopeful that there will be an unbroken run through to Christmas. Not a lot to tell you about this week, but I managed to dig out a few items of interest. I hope you like them :)

Shorts:

Hurray! Common sense strikes back. An Italian court has cleared seismologists, who failed to predict the L’Aquila earthquake in 2009, of charges of manslaughter. The unfortunate element is that families of those who died in the quake are determined to appeal against the decision in a higher court. Some people just don’t seem to understand what the term ‘natural disaster’ means.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/11/11/italian_appeal_court_clears_seismologists_of_manslaughter/

Sometimes politicians make me want to bang my head against the monitor. They have an infallible habit of opening their mouths before putting their brains in gear especially when they have no idea what a can of worms they are opening. Take for instance our illustrious UK Justice Secretary, Chris Grayling. Following some well publicized nasty postings on the net, he announced that internet ‘trolls’ could face up to two years in jail. Yes, trolls was the word he used. And your definition of an internet troll, sir?

Talk about a slippery concept. Every year I’ve been using the internet the word troll has mutated to mean something different. But even if we could nail it down (pass me some jelly, a couple of six inch nails, a club hammer, and point me at a suitable wall), should posting a nasty comment about someone else be a jailable offense?

I’m sure in different circumstances, we would get sound bites about freedom of speech from Mr Grayling. After all, he is one of only 630 people in this country who have legal freedom of speech. As a member of Parliament he can’t be prosecuted for anything he says publicly in Parliament!

Of course these people are nasty. They get their kicks from their anti-social behaviour. People are understandably upset by their vileness. But that doesn’t mean we should lock them up. Doing so is the start of a slippery slope, as the founding fathers in the USA realized, to their eternal credit. I just wish we had something similar to the US Bill of Rights here in the UK.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/once-weve-decided-what-a-troll-is-then-we-can-work-out-if-they-need-jailing-9806761.html

And while we are on the subject of politicians, there are some things that are totally predictable. Like finding things to tax. And what’s the latest in the UK (and elsewhere, but not so blatantly)? Taxing Digital currencies, like Bitcoins! Our treasury thinks there are about UK£60 million in Bitcoin (nearly US$100 million) floating around in the UK economy. Actually, in terms of the budget of a Western economy, that’s pocket money, but it sounds like a lot, and no one is paying tax on it.

I suppose it’s nice to be vindicated, but I’ve always said that the end will come for unregulated digital currencies when they decide it’s popular enough to make it worth taxing. So here is a new prediction. The excuse for governments getting involved won’t be to give the state a cut of the proceeds. Perish the thought of such greed. No, it’ll be the struggle against terrorism!
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/11/04/treasury/

Are you one of these people who wear hi-tech fitness bracelets? Have you thought about the implications carefully? It’s not just that the companies monitoring your bracelet consider you a nice little earner – for them, not you, of course. Most people are aware of that, but did it ever occur to you that the data being collected by your bracelet might end up being subpoenaed in court? No? I thought not, but that’s already happening in Canada, and it’s only a matter of time before it happens elsewhere, so you need to think carefully. There may well be other implications you haven’t yet thought of..
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/11/18/wearables_enter_the_courtroom_worms_leap_out_of_cans/

Homework:

EuroGamer has an interesting piece on my old friend Richard Bartle. You probably haven’t heard of Richard before, but he is the designer and coder of the very first multi-player game – MUD. My game, Federation 2 is a direct descendant of MUD, and for a while I was a MUD archwiz on the Compunet copy of the game. That version was the first commercial multi-player game.

Many of the things Richard designed into that first game are still visible in its modern descendants like World of Warcraft. Take a look at the article, I’m sure anyone who has ever played a multi-player game will find it interesting.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-10-30-the-utopia-that-never-died

Things are a bit quiet on the news front this week, so, knowing that a lot of you are interested in space flight, I thought I would draw your attention to the Tau Zero Foundation, who describe themselves as a ‘global volunteer group of scientists, engineers, writers, and entrepreneurs working together to advance the goal of interstellar flight’.

Their site is well worth keeping an eye on, even if you can’t afford to join the foundation. They are doing good speculative work which needs doing before we get down to the nitty gritty of building an interstellar space ship.

I won’t live to see interstellar travel, but with any luck the children of my younger readers will!
http://www.tauzero.aero/

For Geeks:

I bet you thought that golf was a game for company executives and old fuddy duddies, didn’t you? Well take a look at Plum Quick Motors latest high speed golf cart – top speed 118 miles per hour – think again! I would suggest that at least a crash helmet is called for if you are driving this little baby.

Golf will never be the same again...
http://www.gizmag.com/plum-quick-motors-worlds-fastest-golf-cart/34766/

And while we are on the subject of speed – the Central Japan Railway Company looks like a good bet. It’s been working up it’s smart new maglev train (supported by magnetic levitation, and propelled by electromagnets), and on a recent trip with 100 railway enthusiasts managed to exceed 300 miles per hour. Given that the much hailed bullet trains only run at 200 miles per hour, this is a massive increase in speed. Go for it!
http://www.gizmag.com/japan-levitating-train-500-kmh/34827/

London:

All major cities have a lot of stuff underground. It’s an obvious place to put high speed transport links, for instance. London, though, has more than its fair share, which is a bit surprising when you realize that London is built on a swamp! OK, bits of it are on what is laughingly described as hills, the swamps have been drained, and a fair number of the smaller rivers have been confined to underground channels.

For this week’s London section I’d like to draw your attention to an interesting article on the BBC web site looking at some of the, how shall I put it, more murky areas of the city. Take a look, I think you’ll like what you see – especially if you’ve got the explorer instinct.

Incidentally, I’d like to also draw your attention to a great piece of fiction based in London. It’s called ‘Rivers of London’ and it’s by Ben Aaronovitch. It’s about police, magic and river gods. Fabulous stuff and the portrait of the places in London is spot on for the 21st Century. One of my favourite books!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-29566275
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rivers-London-1-Ben-Aaronovitch/dp/0575097582/ (UK Amazon)
http://www.amazon.com/Rivers-London-Ben-Aaronovitch/dp/0575097582/ (US Amazon)

Oh, and one last London snippet – here’s a piece about a really unusual Apple Store in London...
http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/apple-store-london-looks-just-regular-apple-store-except-it-sells-real-apples-161468

Scanner:

UK PM Cameron says Internet must not ‘be an ungoverned space’
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/11/14/uk_pm_cameron_says_internet_must_not_be_an_ungoverned_space

Yet more NSA officials whisper of an internal revolt over US spying. And yet it still goes on
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/11/20/claim_nsa_unrest_went_back_years_before_snowden/

Pre-digital computer ‘cranks out’ Fourier Transforms
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/11/17/predigital_computer_cranks_out_fourier_transforms/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAsM30MAHLg

Software created that self-repairs to thwart cyber attacks
http://www.33rdsquare.com/2014/11/software-created-that-self-repairs-to.html#more

So Lonely: Woman dares to get rid of her iPhone – Apple dumped all her txts
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/11/12/apple_hit_over_text_messages/

ISPs removing their customers’ email encryption
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/11/starttls-downgrade-attacks

Ethernet patents claim smacked down by US judge
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/11/13/ethernet_patents_smacked_down/

Acknowledgements

Thanks to readers Barb and Fi for drawing my attention to material for Winding Down.

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
23 November 2014

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/index.html.

Past issues of Winding Down can be found at http://www.ibgames.net/alan/winding/index.html.

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