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

The weekly newsletter for Fed2
by ibgames

EARTHDATE: July 15, 2012

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WINDING DOWN

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

by Alan Lenton

I can tell that I skipped producing an issue last week - there were 92 articles waiting to be used when I came to look this week. So, here are the top dozen or so of them, covering FDA snooping, predictions, some cats, Canadian money, the BBC’s Hub, fast transport, moon dust, luxury in 1912, and a certain amount of creepiness!

Last week’s issue was missing because I was moving my game Federation 2 over to a new machine, which took a little longer than expected (no surprises there). It went pretty well though. The only problem has been that the Unix cron daemon is completely missing, so I’m having to do the daily reset by hand, while I figure how to get it properly installed.

So, let’s cut straight to the chase...


Shorts:

Those who have memories operating in real time, as opposed to internet time, may remember the scandal that broke over HP when it was revealed that they were snooping on employees and board members. It turns out that private companies are not the only ones indulging in this sort of behavior.

The New York Times recently broke a story about the similar action by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The FDA secretly captured thousands of e-mails that its scientists sent privately to members of Congress, lawyers, labor officials, journalists, and president Obama! Much of the information captured (such as attorney-client communications) is specifically protected from this sort of behavior by law. Already there is a whiff of injunctions and damages in air - this one will run and run.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/us/fda-surveillance-of-scientists-spread-to-outside-critics.html

And now for an unverified story about hi-tech gone wrong from the Gawker site... It seems that Canada recent decided to move over to hi-tech style plastic polymer bank notes. So far, so good. Unfortunately, it looks like they are no good at dealing with high temperatures - like the temperatures in your car when you leave it outside in the current heatwave. At the moment 100 dollar bills are the only plastic ones in use, and it is this that makes me a little suspicious of the story. Who is going to leave bills of that sort of denomination lying around in such high temperatures? I rest my case... But I might be wrong.
http://gawker.com/5925935/canadas-money-might-be-melting?comment=50946470

We all just love making long term predictions about the future. What’s more, we continue to do it time and time again (especially people like me who write newsletters) even though we are consistently wrong - except me, of course. So next time you feel a prediction coming on, stop and take a look at this prediction from the 60 years ago, about what home computers would look like in 2004. I particularly liked the statement that ‘With the teletype interface and the Fortran language, the computer will be easy to use.’ But what I really want to know, is what they were going to use the wheel for!
http://supernovacondensate.net/2012/07/14/we-are-clueless-about-the-future/

Finally, in this section, it’s been pointed out by a number of cat fanciers that I haven’t covered any cats in this newsletter, since it started in 2001. Well, I finally found something to that I thought was worth drawing your attention to. A piece about how cats protect the three million works of art in Leningrad’s Hermitage Museum! Enjoy.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/offbeat/story/2012/07/05/hermitage-museum-russia-cats.html


Homework:

Ever wondered how to get accurate information about current events off the web? Then you might be interested in a piece in Nieman Reports that takes an inside look at the BBC’s User Generated Content Hub at work. Set up in 2005 it is charged with verifying stories that are gathered using the social networks like Facebook and Twitter. Using a combination of tech solutions like Google’s advanced picture search, and good old fashioned journalism, like contacting the original source of the material, the Hub produces accurate news stories sourced from social media, and avoids fake material. At least that’s the theory, although fakes have been known to slip though on occasion...
http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reports/article/102764/Inside-the-BBCs-Verification-Hub.aspx

There’s is an interesting extended article in Gizmag about very fast vacuum-tube trains. Using a combination of superconductors, large vacuum tubes and maglev, you can theoretically get 4,000mph trains. Superconduction and maglev are proven, and reasonably well understood, technologies. Creating a vacuum, has also been in use for a long time. So why don’t we already have superfast trains of this nature?

Good question. It’s not so much a question of how to do it, or even whether the engineering problems are insurmountable. It’s more to do with what happens if something goes wrong while you are travelling along at a cool 4,000mph! Take for instance an earthquake breaking the vacuum in a 3,000 mile tube - hitting the air leaking in would be like hitting a brick wall - at 4,000mph. Definitely not a fun idea, I would suggest. But take a look at the piece, it makes for interesting reading.
http://www.gizmag.com/terraspan-vacuum-tube-train-supersonic-ultra-fast/23267/

In the space policy discussions that have been going on recently - should we go to Mars, set up a Moon base, mine the asteroids, etc - one thing that has been missing is a discussion on one of the key problems of putting a base on the moon. Moon dust. Everyone has some idea about the hazards of vacuum and radiation, but we already know from previous visits to the moon that moon dust is very bad stuff, although it doesn’t seem to be general knowledge.

I guess that part of the problem is the name. When you say moon dust most people think of the stuff that floats around in your home. That’s mostly tiny particles of skin shed by the inhabitants, a nuisance, and unhygienic, but generally pretty harmless. Moon dust is an entirely different kettle of fish. It is tiny flakes of rock, sharp, jagged and insidious. It’s so abrasive that it actually wore through three layers of Kevlar-like material on Jack Schmitt’s boots. And it was impossible to stop it getting into the Apollo landing capsules.

Even more worrying than having it wearing out the operating machinery of the base, is its effect on the human body. It’s small enough to be breathed in, the resulting damaged to the lungs would be similar to that caused by anthracite dust in mines, or asbestos in factories processing the stuff. Then there would probably be abrasive damage to the eyes, and similar damage to exposed skin. All this would be aggravated by the low gravity of the Moon, which means that the stuff would spend more time floating in the air of the base than it would in the Earth’s gravity.

Want to know more? Take a look at the URL, which is a report on this subject from a number of researchers who have been looking at the samples brought back from the Moon. Nasty stuff.
http://www.universetoday.com/96208/the-moon-is-toxic/

Just a quickie, I found a slide show from Scientific American’s archives, showing what leisure and luxury was like for the up and coming middle classes in 1912, really interesting. See what you think.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=leisure-luxury-1912-look-back-scientific-american-archives&WT.mc_id=SA_CAT_TECH_20120703


Geek Stuff:

Do you like creepy stuff - Cthulu and such like? Then take a look at this shot of the nebula LDN1622. It’s easy to see why it has been unofficially dubbed the ‘Boogie Man’ nebula. I don’t want to worry you guys, but at 10 light years across and a mere 500 light years distant, it’s right in our back yard!
http://supernovacondensate.net/2012/07/12/mr-oogie-boogie/

Oh, and talking about Cthulu - take a look at these really creepy Lego sets - but mind you don’t get driven out of your mind...
http://io9.com/5924011/these-cthulhu-lego-sets-will-drive-you-insane-with-little-plastic-bricks

I know not many geeks have small children to cope with, but those of you who do will be well aware of the fact that kids prefer playing with the boxes to the contents. Now Dutch stroller manufacturer Joolz have started putting instructions in their packaging for how to turn it into something useful - like a chair or a lampshade. Cute and cool, what more could you want?
http://www.springwise.com/eco_sustainability/cardboard-packaging-includes-directions-turning/


Scanner: Other stories

UK.gov’s cost-cutting ‘shared services’ went £500m over budget and five centers cost more than the expected savings!
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2012/07/12/shared_services_over_budget_says_pac/

Being a skinny is much more unhealthy than being fat - new study
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/07/10/yet_another_obesity_study/

Facebook ‘likes’ and adverts’ value doubted
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-18813237

New Study: the UK climate was hotter in Roman and medieval times than now
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/07/10/global_warming_undermined_by_study_of_climate_change/

Four ways the Internet could go down
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/07/10/tech/web/internet-down-eagleman/index.html?eref=mrss_igoogle_cnn

Euro Parliament kills ACTA treaty
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/07/04/acta_rip/


Acknowledgements

Thanks to readers Barb and Fi 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
15 July 2012

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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