MSP151 [] Going Through Changes: 2020 in 20

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To apply, visit dg.my.g0 digital. This is a download from BFM 89.9, the Business Station. BFM 89.9, the Business Station. This is Matt's plate.

2020. Last week on Matt's plane, we spoke about some of the changes the year has made to the way we work. But really, we could spend a decade dissecting what's happening this year. What we need is someone with the attention span of a NAT, who can run through the year in 20 minutes.

Someone, like Matt Armitage, we have to start any roundup of the year in tech with a device. I mean, I'd take you to task about saying I've got the attention span of a NAT. I've already forgotten what I was going to do. But yeah, no, my mentors' news in terms of devices, Apple released a new iPhone.

I'm kidding, it's okay. A lot of things look very superficial and minor after the year we've had. In fact, we're still having. I think 2020 is going to last until well into the next calendar year, figuratively speaking.

Last week, we were summing up some of the changes that have happened to the technologies and situations surrounding our working lives. Next week, we'll be back. We're going to actually have a Christmas Eve special. So Matt's plane will be joining you on a Thursday, just to make sure that you don't get into too festive a mood.

You can think of me as a kind of social distancing protocol, but we will have two very special co-hosts. We'll have the Matt Bot Infinity and the Brad Bot 2 as we delve into the intertwining worlds of entertainment and artificial intelligence. So in this little sandwich filling of an episode, we'll run through some of the millions of other stories that didn't quite happen in 2020 in as close to 20 minutes as my long windedness will allow. Is this where you kind of sink way back to the iPhone?

In a matter of speaking, so mostly, I think we've been more concerned with paying bills and loans than we have with upgrading devices that are still OK. So every generation of new phone you buy is actually a reason to keep that one for longer before the next upgrade. But Apple has released a game changer by all accounts. It's new M1 chip equipped air and pro laptops, which were released in late October.

Now, normally computers are the last thing we talk about. We talk about screenless technology, tablets, mobile devices, laptops and desktops have become, well, if not cool, they become a bit more desirable and a little bit exciting again this year. And anecdotally, my Facebook feed has been full of folks building and modding PCs this year, something that I haven't seen since about 2011. And I believe that includes you as well.

Yes, two things actually. I've built a brand new PC this year and I've spent considerably less on it than I thought I would. And to go back to the M1 MacBook Air, that's actually been something for the first time I've considered going back into the Apple camp and picking up a new MacBook. Yeah, exactly.

We've we haven't had a lot of excitement in this kind of area for a long time. But what we've also seen this year has been this corresponding nerd explosion in vintage computing with emulators and updated versions of classic machines appearing on crowdfunding sites. Now the Switzerland based tech blogger, and I have to say he is a friend of mine, Kean Warmzley recently acquired an old Commodore 64. He started a regular column called Floppy Friday on his blog through the interface, which details his experiments with the machine.

So if you're interested in vintage programming, go and check through the interface app. Has that translated into a salesroom? Well, we have seen a small increase in sales. That's still significant in a year where most economics sectors have recorded declines, especially as computer sales have been pretty stagnant for quite a long time now.

There's even been evidence that the so-called zoom boom has created such a demand for screen enabled devices that it's actually pulling the Japanese economy out of recession. Now, obviously that includes TVs and other devices as well as computers. But as we've both been saying, Apple's new M1 chip seems to be a game changer in terms of processing speeds if you're somebody who's tied into the Apple ecosystem or somebody like you who's gotten very tired of being tied into the Apple ecosystem. And also, you know, it might be the first time that you're not forced to do your gaming on a PC.

But I think the real stealth device from this year could turn out to be the Chromebook. And that's pretty much been ignored for the past few years since it's been released. So the point where I've requested review models for manufacturers to be told that they're not even carrying them, they're not even bringing them out in Malaysia. But it could turn out to be the right computer for our time, the cheap, the lightweight, they're mostly cloud based, and they're perfect for studying and work at a time when the equivalent of US$2,000 for a high-spec laptop is really a mortgage payment too far for most consumers.

Right. We've also seen the phenomena of zoom fatigue and the zoom shirt. Well, let's go with fatigue first. So the novelty of working from home, Dalgona coffee, Instagramming, you're lovingly made eggs, Benedict Prekfast, quickly faded.

Studies have shown that video meetings and conferences are considerably more tiring than in-person meetings, because there's that performance anxiety aspect. Everyone thinks they need to be heard participating, especially on larger meetings and calls, you know, that nod of the head or the appreciative thumbs up. It's not even going to get you into the on-screen gallery. So we're divorced from all those subtle feedback cues that we normally get from people.

This is such an issue that we reported on a couple of weeks ago about various startups that are trying to address these shortfalls with the assistance of artificial intelligence, on the subject of which the company that I signed up for for a beta headroom, they still haven't let me in. Did you want to talk about shit? Well, sure. You know, by adding many accounts, clothing sales have plummeted this year.

In fact, we've seen the demise of the brand Topshop and Topman, but work from home has meant that we can spend all day in our pajamas. And I have to admit, this year, I've only had caused wear long pants since March. I've got racks of useless clothes in my room and shoes in my cupboard. So like many people, when I have a video meeting, I grab a presentable shirt, but otherwise I'm standing there barefoot and in my shorts.

We record these shows without video, so I'm sitting here in my off-camera uniform of grimey undershorts and a thin trickle of soup and potato chip crumbs down my hairy torso. What a wonderful image. I thought I'd leave you with that. But it's been a running joke on late night with Seth Meyers that one of its writers turned up for a writer's written session in a tank top and shorts.

But that underdressing and zoom shirt phenomenon has quickly given way to anxiety about how we look on camera. There's a really fun article about this at the Atlantic website titled Americans Got Tired of Looking Bad on Zoom. It's by Amanda Marl. But essentially, we've gone at 180 degrees.

We've started to look for lighting and green screens to make us look a bit more professional when we go online. Yeah, but some people look grainy no matter how much or how many special effects you throw at them. Hey, you try living on crisps and cabbage soup for a year and tell me your appearance doesn't scare some old children. But you know, this leads us to the other half of the zoom boom, which is been the peripheral shorted.

Now I swapped my laptop for a desktop mid-year, so I had to go out and buy a webcam. And it was nuts. It took me weeks to find a decent-ish mid-range model. And they were selling out as fast as I came into stock.

And the prices were absolutely unbelievable. You know, webcams that would usually cost around 30 US dollars were going for closer to $100 on the reseller sites. Decent USB microphones have been like gold dust. And it's been a similar situation with lighting.

I think I got in early with that one before everything ran out. And I know a few local event companies who transitioned into being high-tech streaming studios to capture this corporate demand for well-produced digital conferences and board meetings. We've also seen other electronic and consumer devices in short supply with a lot of the barbers shops closed. I ended up buying hair clippers from Canada through a reseller site.

You know, it's been a very strange year. But there has been another reason for those shortages of cameras and microphones and other things. Well, yes, everyone in their cat now has a podcast. That's right.

And in fact, you're probably going to hear both mine and Richard's cats on this recording because both of our cats have been meowing audibly in the background through out this first session. But incidentally, you can also find me on an urban planning and place making podcasts called the Reflexive City, which is produced with a local NGO. But there's been such an explosion of new podcasts that we've had to revert back to the egotistical main title of this show, Matt's Blaine, rather than the abbreviation that we use MSP. Because there are now more rival MSP podcasts than anyone can comfortably listen to.

Not that this one is particularly comfortable listening. But you know, on the one hand, I think it's great to see such an explosion of creativity or boredom being put to great use. But it's been hard to listen to all the great shows the podcasts that have come out this year. Laughter then right on NPR is one highlight for me.

It's about the links between the parallel rises of hip hop and mass incarceration in the US. It's actually a lot more fun than I make it sound. Now that they can't gig, it's pretty much guaranteed that your favorite comedians all now have their own podcasts. Nice white parents from the New York Times, that's another pick.

It's about schools and segregation in the US. Gimmer has how to save a planet. A climate change show that focuses more on the positives. It looks at the things that we can do to affect real change.

So if you're thinking about kickstarting that new podcast over the Christmas holidays, please go ahead. But don't call it MSP. And podcasts aren't the only startups we've seen this year, are they? Well, we talked before about the creative explosions that come out of recessions and dark moments in history.

So we've also seen a bit of a startup surge this year, a Stanford University study of more than 16,000 workers who have been working from home over the past nine months, found that their productivity increased by 13%. Now the same study notes that 13% equates to about an hour of work time. So you have to ask yourself, are those increasingly productive workers actually doing more work? Or are they just finishing their work day and hour early and doing other things with that time instead?

So in the same way that people have been giving podcasting a go, work from home and lockdowns have proved to be the ideal, hot housing environment for those long put off startup ideas and the fundamental societal changes that we're seeing or that we're seeing opening up. There are new business opportunities arising from these that a young, motivated and suddenly time rich new entrepreneur class is rising to meet, especially with all those automation tools we discussed last week. So some new enterprises will be all consuming affairs, but plenty of people have set up these simmering background retail businesses through e-commerce platforms. They don't need to handle stock or delivery if no one orders, they use practically nothing.

But we'll really start to see the results of these new innovations and startups I think from next year when these bedroom ideas start to become more public realities. Now, like the broadcasts, they're not all going to be successful, but some of them may end up being game changers, boundary shifters, and they may weave their way into our lives in the same way that Facebook, Instagram and TikTok have done over the past few years, and they will owe their genesis in some ways to COVID-19. When we come back heading over to Matt's safe space, you are tuning to Matt's Lane here on BFM 89.9, the Business Station. Backing feminist movements, BFM 89.9, the Business Station.

BFM 89.9, the Business Station. Welcome back to Matt's Lane, I'm Rich Bradbury, of course I'm on the phone line with Matt Armitage from CulturePop and of course the Matt from Matt's Lane. Anyway Matt, so far we seem to have learned that you're a lot more concerned with how you look in video meetings than you might have imagined and you find it irritating that you didn't choose a better set of initials in MSP space. What?

Well, harsh but true, but yeah, you know, my safe space is an airless void and it has been a big year of space last year, rounded off with the announcement of the establishment of the United States Space Force, which had a logo that was uncannoyed similar to a certain TV space federation, but it's hard to believe that it was only 12 months ago, so much and so little has happened during those 12 months that anything pre-pandemic feels almost distant and ancient and we haven't heard too much about Space Force since then, other than President Trampicationally throwing it into the mix when reporters ask him too many questions about coronavirus and the elections and of course we had the not quite as good as we hoped Space Force Comedy starring Steve Carroll on one of the streaming services, but as we discussed recently, SpaceX has scored a number of wins with their Dragon capsule this year. They successfully took a crew of astronauts up to the International Space Station for NASA just a few weeks ago, but the more momentous news comes from the December test of the company's Starship prototype SN8. Because it exploded on landing? Well it did, but oddly the destruction of the rocket isn't really that relevant for listeners who aren't aware of the project's Starship is intended to carry up to 100 tons of cargo and up to 100 people into space.

That represents an incredible milestone if we are to create long-term moon habitats and even send semi-permanent residents to Mars. It also looks really really cool, I don't know if you've seen a picture, but it's like one of those rockets from a cheap sci-fi novel cover from the 1950s or 60s. It's got big fins at the bottom, it's got a big chubby rounded body. So imagine the kind of rockets that we're used to, but they've been reimagined by the caravan company AirStream.

So it lifted off as planned, it rose to a height of about 40,000 feet according to some news reports, but what's really interesting about it is the way that it descends. So SpaceX's current Falcon boosters come back to Earth head first, and then when they get near the ground they flip on a gyroscope so that they can land standing up. Starship is modeled on a skydiver, so it actually comes down on its belly. The fins act to keep it stable, it stops it from spinning, and then its gyroscope stoves the same trick, and it writes itself and it lands upright on its tail.

And why is the blowing up part not such a big issue? Well as much as you want everything to go perfectly, what's really critical in rocket test launches is how long the rocket stays airborne and how many different maneuvers it carries out while it's up there. And of course, all the data that you gather from those tests, so that you can tweak everything for the next test. It would seem, at least from the information that SpaceX has made public, that SN8 performed has hoped for the majority of its flight, and it was only on landing where an issue with fuel pressure apparently caused the fireball explosion.

Musk tweeted out that it had been a great success, which was echoed by his rival in the commercial space business, Jeff Bezos. China has also continued its space tests. It successfully launched its largest long march rocket earlier this year, and it's on track for its manned moon missions after it landed a rover on the dark side of the moon in 2019 from its Changi 4 mission. So they've successfully launched another probe, the Changi 5, in November, and in the process they've made one of its remote pilots, a 24-year-old female Tigenor called Zhuzhenyu, a social media star in the process.

Is it a space race? Something we should be really focusing on, given all the problems that we have right here on Earth? Well, one of the things that Trump got right about the idea for Space Force is that space, or at least the bit that surrounds our atmosphere, could potentially become increasingly weaponized. It's easy to overlook how dependent we are on things like satellites, the GPS, it provides the GPS that makes ways work, for instance.

We rely on it for weather and other valuable data, also for the communications and entertainment, pinging around the world. We're increasingly reliant on data that goes up and down, rather than around our world. So there's a race on to create global broadband coverage from space-based satellites. There were reports that in June, I think Russia launched a new satellite that the US claims contains anti-satellite weapons capabilities, that it is basically a satellite destroying a weapon.

But those claims haven't been confirmed or denied by Russia, which claims it's only testing new technology. But this kind of deployment tends to have a domino effect, whether it's true or not. If countries perceive space-based threats to their satellite infrastructure, they're probably going to be compelled to put up their own protective or deterrent or offensive machines as well. So it all snowballs from there with that, my bomb is bigger than your bomb type posturing.

Right. And just coming back to these problems here on Earth, at this rate, we might need to escape to the stars in a generation or two. Well, if you let me stick with space just for a second, in a slightly left field move, Indonesia's president has requested that Musk explore Indonesia as a potential location to develop a spaceport. Obviously, I don't know enough about spaceport construction, apart from the fact that being close to the equator is the optimal position.

But I would think that Indonesia's tropical climate might make launches a little bit unpredictable. But I'm more than happy to have a spaceport on my doorstep. The idea of seeing those rockets launches absolutely fantastic. But back to your comment, yes, this month, in fact, marks the fifth anniversary of the Paris Climate Agreement.

Now, this is a UN agreement to limit the rise of global temperatures to two degrees centigrade above pre-industrial levels. Evidence seems to point that that not really happening. We've seen all sorts of horrendous things this year, Greenland being essentially green, rather than icy for one. We've had zombie fires raging in the Arctic across Siberia and North America.

Canada's last intact ice shelf collapsed in August. We've seen calamitous wildfires ranging from the northern to the southern hemisphere, a sharp increase in the number of hurricanes and typhoons. There have been some small winds, so urban air quality increased in many cities at the start of the pandemic, because lockdowns created these shutdowns in industries, they scaled back, people stayed at home instead of driving to work every day. So we saw a reduction in the emissions in a lot of our cities.

But nothing planet saving. It's not that we've lost the battle. It's hoped that green energy initiatives and a shift in public thinking and consumption habits prompted by the virus could prompt us to make those changes and start to look more seriously at nature-based climate adaptation tools. So even things are simple as adopting new approaches to soil management on agricultural land, just to increase the amount of carbon that the soil sequesters.

Yeah, and it's also the James Bond radio telescope collapsed. Well, yeah, we spoke about this a few weeks ago that the Arathlevo radio telescope in the hills of Puerto Rico was being decommissioned after cable snap over the summer. Unfortunately, at start of December, it collapsed completely. The radio array plunged into the station's giant dish and shattered it, which is a shame.

I mean, it's a cultural icon as well as an astrology fixture. It was used as a backdrop to the Bond movie, Golden Eye, and it also figures in the Jodie Foster alien movie, Contact. You know, for 50 years, the telescope has been helping to expand our knowledge of the universe and physics. If only we could go back in time.

Thank you for setting me up for that one. Yes, at the start of the year, an astrophysicist called Ronald Mallett put forward claims that time travel might be possible. So time travel isn't actually precluded by Einstein's theory of relativity, but it was thought that it would require huge amounts of energy to do it, sort of the supernova type levels of energy. But a lot of the theories concentrated more on bending space time and flinging information into the future.

Mallett's theory would make it possible to go backwards as well, at least a little bit. So his model uses the gravitational forces created by a ring laser. So as time and space twist themselves together, the ring laser could twist time into a loop. And that would enable you to travel backwards and forwards within that loop, a bit like fast-forwarding and rewinding an old videotape.

So Mallett's next step is to secure the funding and build himself a laser prototype that could help him to create his very own groundhog day. All right. So what should we end with? Well, we can't not mention the successful development of coronavirus vaccines in the space of a few months.

I'm not going to talk about it beyond this, because the media is full of commentary. There are plenty of other places you can go to hear about that. Setty at home, the volunteer distributed computing experiment that searches radio signals for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence was put on indefinite hiatus this year after more than 20 years of data gathering. The University of California, Berkeley team behind the project, will now process the enormous amounts of data that they've accumulated.

But they have said they will detail plans to involve the public in the future of the project. So I guess the final item I want to add is that we've also seen the first concrete steps of CRISPR gene editing technologies being used to edit diseases directly out of individuals. In April, doctors at the KCI Institute in Portland, Oregon injected microscopic droplets of a carrier virus that had been engineered to deliver the instructions to manufacture the CRISPR gene editing machinery into the eye of a patient who was nearly blind from a condition called Leber Congenital Amorosis. It's hoped that within a few years we'll be able to use similar techniques and carrier viruses to edit out cancers and to fight diseases in new ways that don't rely on vaccines and radio therapies and other medical interventions that have side effects.

Now, I know this has been a genuinely terrible year for so many people, but stories like this show us that it hasn't been a year without hope.