Guardian

2022 - 12 - 29

Post cover — Image courtesy of "The Guardian"

Reluctance to clean is not limited to men (The Guardian)

[Hill walkers in UK urged not to rely on smartphones, 27 December](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/dec/27/walkers-upland-britain-told-not-rely-on-smartphones-rescuers-compass-maps)), I remember, while sailing off the south coast many years ago, coming across a sailor firmly stuck on a sandbank. [Philosophers tackle ancient mystery of why women clean and men don’t notice, 22 December](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/dec/22/science-of-why-women-clean-and-men-dont-notice-theyve-done-it)), I have witnessed affordance perception in action with my husband, but I doubt it is gendered: our daughter has inherited his inability to see what needs doing, while our son sees what needs doing. He is actually tidier than I am (which admittedly is not saying much).

Top 10 books about the iron curtain (The Guardian)

The dividing line between capitalism and communism which descended across Europe after the second world war inspired spy writers and historians, ...

To help the Guardian and Observer, [order your copy from guardianbookshop.com](https://guardianbookshop.com/the-curtain-and-the-wall-9781783785766). [The Curtain and the Wall: A Modern Journey along Europe’s Cold War Border](https://guardianbookshop.com/the-curtain-and-the-wall-9781783785766?utm_source=editoriallink&utm_medium=merch&utm_campaign=article), published by Granta Books. No iron curtain book list would be complete without Le Carré, and this is the book of his that sticks closest to the iron curtain. The good, the bad and the ugly of East German life are before us. The author really manages to get under the skin of what the frontier meant to ordinary people. But once he hit his stride, he imposed bizarre laws on Albanians and outlasted six ministers of the interior, the first five of whom he executed. Kempe takes the reader on a journey into the conflict, as Soviet and East German authorities attempt to solve the problem of West Berlin. It is one of the pleasures of solo travel. It is my attempt to capture what survives of the old divide both on the ground and in people’s heads. The investigation of Harry Lime’s death shows the City of Dreams in a seedy postwar light. I visited eastern Europe from 1995 onwards and found countries reeling from the end of its version of socialism. The nuclear might and conventional armed forces of all major powers were focused on that dividing line, the most likely place for a third world war to start.

Guardian tech reviews in 2022: better to repair and longer-lasting ... (The Guardian)

More devices contain recycled materials and are supported for longer, but there is much more to do.

[excellent products](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/dec/14/bose-quietcomfort-earbuds-2-review-noise-cancelling-sound-battery-life) that are [extremely convenient](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/aug/02/pixel-buds-pro-review-google-apple-airpods-android), durable and last a long time. [more efficient and cost less to run](https://www.theguardian.com/money/2022/dec/13/does-a-kettle-use-more-electricity-than-a-tv-power-use). The longer a phone receives software support the longer it can stay in circulation even if that means with a [second or third owner](https://www.theguardian.com/money/2021/aug/21/how-to-buy-a-secondhand-smartphone-and-what-to-look-out-for). [was the Framework Laptop](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/apr/13/framework-laptop-review-a-modular-pc-easy-to-fix-or-upgrade), which actually delivered on its promise of a notebook PC that you could take apart to not only repair but upgrade yourself. But very, very few are repairable, making replacement of their consumable batteries impossible and [rendering them ultimately disposable](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/oct/24/airpods-pro-2-review-best-apple-earbuds-yet-are-missed-opportunity). [established in the last couple of years](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/dec/29/guardian-tech-reviews-small-sustainability-steps-but-lots-more-to-do) continued to gain pace. Not only was the first version a surprisingly good laptop, the company kept its promise and made available components to upgrade its 11th-gen Intel chips [to the latest 12th-gen models](https://frame.work/marketplace/mainboards). Taking apart an iPhone or Mac [is not recommended for novices](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/nov/27/what-is-it-like-trying-to-fix-an-iphone-yourself), but the move provides easier access to genuine replacement parts and repair manuals for technicians. Meanwhile, [France’s repairability index](https://www.indicereparabilite.fr/) continued to force the release of more official repair documentation from reluctant manufacturers. [expanded its DIY repair programme](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/dec/06/apple-expands-diy-iphone-mac-repairs-uk-europe) to the UK and Europe in December. [made changes to aid](https://www.ifixit.com/News/68671/does-the-surface-pro-9-mark-a-turning-point-for-repairability-at-microsoft) repairs this year. But change for the better is slowly happening as big tech firms wake up to the demands of consumers wanting better, longer-lasting and more sustainable devices.

Police in China can track protests by enabling 'alarms' on Hikvision ... (The Guardian)

Chinese surveillance manufacturer Hikvision has put in place tools to help police track protest activities.

These are just a small part of the [Chinese government’s larger campaign](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/30/uyghur-tribunal-testimony-surveillance-china) to use technology to monitor and track members of religious and other minority groups. The document also describes “alarm methods” that include “discovery on duty”, “equipment alarm” and a call to the police. [technical document](https://open.hikvision.com/docs/docId?productId=5c67f20bb254d61550c2f63e&version=%2F658c4efa2595486c9ff140401628ff41&tagPath=%E9%99%84%E5%BD%95-%E9%99%84%E5%BD%95F%20%E6%95%B0%E6%8D%AE%E5%AD%97%E5%85%B8) also illustrates the sheer breadth of data on individuals the company enables its customers to track. That would also be the case for the “Falun Gong” alarm. The company’s website also included alarms for “religion” and “Falun Gong” – a spiritual movement banned in Hikvision pitches its cloud platform, called Infovision IoT, as a means to “provide intelligent public security decision-making and services” for police in order to alleviate “uneven allocation of resources, heavy workload, inability to share data”, [developing the capabilities](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/14/technology/china-surveillance-artificial-intelligence-racial-profiling.html) to detect Uyghurs and other minorities. So I am concerned about how technology can facilitate the tracking of repressed groups.” Chinese police can set up “alarms” for various protest activities using a software platform provided by Hikvision, a major Chinese camera and surveillance manufacturer, the Guardian has learned. “It raises significant freedom of assembly and freedom of religion concerns,” Rollet said. The US government has long had its sights set on Hikvision. The findings come a month after mass protests against the country’s zero-Covid policies erupted across China.

Norma Medlicott obituary (The Guardian)

Other lives: Wife, mother, baker and dancer dedicated to charity work through her church.

She loved to travel, too, especially visiting her son, Roy, and his partner, Jeanette, in New Zealand. She also enjoyed the songs of Michael Bublé, Frank Sinatra and Barry Manilow, and relished singing in church. After leaving school, she joined the North Western Electricity Board as a comptometer operator.

UK study adds to evidence of air pollution link to long-term illness (The Guardian)

Research found greater chances of multiple chronic illnesses in people living in polluted areas.

[Recent analysis](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-economic-history/article/atmospheric-pollution-health-and-height-in-late-nineteenth-century-britain/45222CE345F6FC027F2AF2EC4018D913) of first world war army records found that air pollution had been reducing the height and health of soldiers who grew up downwind of areas of intense coal use. [Seventy years ago](https://guardianbookshop.com/the-invisible-killer-9781911545514), London was coping with the deaths of about 12,000 people in the [city’s worst ever smog](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/dec/02/pollutionwatch-learn-london-deadly-smog-toxic-air-policies). [new study](https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2022.1035415/full), the [largest](https://www.maudsleybrc.nihr.ac.uk/posts/2022/december/adults-living-in-areas-with-high-air-pollution-are-more-likely-to-have-multiple-long-term-health-conditions/) of its kind, found that people living in polluted areas were more likely to have more than one long-term illness. If air pollution exposure indeed affects risk, it presents an opportunity to shape the epidemic of multiple long-term illness using environmental policy such as expanding [low-emission zones](https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fenvironment%2F2021%2Fmay%2F21%2Fpollutionwatch-ignore-naysayers-low-emission-zones-do-work&data=05%7C01%7Cioannis.bakolis%40kcl.ac.uk%7Cc04ed7baa2ab4bacc99908dae1217571%7C8370cf1416f34c16b83c724071654356%7C0%7C0%7C638069831439321390%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C2000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=7YktaQLMer6As%2B%2BONAvMcavfmkdtuUWoIsi9d37vGHU%3D&reserved=0) or avoiding building care homes in pollution hotspots.” [Dr Ioannis Bakolis](https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.kcl.ac.uk%2Fpeople%2Fioannis-bakolis&data=05%7C01%7Cioannis.bakolis%40kcl.ac.uk%7Cc04ed7baa2ab4bacc99908dae1217571%7C8370cf1416f34c16b83c724071654356%7C0%7C0%7C638069831439321390%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C2000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=JvLEAJdUlvTHWCgiId2YxKIafu5NuBMWSpyuzcdjpvI%3D&reserved=0), from King’s College London, who led the study, said: “We will need to track people’s changing health over time to know for sure if air pollution caused these chronic health problems. [In 2016](https://www.atsjournals.org/doi/full/10.1164/rccm.201603-0451OC), a study looked at the health of Londoners who survived the 1952 smog as infants under one year old or in utero. These long-term problems affect people’s lives and place big burdens on [our economy](https://evidence.nihr.ac.uk/collection/making-sense-of-the-evidence-multiple-long-term-conditions-multimorbidity/) and health services. Putting this another way, the A subsequent Ministry of Health [report](https://www.worldcat.org/title/891783042) reviewed past death records and found that smogs had been killing people over the previous 80 years. Researchers looked at more than 360,000 people aged between 40 and 69 who had health data in [the UK Biobank](https://www.ukbiobank.ac.uk/). It means that England plans to meet the 2005 World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines in [18 years’ time](https://www.endsreport.com/article/1808550/astonishing-air-quality-targets-slammed-campaign-groups), 35 years after the guidelines were set. The new health [study](https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/adults-living-in-areas-with-high-air-pollution-are-more-likely-to-have-multiple-long-term-health-conditions) found an extra 20% chance of multiple long-term illnesses for those living with particle pollution that is worse than the 2040 England target.