The latest Weekly Digest with pointers to things that have caught my eye has been published. A few days late! It has eleven items, including three new music releases.
https://world.hey.com/ianrobinson/ian-robinson-s-weekly-digest-28th-march-2021-a708a276
My latest Weekly Digest on things that have caught my eye in the last seven days. Ten items, including two films, a brilliant streaming series, a musical drama, two music pointers, a few science items, and a cybersecurity article.
https://world.hey.com/ianrobinson/ian-robinson-s-weekly-digest-21st-march-2021-39f5254e
This week’s post has seven items plus one awful film, one good film, and five new music pointers! The music pointers now have both Apple Music and Spotify links.
https://world.hey.com/ianrobinson/ian-robinson-s-weekly-digest-14th-march-2021-d09dfa28
The Observer had a good series of articles on Facebook and how it influences politics and culture.
The Guardian reported on proposals to tax over-40’s more to pay for social care in later life. My initial thoughts on this are positive. It seems like a good idea to me. Works in Germany and Japan according to the article. Doesn’t add to burden on younger people, who already have a raw deal with rent and mortgage costs.
Universities have been in silent trouble for a while. COVID-19 may be the tipping point for many. This article in Nature is a good synopsis of the crisis.
Doesn’t look like remote work will end anytime soon in the big tech companies. Google said their staff will be working from home until at least June 2021, as reported by Ars Technica. The same article also outlines long term plans by Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, and Microsoft to extend remote working. Apple followed them this week. As AppleInsider detailed.
This is fabulous. During the lockdown, an amateur woodworker from Belgium built an electric guitar from scratch using a thick wooden shelf he had to hand. This 26-minute video summarises the build. Well worth 26 minutes of your time.
More information about the Twitter security breach came to light this week. Ars Technica reports on how the attackers used spear-phishing techniques to get access.
But it turns out that the hackers were teenage amateurs, rather than some sophisticated or state-backed outfit. They have all been arrested and charged. Wired has the details.
On the topic of spear-phishing: it often uses social engineering techniques to get access to peoples data. Here is a short video that shows how easy it is for scammers to get your info over the phone.
Following the poor Intel results last week, and the announcement of more delays to their 7 nm fabrication process, the company announced some changes in senior roles. One notable one was the appointment of Irish engineer Ann Kelleher to lead the processor division.
We will probably never know how life started on Earth. Deep time and plate tectonics recycling the Earth’s crust will have destroyed the evidence. But it was likely via pre-biotic self-organising chemical reactions. New research summarised in Chemistry World last week shows evidence of some self-replicating molecules showing metabolism. Remarkable stuff.
This is intriguing. Algoriddim djay Pro AI – Neural Mix music app for iPad. It can extract individual vocal, melody or drum tracks from songs. And allow you to mix in different ones from other sones. Using an AI-based algorithm. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work with the DRM protected Apple Music I have. But for non-DRM protected tracks, it is is pretty impressive.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Apple are updating their API’s, documentation and contributions to open source projects to remove any exclusionary terms. Nice one.
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.
Time flies. It’s 15 years to the day since I first posted that I might have testicular cancer. I did. A pure seminoma it turned out. Which is a good type to get, if you have to get any at all. Very treatable.
So, you should still get to know your nuts!
There is a lot of discussion about free will and whether humans have it. I don’t pretend to understand all the arguments. I want to learn a lot more in future.
One of the arguments that is made by advocates of the position that humans don’t have free will is based on brain scan results from when people are asked to perform a simple task. For example when someone is asked to move their index finger. Brain scan results show that our brains unconsciously decide to make the finger movement several seconds before we have conscious awareness of the decision. Similar results have been shown for other brain processes. I don’t think the fact that our brains make some decisions in our subconscious, before the conscious brain is aware of them, is in doubt.
Some people posit that this means we don’t have free will. If our subconscious brain is making decisions then how are we making informed conscious decisions is the argument. I don’t agree with this position. Our subconscious is still part of our brains. We don’t fully understand how brains work. Even if we didn’t have the option not to perform the action that is decided in our subconscious (we do have that option), then the decision in the subconscious is still ours.
Just finished watching the last episode of BBC Human Universe. It was a fabulous advertisement for rationalism, Humanism and Enlightenment values. Professor Brian Cox is a great host for these types of programmes. I’ve seen comments saying that he isn’t as good as predecessors such as Carl Sagan or James Burke. I disagree. I watched both of those presenters back in the day. They were great. So is Brian Cox. He is as good as them. He’s also operating in a world were there are a lot more channels competing for peoples attention. So the presentation has to grab people. It’s well worth watching Human Universe on iPlayer if you missed it.
It’s exactly ten years since I posted “Why you should get to know your nuts” here on the Soapbox. Turned out it was testicular cancer. A pure seminoma. Which is the type you want if you have to get it! Anyway, still here to annoy you all 🙂
Related: My Leslie Neilsen moment 😉
Quick update on my fast diet progress. See the original post for more details, and fist update.
Weight: 82.5 Kg. (down 5.3 Kg).
BMI: 23.3. (down 1.5).
Waist: 99 cm. (No change).
Surprised that my waist hasn’t reduced even though I’ve lost 5.3 Kg. Must be losing internal fat. Which is good if true. Want to get waist down to about 88 cm. Onwards.
This post is to test how Latex output from Mathematica appears via MathJax. It also shows a handy way to sum up a sequence of numbers that have the same difference between them.
Suppose you have a series of numbers that start with a number we call a. If the next number, and the ones after it, in the sequence differ by the same value, then the formula given below can be used to calculate the number of items in the sequence:
[latex]n=frac{L-a}{d}+1[/latex]
where a = the first term in the sequence, L = the last term in the sequence, and d = difference between the terms in the sequence. d has to be non-zero and the same between each set of terms in the sequence.
Once you know the number of terms in an arithmetic sequence you can sum the terms using the formula: [latex]S=frac{1}{2} n (2 a+ (n-1)d)[/latex], where a = the first term in the sequence, n= the number of terms in the sequence, and d = difference between the terms in the sequence.
The embedded equations above show that the latex from Mathematica does work. Happy days. That’s both Mathematica and MathType I can use as required.
I started The Fast Diet about two weeks ago. As outlined in the first post my weight was:
Weight: 87.8 Kg.
Height: 188 cm.
BMI: 24.8.
What are the changes after about 2 weeks and 5 fasting days? Stats on Sunday morning:
Weight: 85 Kg.
BMI: 24.0
Waist: 99 cm. I started recording this today after buying a proper measuring tape.
A decrease of just under 3 Kg. That’ll do for a start. As outlined in the previous post it’s the blood biochemistry changes that are the real prize. Weight loss and waist measurements are just easy an tracking method that can be done at home.
I got my blood checked for cholesterol, triglycerides and glucose last week. These were non-fasting numbers but will do as a benchmark for checking again in 6 months. The numbers:
Total cholesterol: 5.63 mmol/L. This should be below 4.0 mmol/L for me.
LDL cholesterol: 3.45 mmol/L. This should be below 2.0 mmol/L for me.
Triglycerides: 2.18 mmol/L. The target for me for this is 2.26 mmol/L. Okay on this one.
Glucose: 8.4. This was non fasting measurement. Will get a fasting one done in 6 months.
I recently pruned the number of podcasts I subscribe to in Downcast. I was deleting too many episodes without ever listing to them. Here is a list of what podcasts survived the cull, with links to the feeds to subscribe to them.
There is a new lifestyle and diet scheme in town. It’s called the 5:2 Fast Diet. Fast as in fasting, not as in speedy. Unlike most (all?) other diet regimens, this one does seem to have some science and data to back it up. The 5:2 bit of the name equates to the fact that you can eat normally for 5 days a week, and then on 2 days you restrict yourself to 600 calories. Thats for men. It’s 500 for women.
Extreme fasting, and its sibling prolonged calorie restriction, have been studied for a while. Current research is showing that the gentler, and more easily doable 5:2 Fast Diet can provide many of the benefits that extreme fasting does.
Grab the book by Dr. Michael Mosley and Mimi Spencer to get more info. Only a few quid in paperback and Kindle formats on Amazon UK. They also have a web site.
I’m making Monday and Thursday my fasting days. Starting today. Will fast from breakfast until dinner then until breakfast next day on those days. With the 600 calories allowed split between breakfast and dinner. That’s the same as what Michael Mosley does. Seems sensible.
My current weight stats are:
Height: 188 cm.
Weight: 87.8 Kg.
BMI: 24.8.
Not overweight, but BMI close to entering 25+ danger zone. I know from when I was playing cricket regularly that I feel better when my weight is about 79 Kg. So I’ll make that my target.
Weight Target: 79 Kg.
BMI Target: 22.4.
It’s the biochemical changes, as outlined in the Fast Diet book that are the real prize though.
Follow me on Twitter to comment or discuss.
Inspired by Ian Sales idea, I’ve decided to read a popular science book each month in 2011. The list of the 12 books (which is changing as the year goes on!):
I’ve added a 13th book. Coincidently this book comprises 12 essays so I could read 1 per month alongside the other 12 books. The 13th (or zeroth as I’ll call it) is:
You may have noticed that Stephen Hawking has a new book out. He has been poking the beehive by declaring that science does not need to make reference to God to explain the Universe.
I have no problem with this. It’s a simple fact. The more we discover about the Universe the less there is room for the Abrahamic God as depicted in the 3 major religions that came out of the Near East. In fact it’s been decades since the claims to said deity have been falsified.
What I do have a small problem with is the way that scientists revert to the God device when addressing certain cosmological concepts. Examples like ‘The God Particle’ for the Higgs Boson, and Hawking’s last line in his eponymous book ‘A Brief History Of Time’. It’s annoying. More importantly it’s a poor use of language. It gives the impression that scientists such as Hawking and Higgs buy into the deity fallacy. Which they patently don’t.
I wish that science communicators would refrain from using this term when explaining current theories and hypotheses. Even if they do want publicity in he week their book hits the shelves and eStores!
Have decided not to do a mathematics degree via the OU as I mulled about in a previous post. I’m going to do self study for a few years using the books in the picture. Click on the picture for a larger view. I already have these books. So in addition it’s free entertainment and fits into my larger plan to pay off everything I owe and get to a debt free state as soon as possible (including paying of my mortgage).
Debating the idea of taking 6 years to do a part time physics and maths degree via The Open University. Just to give me a framework to teach myself maths. I really have a bee in my bonnet about learning maths. It’s like my own Mount Everest. The modules leading to the degree would be:
MU123 – Discovering mathematics
MST121 – Using mathematics
MS221 – Exploring mathematics
MST209 – Mathematical models and methods
S207 – The physical world
S282 – Astronomy
S382 – Astrophysics
S383 – The relativistic universe
SM358 – The quantum world
SXP390 – Science project course: radiation and matter
Then again I might just do it self study via books I’ve got and not get the degree. I’ve got one already 🙂 Could do a Masters in something else to get more paper!