Cyprical Actions

Sometimes titles do not accurately reflect a topic being discussed. Initially, I thought this post would just be about air-fryers. However, this post evolved, and has more to do with some aspects of the infrastructure of our house = Fjellheim (unique official name in Inderøy municipality, from a time before numbers and street names were used) = mountain home (translation) = Vangshylla 82 (current official street name and number, followed on the next line with our postal code 7670, then Inderøy. Outside of Norway, we add Norway on yet another line) = Cliff Cottage (our unofficial English language name for the house).

We are not the only creatures living at Cliff Cottage. We have squirrels (currently 3), titmice, magpies and several other species of birds. Below is a photo of an underground entrance belonging to another resident, most likely a badger, although we have not seen it for several years. New entrances are found periodically.

Many people, especially those who know me, will be surprised that I possess culinary skills. These are activated about once a week, often on a Wednesday, when I take responsibility for making dinner. On 2025-12-03, at 13:00, I took responsibility for making fish & chips, one of my standard meals. I was going to use an air-fryer for the first time.

What seems normal, even logical, in a kitchen does not always feel that way for me. I made notes for the future. Including, that next time I should have the two buckets stop cooking at the same time. Thus, I thought I should probably include more detailed instructions putting all of the steps in sequence. Thus, I told myself to insert the buckets before heating. I followed this up by writing, that I should outsert those buckets after the meal is cooked, but before the next step, serving the dinner. I thought outsert was a better word than remove.

For me, the use of re is problematic. In letters, it seems to preface the letter body, and seems to mean: in the matter of or concerning. I am told it originates from Latin. It seems redundant. Another usage of the term, appears to be again, as in reheat. It has been in the English language since 1727. Thus, if one is going to place something into position, I am content to use the term insert. If the opposite is being considered, then outsert seems the logical choice.

Redundant is not another use of re. It comes from the Latin redundāns, present participle of redundō (to overflow, redound), from red- (again, back) + undō (to surge, flood), from unda (a wave).

I appreciate words being balanced. For example, using the same verb but with different prefixes or suffixes. In the above example, other choices could have been to plug in/ in plug/ inplug the buckets before heating, and to plug out/ out plug/ outplug them after the meal is cooked.

After eating this meal, I decided that I should follow this internal pondering with a weblog post. The next challenge came almost immediately. Half of me wanted to write the post title as: Reciprocal Actions. Except, when I said that first word aloud, it turned out to be reciprical. Another percentage of me felt that there should be no re. Thus, I decided to write it ciprical, rather than ciprocal. Cyprocal refers to a syrup that contains cyproheptadine, which is an antihistamine used to block the action of histamine in the body. It is commonly used to control allergies and stimulate appetite.

Yes, I have spelling challenges, which is why I appreciate text processors making wavy red lines under words they regard as misspelled. Their built-in spelling checkers, even provide sugestions for spelling wurds corectly, if one follows them. However, I am also a person who believes that sugestion is the operative wurd in the above sentence. If I don’t feel like spelling wurds corectly, I won’t follow the sugestion. This may explain why I encounter more wavy red lines than most people.

There are great linguists among us, who can provide some enlightenment. Bugs Bunny is one of them. The Tasmanian Devil is fast on the trail of Marvin the Martian. Bugs pulls Marvin aside by the scruff of his neck. The dialogue is as follows: What’s up, Doc? You’s gotta unlax. … It’s only a cartoon. A furry bunny hand reaches outside of the TV and punches pause stopping the Tasmanian Devil in his tracks, allowing Bugs and Marvin to converse.

I try to follow the advice of Bugs. Should lax = engage in some activity, and unlax = rest. No, Bugs has it wrong. In Latin, laxus = lax means loose, wide, spacious or relaxed. It can also refer to something that is not tight or firm. So to engage in something should actually be to unlax, while to rest should be to lax. So even the experts can get things wrong. Rather than saying that I am going to demolish, unbuild or unmake something. I use the word pair construct and destruct. The first from Latin cōnstrūctus, from cōnstruō (“to heap together”), from com- (“together”) + struō (“I heap up, pile”). Destruction is from the Old French destrucion, from the Latin dēstructiō, dēstructiōnem.

Air-fryers

Yes, I took the above photo of symbols are on our Philips air-fryer, with my hands and pink phone case clearly visible. The symbols are as follows: On the left, there is an on-off switch, with increase and decrease controls for temperature. On the right, there is a temporary start-stop switch, with increase and decrease controls for time. At the top are ingredient symbols, allowing for an automatic temperature and time setting. The ingredients from left to right are: frozen fries, fresh fries, chops and steaks, chicken, fish, vegetables, cakes, reheat. In the middle row one sees the values for basket 1 (left): shake, temperature, time; On/ off status to have both baskets finish at the same time; values for basket 2 (right): temperature, time and shake; To the left, in the centre, and to the right, bucket symbols refers to the basket(s) being controlled: 1, 1 & 2 or 2. To the left of the 1 & 2 bucket control, there is a button to control having both buckets finish at the same time. To the right of the 1 & 2 bucket control, there is a button to pause the cooking process mid-way to allow the bucket contents to be turned or shaken.

Some Cyprical Actions involve Circuits

Introductory comment: Bureaucracy in Norway can be frustrating, but it differs from that in other countries. For example, while a building permit is needed to construct a house, there are no permits needed to make most modifications. For example, some years ago now, I decided to extend a walkway on the upper floor of our house, so that if people needed to escape the kitchen, say from a fire, they could climb through the windows ending up on the walkway about 70 cm (28″) below. Before the walkway was built the distance was about 3m (10 feet). I did not apply for any permit to do this work, but at some point someone from the municipality noticed the change, and updated the official house plans to incorporate this change.

Plumbers and electricians are allowed to undertake changes without any municipal paperwork. Every 20 years, we have our electrical circuits inspected. If there are code violations, then we have to use a licensed electrician to correct those. During the last inspection, it was noted that some rooms contained a mixture of grounded and ungrounded sockets. This was in clear violation of newer regulations. All of the sockets in a room have to be one or the other, but not both. I quickly changed most of the sockets myself, then contacted our electricity provider to change the one remaining ungrounded socket in each room to grounded, five in total. All of these contacts have worked without any problems for the past fifteen years.

All of the boxes associated with electrical circuits in our house are marked with a device type – circuit number – device number. Device type codes are A = appliance; J = junction box; P = power outlet; S = switch. The circuit number is from 01 to 14. For each device type, on each circuit, the boxes are numbered starting at 1, for the one closest to the circuit breaker box. There are no regulations enforcing this coding. This is just an activity I like to do.

All of the power outlets inside and outside the house are now grounded. Unofficially, these are a type F socket, patented in Germany in 1929, gaining international use in 1951. Officially, they are referred to internationally as a CEE 7/3 socket, associated with a matching Schuko = Schutzkontakt, Protective contact CEE 7/4 plug. CEE is an abbreviation of Commission for Conformity Testing of Electrical Equipment. It is undertaken by the Commission de l’Électrotechnique Internationale = the International Electrotechnical Commission. These sockets can accept devices with up to 16 A of power. Ungrounded sockets are restricted to 2.5 A. These are referred to as type C (on the diagram below) but often have a more squished (a rounded rectangle rather than circular) appearance.

Most Norwegian houses have their electrical power cables dimensioned to use up to 63 A at a nominal 240 V. The actual voltage in Norway, like the rest of Europe, is 230 V with a frequency of 50 Hz. That involves three x 16mm² cables into the house, coloured brown, black and grey to the circuit breaker box. After that, single phase wiring is brown (line) and blue (neutral). Grounding is yellow and green.

North Americans will see some similarity with their circuit breaker boxes, but European boxes are offset 90°. American colours are black, red, and blue are used for phases in 120/208V systems; brown, orange and yellow for 277/480V systems. They also use white or grey for neutral lines,

While we have 3-phase circuitry into the house, our circuits are not grounded with external wiring. This is referred to as an IT network layout, and is very common in Norway, but uncommon in the rest of Europe. I have asked our electrical provider when a fully grounded system will be installed, and was told, not before 2050. That means that we have to provide our own grounding, which I have done! It involves providing grounding circuitry from the circuit breaker box, with a cable that leads to a 2.5 meter long stake, located in wet soil. From inside the circuit breaker box everything is grounded.

Political digression: One has to remember that before oil was discovered in the North Sea, Norway was one of the poorest countries in Europe. Everything had to be done as cheaply as possible, and that meant installing three electrical cables instead of four. This cheapness also meant that our roads were narrower than in most other countries. This means that Norwegians have to drive more defensively than many others. The benefit is that Norway ranks 6th best in the world in terms of motor-vehicle related deaths at 2.14/ 100 000 people/ year. Countries that are better are: 1 Monaco (0), 2 Hong Kong (1.3), 3 Maldives (1.6), 4 Japan (2.1) tied with Singapore (2.1). Other values are: 32 Canada (5.3), 111 USA (14.2). The global average is 15.

In the circuit breaker box, the first device encountered is a 63 A power = amperage overload limiter, followed by a voltage overload limiter. The second one is most often used to prevent damage from lightning. Beyond these devices, we have 14 circuits, providing us with up to 15 kW of power. Three of these are 3-phase circuits, while the remainder are single-phase. The largest of these 3-phase circuits provides up to 32 A of charging for our electric vehicle. The other two provide 20 A of power for general heating in the attic ( for a currently uninstalled heat exchanger), and for use in the playshop = workshop (previous use) = garage (original use). The remainder of the circuits are 1-phase (pronounced single phase) with anywhere from 15 to 20 A, each. At one time we had a mix of 10 A and 16 A 1-phase circuits, but all of the 10 A ones were replaced.

In Norway, we are encouraged to disconnect the electrical power supply to devices with heating elements. No, not the induction stove top or oven, that are both fused with circuit breakers. These are on two separate circuits: A-01-01 provides single phase, 20 A of power to the stove top, while A-06-01 provides single phase 06 – 15 A, slow fuse = circuit breaker reaction, respectively.

The rest of the kitchen uses circuit 12 – single phase, 16 A, fast reaction. This includes the lighting. The main light is controlled by S-12-01, in addition to two counter top lighting units that are controlled with other switches S-12-02 and S-12-03. Then there are six sets of power outlets. Four of them have two plugs: S-12-01, S-12-02, S-12-03 and S-12-06. The remaining two have four plugs: S-12-04 and S-12-05. Other places in the house have outlets with six plugs.

Air (Vacuum) and Water

These are not the only items marked in this way. The central vacuum has two plugs, marked V-01 (downstairs, closest to the vacuum unit) and V-02 (upstairs, or the main floor).

Then there is the water supply. I believe Norway is unique in the world, mandating pipe in pipe connections. An inner pipe provides the water, while an outer pipe ensures that if there is a leak, that the water will flow to a place where it will not cause damage. Our cold water pipes are marked C followed by a circuit number, while the hot water pipes are marked H, again followed by a circuit number.

I have considered marking the waste water with a W, followed by a number, but this has not been implemented – yet.

Ethernet

We also have Ethernet wiring throughout the house. We have a 48 port switch with a Power-over-Ethernet (POE) system to pass electric power along with data on twisted-pair Ethernet cabling to ports. All of the Ethernet ports have PoE apart from the port to the play shop, which is connected with fibre-optic cable, because of the potential for lightning damage. Currently, 19 Ethernet ports are in use, of which six are access points (AP) for wireless communications. Four of these are in the house, two on each floor. There is also another AP in the play shop, and a final AP in the carport, which serves most of the outside area. Most of the other ports service a pair of connectors. However, the port that leads to the play shop is attached to a switch with 24 ports. The switch on my desk has five ports.

Our doorbell is aIso connected to the Ethernet, so we can see what is happening at the door, by connecting our devices (phones, computers) using the APs.

In addition, there are three additional places in the house that need to have Ethernet cables installed. Once that work is finished each port will be numbered, starting with E.

From Workshop to Playshop

Slowly, my facade is cracking. At 77, I am no longer in my prime. Thus, I decided that it was time to stop working in my retirement construction job, and to take on lighter tasks. The workshop, that supported this construction work, has had most of its specialist woodworking tools removed. They have been given to a young (63) neighbour. Hopefully, he will let me use them in an emergency. Otherwise they are his to do what he wants with them. I had also purchased a CNC = computer numerical control machine. It was never used, so Alasdair had taken it over.

I now have a playshop, that will support my hobbies. These involve: airbrush painting, electronics and synthesizers. However, the playshop is a topic for a future weblog post.