WINDING DOWN
An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week's net, technology and science news
by Alan Lenton
All right I’ll admit it up front. This week I ended up writing far more than I intended on the subject of aging and rejuvenation in the homework section. Apart from that there is some interesting stuff on Office Depot’s ‘checking’ for malware, a couple of nice geek Christmas presents, pictures from London photographers, and a digital trip through London’s sewers – waders optional. The scanner section contains URLs pointing to Concorde Mark 2, a miniature radar for delivery drones, pavement power – or lack of it, the possibility that the universe may not be expanding after all, the web and innovation, Google datasets, and sharpening low resolution images.
Next week there will be no Winding Down. I could say that’s because it’s Thanksgiving, but I’d be lying if I did. (Would I lie to you guv? This is Honest Al’s +4 newsletter of truthfulness...) Actually, we don’t have Thanksgiving on this side of the pond. The regular monthly break just happens to fall on the Sunday after the USA’s Thanksgiving Day. We will, of course be back the week after, so you can expect the next Winding Down to dribble, bit-by-bit, into your mail box on Sunday 4 December.
In the meantime, have a really nice peaceful Thanksgiving.
Shorts:
Office Depot is coming under fire for allegedly reporting non-existent problems to people who brought in their computers. After Office Depot had ‘checked’ their computer it told them that there were ‘symptoms of malware’ and offered a US$180 fix. These claims from an Office Depot insider were checked using new, out of the box computers, and sure enough the investigator was told there were problems.
Of course, manufacturers have been known to ship computers with malware installed, but that’s not the case in this investigation. Telling people their computer suffers from ‘malware’ and offering to ‘fix’ it – for a price – is a scam almost as old as the internet. The only real issue here is whether it is an official (or even unofficial) Office Depot practice, or just something routinely done by repair technicians desperate to make unrealistic sales targets...
http://jessejones.com/story/office-depot-insider-speaks-out/
http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/is-office-depot-diagnosing-non-existent-computer-problems/
Homework:
Recent work on aging could well start to pose serious ethical dilemmas. It’s been suspected for a while that blood from young people has a rejuvenating effect, but now experiments injecting mice with human ‘young’ blood has a definite ‘anti-aging’ effect on the treated mice. Maybe there was something in the tales of vampires living forever!
Back to real life. First, let me make it clear that there’s a lot more experimental work to be done. Second, I strongly suspect that what we are looking at here is not extending life, but reducing the slow and steady physical and mental decline that accompanies old age. In other words you don’t live longer, but you do live a larger chunk of it in your ‘prime’.
Third, if it is true, I foresee problems. Science fiction already has stories of the rich draining the young poor to replenish their aging bodies. Will this ‘young blood’ treatment only be available to the rich? This could be solved if the factors responsible for the rejuvenation can be isolated and synthesized. If that proves not possible, will the children be blackmailed – or even legally forced – to supply transfusions to aging parents and grandparents? And, incidentally what are the implications for population growth in that case?
Even putting all that aside, there are cultural problems with having people at their prime, mentally and physically, through to their late eighties. Look at the current assumptions. You are assumed to be your parents’ responsibility until you are (say) 20 – a little later if you go to college, a little earlier if you don’t. From 20 through to 65 you work. From 65 onwards you are retired, and at 70 (the biblical three score and ten) you died.
OK. This means your working life is 45/70 = 64% of your whole life. But what if your ‘normal’ life span was 90 years? Then, you are only working for 45/90 = 50% of your life. Governments are already trying to push the retirement age up to 70, but they are having severe difficulties, because businesses don’t want older workers. Quite a lot (the software industry, for instance) don’t want workers over 40 (or even younger) and most other businesses prefer people under the age of 50.
Aside: Why is most software crap? Because it takes years to learn to write good software, stuff that’s safe and user friendly. The fact that software firms won’t employ older people means that the same lessons have to be learned the hard way, over and over again. All the time producing crap software. The people who already learned the lessons and are in their 30s and 40s and above are pushed out with the excuse ‘Doesn’t fit into the culture’. Thus there’s no one to teach the lessons already learned.
Going back to the original topic. There is the additional problem, whether the pensioners are aging or rejuvenating. If they are living to (say) 90, the current pensions are built on the assumption that on average they won’t normally need to be paid for more than five years. Even if the ‘normal’ age of retirement moves up five years to 70, then there still remains 20 years of pension to pay. What you get is 5/65 = 7.69% extra contributions, for 20/5 = 400% extra payout. This, taken with the general reduction in family size, is in a nutshell what is known as the aging population problem!
So, as you can see, it’s not as simple as it seems – I think that the Chinese curse ‘May you live in interesting times!’ has some application here...
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2112829-blood-from-human-teens-rejuvenates-body-and-brains-of-old-mice/
Geek Stuff:
Normally I would have waited until next week, after Thanksgiving, before raising the issue of Christmas. However, since there won’t be an issue next week, I thought I’d draw attention to a couple of interesting geeky presents you could start angling up for asap.
I know most geeks don’t wear ties, but should you do so (and for some job interviews it’s de rigueur) then you need to take a look at these classy printed circuit designs from Etsy. Just the thing to indicate that you are a true geek...
https://www.etsy.com/listing/71723110/circuit-board-tie-mens-neck-tie-circuit
The tie is good, but to my mind the piece de resistance for geeks this year is a pair of light sabre chopsticks. Even better, they come in ‘Vader’ (red) and ‘Luke’ (blue) colours. Of course, you will have to learn how to use them and even eat Chinese or sushi. But it’s gotta be worth it! Available from ThinkGeek.
http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/f16c/?pfm=FavoritesonSale_16_f16c
Pictures:
This week I thought I’d draw your attention to the 28th London Independent Photography Exhibition. It’s an exhibition of the work of photographers from London, not necessarily pictures of London. There’s an interesting selection of the work shown at the URL, though, in my opinion, the level is a little uneven. Nonetheless it’s well worth a look.
http://www.londonphotography.org.uk/exhibitions/LIP28Annual/
London:
The Guardian newspaper has an interesting look at the history of London’s sewers. It’s available in your browser, so you don’t have to wear waders (although should you so desire, you can sit in front of the screen wearing them if you wish). This story goes back 150 years, which is only a short time in London’s history – London goes back at least two thousand years – but even so, it’s worth a look. Recommended.
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/ng-interactive/2016/nov/10/subterranean-london
Scanner:
Virgin Galactic and Boom unveil Concorde 2.0 tester to restart supersonic travel
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/11/16/virgin_galactic_boom_unveil_concorde_2_dot_0/
Echodyne’s amazing miniature UAV radar: A huge step towards legal, autonomous drone deliveries
http://newatlas.com/echodyne-miniature-uav-drone-radar/46368/
‘Pavement power’ – The bad idea that never seems to die
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/11/15/pavement_power_the_bad_idea_that_never_seems_to_die/
Expansion of the universe may not be accelerating after all
http://newatlas.com/universe-expansion-not-accelerating/46078/
The web is past peak innovation: It’s all negative returns from here
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/09/28/open_source_insider_peak_web/
Four Google data sets to kickstart machine learning
http://www.infoworld.com/article/3131515/artificial-intelligence/4-google-data-sets-to-kickstart-machine-learning.html
Google’s RAISR sharpens low-resolution images using machine learning
http://newatlas.com/google-raisr-image-upscaling-super-resolution/46434/
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
20 November 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.
