Operator Error

1'm enjoying my new Fujifilm X-S10 camera, but it is complicated. 

I spent half an hour yesterday trying to figure out why my viewfinder was dim and pictures were underexposed. I went through all menu settings I could think of that might affect the viewfinder display, but didn't find anything that had an effect. 

Finally, I figured it out. The other night I had turned the exposure compensation down all the way - 5 stops - to take a picture of the moon. Of course, I forgot to turn it back up. No wonder the viewfinder was dim. It shouldn't have taken me that long to figure that out - it's a basic setting. (I would not likely have made that mistake had I purchased an X-T30 or X-T3 as they have a top dial for exposure compensation, which makes the setting more obvious. On the X-S10 it's set with the back command dial and shows up as a scale in the side of the viewfinder).

This also made me realize that I need to keep a list of the settings I've been customizing. I may start doing some blog posts about how I customized the camera, if I can find the time.

Appreciating the String Music of Philip Glass

I've been a big fan of Philip Glass' music since I first heard it sometime in the 1970s and have seen him perform several times. I'm most familiar with his larger orchestral and operatic works but not so much with his string works, the violin quartets and concertos.

String Magazine has published an appreciation of his string music, with comments from several musicians about how they approach his works, which are often technically demanding. It's an interesting article and I do hope that I'll get to see some of the works mentioned performed live. For some reason, John Adams seems to be much more popular in the Toronto music scene than Glass; I've seen a few of Adams' works performed in the last few years, but only a couple of Glass' piano études.

For conservatory-trained string players who came of age in the 1980s and ’90s, a new score from Philip Glass could be met with a wary eye. Sure, he cast a bewigged violinist as the title character in his landmark 1976 opera Einstein on the Beach. And one of the earliest pieces in his trademark minimalist style was the 1966 String Quartet No. 1—the first of eight quartets to date. But orchestral musicians in particular bemoaned—even outright protested—being assigned to play Glass’ churning, oscillating patterns, while singers, keyboardists, and screened films often seemed to reap the creative glory.

In the past 15 years, however, Glass has produced a spate of solo string works that has won him new converts. Most of these pieces feature traditional forms and often lyrical, reflective moods: the Sonata for Violin and Piano (2008), Violin Concerto No. 2 (2009), Partita for Solo Violin (2010–11), Pendulum for Violin and Piano (2010), and Sarabande in Common Time (2016). There are also two cello concertos, completed in 2001 and 2012, respectively, and two partitas for solo cello, from 2007 and 2010. Other works from the last decade include a Double Concerto for Violin and Cello and a Partita for Double Bass.

Even more noteworthy is how the Glass canon is being reimagined. Last summer, Chase Spruill, a San Francisco–area violinist, cast Glass’ Epilogue for Solo Violin as a musical protest over racial injustice. Another violinist, Tim Fain, has reimagined the Partita as Portals, a multimedia project with choreographer Benjamin Millepied. And the UK-based Carducci Quartet has filmed a lockdown-era arrangement of the String Quartet No. 5 with jazz-rock drummer, Cristián Tamblay.

 

Using AI to Write Computer Code

There'a an AI tool called GPT-3 that you may have heard about that can generate text based on its understanding of patterns in human language. Now it's being used to generate code from simple descriptions of what the code is supposed to do.  

IT CAN TAKE years to learn how to write computer code well. SourceAI, a Paris startup, thinks programming shouldn’t be such a big deal.

The company is fine-tuning a tool that uses artificial intelligence to write code based on a short text description of what the code should do. Tell the company’s tool to “multiply two numbers given by a user,” for example, and it will whip up a dozen or so lines in Python to do just that.

SourceAI’s ambitions are a sign of a broader revolution in software development. Advances in machine learning have made it possible to automate a growing array of coding tasks, from auto-completing segments of code and fine-tuning algorithms to searching source code and locating pesky bugs.

Automating coding could change software development, but the limitations and blind spots of modern AI may introduce new problems. Machine-learning algorithms can behave unpredictably, and code generated by a machine might harbor harmful bugs unless it is scrutinized carefully.

I've been wondering when this would happen for many years. For example,  a lot of programming, like writing code to hook a user interface to a database, is pretty routine. So is writing documentation for it, which is something that has been worrying technical writers for a while. 

In the future, it may be a lot harder to get jobs as a programmer. This is likely to hit the offshoring industries first, I suspect. 

Why Does the SpaceX Starship Do a Belly Flop?

If you've seen the launches and attempted landings of the SpaceX Starship prototype, you may be wondering why it does a belly flop and last-minute flip to vertical just before landing. 

Here's a video, from the excellent Everyday Astronaut YouTube Channel that explains why. It does get moderately technical, but it's likely as clear an explanation of the reason for the manoeuvre as you will find anywhere. 

If videos aren't your thing, there is an article version that you can read at your leisure. 

 

Featured Links - April 26, 2021

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

• Record-Breaking Flare Released By Sun's Nearest Neigbour. "The closest star to the Sun, Proxima Centauri, has released a record-breaking flare – and thanks to a network of nine telescopes on the ground and in space, astronomers wereable to capture the extreme event."  
• New Chrome feature lets users create a link to highlighted text. "The feature is now rolling out to desktop and Android users."
• Why was the ancient city of Cahokia abandoned? New clues rule out one theory. "Once found near present-day St. Louis in Illinois, Cahokia suddenly declined 600 years ago, and no one knows why."
• Photos of Hankley Common filming rumoured to be for Netflix's The Sandman. "Tall black crosses and fake bones found at the set suggest whatever is being filmed is of a dark genre."
• China wants to launch its own Hubble-class telescope as part of space station. "China could launch the first module for its own space station this month as the country also prepares to send a large space telescope to join it in orbit within the next few years."
• The 8 Best Free Online Music Streaming Services With No Limitations. A few of these look interesting, not that I need any more music sites to listen to.
• NASA’s bold bet on Starship for the Moon may change spaceflight forever. "It is transformational to degrees no one today can understand."

Photo of the Week - April 24, 2021

A spring flower for you.

 Taken with a Fujifilm X-S10: F4, 1/400 seconds, ISO 640, Velvia film simulation.

Pharoah Sanders Harmony Holiday

 I posted last month about the release of Pharoah Sanders' new album, Promises. It's a wonderful album and a perfect balm for these troubled times.

I'm not the only one who likes it. Here's an appreciative article about Sanders and the new album from 4columns.org.

On Promises, Pharoah—alongside Sam Shepherd (Floating Points) and the London Symphony Orchestra—sounds as lucid dream–driven as on Thembi and as reverent as on Ascension (1965). Composed by Shepherd and on the label Luaka Bop, the album has been five years coming, an idea born in 2015 in Los Angeles and realized in a ten-day recording session at LA’s Sargent Studios in the summer of 2019, and then another socially distanced session in London’s AIR Studio, where the LSO recorded Shepherd’s arrangements in 2020. The outcome is nine movements, forty-six minutes that begin with a huddled dirge-like and embryonic quality, gradually brightening into cheerful resignation, with the help of Pharoah’s tonal insistence, a goodbye to all that.

A looping shimmer of Fender Rhodes chords in the shape of lurking, about-to-press footsteps opens the suite and becomes its constant refrain, repeating so often that its initial softness smudges; we cannot tell if we’re being soothed, warned, or taunted by the inescapable pulsing of sweetness against menace. Pharoah enters and cuts through the Rhodes loop a minute and a half in, but the refrain never dissolves—it dangles and coddles us every few bars, movement after movement. The loop is part of what is promised, the coaxing familiarity we must face to reach the greater unknown here. Pharoah becomes oracular onlooker. He withholds, refuses, returns in rollicking bursts while the loop steadily marches in search and in spite of him. You long for the reprieve and fluidity of the tenor, but much of Promises plays to its absence, to its potential—chasing it, then alienating it.

Netflix's Love Death + Robots Volume 2 Coming May 14th

The second volume of Netflix's animated SFF anthology series, Love Death + Robots, will be out on May 14th. The trailer is embedded below. The list of stories is exciting, to put it mildly. 

• Automated Customer Service. based on a story by: John Scalzi
• Ice, based on a story by: Rich Larson
• Pop Squad, Based on a story by: Paolo Bacigalupi
• Snow in the Desert, based on a story by: Neal Asher
• The Tall Grass, based on a story by: Joe Lansdale
• All Through the House, based on a story by: Joachim Heijndermans
• Life Hutch, based on a story by: Harlan Ellison
• The Drowned Giant, based on a story by: J.G. Ballard

For more details, see this article from The Mary Sue.

A Proposal for Finding Alien Artifacts

Astrophysicist James Benford (brother of SF author Gregory Benford) has published a paper in which he proposes techniques for finding "lurkers", alien artifacts that may have passed through or near our solar system.  

I propose a version of the Drake Equation for Lurkers on near-Earth objects. By using it, one can compare a Search for Extraterrestrial Artifacts (SETA) strategy of exploring for artifacts to the conventional listening-to-stars SETI strategy, which has thus far found no artificial signals of technological origin. In contrast, SETA offers a new perspective, a new opportunity: discovering past and present visits to the near-Earth vicinity by ET space probes.

SETA is a proposition about our local region in the solar system. SETA is falsifiable in its specific domain: ET probes to investigate Earth would locate on the nearest objects down to a specified resolution. SETI, on the other hand, is about messages sent from distant stars. For example, one can falsify a proposition such as “Are signals being sent to Earth at this moment within 100 ly?” But there is the region beyond 100 ly and beyond 1000 ly, etc. So SETI is falsifiable only within larger and larger domains. Of course other factors can also weaken falsification: our sensitivity might be inadequate, duty cycle might be small, and of course frequency coverage will always be incomplete.

Rose and Wright pointed out the energy efficiency of an inscribed physical artifact vs. an EM signal, because the artifact has persistence and the EM signal has to be transmitted indefinitely (Rose & Wright, 2004). Here I point out that artifacts are not only energy efficient, but increase the chance of contact. Rose and Wright did not explore where to locate the artifact so it would be identified; here I suggest there are attractive locations near Earth where they might be readily observable.

In a recent paper, I introduced the term ‘Lurker’: an unknown and unnoticed observing probe from an extraterrestrial civilization, which may well be dead, but if not, could respond to an intentional signal. And/or it may not, depending on unknown alien motivations (Benford, 2019). Lurkers include self-replicating probes, based on von Neumann’s theory of self-replicating machines, which is why they are often called von Neumann probes (Von Neumann, 1966). Recently concepts have appeared for self-replicating probes that could be built in the near future (Borgue & Hein, 2020).

SpaceX to Land Astronauts on the Moom - Updated

Well, this is interesting. NASA has selected SpaceX to build the lander that will land its astronauts on the moon as part of its Artemis program. The contract is worth almost $3 billion to SpaceX. The lander will be based on the Starship rockets that SpaceX is currently testing in Texas.  

NASA is getting ready to send astronauts to explore more of the Moon as part of the Artemis program, and the agency has selected SpaceX to continue development of the first commercial human lander that will safely carry the next two American astronauts to the lunar surface. At least one of those astronauts will make history as the first woman on the Moon. Another goal of the Artemis program includes landing the first person of color on the lunar surface.

The agency’s powerful Space Launch System rocket will launch four astronauts aboard the Orion spacecraft for their multi-day journey to lunar orbit. There, two crew members will transfer to the SpaceX human landing system (HLS) for the final leg of their journey to the surface of the Moon. After approximately a week exploring the surface, they will board the lander for their short trip back to orbit where they will return to Orion and their colleagues before heading back to Earth.

 I am willing to be that we will see the launch to the Lunar Gateway change from the SLS booster to a SpaceX rocket at some point, given the immense cost of each launch. For that matter, refueling a Starship in orbit could eliminate the need for the Lunar Gateway, which is a useless boondoggle if there ever was one.

Update: NASASpaceflight.com has published an article going into some detail about how and why NASA chose SpaceX over the other candidates.

The TL;DR version: cost and capability. 

SpaceX’s total evaluated price for their proposal was $2,941,394,557. While exact price figures are not provided for offerors that are not selected, the statement specifies that Blue Origin’s proposal was significantly more expensive than SpaceX, and that Dynetics’ proposal was significantly more expensive than Blue Origin.

Since SpaceX’s proposal was the lowest cost, ad also highly rated from technical and managerial perspectives, NASA chose to open price negotiations that could enable the agency to afford to develop the Starship HLS. SpaceX was able to revise the milestone payment timeline to fit within NASA’s current budget, although the overall price of the program was not reduced. SpaceX was not permitted to alter any technical aspects of their proposal during negotiations.

SpaceX’s winning proposal is not without risk, but Starship offered several significant strengths that sufficiently offset any weaknesses. NASA’s evaluated SpaceX’s HLS proposal as a credible technical response to the agency’s needs, with any weaknesses either offset by strengths of inconsequential to contract performance.

Notable strengths of the Starship HLS design include a 100 day loiter capability in lunar orbit, exceeding NASA’s goal of a 90 day loiter period. The ability to wait at the moon for the arrival of the crew offers additional flexibility for Space Launch System (SLS) launches.

 

The Pulp Magazine Archive

It wasn't long after I first discovered science fiction that I found out about science fiction magazines. My dad often stopped off at a second-hand bookstore to pick up reading material, and I found that the store sold used copies of science fiction magazines like Astounding/Analog, Worlds of IF, and Galaxy for a nickel. When I was a teen and had a little more disposable income, I started buying the magazines new each month, especially Analog. 

Later, I bought a large collection of magazines and had an almost complete run of Analog and Fantasy and Science Fiction from 1950 into the 80s (which I eventually sold for lack of space, sigh). When I moved to Toronto in the 1980s, I often visited The Spaced Out Library (now the Merill Collection) to browse through the stacks and fondle some of the older pulps (very gently and with permission of the librarians, of course).

Now it turns out that the Internet Archive has set up The Pulp Magazine Archive, and many of the magazines that I used to read, and many, many more, are available for reading online. The collection isn't limited to science fiction; there are over 13,000 issues in total of dozens of different magazines spanning a wide range of genres and subjects. But I'm mostly interested in the science fiction and fantasy genres.

I could browse through this for hours just looking at the covers, some of which are incredibly garish.

The collection isn't complete. For example, there are no issues of the US edition of Analog Science Fiction Science Fact (renamed from Astounding Stories in 1960), although there are many issues of Asimov's Science Fiction magazine, which started in the 1970s. But I'll take the almost complete run of Astounding quite happily. 

One more image - the cover from the first issue of Galaxy Science Fiction in 1950.

 

 

2021 Hugo Award Finalists

The finalists for the 2021 Hugo Awards have been announced. The Hugos are SFF fandom's annual awards, voted on by members of the World Science Fiction Convention. This year's awards will be announced at Discon 3, the 79th WorldCon,  in December. 

These are the finalists for Best Novel.

• Piranesi, Susanna Clarke (Bloomsbury US; Bloomsbury UK)
• The City We Became, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit US; Orbit UK)
• The Relentless Moon, Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor; Solaris)
• Harrow the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir (Tordotcom)
• Black Sun, Rebecca Roanhorse (Saga; Solaris)
• Network Effect, Martha Wells (Tordotcom)

In looking over the list, it's clear that women authors have come to dominate the field. I have not read any of the finalists for Best Novel, although there are two or three that I might at some point. (Jemisin, Kowal, and Wells). As well, most of the authors are relatively new, first published after 2010, or 2000 in some cases. This is a good thing, although I am disappointed that Kim Stanley Robinson's The Ministry for the Future didn't make the list.

Keep an eye on the Locus list as it will probably be updated to include links to the short fiction finalists. 

Update: File 770 has posted an article with links to everything that you can read or view online.

Fujifilm X-S10 First Impressions

After several years of struggling with my Nikon D5200, I finally broke down and bought a Fujifilm X-S10 with an XF 16-80 mm. lens. So far, I am a happy camper. 

When I started looking at a new camera, the Fujifilm cameras appealed to me because of their retro styling and control layout. I learned photography on film SLRs, and using dials for the basic settings is perfectly natural to me. They're also highly customizable and have wonderful image quality, even allowing for the APSC sensor size. In an ideal world with an unlimited budget I would have bought an X-T4, but both the older X-T3 and X-T4 were out of my reach. I then considered the X-T30, which I probably could have lived with, but found the newest camera, the X-S10 on sale with the wonderful XF 16-80 lens, including a spare battery and high-speed memory card for less than what I would have paid for the X-T30 with the zoom lens. So I went for that.

The X-S10 is a mirrorless camera, but it's not especially small. The body is a bit smaller than the Nikon, but with the lens attached it weighs just over a kilogram, which is a bit heavier than the Nikon and kit lens combo. The build quality of both camera and lens is excellent; they feel solid, well balanced, and comfortable in the hand. 

Unlike Fuji's other cameras, the X-S10 has a control layout that's more like most current digital cameras, with a PASM control dial instead of a shutter-speed dial. Otherwise, the controls and the menus are similar to Fuji's other cameras. It has a large grip, which was one of my concerns about the X-T30. The deciding factor for me, other than the sale price, was in-body image stabilization. The 16-80 zoom also has stabilization, so it's a bit redundant right now, but if I ever get any prime lenses that don't have it, it will be useful. 

So far, I have been using the camera in auto mode or aperture priority without getting too fancy and just trying to get a feel for how it handles different lighting situations. The metering is very accurate, there's lots of dynamic range, and colour rendition accurate. I've mostly been using the Velvia Vivid film simulation, which provides bright vivid colours. It might not be to everyone's taste but I like it, and it's easy to change to one of the other film simulations.

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I was worried that the viewfinder would be too small for my vision, but it's actually larger than the one in the Nikon and much easier to use. I did set the viewfinder and LCD display setting to show large indicators; I would have trouble using the camera if that setting wasn't available. 

The XF 16-80 zoom is very sharp and the only time I've wished for a longer reach is when taking pictures of birds. I'll have to test it more to see what apertures and zoom ranges provide the sharpest results, but I don't think there's much to complain about. With the image stabilization, the F4 fixed aperture is perfectly usable. 

There are a few things that I don't like but they're all minor.

• I do wish that the screen tilted vertically so you could use the camera for waist-level shooting. (The Nikon has the same limitation). If you plan on doing a lot of street photography, the XS-10 may not be for you.
• The buttons could use more vertical relief. It's hard to find them in the dark.
• Fujifilm recommends using only their charger, or a computer, to charge the battery, but they don't include a charger with the camera. Given that it charges through a USB-C connection, any cell phone charger should be fine, although I have read varying opinions about that online.
• Battery life is not great. I was using the camera mostly in auto mode at first, which does use up battery power faster than some of the other shooting modes. You will probably want a spare battery or two. (The camera can be used while plugged into a power pack, if need be).
• The camera has both Bluetooth and Wifi connectivity, but Fujifilm's software to connect with computers and phones is, to put it gently, awful. I will get it to work, I'm sure, but so far the manual hasn't been much help.

That's probably enough for now. I'll add more in time as get more used to the camera. 

Featured Links - April 19, 2021

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

• Royal Mail Classic Science Fiction Stamps. A set of stamps honouring classic SF no
• COVID-19: article defends a new classification for the disease. The researchers think it a disease that acts opposite to hemorrhagic fevers; that is, it causes blood clots. 
• The 19 Best Astronomy Apps for Stargazing. Use these apps to help explore the night sky with your smartphone or tablet.
• Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings series to cost $465 million for first season. "So that’s why Smaug wanted all that gold."
• The genius behind early Russian space tech. Sergei Korolev needs to be better known and celebrated in the West. 
• How Do We Exit the Post-Truth Era? Why fact-checking alone won't save us from fake news

Photo of the Week - April 18. 2021

Here's a picture of Frenchman's Bay, taken with my new camera, a Fujifilm XS-10. Given the lighting, I think it turned out pretty well. The channel from the bay to Lake Ontario is on the right, with dredging equipment just to the left of the channel. 

 

Some Space-Related Articles

Here are some articles related to space exploration.

• Apollo 13: Eyewitness to the Explosion. The explosion of Apollo 13 was seen from the ground, but the observers didn't know what it meant at the time they saw it.
• It now seems likely that Starliner will not launch crew until early 2022. "The first hurdle for Starliner: Finding an open port on the space station."
• DARPA selects Blue Origin, . Iockheed Martin to develop spacecraft for nuclear propulsion demo. It's about time that nuclear propulsion got some love.
• The era of reusability in space has begun. "Northrop Grumman successfully extends a satellites life by topping up the fuel."
• Astrobotic selects Falcon Heavy to launch NASA’s VIPER lunar rover. "Astrobotic will launch its Griffin lunar lander, carrying NASA’s VIPER lunar rover, on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy in 2023. Credit: SpaceX."
  
  

The Future of Extremism in America

The Washington Post Magazine has published a long article about the future of extremism in the United States. It's clear from a quick skim of the article, which is long and well researched, that the January 6th insurgency probably won't be the last extreme political event in the US.  

I hadn't planned on blogging about the article, because the WP articles are usually paywalled, but this one doesn't seem to be locked down.

There are many critical differences between the 1850s and today. The government is now far more expansive and powerful than it was in the antebellum era. There is no modern problem as singular and overriding as slavery was; we are instead polarized over many issues. And while there are geographic dimensions to our divisions, they are not nearly as clean as those that once split the U.S. Much like territorial Kansas, almost every American state has its own union and its own confederacy.

But there are also clear parallels. The present United States may be more polarized than it has been at any time since the 1850s. Large swaths of the population simply refuse to accept the election of political opponents as legitimate. Many of the social issues that divide us, in particular questions of systemic discrimination, stem from slavery. 

Most frighteningly, research suggests that a growing number of Americans believe that political violence is acceptable. In a 2017 survey by the political scientists Lilliana Mason and Nathan Kalmoe, 18 percent of Democrats and 12 percent of Republicans said that violence would be at least a little justified if the opposing party won the presidency. In February 2021, those numbers increased to 20 percent and 28 percent, respectively. Other researchers have found an even bigger appetite for extreme activity. In a January poll conducted by the American Enterprise Institute, researchers asked respondents whether “the traditional American way of life is disappearing so fast that we may have to use force to save it.” Thirty-six percent of Americans, and an astounding 56 percent of Republicans, said yes.

All of this raises a serious question: Could the United States experience prolonged, acute civil violence? 

According to dozens of interviews with former and current government officials, counterterrorism researchers, and political scientists who study both the U.S. and other countries, the answer is yes. “I think that the conditions are pretty clearly headed in that direction,” says Katrina Mulligan, the managing director for national security and international policy at the Center for American Progress and the former director for preparedness and response in the national security division at the Department of Justice (DOJ). The insurrection on “January 6 was a canary in the coal mine in a way, precisely because it wasn’t a surprise to those of us who have been following this.”

Some Useful Photography Information

I've been using cameras most of my adult life and even worked in a camera store for a few years, so photographic technique is pretty much automatic for me by now. I have to remind myself that, for someone moving from a smartphone to a digital camera, there's a steep learning curve involved. 

Here are a couple of sites that might help. 

• Creative Blog has an article featuring a nifty infographic created by Skylum. I couldn't load the original graphic, but the one shown in the article is pretty legible. 
• Digital Photography School's Photographic Terminology is a glossary of 69 photographic terms. There's a lot of photographic jargon out there; this glossary will help to explain it. 
• Amateur Photographer is a weekly British magazine. I've been reading it for several years and look forward to each week's issue. It strikes a good balance between the art, techniques, and technology of modern photography. As well as viewing their website, you can read it on PressReader (available from many libraries)

Canada's Pademic Response

A year ago it seemed that Canada was handling the pandemic much better than the United States. Emergency government social programs helped many Canadians weather the economic storm caused by mass layoffs and immediate and strict lockdowns reduced the spread of the virus to manageable levels. 

A year later things are not looking so rosy. While the economy seems to be recovering, the third wave of the virus seems to be the worst, vaccines are in short supply, and weary Canadians are dealing with more lockdowns. As the virus spreads, it's worst effects are now being felt by marginalized workers who can't afford to take time off work even if they get sick. 

One of the responses to the pandemic that could have and should have been made was to introduce paid sick leave to workers whose employers didn't provide it. But, as this article points out, neoliberal governments refused to provide it. Now we're paying the price, which is likely to be far more costly than the cost of any social program. 

In Toronto, racialized people made up 83 percent of all COVID-19 cases, with several COVID-19 outbreaks affecting long-term care facilities, factories (including a major Amazon warehouse outbreak), manufacturing sites, farms staffed by migrant workers, and food plants. Those same sites rarely offer paid time off, which would allow sick people to isolate. That’s why governments need to step in and implement guaranteed paid sick days, but so far, that’s not happening. 

“I have no idea why when all the doctors, scientists, mayors, everybody is saying you need this,” Arya said. It seems more like ideological opposition or political will, rather than listening to science.”

University of Alberta infectious disease specialist Dr. Lynora Saxinger, also a proponent of paid sick days, said politics has influenced how governments all over respond to COVID-19 spikes. “They’re focusing on the economy and taking the assumption that lockdowns are damaging rather than helpful,” Saxinger said. 

I hope there will be a reckoning, come the next election cycle. 

Another article looks at the economic and social effects of the pandemic so far, and looks ahead to what will change after the pandemic is over.

Life-altering moments tend to be followed by significant change. The Second World War showed that government could get things done when it wanted, and politicians used that momentum to put in place many of the programs that we now take for granted. Overreach in the 1970s led to high inflation, high interest rates and high unemployment, setting in motion a partial dismantling of what was built after the war. The Great Recession triggered a new resolve to constrain the biggest banks, which ensured the financial industry had big reserves of cash with which to confront the latest economic crisis.

COVID-19 will bring similar structural change. Governments won’t have to do all the work. Reyhany, the pharmacist, raised about $40 million by listing his company’s online pharmacy business, Mednow Inc., on the TSX Venture Exchange in early March. The pandemic has made investors keen to get behind both health and technology companies, and Mednow offered exposure to both. Open Text’s Barrenechea said he’s in the process of hiring about 300 people in Canada, and for the first time, location isn’t an issue because the pandemic has shown that companies like his can function without an office. “Modern work works,” he said. “We’re embracing it.” 

I should note, for my US readers, that the second article is relevant to them.  

Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics

Today is the 60th anniversary of the first human spaceflight. So to commemorate Yuri Gagarin's flight, I thought it appropriate to link to a virtual tour of Moscow's Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics. 

 This is a 360º virtual tour produced by Google and is extremely cool. It works the same way as Streetview in Google Maps.

In the unlikely event that I ever get to Russia, it's one of the three places I would like to visit. (The other two are the Hermitage in St. Petersburg and Baikonur.)

Featured Links - April 12, 2021

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

• 6 Windows Power User Features to Make Your Life Easier. "Make Windows 10 do the work for you. The tools are already there—it's time to start using them."
• Is the standard model broken? Physicists cheer major muon result. The muon’s magnetic moment is larger than expected — a hint that new elementary particles are waiting to be discovered.
• How to Survive a Killer Asteroid. "The impact that wiped out the dinosaurs would probably have killed you too—unless you were in the exact right place and had made the exact right plans."
• Steve Reich, autism, and the search for order in a chaotic world. A good, perceptive article about one of my favourite pieces of music.
• Musa Okwonga: ‘Boys don’t learn shamelessness at Eton, it is where they perfect it’. "The writer and podcaster talks about his private school days, and why a system that prides itself on creating leaders is selling Britain short."
• SpaceX's Starlink: Overhyped and underpowered to meet broadband needs of Rural America, say analysts. "As the constellation stands anyway."

Radio Garden

Radio Garden is a visual interface to the world's radio stations. It opens a Google Earth view of the planet. As you move around and zoom in, it plays the radio stations from the area that you select.

Right now I'm listening to CKRW-FM in Whitehorse, Yukon. They're running a -21 for 21 days contest right now. That brings back memories of the winters in Grande Prairie, Alberta where I lived for a few years.

You can search by country, city, or station if you don't want to browse. Stations are indicated by green dots and there's an information panel that shows you what station you are listening to. (The browsing is a bit tricky because the selection marquee moves opposite to the direction I move my mouse.) You could probably find stations with an app like TuneIn, but this is more fun. 

Radio Garden is one of the cooler things I've seen on the internet for a while. 

Update: The excellent Recomendo newsletter reports that there are now Radio Garden apps for Android and IOS, with the same functionality as the web site.

 

Photo of the Week

Here's a seagull at enjoying the sunshine at Frenchman's Bay. Considering how strong the contrast was, the Pixel camera did a good job. 

 

Letterpress Printing Videos

It's been a while since I posted anything about printing technology, so here's a link to the YouTube channel of Jukebox Print. They're a Toronto company specializing in things like high-end business cards, stickers, letterheads, and many custom printed products. (I noticed that they're located just down the street from where I had my first job after I moved to Toronto. I wish I'd known about them then). 

The videos on their channel are pr0n for printing geeks like me. Watch this one as they how create an embossed business card with three different colours of foil (including edge foil!) on a 1960's letterpess. 

Thanks to BoingBoing for pointing this one out.

High-end letterpress printing is demonstrated in all of its glory on the Jukebox Print YouTube channel. Jukebox is a high-end custom business card printer in Canada.

Each video on their channel, shot in their letterpress department, is usually close to 30 minutes long and takes you through the entire process of 5-color letterpress printing, foil printing, gilding, die-cut printing, and more.

And for printer enthusiasts, their beautiful shop, filled with old, well-oiled and maintained Heidelberg presses, is to die for.

Word Indexing Tips

One of the trends in documentation that's bothered me over the years is the move away from indexing to just using search. While search can be useful in an online document, it's no substitute for a carefully crafted index. Unfortunately, indexes are time-consuming and take some thought, and they're often the first thing to get dropped when deadlines loom.

The other problem is that popular writing tools don't make indexing easy or intuitive. (Are you listening, Adobe?) I will give credit to Microsoft in this regard; Word's indexing tool is relatively easy to use, and has some features that aren't obvious from a first glance at the interface.

Office Watch has published a good article that covers Word's indexing in detail. It's worth a look if you use Word and have to index a document. 

 

Moving the Pandemic Warning System Outside the Government

A while back the Canadian government made a really bone-headed decision, to restrict it's Global Public Health Information Network (GPHIN) to reporting on only domestic outbreaks. This effectively neutered it, and was a contributing factor to the spread of the current pandemic, as the GPHIN might have detected the pandemic weeks or even months before the first announcement at the end of December.

Now, researchers are suggesting restoring the GPHIN to its former role, but having it run outside of the government. The H5NI blog has an excerpt of an article from the Globe and Mail. (I've included links to both the blog and the full Globe and Mail article because of the Globe's paywall).

The proposal is aimed at restoring the Global Public Health Intelligence Network to its former status as an internationally respected pandemic surveillance system. Documents outlining the plan were submitted to an independent panel in Ottawa that is reviewing the system’s future. 

 According to the documents, GPHIN would work with the World Health Organization and be based at the University of Ottawa’s Bruyère Research Institute. The university and the WHO back the idea, says the proposal, which was reviewed by The Globe and Mail. 

“We propose the creation of a Canadian-based WHO collaborating centre for global health intelligence,” the proposal states. Such a move “would provide a new, stable and cost-effective environment for the future management of GPHIN. 

“GPHIN must be guaranteed freedom from government influence or interference. To achieve independence of any future government influence, bias or interference, GPHIN must be situated outside of government.” 

This is a very good idea. 

Some Articles About COVID-19

 Here are some articles about COVID-19 that I thought worth sharing.

• COVID-19 patients can be categorized into three groups. "Phenotypes I, II and III show distinct characteristics and show adverse, normal and favorable clinical outcomes respectively." This might help doctors to assign the most effective treatments for a particular patient.
• COVID-19 mask study finds layering, material choice matter. "The analysis showed that properly fitted and multilayer masks reject 84% of particles expelled by a person when one person wears it. Two people donning these types of masks reduces particle transmission by 96%."
• Study identifies possible COVID-19 drugs -- including several that are FDA-approved. "Promising candidates include widely used transplant-rejection drug cyclosporine."
• SARS-CoV-2 and Surface (Fomite) Transmission for Indoor Community Environments. "The principal mode by which people are infected with SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) is through exposure to respiratory droplets carrying infectious virus. It is possible for people to be infected through contact with contaminated surfaces or objects (fomites), but the risk is generally considered to be low."
• Why is it so hard to investigate the rare side effects of COVID vaccines? "For the vast majority of people, COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective. But further research is needed to understand the causes of rare adverse events."

Music Reviews - February-March 2021

Here are some short reviews of some of the more notable music I listened to recently.

• Dead and Company, October 31, 2019, Madison Square Gardens, New York, NY. I am not a big fan of Dead and Company, but this show was special. All the songs, but for the encore, were written by the late Robert Hunter, who had died not long before the concert. It's a solid and entertaining show, and John Mayer has reined in his tendency to noodle aimlessly on jams. 
• Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul: Soulfire Live. I wish I'd seen this tour live. It's some of the best soul- and R&B-influenced rock music I've ever heard and an absolute joy to listen to. 
• The Band: Stage Fright (50 Anniversary Reissue). The sound on the album is a bit cleaner and more open, the demos are interesting if you like that sort of thing, but the 1971 concert from the Royal Albert Hall in London is the star of this set. 
• Pharoah Sanders: Promises.  I didn't have high expectations for this; after all, he just turned 80, and how well can an 80-year-old play the sax? Well, I was wrong on that. Promises is brilliant and easily his best album since Message From Home released in 1996, and one of the highlights of his career.

Featured Links - April 5, 2021

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

• The political possibility of cities, by Cory Doctorow. "Working with local governments is a tactic, not a strategy – a way to erode corporate power and present alternatives. It's the beginning, not the end."
• Why indoor spaces are still prime COVID hotspots. From Nature: "Risks shoot up when virus particles accumulate in buildings, but it’s not clear how best to improve ventilation."
• 20 science fiction and fantasy books to check out this April, from Andrew Liptak's excellent Transfer Orbit newsletter.
• Ted Chiang: The Author Behind ‘Arrival’ Doesn’t Fear AI. ‘Look at How We Treat Animals.’ "The award-winning author and Ezra Klein discuss A.I. suffering, free will, Superman’s failures and more."
• Scientists Have Observed Ominous Winter Leaks in Greenland Ice Sheet Lakes. "For the first time ever, scientists have shown that lakes on Greenland’s ice sheet can drain during the winter months, in a phenomenon that could accelerate the rate of glacial melt."
• American Fascism. A rumination on the history and current status of fascism in America, by John Scalzi.

Happy Easter

It's another long weekend, not that it's a big deal for retirees like me, but still. It is a holiday of sorts and I'm taking it off. I'll be back here on Monday. 

In the meantime, here's a picture of our neighbourhood mascots, Tommy and Tulip.

  

TV and Movie Reviews - March 2021

Here are some short reviews of things I watched in March. My viewing pattern has been disrupted because my wife is still spending a lot of time taking care of her mother, so I haven't been watching a lot of shows that I know she wants to see.

Movies

• Justice League (Zack Syder cut). A four-hour-long light show with no redeeming social or artistic merit. The only reason I watched it was my son wanted to see it on the big TV with the surround system. I will credit it for being better than the theatrical release, but that's a very low bar. (HBO)
• Alan Bean: Art off This Earth. A short documentary about astronaut and artist Alan Bean. I wish it had been longer. (Knowledge Network)
• Hermitage Revealed. A documentary about Russia's Hermitage Museum. It is one of the two places in Russia that I would like to visit. (Knowledge Network)
• Led Zeppelin: Celebration. I never saw them live, to my life-long regret. I've watched the DVD several times now, and every time I find something new. This time: Jimmy Page shredding on a 12-string at the end of "Stairway to Heaven". I don't think I've ever seen anyone else do that. 

TV Shows

• Impossible Engineering. Season 3. Each episode is about a major engineering project and showing how it used techniques from the past. The content is really interesting; I watched episodes about the Panama Canal expansion, London's CrossRail line, and the FAST radio telescope, among others. However, the show suffers from the "tell them three times" syndrome, with a lot of repetitive material around what were probably breaks for commercials, and it drives me crazy. (TVO)
• For All Mankind, Season 2. The excellent alternate history of the space program continues about a decade after the first season ended. They mostly get the science and tech right (although the solar storm at the end of the first episode was overdone) and they haven't overdone the soap opera elements (so far). (Apple TV+)
• Nova: Dead Sea Scroll Detectives. This show mostly concentrates on how researchers and archaeologists determine which Dead Sea scroll fragments are real and which ones are fakes. The technology that is now available to read them is amazing. (PBS)
• American Gods, Season 3. The book is arguably Gaiman's best novel, but I wouldn't rate the TV show that highly. I've totally lost track of the plot, but it is still quite watchable. (Amazon Prime)
• Classic Albums: American Beauty/Anthem of the Sun. The story of two of the Grateful Dead's early albums. It's fascinating to see how some of the music was made in the studio. (Amazon Prime)
• Led Zeppelin IV. The story of Led Zeppelin's fourth album. The show breaks down the album track by track. Some of the live clips are pretty amazing. If you like Zeppelin, you'll love this. (Amazon Prime)