WINDING DOWN
An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week's net, technology and science news
by Alan Lenton
This week we have a wide variety: IKEA robots, the Volkswagen scandal, nuclear explosion in the 1950s (or maybe not), Japanese national IDs, Freeman Dyson, more about maps, build your own Turing Bombe, a deadly USB stick, and an Ada Lovelace exhibition. Even more stuff is available in the scanner section, with URLs pointing to the FCC and WiFi routers, atomic tourists, Chernobyl, the Malaspina glacier, a drone killing cannon, and questions about whether the US government plans for the internet are legal.
There won’t be an issue next week, so we will be back on Sunday 1November. Till then, have fun!
Shorts:
I have to say that I couldn’t resist a smirk when I read that researchers at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore have been unable to get a robot to build an IKEA chair. As someone who once managed to put together an IKEA wardrobe which doesn’t lean alarmingly <http://www.ibgames.com/alan/society/moving.html> I can tell you that computers are more likely to pass the Turing test with flying colours long before they are up to handling IKEA furniture assembly. Set against IKEA furniture, assembling cars from scratch is child’s play.
http://qz.com/512638/robots-are-about-as-bad-as-humans-at-assembling-ikea-furniture/
The so-called VWGate scandal rumbles on, I see. In my opinion tacking ‘Gate’ onto the end of the names of public scandals is a classic example of the stunted language ability, and limited imaginations of today’s newspaper editors and sub-editors, but I digress.
In the latest news on the topic, executives have taken to blaming rogue software engineers. This claim was made by Volkswagen America CEO Michael Horn while being questioned by US House Committee on Energy and Commerce. I’m sure you will surprised to be told that he was unable to name any names, because the engineers responsible were a tightly knit cabal which had no contact with management! My congratulations to the committee members on their ability to keep a straight face while listening to this fairy tale.
On a more serious note, I Progammer has pointed out that, in the US, the criminal provisions of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act make it impossible to legally detect illegal activities such as this, since programmers are not allowed to break the copy protection to find out what the code is really doing. Food for thought there.
Meanwhile, World Crunch has translated an important piece about the implications of the scandal for the global automotive industry from the German ‘Suddeutsche Zeitung’. It’s a short but interesting piece that points out the potential of the big Silicon Valley type companies. When you talk about cars and the future these day it isn’t just names like Ford, Volkswagen and Toyota that come to mind – there’s also Tesla, Google, and even Apple.
About the only prediction I’d be prepared to make about the future of the car industry is that the controls in the iCar will be in a different place to those in any other car...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/10/vw_boss_engineers_blame/
http://www.i-programmer.info/news/99/9011.html
http://www.worldcrunch.com/business-finance/how-volkswagen-scandal-could-change-global-auto-industry-forever/c2s19796/
Did you know that in 1958 the US government produced a proposal to set off six thermonuclear bombs to create a deep water harbour near Cape Thompson, Alaska? No? Neither did I, but I was only a small child at the time. Another proposed use of the beasts (known as Project Plowshare) involved punching a hole through the Bristol Mountains to allow a railway line to be built between California and New Mexico.
The most fascinating suggestion, though was the idea of using them as a cheap way of widening the Panama Canal! How wide, I ask myself, do you want it?
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/actual-1950s-proposal-nuke-alaska
I see that Japan has begun rolling out over 100 million national IDs for social security and taxation. I wonder if the bookies are giving out odds, yet, on how long it will be before it’s hacked and they all have to be replaced?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/05/japanese_queasy_over_govs_national_id_rollout/
Homework:
There’s a really interesting interview with physicist Freeman Dyson in The Register. Dyson has a track record that includes advising bomber command in World War II, working at the Institute for Advanced Study, in Princeton, New Jersey, and providing advice to the US government on a wide range of scientific and technical issues.
He was studying climate change 25 years ago, long before it became a trendy issue worth lots of government money to those who made all the right noises. What he has to say about that is interesting and unorthodox. Well worth a read, and very indicative of why he has the fantastic reputation he has.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/11/freeman_dyson_interview/?page=1
I’ve mentioned before that I’m a sucker for nice maps. Over the last century or so maps have tended to get a little boring, compared to earlier ones with their little pictures, empty continental centres with the legend ‘Here be Dragons’ and seas with drawings of Krakens attacking sailing ships.
Recently, however, things have started to become interesting again, as cartographers, professional and amateur, have started to marry data to maps. I already have a book called ‘London The Information Capital’ which marries maps of London with the vast amount of data collected in the UK’s capital. Now there is a new set of maps out in a book called ‘Mind the Map’ which looks gorgeous. It’s already on my wish list, but like all these books it’s expensive since they need colour printing throughout. Take a look at the sample images pointed to by the URL.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/how-modern-cartographers-marry-math-and-art
Geek Stuff:
Ever fancied building your own version of the Turing Bombe? Well, those among you who have a little hardware experience, as well as software, might like to have a look at an article in I Programmer about using a combination of a Raspberry Pi and an Arduino to do just that! So, if you happen to have some leftover German Enigma coded messages...
http://www.i-programmer.info/news/82/9061.html
http://www.asciimation.co.nz/bb/2015/10/04/bombe-completed
I hope you’re not the sort that puts any USB stick you can lay your hands on into your computer? If you do, then a virus might be the least of your worries. Someone with the nickname ‘Dark Purple’ has invented a USB stick that pumps 220 volts into whatever device it’s plugged into. More than enough to fry the computer, rendering it completely useless. Not a very nice thing to do!
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/14/sneaky_220v_usb_fries_laptops/
London:
This month sees the bicentenary of the birth of the woman considered by many to be the world’s first computer programmer: Ada, Countess of Lovelace. To mark it London’s Science Museum has a free exhibition about her and her work programming Charles Babbage’s analytic engine. The exhibition is open until the end of March, so there’s plenty of time to see it if you are in London.
Incidentally, when you go to see the exhibition, make time also to seek out the Babbage difference engine at the museum. A working version – the first ever built – was made for 2001, the 200th anniversary of Babbage’s birth.
http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/visitmuseum/Plan_your_visit/exhibitions/ada-lovelace
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Lovelace
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Difference_engine
Scanner:
Hey FCC, don’t lock down our Wi-Fi Routers
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/14/iab_defends_users_rights_to_mod_wifi_kit/
http://www.wired.com/2015/09/hey-fcc-dont-lock-wi-fi-routers/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/09/05/fcc_software_updates/
These atomic tourists have visited 160 forgotten nuclear sites across the US
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/these-atomic-tourists-have-visited-160-forgotten-nuclear-sites-across-the-us
Terror in the Chernobyl dead zone: Life – of a wild kind – burgeons
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/06/chernobyl_wildlife_ting/
Malaspina Glacier, Alaska (Nice picture – AL)
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=86767&src=eoa-iotd
Lawmakers say US plan for Internet may be unconstitutional
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/lawmakers-u.s.-plan-for-internet-may-be-unconstitutional/article/2572941
Cops must get a warrant before raiding phones, email, etc (in California)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/09/california_warrant_brown_signed/
http://www.wired.com/2015/10/california-now-nations-best-digital-privacy-law/
US Army tests drone-killing 50 mm cannon
http://www.gizmag.com/us-army-eads-anti-drone-system/39781/
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
18 October 2015
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.
