WINDING DOWN
An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week's net, technology and science news
by Alan Lenton
It's June and time for a new edition of Winding Down. This week we look at a PayPal idiocy, DNA testing, robotics, a truthful job ad, Polybius, Hampton Court, the London Dungeon, and a BSFA meeting with Charles Stross. There are URLs on the shutting down of the Iraq internet while exams are in progress, an internet mapping glitch, 1,284 new planets, an amazing cistern, free satellite maps, the book of genesis, and EU data appeals.
There was going to be more , but I accidentally deleted the 'shorts' node of my CherryTree note taker and then discovered that the 'undo' didn't work on sub-nodes!
Shorts:
Sigh! You know I thought we had resolved the stupidity of blocking people who were considered to have 'undesirable' words in their addresses. At that time it was the inhabitants of the respectable English town of Scunthorpe. Now the whole issue has reared its head again. This time it's ISIS. It seems that PayPal is refusing transactions from anyone with the word ISIS in the delivery address.
Duh! Isis is the name of a chunk of the River Thames at Oxford. Not surprisingly, a fair number of local street names – for instance Isis Close – contain the word ISIS. As a matter of fact, when I looked 'Isis Close' up on Google Maps, it gave me a plethora of streets with the name, which is, after all, the name of a well-known ancient Egyptian goddess! And that's just the 'Close'. And don't get me started on 'Road', 'Street', 'Alley', etc... And how about the word ‘crisis’ – that contains ‘isis’ so the UK charity of that name which helps the homeless presumably could not use PayPal to collect donations.
Do PayPal really believe that ISIS, the Middle East group, is going to order arms for delivery to somewhere like 'The Isis Ordinance Depot', Isis Way, Falluja'? Tell me, PayPal, what make you think ISIS is as stupid as you are? Anyway, apart from the URL for the story, here are a few other 'ISIS' URLs...
https://boingboing.net/2016/05/23/paypal-refuses-to-deliver-onli.html
http://www.isis.stfc.ac.uk/about/aboutisis.html [A major scientific facility, using equipment to generate beams of neutrons, called ISIS]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Isis [The river Isis]
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/11213680/Oxford-rowing-club-will-not-change-Isis-name.html [ A rowing club called Isis]
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Isis+Cl,+Oxford+OX1+4XX/@51.7379468,-1.2589061,
13.75z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x4876c6ccfb952a1d:0x6f11cb58b6141e8b!8m2!3d51.7325588!4d-1.2477869 [Google Maps showing Isis Close Oxford]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isis [The goddess of health, marriage and wisdom]
Homework:
For most people, including those called as jurors, awareness of DNA testing comes from CSI programs, where it frequently appears as a forensic magic bullet (so to speak). Unfortunately, it turns out, it's not as easy as that. Even if the analyst has a sample of, say, blood from a single person, the analyst can only give a probability that the blood came from the accused. It might be a very high probability, but it's still a probability.
If there is DNA from more than one person, then all bets are off. Checking for a specific DNA match is far more difficult and error prone than most people realise when there are multiple DNAs in the sample, and the probabilities of an accurate match are much lower. That's not all – shake hands with someone, and the chances are that they will have some of your DNA on their hand (and vice versa).
All of this is without carelessness, or incentives to 'find' matches. The truth is that DNA testing is nothing like the magic bullet that CSI portrays it, and the prosecution would have juries believe. Unfortunately, jurors are not aware of this, they've only seen CSI on television, where no one talks of the difficulties. Maybe one day a CSI episode will revisit an earlier episode conviction and have the protagonists discover that the DNA was wrong! But don't hold your breath...
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/06/a-reasonable-doubt/480747/
Fancy taking up robotics as a hobby? There's probably never been a better time than now, since robotics is really starting to take off. You don't have to be rich, either. There are a number of open source hardware, software and robot simulation programs, which will enable you to do everything from dipping in your toe, to diving into the full works. opensource.com recently took a look at a few of them, so, if you're interested this might well be a good place to start.
https://opensource.com/life/16/4/open-source-robotics-projects
Geek Stuff:
I don't think I can remember a job ad which gave an accurate picture of what the job entailed, with the possible exception of the ones that end in 'and such other work as the management may direct'. But now there is a real job advert, that tells it like it is – 'meaningless, repetitive work on the .NET stack'. It includes 'Multiple generations of legacy code that cannot be refactored without destroying the entire house of cards', not to mention 'Live, mission-critical system where you develop on the production instance.'
And you know something, since it went live the recruiter's phone hasn't stopped ringing. I guess a lot of people have even worse jobs!
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/04/17/job_ad_promises_meaningless_repetitive_work_on_the_net_stack/
I guess most geeks of a certain age have heard about Polybius – supposedly the US government's mind control arcade game from the early 1980s. Of course it's an urban legend, isn't it? Well... take a look at the story at the URL, and make up your own mind. Personally, I don't think it ever existed, but given some of the other nasties US government-backed institutions (and other participants in the Cold War) inflicted on some of their own subjects from time to time, it does have a ring of truth...
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-urban-legend-of-the-governments-mindcontrolling-arcade-game
London:
Looking for somewhere to take the kids on a hot summers day (hah!) in London? Then how about Henry VIII's favourite palace – Hampton Court. It has a famous maze to get lost in, the palace itself, guided tours and directed activities for the kids. Learn a little history, and have a good time.
http://www.hrp.org.uk/hampton-court-palace/visit-us/
On the other hand, if it's raining, perhaps the London Dungeon would be a good place to go. I really rather enjoyed it when I went. In fact, I seem to remember that we took a group of Federation players there a few years ago, and a good (and creepy) time was had by all.
https://www.thedungeons.com/london/en/default-b.aspx
On the other hand if you are a person of little money, by yourself, a sci-fi fan, and at a loose end at 6pm on Wednesday 22 June, you might like to take yourself down to The Keynes Library, Birkbeck University, 43 Gordon Square, London, WC1H 0PD, where the BSFA are holding a free open meeting with sci-fi author Charles Stross. I'm told Stross is an interesting speaker, with strong opinions on lots of things involving the future. I may well go...
http://news.ansible.uk/a347.html
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2995/1 [Report of an event with Stross in Washington]
Scanner:
Iraq shuts down internet to prevent exam cheating. That's the country's entire internet [So much for there being no 'kill switch' – AL]
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/05/17/iraq_shuts_down_internet_to_prevent_exam_cheating/
How an internet mapping glitch turned a random Kansas farm into a digital hell
http://fusion.net/story/287592/internet-mapping-glitch-kansas-farm/
Kepler space telescope spots 1,284 new planets
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/05/10/kepler_space_telescope_bags_massive_
haul_of_1284_new_planets/
A cathedral-like cistern beneath Houston is now open to the public
http://gizmodo.com/a-cathedral-like-cistern-beneath-houston-is-now-open-to-1777903213
Three million satellite snaps now free for all
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/04/05/asters_world_view_now_free_for_all/
R. Crumb shows us how he illustrated Genesis: A faithful, idiosyncratic illustration of all 50 chapters
http://www.openculture.com/2016/05/r-crumb-shows-us-how-he-illustrated-genesis.html
Irish data cops kick Max Schrems' latest Facebook complaint up to EU Court
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/05/25/ireland_data_protection_commissioner_
asks_eu_decision_max_schrems_complaint/
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
5 June 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.
