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Interesting Stuff – Week 30 2020

By on July 26, 2020 in Culture, Science, Technology, Web
Sci-Fi doodles

Culture

Neotext – a new Sci-Fi fiction publisher launched this week. Their website has both new short stories, and essays about Sci-Fi and concepts from Sci-Fi. This essay by Adam Roberts on how he defines Sci-Fi is excellent.

Technology

A New York Times article with inside details of the group that got access to Twitter admin tools and used it to steal valuable and sought after twitter user names to sell. And how one of the group then sent after popular bitcoins companies and then influential Twitter users to scam Bitcoin from people. It looks like 30+ (twitter updated their estimate) of the users also had their Twitter data downloaded. That has everything in it. Not good.

Intel announced this week that they will miss their targets for their next-generation processors. Before that TSMC disclosed that they were moving to risk estimates for their 3nm chip fabrication processes next year, with full production at this smaller scale targeted for 2020. Remarkable! Apple Insider has details. Apple’s iPhone and iPad chips are made by TSMC using Apple’s designs. Mac’s due this year will also use Apple Silicon fabricated by TSMC.

A selection of essays on the topic of AI and how it will shape our future. Written by leading pundits and experts. Published by The Rockefeller Foundation.

The NHS England COVID-19 contact tracing app has been a shambles from day 1. Sky News has the sorry tale.

The UK National Cybersecurity Centre website has some great information on it. This article on Identity and Access Management is a good starting point if you are looking into the topic.

Science

Apple committed this week to make its supply chain 100% carbon neutral by 2030. Excellent. Where Apple leads, others follow. 

They also published their 2020 Environmental Progress Report.

Maths

Tim Hartford, who presents the BBC More or Less radio show and podcast, announced that his latest book will be published in September. It is a layperson’s guide to how statistics and other numerical data is used and abused in everyday life. It’s called How To Make The World Add Up! I’ve preordered it on Apple Books!

I love what Crash Course is doing on YouTube. This week I discovered that they had lined up with Arizona State University to offer a selection of courses. Including this one on Algebra. Bloody marvellous.

Interesting Stuff – Week 29 2020

By on July 17, 2020 in Culture, Science, Technology, Web
Blackboard with maths statistics, equations and ideas

Culture

Prospect Magazine list and poll on the top 50 thinkers in the Covid-19 influenced world right now. Interesting list. Many new to me.

Wired UK article on why we should be wearing transparent face masks. To help people who have hearing issues. And also everyone else, as we use facial cues in everyday speech more than we think.

First, be kind – Your feedback has the power to encourage another person, or shut them down, possibly forever. Excellent advice for everyone. When giving feedback or advice, or even just your opinion. Be nice. 

Web

Nebula is a subscription video service for content creators to post educational and information videos without having to worry about ads and the vagaries of the YouTube algorithm. To surface their content. Also, as it’s not YouTube, you won’t be lead by the hand to videos showing the worst of humanity. Only $3 a month. Bargain. I subscribed. They might need to throw more server capacity or network bandwidth at it though. Time will tell, but I’ve had a few buffering issues using it. Issues that I don’t get on YouTube. 

WindowSwap opens a random video taken from someone’s window in their house, apartment, or office. The videos are showing what’s happening in that place when the video recording took place. Looks to be recordings rather than live webcams. But still fascinating, and brilliant.

Technology

The EU introduced new rules for mediation between businesses and online marketplace providers. The latter include online marketplaces, social media and creative content outlets, app distribution platforms, price comparison websites, professional collaborative platforms, and search engines. In effect in the EU from 12th July. Some interesting stuff, like having to give companies 30 days notice before terminating access to a service. Some are interpreting this as Apple and Google will need to provide 30 days notice before removing apps from their app stores. A summary of the provisions is available here. The full regulations are available in multiple languages and formats here.

M. G. Siegler on how much change there has been in personal computing over the last 20 years. From a desktop PC with a 20 kg (44 lb) monitor to a 0.45 kg (1 lb) iPad Pro. Remarkable.

Wrong About the Apple Silicon Mac – Rene Ritchie outlines why most people are thinking incorrectly about the Mac Apple Silicon migration. Watch on Nebula or YouTube.

Apple are updating their API’s, documentation and contributions to open source projects to remove any exclusionary terms. Nice one. 

STEM

Quanta Magazine article on the incompleteness theorems by Kurt Gödel.

Conrad Wolfram has a book and project to try to update the teaching of mathematics to take heed of the fact that computers exist and can be used to enhance the curriculum. Most people in the future will have access to computational power that they can use to do calculations for them. And with knowledge engines like Wolfram Alpha, and AI systems they will often be able to ask questions in plain language. There is a sample lesson for the new maths curriculum they are developing on the Wolfram blog.