WINDING DOWN
An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week's net and technology news
by Alan Lenton
Apologies for the failure of Winding Down to appear last weekend. It was caused by an outbreak of toothache resulting on one side of my face swelling up. I'm happy to report that following a heavy duty course of antibiotics, it's now back to normal. Well as normal as it ever was!
Since recovering I've culled a few stories out of the past two weeks to tell you about, so, here they are...
Shorts:
Most of my US readers will probably be aware we now have a new government in the UK. They've been looking at where they can make cuts in government spending, and one of the things they've been looking at is government official web sites. In the process they came up with some fascinating info. Apparently there are no less than 820 sites, only two thirds of which actually meet the government's own standards for web sites.
In the last year they spent over 120 million UK pounds (US$180 million) on development, running costs and staff. If you think that's bad , it turns out that the previous government had already closed over 1,000 web sites in the last two years! Top of the list for the axe must be the UK Trade and Investment site, which apparently costs the government 11.78 UK pounds (US$17.74) per visitor. Not exactly what you'd call a good investment...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/10412216.stm
And talking of value for money, figures have just been released that show just how much grandstanding politicians can cost the public when there are no checks and balances. Since 2007 all UK applicants for new passports have been required to attend face to face interviews at special offices set up for the purpose. When the system was set it was hailed by the then government as "a major step forward in the fight against the rising threat of passport fraud".
The system cost 93 million UK pounds (US$140 million) to set up, and its running costs are 30 million UK pounds a year (US$45 million). Let's see, it's now been running for about three years, so let's say the total cost so far is around 180 million UK pounds (US$270 million). So far, according to official figures, eight - yes eight (8) - people have been refused passports on the basis of their interviews.
So, pulling out my trusty calculator (Declaration of interest: it's a bright yellow freebie from Microsoft a few years back) I figure that this little boondoggle has cost UK taxpayers the grand sum of 22.5 million UK pounds for each person caught and refused a passport. You know, if I made this up as an April Fool, no one would believe it - it's too incredible, but it must be a nice little earner for someone. I wonder who?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/7823456/Face-to-face-passport-
interviews-catch-only-eight-fraudsters.html
With the future of the US manned space flight program up for grabs, there's been a number of interesting articles in the space business press on SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket. The thing that seems to have grabbed the attention of most pundits is that the SpaceX appear to have developed the Falcon 9 for less than the cost of NASA's new launch pad!
The trouble is that since SpaceX is a private firm, it doesn't have to provide audited figures, so there are those who are questioning the accuracy of the claimed development costs. Then there is the question of safety. Just how safe is the rocket? Is it acceptably safe in the risk adverse climate that we seem to have these days?
And to my mind there is one even more important point. The successful launch was stunning, no two ways about it, but does that mean that Falcon 9 is ready for commercial use? It might, just might, be, but the odds are massively against it. No other rocket has successfully gone into flight without teething problems and several failed launches, and that goes for not just the USA, but also Europe, Russia, and Japan, to mention only a few.
Obviously, we all wish SpaceX all the best and are keeping our fingers crossed, but we need to remember that for all the euphoria, Falcon 9 still has to prove itself a useful and reliable vehicle.
http://www.motherboard.tv/2010/6/17/cost-of-nasa-s-new-launch-pad-equals-cost-of-
entire-spacex-falcon-9-rocket--2
There's gotta be an election due soon in the US. I base this deduction on the decision of the Attorney Generals of no less that 30 states to 'investigate' Google's 'inadvertent' collection of unencrypted wireless data while invading people's privacy with their uninvited 'Street View' project.
As you can probably guess, I don't like Street View, but then I tend to value my privacy much more than average. In the case of the wireless data, though, my sympathies tend to lie with Google. As part of my work I sometimes use a program (Wireshark, for the curious) to examine the packets coming in to my computer for debugging purposes. The difference between just looking at the packets destined for my computer, and those belonging to everyone on the network is a single click - an easy mistake to make. Google may have been doing it deliberately, or they may not, I really wouldn't know. Their real crime in my eyes is to have failed to have immediately announced that they have destroyed the inadvertently collected data.
For the attorney generals, of course, Google is an ideal target; it's not going to hurt any of their voters, and Google has deep, deep, pockets. Of course, they may find that taking on techies - especially ones as slippery and well heeled as Google - is not as easy as it looks. It's always possible that the court will decide that rather than being analogous to stealing an unlocked car, it's more like listening on short wave radio to unencrypted broadcasts. And then where would the attorney generals be?
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9178361/States_launch_joint_probe_of_
Google_Wi_Fi_snooping
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9177962/Google_seeks_consolidation_
of_Wi_Fi_snooping_cases
And talking about legal type things, I see that Oracle is being sued by the US Federal Government for overcharging it by millions of dollars. Apparently Oracle had a type of contract with the government that specifies that it must get discounts at least as good as those of the company's most favored vendors, in return for less red tape. However, according to a whistleblower, the company was giving customers even deeper discounts that the government was getting. The practice, the whistleblower statement suggests, cost the US taxpayer "tens of millions of dollars". I'll let you know what the outcome is when the case is settled - probably in about ten years time.
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9178124/Oracle_sued_by_U.S._for_
alleged_overcharging
I was fascinated to find that rock legend Ozzy Osbourne's genome is to be mapped in order to find out why he is still alive after a lifetime of drug and alcohol abuse! I reckon anyone that at one stage was drinking four bottles of cognac a day and survived has got to have something interesting in their genetic makeup. Maybe he's an alien?
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Showbiz-News/Ozzy-Osbournes-Genes-Mapped-
To-Find-Out-How-Hes-Still-Alive-After-Drink-And-Drug-Abuse/Article/
201006215648812?lpos=Showbiz_News_Article_Body_Copy_Region_0
It was every conspiracy freak's dream come true - a report has been released indicating the discovery of nearly US$1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan. So that's why we went to war, and why the troops are gonna stay, buster. Iron ore, copper, niobium, rare earths, and lithium man - enough lithium to even run an Intel processor.
Unfortunately, all is not what it seems. What the report fails to point out is that the stuff is still in the ground and even if you could get it out of the ground easily, the only way you can get it out of the country is via goat tracks. The normal way to transport iron ore around the world is by ship, cause it's so heavy and bulky. Sadly, Afghanistan has something of a shortage of ports! Theoretically copper would be easier to handle, you use electrolysis (the electro-chemical process, not the hair removal system) to produce ingots of the pure stuff, which you can then strap on to donkeys to take somewhere useful. Only one problem here. This would take more electricity than Afghanistan currently produces!
There are similar problems for other substances included in the trillion dollar report, which makes the mistake of conflating the value of minerals in the ground with the refined stuff on the market, or not checking how much existing reserves there are (the US has 600 years supply of niobium).
In the mean time I have a document pointing out that the North Sea (that's the chunk of water to the right of England on the map) has US$240 billion worth of gold in it. Anyone who would like to buy a few acres of the North Sea should let me know. Unfortunately the bit of the report that says it would cost US2.4 trillion to extract all this gold seems to have gone missing!
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/18/afghanistan_mineral_report/page2.html
Talking of Afghanistan, I note that a new type of US spy satellite - the TacSat-3 - has now been rushed into orbit for use by the US military. It's 'hyperspectral' sensing can, it is claimed, detect hidden tunnels, roadside bombs, Taliban caves, and al Qaeda laptops made with Afghan lithium (just kidding, I made the last one up). Sounds impressive, and I'm assured that there is no truth in the suggestion that it will be owned and operated by Google!
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/11/artemis_goes_active/page2.html
Finally, for a little light relief, take a look at this URL for a classic example of how even those in the high tech business can be seduced by the glitter of old fashioned pomp and circumstance!
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/18/technologists_royal/
Homework:
As we move into a period of much more intense solar activity, I thought you might like to take a look at a couple of pictures of a solar storm taken on May 23rd by the Solar Terrestrial Relations Observations Ahead satellite. They're taken a couple of hours apart and are pretty impressive, but even more impressive is the picture of the resulting southern aurora taken six days later when the stuff spewed out by the sun reached the Earth.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=44362
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=44348&src=fb
There are some stories which are so predictable, and such bad science it makes you want to weep. One such was a recent story about playing Grand Theft Auto being a cause of reckless driving. As a sociologist and a games programmer this sort of thing make me want to bang my head against the wall. I couldn't find anything out about how the study was conducted, except that it was conducted in three different countries. Even assuming it was a properly carried out study, it would only show a connection, not cause and effect. It would be equally valid (and I would argue more plausible) to suggest that the study shows that teenagers who drive recklessly and more likely to play Grand Theft Auto.
http://wcco.com/entertainment/video.games.driving.2.1751621.html
Geek Toys:
Now here's a little project for a budding geek - turning an old fashioned manual typewriter into a USB keyboard. Yup. It can be done and there's a video to prove it, so get out the toolkit and go for it!
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/15/usb_typewriters/
And if that doesn't grab you, try this report for size - 200 cores on a single chip. Wow!
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/22/tilera_quanta_server_stratton/
Scanner:
Australian firewall wobbles under pressure from all sides
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/21/oz_firewall/
Studying engineering before they can spell it
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/14/education/14engineering.html
Plans to secure power grid from terrorists and solar storms
http://www.physorg.com/news195752582.html
As the sun awakens, NASA keeps a wary eye on space weather
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2010/04jun_swef/
420,000 scam emails sent every hour
http://www.net-security.org/secworld.php?id=9421
Acknowledgements
Thanks to readers Barb, Fi, and to Slashdot's daily newsletter 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
27 June, 2010
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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