Winding Down
An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week's net, technology, science and other news
by Alan Lenton
13 April 2025
This is the second of our catchup issues, with plenty of pictures!
Quotes: None worth bothering the electrons to tell you about...
Pictures:
2024 Winners of the Smithsonian 22nd Annual Photographic Contest
https://photocontest.smithsonianmag.com/photocontest/archive/2024/
Maunaloa Eruption
https://photocontest.smithsonianmag.com/photocontest/detail/maunaloa-eruption/
Artist Designed Hotel Rooms at the Park Hotel Tokyo (Got to be the narrowest hotel around! A.L.)
https://spoon-tamago.com/rakuragu-hotel-tokyo/
A Chandelier of 28,000 Eggs and Other Scrumptious Delights Reframe our Consumption of Food
https://spoon-tamago.com/osaka-expo-food-mart/
Space Colony Art from the 1970s (The pictures are near the end of the story – AL)
https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/space-colony-art-from-the-1970s/
Politics USA:
What the spiralling trade war means for relations between the US and China
https://theconversation.com/what-the-spiralling-trade-war-means-for-relations-between-the-us-and-china-254311
On London Extra: Defying Donald
https://davehillonlondon.substack.com/p/on-london-extra-defying-donald
US takes aim at Zuckerberg’s social media kingdom
https://techxplore.com/news/2025-04-aim-zuckerberg-social-media-kingdom.html
Trump thinks tariffs can bring back the glory days of US manufacturing. Here’s why he’s wrong
https://theconversation.com/trump-thinks-tariffs-can-bring-back-the-glory-days-of-us-manufacturing-heres-why-hes-wrong-253991
There Are No Adults in the Room
https://danieldrezner.substack.com/p/there-are-no-adults-in-the-room
How Trump’s tariffs can be a Force Majeure event for some contracts
https://emptycity.substack.com/p/how-trumps-tariffs-can-be-a-force
How we still indulge kleptocrats
https://democracyforsale.substack.com/p/how-we-still-indulge-kleptocrats-trump-londongrad-putin-slapps
The Cybertruck as metaphor
https://davidaaronovitch.substack.com/p/the-cybertruck-as-metaphor
Musk Watch DOGE Tracker
https://doge.muskwatch.com/
Politics Elsewhere:
It’s not just Musk – we need to stop British billionaires bankrolling our politics
https://democracyforsale.substack.com/p/its-not-just-musk-we-need-to-stop-billionaries-howarth-starmer-reform-farage-political-finance
Votes-Weighted Representation
https://www.politics.co.uk/comment/2024/01/05/votes-weighted-proportional-representation-can-win-the-argument-for-electoral-reform-and-heal-our-democracy/
Techie/Science:
A new live Tube map for Londoners
https://londonminute.substack.com/p/new-live-tube-map-for-londoners
The ‘World’s Most Advanced Microchip’ Has Been Unveiled
https://www.sciencealert.com/the-worlds-most-advanced-microchip-has-been-unveiled
Windows 11 poised to beat Windows 10, mostly because it has to
https://www.theregister.com/2025/04/04/windows_11_market_share/
How Much Would An iPhone Cost If Apple Were Forced To Make It In America?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2018/01/17/how-much-would-an-iphone-cost-if-apple-were-forced-to-make-it-in-america/
Apple’s encryption row with UK should not be secret, court rules
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgn1lz3v4no
UK’s attempt to keep details of Apple ‘backdoor’ case secret… denied
https://go.reg.cx/tdml/3ad4/681d457f/ee75e47a/4gph
Tollways in space: from sci-fi to saving grace
https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4902/1
see also:
Tragedy of the commons
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons
Nanorobot hand made of DNA grabs viruses for diagnostics and blocks cell entry
https://phys.org/news/2024-11-nanorobot-dna-viruses-diagnostics-blocks.html
Mini proton accelerator ELISA is now taking data
https://phys.org/news/2024-11-mini-proton-elisa.html
How the brain creates identity
https://davidaaronovitch.substack.com/p/how-the-brain-creates-identity
‘Largest’ Rare Earth Metals Deposit Discovered in Kazakhstan
https://www.sciencealert.com/largest-rare-earth-metals-deposit-discovered-in-kazakhstan
Medical:
Dangerous Fungal Infection Sees a Dramatic Increase in US Hospital
https://www.sciencealert.com/dangerous-fungal-infection-sees-a-dramatic-increase-in-us-hospitals
A breakthrough moment: Researchers discover new class of antibiotics
https://phys.org/news/2025-03-breakthrough-moment-class-antibiotics.html
First hormone-free male birth control pill clears another milestone
(But will any woman believe their male partner has taken it? – AL)
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-03-hormone-free-male-birth-pill.html
Clinical Trials For Drug That Replaces Missing Teeth Finally Underway
https://www.sciencealert.com/clinical-trials-for-drug-that-replaces-missing-teeth-finally-underway
Reading Shapes Your Brain – Here’s What Happens When We Stop
https://www.sciencealert.com/reading-shapes-your-brain-heres-what-happens-when-we-stop
How poor sleep could fuel belief in conspiracy theories
https://theconversation.com/how-poor-sleep-could-fuel-belief-in-conspiracy-theories-251669
A New Alzheimer’s Drug Shrinks The Brain. Scientists Say That’s The Point
https://www.sciencealert.com/a-new-alzheimers-drug-shrinks-the-brain-scientists-say-thats-the-point
Ecology:
Why we need seven bins
https://takes.jamesomalley.co.uk/p/why-we-need-seven-bins
Coda:
Belated April Fools Day – Thank you Andrew!
https://home.web.cern.ch/events/beam-travel-and-teleportation-quantum-leap-particle-accelerators-01-april-2025-01-october
And here is a little extra that seems appropriate...
The du Bourg Hoax, 1814 – Great story.
As we explained in our series on the financial markets, news can have a dramatic impact on stock prices. The news that a war is over falls into that category. During the Napoleonic Wars, a man calling himself Colonel du Bourg arrived in Dover, declaring that Napoleon himself was dead. The announcement sparked a boom at the London Stock Exchange, leading to several very large deals in government bonds. Before too long, French officials cried ‘mais non!’, so the exchange started an investigation which uncovered a conspiracy to ramp the price of government bonds. The conspirators, Lord Cochrane (an MP), Andrew Cochrane-Johnstone (his son) and Richard Butt (their financial advisor) bought the bonds the previous week, then sold them for £1.1m during the boom caused by the Napoleon death hoax. The three men found themselves sentenced to 12 months in prison, plus a fine of £1,000 and an hour in the public pillory.
Surely a fate which many people would like to see re-enacted in the modern day!
Apologies, I’ve lost the URL to this story, so I can’t credit it :( – AL
Footnote:
Please send suggestions for stories to alan@ibgames.com and include the words Winding Down in the subject line, unless you want your deathless prose gobbled up by my voracious Thunderbird spam filter...
Alan Lenton
alan@ibgames.com
13 April 2025
Alan Lenton is a retired on-line games designer, programmer and sociologist (among other things), the order of which depends on what he is currently working on! His web site is at http://www.ibgames.com/alan/index.html.
Past issues of Winding Down can be found at http://www.ibgames.com/alan/winding/index.html.
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