Featured Links - May 31, 2021

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

• What Happens to Exxon Now? There was a shareholder revolt at Exxon's board meeting. This article explains what it means for Exxon's future.
• How to Uninstall Adobe Genuine Service. "The Adobe Genuine Service is a free service that periodically verifies whether Adobe apps on your machine are genuine and notifies you if they are not."
• An Unorthodox Strategy to Stop Cars From Hitting Deer. A new article from Ed Yong, one of the best science journalists. 
• Just 12 People Are Behind Most Vaccine Hoaxes On Social Media, Research Shows. So Mark and Jack, what are you doing to do about it.
• Meet the Four Kinds of People Holding Us Back From Full Vaccination. It contains some good tips on how to deal with them. 
• Death bed denials, pandemic 'hoax' accusations common in southern Manitoba hospital patients, doctor says. "Majority of COVID-19 patients at Boundary Trails Health Centre unvaccinated".

Phot of the Week - May 30, 2021

Toronto Beaches on a damp afternoon, taken with my Pixel 4a. 

How to Use HLS Starship

Recently, NASA chose SpaceX to build a Human Landing System (HLS) version of the Starship that SpaceX has been testing in Texas. There aren't a lot of details yet on how missions to the moon would work using HLS Starship. 

Here's a 37-minute video from the Apogee YouTube channel that looks at some of the options. It's pretty interesting. The option of using (and reusing) two HLS Starships to cycle people and cargo back and forth to the moon is really exciting, but it doesn't use NASA's Space Launch System, which may be a deal breaker for them.

How Humans' Lifespans Doubled in Less Than a Century

We tale it for granted now that we are probably going to live to be seventy or eighty. For most of human history, it wasn't like that. Most people died before they were fifty, even if they managed to survive childhood. In the last century, the average lifespan has doubled. 

There is a long article in the New York Times that analyses the reasons behind this amazing change and looks at what the future might bring. It's worth taking the time to read.

The period from 1916 to 1920 marked the last point in which a major reversal in global life expectancy would be recorded. (During World War II, life expectancy did briefly decline, but with nowhere near the severity of the collapse during the Great Influenza.) The descendants of English and Welsh babies born in 1918, who on average lived just 41 years, today enjoy life expectancies in the 80s. And while Western nations surged far ahead in average life span during the first half of the last century, other nations have caught up in recent decades, with China and India having recorded what almost certainly rank as the fastest gains of any society in history. A hundred years ago, an impoverished resident of Bombay or Delhi would beat the odds simply by surviving into his or her late 20s. Today average life expectancy in India is roughly 70 years.

In effect, during the century since the end of the Great Influenza outbreak, the average human life span has doubled. There are few measures of human progress more astonishing than this. If you were to publish a newspaper that came out just once a century, the banner headline surely would — or should — be the declaration of this incredible feat. But of course, the story of our extra life span almost never appears on the front page of our actual daily newspapers, because the drama and heroism that have given us those additional years are far more evident in hindsight than they are in the moment. That is, the story of our extra life is a story of progress in its usual form: brilliant ideas and collaborations unfolding far from the spotlight of public attention, setting in motion incremental improvements that take decades to display their true magnitude.

Adobe Acrobat Liquid Mode Is Handy

I cam across a feature in Adobe Acrobat for Android (also available for IOS) that I hadn't known about and is worth noting. Liquid Mode allows text in a PDF to flow to fit the screen. It's similar to the reading mode feature that some browsers have.

In testing with a couple of larger report-type documents, it seemed to work quite well and let me read documents on my phone that would have been impossible or at least difficult before. Adobe's online help for Acrobat describes it as follows:

Liquid Mode is a revolutionary mobile reading experience powered by Adobe Sensei, Adobe’s artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning technology. Liquid Mode enhances your PDF layout and adds features on-the-fly to help you easily read documents on your phone and tablet It’s AI technology evolves and improves the Liquid Mode experience as it learns over time.

There are some limitations related to document size and encryption, and it won't work no scanned documents that have been converted to PDF. 

To use liquid mode, tap the icon that looks like a water drop over lines of text. 

 

Featured Links - May 25, 2021

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

• The Arecibo O8bservatory Was Like Family. I Couldn't Save It.  "I grew up in awe of the iconic telescope. It raised me, and I helped control its fate. Could I have done more to protect it before its sudden collapse?"
• An Imprtant Announcement from Sellers and Newell (YouTube link). How used books can protect you from COVID-19. 
• Manufacturing mRNA Vaccines is Surprisingly Straightforward by Cory Doctorow.  "And the world can’t afford to be half vaccinated." 
• European Space Agency Lays Out Plans for a Lunar Satellite Network. I wonder how this will affect plans for radio astronomy on the lunar far side.
• Covid Killed His Father. Then Came $1 Million in Medical Bills. "Insurers and Congress wrote rules to protect coronavirus patients, but the bills came anyway, leaving some mired in debt." I cannot understand why Americans put up with this crap. 
• Inner Body. "Among other resources, this site offers an interactive guide to human anatomy."

Another Long Weekend

Up here in the Great White North, which is finally turning green. it's the Victoria Day weekend, more generally known as the May 24 weekend. That refers not so much to the date as to Canadians' favourite activity of emptying a 24 of beer, preferably on a dock overlooking a lake somewhere up in blackfly country.

I won't be on a dock, unfortunately, although I will be cracking a couple of tall boys at some point (probably after mowing my mother-in-law's lawn). So I'm taking the weekend off from blogging. I'll be back here on Tuesday. 

In the meantime, enjoy these flowers.

 Fujifilm X-S10 with 16-80 mm F4 at F4, 1/1600 sec., ISO 160 at 22 mm.

Some Basic Punctuation and Grammar Advice

Most readers of this blog are probably familiar with basic grammar and punctuation rules, but it doesn't hurt to review them occasionally. The title of the page,  How Good Grammar Saves Lives and Other Reasons It’s Still Important, is a bit hyperbolic but it does contain much good advice. 

The page is divided into the following sections:

• The 5 Most Dangerous Grammar Mistakes
• The Repercussions of Bad Spelling
• Why Grammar Is Still Important
• 6 Steps To Improving Your Grammar
• Grammar Can Save Your Life — Use It Wisely

Most sections are divided into several subsections, and there are lots of examples that clearly show what to do and not to do. 

It's a good page to bookmark and pass along to people who may be struggling with the vagaries of the English language. My only complaint is that most of the advice deals with punctuation and spelling, not grammar. 

Kobo Announces Tablet-Sized Ereader with Pen

Although I have used Kindle ereaders since getting my first Kindle about a decade ago, I've been keeping an eye on other brands, especially Kobo, who have been much more innovative than Amazon. Now they've stolen a big jump on Amazon, by introducing the Kobo Elipsa, a 10.3" reader with pen support. 

They're not the first to market a large-format e-ink device, but they're the first major player in the reader field to do so. The Elipsa comes with a pen and you can use it to take notes or annotate documents, including ebooks and PDFs. It'll be available June 24th with a stylus and sleep cover for $499.99 Canadian. (US pricing should be about $399). 

I've been wanting a bigger ereader for quite a while. Because of my vision problems, I read pretty much exclusively on my Kindle or Samsung tablet. Using a large font size (14 or 18 points) means that I don't get a lot of text on a screen, so having a 10" screen would make reading books much easier.

Incidentally, I'm quite aware that I'm not the target market for this. Kobo seems to be aiming it at professionals who need to edit or annotate documents. (They should target technical writers!) I'd have killed to have it when I was working at the TSX, but I don't have much use for the editing features now that I'm retired. 

It will be interesting to see if this drives Amazon to finally make a major upgrade to their Kindle line, which has been getting a bit long in the tooth over the last few years. 

I will definitely be visiting a Chapters store later this summer to have a look at it. 

The Great Geomagnetic Storm of 1921

A hundred years ago the Earth was hit by a solar corona mass ejection. It caused a geomagnetic storm strong enough to set fire to telegraph offices and cause auroras visible as far south as the equator.  

The outburst happened during the lazy tail end of Solar Cycle 15, an unremarkable cycle that was almost over in 1921. Sunspot numbers were low–but it only took one. Giant sunspot AR1842 appeared in mid-May and started flaring, hurling multiple coronal mass ejections (CMEs) toward Earth. In those days scientists had never heard of “CMEs,” so they were completely surprised when the clouds of plasma struck Earth. Around the world, magnetometers suddenly went offscale, pens in strip chart recorders pegged uselessly to the tops of their papers.

In response to the pummeling, Earth’s magnetic field swayed back and forth, rippling with energy. Fires were a direct result. Physics 101: When a magnetic field changes rapidly, electricity flows through conductors in the area. It’s called “magnetic induction.” Early 20th century telegraph lines suddenly found themselves buzzing with induced currents. In Sweden and New York, wires grew so hot they ignited telegraph papers and other combustibles.

Let's hope that modern electrical grids have been hardened enough to survive a similar event, because there will be another.  

Adobe DITAWORLD 2021 Recordings

The recordings from the Adobe DITAWORLD 2021 online conference are now available for viewing. I'm not sure if you need to have previously registered for the conference to view them or if you can just log in with your Adobe ID. 

If you are using DITA or contemplating using it, there is a lot of useful information to view. 

Featured Links - May 17, 2021

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

• Antarctica’s Doomsday Glacier: How Doomed Are We? "Two new papers offer radically different predictions of the glacier’s future — and thus for the future of low-lying cities around the world. Here’s how to understand the divergent projections."
• Celebrate Stevie Wonder’s Birthday With His 1974 Live Performance on ‘Musikladen’. Check out this video of Stevie Wonder at the peak of his career.
• 5 pressing questions about the New York Yankees’ breakthrough Covid-19 infections. "Eight members of the New York Yankees organization who were fully vaccinated against Covid-19 tested positive for the coronavirus this week. And that news has led to a lot of people saying, wait, what?"
• Loving the Alien. "How UFOs took over America."
• Why are there so many Atlantic named storms? Five possible explanations. It turns out that good things my have unintended consequences.
• The Global Jukebox is a fantastic way to explore music from around the world. And if you like it, check out Radio Garden.

Photo of the Week

A gerbera from my backyard.

Fuji X-S10 with 16-80 mm. F4 at F5.6, 38 mm.,1/850 sec., ISO 320

Even Scientists Are Confused by Jargon

One of the things the pandemic has made very clear is that scientists need to work on their communication skills. There's a place for precise terminology, but when you are trying to communicate with the lay public, or other scientists who might be working in a different field, clear, jargon-free, and precise communication is vital if you want your message to be heard and understood. 

This isn't just a platitude. Per the New York Times, clarity of communication affects how other scientists cite papers in their research. And for scientists, getting their papers cited by other scientists is a major career booster. 

Polje, nappe, vuggy, psammite. Some scientists who study caves might not bat an eye, but for the rest of us, these terms might as well be ancient Greek.

Specialized terminology isn’t unique to the ivory tower — just ask a baker about torting or an arborist about bracts, for example. But it’s pervasive in academia, and now a team of researchers has analyzed jargon in a set of over 21,000 scientific manuscripts. They found that papers containing higher proportions of jargon in their titles and abstracts were cited less frequently by other researchers. Science communication — with the public but also among scientists — suffers when a research paper is packed with too much specialized terminology, the team concluded.

These results were published Wednesday in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

So if you don't want to perish when you publish, be clear.  

SpaceX Releases Plan for First Orbital Test Flight

In an FCC filing, SpaceX has published information about the first orbital test of the Super Heavy/Starship combo. 

The Starship Orbital test flight will originate from Starbase, TX. The Booster stage will separate approximately 170 seconds into flight. The Booster will then perform a partial return and land in the Gulf of Mexico approximately 20 miles from the shore. The Orbital Starship will continue on flying between the Florida Straits. It will achieve orbit until performing a powered, targeted landing approximately 100km (~62 miles) off the northwest coast of Kauai in a soft ocean landing.

The purpose of the flight is to get information about how the vehicles perform at orbital flight velocities. Presumably, later flights will return to Boca Chica. 

The filing doesn't say when the first orbital flight will take place, although Elon Musk has suggested a July date. Personally, that seems optimistic, but with SpaceX you never know.  

Astronomers Have a Problem With Starlink

Although I'm generally a fan of SpaceX and their rocket launching technology, I am not a big fan of their Starlink project. That's because it's having a huge negative effect on terrestrial astronomy – an effect that is only going to get worse as more satellites are launched.

Vox.com looks at the situation in detail.

Starlink and its competitors are in pursuit of a goal with merit: to connect more of the world, particularly remote, rural places, to the internet. Too many places are cut off from broadband access, and therefore cut off from the modern world and economy. This increased connectivity could even help scientists do their work in more places on Earth. (It’s not completely altruistic, however: These companies plan on charging for this internet.)

But it comes with a cost. Because these satellites are so close, and reflective, they are often visible to the unaided human eye. But even if they were dimmed significantly, they would still be visible to powerful telescopes used in astronomy, should a satellite cross their path. When a satellite comes into view of a telescope, it can ruin the image — or at least provide more work for the astronomers to correct for it. It’s also a problem of numbers.

“The number of satellites orbiting the Earth is about to increase by about an order of magnitude,” Barentine says. “And that makes it increasingly likely that science will be lost.”

Beyond appearing as just streaks in images or distinct lights in the sky, the satellites can also introduce a diffuse glow into the background darkness of the night sky. This has already begun.

It's important to note that SpaceX isn't the only company planning a satellite constellation.  

Cleaning a Malware Infection

Ask Woody's Free Newsletter has published an article on how to remove a malware infection. The type described in the article doesn't encrypt your files and is more of a scam than really dangerous, but it does make your computer hard to use until you remove it.

Recently, a client gave me his laptop, which displayed a frightening message as soon he logged in (see Figure 1). This variety of malware is all too popular. Here is a step-by-step process to remove it, expecting that the antivirus software installed in the computer cannot do its job. Along the way, you will see where malware is often hidden.

And, NO! The malware did not do as it claimed. But it hoped to scare owners into calling the area-code 704 number at the bottom of the screen, a cellular number in the Charlotte, North Carolina area. The scammer on the phone would hope to take your credit-card information and run up some charges.

At the heart of this scam is software called Supremo, claimed to be remote-access software similar to RDP, AnyDesk, TeamViewer, UltraVNC, LogMeIn, and others. Like those programs, Supremo allows the scammer to gain remote access to your computer, after which your passwords and personal financial information are at serious risk of theft. Beware! You can find very positive reviews of Supremo via a Google search, as well as possibly bogus or obsolete instructions for its removal. Supremo may have an honest and legitimate purpose, but its association with this malware is an enormous red flag. 

Even if you aren't infected with malware, it's probably worth your time to read this article, if just to learn about some of the techniques that malware uses to gain access to your computer.  

Finding the Causes of Long COVID

A year and a quarter into the pandemic, it's clear that the after-effects of  COVID-19 infection that many people suffer (commonly known as long COVID) merit serious study. It's an important subject, given the number of people affected and the serious nature of some of the symptoms. 

Nature has a long article discussing some of the research that is now underway into long COVID, its causes, and potential cures. If you, or someone you know, is suffering from long COVID, you'll want to read this. 

Too many have died from COVID-19, but fortunately many have recovered, most without the need for hospitalization. Yet many recoverees are plagued by often life-derailing symptoms such as breathing problems, deep fatigue, joint pain, ‘brain fog’ and heart palpitations. Long COVID will affect, and already is affecting, millions of people and needs to be taken seriously, says Adrian Hayday, an immunologist at the Francis Crick Institute. Data are still emerging, says Karolinska Institute researcher Petter Brodin, but to a first approximation it appears that 70–80% of people experiencing severe acute reactions to COVID-19 are men, whereas women comprise 70–80% of those suffering from long COVID. The average age of long-haul patients is 40, says neuroimmunologist Avi Nath, who is intramural clinical director of the National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH). “They are in the most productive phases of their lives.”

Long COVID may very well have multiple causes, say Hayday and Brodin. Yale University immunologist Akiko Iwasaki and others have also noted that long COVID is likely to involve multiple types of conditions with different causes1,2. For example, autoantibodies could play a part, with the immune system attacking the body as it does in rheumatoid arthritis3. Perhaps viral reservoirs or lingering fragments of viral RNA or proteins contribute to the condition. The exact cause of long-COVID is currently unknown, says Rockefeller University researcher Jean-Laurent Casanova, who also has a lab at Necker Hospital in Paris. Viral diseases have long been studied, but COVID-19 is a “new disease” that pushes the research community and the world more generally into “uncharted territories,” says Casanova.

If you haven't had COVID-19, and especially if you haven't yet been vaccinated, this article may scare you into getting your dose as soon as humanly possible.  

Featured Links - May 10, 2021

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

• The Tech Behind NASA's Insane Space Photography. "NASA takes incredible photographs of the planet and galaxy, but how do they make it look so easy?"
• Folio Society publishes Philip K. Dick's short fiction. I read exclusively online or on a device now, but I would still love to own these books.
• Babylon 5 and Antifascism. Another article in praise of one of the best SF TV shows.
• NASA has selected its deep space hardware—now comes the fun part. "This isn’t a dream any more."
• Oxford malaria vaccine proves highly effective in Burkina Faso trial. "Vaccine developed by scientists at Jenner Institute, Oxford, shows up to 77% efficacy in trial over 12 months."
• Why British Police Shows Are Better. "When you take away guns and shootings, you have more time to explore grief, guilt, and the psychological complexity of crime."

Photo of the Week - May 9, 2021

This is the marina at the foot of Liverpool Road in Pickering. 

 Fujifilm X-S10 and 16-80 mm F4, 1/2400 @F8, IS0 400, Velvia film simulation.

Phil and Phriends on YouTube

The Grateful Dead's bassist, Phil Lesh, has had many bands since the demise of the Grateful Dead in 1995. Perhaps the best was the group dubbed Phil and Phriends that played a trio of shows at San Francisco's The Warfield in April 1999. 

The group consisted of Phil Lesh on bass, John Molo on drums, Steve Kimock on guitar, and from Phish, Paige McConnel on keyboards and Trey Anastasio on guitar. It was a magical combination and the interplay between Kimock and Anastasio is a pure joy to listen to. 

The shows were recorded on multitrack with plans for a professional release, which never happened. Eventually they were made available for download; I've had pristine copies for years. Now videos, shot from the audience and synchronized to the soundboards, have made it to YouTube. 

I can't recommend these shows highly enough. They were probably the best music made by any of the members of the Grateful Dead between Garcia's death and the 2015 Fare Thee Well shows. I've embedded a playlist to all three of them. Enjoy!

2021 Locus Award Finalists

The finalists for the 2021 Locus Awards have been announced. "These results are from the February 1 to April 15 voting, done by readers on an open public ballot. Congratulations to all! The Locus Awards winners will be announced June 26, 2021, during the virtual Locus Awards Weekend."

I am impressed by the finalists for the Science Fiction Novel award. It's a very strong list.

Machine, Elizabeth Bear (Saga; Gollancz)

Attack Surface, Cory Doctorow (Tor; Ad Astra)

Unconquerable Sun, Kate Elliott (Tor)

Agency, William Gibson (Berkley; Viking UK)

The Relentless Moon, Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor; Solaris)

War of the Maps, Paul McAuley (Gollancz)

The Ministry for the Future, Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit US & UK)

The Last Emperox, John Scalzi (Tor; Tor UK)

Network Effect, Martha Wells (Tordotcom)

Interlibrary Loan, Gene Wolfe (Tor)

Out of the ten books, the only one that I've read is Agency by William Gibson. I have purchased three others and will probably get a couple more if they go on sale at some point. 

Many of the short fiction finalists are available to read online. See links in the Locus announcement.

Featured Links - May 3, 2021

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

• How blackouts, fires, and a pandemic are driving shortages of pipette tips — and hobbling science. First, it was PPE, then toilet paper. Now it's pipette tips that are in short supply.
• Antarctic ice-sheet melting to lift sea level higher than thought, study says. "Global sea level rise associated with the possible collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has been significantly underestimated in previous studies, meaning sea level in a warming world will be greater than anticipated, according to a new study from Harvard researchers."
• The Radio We Could Send to Hell. "Silicon carbide radio circuits can take the volcanic heat of Venus."
• Is Babylon 5 secretly the most influential TV show of the past 25 years? "How the epic space opera laid down the blueprint for TV’s golden age."
• The 'Capitalism Is Broken' Economy. Why people aren't working even when there are available jobs.
• 2021 Edgar Award Winners. These are presented by the Mystery Writers of America.

Photo of the Week - May 2, 2021

It finally stopped raining and the sun was out for a while, so I took some flower pictures with the new camera. This was the best of them. 

Fujifilm X-S10, 16-80 mm/F4 at about 60 mm, F4, 1/480 sec., ISO 360

I had forgotten how tricky taking pictures of flowers could be. Getting decent depth of field and finding a good focus point is tricky, but the hardest part is getting the wind to stop blowing the flowers around for long enough to get a picture that doesn't suffer from motion blur. Sigh.

But the colours are gorgeous. The Velvia film simulation is perfect for flowers.

Movie and TV Reviews - April 2021

Here are some short reviews of things I watched in April. It's baseball season, so there won't be as much as usual.

Movies

• My Fair Lady: I am not a big fan of musicals, but there are a few exceptions, and this is one of them. Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn are brilliant, the supporting cast is great, and the music is sublime. 
• Singing in the Rain. A classic and for good reason. The dance numbers are amazing and Gene Kelly steals the show. 

TV Shows

• For All Mankind, Season 2. This show improved markedly in season 2. The final episode was intense and powerful. Although a bit busy, everything was foreshadowed in earlier episodes. I am looking forward to seeing where they go with it in season 3.  (Apple TV+)
• Dune (2000 miniseries): This is not as well known as the David Lynch abomination, and deserves more recognition. It's low budget, but follows the book more closely than the Lynch movie. Definitely worth watching, although you may have to go to someplace like The Pirate Bay to find it. 
• Apocalypse: War of Worlds. A documentary series about the Cold War. I've only seen 4 of the 6 episodes so far as they are shown weekly, but based on what I've seen so far, it's one of the best history documentaries I've seen in a long time. It's done in a traditional documentary style with none of the tell-them-three-times repetition style of modern docs crafted for millennials' short attention spans. Highly recommended. (Knowledge Network) 

A Busy May Coming Up

Things are getting a bit hectic up here in the Great White North. 

May is usually a busy month as it's when we get the yard and garden into shape for the summer. This year, there's more work than usual as we are taking care of my mother-in-law and her house and yard. She requires home care and some of that falls on my wife's shoulders.

At the end of the month, my daughter gets married. Because of the pandemic, it's going to be a small wedding, but there's still a lot to do.

So posts here are going to be sparse for the next month or so. If I do any posting, it'll probably just be pictures and link posts. 

I hope to get back to a more normal life sometime in June.

In the meantime, here are some flowers from our front yard (picture from my Pixel 4a).