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

The weekly newsletter for Fed2
by ibgames

EARTHDATE: September 18, 2016

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WINDING DOWN

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

Welcome to another Winding Down. This week we have for your edification stories on the iPhone 7, the Galaxy Note 7 (obviously in some arcane tech religion this is the year of the seven), 9,000 data breaches in a year for the UK government, NYC threatens to sue Verizon for its failure to provide comprehensive fibre coverage, sculptures from Thomas Dambo, analog GPS from the 1920s, robo-octothingies, Star Trek at 50, and the Insight Astronomy Photographer of the Year exhibition. Of course, there’s even more in the Scanner section where URLs point you to Raspberry Pi sales figures, Elsevier patenting online peer review, placebo buttons, laser printed graphene, checking for malware, and new stuff on the VW Deiselgate scandal. And finally there are a couple of URLs to material about Facebook’s stupid attempt to suppress one of the Vietnam War’s defining photos.

All in all, quite a spread of material.

Shorts:

Of course the ‘hot’ news for the month was the launch of the iPhone 7. At a staggering US$649, and with a necessity to shell out even more for a new set of headphones, since it has no connector for regular headphones, why, I thought would anyone want to upgrade?

My first cut at this was that perhaps there was a subliminal app built into the infernal devices produced by Apple. You know the sort of thing. The ones that flash messages from Steve Jobs saying ‘Buy a new iPhone’ on to the screen too fast for you to consciously notice it. However, on reflection, I’m sure some anti-Applista would have noticed it by now.

It was, however, a causal comment from an Apple lover that put me onto the real reason for the rush to get the new iPhone. It’s the fact that it’s -waterproof-.

I had to dig a little deeper for the ‘dirty’ truth on this one. It seems that one of the top reasons for iPhones being broken is people dropping them into the toilet! I confess I was a little stunned to find this out, but apparently the bathroom is a favourite place for iPhoners to make private phone calls.

So, now you know!
https://consumerist.com/2016/09/07/apple-confirms-worlds-worst-kept-secret-iphone-7-starts-at-649-pre-orders-start-sept-9/

In the meantime, if you are an Android freak with a Samsung Galaxy Note 7, you can stop laughing. Samsung has recently recalled something in the region of two and a half million (yes, million) of them to replace potentially exploding batteries. The problem is, it seems that lotsa Note 7 owners are reluctant to hand in their infernal devices.

If you do have a Galaxy Note 7, I’d suggest you cooperate, because they really are rather dangerous. In the meantime, I’ll stick with my rather battered Galaxy Note 1, which works just fine in spite of its age. Still, I suppose that you could say that Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 gives you more bang for your buck!
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/09/wont-turn-in-your-note-7-samsung-will-gimp-your-battery/

Looks like the UK government is doing its best to beat the record set by the US Office of Personnel Management for security fiascos. UK government departments managed to have nine thousand data breaches in 2015 according to the National Audit Office (NAO).

The NAO had some difficulty sorting out exactly what was going on, since there is little coordination across the different departments. And this is from a government that is collecting more and more information about its citizens, and coming up with schemes to share it with commercial companies!
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2016/09/14/cabinet_office_failing_to_
coordinate_ukgovs_infosec_practices_says_national_audit_office/

Interesting. I see that New York City is getting antsy with Verizon over its failure to meet the agreement it made with the city to bring fibre internet connections to all households in the city. Indeed, there seems to be a possibility that the City will sue Verizon over the issue.

According to the city in October 2015 there were at least 38,551 (an amazingly specific number!) addresses where Verizon hadn’t fulfilled installation service requests that were more than a year old. I’d be pretty annoyed if I was at one of those addresses.

I guess what’s needed here is a large dose of good old capitalist competition!
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/09/nyc-threatens-to-sue-verizon-over-fios-shortfalls/

Homework:

Oh! Wow! just take a look at the URL for this piece – absolutely incredible sculptures made from scrap wood and other construction materials. Danish artist Thomas Dambo specialises in sculptures of this sort and the results are , to put it mildly, impressive. Take a look for yourself.
http://laughingsquid.com/gorgeous-hulking-sculptures-created-from-scrap-wood-and-other-discarded-construction-materials/
http://thomasdambo.com/

Do you think mobile mapping and route generation are something that only really started in the last 20 years? Think again. In 1927, the Plus Four Wristlet Route Indicator came out. It had single-journey scrolls that plugged into a wrist-wearable device. It needed no batteries, and worked quite like traditional scrolls, with paper rolling out from one side then back into the other!

The wrist mounted device needed manual scrolling, but in 1932 a device came out which linked to the car’s speedo and moved automatically along the route with the car. Must have been quite an experience in those days!
http://99percentinvisible.org/article/analog-gps-scrolling-wrist-car-mounted-maps-roaring-20s-30s/

Geek Stuff:

Not for cephalophobes is the latest feat of engineering. The octobot is the first robot to be self-propelled, untethered and made entirely from soft materials. According to the description it paves the way for an entirely new generation of wearable biomedical apps. Frankly, I’m not sure I would want one of them with its tentacles wrapped round my wrist!
http://cen.acs.org/articles/94/web/2016/08/Octopus-look-alike-first-robot.html

Star Trek is 50. And we’ve still not got faster than light (FTL) travel, transporters or gravity control, to name but a few. On the other hand things like FTL travel are now at least -theoretically- possible, rather than being completely barred by current theories. The Centauri Dreams website has an interesting look at the current state of the future technologies used by Star Trek. Take a look – it will get you thinking!
http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=36346

Pictures:

See the London section!

London:

The annual Insight Astronomy Photographer of the Year exhibition opened in London’s Greenwich Royal Observatory yesterday (17 September). It’s free and well worth a look. But if you aren’t in London, here’s a URL to the winners section:
http://www.rmg.co.uk/discover/astronomy-photographer-gallery/2016-winners

Scanner:

World eats its 10 millionth Raspberry Pi
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/09/08/rasberry_pi_sells_its_ten_millionth_computer/

Stupid patent of the month: Elsevier patents online peer review
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/08/stupid-patent-month-elsevier-patents-online-peer-review

User Illusion: Everyday ‘placebo buttons’ create semblance of control
http://99percentinvisible.org/article/user-illusion-everyday-placebo-buttons-create-semblance-control/

Printing graphene with lasers may allow for ‘paper electronics’
http://www.33rdsquare.com/2016/09/printing-graphene-with-lasers-may-allow.html

A free, almost foolproof way to check for malware
http://www.infoworld.com/article/3014323/security/a-free-almost-foolproof-way-to-check-for-malware.html

VW Dieselgate engineer sings like a canary: Entire design team was in on it – not just a few bad apples, allegedly
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/09/12/vw_engineer_state_witness_in_dieselgate/

Facebook bans famous war photo because the screaming, napalmed child’s genitals are offensive
Facebook changes its mind, and says it’s okay to publish an iconic war photo, after all
http://boingboing.net/2016/09/09/facebook-bans-famous-war-photo.html
http://www.recode.net/2016/9/9/12864670/facebook-photo-ban-changed

Acknowledgements

Thanks to readers Andrew, 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 September 2016

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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