October 2023 – Brock at Cliff Cottage

2023-10-312023-11-04

#500

I turn 75 years old today 2023-10-31. I am told, and periodically experience, that old age brings about frailty. Looking it up in an online dictionary, its definition sounds worse than I feel: as an aging-related syndrome of physiological decline, characterized by marked vulnerability to adverse health outcomes. Frail older patients often present with an increased burden of symptoms including weakness and fatigue, medical complexity, and reduced tolerance to medical and surgical interventions. My own definition is much simpler, frailty = reduced capabilities.

I notice that my renovation/ construction projects are taking longer to complete. It is not just because I have less energy in the day to work actively at them, but equally, there is less enthusiasm. The latest project involves the kitchen, with changes to the plumbing and electrical system that included some work by others. It took much longer than planned.

I have said that I will retire from construction projects starting 2024-01-01. I am aware that this will not be a complete stop. Additional work is needed in the attic to make it a suitable place to store things. This activity will continue, but only when I want to do it, and feel capable. I will accept no imposed deadlines.

Things

Things can be a polite term for junk. Every time I think about storage, I recall Allied Van Lines, and their advertisements in the 1960s where they stated that they did not mix other people’s junk with your valuable possessions. In my dreams, I regularly see myself as a child peering into the back of a moving van, filled with increasingly irrelevant technology. The moving van gradually transforms into a dumpster.

Today, millennials are storing less junk because books, music, videos, games and more, are digital files stored on servers and distributed as needed to other devices.

In my old order universe, there were physical things: books were printed documents; music was long-play records or CDs or many other things; videos involved Betamax and VHS formats, DVDs and even laserdisks; games involved dice, pieces and folded cardboard sheets representing the game universe. In my preferred new order universe, things are files on a computer. I have not yet accepted that files should be kept on clouds = some stranger’s computer/ server. My solution is to encourage family members to cooperate, by storing encrypted backup data on each other’s servers.

Duolingo/ Sudoku/ Books

Duolingo and Sudoku are two activities I engage in on a daily basis, even though recent news reports tell me that these may not prevent dementia.

With Duolingo I regularly change languages. Within days of the start of the current war in Ukraine, I began to study Ukrainian. In 2023, I alternated between Ukrainian and Finnish. I used to change between these two languages, up to several times a week. Then, I stuck with each language for a month, before switching. For me, it was much easier than working with both languages every day.

After my son, Alasdair, asked for my company on a trip to the Outer Hebrides for five days in the summer of 2024, I decided to focus my attention exclusively on (Scottish) Gaelic. This does not mean that I am prepared to eat guga = salted gannet, on these travels. Fortunately, Is toil leam brocham gu mor! = I like porridge a lot!

Sudoku involves filling in squares in a printed book. Within each square I can code numbers using dots following the same numerical sequence used on touch-tone telephones, with 1-2-3 on the top and 7-8-9 on the bottom. There is no need for 0, or operation keys +,- x, / or =. I have decided that when the puzzles in my current book are used up, I will just use a Sudoku program found on my laptop or hand-held device. I say this every time…

Apart from Sudoku, I do not find games fun at all. I include crosswords as a type of game. My significant other plays card games on her laptop. I agree with Art Vaughan, that real-world challenges are more interesting problems to solve than constructed games.

Reading books in Norwegian

I attempt to read at least a chapter a day of books written in Norwegian. In part, this is to keep my Norwegian vocabulary active. This decision came about because of a conversation. I wanted to use the Norwegian word for jam, syltetøy. However, all that came out was French, confiture.

One newly read book was written by Norwegian author Geir Pollen (1953 – ), who lived in Russia from 2007 to 2020. Volga : En russisk reise (2021) = Volga : A Russian trip. It actually involved many trips over many years, but is organized geographically from the Volga headwaters north-west of Moscow, until the river enters the Caspian sea.

Reading about Russia is my attempt to understand the most extensive war in Europe since the second world war. I find that it helps to have it explained by someone from a culture where I have lived for over forty years. I am not so sure, I would be equally receptive to a book written by someone who has an American perspective. The book was written before the second Russian incursion into Ukraine.

The title of chapter 65, the last about the middle section of the Volga, can be translated as the world as a listening exercise. It is about Sofia Gubaidulina (1931 – ) born in Chistopol, in Tatarstan, Russia with Tatar and Russian heritage, a composer who has lived in Appen, a village near Hamburg, Germany, since 1991-02. Here is one shorter work: Vivente – Non vivente, for ANS Synthesizer (1970).

Pollen says that Gubaidulina describes her music as: a journey in a soundscape where the composer is just as exposed to the unknown as the musician and the listener. In the universe it sounds like: the things, the plants, the trees, the people, the animals, the earth, the stars. It is the starting point of music. If the people concentrated and did not surround themselves with so much noise, they would hear it. She compares modern life to a city where the artificial lights make it impossible to see the starry sky. The loss of the height dimension, the vertical in existence, is the greatest threat to mankind today, because we cannot live only in the horizontal, on the surface (p. 323).

I concur. The world is challenged by noise. I dislike noisy motorcycles. Yet, even more disturbing are subwoofers played inside assorted vehicles. They are especially annoying when I am walking through a natural environment. I may not be able to hear the sounds emanating from them, but I can feel them, and am looking forward to limits being placed on their noise levels.

The tragedy of the commons is an economic theory that states that individuals use up resources shared by many to benefit themselves. Because individuals generally act selfishly, shared resources are misused so that everyone ends up suffering in the end. I regard quiet and darkness as important shared resources. Other important shared resources include the atmosphere, the oceans, forests and wildlife. I am almost successful at unlearning the value of densely populated urban spaces. The British economic writer, William Forster Lloyd (1794 – 1852), introduced the concept in a pamphlet in 1833.

American ecologist and philosopher Garrett Hardin (1915 – 2003) wrote about the tragedy of the commons in a 1968 paper, calling attention to the damage that innocent actions by individuals can inflict on the environment. He is also known for Hardin’s First Law of Human Ecology: We can never do merely one thing. Any intrusion into nature has numerous effects, many of which are unpredictable. He is also regarded by many as a white supremacist/ racist. For example, he wrote: Lifeboat Ethics: the Case Against Helping the Poor, that appeared in Psychology Today, September 1974.

Global warming is another example of the tragedy of the commons theory. At least since the start of the industrial revolution, individuals, companies and societies around the world have been engaged in activities that have a serious impact on the atmosphere. In many cases, there is no disincentive for a company to stop releasing toxic chemicals into the air. Indeed, they have an incentive to do so because it allows them to increase their profits. They seem to have no obligation about how their actions will affect others. These actions can have a lasting effect on the planet, and everyone and everything on it, for generations.

I have already bought my next Norwegian language book by the same author, about a failed Swedish invasion of Trøndelag, aka the Carolean Death March, in the winter of 1718-19, led by Karl Gustav Armfeldt (1666 – 1736). Armfeldts Armé : historien om en katastrofe (2014) = Armfeldt’s Army : The history of a catastrophe.

Reading books in English

I regularly read books written by Obi Kaufmann (1973 – ): The California Field Atlas, The State of Water: Understanding California’s Most Precious Resource, The Coasts of California, The Forests of California. I am also looking to two forthcoming books, The Deserts of California, and The State of Fire: How, Where and Why California Burns.

I am also reading: Russia Against Modernity (2023), by Alexander Etkind (1955 – ): “Communism was modernity’s most devout, vigorous and gallant champion … It was under communist, not capitalist, auspices that the audacious dream of modernity … was pushed to its radical limits: grand designs, unlimited social engineering, huge and bulky technology, total transformation of nature.” Zygmunt Bauman (1925 – 2017), Intimations of Post-Modernity (1992) p. 179.

Modernity takes various forms. Etkind names a bureaucratic modernity, as proposed by Max Weber (1864 – 1920), in the 19th century, which was replaced by a paleomodernity, in the 20th century, with an emphasis on using nature for resources and energy. Now the world has encountered a gaiamodernity, from a theory proposed by James Lovelock (1919 – 2022) and developed in cooperation with Lynne Margulis (1938 – 2011) that is focused on using less resources and less energy. Small is beautiful, is a catchphrase for this era, as well as a book from 1973, written by Ernst Friedrich Schumacher (1911 – 1977).

In contrast, Russia is attempting to reverse modernity with its own special operation: stopmodernism. Anthony Giddens (1938 – ) expressed many of the ideas behind it, in his theory of structuration. Etkind views the 2022 war in Ukraine as structuration in practice (p. 8), and the war as a campaign against modernity. The major issue is trust.

My next work on Russia will be by Masha Karp (1956 – ) about George Orwell = Eric Arthur Blair (1903 – 1950). George Orwell and Russia (2023). She claims that Animal Farm (1945) and Nineteen Eighty Four (1949) were not dystopias, but accurate fictional depictions of reality. Her book explores how Orwell’s work was received in Russia, and how it affects the totalitarian political reality today. It also why The Road to Wigan Pier (1937), Orwell’s exploration of British poverty, was never published in Russian. In this context, Vladimir Putin’s actions are simply the next transformation of totalitarianism, as predicted and described by Orwell.

Tony Judt’s (1948 – 2010) Postwar: A History of Europe since 1945 (2005), is also scheduled to be read. Judt decided to write this in 1989 while waiting for a train at Vienna central station, inspired at least in part by having witnessed the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia. While the work has been highly praised, it has also been criticized.

Fiction has been missing in my diet. However, The Sycamore Gap Tree incident has inspired a change. On 2023-09-28, a sycamore tree standing next to Hadrian’s Wall near Crag Lough in Northumberland, England was felled, illegally. It was located in a dramatic dip in the landscape, which was created by glacial meltwater and was a popular photographic subject, described as one of the most photographed trees in the country and an emblem for the North East of England. As a steward to another sycamore tree, grown from a seed, I understand the loss.

Shortly afterwards, I discovered that Louise (LJ) Ross, had written a romantic crime novel taking place there. I am not quite sure what a romantic crime novel is, but decided I could experiment with it. Unfortunately, Sycamore Gap is the second book in the series, so I am first having to slog my way through her first book, Holy Island, about crime on Lindisfarne.

Local Issues

Sometimes I cannot appreciate the world without reflecting on local issues. Trust was eroded in Inderøy, this past summer, on the recreational hikes, as up to several people opted to drive between posts, rather than walking, using wheelchairs or kayaks to access them. Driving is not part of the social contract! As I write this, I think of Vic Leach, in New Westminster, encouraging people to walk more.

Trust is also being eroded in Norwegian political parties at the national level. There was a municipal/ county election in Norway on 2023-09-10. For the first time since 1924, the Labour Party was not the most popular party. In recent years there have been too many issues arising involving politicians, in this and other parties. For example, the leader of the political party I voted for in the national election in 2021, admitted to shoplifting a pair of sunglasses at a taxfree store at Oslo airport. I voted for another party in the municipal elections, and will probably continue to do so in the national elections to be held in 2025.

Meanwhile, some Norwegian government ministers have been criticized for their failure to follow rules, most often, recently about stock purchases, that could involve insider information. Sometimes, it is not the minister who is purchasing stocks, but their spouse.

Ulrich Bech (1944 – 2015) wrote that “social inequalities and climate change are two sides of the same coin”, Climate for Change, or How to Create a Green Modernity? in Theory, Culture & Society 27.2-3 (2010): 254-66, quoted from p. 257. Somewhere I read that members of the billionaire class use one million times more energy than the median earthling. Every time I read about energy inequality, I think of Technocracy, which aimed to give people an equal share of energy. Technocracy and light pollution are two topics that I intend to address in the next 99 upcoming weblog posts.

I Touch Myself

Time is different now, than it was in my childhood and long into adulthood. Before, others dictated the timing and sequence of events. It applied to most activities involving more than one person. In addition, people listened to radios, and allowed stations to determine what songs were played when. Television was similar. There was a schedule that had to be followed, if one wanted to watch, say, The Avengers, that British espionage series, created by Canadian Sydney Newman (1917 – 1997), one had to be available at a specific time each week. In the days before the internet, libraries provided a source of information, as well as entertainment. There were some places that allowed, even encouraged, a greater freedom. I was fortunate to live less than three blocks from New Westminster Public Library, that I could visit to increase my knowledge about various topics, even those of marginal interest to most other people. Yes, I would like to thank the librarians at New Westminster Public Library for their engagement, particularly in the period 1958 to 1979, when I was an active user there.

We have lived without radio and television for most of the current millennium, and have not missed it. The Norwegian government replaced FM (frequency modulation) radio with DAB+ (digital audio broadcasting) in 2017. This had no effect on my life. We purchased a DAB+ radio so that we could listen to emergency broadcasts, should that ever be necessary. The radio is tested about once a year, but otherwise remains silent. This technology is already outdated, as emergency conditions are now communicated with SMS (short messaging service) messages. I experienced this recently in Iceland, when I received an earthquake warning.

Today, the age of instant gratification is upon us. We have experienced three iterations of the internet, so far: dial up; ADSL (asymetic digital subscriber line); and, fibre optic cable. People are becoming increasingly dependent on assorted web engines and their algorithms to propose content. These engines seem to know a great deal about my interests. Sometimes, I am intrigued more by these algorithms, and their proposals, than the actual content.

At the beginning of October, at the top of my YouTube suggestions was I Touch Myself (1990) by the Divinyls. I later learned they were an Australian band from Sidney, active in the 1990s. I wondered why this particular song was proposed. I had never heard of the band, or the track. Of course, from the photo provided, I wondered if it has something to do with my interest in female vocalists. I decided to explore it, by viewing and listening to that proposed track from 1991.

Resetting the YouTube start menu, brought forward several versions of the same song, some by the Divinyls, as well as others. I then viewed two other versions, another from 1991 and one from 2006. Also among the content proposals was a short video version from the film, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997). I viewed it, but unlike the music videos, it repulsed. Like so many things in life, my sense of humour has also evolved.

After consuming these four versions, I delved deeper into the song, to understand better why this particular track was at the top of my YouTube list. It is easy to discover context today, because information is so much easier to access. Wikipedia and other sources of information are as close as one’s smartphone or laptop. Thus, within a few minutes I had discovered that the I Touch Myself Project was launched in 2014, a year after the death of Divinyl singer, Chrissy Amphlett (1959 – 2013) from breast cancer. Wikipedia could tell me that Amphlett wanted I Touch Myself to be adopted as a global anthem for breast health. The project was created in her honour with its mission to create educational forums to promote self-examination. In another few seconds I learn that October (every year) is breast cancer awareness month.

Conclusions

This past year two of the websites I used regularly have closed down. For many years, my primary source of books was The Book Depository. I also used Ello, a social media platform, as a source of inspiration for various forms of artwork. Originally, there was a third, Kottke, but it came back to life, after its founder had returned from a sabbatical.

2023-10-212023-10-26

War in Film

Poster for the American version of *Le Roi de cœur* (1966).

On 2014-02-20, Russia invaded Ukraine, and conducted a war that lasted until 2014-03-26. By 2014-03-16, Russia had succeeded in its stated aim, to annex the Crimean peninsula. Eight years later, almost to the day, on 2022-02-21 Russia officially recognized the two self-proclaimed separatist states in the Donbas, and openly sent troops into these territories. On 2022-02-24, Russia invaded Ukraine, the start of Putin’s war, or the second Russian invasion of the Ukraine this millennium.

Previously, I have written two post about this topic: In 2022 in a post titled Ukraine and in 2023, in a post about a democracy tax. This is a third weblog post that mentions Ukraine. I tried to use something resembling logic. This has proved illusive, and beyond my capabilities. My conclusion is that there can be no logical starting point, because war (and every other form of violence) is not a logical/ rational action. It cannot be understood logically.

Should I have to select one film that explains the current situation in Ukraine, I would choose Maidan (2014). It was directed by Sergei Loznitsa (1964 – ). I find Loznitsa an interesting director because of his background. He graduated from Kyiv Polytechnic Institute as a mathematician in 1987. Then he worked at the Institute of Cybernetics on expert systems. He also worked as a Japanese translator. Then he studied cinematography.

In the early 1960s, there were ample opportunities to reflect on violence. In October of 1962, there was the Cuban missile crisis. I lived about 165 km/ 103 miles from the American nuclear submarine base at Bangor, near Bremerton, in Washington State. If at the time I had known how close we lived to it, I probably would have been more worried. As it was, numerous people built bomb shelters adjacent to their houses, in New Westminster.

Perhaps I would have been more afraid if I had devoured On the Beach, either in the form of the novel (1957), written by Nevil Shute (1899 – 1960), or the film (1959), directed by Stanley Kramer (1913 – 2001). Both show the horror of nuclear war.

Discounting television comedies such as The Phil Silver’s Show aka (Sargeant) Bilko (1955 – 1959), McHale’s Navy (1962 – 1966) and Hogan’s Heroes (1965–1971), there have been few serious war series in the 1960s and 1970s. An exception was the The Gray Ghost (1957 – 1958), that portrayed the American Civil War from a Confederate perspective.

My first cinematic exposure to the violence of war, that had an impact on me, was probably Lawrence of Arabia (1962). I found it a disturbing film, not just because of the military actions it portrayed. It was morally vague, and depicted a person with psychic challenges, he is incapable of overcoming. I reflected on it, but not too much to keep my sanity. It was directed by David Lean (1908-1991), who had previously directed The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), although I only watched that film considerably later.

Deeper reflections on violence began 58 years, 3 months, 3 days = 3 040 weeks = 21 280 days > 500 000 hours > 30 million minutes > 1.8 billion seconds earlier than the start of this second invasion of Ukraine. On 1963-11-22, the day John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917 – 1963), the American president, was assassinated. The date is etched permanently into my brain, and marks an event that started my radicalization. Less than a month before, I had celebrated my 15th birthday, I was in grade ten, the youngest person in my class, having been born on the cut-off date that allowed me to start school in 1954.

Prior to Kennedy’s assassination, I was conventional. For example, I would fire five rounds of 0.22 caliber bullets, at the rifle range in the basement of Vincent Massey junior secondary school, after finishing band practice. Since then, I have not fired a weapon.

At the time of that assassination, people just a few years younger may not have been aware of the significance of it. People, just a few years older, may have already made a commitment to a particular world view. For me, it called into question the use of violence to resolve disputes. Gradually, I began to question the Vietnam war, war more generally, then other forms of violence. In part, it comes from examining the brutality of many other wars, notably the American Civil War, the Crimean War, the Boar War, the First World War. In part, this was aided by a fellow student, Steve Scheving, who kept meticulous statistics about casualties in the battles of the American Civil War.

Of the American Civil War films, one of the most respected is Shenandoah (1965), directed by Andrew V. McLaglen (1920 – 2014). Admittedly, it is sentimental, but it does raise a number of humanitarian themes. Some regard it as an anti-war film, which made it appealing to many draft-dodgers and others, facing the Vietnam war.

Then there are novel/film combinations that offer a means of understanding war. An understanding of the first world war can come from Im Westen nichts Neues = Nothing New in the West (literal) = All Quiet on the Western Front, English translation title (1929) more a psychological study looking at physical and mental trauma, as well as social detachment. It was written by Erich Paul (later his middle name was replaced by Maria) Remarque (1898 – 1970). Several film versions have been made, including the first one released in 1930, directed by Lewis Milestone, born in Moldova as Leib Milstein = Лейб Мильштейн in its original Russian (1895 – 1980).

The anti-war novel and film, set in the first world war, that I cannot recommend to anyone because of the horrors it contains, is Johnny Got His Gun. Blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo (1905 – 1976) wrote the novel in 1938, and directed the film version in 1971.

My timeline proceeds more cautiously through the Second World War because both of my parents served in the Royal Canadian Air Force, at that time. I find it impossible to condemn anyone fighting in a war defined by my parents as justified and necessary. I am too damaged to objectively reflect on this war, and find myself quoting, yet again, from The Go-Between (1953) by L. P. Hartley, (1895 – 1972): “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.”

I learned that romance and comedy could be used to hide the horrors of war. For example: James Michener (1907 – 1997) wrote a collection of short stories, Tales of the South Pacific (1947), from which the musical South Pacific (1949) theatrical production emerged, as well as the film version (1958), directed by Joshua Logan (1908 – 1988). Both of these featured music by composer Richard Rodgers (1902 – 1979) and lyricist-dramatist Oscar Hammerstein II (1895 – 1960).

I have a greater appreciation of Catch-22 (1961), the satirical novel by Joseph Heller (1923 – 1999), and the black comedy film from 1970, directed by Mikhail Igor Peschkowsky, better known as Mike Nichols (1931 – 2014).

I have allowed myself to see Schindler’s List (1993) and Saving Private Ryan (1998), both directed by Steven Spielberg (1946 – ).

Comedy also dominated the Korean war. The best example is M*A*S*H, subtitled, A novel about three army doctors (1968) by Robert Hooker, the pseudonym of Hiester Richard Hornberger Jr. (1924 – 1997), and the film (1970) directed by Robert Altman (1925 – 2006).

It is also easier to find fault with events in more distant places. It took me much longer to confront my own racism and other prejudices, and the genocide that took place in British Columbia. As an immigrant, it is easier for me to see contradictions in Norwegian society that Norwegians can’t admit to. Much of this has to do with religion. From my perspective, Norway only reluctantly allows freedom of religion, and has not fully recognized the violence sanctioned by its own state designated religion, particularly against the Sami people, but also others who did not think conventionally.

It was easier to condemn events in Algeria, Czechoslovakia, Chile and Korea, to name four countries on four continents, that people might suspect were randomly selected. They weren’t, for films have had a significant impact on my perception of the world, and of war. In these cases, respectively: The Battle of Algiers = La battaglia di Algeri, (1966) directed by Gillo Pontecorvo (1919 – 2006) ; Closely Watched Trains = Ostře sledované vlaky (1966) directed by Jiří Menzel (1938 – 2020); missing [sic](1982) directed by Costa-Gavras (1933 – ) although I am much more appreciative of Z (1969), which is about the assassination of democratic Greek politician Grigoris Lambrakis (1912 – 1963); The Manchurian Candidate (1962) described as a neo-noir psychological political thriller film, directed by John Frankenheimer (1930 – 2002).

There have been numerous films made about the Vietnam war, including: 1) Apocalypse Now (1979), directed by Francis Ford Coppola (1939 – ), loosely based on the novella Heart of Darkness (1899) by Joseph Conrad, born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski (1857 – 1924). Here, war is explored as an exercise in futility and as a catalyst for a descent into madness; 2) The Deer Hunter (1978), directed by Michael Cimino (1939 – 2016), focused on realism and the psychological destruction of individual participants. Many of these films are difficult to watch. This applies to most war films made after 1970. 3) First Blood (1982) was directed by Bulgarian-Canadian Ted Kotcheff (1932 -) and was filmed in and around Hope, British Columbia. Damaged Vietnam veteran John Rambo searches for an old friend in a small town but is harassed by the sheriff until he reaches his breaking point. Rambo reverts to his military mindset. 4) Kotcheff explored the Vietnam war very differently in Uncommon Valor (1983), with a focus on prisoners of war (POW), and people missing in action (MIA).

A Baha’i perspective on war.

A documentary about World War One, The Man Who Shot the Great War (2014), has had the greatest spiritual impact on me. I often reflect on the souls of men who have been conscripted, and ordered to kill other men. This war killed 37 million soldiers. George Hackney (? – 1977) was a Belfast sniper, and photographer. While unofficial photographs were illegal, his were allowed. George was also a Baha’i.

The Baha’i perspective is that no person is condemned to an eternity in hell or in heaven. Instead people continue their spiritual journey they began in their earthly life involving a greater spiritual understanding. I expect George found solace in this message.

In October, Baha’is celebrate the births of its twin profits, Bab (1819 – 1850) and Baha’u’llah (1817 – 1892). While its prophets may have their origins in Iran, Baha’u’llah was ultimately exiled to Akko/ Acre, in today’s Israel. This exile is why the Faith’s headquarters are located in nearby Haifa. I have been on pilgrimage to Haifa three times, but feel no need to visit a fourth time.

This month, the world has witnessed atrocities in Israel as well as the Gaza strip. Baha’u’llah has written on war, and come with recommendations for achieving world peace, in two documents, that are often quoted.

“Be united, O concourse of the sovereigns of the world, for thereby will the tempest of discord be stilled amongst you, and your peoples find rest. Should any one among you take up arms against another, rise ye all against him, for this is naught but manifest justice.” Gleanings, p. 254.

“The time must come when the imperative necessity for the holding of a vast, an all-embracing assemblage of men will be universally realized. The rulers and kings of the earth must needs attend it, and, participating in its deliberations, must consider such ways and means as will lay the foundations of the world’s Great Peace amongst men. Such a peace demandeth that the Great Powers should resolve, for the sake of the tranquillity of the peoples of the earth, to be fully reconciled among themselves. Should any king take up arms against another, all should unitedly arise and prevent him.” Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, pp. 30-1.

Needless to say, I am not impressed with the various rulers of the world uniting to further peace. As I approach 75 years of living on this planet, I reflect once again, much as I did in the late 1960s, on how countries are willing to sacrifice their most important resource, young people, in needless wars.

I further reflect on how countries, especially the United States through the Marshall Plan, were willing to invest in the reconstruction of Europe, which provided the basis for Germany, and many other countries, to prosper. The US, Israel and the many oil-rich Middle Eastern countries have been unwilling to invest in the West Bank or the Gaza strip, to ensure its Palestinian residents could prosper.

Al-Nakba (1996) is a documentary film by Benny Brunner (1954 – ) and Alexandra Jansse (1956 – ). It presents insights into past events in Palestine/ Israel that continue to shape current events. It is based on the book, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947–1949 by Benny Morris (1948 – ), an Israeli historian. The film title refers to catastrophic events in 1948 forcing, an estimated seven hundred thousand Palestinians into exile and poverty, while Israelis, could create and prosper their own state.

This Israeli perspective is portrayed in the Leon Uris (1924 – 2003) novel, Exodus (1958), which was made into a film directed by Otto Preminger (1905 – 1986) in 1960.

Perhaps the most inspiring war film remains Philippe de Broca’s (1933 – 2004) King of Hearts = Le Roi de cœur (1966). The film is set in a set in a small French town towards the end of World War I. Retreating Germans have placed a bomb in the town square, and it is up to signaller/ pigeon keeper Charles Plumpkit to defuse the bomb. While normal residents flee, inmates from an asylum take over the town, and challenge conventional values. The film also questions the very notion of sanity.

A confession: I have never served in any military, and describe myself as a pacifist. In my youth, I have known people who have served in the sea cadets, based at the New Westminster Armory. Many of them were musicians. In Norway, I have worked with teachers who choose to leave the school system temporarily, to work as soldiers in peace-keeping missions, most often in the Middle East. I have never understood the appeal of being in the military.

Note: the next weblog post is scheduled for Tuesday, 2023-10-31.

2023-10-142023-10-21

Solar Energy

Taipei Energy Hill solar park from above, taken with a DJI Mavic Mini drone. Photo: Anders J, 2020-07-15.

Starting in the mid 2000s, I often introduced students in my science classes to sustainable energy by referring to Desertec, a non-profit foundation that focuses on the production of renewable energy in the desert regions of north Africa. Initially, the project relied on concentrated solar energy to produce thermal energy = heat that could be stored in salt. This thermal energy was then to be used to produce electricity. The aim was to create a global renewable energy plan based on the concept of harnessing sustainable powers, from sites in Africa and the Middle East where renewable sources of energy are more abundant, and transferring it through high-voltage direct current transmission lines to consumption centers, in Europe.

I lost interest when this proved to be uneconomic, and thus unworkable. The foundation’s next idea was to focus on meeting domestic demand. This also failed because of transportation and cost-inefficiency issues. The initiative was revived in 2020 with a focus on green hydrogen, catering to both domestic demand and exports to foreign markets. This failed to spark my interest, because I regard the transport of a product (in this case, hydrogen) to be more problematic than transporting electrical energy.

One of the main reasons why Desertec faces problems, is that since the early 2000s, solar cells and panels have become increasingly inexpensive, and provide some of the cheapest sources of electricity on the planet. They can be effectively used in most places where people live.

The solar cell was invented when Russell Shoemaker Ohl (1898 – 1987), a researcher at Bell Labs, noticed in 1940 that a cracked silicon sample produced a current when exposed to light. He patented the modern solar cell, described in US Patent 2402662, “Light sensitive device”, filed in 1941.

Martin Green (1948- ), was born in Brisbane, Australia, where he also received a B.Sc. degree from the University of Queensland, before and completed his PhD at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, where he specialised in solar energy. In 1974. he returned to Australia, where he worked at the University of New South Wales. In 1975, he started a photovoltaic research group, using unwanted scrounged equipment.

Green and his students first worked to increase the voltage of solar cells. When this came up to a satisfactory level, focus was changed to quality improvement and energy efficiency. By 1989 the lab had built solar panels capable of running at 20% efficiency. In 2015, they achieved a 40.6% conversion rate using focused light reflected off a mirror.

Shi Zhengrong (1963 – ) was born in Yangzhong, Jiangsu, China. He completed his undergraduate studies at Changchun University of Science and Technology, and obtained his Master’s degree from the Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Afterwards, Shi obtained a Ph.D. in solar power technology at the University of New South Wales. School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering. In 2001, Shi returned to China and set up Suntech Power in Wuxi with $6m in start-up funding from the municipal government.

Suntech made inexpensive, conventional PV solar panels with 17% efficiency. SunTech increased its production capacity from 60 megawatts (MW) to 1 gigawatt in 2009. This was possible because Germany, and other mainly European Union (EU) countries passed legislation encouraging solar power. This resulted in a massive global demand. By 2012, the world market faced excess solar panel supplies, which reduced prices to below cost. After an investment scandal, SunTech was bankrupt by 2013-03.

Other companies ensured continued production of low cost, highly efficient solar panels. The International Energy Agency reports that solar is providing the cheapest energy the world has ever seen.

The problem with solar energy is that it is available only half of the time. However, when that half occurs is largely dependent on latitude. Many producers of solar cells set 60°, as a northern (and southern) limit for their effective use.

Location	Vangshylla	New Westminster	Oakland
Latitude	63° 17′ 0″ N	49° 12′ 25″ N	37° 48′ 16″ N
PV Out	853.0	1235.2	1728.5
DNI	769.3	1336.4	2146.9
GTI optimal	992.9	1474.9	2117.1
Tilt opt	43	37	33
Summer solstice sunrise	02:48:50	05:05:48	05:46:58
Summer solstice sunset	23:45:58	21:21:08	20:34:52
Summer solstice daylight	20:57:08	16:15:20	14:47:54
Winter solstice sunrise	10:03:51	08:03:28	07:20:30
Winter solstice sunset	14:53:15	16:16:01	16:53:53
Winter solstice daylight	04:19:54	08:12:33	09:23:33

PV out can be regarded as the photovoltaic power potential; that is, the relative potential of a location to produce electricity from a solar panel. In the table above, Oakland has twice the capability of Vangshylla, while New Westminster has an intermediate position.

DNI = Direct Normal Irradiation, and is measured in kWh/m² per year. Here, Oakland can produce three times as much electricity as Vangshylla. GTI = Global tilted irradiation at optimum angle. By setting solar cells at an optimal angle, the amount of electricity produced can be enhanced, considerably in high latitudes. However, to make matters worse, high latitude locations have most of their production in the summer months (when it is needed the least), with very little production in the winter (when it is needed most). At Vangshylla the length of the day varies by 16h:37m:14s. In Oakland, that difference is only 05h:24m:21s.

Note: Most of the content was written on or before 2021-04-25. It was updated immediately prior to publication.

2023-10-072023-10-16

Computer Gaming

Street Rod, released in 1989, was set in 1963. It encouraging lawless behaviour on game streets. Note, in particular, the poor quality of the graphics. This was not important on early computers, such as an Amiga, where the best screen resolution was 640×512i (PAL) with 16 colours.

If people think that gaming is a marginal activity, they should reassess their world view. The revenue from computer games exceeds that of the music, film and television industries combined. The production of a game can employ 500 people, many of them engaged in providing different forms of artwork. People under the age of fifty, spend much of their free time gaming. Those over, not so much.

The ten countries with the largest consumption of computer games are, in ranked order: USA, China, Japan, South Korea, Germany, UK, France, Canada, Italy and Brazil. The source for this information provides revenue in USD, and the number of players. In terms of production, 2020, Swedish gaming companies ranked ninth in the world, and generated an annual net turnover of 20.8 billion SEK.

Every game involves a game-world with its own rules, that may differ significantly from the reality the player normally lives in. The better able the player is to adapt to these changes, the better able the player should be able to score, and ultimately to win the game. In many games, there is also an element of chance.

In some games, having control over the graphics (or at least better control than any opponents) is necessary for the player to win. In many games, winning simply means completing the game.

For the record, my list of favourite games has not changed much over the decades, and are not demanding with respect to graphics. In chronological order the ones I remember are: Oregon Trail (1971), Flight Simulator (1982), Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? (1985), Sim City (1989), Postman Pat (1989), Street Rod (1989) and Minesweeper (1990). There was also a train simulator, with a forgotten name.

Of these, playing Postman Pat involved the most work. Since it was impossible to obtain an overview map while playing the game, our family visited the entire game world, and recreated the map on paper. For someone with a flawed sense of geography, this was very helpful, possibly allowing me to even beat children, as long as they were very young.

In my teaching career I have used Sim City to introduce the concept of simulation to younger students, most typically a three hour session provided to students at the three junior secondary schools in the Leksvik catchment area. My son tells me that traffic congestion makes it difficult for the game population to exceed about 10 000 people, on a first attempt. He must have inherited his game playing capability from his mother, since he managed to build a city of 150 000 people, on his first attempt.

Non-favourite games include Railroad Tycoon (1990) as well as programs that imitate board and card games, such as monopoly or chess. Railroad Tycoon is less about simulating a transport system, and more about building and managing a company that happens to be a railroad. This is done by investing in track and stations, and by buying and scheduling trains. To win the railroad must be built within a specified time.

To answer the most common question I have ever been asked about computer gaming. Yes, I am acquainted with, but have not played: Minecraft (2009), Pokémon (1996, in card format) or Donkey Kong (1991).

It should now be obvious that I am living in the past with respect to computer gaming. My relationship with board and card games is equally ~~problematic~~ non-existent.

There is one game that I have been considering, NIMBY Rails, which is an open-source transit simulation developed by Carlos Carrasco, from Barcelona, Spain. NIMBY = Not In My Back Yard, which is a common approach to anything requiring change. The game includes content from Open Street Maps, that contains a slightly simplified variant of the entire earth, so that players can construct a transit/ rail system anywhere on the planet. There are detailed rules built into the game that have to been discovered through trial and error. It was launched in 2021.

The first computers used by our family for gaming were an Amiga 1000, soon replaced with an Amiga 2000. Most of the games listed above were first played on it. After that we have owned Windows and Mac machines. With the children becoming adults and capable of making their own decisions, the oldsters use Acer Swift 3 laptops with assorted Asus machines running Linux Mint 21.2. We also have hand-held devices (Asus Zenfone 9) running Android 13.

One of the challenges gamers faced during the pandemic was the lack of GPUs = Graphical Processing Units, usually bought in the form of a graphics card that is inserted into large cases they would call their gaming rig. There are, of course, more portable computers that can be used for the same purpose.

During the pandemic, there was another group of people wanting GPUs: cryptocurrency miners: individuals, companies, organizations, (some criminal and evading paying taxes in any form), who want to use the equipment to produce bitcoins, and other types of cryptocurrency. This production requires enormous amounts of electricity, and these miners want to equip their mining rigs, which look more like servers, with large numbers of the fastest possible GPUs.

For GPU manufacturers this explosion of mining demand created a public relations challenge. The two dominant companies are Nvidia and AMD = Advanced Micro Devices, in previous incarnations, especially their Radeon GPUs. They are now restricting sales of GPUs as add-on products, and prioritize selling them to OEMs = Original Equipment Manufacturers, who put them in new, expensive computers most often designed and labelled as gaming rigs. This created a problem for some gamers, who could/ can no longer upgrade their rigs.

There are several areas where graphic content can provoke conflict. The first is internet throughput, usually measured in k- or M- or Gb/s. An ISP = Internet Service Provider, will provide a range of throughput at various price points, and it will be up to the consumer to decide which one. The current base rate from our ISP is 150 Mb/s, but both 500 and 1 000 Mb/s are available. We have a base rate subscription.

With the onset of Putin’s war in Ukraine, and especially after he stopped/ limited gas sales to Europe, it became economically unviable to mine cybercurrencies! This meant that there was a sudden increase in the number of GPUs on the used market. Unfortunately, not all of these GPUs have a configuration suitable for gamers. Fortunately, Inexpensive former mining-GPUs can be suitable for video-rendering. Unlike gaming machines, rendering machines do not need to connect to a screen. They do not even need to be quiet.

The two next areas involve screen characteristics. Every screen has a specific resolution. In 1988, screen resolution was typically 640×512i (PAL) with 16 colours. In North America, NTSC, the resolution was less. Today (2023), one common resolution is FHD (Full High Definition) = 1920 x 1020 pixels aka 1080p HDTV video format. It has a 16:9 aspect ratio and about 2 megapixels of content. The p stands for progressive scan, i.e. non-interlaced, and is the standard on computer screens. The other dominant standard is 4k UHD (Ultra High Definition) = 3840 × 2160 pixels is the dominant 4K standard, adopted in 2014, with the same 16:9 aspect ratio, and 8 megapixels of content. This, increasingly, is the dominant standard on television sized screens, typically between 40″ = 1 000 mm and 70 inches = 1 780 cm, diagonally.

Human vision varies. A person can process 10 to 12 images per second and perceive them individually. At higher frequency rates these images are perceived as motion. The most common preferred minimum frequency rate is 50 Hz, with that being a common frame rate in Europe or 60 Hz in North America, although some have no problems watching video at 30 Hz. Many gamers, however, are prepared to pay extra for a 144 Hz screen, although I personally don’t think they can improve their perception, by increasing the frequency. The highest frame rate currently available is 240 Hz. While there are some algorithms that can be used to reduce the amount of processing needed, a frame rate of 120 Hz, will require 4 times the processing as a 30 Hz frame rate. Compared to FHD at 50/ 60 Hz, 4k UHD at 120/ 144 Hz, will require 8 x the processing power.