Author: Mathew Ingram

From The Times: “The message from the stranger popped into my Instagram account on June 10, 2024. The sender was a man calling himself Charles Chen, who said he was an international student at Stanford. I checked his Instagram page. It featured photos of a young Chinese man with other young people at Stanford, in Newport Beach, California, and at other locations in the United States. I asked Charles where he was from. After a week of silence, he replied to say that he was from China. Then he asked if I spoke Chinese, and he posed the question in Mandarin. I’m studying East Asian affairs and I do speak Mandarin, but I had no idea how he could know this. Suddenly I felt on edge. I was beginning to suspect that Charles might be working for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and he could be trying to recruit me as a spy.”

Archaeologists excavated the Tower of London and found dozens of skeletons

From Popular Mechanics: “A rare dig into the soil of the famed Tower of London — the first excavation at the site in a generation — yielded two skeletons from around 1500. As archaeologists dug deeper into the ground, they found roughly 20 more burials, including one group grave likely tied to the 1348 “Black Death” plague. The dig began as a trial excavation in 2019 to prepare the on-site Chapel Royal of St Peter ad Vincula for a new elevator. The archaeologists discovered the remains of two skeletons. Subsequent excavations outside the chapel as deep as 10 feet below the surface revealed everything from a 14^th-century Black Death group burial to three skeletons from the late 12^th or early 13^th centuries buried in coffins—an unusually expensive burial for that time. The Tower of London was built alongside the River Thames in the 1070s as a royal palace. It also served as a prison for high-status individuals (including King Henry VI).”

Note: This is a version of my When The Going Gets Weird newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here.

Continue reading “Student says a Chinese agent tried to recruit her as a spy”

From The Times: “The message from the stranger popped into my Instagram account on June 10, 2024. The sender was a man calling himself Charles Chen, who said he was an international student at Stanford. I checked his Instagram page. It featured photos of a young Chinese man with other young people at Stanford, in Newport Beach, California, and at other locations in the United States. I asked Charles where he was from. After a week of silence, he replied to say that he was from China. Then he asked if I spoke Chinese, and he posed the question in Mandarin. I’m studying East Asian affairs and I do speak Mandarin, but I had no idea how he could know this. Suddenly I felt on edge. I was beginning to suspect that Charles might be working for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and he could be trying to recruit me as a spy.”

Archaeologists excavated the Tower of London and found dozens of skeletons

From Popular Mechanics: “A rare dig into the soil of the famed Tower of London — the first excavation at the site in a generation — yielded two skeletons from around 1500. As archaeologists dug deeper into the ground, they found roughly 20 more burials, including one group grave likely tied to the 1348 “Black Death” plague. The dig began as a trial excavation in 2019 to prepare the on-site Chapel Royal of St Peter ad Vincula for a new elevator. The archaeologists discovered the remains of two skeletons. Subsequent excavations outside the chapel as deep as 10 feet below the surface revealed everything from a 14^th-century Black Death group burial to three skeletons from the late 12^th or early 13^th centuries buried in coffins—an unusually expensive burial for that time. The Tower of London was built alongside the River Thames in the 1070s as a royal palace. It also served as a prison for high-status individuals (including King Henry VI).”

Note: This is a version of my When The Going Gets Weird newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here.

Continue reading “Student says a Chinese agent tried to recruit her as a spy”

From NBC: “Finland’s air force, now part of NATO, still flies swastikas on a handful of unit flags — but is preparing to phase them out, largely to avoid awkwardness with its Western allies. The history of the Finnish air force’s use of the swastika, which since the 20th century has largely been associated with Nazi tyranny and hate groups, is more complex than at first appearance. Finland’s air force adopted the swastika emblem in 1918 soon after country gained its independence after more than a century of Imperial Russian rule. Count Eric von Rosen of neighboring Sweden donated Finland’s first military plane in 1918, which bore his personal symbol, the swastika. The Finnish air force soon after adopted a blue swastika on a white background as the national insignia on all its planes from 1918 to 1945. Von Rosen was the brother-in-law of Hermann Goering, a decorated World War I German fighter pilot who became an early Nazi Party member. Goering went on to lead Germany’s Luftwaffe.”

Making a single ounce of Phoenician purple required the mucus of 250,000 snails

From Emergence: “According to the ancient Phoenicians, a dog chewed a mollusk and its tongue turned bright purple, and its human owners noticed. Tyrian purple was the most rare and expensive pigment in human history and is at least four thousand years old. To make one ounce of Tyrian purple pigment, harvest the hypobranchial gland mucus of 250,000 predatory murex sea snails. To do this, some say boil them for days, some say crush the snails and let them bake in the sun, and some say ferment their liquids in vats of urine. Ancient Mexicans also created this purple from snails they called tixinda, but they learned how to milk the mucus from the snails and return the creatures safely to the Pacific without killing them. The few remaining snail dyers — only nineteen Mixtec people legally permitted to do so as of 2011 — harvest once every moon cycle between October and March. On the Internet, you can buy one genuine snail-sourced ounce of Tyrian purple pigment for $115,098.97, plus tax.”

Note: This is a version of my When The Going Gets Weird newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here.

Continue reading “Why does Finland have the swastika on some of its flags?”

From NBC: “Finland’s air force, now part of NATO, still flies swastikas on a handful of unit flags — but is preparing to phase them out, largely to avoid awkwardness with its Western allies. The history of the Finnish air force’s use of the swastika, which since the 20th century has largely been associated with Nazi tyranny and hate groups, is more complex than at first appearance. Finland’s air force adopted the swastika emblem in 1918 soon after country gained its independence after more than a century of Imperial Russian rule. Count Eric von Rosen of neighboring Sweden donated Finland’s first military plane in 1918, which bore his personal symbol, the swastika. The Finnish air force soon after adopted a blue swastika on a white background as the national insignia on all its planes from 1918 to 1945. Von Rosen was the brother-in-law of Hermann Goering, a decorated World War I German fighter pilot who became an early Nazi Party member. Goering went on to lead Germany’s Luftwaffe.”

Making a single ounce of Phoenician purple required the mucus of 250,000 snails

From Emergence: “According to the ancient Phoenicians, a dog chewed a mollusk and its tongue turned bright purple, and its human owners noticed. Tyrian purple was the most rare and expensive pigment in human history and is at least four thousand years old. To make one ounce of Tyrian purple pigment, harvest the hypobranchial gland mucus of 250,000 predatory murex sea snails. To do this, some say boil them for days, some say crush the snails and let them bake in the sun, and some say ferment their liquids in vats of urine. Ancient Mexicans also created this purple from snails they called tixinda, but they learned how to milk the mucus from the snails and return the creatures safely to the Pacific without killing them. The few remaining snail dyers — only nineteen Mixtec people legally permitted to do so as of 2011 — harvest once every moon cycle between October and March. On the Internet, you can buy one genuine snail-sourced ounce of Tyrian purple pigment for $115,098.97, plus tax.”

Note: This is a version of my When The Going Gets Weird newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here.

Continue reading “Why does Finland have the swastika on some of its flags?”

From Kottke: “Giles Clement, also known as Polymatt, decided he was going to make a 3.5” floppy disk from scratch — and actually did. In a YouTube video where he breaks down the process, he says: “I’m not sure how many of you have actually cracked one of these things open and taken a look inside, but it’s actually a little bit more complex than I expected. Recreating a shell isn’t going to be the tough part. It’s actually this: recreating the media itself with some PET film and a bunch of chemicals. These disks are incredibly thin, and the magnetic film itself is measured in microns. It’s going to be quite the feat in order to figure out how to apply something that thin.” The same creator also made a fully functioning wristwatch from scratch, including making two milling machines and designing the typeface used for the numerals and printing on the watch.”

Some IMAX 70mm movies such as Oppenheimer are powered by a PalmPilot emulator

From Ars Technica: “As shown in IMAX’s TikTok video, the 70 mm print for Oppenheimer is so large that they had to extend their film platter. That’s fascinating and all, but so is the emulated 2002 PDA apparently running things. The m130 wasn’t even top of the line when it came out in 2002. It debuted at $279 with a 2-inch, 160×160 screen and a 33 Motorola Dragonball VZ processor. But that was just the magic needed for IMAX’s purposes, and so it hasn’t changed a thing. The only difference is that it’s using emulations in at least some cases. The video shows the PDA emulated on a 10.1-inch Windows tablet for businesses. The PDA emulation controls the theater’s Quick Turn Reel Units (where workers load the physical film reels). A company spokesperson said the original units operated on PalmPilots, so IMAX designed an emulator that mimics the look and feel of a PalmPilot to keep it familiar for IMAX film projectionists.”

Note: This is a version of my When The Going Gets Weird newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here.

Continue reading “He made a floppy disk from scratch in his basement”

From Kottke: “Giles Clement, also known as Polymatt, decided he was going to make a 3.5” floppy disk from scratch — and actually did. In a YouTube video where he breaks down the process, he says: “I’m not sure how many of you have actually cracked one of these things open and taken a look inside, but it’s actually a little bit more complex than I expected. Recreating a shell isn’t going to be the tough part. It’s actually this: recreating the media itself with some PET film and a bunch of chemicals. These disks are incredibly thin, and the magnetic film itself is measured in microns. It’s going to be quite the feat in order to figure out how to apply something that thin.” The same creator also made a fully functioning wristwatch from scratch, including making two milling machines and designing the typeface used for the numerals and printing on the watch.”

Some IMAX 70mm movies such as Oppenheimer are powered by a PalmPilot emulator

From Ars Technica: “As shown in IMAX’s TikTok video, the 70 mm print for Oppenheimer is so large that they had to extend their film platter. That’s fascinating and all, but so is the emulated 2002 PDA apparently running things. The m130 wasn’t even top of the line when it came out in 2002. It debuted at $279 with a 2-inch, 160×160 screen and a 33 Motorola Dragonball VZ processor. But that was just the magic needed for IMAX’s purposes, and so it hasn’t changed a thing. The only difference is that it’s using emulations in at least some cases. The video shows the PDA emulated on a 10.1-inch Windows tablet for businesses. The PDA emulation controls the theater’s Quick Turn Reel Units (where workers load the physical film reels). A company spokesperson said the original units operated on PalmPilots, so IMAX designed an emulator that mimics the look and feel of a PalmPilot to keep it familiar for IMAX film projectionists.”

Note: This is a version of my When The Going Gets Weird newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here.

Continue reading “He made a floppy disk from scratch in his basement”

Ever since artificial intelligence became a topic of popular conversation, the environmental cost of all these large-language models and the massive server farms that make them possible has been the subject of much concern. Every week or two, it seems, there is another article about the vast appetite these systems have for both power and water, the greenhouse-gas emissions, etc. and the impact on the environment. So I found it interesting to read Google’s assessment of these factors in a recently published study entitled “Measuring the environmental impact of delivering AI at Google Scale.” The company also wrote a blog post summarizing some of the numbers, in which it said that the average Gemini prompt “uses 0.24 watt-hours of energy, emits 0.03 grams of carbon dioxide equivalent, and consumes 0.26 milliliters – or about five drops – of water.” The overall per-prompt energy impact, according to Google’s scientists, is “equivalent to watching television for less than nine seconds.”

Since Google runs Gemini and obviously wants to understate how much power and water it uses, you might be skeptical of these results, as I (and others) were when the paper was released. The Verge, for example, wrote a piece quoting a number of experts who said that the Google study was misleading because it “omits some key data.” What key data? If you read the article, it says that Google only looked at the direct water and power use of its server farms and related AI equipment – that is, the amount of water and electricity that these systems consumed while running Gemini queries – as wellrather than looking at the indirect use. That would include water consumed by power companies that generate the electricity to power these data centers, whether it’s water to drive electrical turbines or to cool gas or nuclear power systems. From the Verge article:

“They’re just hiding the critical information,” says Shaolei Ren, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of California, Riverside. “This really spreads the wrong message to the world.” Ren has studied the water consumption and air pollution associated with AI, and is one of the authors of a paper Google mentions in its study. A big issue experts flagged is that Google omits indirect water use in its estimates. Its study included water that data centers use in cooling systems to keep servers from overheating. As a result, with Google’s estimate, “You only see the tip of the iceberg,” says Alex de Vries-Gao, founder of the website Digiconomist and a PhD candidate at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam Institute for Environmental Studies who has studied the energy demand of data centers.

Note: This is a version of my Torment Nexus newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here.

Continue reading “Does AI use a lot of energy and water? Yes and no”