Disasters happen! A quick clay landslide occurred at Ask village, in Gjerdrum municipality, Norway. Police received the first reports at 03:56 on 2020-12-30. That was almost five years before this post’s publication. There were 14 buildings, with 31 residences, destroyed in the incident that killed eleven people (two of those deaths involved a pregnant woman), injured another ten, and left the village devastated.
This post looks generally at the technology used in search and rescue operations in Norway, using the Gjerdrum landslide as an example.
Image of the area of the landslide in Ask, Gjerdrum, taken from Brådalslia on 2021-01-02, about a year after the landslide. Photo: Tommy Gildseth
Reading the Wikipedia article about the landslide, one can find a list of the resources involved in rescue efforts. One of the first on the scene was a 14-person Urban Search and Rescue squad from the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency. Yes, the Swedes were able to get into place before many of the Norwegians. Thank you, Sweden. I read content from this agency, who send me regular updates. The agency provides information bulletins in Swedish, but they also have an English language website.
Ask is not an isolated location. It is 33.3 km (slightly over 20 miles) north-east of Norway’s capital, Oslo. It takes half-an hour to drive there from the centre of Oslo!
Notification
The Norwegian rescue service can be notified in several ways when people need urgent assistance. Unfortunately, instead of using a single emergency number, Norway has several numbers in use.
Fire = 110. Police = 112. Medical = 113. Coastal radio (incidents at sea) = 120. Direct telephone number to rescue centers: Northern Norway 75 55 90 00 / Southern Norway 51 51 70 00.
On our telephones, we have an app which helps us choose the correct number to call: Hjelp 113 app (Norwegian) and Help 113 app (English). These have all emergency numbers in one place, as well as other important numbers. It displays the telephone’s coordinates and the location of the nearest defibrillator in Norway at all times. The app is created by the Norwegian Air Ambulance Foundation and is under continuous development.
Procedures for use of Hjelp/ Help 113: Download or update the app from Apple Store or Google Play. Launch the app after downloading. Register the mobile number. Use it when one: 1) needs to call an emergency number, 2) requires a defibrillator, or 3) wants to know one’s geographic position = coordinates.
Usually, the position is sent to the emergency center with the Advanced Mobile Location (AML) system, which exists in almost all mobile phones. The Hjelp 113 app does the same. However, with the app, the phone user can see the coordinates. These can be read out to the emergency center if it has not received your position due to your foreign phone number. If phone coverage is not available at an incident site, one can take a screenshot of the coordinates where the patient is located and then go to an area with coverage. One can then read out the correct coordinates for where the patient is. Both Trish and I have this app on our phones.
Only the emergency number 112 can be called from a locked mobile phone and without a SIM card. Other emergency numbers are treated as regular phone numbers by the mobile phone.
The number 1412 is a text telephone service in Norway, specially adapted for the deaf, hearing impaired and speech impaired. It makes it possible to communicate with the emergency services and other important agencies via text instead of voice.
You can send SMS to the emergency numbers 110 (fire), 112 (police) and 113 (ambulance). However, to use the service you must register in advance via nodsms.no.
Helicopters
On Christmas Day (2025-12-25) Alasdair and I watched series 2 episode 9 of Reddet = Saved, a Norwegian TV2 documentary series about the Norwegian Airforce helicopter rescue service. This episode, made in 2020, was about the Gjerdrum landslide, where this service rescued 13 people. The search and rescue (SAR) helicopter in use was a license-built variant of the Sikorsky S-61 with twin Rolls-Rolls Gnome turboshaft engines and different avionics, designated a Sea King, by its British manufacturer Westland Helicopters. The model designation is a misspelling of seeking.
The Norwegian government has decided to purchase 16 AW101 SAR Queen helicopters to replace their Westland Sea King rescue helicopters. The AW101 replaced the Sea King at Sola on 2020-09-01, at Ørland on 2021-05-14, at Banak on 2022-02-25, Bodø on 2022-12-12, at Rygge on 2023-12-11 and, finally, at Florø on 2024-09-27.
The need for the police to have advanced helicopters became clear after Anders Brevik (1979 – ) killed 77 people, including 8 in a bombing of the Norwegian Government’s offices in Oslo, and 69 at a Labour Party summer youth camp on Utøya island in Tyrifjorden, a lake. Of those killed, 33 were under 18 years of age. Utøya is about 38 km north-west of Oslo, by car and boat.
Back to the landslide. A police helicopter, viewing the landslide from a slightly different angle, was able to direct the rescue helicopter to locations where people needed rescuing. This police helicopter was a Leonardo AW169 with twin Pratt & Whitney Canada PW210A FADEC turboshaft engines that drive the main rotor with variable speed to reduce noise and increase its effectiveness. It is capable of carrying 10 people (including pilot and co-pilot). It was developed and produced by the Italian Leonardo.
With greater range and transport capacity, the AW169 has the largest cabin in its class, with space to transport six officers and equipment, and the largest sliding doors in its class (1.6 meters wide), which is an advantage if the helicopter is to be used as a support platform for snipers.
In the Reddet episode the last two people to be rescued narrated their experience. Their house was moved 400 m during the landslide.
During this incident, Andøya Space engaged in aerial surveillance and provided drone data to rescue coordinators. Norwegian Radio Relay League, the national association of amateur radio operators, was responsible for organizing signals and communication, including/ especially keeping track of the geographical position of all active searchers.
Drones
Local Norwegian fire and rescue departments increasingly use drones to assist in their activities. The standard drone is the DJI Matrice 300. These are designed for industrial applications, including surveying, inspection, search and rescue and firefighting. It has a folding design, with an IP45 protection rating, downward-facing motors, a 6-direction collision avoidance system, a D-RTK module provides high-precision navigation and positioning with centimeter-level accuracy using real-time differential corrections, to enhance the drone’s positioning capabilities. This allows it to be used for surveying and mapping applications where accuracy is critical. The model was released in 2020-07. An updated 350 version was released in 2023-05, and a 400 version was released in 2025-06.
General characteristics (300 model)
Capacity: 2 700 g (6.0 lb) payload. Length: 0.810 m (2 ft 8 in) or 0.430 m (1 ft 4.9 in) folded. Width: 0.670 m (2 ft 2 in) or 0.420 m (1 ft 4.5 in) folded. Height: 0.430 m (1 ft 5 in). Empty weight: 3.600 kg (8 lb) excluding battery Max takeoff weight: 9.000 kg (20 lb) Battery capacity: 52.8V 5935 mAh (274 Wh) Powerplant: 4 × DJI 6009 brushless DC electric motor (downward-facing). Propellers: 2-bladed DJI 2110, 0.53 m (1 ft 9 in) diameter.
Performance
Maximum speed: 82.8 km/h = 51.4 mph = 44.7 kn. Endurance: 45 minutes with 700 g (1.5 lb). Service ceiling: 5 000 m (16,000 ft). Rate of climb: 6 m/s (1,200 ft/min).
BarentsWatch information portal was launched in 2012. It provides an overview of activity and knowledge in coastal and sea areas. The system covers sea and coastal areas from Denmark in the south, to Greenland in the west, the North Pole in the north and Novaja Semlja in the east.
The establishment of the BarentsWatch information system is based on cooperation between 27 Norwegian state agencies and research institutes. The system headquarters is in Tromsø, in Northern Norway. Kongsberg Spacetec provided system integration.
This service will provide all participants in Norwegian rescue service with a joint tool for coordinating their own efforts on an operational and tactical level. The overarching goal is to reduce loss of life and improve health by enhancing the quality and efficiency in executing search and rescue missions in Norway.
This tool is intended to facilitate a faster startup of a rescue operation and strengthen cooperation among the various public, private and volunteer players that constitute the Norwegian rescue service. The tool will contribute to a greater degree of shared situational understanding during search and rescue operations.
The request to create a shared support tool for the rescue service came from the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre (JRCC) early in 2022, based on the notion to build upon the existing Shared Resources Information Repository (FRR) service. An operational expert group, representing key players in the Norwegian rescue service, contribute with professional understanding and continuous evaluation of the comprehensive solution during innovation and development. The group consists of representatives from the Police, the Police Academy, the Norwegian Red Cross, the Norwegian People’s Aid, the Norwegian Rescue Dogs, the Norwegian Radio Relay League and the Scouts’ Emergency Groups.
The map below shows use of the FRR service. The red dot at the centre of the concentric circles shows the last known position of a missing person. The first concentric circle is 300 m from that point, and represents the area where there is a 25% chance of finding that person. The second circle is 1 100 m from the centre, and there is another 25% chance of finding that person. I calculate that the third circle is about 2.5 km from the centre, and represents yet another 25% possibility. The final 25% chance of finding that person is beyond that third circle. Resources associated with the map include helicopters, boats, fire vehicles, ATVs, other motor vehicles, people and dogs.
Notes:
I studied applied physics at Andøya Space, under its previous names Andøya Space Centre and Andøya Rocket Range. Because of its remote location on an island in Northern Norway, all students had to fly in using the island’s military airport. At the space centre, comfortable accommodation was provided for all students attending, along with catered meals, and social activities in the evening.
I am a member of the Norwegian Radio Relay League.
Publication of this weblog post had been postponed. It was originally scheduled to be published on 2023-04-22 at 12:00.
Originally, this weblog post was titled Steganography, which is one of the words defined below. However, with the Ukrainian War continuing past Donald Tariff’s second inauguration day, it seemed time to write a post that explained and expanded the vocabulary of espionage. Then I began to think that I needed to write another post, Words of the year, for 2025.
I remember an early venture into espionage, when I was in my teens, reading some Ian Flemming (1908 – 1964) fiction. This was my low point. Then I discovered other authors who better suited my personality including, in alphabetical order: Kingsley Amis (1922 – 1995), Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874 – 1936), Erskine Childers (1870 – 1922), David Cornwell = John le Carré (1931 – 2020), Len Deighton (1929 – ), Frederick Forsyth (1938 – 2025), Graham Greene (1904 –1991), Anthony Horowitz (1955 – ) and Nevil Shute (1899-1960).
There is one serious omission with the list, the lack of women. In 2026, I will attempt to rectify that by reading Gayle Lynds’ (1945 – ) Masquerade (1996) and Stella Rimington (née Whitehouse 1935 – 2025), such as her first (Liz Carlyle) novel At Risk (2004) and her memoir Open Secret: The Autobiography of the Former Director-General of MI5 (2001).
The list of espionage terms, somewhat modified below, originally comes from a modern source.
No, I am not expecting any of the readers of this weblog to be either spies or agents, but situations could arise where one encounters either group. Most of Europe is experiencing difficulties with Russian intrusion.
Agent: an officer of an intelligence service, providing secrets or operational support. In Britain often referred to as a birdwatcher.
Agent handler: source handler = case officer (CIA) = person managing an agent (spy), including recruiting, instructing, paying, debriefing and/or advising other agents.
Alias: a false identity, to conceal a genuine one, used in physical and/ or digital worlds.
Analyst: an expert used to gain crucial insights from field observations, resulting in written reports and oral presentations.
Anti-surveillance: drills used to find out if people are watching an agent, without letting them know.
Asset: a source of information or operational assistance.
Backstop: names and addresses of front companies that support a spy’s legend.
Bang-and-burn operation: Sabotage and demolition operations.
Black bag operation: In a black bag operation, you break into a building to collect intelligence. You might have to pick locks, clone keys, crack safes. Survey and photograph. Plant listening devices. The name comes from the black bags burglars often use to carry their tools.
Black operation: “It wasn’t us.” That’s the official line on black ops. These are missions so sensitive they have to be deniable. The people at the top must be able to say they never knew. So if you’re discovered, it’ll look like you were working for some private group or organization. You’re on your own.
Blowback: The conseuences if something goes wrong with a covert operation. A term coined by the CIA.
Blown: A mission or identity that has been fully discovered.
Bona fides: More than good faith. Claims will need cold, hard proof, with credentials.
Brush contact = Lightning contact: Minimal contact allowing for an exchange: a word, an envelope, a key.
Bump: You need to find a target of interest in a public place and manufacturing a reason to get him/her talking to build up the relationship. It’s time to organize a bump, all part of the CIA Field Tradecraft course taught at the Farm.
Burned: Someone has slipped up. Your identity has been compromised.
Car Pick Up (CPU): A situation where you are waiting on a dark street and hear a gentle rumbling. A vehicle rolls up slowly, and swift as a shadow, you’ve vanished inside. The meeting – a car pick up – begins.
Case officer: CIA term for an agent handler.
Chicken feed: Minor intelligence of no operational worth that an agent or double agent passes to a foreign intelligence service to prove their value.
Cipher: something that scrambles a message into nonsense by substituting (and adding to) the letters in it. For someone to read it, they’ll either need the key or to be skilled at cryptanalysis.
Clandestine operation: An operation so secretive that the whole thing is designed to remain unknown and deniable. Clandestine premises = safe house.
Classified information: Information protected by law from public view, because a government feels it’s too sensitive to reveal. To get to it you’ll either need the right security clearance or another, less official way in.
Clean: Undetected, unsuspected.. A spy always aims to stay clean: That way, s/he is able to acquire and pass on information free from surveillance.
CCTV: Closed-circuit television, used for surveillance. Spies use CCTV cameras to follow targets.
Cobbler: A forger of identity documents. If a spy needs a passport for the next assignment, s/he must use the cobbler. Note: On 2025-10-09, it was reported that Polish authorities charged a former Warsaw city council employee with espionage for allegedly providing Russia with fake identities for its spies.
Code: A system of words that represent other words. Often used when a spy doesn’t know who might be listening to a conversation. This predefined code prevents the communication from being compromised.
Compromise: The discovery by an enemy party of some aspect of an operation, asset or cover. This uncovering of the truth means that what has been found has been compromised.
Concealment device: Need to hide secrets? Put them in something that looks ordinary: a suitcase with a false bottom, a hollowed-out coin, a USB flash drive. The best concealment devices are things that you carry with you every day.
Conscious: A person who is not part of an intelligence service, but knowingly talking to someone who is. They describe you as conscious – aware of what they really do.
Counterintelligence: Everyone knows everyone else is spying on them. So intelligence services devote a lot of energy to counterintelligence: thwarting foreign spying operations (which includes flushing out traitors).
Counter-surveillance: This is the use of teams to watch for followers. Think of it as surveillance on surveillance.
Cover: You need a cover to mask the fact that you work for an intelligence service. Sometimes it’s just a false name. Other times you might need to carry business cards. In extreme cases, you’ll need a full-on legend.
Covert operation: The last domino falls – but no one saw the first one go. A covert operation is a hidden operation designed to influence events in a foreign, probably hostile, place. Everyone sees the result. But no one knows you created it.
Cryptanalysis: The art of deciphering coded messages without being told the key.
Cryptologist: A mathematical master of making and breaking codes. Cultivation: The development of a relationship with an intelligence target (prior to recruitment) during which an intelligence officer explores the target’s motivations to spy.
Cut-out: You need to get vital information to someone. But if they’re seen with you, their cover will be blown. So how do you get from A to B? You use C: a cut-out. A third party both of you trust, but whose presence won’t alert the enemy.
Cyberhacker: a person who spies on a computer.
Dangle: One way to catch fish involves dangling bait in the water. And one way to collect intelligence involves dangling an officer in front of the enemy. If the enemy bites, you’ve got a double agent on the inside, someone to gather secrets or spread disinformation. You may also use a dangle to identify enemy officers with the intent of removing them from your country.
Dead drop: How to pass something to someone who it’s not safe to meet? How about a dead drop site? A secret location where you can leave it for them to pick up later.
Decryption: Breaking a code, with or without a key.
Deep cover: A so complete diplomatic cover even embassy colleagues don’t know that the person is an intelligence officer.
Defector: A person who needs to get out of a country, willing to defect to an opposing one. Defectors sometimes gain entry to their new country by offering valuable intelligence.
Deniable: The operation is extremely sensitive and those in government don’t want it linked back to them. So you make it deniable. You set it up in a way that if a higher-up is ever asked, they can plausibly say they knew nothing.
Diplomatic cover: Someone who is both an intelligence officer and a diplomat. The cover gives that person a reason for being in the target country as well as diplomatic immunity, including safe passage home, if s/he gets blown.
Disinformation: One way to disrupt the activities of an enemy intelligence service is to spread disinformation: falsehoods, rumors, and fake stories. (Not to be confused with misinformation, which is unintentionally false.)
Double agent: A very risky position. A person pretending to work for one intelligence service, while secretly working against it for another one.
Dry cleaning: A process that gets rid of spots. So if a spy think s/he’s been spotted, that’s what s/he does: carry out measures to see if s/he is being surveilled. (See also anti-surveillance and counter-surveillance.)
Ears only: A situation where an agent is dealing with material so sensitive it must not be committed to writing.
Eavesdrop: Use of a hidden mic or a bugged phone. There are many ways to eavesdrop – to listen in to (supposedly) private conversations.
Eyes only: Information that may be read but not discussed, or that can only be shown to specific people.
Elicitation: The subtle art of drawing out valuable information from a target.
Encryption: The protection of data by encrypting it with a cipher. To read it again one needs to decrypt it with a key.
Exfiltration: A secret rescue operation to bring an agent, defector or intelligence officer (and sometimes his or her family) out of immediate danger and into a safe zone.
False flag operations: Operations designed to look like the work of another nation. Pirates flew the original ‘false flags’ to fool the ships they were about to attack into believing they were friendly.
Front organization: The best smokescreens make no smoke. One way to keep your operations secret is to act through a front organization, usually a business, that no one knows you control.
Get off the X: When something bad is going down, get off the X. Find somewhere else that is safe.
Going gray: How does one get into a building they don’t have clearance for? Or catch conversations you’re not meant to hear? By going gray: looking and acting in a way that blends you into your surroundings.
Handle: This is information or means that an agent handler can use to control an agent.
Hard target: A person, nation, group, or technical system often hostile to the US and its allies, or heavily protected with a counterintelligence capability that presents a potential threat to the US or its interests, and provides significant difficulty for agent infiltration or penetration.
Honey trap: That attractive stranger smiling from across the bar: possible romance, or a honey trap ready to seduce secrets out of you? They may even have been sent by your own side, to test your loyalty. The KGB named their male seducers ravens and the females swallows.
Human Intelligence (HUMINT): Spying is often about personality not physicality. HUMINT is intelligence gathered through personal contact with agents.
Illegal: A member of the Illegals Program, a network of Russian sleeper agents in the US, arrested in 2010.
Infiltration: Most soldiers are stationed on the front line or behind their own lines. An intelligence officer may infiltrate behind enemy lines, usually to gather intelligence for his/her spymasters or to help an agent escape danger.
Intelligence: valuable, often secret, information. Countries will go to great lengths to protect or steal it. (The word can also refer to the world of espionage as a whole.)
Intelligence cycle: Intelligence goes around in a cycle:
Planning: Politicians decide what they need to know in discussion with spymasters. -Collection: Intelligence officers collect the target information through a range of operations. -Analysis: Analysts pore over what’s been collected, connect the key details with what they already know, and create useful intelligence. -Dissemination: Spymasters discuss the new intelligence with the politicians. They plan future operations to collect more, if that’s what’s needed. And the cycle begins again.
Intelligence officer: Someone who works for an intelligence service, gathering or analyzing intelligence with the ultimate goal of helping a government and nation.
Intelligence operative: People involved in an array of operations from servicing dead drops to setting up safe houses.
Jailbreak: Often used in relation to the iPhone, the term jailbreaking is circumventing the security of a device to remove a manufacturer’s restrictions. It is considered ‘jailbreaking’ because it frees users from the ‘jail’ of limitations.
Key: In secure, encrypted systems sometimes the same key – usually a string of letters and numbers – locks and unlocks your data. And sometimes the sender and recipient have different keys, which makes life even safer. Protect any keys that unlock important data: If your enemies find the key, you’re stuffed.
Kompromat: Often used to describe compromising material gathered by Russian or Soviet officials. Kompromat is also used generally to describe compromising material gathered for blackmail or to discredit and manipulate someone for political gain or leverage.
Legend: A sophisticated cover that amounts to an entire artificial life history (and supporting documents) to fool even determined counterintelligence professionals.
Limited hangout: Shutting down further inquiry by giving away a portion of the truth and making an apology.
Live drop: A face-to-face meeting to exchange secrets or money with an opposing agent. Very different from a dead drop.
MICE: Motivation for spying: MICE = Money, Ideology, Coercion, Ego.
Microdot: An image or a whole page of text shrunk down to the size of a period, so as to escape notice by the enemy. (See also steganography.)
Mole: An intelligence agent who passes secrets to the enemy. Often moles are recruited before they even work for their target service, making them even harder to spot than most agents.
Morse code: A unique combination of dots and dashes sent flashing a torch, or tapping it out over a radio.
Naked: Acting without any assistance.
Need-To-Know: The first rule of espionage: No one should know anything they don’t need to. Tell people exactly what they need to know – and no more.
Numbers station: A shortwave radio station used to broadcast coded messages to an operative in the field. All you have to do is tune your radio and know how to interpret the code.
One-time pad: In theory, an unbreakable encryption system, where only the sender and the receiver have the pad = key, needed to encrypt and decrypt the message. The pad is randomly generated. To read the message, an enemy would have to get hold of the pad.
Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT): intelligence collected from overt, publicly available sources. Mainly the internet nowadays.
Operation: The activities after an agent is assigned a specific goal.
Operational security (OpSec): If an agent wants to keep secrets and identities, s/he will need to hide his IP address, and not leak personal information.
Plaintext: A message, before it gets scrambled with a cipher.
Plant: Someone secretly placed to gather intelligence.
Playback: Fake intelligence. An agent supplies false information. The target thinks it’s real, and gives the agent something in return.
Propaganda: Biased information put out to promote a cause or point of view. If the source is obvious, it’s white propaganda. If it pretends to be from one side, but is actually created by its enemy, it’s black propaganda.
Recognition phrase = parole (CIA): a pre-agreed recognition phrase – a snippet no one else would find strange. Small talk with big meaning.
Recognition signal: Something to confirm a contact’s identity. The signal must be distinctive. Any random person might be carrying a brown leather bag, but it probably won’t be diagonally over their left shoulder.
Recruitment: An agent spots someone who could be useful to his/her service. Recruitment is often the final step in a process, after spotting, targeting, cultivating and assessing.
Redaction: Some secrets have to stay secret. That’s why many documents are redacted, meaning their most sensitive passages are deleted or blacked out. Even declassified documents from decades ago may have redactions. Some things only a few people can know.
Sanitizing: The process of getting rid of anything incriminating. Burn it, purge it from the record, amend the documents.
Safehouse: a secure, secret location to hide in. Just don’t expect luxury. Most safehouses look as ordinary as possible.
Signals Intelligence (SIGINT): intelligence gathered by intercepting communications between people. Because such communications are often encrypted, cryptanalysis plays an important role.
Sleeper = sleeper agent: a person living in a foreign country as an ordinary citizen, who only acts if a hostile situation develops.
Special operations officer: an agent with the skills to operate weapons and explosives. Courage also helps. Often engaged in missions to gather intelligence and destroy targets in hostile environments.
Spook: slang for intelligence officer. The primary meaning of spook is a ghost. Like them, intelligence officers operate in the shadows.
Spy: a person passing secrets to a foreign intelligence service, not an intelligence officer.
Spycatcher: a specialist in counterintelligence, thwarting enemy spies.
Spymaster: a leader of an intelligence service.
Stakeout: clandestine assessment of a location, including its inherent dangers and potential exit routes.
Station: the location where espionage is conducted.
Steganography: hiding a message, image or file in another message, image or file. Examples include the microdot. See this source for further information.
Surveillance: secret observation.
Surveillance aware = the opposing side knows that that the other side knows. It can be seen from their behavior.
Surveillance Detection Route (SDR): a predetermined, carefully selected route to lure a surveillant into following their target and exposing hostile surveillance.
Technical Intelligence (TECHINT): Intelligence about weapons and equipment used by foreign armed services. If you know what your adversaries are capable of you can plan accordingly.
Technical operations officer: A person who gathers intelligence by tapping phones, breaking into buildings, planting cameras and other means.
Tools: Binoculars, cameras, audio recorders and similar aids.
Trap: something that gives an intruder away. Common examples: a hair along a drawer that will drop invisibly when disturbed; a microscope slide under the carpet that will shatter inaudibly if someone walks on it.
Tradecraft: The array of methods and tools used in covert intelligence operation. Get the tradecraft right and you give an operation the best chance of success. Get it wrong and there’s every chance you’ll get blown.
Traffic analysis: gathering intelligence by recognizing particular patterns or discrepancies in intercepted messages. It allows you to infer things without needing to read the messages themselves.
Trigger: A person in a surveillance team whose eyes are glued to the target, tasked with reporting the target’s movements. Meanwhile the others stay back to avoid spooking the target.
Technical Surveillance Countermeasures (TSCM) = bug sweeps. Flushing out listening devices or covert cameras in an office.
Uncle: slang term for headquarters.
Undercover: operations conducted using a false identity, lasting from a few hours to several years, depending on the operation.
Walk-In = someone suddenly appearing willing to betray their country and provide vital information.
Wallet Litter = content to make a fake wallet look like a real one, with receipts, travel documents, event tickets, to add convincing detail to a cover.
Movie, before the Jazz Singer (1927) => silent movie
Talkie, after the Jazz Singer (1927) => Movie
The first talkie in Britain was Alfred Hitchcock’s, Blackmail (1929). It was made in two version, one silent, the other a talkie. It came out of copyright on 2025-01-01, which means anyone can download it legally. I secured a copy of it on 2025-01-02.
Telephone => landline, from about 2010. Although, the first use of landline was in 1865.
Milk => dairy milk/ cow’s milk/ whole milk, in contrast to oat milk and soy milk.
Flavoring => natural flavoring, to distinguish it from artificial flavoring/ chemical ingredients.
Book => paper book, a hard copy (early 2000s) is a paper copy of a document originally found on a computer, originally it referred to a manuscript that had been edited and proofread. Also called a dead-tree copy.
Signature => wet signature, when signed with a pen by a person, in contrast to an electronic signature.
Event or meeting => physical event/ in-person meeting, after COVID and the imposition of online meetings. consultation => face to face consultation.
Internet was assumed to use cable. => wired internet. It is assumed otherwise that it is wireless. Wireless as a term dates to 1891. At one time it referred to a radio.
Guitar => acoustic guitar. Now the world is a better place because we have electric guitars.
Store/ shop => brick & mortar store (American)/ high street shop (British).
The New World, => America. Some want to measure it from its re-discovery by Columbus (1451 – 1506) in 1492. Not me. I measure this rediscovery from the Vikings, especially with Erik Thorvaldsson = Erik the Red (950 – 1003). About 982, Erik was exiled from Iceland for three years for murdering Eyjolf the Foul and Hrafn the Dueller. During this banishment he explored Greenland, eventually culminating in his founding of the first successful European settlement on the island. Other parts of North America were discovered about 1000. Note: People have lived in North America for at least 30 000 years, with evidence suggesting that early humans arrived as far back as 40 000 years ago. Recent discoveries indicate that these early inhabitants may have migrated by boat along the coast rather than solely through land routes.
Other words of the year 2025
Parasocial (Cambridge) = an adjective describing a one-sided relationships, as for example between celebrities and their audience or fans
Vibe coding (Collins) = a chatbot-based approach to creating software where the developer describes a project or task to a large language model, which generates code based on that prompt.
67 (Dictionary.com) = a Gen Alpha term pronounced six-seven not sixty-seven. While the term is largely nonsensical, some argue it means so-so, or maybe this, maybe that, especially when paired with a hand gesture where both palms face up and move alternately up and down. Some relate the term with Skrilla’s = rapper Jemille Edwards (1999 – ), 2024 song Doot Doot (6 7).
AI slop (Macquarie) = low-quality AI-generated content.
Rage Bate (Oxford) = Online content deliberately designed to elicit anger or outrage, typically to increase traffic or engagement on a web page or social media. Shortlisted words: Aura Farming = Cultivating an impressive or charismatic public image to convey confidence or mystique. Biohack = Attempting to improve physical or mental performance through various means, including diet and technology.
Cliff Cottage
At Cliff Cottage, we have also introduced new words in connection with Duolingo. On Signal, our communication app, Trish and I report our activities to each other like this: Duo dun. 2 more-ons, 2 quests, 40 so far in Duocember. More literate people would probable write: Duolingo done. 2 lessons, 2 quests, 40 so far in December. I have also thought of rewriting the dated yet offensive term moron, as lesson. Remember: It used to be, less is more, more is less! Now it is, more is more, less is less.
This weblog post is being published on the fifth anniversary of the death of trumpeter Eddie Gale (1941-2020). For me, he is especially remembered for his album, Ghetto Music (1968).
Most of the time I listen to musical content on YouTube. YouTube keeps a log for me, so I do not have to record anything myself. Much of the old music I listen to is from the 1960s. Some of this music is stored digitally, on solid-state disks, only some of which are inside a computer. New music often comes from Planet ASE, with Tony M2. I describe my music consumption as sparse. During the past year, I have listed to about 100 different tracks, admittedly some up to several times.
I have re-listened to Eddie Gale’s music in the week before publication. Since about the time I turned 50, allow me to be kind to myself and say since the new millennium started, trumpet music has been problematic to listen to. It was a younger me that appreciated high-pitched sounds. Increasingly, I am choosing music at lower frequencies and lower volumes.
In these later years, I have grown to find radio and television increasingly offensive. So we do not use it. Both want to control my sensory input, by perpetually offering a momentary single choice. There may be up to several channels, but each channel behaves in precisely the same way, making choices for me. Thus, Trish and I have become very modern. We choose what we want to watch, and when we want to watch it.
I keep a record of all of the programs watched on our massive 50″ / 127 cm screen. We watched 103 programs in 2023, and 107 programs in 2024. I did some advanced mathematics, and found that this amounts to less than 0.3 programs a day. In 2025, as the end of the year approaches we have watched 9 programs together. I have watched an addition 5 programs with our son Alasdair, and 17 programs alone. In addition, Trish, Alasdair and I have watched 2 programs. Most programs are watched during the winter, not watching anything from the beginning of March to the end of September in 2023, or from the beginning of August to the end of November in 2024. The last program in 2025 was watched on April 18th. However, a peak viewing period is coming up in the coming weeks.
Sun Ra
Sun Ra in 1973, with a Farfisa Professional 222 combo organ. Photograph is in the pubic domain, probably by Francis Ing (1930 – 1995).
I would never have become acquainted with Eddie Gale, if it had not been for Sun Ra (1914 – 1993). Allow me to forget most of the information about Sun Ra, that Earthlings have perpetuated. Here, I am only going to provide what Sun Ra says. In 1936/ 1937 Sun Ra claimed that a bright light appeared around him:
My whole body changed into something else. I could see through myself. And I went up… I wasn’t in human form… I landed on a planet that I identified as Saturn… they teleported me and I was down on [a] stage with them. They wanted to talk with me. They had one little antenna on each ear. A little antenna over each eye. They talked to me. They told me to stop [attending college] because there was going to be great trouble in schools… the world was going into complete chaos… I would speak [through music], and the world would listen. That’s what they told me.
Eddie Gale is heard on a track titled Space Aura, part of the Secrets of the Sun album, of Sun Ra and his Solar Arkestra recorded in 1962, and released in 1965. He is also on Lanquidity album, recorded and released in 1978. However, since Michael Ray (1952 – ) also plays trumpet on the album, it is difficult to know which tracks feature which player.
The importance of Sun Ra relates to his mythical persona and an idiosyncratic credo that made him a pioneer of Afrofuturism. In the film Space Is the Place (1972) Sun Ra’s free jazz band prepares a group of young black people to colonize an outer planet. This results in a new afro-centric civilization on another planet.
If one only pays attention to the Anglosphere, one would believe that the British in the persona of Charles Babbage (1791–1871) with his Difference Engine (1820s) or possible Tommy Flowers (1905–1998) who led the construction of Colossus (1943 – 1945) or the people at the University of Pennsylvania who made ENIAC = Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (completed 1945), invented computers. Most often the definition of first is prefaced by a specific type of technology, that by definition eliminates other worthy competitors.
Here I would like to direct attention to Konrad Zuse (1910 – 1995), a German civil engineer, computer scientist, inventor and businessman. One reason for the failure to include Zuse as the real inventor of the computer is that he worked for the Germans (read Nazis), during World War II. This is not a politically correct story about the invention of computers. Far too many sources offer a bowdlerized version = the removal or altering of parts of a text that are considered offensive or vulgar, often to make it more suitable for a particular audience. The term originates from Thomas Bowdler (1754 – 1825), who published a censored edition of Shakespeare’s works.
Konrad Zuse was born in Berlin. In 1912, his family moved to East Prussian Braunsberg, now Braniewo, Poland, where his father was a postal clerk. Zuse attended the Collegium Hosianum in Braunsberg, and in 1923, the family moved to Hoyerswerda, where he passed his Abitur in 1928, qualifying him to enter university.
He enrolled at Technische Hochschule Berlin = Technische Universität Berlin (current name). He studied engineering and architecture, but found them boring. He graduated as a civil engineer in 1935.
Zuse then worked for the Ford Motor Company, using his artistic skills for advertising. Later, he started work as a design engineer at the Henschel aircraft factory in Schönefeld near Berlin. This work required him to undertake many calculations by hand, leading him to theorize and plan a way of doing them by machine.
Beginning in 1935, he experimented in the construction of computers in his parents’ apartment. In 1936, he produced Z1, a floating-point binary mechanical calculator with limited programmability.
In 1937, Zuse was advised to use vacuum tubes as switching elements, but, at the time, considered it a crazy idea. In 1937, Zuse submitted two patents that anticipated a von Neumann architecture computer. In 1938, he finished the Z1 which contained some 30 000 metal parts. It never worked well due to insufficient mechanical precision. In 1944, the Z1 and its original blueprints were destroyed with his parents’ flat and many neighbouring buildings by a British air raid in World War II.
In 1939, Zuse was called to military service, where he was given the resources to ultimately build the Z2. In September 1940 -09 Zuse presented the Z2 to experts of the Deutsche Versuchsanstalt für Luftfahrt (DVL) = German Research Institute for Aviation. The Z2 was a revised version of the Z1 using telephone relays.
Much of his early work was financed by his family, but after 1939 he was given resources by the government of Nazi Germany.
In 1940, the German government began funding him and his company through the Aerodynamische Versuchsanstalt (AVA) = Aerodynamic Research Institute, forerunner of the Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR) = German Aerospace Centre, which used his work for the production of glide bombs.
Zuse built the S1 and S2 computing machines, which were special purpose devices which computed aerodynamic corrections to the wings of radio-controlled flying bombs. The S2 featured an integrated analog-to-digital converter under program control, making it the first process-controlled computer. The circuit design of the S1 was the predecessor of Zuse’s Z11. Zuse believed that these machines had been captured by occupying Soviet troops in 1945.
In 1941 Zuse started a company, Zuse Apparatebau = Zuse Apparatus Construction, to manufacture his machines. That same year he improved on the basic Z2 machine, and built the Z3, a machine that was built in his workshop and presented to the public on 1941-05-12. It was a binary 22-bit floating-point programmable calculator with memory and loops but without conditional jumps based on telephone relays. These relays were largely collected from discarded stock. This was the world’s first fully operational electromechanical computer, was partially financed by DVL which wanted to automate their extensive calculations.
He designed the world’s first programmable computer, the Z3, a functional program-controlled Turing-complete machine that became operational in 1941-05. He also developed the S2, the first process control computer. In 1941, he founded one of the earliest computer businesses, producing the Z4, which became the world’s first commercial computer.
Zuse had begun constructing the Z4 in 1942. These machines contributed to the Henschel Werke Hs 293 and Hs 294 guided missiles developed by the German military between 1941 and 1945, which were the precursors to the modern cruise missile. The Z4 also served as the inspiration for the construction of the ERMETH, the first Swiss computer and one of the first in Europe.
On 1945-02-03, aerial bombing caused devastating destruction that effectively brought Zuse’s research and development to a complete halt. The partially finished, telephone relay-based Z4 computer was then packed and moved from Berlin to Göttingen.
After this bombing, Zuse fled Berlin for rural Allgäu. However, in the extreme deprivation of post-war Germany Zuse was unable to build computers.
While working on his Z4 computer, Zuse realised that programming in machine code was too complicated. From 1943 to 1945 he designed Plankalkül = Plan Calculus, the first high-level programming language. His PhD discertation detailed this programming language. As an elaborate example program, he constructed the first computer chess engine.
Zuse founded one of the earliest computer companies: the Zuse-Ingenieurbüro Hopferau. Capital was raised in 1946 through ETH Zurich and an IBM option on Zuse’s patents.
In 1947, there was a colloquium in Göttingen. In addition to Konrad Zuse, participants included: Alwin Walther (1898 – 1967),, John Womersley (1907 – 1958), Arthur Porter (1910 – 2010), Alan Turing (1912 – 1954), Helmut Schreyer (1912 – 1984) and Heinz Billing (1914 – 2017).
In November 1949, Zuse founded another company, Zuse KG. One of its first tasks was to restore and improve the Z4. He would show the computer to the mathematician Eduard Stiefel (1909 – 1978) of the ETH Zurich. The two men agreed to lend the Z4 to the ETH. It was delivered to the ETH Zurich in 1950-07. It proved to be very reliable. The company produced over two hundred and fifty computers from 1949 to 1969. Other computers, all numbered with a leading Z, up to Z43, were built by this company. Notable are the Z11, which was sold to the optics industry and to universities, and the Z22, the first computer with a memory based on magnetic storage.
In 1956, Zuse began to work on a high precision, large format plotter. It was demonstrated at the 1961 Hanover Fair,[46] and became well known also outside of the technical world thanks to Frieder Nake’s pioneering computer art work.[47] Other plotters designed by Zuse include the ZUSE Z90 and ZUSE Z9004.[46]
In 1967, Zuse suggested that the universe itself is running on a cellular automaton or similar computational structure (digital physics); in 1969, he published the book Rechnender Raum (translated into English as Calculating Space).[16][17][18]
In 1969, Zuse suggested the concept of a computation-based universe in his book Rechnender Raum = Calculating Space. An elementary process in it involve two digital particles A and B form a new digital particle C.
Between 1987 and 1989, Zuse recreated the Z1, despite a heart attack midway through the project. It cost 800 000 DM = ca UA$ 500 000. ) Four people (including Zuse) were needed to assemble it. Funding for this retrocomputing project was provided by Siemens and a consortium of five companies.
Between 1989 and 1995, Zuse conceptualized and created a purely mechanical, extensible, modular tower automaton Helixturm = helix tower. The structure is based on a gear drive that employs rotary motion (e.g. provided by a crank) to assemble modular components from a storage space, elevating a tube-shaped tower; the process is reversible, and inverting the input direction will deconstruct the tower and store the components. In 2009, the Deutsches Museum restored Zuse’s original 1:30 functional model that can be extended to a height of 2.7 m. Zuse intended the full construction to reach a height of 120 m, and envisioned it for use with wind power generators and radio transmission installations.
While Zuse never became a member of the Nazi Party, he is not known to have expressed any doubts or qualms about working for the Nazi war effort. Much later, he suggested that in modern times, the best scientists and engineers usually have to choose between either doing their work for more or less questionable business and military interests in a Faustian bargain, or not pursuing their line of work at all.
Note: The weblog post was started on Friday, 2025-01-24, at 21:30. It was completed on 2025-11-30, at 12:30.
