WINDING DOWN
An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week’s net, technology and science news
by Alan Lenton
It’s nearly Christmas, so just a short last issue for 2014... This week we have the Sony hack, night pictures from Earth orbit, pictures through the microscope, some more gadgets, and a London time lapsed day in video, not to mention a window shopping opportunity. If you are able to move your mouse after a large Christmas dinner, then there are URLs to take you to items on Roman concrete, too much choice, nuclear power as a way to stop eco-eye-sores, digital pickpocket protection, Internet access as a human right, and a covert attempt to revive SOPA.
Well, as I said, this is the last issue of 2014, so I will indeed be winding down for the year with a glass of fine Balblair ’91 single malt scotch, and a feeling of satisfaction with 530 issues produced in the last eleven years. I aim to get to at least a thousand issues before I bow out!
Have a nice relaxing holiday and a fruitful new year. We’ll be back on 11 January 2015.
Shorts:
I see that the powers that be in the US are ramping up to expand their control of all things digital, by claiming, without any serious evidence, that the perps in the case of the Sony hack were North Korean government controlled hackers. They appear to be unaware that the security at Sony was so bad that a 13 year old script kiddie could have broken in. Don’t be fooled by government rhetoric.
In the meantime, having royally screwed up, Sony is trying to limit the damage by threatening to sue anyone who publishes any of the hacked material! Here’s a few more pieces about the hack to keep you up to date.
http://www.cnet.com/news/13-revelations-from-the-sony-hack/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/12/16/former_sony_pictures_staff_sue_firm_
over_shit_security_and_lack_of_support/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/12/15/sony_to_media_stop_publishing_our_
stolen_stuff_or_well_get_nasty
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/12/16/sony_hackers_release_more_chunks_of_
stolen_data_promises_another_christmas_gift/
http://www.apnewsarchive.com/2014/Sony-emails-reveal-loose-use-of-passwords-and-
IDs-ripe-for-hacking/id-041c9dc46e9d408fa569ccac15c0ffe0
http://gizmodo.com/sony-kept-thousands-of-passwords-in-a-document-marked-1666772286
http://www.cringely.com/
Here’s a little something to keep you busy when you run out of toys to play with over Christmas. The European Space Administration (ESA) has launched a project to identify pictures taken of the night time Earth from orbit, and they need help. Why do they need help? Because there are something in the region of half a million of these pictures – mostly uncatalogued!
Working on the assumption that people can recognize their own town photographed at night from orbit (I’m not sure how true that is – AL), they are looking for people to help. Interested? Point your browser at the URL, and take it from there.
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Human_Spaceflight/Research/Bright_lights_big_cities_at_night
Homework:
Take a look at these great pictures seen through microscopes from the Olympus BioScapes International Digital Imaging Competition. They’re really stunning.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/stunning-images-from-the-2014-olympus-bioscapes-international-digital-imaging-competition/
Gadgets:
Gizmag have a selection of things you can get for Christmas – all available now. Can’t say most of them exactly filled me with enthusiasm, but I did think the LG G Watch R (whoever invents these names needs a slap and to be made to type the name out 1,000 times) was rather neat.
http://www.gizmag.com/top-10-christmas-gift-guide-2014/35041/
London:
Have a look at this video. It’s a joint project from 40 photographers, and it’s a three and a half minute time-lapse photograph of a day in central London. It’s brilliant!
http://londonist.com/2014/12/40-photographers-create-record-breaking-timelapse-of-london.php
And for those of you who live too far away to drop in to London for the day, here’s an opportunity to do some window shopping online...
http://londonist.com/2014/12/in-pictures-2014s-london-christmas-windows.php
Scanner:
How the ancient Romans made better concrete than we do now
http://io9.com/how-the-ancient-romans-made-better-concrete-than-we-do-1672632593
Euro consumers have too much choice say telco operators
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/12/12/gsma_mobile_operator_consolidation/
‘Turn to nuclear power to save planetary ecology from renewable blight’
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/12/16/turn_to_nuclear_power_to_save_planetary_
ecology_from_renewable_blight
Jeans made that will prevent ‘digital pickpocketing’
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-30513497
Tim Berners-Lee: Internet access should be recognized as a basic human right
http://www.techienews.co.uk/9721380/tim-berners-lee-internet-access-recognized-basic-human-right/
The MPAA’s attempt to revive SOPA through a state attorney general
http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.co.uk/
Acknowledgements
Thanks to readers Barb, Fi and Lois 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
21 December 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.
