Brock – Page 20 – Brock at Cliff Cottage

2021-12-182021-12-18

#400

This weblog post is to commemorate my 400th weblog post. It follows a previous commemoration, posted on 2020-02-17.

Statistics

When a new weblog post is published, 42 notifications are sent out (including one to myself). Of these, 18 are to women, and 24 to men. 26 go to people living in Norway (including 11 in Inderøy), 9 to people in Canada, and 7 to people in USA. Slightly more than half of the people, 22, are retired. I am biologically related to 8 people, and married to yet another. Of my adoptive family, all have declined an invitation to receive notifications. I have known one person for about 68 years, and another for less than a year. I have a relationship with each and every one. On average, 33 people read each post. I do not know who these people are, and I have no intention of finding out.

When I approached retirement, and started writing this weblog more seriously, in 2016, I stated that if readership exceeded 100 people, it was an indication that I was doing something wrong. This is still my belief. However, I have no objections to increasing readership to about that level, on the condition that I know the people or are related to them, or are recommended by people in these two groups.

Spam is not a major problem, but sometimes people I don’t know want to add inappropriate content. The post that has attracted the most spam is one about a Kaiyun Pickman, a Chinese pickup. This week, for example, someone wanted to add an advertisement there for an online casino. Even though I don’t know Paul MF Broadway, I allowed his comment because it was relevant. Relevance is the only criteria for having a comment accepted.

Corona-19

Veritas vos liberabit = The truth will set you free, is the motto of Johns Hopkins University. It is appealing, especially at a time when many politicians don’t seem capable of differentiating truth from lies. It is also Biblical, appearing in John 8:32. Yet, in 2017 W. Bradford Littlejohn described it as both the peril and promise of Christian liberty. Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center reported over 270 million cases, and over 5 million deaths, in the world, as publication of this weblog post approached. Currently, the omicron variant is dominating the press, if not the pandemic.

I am not impressed with former Norwegian prime minister Erna Solberg who, in a press conference 2021-09-24, announced that people in Norway could return to their normal way of life. This was a lie, but I am uncertain if Solberg is too dense to understand this elementary fact, or if she was wishing ill will on the people of Norway because of her election defeat. There could even be other reasons. In any case, the result was that many people behaved as if life had returned to normal. Shaking hands and not maintaining an adequate social distance are examples of clear violations of acceptable pandemic behaviour. Now, the intensive care wards of hospitals in Norway are filled beyond their capacity with Corona-19 cases. In addition, since everyone knows that government budgets are written in stone, Norwegian hospitals will have to cut back on their services in 2022, because of cost overruns this year. Nurses and other hospital staff are also suffering burnout. Workers, who have the opportunity, are once again required to work from home. Masks are required in stores. Most public activities have been cancelled.

There is increased need for cooperation in many fields related to epidemiology, including the production and distribution of vaccines. Disease seems an inappropriate place for free enterprise/ capitalism, especially during a pandemic where none can be free of Covid-19, until everyone in the world able to be vaccinated is vaccinated. It may be possible to build a bubble, but even New Zealand has experienced that these can pop easily.

Jennifer B. Nuzzo, in a TED talk, compared Covid-19 with the 1904 Baltimore fire caused by a cigarette that destroyed 1 500 buildings/ 2 500 businesses/ 80 blocks. Despite aid from firefighters in neighbouring cities, they couldn’t hook up their hoses because in 1904 there were over 600 variations of hose couplings. This failure resulted in major changes: Data was used to make buildings safer and to improve fire responses; ordinances were passed that ultimately became building codes resulting in fire resistant buildings; fire alarms were installed that could detect and pinpoint fires in buildings; fire drills became standard practice; national standards for firefighting equipment were developed so fire crews had interoperable equipment. In the same way, lessons from Covid-19 will change the world forever. There will be no return to the previous normal.

Climate Crisis

The world is facing a human created climate crisis. On 2021-08-09, The sixth Comprehensive Assessment of Climate Science, a 3949 page report, was published. This report raises important questions, some of which are left to the interested reader to answer. Is libertarian capitalism better at solving social problems than, for example, democratic socialism? Why/ why not? What should be done to improve the situation for the majority of people given that there is increasing inequality in the world? What are the benefits of redistributing wealth and income from the many poor into the tax havens of a wealthy small minority? Are the large number of jobs created meaningful for the people employed? Why/ why not?

Americans spend about 17 % of their GDP on health care, in contrast to 10 % in Europe. That is more than 50 % difference. In USA it is the specifics of health insurance that determine benefits, in Europe there are strict rules that apply to everyone. Which system is better? Why? Is the increased cost of health care in USA beneficial or detrimental?

Should health care be provided as a government service, or should it be open to competition? Why? Private donors collectively make large donations to medical research. Why are the medical charities unable to patent treatments since they are financing so much of the research? Why are drug companies able to patent treatments, and profit from this situation? If this just? What alternatives are available to ensure that everyone receives the health care they need? What should be done to change the current situation?

Bayer owned Monsanto produces seeds that are genetically engineered to grow glyphosate tolerant plants, commonly referred to as Roundup Ready crops. While most plants die when exposed to glyphosate, genetically modified plants experience no ill effects. The genes contained in these seeds are patented and a source of income for Monsanto/ Bayer. Should these genetically modified plants be permitted? Why/ why not? There are a number of conflicting claims related to toxicity and carcinogenicity, especially, that give rise to doubt about the suitability of glyphosates and patented seeds. Monsanto has been found guilty of false advertising, and there are claims that some test results have been falsified.

While I am reluctant to encourage Roundup Ready crops, there are some genetically modified crops that I do support, with golden rice being the best example. Wikipedia tells us, golden rice is a variety of rice (Oryza sativa) produced through genetic engineering to biosynthesize beta-carotene, a precursor of vitamin A, in the edible parts of rice. It is intended to produce a fortified food to be grown and consumed in areas with a shortage of dietary vitamin A, a deficiency which each year is estimated to kill 670 000 children under the age of 5 and cause an additional 500 000 cases of irreversible childhood blindness. Rice is a staple food crop for over half of the world’s population, making up 30–72% of the energy intake for people in Asian countries, making it an excellent crop for targeting vitamin deficiencies.

Of course, some crops (and probably some weeds) take it upon themselves to become Roundup Ready, through genetic modification. The challenge with both of these genetically modified products is that they both involve ethical decisions. Should genetically modified products be available? If yes, then in what form? Why? Why not?

This section on the State of the World was initially written 2020-01-26 at 20:45. It was modified for publication, starting on 2021-08-10 at 10:00.

COP 26

The 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference = 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), held in Glasgow, Scotland, between 2021-10-31 and 2021-11-12. It is also the third meeting of the parties to the Paris Agreement (CMA3). In 1804, it was estimated that the world population finally reached 1 billion people. It reached 2 billion in 1927, and 3 billion in 1960. On 2012-03-12, the world population reached 7 billion. By 2021-10-17, 7.9 billion milestone was reached, heading to 8 billion in 2023. This growth is unsustainable.

In particular, I am concerned that the wealthier nations have reneged on their promise to provide $100 billion, that they promised during the Copenhagen climate change conference in 2009, to help developing nations strengthen their resilience to climate change. Thus, I am in full agreement with Tasneem Essop (? – ), a South African who is the executive director of Climate Action Network, that the third proposed final text is a clear betrayal of the world by rich nations.

I am also in agreement with Saleemul Huq (1952 – ), a Bangladeshi, who is director of the International Center for Climate Change and Development, and a senior associate of the International Institute for Environment & Development, that the world is facing two climate change problems: the old one of preventing catastrophic impacts for everyone if we go above 1.5 C and a new one of dealing with the loss and damage already happening due to increase of 1.1 C!

On Saturday, 2021-11-13, Extinction Rebellion protesters, with a piper leading a procession through the gravestones of Glasgow’s Necropolis, then lay in front of tombs declaring Cop26 and all the summits prior to it as a failure. Karen, from the Isle of Barra, said: “We are here grieving for a planet that has been sacrificed by the failure and stupidity of Cop26. The bare minimum needed from Cop26 were commitments to leaving oil in the ground and an immediate halt to fossil fuel funding. Anything less than that is idiocy. We know exactly what we need to do and we’re not doing it.”

Living in the past

Stellantis is a multinational automotive manufacturing corporation formed in 2021 merging Italian-American Fiat Chrysler with French PSA Group. The company is headquartered in Amsterdam. Currently, it is the sixth-largest automaker worldwide. Despite this, CEO Carlos Tavares is unhappy. He doesn’t like making electric vehicles, and claims that these have been imposed on his company, and are unprofitable.

This is the challenge of being a laggard, hoping electrification won’t happen. Now that it is inevitable, he complains that automotive industry electrification brings 50 percent additional costs against a conventional ICE vehicle. He states that these additional costs cannot be passed onto the final consumer, because most of the middle class will not unable to pay that price.

My reply to Stellantis, is to encourage them to shut down their entire automotive manufacturing activities. Let the Chinese, Vietnamese and other manufacturers take over. Despite the rhetoric, Stellantis has said that it is investing €30 billion through 2025 to build new EV platforms to support a series of new electric vehicles across its brands.

Profitability is not an industry problem. Other automakers have been able to make reliable and profitable electric vehicles. There are cost issues because of inflation and global supply chain problems. However, there are also benefits. Battery costs are now (2021) $132/ kWh. In 2016, five years ago, they cost $350/ kWh.

The Vinfast VFe35 is a 5 seater, all wheel drive SUV made in Vietnam. It provides a 300 kW motor with 640 Nm of torque, and a 90 kWh battery, for a WLTP range of 500 km. It is 4 750 mm long, with a 2 950 mm wheelbase. In comparison, a standard Tesla Model Y offers a 150 kW motor with 350 Nm of torque, and a 50 kWh battery, for a WLTP range of 390 km. It has the same length (4 750 mm) but has a slightly longer wheelbase at 2 981 mm. Both vehicles are being provided with over-the-air updates.

Living in the Present

Ecuador has enshrined the rights of nature in its rewritten 2008 constitution. The Guardian newspaper reports that the Ecuador constitutional court decided 2021-12-01 that mining permits issued in Los Cedros, a protected area in north-west Ecuador, would harm the biodiversity of the forest, which is home to spectacled bears, endangered frogs, dozens of rare orchid species and the brown-headed spider monkey, one of the world’s rarest primates. Enami EP, Ecuador’s national mining company, held rights for mining concessions that had been granted in two-thirds of the reserve. The decision means that mining concessions, environmental and water permits in the forest must be cancelled, not just for Enami, but throughout Ecuador.

Some regard the Rights of Nature as important as Thomas Paine’s (1737 NS – 1809) Rights of Man (1791/ 1792), a key text in the American Revolution that defends the French Revolution (1789 – 1799) against Edmund Burke’s (1729 NS – 1797) attack in Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790). One of Paine’s main arguments was that human rights originate in nature, and cannot be granted politically, because that would implies that they are revocable, in essence, that they are only privileges.

Rights of Man proposed many practical reforms. It was directed mainly at the British government at the time, but has application today: a written constitution composed by a national assembly; the elimination of aristocratic titles, because democracy is incompatible with primogeniture; a national budget without allotted military and war expenses; lower taxes and subsidised education for the poor; and, progressive income tax to prevent a re-emergence of a hereditary aristocracy.

Mica Peck (? – ), an ecologist and senior lecturer in biology at the University of Sussex, apparently of Finnish ancestry, but born in Ecuador, comments: “It is important for the world to reflect on the limits of nature and to seriously question the effectiveness of current conservation policies and actions. Policy frameworks that place humans in context as a part of nature, integrated into a system that balances intrinsic rights between legitimate subjects of the law, rather than placing humans as above, or apart from, nature, will be a necessary part of addressing the serious environmental issues that our planet is facing. This ruling is as important to nature as Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man were to our own species.”

My hope is that other countries will enact similar ecological provisions in their own constitutions.

Present Reality

With my eyes slowly failing, I intend to concentrate more on audio than video, but using computers as visual assistive/ enlargement devices where necessary. Building construction is another of my interests, but will stop when our residence since 1989-03-01 becomes suitable for a couple of old people to live in. Hopefully, by the time I am dead and gone, one or more of my children will decide that they too want to live in a house suitable for old people, but will fix it up to suit their own particular needs. My only request is that they spare the lives of some of my favourite trees.

Priorities

Recently, I came across advice on how to prioritize activities. The first step was to make a ranked list of the top 25 categories of activities one would like to engage in. The second step was to note activities six to twenty five, and to develop a strategy to avoid them. That is because these activities are so seductive, that they will take time away from the top five activities.

Compiling this list has taken some months already, but I have managed to put two items on it: writing and electronics. Then I took exception to the second item. Electronics is probably the wrong term to use, it is too narrow. Mechatronics covers it better.

Smartwatch

Somehow two Wyze smartwatches, have materialized in our house. These are a 44 model, for Trish, and a 47 model, for myself. These arrived without incurring any costs. This miracle occurred through the natural process of producing and raising a child, who ended up paying for these two watches and giving them to us. Thank you, Shelagh.

I am not exactly sure that they are going to work, as desired. Neither of us have worn watches for at least twenty years. However, we both come equipped with unused watch pockets on our respective jeans and chinos. Thus, the intention was to fill these pockets with a watch, that could be taken out to undertake common tasks, as needed. The first task is that a digital watch can always show the exact time, to within a few milliseconds. I especially wanted to have the time displayed with large digits, in a bright colour that contrasts with a dark background. This eliminates the need to have clocks located in rooms. The watch can also act as a timer that follows the person who needs it, rather than being located at the device (such as a stove top) being timed.

Despite their relatively small size, a HHD is sometimes too large to be carried about continuously. Personally, I am forever taking my HHD out of my pocket, and laying it on a desk or workbench. A smartwatch is considerably smaller, and can stay on a wrist or in a watch pocket. Thus, it can be much more effective at helping people remember events by sending notifications (accompanied by vibrations in advance of an activity) that are actually received by the user.

Some digital watch apps can be very useful. NightWare is a digital therapeutic device that currently fitted to an Apple Watch to interrupt post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) related nightmares, by measuring heart rates and body movements. Other people may have other sleep disturbances that could benefit from similar interruptions to their sleep. This would require that the watch be worn!

Personal Data Assistant

In the 1990s, I considered buying a Psion 3 personal digital assistant (PDA). Charles Stross (1964 – ) regards the Psion 3 as an unsurpassed PDA because of its long battery life (20 to 35 hours) with 2 AA batteries, its stable and versatile software and its durable hardware. Others describe over twenty years of daily use with models such as the Psion 3mx. While Psion is English, the company had a major Canadian presence, with offices/ operations in Mississauga, Ontario. It was often compared with an American made Palm.

One of the mechatronics projects I am considering working on is a revitalized Psion, which would not be a recreation of a 1999 Psion 5mx Pro, but an extension of it, based on a Raspberry Pi Compute Module (CM), or other microprocessor, and using other 21st century components/ processes. What I miss on a HHD/ smartphone is a keyboard. I also prefer working in a landscape (in contrast to portrait) format. Thus, an updated Psion would have its case and keyboard recreated with a 3D printer. Originally, the EPOC/ Symbian operating system (OS) was used with applications for word processing, spreadsheets, databases, email, contact and diary management. The Open Psion Language (OPL) was available for software development. OpenPsion, formerly PsiLinux, is an open source project that attempts to provide a more modern OS for the Psion. The ultimate success of the project would to have the device actually function as a HHD, with phone capabilities.

A Psion 5mx PRO photographed in 2005 by Georg Dembowski Schoschi.

The Future

As before, I continue to encourage people to write weblogs, rather than to use exploitive social media. In 2018, I quoted Bill Blunden in a weblog post about the challenges of social media, titled Social Media Revisited. The Guardian recently published an article that explains how social media, and Facebook in particular, is exploiting people. Restrict social media to friends and family, and perhaps a few others you don’t know that well, to keep it honest. Write about the topics that interest you that others might be interested in.

Jacinda Santora, 2021-08-27, made a list of 103 social media sites. Here, people may find one or more that suit their personalities. While some sites are huge, others like Goodreads or Pinterest are just large. Some people prefer one or more of the Reddit flavours, because of their own special interests. Some days, I even visit Ello.

The two social media platforms I do encourage are Diaspora and Mastodon. Only the former is on Santora’s list. Diaspora is a nonprofit, user-owned, distributed social media platform with independent nodes/ pods interoperating as a network. Mastodon is a self-hosted social networking service, with microblogging features, similar to Twitter. I have (largely unused) accounts at both. For further details, Wikipedia has articles on Diaspora and Mastodon.

Former president, Donald Trump, seems to be a fan of Mastodon. To avoid a lawsuit, his social media site, truth.social is acknowledging that the computer code powering the platform comes from Mastodon. He writes: “Our goal is to support the open source community no matter what your political beliefs are. That’s why the first place we go to find amazing software is the community and not ‘Big Tech’”. The Open Source section appeared 2021-11-12, two weeks after Mastodon threatened to sue Trump’s platform for violating its open-source license, that allows anyone to use it freely, but on the condition that the code and any ensuing modifications be made publicly available, allowing the entire Mastodon community to benefit.

Notes

I am disinclined to use a hand-held device (HHD) = smart phone (most often), for notes. It is not merely that I prefer a keyboard to a touchscreen, it is their lack of a suitable (read: fast) drawing tool that is most irritating. In addition, I find the lack of a visible file system annoying. During my working life, I used to carry a planner with me, with a page for each working day, plus a page for the weekend, so that each week occupied three sheets. While both calendar and note apps are found on my HHD, I seldom used either. There is too little to do that requires me to make a note of times and dates, so they either don’t get written down, or – if they do – the calendar isn’t consulted when needed. This means that I sometimes forget about (zoom) meetings that I want to attend. Around the house and when visiting building supply shops I carry a yellow A5 hardcover project book with 240 grid/ squared pages, with 4mm squares, that I do use. Here, I write notes with a V-ball pen with blue liquid ink, emerging from a 0.5 mm tip. The use of a pen is deliberate, so that any changes will be clearly visible.

My yellow A5 240 page Workshop & Construction Projects notebook, with information about reconstructing Ikea Fira storage containers, that are no longer available. The pen shown is my favourite writing device, a Pilot V-ball 0.5 mm tip, liquid ink pen.

Earlier this year, lacking pen and/ or notebook, I started taking notes on my hand-held device (HHD), using an app labelled Notes. Some days later, I was using Nextcloud, a server-client program on my desktop machine, and came across these same notes. They had been automatically copied from the HHD to the server, and were available to all of my other devices. Because of its built in privacy and security features, these were not available to anyone else using Nextcloud, although they could be sent to others using Warpinator (for other users of the server) or Signal (to a somewhat wider audience). Then again, they could be added to an email to allow contact with anyone.

In this very undramatic fashion, I had accidentally found a solution that had troubled me for years. My advice here is simple. People should acquire a server, even if it is just a minimal solution involving an inexpensive, single board computer such as a Raspberry Pi, and some form of storage. Then they should install Nextcloud, or some other server-client software, to run that server, as well as on all of their other devices.

For those wanting a more detailed history of my route to this discovery, this weblog post will end with its story. It is not for everyone, especially those with demanding children or other time constraints.

My outpouring of words in this weblog probably reflects an inability to keep a diary or a calendar, plus a dopamine addiction. On 2019-09-29 I decided to do something about this and started an experiment. It started because I wished that I had some form of a register so that I could look up what I had done with some missing bookcase hardware. Yes, I am aware that wiser people tape or in other ways affix hardware to the uprights, or at least shelving, so that the screws and other bits don’t wander off to party at more exciting locations in the universe. This attachment didn’t happen.

My significant other keeps many diaries, with names like garden, knitting, sewing and general. I’m not sure that such an arrangement would help me. While I’ve never actually read these books, I’ve had parts of them read to me – and they seems to deal mainly with weather and gardening events, perhaps even a record of visits or meals, for all I know. What I can’t imagine is any reference to screws, let alone one that details where a particular set of screws were stored.

The problem with diaries is their chronological nature. They are traditionally written in books made of paper. This might be useful for tracking some events, but not for most things. What the world needs is a digital diary, with what used to be called hyperlinks.

Unknown to me, but not unexpectedly, Digital Diary turns out to be a commercial Microsoft product, when I searched using these terms. I changed my search terms, adding open source, which brought me to SourceForge, which listed 26 open source search results. Twenty-five programs listed that they had between 0 and 3 downloads this week, with many of these programs claiming they were last updated in 2013.

Lifeograph was the exception with 53 downloads this week. It was recently updated (2019-09-18) and claimed: to be a private digital diary, for taking personal notes on life; to have all essential functionality expected in a diary program and strives to have a clean and streamlined user interface.

A more general search resulted in finding RedNotebook, described on SourceForge as open source time tracking software. It had 121 downloads that week, and was updated 2019-04-07. Features include: Text formating with bold, italic or underlining; tag and search entries; Insert images, files and links to websites; Links and email addresses are recognized automatically; Spell checking; Search-as-you-type; Automatic saving; Backup to zip archive;Word clouds with most common words and tags; Templates; Export to plain text, HTML or Latex; Content is future-proof: data is stored in plain text files; Translated into more than 30 languages.

The challenge with both of these products was their inability to update content on multiple machines automatically. As a user of three different machines, I was left with three incompatible versions of notes, unless I used excessive efforts to merge them.

Fast forward to 2019-10-25 and I downloaded and installed a third program, Simplenote, from Automatikk, the company that makes WordPress. Its main advantage, is that it allows one to have the same content on different machines. That is fine, but I am reluctant to let Automatikk store my data on its cloud. Since this was a test, I installed it on my VivoMini desktop machine, my VivoBook laptop both running Linux Mint, and my Xiamio Pocophone F1 hand-held device (HHD) running Android.

On 2020-11-23, more than a year later, I ended my experiment with Lifeograph, RedNotebook and Simplenote, and wrote this summary, timestamped at 18:47. There wasn’t much data collected, but my intuition allowed me to declare Simplenote as the winner. Yet still, I was unhappy, and the winning program was never used.

Have fun everyone, and thanks for reading!

2021-12-112025-03-25

Words of the Year 2021

Somewhere, sometime I read that pandemics release creative energy. After two years of Covid-19, I am not sure. However, it sounds good. One form of creativity is inventing new words, or using old words to denote new things. Recently, it has been claimed that there has been an explosion in new word invention and usage.

The words listed here relate to my personal (re)discovery of them. Other people may have completely different perceptions of what is a new word, or a new usage of an old word.

January – Yoke

2021 Tesla model S Plaid, with its yoke. (Photo: Tesla)

In Tesla news, for only $140 000 (Lets just call it NOK 1 500 000) one can get an updated version of Tesla Model S (as in S3XY) Plaid. The basic design of the Model S has been unchanged since 2012, although it has been updated before. Most of the discussion about this current update has been about the steering wheel, although not everyone wants to use that term. Tesla uses the term yoke. There are no stalks, either, meaning the turn signals, lights and other typical features are now controlled by touch buttons on the yoke.

February – Side-hustle

Yes, it is normally written as a phrase, but I’ve added a hyphen to transform side-hustle into a word. Elaine Pofeldt, writing in CNBC, has provided The ultimate side hustle guide for 2021. Citing a State of Independence report from BMO Partners, she claims that, “56% of Americans said they’d be more secure working for themselves than in a traditional job in 2020, up from 32% in 2011.”

A side hustle or side job or side gig is a job that a person takes in addition to their primary job in order to supplement their income. In my youth this was often referred to as moonlighting. This contrasts with a person’s day job. Some dictionaries give a much more sinister definition of moonlighting going back to 19th-century Ireland, where people murdered or maimed cattle, during the night, to protest against the oppressive land-tenure system.

March – Fungible

Mike Winkelmann (1981 – ) is responsible for bringing everyone’s attention to fungible vs non-fungible tokens, often just abbreviated without explanation as NFT. If it were not for his alter-ego, Beeple, and the sale of Everydays: the First 5000 Days, a collage of images that sold for $69.34 million on 2021-03-11, no-one would have heard these terms. A non-fungible cryptographic token represents something unique. In this case, it is 5 000 digital images, making it the third most expensive artwork by a living artist. This contrasts with fungible tokens, used with cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, that are mutually interchangeable.

April – Voltswagen

It may have started off as a bad April Fool’s Joke, but Voltswagen is an impressive name. If Volkswagen hasn’t secured it, then I would consider it for a future project, ahead of the more Italian-English VoltaVan, an Italian-Norwegian VoltaVogn, or an all Italian VoltaVagona.

May – Adulting

Some claim that Kelly Williams Brown (1984 – ) invented the present participle, adulting, in 2015. It is a neologism that refers to behaving in an adult manner, or making someone behave like an adult, or even transforming someone into an adult. Unfortunately, for Brown, @unholytwerp tweeted the following on 2008-10-02: Grew up in a town of 2k and adulted 10 years NYC. Same values: Keeping the job. Feeding the family. Educating the kids. Buying the stuff. This abecedarian = word collector, only discovered it 2021-05-06.

June – Fast Food

This phrase refers to food that is permitted to be eaten by a person who is observing a religious fast. While I have on occasion used this term while observing a fast, in the years before I turned 70, it now appears to be part of the Oxford English Dictionary.

It has nothing to do with burgers or other sorts of food from an A & W root beer stand, or its later iterations, derived from the one that Roy W. Allen opened 102 years ago, on 1919-06-20, in Lodi, California.

July – Locovore

Other people may have come across this word in 2005, but for some people, such as myself, it is new. It refers to a person who eats foods grown locally whenever possible. At locovore.co, it seems possible to buy quail eggs from Quail Haven Urban Farm in Fort Worth, Texas. That would make a change from walking up the road to a neighbouring farm to buy chicken eggs. It appears possible to buy local foods from all over the world!

August – Flexcation

A holiday during which parents spend some of the time working from home and children are homeschooled, allowing the family to go away for a longer period than usual and at a time of year when they would not normally be able to go on holiday.

With the pandemic continuing, flexcations to distant parts of the world are not always permitted. Indeed, for the residents of Cliff Cottage, the travelogue, typically a video in segments lasting up to an hour, has become a substitute, but without excessive heat, humidity or hoards of mosquitoes. See this article about travelogues.

September – Petroholic Rehab

I am only 11 years and 2 weeks late in discovering Petroholic Rehab. It was used at the Oil Fair held in Stavanger, Norway. Marius Holm, deputy chairman of the Norwegian environmental organization, Bellona, presented this program to wean petroholics, on 2010-08-21.

For over [5]0 years, [corrected from the original 40 years] Norway has chosen to make themselves dependent on oil. Little Norway accounts for almost three percent of the world’s CO2 emissions, through its oil and gas exports. Norway’s dependence on oil money not only provides large CO2 emissions, but also destroys a greater restructuring for more renewable energy and energy efficiency. Norwegian politicians should realize that they must reduce the oil business, shield vulnerable areas along the coast, and cut oil industry subsidies. They should, but they don’t.

There has to be a transition to renewables. There are 12 steps to weaning:

We admit that we have a problem, that. we have let ourselves become addicted to petroleum.
We admit that our constant petroleum abuse has led to a heavy hangover.
We admit that our petroholism has negative consequences for our loved ones and for the surroundings. Consequences such as poverty, destruction and despair.
We admit that our successful, oil-based economy cannot last, and understand that we must invest both labour and capital in renewable energy sources such as algae, biomass, sun, wind, geothermal energy, tidal power and wave power.
We admit that the idea of a life without petroleum scares us. Nevertheless, we realize that there is no future in a petroleum-based life.
We realize that our future has to be green.
We admit that we have wasted large amounts of valuable energy. By using energy more effectively, we reduce the burden on the environment, the economy, and the resource base.
We choose to protect the Lofoten and the Arctic areas and to manage the fisheries in a sustainable manner.
We commit ourselves to green solutions such as electric cars.
We choose to fly through the landscape of wind-powered high-speed trains instead of taking planes. [This may have to be modified to take electric aircraft into consideration]
We realize that CO2 capture and storage are required for the remaining fossil emissions and also for the future production of carbon negative energy.
When we finally woke up, we commit ourselves to bringing this message to other petroholics, and to deal with these principles in everything we do.

October – Nanolearning

Learning that involves reading/ hearing/ watching very small pieces of information. Typically provided on the internet. It takes a minute, perhaps two, sometimes less. The key is to deliver content engagingly. It solves minute, but specific problems, using few a minimal of sentences/ soundbites/ video sequences.

November – Tshinanu

With COP26 being held in Glasgow, living-language-land offers a platform to minority and endangered language-holders to share a word and story that reflects a relationship to land and nature. They have shared 26 words to give a global audience fresh inspiration for tackling our environmental crisis. Their website explains each of these words in depth.

The Innus communities are marked with 9 on the map, provided by https://www.quebecautochtone.net/en/

Of these, I have chosen Tshinanu from Nehluen, the common language used throughout the Innu communities in Quebec. According to the website, the Innu alphabet has 11 consonants and 7 vowels. It is complex, but pictorial. Words animate a thought, linking a precise action with the environment. There is one vocabulary for village life, and another for the bush. These nuances are linked with the corresponding environment, which itself is indissociable from thought, and therefore the verbal expression. The vocabulary changes with the landscape from south to north, as well as from east to west. Words enable people to understand the relationships between flora, fauna and people, who must adapt to the environment. Tshinanu – the inclusive form of we – invites sharing, community life, as there are no fences in the word tshinanu. It is a collective ‘we’, an open hand extended to others, inviting them to be a part of the circle. It also correspondingly tells a story, the story of the community of life of the person who speaks or writes. This word brings into relation the land, the animals, the plants and the peoples in the same pronoun.

December – Jazz hands

Many organizations have replaced applause with jazz hands, in an attempt to make events more accessible for people with disabilities. Unfortunately, the term might also be confused with a dance performance where the performer’s hands position the palms toward the audience with fingers splayed. This position is also referred to as webbing. It is commonly associated with especially exuberant types of performance such as musicals and cheerleading.

As an applause substitute for clapping, both arms are outstretched upwards, with fingers wiggling. This is sometimes referred to as spirit fingers or jazz fingers. Loud noises, including clapping, and especially whistling and other noises expressing appreciation, can create issues for people with anxiety, autism, deafness or other sensory issues.

Sign languages are languages with their own grammar, syntax and idioms. For many, they are languages of necessity and of access. The wave applause used at many sporting events, is another example of sign language making a positive contribution to a wider group of users.

Word of the Year – Parkour

Parkour is a training/ exercise discipline where traceurs move from one place to another in a complex environment, without assistive equipment and in the fastest and most efficient way possible. This includes the best of climbing, crawling, jumping, martial arts, obstacle courses, rolling, running, swinging and vaulting. These terms should be understandable for most readers. Yet, the tenth term, plyometrics, may require people to use Wikipedia (or other sources) to discover yet another new word.

Parkour is usually an urban activity that can be practiced alone or with others. Traceurs see their environment as a challenge, to be navigated by “movement around, across, through, over and under its features.” David Belle (1973-04-29 – ), a French actor, film choreographer and stunt coordinator, is credited with starting it in France in 1988, based on the training/ teaching of his father Raymond Belle ( 1939-10-03 – 1999-12-01).

As is often the case, parkour had a predecessor, méthode naturelle, developed by Georges Hébert, (1875-04-27 – 1957-08-02) who promoted athletic skill based on the models of indigenous tribes he had met in Africa. He noted: “their bodies were splendid, flexible, nimble, skillful, enduring and resistant but yet they had no other tutor in gymnastics but their lives in nature.” His natural method involved ten fundamental activities: walking, running, jumping, quadrupedal movement, climbing, balancing, throwing, lifting, self-defence and swimming, that helped develop three main forces: energetic (willpower, courage, coolness, and firmness), moral (benevolence, assistance, honour, and honesty), and physical (muscles and breath).

My first appreciation of parkour came in the Luc Besson (1959-03-19 – ) film Taxi 2 (1998). However, I was unaware of it by that name.

Discouraged words

Yes, this writer may be inconsistent, even sloppy, in word usage, but in general he finds the following words annoying enough to discourage their use, in theory if not in practice.

Artist as in a vocalist or other musician who is performing live or in a recording. Please use either musician or, preferably, a more specific terms (such as guitarist, vocalist) to describe them. In the same way, one should use specific terms in other arts to describe practitioners. A person can be engaged as a painter, a print maker, a sculptor, a writer or even a poet, plus many others. If all else fails, then use performer, explaining why a more precise word is unavailable.

Expat as in an emigrant from/ immigrant to somewhere else. The correct term for an ex patriot is emigrant/ immigrant. I am one myself. I am not an expat.

The Importance of Words

This year’s Human Rights Day was celebrated on 2021-12-10, the day before the publication of this weblog post. It is celebrated annually on this date and honours the United Nations General Assembly’s adoption and proclamation, on 1948-12-10, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the first global enunciation of human rights and one of the first important achievements of the new United Nations.

On this same day, journalists Maria Ressa (1963-10-02 – ) and Dmitry Muratov (1961-10-30 – ) received the Nobel peace prize. Ressa was almost blocked from attending because of travel restrictions related to legal cases filed against her in the Philippines. She is the CEO and co-founder of Rappler, an online news platform noted for exposing power abuses/ authoritarianism under Philippine president, Rodrigo Duterte (1945-03-28 – ).

Muratov is editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta, a prominent defenders of free speech in Russia, or in the words of Berit Reiss-Andersen (1954-07-11 – ), chair of the Norwegian Nobel committee; “Novaya Gazeta is the most independent newspaper in Russia today, with a fundamentally critical attitude towards power.” The above link is to the Russian edition. The English version, appears to be through Facebook, a company and website that I am avoiding. Information about it appears in Wikipedia.

Reiss-Andersen also said that Ressa and Muratov were “participants in a war where the written word is their weapon, where truth is their goal and every exposure of misuse of power is a victory”.

Meanwhile, in Britain, on the same day, the High Court overturned a judgment from earlier in 2021 that prevented Julian Assange (1971-07-03 – ) from being extradited to the US, to face charges related to WikiLeaks’ publication of hundreds of thousands of documents, including diplomatic cables, about the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, in 2010 and 2011. This new ruling was condemned by advocates of press freedom.

Update 2025-03-25 21:00 The music video that is most successful in promoting Parkour is Animus, by Moonlight Haze. This was released 2022-03-18, as the fourth track on an album with the same name, with catalog number SC-408-0. Performers include: Giulio Capone (1978 – ) drums/ keyboard; Marco Falanga (1987 – ) guitar; Alberto Melinato (ca. 1987 – ) guitar; Chiara Tricarico (1989 – ) vocals. Lyrics:

When your task seems too hard
Remember all the times
You thought you would have failed but then you made it
So if the path appears so narrow
And the road is steep
Go gather all your strength right from within (from within)

Climb way higher, free your fire
Never looking down below
Aim for the top, keep in motion
Get ready sometimes to fall

Step by step, till the end
Even if you’re afraid
Just focus on your goal with no distractions (no distractions)
What if I slip today?
My efforts would be in vain
My fear of heights is getting stronger
…then you’ll try again!

Climb way higher, free your fire
Never looking down bеlow
Aim for the top, keep in motion
Get ready somеtimes to fall

Light the embers, make it happen
Dare to fight against the odds
Be the one to shape your future
Just unleash you inner force

“Animus tamen omnia vincit
Animus omnia vincit”

Climb way higher, free your fire
Never looking down below
Aim for the top, keep in motion
Get ready sometimes to fall

Light the embers, make it happen
Dare to fight against the odds
Be the one to shape your future
Just unleash you inner force
(Unleash your inner force!)

2021-12-052022-10-27

Identity

A large portion of a person’s identity is related to geography. This weblog post explores some issues related to identity, from a very personal perspective.

The above map of New Westminster, is oriented as its citizens conceive of their city, with the west on the left and the east to the right, with the north at the top, and the south at the bottom. Streets run south to north, avenues from east to west. Even numbered addresses are on the southern and western sides, odd numbered on the northern and eastern sides. Unfortunately, even these basic facts aren’t actually true. The compass near the bottom of the map helps explain it. The streets run from the south-east to the north-west. The avenues from the north-east to the south-west.

For over forty years I have been an immigrant to Norway, and probably will have that status for as long as I live, despite acquiring Norwegian citizenship 2021-05-07. Even my children cannot escape that term, despite both of them having been born in Norway. They are regarded as second-generation immigrants. Sometimes, they are referred to as third-culture children. It means that they are not fully integrated into the country/ culture of their citizenship, in our case, British Columbia/ Canada, nor that of their birth, in our case, Norway. It is a common situation.

I grew up in New Westminster, British Columbia. It was founded by the Royal Engineers, led by Colonel Richard Moody (1813 – 1887), to be the capital of the Colony of British Columbia in 1858, and continued in that role until the colony’s merger with the Colony of Vancouver Island in 1866. New Westminster was the largest city on the mainland, from that year until it was passed in population by Vancouver during the first decade of the 20th century.

The most prominent street on the map of New Westminster is fifth street, where my sister lives. The architecture is attractive. Some patriots might even call it majestic with traffic divided by a boulevard. This was to be lined with foreign embassies, but by 1871, when British Columbia entered Canada, this dream came to an end. Victoria had become the capital of the united colonies. I know too much about New Westminster’s history, especially its racism, to want to live there again.

My biological/ ethnic/ cultural identity has emerged, and become more complex, with the years. I have always known that I was adopted, that I came from a family of farmers, and that my biological father had served in the Royal Canadian Navy, during World War II. I was given my original birth certificate with my original name, by my father, some months before he died in 1991. Here it stated my original name, Richard Edwin Salter. I received information about my biological mother in 2006, and even met some of her family in 2007, more of them in 2008. For the first time in my life, I could see people who had some of my physical characteristics, blue eyes and large hands, especially. I even had a place of origin, Essex County, Ontario, but with English origins from Cornwall and Irish origins from Greyabbey, with ancestors that had started off in the Orkney Islands, with roots pointing to Norway.

In 2015, gene testing through 23 & Me provided me with even more revelations, including some First Nation genes. Just before I turned 70, my biological half-brother contacted me. While he was born in Windsor, Ontario, his family had moved across the river to Detroit. My paternity can be traced back to Fredrikstad in Norway, and from there to New Amsterdam and Schenectady, New York. I have Dutch and French genes as well. The First Nations genes turn out to be Mohawk.

I too feel as if I am a third-culture child. I have never been fully integrated into my adoptive mother’s family, nor can I ever fully integrate myself into my biological family. I also lack the mindset to be a fully integrated Norwegian.

My mind inhabits Qayqayt, the co-located First Nation village, usurped by New Westminster. It also inhabits New Westminster, Inderøy, Essex County and Detroit. Somehow, I manage to live in all these places simultaneously. Such is the power of the mind, and emotions.

When I visit Qayqayt/ New Westminster, every block resonates with memories. The remaining half of my old neighbourhood is protected from development, including my childhood home, hopefully none of these houses will come crashing down during the remainder of my life. The other half was destroyed in a housing boom in the 1970s, when single family dwellings were replaced with three-story, wooden apartment buildings.

Using thesaurus.com, to find synonyms for migrant, there appear to be different classes that meet their definition of “a person who moves to a foreign place.” Emigrant and immigrant are the most neutral terms that focus on leaving or entering (a country), respectively. I have not come across migrator or departer before, and mover does not imply anything foreign. Expatriate may also express some of the same sentiments, but it is a term I refuse to use. While evacuee appears on the list, refugee does not. Drifter, itinerant, nomad, rover, transient and wanderer all express a more temporary relocation, even if it is one that is part of a lifestyle, imposed or chosen. Vagrant seems almost criminal, while gypsy, tinker and traveller reflect ethnic orientations.

Migration is magnetic. There are some forces that push a person away from their home country, but other forces that pull them to a new destination. For some, money is a very compelling force. For others, it barely enters the equation. Personal safety may be a concern for many.

Of the various places I have known and visited, I am content with Inderøy. It is sufficiently hilly, and close to the sea to satisfy these primal needs. Qayqayt was on Sto:lo, that is, New Westminster was on the Fraser river. Essex County and Detroit border on the Detroit River. I can mentally relate to them by relating them to the Fraser Valley, and its farms.

I am uncertain if I could move to Essex County. I find the town of Essex attractive, but a little too flat. If something forced a relocation from Inderøy, I am most attracted to the landscape surrounding the Salish Sea. Ninety percent of it, is encompassed on the route from the Malahat on the south-eastern shore of Vancouver Island, northwards to Courteney, then across to Powell River, and further south to the Sechelt peninsula.

This is the background image on all of my computers, showing Greater Vancouver and the Fraser Valley to the right of the Salish Sea, with Vancouver Island on the left.

I may live in Norway, but almost all of the recent books I have purchased are about British Columbia, typically on or near the Salish sea.

Much of the early history of British Columbia was researched, written and published by Hubert Howe Bancroft (1832 – 1918), born in Granville, Ohio, but who moved to San Francisco in 1852 where he started the largest bookseller, stationer and publishing house west of Chicago. He started researching the history of British Columbia on a trip to Victoria in 1878, and came out with a definitive history of the province in 1887, written by himself, William Nemos (Swedish), Alfred Bates (English) and Amos Bowman (1839 – 1894), from Blair, Ontario. The major challenge with this work is its emphasis on pioneer history, where settlers of European origin set the premises for the work. It is the migrants to the area that are intent on determining its history. Despite the First Nations populations far outnumbering these settlers, they were largely ignored, as were people of Asian origin. Bancroft did, however, manage to strike a balance between British and American perspectives on the province.

The next significant historian was Frederic Howay (1867 – 1943) born in London, Ontario, but who moved first to the Cariboo goldfields in 1871, and then to New Westminster in 1874. He studied law at Dalhousie University, graduating in 1890. He was appointed a judge in 1907, retiring in 1937. He used as much of his working day as possible writing history.

For years, I have coded it as NW, until today. News of the tragedy at the Kamloops Residential School, has prompted me to refer to the city from now on, as Qayqayt, or Qt. I lived at the residential school in Port Alberni on Vancouver Island, during the summer of 1974, as an archaeology student working on a nearby excavation.

Despite years of effort by my mother, who grew up in Kelowna, although she was born in Vancouver (Eburne is the name appearing on her birth certificate). I never felt at home in the interior of British Columbia, as an adult. The one exception was Madeira, a cabin at Blind Bay on Shuswap Lake. For me, civilization ended at Hope. Almost everything beyond felt like the frontier. Since the early 1970s, whenever I think of the interior, I think of Robert Altman’s (1925 – 2006) film, McCabe & Mrs Miller (1971), based on a 1959 novel of the same name by Edmund Naughton (1926–2013), and set in a 1902 Bearpaw in Washington state. That is despite the rain, the vegetation, and most of the film being shot on location in West Vancouver and in Squamish,

Before opening his own butcher shop in Kelowna, my maternal grandfather was a cattle buyer. He rode a horse, and was armed.

Before moving to Norway, we applied then met with the consul in person in Vancouver. He admitted that he wanted to make sure that we were of the correct race. During our meeting he received a telephone call. From his remarks, it was obvious that the person calling was the widow of a Norwegian citizen who had immigrated to Canada. After he died, she discovered that he had another wife, children and family in Norway that she had not heard about previously. His bigamy was making her life difficult.

There are times when I regard myself as a third-culture child.

Despite having lived in Norway for over 40 years, people can hear my foreign origins. While some ask if I am American, others have been more complimentary asking if I was from Finland or even Denmark.

An aside on orthography. At elementary school I had difficulty spelling, as well as with the art of handwriting/ penmanship/ penpersonship. I am aware that tradition dictates that fifth street should be written Fifth Street. I prefer not to write it that way any more, as a Norwegian writing style seems more natural. Similarly, while others may encourage me to write the Fraser River, I often write Fraser river, but would prefer to write Sto:lo which is its name in the Halqemeylem (Upriver Halkomelem) language.

This preference has been reinforced following the discovery of the remains of 215 children at the Kamloops Indian Residential School, and the subsequent discovery of even more, at other schools. I can no longer accept the use of names imposed by English invaders on the landscape they referred to as British Columbia. #EveryChildMatters.

The first Richard McBride Elementary School, in the Sapperton neighbourhood of New Westminster, was built in 1912. It burned down, and was replaced by a second school in 1929. Now, that school is being replaced. In the Brow of the Hill neighbourhood, John Robson elementary school, has been bulldozed away and replaced by École Quaquat Elementary School, offering dual track French and English immersion programs. Richard McBride urged the Canadian Prime Minister to support legislation banning immigration from Asia. He dispossessed Indigenous people of reserve land, and opposed women’s suffrage.

The New Westminster school district has launched a renaming process for the school after a request from McBride’s parent advisory council (PAC). At issue are the opinions and actions of Richard McBride, the 16^th premier of British Columbia, from 1903 to 1915. He held publicly expressed views against Asian and Indigenous people and against women’s suffrage. Throughout his time in office he oversaw legislation reflecting those views.

New Westminster school board has pledged its commitment to undertaking anti-racism work in the district. The naming proposal came from PAC secretary, Cheryl Sluis, and was discussed at the group’s annual general meeting in 2020-06, held virtually due to COVID-19.

New Westminster has become a diverse city. There is a need for children to identify positively with the name of their school, and for the name to reflect values of equity and inclusion. Despite this the renaming proposal has its critics. Allegedly, some people don’t want (racist) history erased and want to honour New Westminster’s Anglocentric traditions. My attitude towards New Westminster stems from being denied an opportunity to participate at the May Day dances, performed by third grade classes. I was one of two people excluded, probably because of my cerebral palsy.

The school district is now fully in charge of the renaming process. School district superintendent Karim Hachlaf wrote in a letter dated 2020-06-24 to the McBride PAC that an operations committee will be established that will include a wide range of staff and community representatives: a trustee, administrative staff, union representatives from both CUPE and the New Westminster Teachers’ Union, community members, student advisory members, a PAC representative and possibly more. Once the list of participants has been finalized, the committee will meet to recommend a plan and consultation timeline to the board. After it carries out its consultation process, the committee will present a summary report and recommendation to the board, and the school board will make the ultimate decision about a new school name. [Note, the school is now officially known as Skwo:wech Elementary School, discussed in the post, Homebound.]

This reply was prompted by a 2020-06-22 letter to the New Westminster school district, from the Richard McBride Elementary School PAC executive outlined some of their findings:

During his time as premier (1903 to 1915), McBride advocated for “a white B.C.” and sought to shut out the “Asiatic hordes.” He worked hard to prevent “cheap” Japanese labour from competing in the fisheries and in “everything the white man has been used to call his own.”

McBride led the legislature in passing numerous anti-Asian measures, such as taxes on companies that hired Chinese labourers and legislation denying the vote to Asians and Indigenous people.

After the Conservatives formed the federal government in 1911, McBride urged Prime Minister Robert Borden to honour a promise to legislate against immigration from Asia.

McBride was premier at the time of the Komagata Maru incident, when the Japanese steamship carrying hundreds of Sikh passengers was prevented from docking and most of its passengers were barred from entering B.C. McBride was quoted as saying: “To admit Orientals in large numbers would mean the end, the extinction of the white people.”

As premier, McBride pursued a policy of making way for economic development and the expansion of cities by dispossessing Indigenous nations of their reserve lands.

McBride was also well-known as a leading anti-suffrage politician at a time when white women were gaining the vote across Canada. He believed extending the franchise to women would take away too much power from men.

Other identities

As an adopted person, I also have a number of adopted identities, that I refer to as personas. [These were discussed in a very early post from 2016-05-12, Unit One.]

Note: This was originally planned to be published in 2021, somehow it wasn’t. Parts of it were published in Homebound, mentioned above, published 2022-04-23. Then accidentally, this post was published on 2022-10-27, despite a publication date of 2021-12-05. Please excuse the repetition of information.

2021-12-042021-12-04

Forth

Forth is not a mainstream programming language. Whenever it is compared to something, the most operative word is different. It is almost like assembly language, which is how a machine would interpret code, if it used English, rather than 0s and 1s to calculate and communicate. Some refer to Forth as a virtual machine, which is software pretending to be a physical machine. In part, this is because it is not just a programming language, but also an operating system. Despite this, Forth is simple. It can run on a few kilobytes (kB) of memory. When coded appropriately, it seems to be its own independent language, but with a lot of English-like words.

While Forth was invented by Charles (Chuck) Havice Moore II (1938 – ) in 1970. It was operationalized by Elizabeth (Bess) Rather (1940 – ), who – with Moore – started Forth, Inc. in 1973. Rather refined and ported Forth to numerous platforms throughout the 1970s. She also chaired the ANSI Technical Committee that produced the ANSI Standard for Forth (1994).

Forth was made specifically for the real-time control of telescopes at the United States National Radio Astronomy Observatory and, later, at Kitt Peak National Observatory. A real-time response is one that guarantees that something will happen within a specified time period. In other words, it sets a deadline for something to happen, usually one that is relatively short. Thus, a real-time process is one that happens within defined time steps of some maximum duration.

Forth is the antithesis of Ada. Wikipedia defines Ada as “a structured, statically typed, imperative, and object-oriented high-level programming language, extended from Pascal and other languages.” In its purest form, Forth is none of these, with the exception of being imperative. Most computer languages are imperative. They use statements/ commands to change a program’s state. Ada originated in the 1970s because of US Department of Defense (DoD) concerns about the high number of programming languages being used in embedded computer systems. They wanted one language to do everything. Unfortunately, with Ada they created a monster that was far too large and complex, that was slow to compile and difficult to run. A compiler (used with a compiled language) requires code to be translated into machine language, before it can be run. In contrast, an interpreter (used with an interpreted language) directly executes instructions without requiring them to have been translated into a machine language, in advance.

Allegedly, a Forth program can be compiled, but not if it contains words that are only evaluated at runtime: DOES>, EVALUATE and INTERPRET are three such words. If even one word has to be interpreted, the entire Forth dictionary would have to be embedded inside the program. Thus, Forth should always be treated as an interpreted language.

Forth is an appealing language because of its one and only guiding principle, Keep it simple! Part of this simplicity involves how the language is used. Leo Brodie – a third main contributor to the language – explains, in Starting Forth, E2 (1987): The interpreter reads a line of input from the user input device, which is then parsed for a word using spaces as a delimiter. When the interpreter finds a word, it looks it up in the dictionary. If the word is found, the interpreter executes the code associated with the word, and then returns to parse the rest of the input stream. If the word isn’t found, the word is assumed to be a number and an attempt is made to convert it into a number and push it on the stack; if successful, the interpreter continues parsing the input stream. Otherwise, if both the lookup and the number conversion fail, the interpreter prints the word followed by an error message indicating that the word is not recognised, flushes the input stream, and waits for new user input. (p. 14) While the use of unusual words may make the above description seem complex, this is a much simpler approach than that used in most other computer languages. A graphic version is shown in the flowchart above. Parse is a word used extensively by people who construct compilers. It refers to the process of dividing a sentence (or in computing, a statement) into words/ grammatical parts and identifying the parts and their relationships to each other.

One major problem with Forth is that its dictionary, more often referred to as a library in other languages, is not uniform. Some implementations come with an adequate dictionary, others less so. Some use words the same way, others give the same word different meanings. This means that Forth implementations can produce very different results, depending on dictionary content. This weakness is probably the main reason why Forth is not treated seriously, and has not been extensively used.

Forth is a stack machine, a computer where the primary interaction is moving short-lived temporary values to and from a storage location that follows the rule: last in, first out. A stack significantly reduces the complexity of a processor. Tasks are expressed as words. Simple tasks usually involve single words . More complex tasks connect together many smaller words, that each accomplish a distinct sub-task. Thus, a large Forth program is almost like a sentence that involves a hierarchy of words, distinct modules that communicate using a stack. Data is only added to the top of the stack, and removed from the top of the stack. Each word is built and tested independently. Provided that words are chosen appropriately, a Forth program resembles an English-language description of the program’s purpose.

Forthwright

Forthright is an adjective, used to describe a plainspoken/ frank/ blunt person. A person who develops/ modifies/ corrects/ improves/ uses Forth programs is referred to as a forthwright, a noun. Both words are pronounced the same way. A wright is a person who makes or repairs something. The original ca. 700 AD Old English wryhta, referred to someone working with wood. Since then, the term has expanded to include many different occupations. Carpentier, now carpenter, was introduced into England only after the Norman conquest in 1066, effectively replacing wright to describe this role. In Scotland, wright is used much more extensively.

Raspberry Pi Pico

The traditional strength of Forth is its minimalist use of resources. This is more important than it may seem. Gordon Earle Moore (1929 – ) formulated an expectation in 1965, later termed Moore’s law, by others, that computing capacity would double every year, some say every 18 months. This doubling cannot continue indefinitely. Many, including Moore, expect it to be invalid from about 2025, giving it a life span of 60 years. Even so, this means that even the most primitive of microprocessors made today has many magnitudes of capacity compared to anything made in, say, 1970. This is why many people prefer to use computer languages that are less optimal.

In contrast to Moore’s law, Niklaus Emil Wirth (1934 – ) formulated a very different expectation in his 1995 article A Plea for Lean Software, later termed Wirth’s law, by others, that software is getting slower more rapidly than hardware is getting faster. Most computer scientists are no longer making software that optimize/ minimize resource use, because they know that ample resources are available.

The reason some few people continue to use Forth is because of their acute awareness of Wirth’s law, where they see the negative impact of software bloat, on a regular basis.

General Public Licence (GPU) and public-domain Forths exist for most modern operating systems including Windows, Linux, MacOS, Android and some Virtual Machines. Such implementations include: gForth and bigForth. Dale Schumacher forked the Raspberry Pi/ARM port of JonesGorth around 2014, and removed its dependency on Linux. It now runs bare-metal, on a Raspberry Pi, booting directly into the Forth interpreter. Many important words have been re-implemented in assembly, or as part of the built-in definitions. Note: In computing, bare or bare metal refers to a computer executing instructions directly on a processor aka logic hardware, without an intervening operating system.

Iteration #2 of Unit One (#2U1), my personal workshop, will officially commence on 2023-11-01, less than two years away. It will transform a construction-support workshop into a fabrication shop, as my career as a wright/ building constructor/ carpenter comes to an end, and my career as a millwright/ machinist begins. My primary emphasis is broad, mechatronics, but the workshop’s role is limited to fabrication. Electronics and programming will probably be done inside Cliff Cottage, while much of the thinking will take place wandering about in the woods.

The purpose of the workshop is for an old man to have fun, to build upon skills learned in the past, and to learn new 21st century skills, to keep his brain and body active. Hopefully, some useful and environmentally sensitive products will be made at it.

There are plans to use Forth as the official shop language/ operating system for computer numerical control (CNC), the automated use of machine tools, controlled by a computer. I expect to have one primary machine that can move in three dimensions, and change heads as required. The two most important heads will be a router, which can shape materials as well as drill holes, and a laser cutter that cuts more accurately and with less waste than a saw. I expect to concentrate on various types of hardwoods as my primary material focus, but not to the exclusion of other materials. These are subtractive processes that remove material. In contrast, 3D-printers are additive.

There is no need to waste money on expensive silicon if cheap silicon will do. The silicon needed to control a CNC mill will be a Raspberry Pi Pico microcontroller. It costs NOK 55 = US$ 6.05 = CA$ 7.75, on the day before publication. Any money saved on silicon will be put into better bearings, and improved versions of other machine components.

Forth is not for everyone. It is useful where there is a need for a real-time system involving mechanical movements. After milling machines, and other types of tools, robots come to mind first, including unmanned underwater vehicles and drones. It should be mentioned in all fairness that Forth is not the only language I intend to use in the future. Two others are Prolog and Lua. Prolog is a logic programming language developed in France in 1971 with a number of artificial intelligence applications. Lua is a multi-paradigm scripting language, developed in Brazil in 1993. Its basic set of features that can be extended to suit different problems.

A dangling Raspberry Pi Pico microcontroller attached to a USB-C power and data connector. On the laptop pinouts for the Pico are displayed, along with its datasheet. Photo: Raspberry Pi.

2021-11-242021-11-26

D. B. Cooper

Tickle The WireFBI Accepts New Evidence in Cold Case of ... — Sketches of “D. B. Cooper” with and without sunglasses, from 1972. Images: FBI, in the public domain.

Fifty years ago today, 1971-11-24, a man identified as D. B. Cooper highjacked a Boeing 727-100. Sometime that day he disappeared.

A middle-aged man stood at Northwest Orient Airlines’ flight counter at Portland International Airport, identified himself as Dan Cooper and purchased a one-way ticket in cash for a 30-minute trip north to Seattle. After boarding the aircraft he, in all likelihood, sat in seat 18C.

Flight 305, with 36 passengers and a crew of six, departed Portland on schedule at 14:50 PST. Shortly after takeoff, Cooper handed a note to flight attendant Florence Schaffner. Although she initially put it in her purse, Cooper asked her to read it. It mentioned a bomb and directed her to sit beside him, which she did. Cooper showed her the bomb, then demanded $200 000 in “negotiable American currency”, four parachutes (two primary and two reserve), and a fuel truck to stand by in Seattle to refuel the aircraft upon arrival. Schaffner conveyed Cooper’s instructions to the pilots in the cockpit, then returned.

William A. Scott (1920–2001), the captain, contacted Seattle–Tacoma Airport air traffic control, which informed local and federal authorities. The passengers were told that their arrival in Seattle would be delayed because of a minor mechanical difficulty. Northwest Orient’s president, Donald Nyrop, authorized payment of the ransom, and ordered all employees to cooperate fully with the hijacker’s demands. The aircraft circled Puget Sound for about two hours while the parachutes and ransom money were assembled, and emergency personnel mobilized.

FBI agents assembled the ransom money, 10 000 unmarked 20-dollar bills and microfilmed each of them. Cooper rejected military parachutes, and obtained civilian parachutes with manual ripcords.

At 17:39, the aircraft landed at Seattle-Tacoma Airport. The aircraft taxied to an isolated, but brightly lit section of the apron. All window shades in the cabin were closed. Northwest Orient’s Seattle operations manager, Al Lee, delivered a cash-filled knapsack and parachutes to flight attendant Tina Mucklow on the aft stairs. Once on board, Cooper allowed all passengers, Schaffner, and senior flight attendant Alice Hancock to leave the plane.

Cooper’s flight plan involved a southeast course toward Mexico City at the minimum airspeed possible without stalling the aircraft—approximately 100 knots = 185 km/h at a maximum 3 000 m = 10 000-foot altitude, with landing gear remaining in the takeoff/landing position, and wing flaps set at 15 degrees, and the cabin unpressurized. This meant that a second refuelling would be necessary. Cooper and the crew discussed options and agreed on Reno, Nevada, as the refuelling stop.

At about 19:40 the aircraft took off with only Cooper, Scott, Mucklow, first officer William J. Rataczak and flight engineer Harold E. Anderson on board. Two F-106 fighters shadowed the airliner, one above and one below, along with a Lockheed T-33 trainer, for part of the trip.

After takeoff, Cooper asked Mucklow to show him how to open the door to the aft staircase. He then ordered her to join the rest of the crew in the cockpit and remain there with the door closed. At about 20:00, a warning light indicated that the aft airstair had been lowered. At 20:13, the aircraft’s tail moved upward movement, requiring trim to level it. The plane landed at 22:15, at Reno Airport. Cooper was no longer on board.

From my perspective, the most interesting aspect of the case has to do with investigators describing the highjacker as D. B. Cooper, rather than the name he used on his ticket, Dan Cooper. Agents theorized that Cooper took his alias from a popular Belgian comics series of the 1970s featuring the fictional hero Dan Cooper, a Royal Canadian Air Force test pilot in a Belgian comic book/ graphic novel series, who participants in numerous heroic adventures, including parachuting. These comics were never translated into English, nor imported to the U.S. Thus, there are suggestions that Cooper was Canadian. In particular, the phrase “negotiable American currency”, aroused attention, because it would seldom be used by Americans.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c7/DanCooper_270.jpg — Dan Cooper is a Royal Canadian Air Force test pilot appearing in *Les Aventures de Dan Cooper*, illustrated and written by
Albert Weinberg (1922 – 2011) and published in 41 albums from 1957 to 1992.

On 1980-02-10, Brian Ingram (ca. 1972 – ) uncovered $5 800 of the ransom from the Columbia River bank at Tina/ Tena Bar, about 14 km downstream from Vancouver, Washington. This is the only money from the highjacking that has ever been recovered.

There have been any number of suspects. Only one will be mentioned. In an article by Jake Rossen, writing in Mental Floss, in 2016, he suggests that D. B. Cooper may have been Barbara Dayton (1926 – 2002), who, before gender-reassignment surgery in 1969, was born Bobby. For the high-jacking she had disguised herself as a man. Pat and Ron Formans’ book, The Legend of D. B. Cooper (2008) gives a more detailed version.

There are any number of sources of information about D. B. Coooper, including a Wikipedia article that has provided much of the information here.

2021-11-202022-06-24

Honda e-Cub

A 1958 Honda Super Cub C100 featured a low-floor backbone step-through frame. The inexpensive but light weight plastic front fender and large leg shields, involved the first motorcycle use of plastic. The 17-inch wheels gave the vehicle a stability not found in scooters. The power train involved an automatic centrifugal clutch, 3-speed transmission, and an air-cooled 4-stroke 49 cc OHV engine. Top speed = 64 km/h. Wheelbase = 1 181 mm, Length = 1 781 mm, Width = 569 mm, Mass (wet) = 65.0 kg. Photo: Honda.

The Honda Cub is the best selling motor vehicle of all time, with over 100 million having been made in the years since 1958, when it was launched. Its origins are not in Japan, but in 1956 Europe when Honda co-founders Soichiro Honda (1906 – 1991) and Takeo Fujisawa (1910 – 1988) toured Germany and experienced the popularity of mopeds and other lightweight motorcycles.

Fujisawa was inspired, and wanted to produce a motorcycle for everyone: urban, rural or somewhere in between, living anywhere from a developed to an emerging economy. It had to be simple to survive in places without roads, advanced technology or access to reliable spare parts. It had to be quiet, reliable and easy to use. It also needed to have mass appeal, so that it could be produced on an enormous scale.

A scooter was considered but rejected: it was too complex for people in emerging economies, and, its wheels were too small for poorly maintained roads. Fujisawa specified ease of driving, by requiring that it could be driven with one hand while carrying a tray of soba noodles in the other. He is quoted as saying, “If you can design a small motorcycle, say 50 cc with a cover to hide the engine and hoses and wires inside, I can sell it. I don’t know how many soba noodle shops there are in Japan, but I bet you that every shop will want one for deliveries.”

Honda’s new vehicle was a 1958 Super Cub C100. It featured a low-floor backbone step-through pressed-steel frame. One important innovation, was their use of inexpensive but light weight plastic for the front fender and leg shields. This was the first motorcycle use of plastic. While the vehicle combined the characteristics of a scooter with the stability of a motorcycle. The 17-inch wheels, especially, gave the vehicle a stability not found in scooters. An automatic centrifugal clutch 3-speed transmission, and an air-cooled 4-stroke 49 cc (despite the model name) OHV engine, powered the vehicle. Top speed 65 km/h. Wheelbase 1 181 mm, Length 1 781 mm, Width 569 mm, Mass (wet) 65.0 kg.

The design was tested in advance of production, to eliminate any flaws. It would cost too much to fix problems after production started. It almost worked, except for an issue with the clutch, that required production and sales staff to visit each customer at home to fix each vehicle.

The early history of the Honda Cub will end here, with interested readers encouraged to either read the Wikipedia article or watch a more enjoyable but less extensive 8 minute video about it.

One challenge facing the world is reducing carbon emissions, and eliminating fossil fuels. This means transforming Honda Cubs into electric vehicles. So, even though Honda made an e-Cub prototype in 2019, they have never developed it into a production model. Why not? Is it because they are in too close a relationship with fossil fuel suppliers?

The facilities of Shanghai Customs Ltd, 57 Gao’an Road (near Hengshan Road), Xuhui District, Shanghai. Please note the Cub inside the facilities being modified, and the logo on the wall. Photo: Shanghai Customs.

Shanghai Customs Ltd was founded by Alexander Style. It sells e-Cub kits throughout the world for US$ 2 800. There are three kits available for the C50, C70 and C90 models. The non-battery kit lacks more than just a battery. However, it claims to come with everything needed except a battery, charger, frame, front forks and front suspension. One step up is the full kit. The name is a misnomer, since it too is another partial kit, which is like the above kit but with a battery and charger. The full kit with frame and forks provides everything needed for an e-Cub build. Kits are designed for amateur installation, described as plug and play, with colour coded and numbered wiring. Assembly takes from about 15 hours of work, using only hand tools. The finished e-Cub is powered by a removable 1.3 kWh Panasonic battery that provides energy to a 1 000 W, rear hub motor, that can be boosted to 3 000 W for short periods. Top speed for the vehicle is still 65 km/h, with a range of 50 km. Included in the kit are new LED lights, and fully digital instrumentation.

Fully Charged YouTube channel presented a nine minute video about the company, and its conversion kits.

Phil Tucker commented 2021-02-25 on the YouTube video: “(Don’t get me wrong as I’m a massive “all electric” fan….) but I’m not necessarily convinced that someone who maybe bought an old hand me down cub off an older brother or sibling for say, fifty dollars to use to go to work on is then going to decide to spend 2500 dollars to go electric! Also I think some of those brand new Chinese electric bikes are actually cheaper than that?”

This brought several interesting replies including one from Siclmn Cyclerider: “I spent $6,000 on a Stromer electric bicycle.” However, several others commented on the need for improved brakes, that appear to come with the kit.

To put the e-Cub in perspective, it should probably be compared with a minimalist electric car, such as a Citroën Ami, measuring 2 410 mm in length, 1 390 mm (excluding mirrors) in width and 1 520 mm in height, with a total weight of 485 kg. It has a 6 kW electric motor operating at 48 V, and powered by a 5.5 kWh lithium-ion battery. It is registered as a light quadricycle for two, allowing a top speed of 45 km/h, and a range of 75 km. When it was first released, it came with a purchase price of $6 600, a leasing fee of $22 per month, or an on-demand rental for around $0.29 per minute.

One major difference between the two vehicles is that while the Ami is a purchase of a product, the e-Cub is buying parts for a project. This involves people with two totally different mindsets. The e-Cub will only appeal to people who have the desire, time and opportunity to customize their own vehicle. The Ami will only appeal to people who want to buy happiness.

Note: There will be no attempt to enter fruitless discussions about other best selling vehicles. Contenders will not even be named. The point of this weblog post is to examine a potential waste recycling challenge, that allows people to continue to use a perfectly good vehicle, despite its currently inappropriate power source, by replacing it with a suitable electric power train. Mopeds may not be for everyone, but this writer is convinced that in Inderøy they are part of a Rite of Spring where, much like the return of the swallows to Mission San Juan Capistrano, thousands of mopeds appear on the roads, allowing their 16-year old drivers to self-certify themselves as adults, and slowing traffic to 40 km/h. More mature readers, no longer subject to the excesses of teenage hormones, may prefer to see new opportunities that emerge from using a mobility scooter which, fortunately, are already electrified.

To this day, a Honda 50, probably a 1966 model, owned at the time by Victoria Ayerbe, is the only motorcycle I have ever driven, and only once. I have no intention of repeating this experience with either a fossil fuelled or electrified motorcycle. Indeed, I have no intention of converting a Honda Cub to an e-Cub. However, I would like to encourage people in Inderøy involved in the electrification of old scooterettes, as they were often called, possibly at Reodor, Inderøy’s bicycle repair shop. There could be other two-wheeled vehicle models that, because of local popularity, are more deserving to be adapted to electric power. Making kits for these could be an enjoyable community project. If readers have particular candidates for conversions, please tell other readers about them by making appropriate comments.

2021-11-152021-10-22

Intel 4004

*An Intel C4004 microprocessor with gray traces. (Photo: Thomas Nguyen)*

Today (2021-11-15) is the 50th anniversary of the Intel 4004 microprocessor. This featured a 4-bit central processing unit (CPU). It was the first microprocessor to be sold as an electronic component. At the time of its development, Intel considered itself a memory chip manufacturer. At about the same time, three other CPU designs were being developed, but for specific projects. These were: Four-Phase Systems AL1, (1969); American Microsystems MP944 (1970); and Texas Instruments TMS-0100 (1971).

The Intel 4004 project began in 1969, when Japanese adding machine manufacturer Busicom, approached Intel to manufacture a chip it had designed. Intel was a start-up, so small that they didn’t have the staff to design the logic required. Thus, they came with a counter proposal, to build a general purpose computer-on-a-chip and to emulate the calculator architecture using a read-only memory (ROM) byte-code interpreter.

Frederico Faggin (1941 – ) was assigned responsibility for the project. He was able to design a customer-programmable microprocessor. The work included logic design, circuit design, chip layout, tester design and test program development. His initials F.F. were incorporated into the chip design. Assisting in the development process was Masotoshi Shima (1943 – ), a Busicom software and logic designer, but without any chip design experience. The chip was first used in the Busicom 141-PF adding machine.

Faggin is known for several microprocessor inventions. These include the buried contact, and the bootstrap load. He also created the basic methodology for random logic design using silicon gate technology. He was particularly vocal inside Intel in advocating the 4004 as a general purpose microprocessor, with a huge market potential. He subsequently led the design of the 4040, 8008 and 8080 processors.

Faggin was presented with the engineering prototype of their calculator with the first 4004. This was subsequently donated to the Computer History Museum.

Faggin and Ralph Ungermann (1942 – 2015) left Intel in 1974 to start Zilog. Intel’s reaction was to disown Faggin, and to rewrite company history. In particular, it credited more loyal, but less competent, employees, with the 4004 design.

2021-11-092021-11-05

Zahara: A tidbit

Bulelwa Mkutukana, stage name Zahara = blooming flower. Born in East London, South Africa (1987-11-09 – ).

One Track: Loliwe The name refers to the train that brought workers back home after many years of working in Johannesburg, where they often had other families.

One Quotation: In an interview, Zahara described this first album as a metaphor. “It’s like … just pick yourself up. No matter who’s your father or who’s your mother … I believe that you’re not a mistake.”

One Comment: Zahara is a South African singer-songwriter and poet who sings in Xhosa and English. She started to sing at the age of six. Zahara released her debut album Loliwe in 2011 which sold over 100 000 copies in South Africa. Her debut single, Loliwe, featured here, currently has had over 1.8 million views on YouTube.

2021-11-072021-11-05

Oscillations

This weblog post is written to celebrate the upcoming 10th anniversary of Vortex Bladeless, as a concept, and the 81st anniversary of the collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge on 1940-11-07. I have watched videos documenting the bridge collapse many times, and shown these to students in science classes over the years. Unfortunately, I lacked the insight of David Yáñez who was able to see the potential of oscillations in the generation of electricity.

David Yáñez and the Vortex Bladeless Tacoma at Avila, Spain in 2019. Photo: Vortex Bladeless.

Preliminary considerations

Living on a cliff-face, the residents at Cliff Cottage experience some wind, but less than many people might expect. The one-word reason is updraughts. That is, when the wind hits the cliff, it is deflected upwards, and then over the house. While the residents have considered installing horizontal bladed wind turbines at the cliff-face to provide electrical power, that take advantage of these updraughts, there is probably too little energy to make any investment economically worthwhile.

For example, a product was being offered on Kickstarter. On 2020-09-29, Nick Hodges, founder of Halcium, in Salt Lake City, UT, launched a funding round for (yet another device referred to as) a Powerpod, which was described as the “safest, most powerful wind turbine in the world”. He set US$ 200 000 as a minimum goal. When the fundraising period ended at the end of 2020-10, the goal was not met.

The product offered by Hodges, was not ideal for Cliff Cottage. The wind we are interested in using comes from one direction only, so being able to take advantage of wind coming from anywhere does not offer any advantages.

A major problem with the Kickstarter launch was an amateur approach to the electrical technology. After reading a description of the project, one was left with more questions than answers. Hodges apparently has a degree in small business management and an MBA with a finance emphasis from Arizona State University.

As another resident pointed out to me, entrepreneurship requires three competencies, finance (and related areas of business management), marketing and technical competence. From the material presented, it was obvious that Hodges had marketing competence, but lacked science and engineering skills.

For example, he claimed that Powerpods are “cheaper than solar panels and more efficient in places that get fewer than 300 days of sun a year.” When examining this statement, it is difficult to understand the specific apples and oranges being compared and contrasted. The number of square meters of solar panels is unspecified. Wind speed is an unknown factor, and there didn’t seem to be any documentation that related wind speed to power produced, only an attractive graph comparing power from a Powerpod with power from a normal wind turbine, whatever that is.

The number of days of sun is an unusual metric. Sunshine duration in hours per year is more common, something that can be determined using a World Meteorological Organization (WMO) standardized Campbell-Stokes recorder, which has been in common use since 1962. In 2003, the sunshine duration was finally defined as the period during which direct solar irradiance exceeds a threshold value of 120 W/m².

There are claims that each 1kW in the Powerpod wind turbine creates up to three times more power than a regular, mounted turbine. The extra power comes from the blade system in the pod. While there is a graph showing this magic, there appear to be no supporting documents. There are no wind speed or power measurements, In fact, the graph incorrectly expresses power in volts, rather than correctly in watts.

The Powerpod system uses 12 Volt components. These are typically used on recreational vehicles to be compatible with vehicle electrical power systems. While they are used in residential systems, 48 V is quickly becoming the new standard. In part, this is because of the high amperage involved with 12 or 24 V. Transmitting 960 W of power with a 12 V system involves wiring capable of transmitting 80 A. With 48 V this is reduced to 20 A. Of course, if this power has to be transported any distance, it will have to be even thicker. Thick wiring is expensive and difficult to obtain.

Hodges goes on to compare wind and solar energy. In Norway it costs from NOK 30 000 to NOK 120 000 to have solar cell panels installed on an average single-family dwelling. This is typically financed by re-negotiating an existing mortgage. On average, the payback time for such an investment is about 17 years. The life-expectancy of the solar cell panels is from 25 to 50 years, and manufacturers offer a 25 year product guarantee on the solar cell panels, so that house owners do not face additional risks. Inverters may have a shorter life-span, and are not usually covered by the guarantee.

Unfortunately, the climatic situation in Norway means that solar panels can only produce substantial quantities of electricity during the summer. It is not that the equipment doesn’t work in the winter. Rather, the sun is close to the horizon, and not visible for many hours. On the date of publication, sunrise was at 08:16, sunset will be at 15:41. This gives 7h24m 43s of daylight. At the winter solstice (2021-12-21) daylight hours will be reduced to 4h17m21s. At the next summer solstice (2021-06-21) there will be 20h53m32s of daylight. Selling power usually requires one to participate in a spot-market, where prices are usually low in the summer, but high in the winter. Despite this, most people who install solar panels in one form or another want to connect to the mains in order to to sell excess electricity, or to access electricity when there is a production deficit. Batteries could be used, but new batteries are expensive. Some people will decide to buy discarded batteries from electric vehicles and store electricity with these. This is a more common model for cabin/ vacation cottage solar panels, less common for primary residences, because the cost is too large in relation to potential savings. Once again, people have risk aversion.

Another approach is to produce electricity in the summer and store it until it is needed in the winter. While the return-on-investment calculation for this looks good, mainly because of the high price for electricity in the winter, a large battery capacity is necessary.

Hodges’ main goal is admirable. He wants to reduce dependence on fossil fuel. He wanted to use the $200 000 funding to mass-produce Powerpods. The money sought would cover the cost of having the product tested, the raw materials for products being sold as part of the kickstarter project, as well as factory tooling.

After reading the project description, I was not totally convinced that Hodges had a viable product, or the necessary skills to make one. Hodges should partner with someone who has the necessary electrical engineering skills. This would allow for the development of the entire infrastructure needed for off-grid power production. These will have to meet agreed standards. At a minimum this consists of battery storage, a suitable inverter and a net metering system to allow produced energy to be used in the residence, or fed to the grid (especially at peak times). The equipment must be able to handle abnormal situations, such as power surges and power failures. The system should also prohibit sending power onto the grid, when it is down, as this could be potentially dangerous for crew members working to restore power.

There are also a number of legal issues that have to be negotiated, including energy purchase and sales agreements, and liability (including liability insurance). The specifics vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Thus, it might be appropriate for Hodges to restrict his sales to Utah, and to find other people to cooperate with in other states, provinces and countries.

At Cliff Cottage we probably won’t participate in such a project. Instead, we will work slowly and methodically to find solutions that meet our specific energy needs. As a first step this will involve measuring wind speeds at the cliff face, to determine if wind energy is viable. If it is, then this process will slowly intensify as we select a more viable solution.

A More Viable Answer

The Vortex Bladeless turbine, popularly referred to as the Skybrator, has its origins in 2012 after David Yáñez watched a video of the Tacoma Narrow’s bridge oscillating in the wind. Since then, Vortex Bladeless, a Spanish tech startup, has been working to produce electricity from oscillations induced by wind.

Vortex Bladeless is a vibration resonant wind generator: It does not rotate, and is not a turbine, in contrast to the common horizontal-axis wind turbines (HAWT) and less common vertical axis wind turbines (VAWT) that work by rotation. Instead, it harnesses energy by allowing a fibreglass and carbon fibre reinforced polymer mast to oscillate in the wind, taking advantage of von Kármán vortices that form when a moving fluid (air) passes over a slender structure (the mast). At the bottom of the mast, a carbon fibre rod moves an alternator to generates electricity.

Wind turbines have issues, including maintenance costs, amortization rates, noise levels, bird deaths and other environmental impacts. Remote locations can have logistics challenges, while their visual and aural impact on a location is not always appreciated. The mass (and dimension) of vortex generators, indicate that they will use less raw materials in their construction compared to rotary wind turbines of the same power. They have a low centre of gravity that allows for a smaller foundation and less wake turbulence. Thus, they can produce more power (greater energy density) per unit of land area.

However, the market Vortex Bladeless envisions if for a small wind-turbine alternative for the end-consumer market and for low-power systems. These are markets that are served poorly (or not at all) by larger-scale wind turbine manufacturers.

Vortex Nano – 1 m high and 3 W nominal power output. For off-grid, low-power systems, especially with solar panels.
Vortex Tacoma – 2.75 m high and 100 W nominal power output. For small-scale residential/ rural autonomous operation, with solar panels.
Vortex Atlantis/Grand – 9–13 m high and around 1 kW nominal power output. For residential/ rural autonomous operation, with solar panels.

All of these are slender, vertical, cylindrical devices, composed of two main parts: a fixed base where the device is attached to an anchor, and a flexible mast which, acting as a cantilever, that interacts more freely with moving fluid (air) in an oscillating movement. The oscillator has no gears or moving parts in contact with each other, so there is no need for lubricants.

A linear alternator, with neodymium magnets and its stator is located inside the moving part of the device, converts mechanical to electrical (chemical) energy. During this process the alternator damps/ cushions the induced oscillation movements. These devices operate with minimal maintenance and operating costs.

Tacoma Narrows Bridge

There is 1.4 km of Puget Sound separating Tacoma from Gig Harbor. Yet, before the construction of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, one had to drive 172 km between them. With the bridge in place, this was reduced to 13 km. The bridge also linked McChord Air Field near Tacoma with the Navy shipyard in Bremerton, both important elements of the American military’s infrastructure, and probably the most critical one that allowed the funding of the bridge. Washington States bridge engineer, Clark Eldridge, had proposed a conventional design for the state highway department and Toll Bridge Authority. However, the federal Public Works Administration, insisted that bridge engineer Leon Moisseiff, designer of the Manhattan and Golden Gate bridges, be hired as the lead consultant and designer, and to use deflection theory as the basis of the design, producing a lighter, narrower, more flexible and cheaper structure.

Construction of the bridge started in 1938 and took 19 months. When finished, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge had an 853-meter-long centre span, almost half its total length. It was the third longest suspension bridge in the world, behind the Golden Gate and George Washington bridges. It also had the smallest ever width-to-length ratio: 1 to 72. Even before the bridge was completed the bridge deck shook in a wave-like vertical motion. This earned the bridge its nickname, Galloping Gertie. The bridge opened on 1940-07-01.

On 1940-11-07/ November 7th, 1940/ 7 November 1940, south-westerly winds, with gusts up to 68 km/h began to buffet the bridge. The deck began its customary rippling, bouncing up and down with more than a meter of displacement from its normal position at times. Shortly after 10:00 traffic was halted because of bridge deck oscillations. Soon after the bridge’s vertical movement was supplemented by a twisting motion that whipped the deck up and down to either side of the centre of the roadway. The twisting grew increasingly severe, with one sidewalk up to 8.5 meters higher than the other.

At 11:02., a 180-meter portion of the centre span gave way, crashing into the water below. Additional sections followed. The last major section fell at 11:10. With most of the centre span gone, all that was left were dangling suspension cables, a hole between the two towers and remnants of sagging side spans at either end of the bridge.

Earth magazine has an article that provides further information about this bridge failure.

2021-10-292022-06-26

Downsizing the Garage

The Nobe 500, one of six European vehicles featured in this weblog post. Photo: Nobe

Four years ago today, on 2017-10-29, a weblog post titled Stuffing a 10-car garage was published. It presented a number of electric vehicles (EVs) that had awakened my curiosity over the years, along with one internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle, the Citroën Berlingo. The one advantage of a virtual garage is that it is very easy to acquire and then dispose of vehicles.

The 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, the 26th held (COP26), is scheduled to begin 2021-10-31 in Glasgow, Scotland, two days after publication of this weblog post. The conference will end 2021-11-12. Hopefully something will be accomplished to prevent a climatic disaster.

EVs are not only increasing in number, but improving, technically and in terms of design. Unfortunately, most of this development is happening in vehicle segments that people should be avoiding . This weblog post presents six EVs made by six companies for six different segments from six different European countries. During the year this post has been in development, all of the models originally selected have departed the list, and been replaced by others. The number of continents represented has decreased from four to one, with an encouragement for people to buy locally produced products. I don’t believe I could do the same using North American products. Even, with this focus on smallish, affordable European EVs, it has been difficult.

Not many specifications are available for the selected vehicles at the time of publication. Those missing will be provided in subsequent updates, when I remember. The worst case situation in this post, is that of Fiat and its Giardiniera. Despite the initial hype and promises, at the moment it is looking more like vapourware. It is included to remind people that vapourware is a major problem in the automotive industry. It allows manufacturers to pretend that they are doing something, when in all likelihood nothing is happening at all.

In terms of the A segment, I had hoped that the Zetta CM1 had been developed further. I had wanted to put an improved Zetta in the A class, and even contacted the manufacturer, Russian Engineering and Manufacturing Company (REMC) in Toliatti about it. I received no reply to my email.

Segments D and above/ larger are ignored in this post out of concern for the environment.

Company	Model	Segment	Country
Nobe	500	Pickup	Estonia
Renault	Kangoo	MPV	France
Microlino	Microlino	Micro (L7e)	Switzerland
Freze	Nikrob	A	Latvia
Fiat	500 Giardiniera	B	Italy
Sono	Sion	C	Sweden

Six companies producing six vehicle models for six segments in six European countries.

Nobe 500

Pickups are typically regarded as American, so there would probably not have been many objections if this slot had been filled by any number of American vehicles including, in alphabetical order by brand, the Ford F-150 Lightning, the GMC Hummer, the Lordstown Endurance, the Rivian R1T, and the Tesla Cybertruck, There was a time when this list might have also included the Havelaar Bison and the Nikola Badger.

None of the vehicles listed above appeal to me. They are too massive. However, I will also admit, that the first vehicle I leaned to drive on, at the tender age of 14, was a Chevrolet Advance Design 3100 pickup, probably from 1952, in the farm fields of Okanagan Mission, near Kelowna. This featured the same split windshield, found on the Nobe 500. The Ford F-series, from the same time period, did not have this characteristic, although certain other F-series features do appear on the Nobe 500. This vehicle is at the top in terms of charm. I am waiting for it to appear dressed as a woodie (sic) wagon before buying one!

Renault Kangoo

In terms of COP26, this vehicle should probably not have been included. It is, but only because of my infatuation with this type of vehicle. People should determine if this is the type and size of vehicle that meets their needs.

When we purchased a Citroën Berlingo in 2002, the other vehicle we considered was a Renault Kangoo. Both were considerably smaller than today’s vehicles. The Citroën was chosen, in part, because at that time there was no local Renault dealership. Currently, we are facing the opposite situation. There is no local Citroën dealership, but there is one selling Renaults. In addition, there are some indications that the upcoming 2022 Kangoo EV (termed Etech, previously ZE in Renault-speak) will offer a range of 285 km. Other specifications released so far include: battery capacity theoretical/ usable = 52/ 47 kWh; motor type = AC synchronous motor; power = 90 kW; torque = 245 Nm; and, importantly, a trailer towing weight braked = 1500 kg.

On 2021-10-28, a day before publication, we visited the local Renault dealer in Steinkjer, and found out that a vehicle should be available to test drive in 2022-05.

Badge Engineering: The Renault Kangoo will be badge engineered into a Mercedes-Benz EQT and a Nissan Townstar.

Microlino

Driving requirements vary, which means that a variety of vehicle types have to be made available. Many people live alone, and have little or no need for a vehicle that can transport more than themselves. For such people, a two person vehicle may be ideal.

In Our Journey, the idea for the Microlino originated when Wim, Oliver and Merlin Ouboter, asked: “How much car does one really need for daily driving?” In Switzerland the answer involved 1.6 passengers and 36.8 km on an average journey, along with parking challenges. This indicated to them that modern cars were over-engineered for urban use, especially if environmental factors, such as global warming, are considered.

Specifications: Overall length / width / height = 2 435/ 1 473 / 1 501 mm; wheelbase = mm; ground clearance = mm; curb weight = 513 kg; seating capacity = 2; battery type = Lithium-Ion (NMC/NCA); battery capacity = 14 kWh; range per charge = 230 km; motor type =; power = 12.5 kW; torque = 118 Nm; speed: max = 90 km/h; acceleration 0 – 50 km/h = 5s; regenerative braking = yes; cargo volume = 230 l; towing weight braked = 0 kg .

Freze Nikrob

Another answer to the Ouboter question could have been the Freze Nikrob, based on the Wuling Mini EV. Rebadged and restyled by Dartz, it is assembled in Lithuania by Nikrob UAB. Dartz wants to sell the Freze Nikrob and its convertible version, the Freze Froggy, in European left-hand-drive markets. It aims for a 10-20% market share of the segment. At a price of €10 000, it is the cheapest in the EU. The focus is on selling to carsharing companies.

Specifications: Overall length / width / height = 2 917/ 1 493 / 1 621 mm; wheelbase = 1 940 mm; ground clearance = mm; curb weight = 665 kg; seating capacity = 4; battery type = lithium polymer; battery capacity = 13.8 kWh ; range per charge = km; motor type = permanent magnet; power = 13 kW; torque = Nm; speed: max = km/h; acceleration 0 – 100 km/h = s; regenerative braking = yes; cargo volume = l; towing weight braked = 0 kg.

Fiat 500 Giardiniera

Giardiniera was a name used for Fiat station wagons. The name, in this context, means gardener. Fiat in 2018, before it became part of Stellantis, announced in general terms that it would be making a five-door, station wagon, hybrid version of a new 500. Fiat now seems to be transitioning to a battery electric brand. A Fiat 500 Battery EV station wagon appeals to me because, we need a vehicle that can be used to carry four (sometimes five) people, groceries, and workshop materials. When, or even if the vehicle will launch, remains speculative. Currently, Fiat is working on an electric replacement for the Panda, probably based on the Centoventi = 120 prototype. That vehicle is expected to launch in 2023.

One of my hopes with the Giardiniera is that the rear door will open more like a conventional door, hinged on the left/ traffic side, rather than a hatch, opening upwards. This was the way it opened on earlier models, made between 1960 and 1977, as shown in the above advertisement.

Sono Sion

Of the vehicles described in this weblog post, the Sono Sion is the one closest in size to our current vehicle, a Mazda 5. Of its many attractive characteristics, it is its Open Service System that will be focused upon here. There are three different levels of service. Level 1 instructional videos and a catalog ensure that almost anyone can replace wear parts, without much prior knowledge. Level 2 involves a publicly viewable and available manual, that allows an extensive network of mechanic partners to offer more extensive repairs and service at an affordable price. Level 3 is for repairs involving high-voltage or body parts, Sono here wants to cooperate with an established European service provider.

I asked a number of people about this vehicle, and sent a copy of an information brochure. One response – from a person who works in the EV industry but for another company that doesn’t compete in the same market, was: “Oh interesting. Exciting for more players. The solar portion is neat! The aesthetics kind of baffle me. Utilitarian, met with early 2000’s interior design with forced elements like the screen and the green house strip. Doesn’t seem cohesive.” Another reply was: “it looks very generic Aka like a Toyota.” The most enthusiastic response came from a third person, “Love it. I’m a solar power human, so this has my full seal of approval.” Four and a half hours later, he added: “Upon further reflection, I would rank this as my top EV.”

Specifications: Overall length / width / height = 4 470/ 1 830/ 1 660mm; wheelbase = 2830 mm; ground clearance = 165 mm; curb weight = kg; seating capacity = ; battery type = liquid cooled lithium ion; battery capacity/ usable = 54/ 47 kWh; range per charge = 260 km; motor type =; power = 120 kW; torque = 270 Nm; speed: max = 140 km/h; acceleration 0 – 100 km/h = 9.0 s; regenerative braking = yes; cargo volume = 650 l; towing weight braked = 750 kg.

Personal Reflections

One of the most important specifications for a vehicle operating in a rural environment in winter is ground clearance. Here, there is no requirement to remove snow before it reaches 100 mm. Thus, ideally, this should be at least 150 mm clearance. However, is not always an easy specification to find. Our Mazda has only 135 mm, and this is noticed. Seating height is also important. In comparing different vehicles, the H-point measures the pivot centre of the torso and thigh, and the height of this in relation to the road, is what is important. This value is a compromise between being able to enter a vehicle elegantly, and being able to see the road.

In terms of range anxiety, we drive a car about 3 times a week, but often less. Once or twice the return distance will be under 40 km, often under 30 km; the other time(s) it will be under 80 km. About five times a year, our driving exceeds these values. Two or three times it will be less than 250 km; two or three times it will exceed that, but be under 400 km. Since our retirement started in 2017, we have only had one trip where the driving distance exceeded these values, when we drove to and from Bergen. It is about 750 km in each direction, but we spent two days driving each way, which also puts it in the 400 km a day range. When our daughter, Shelagh, lived in Umeå, Sweden, we would drive the 600 km distance in about 10 hours (including stops) in a single day.

The Norwegian Electric Car Association has an EV selector app (Elbilvelgeren), that can be used to help limit the number of EVs under consideration.

A screenshot of the Norwegian Electric Car Association has an EV selector app (Elbilvelgeren).

It allows one to select a range of values for price, range, brand, new or used, trailer capacity. Yes, trailer = tilhenger (in Norwegian) capacity is a must for Norwegians. A utility trailer is used instead of a pickup. These are the standard inputs one can choose from. In addition one can select/ add: launch year, heat pump, four wheel drive, high speed charging, battery size, trunk/ frunk size, electrical power usage, normal charging, number of doors, ground clearance, app for the car, number of seats, dimensions, roof rack capacity, acceleration, kW (power), guarantee, weight, wheel size and body type.

I used the standard one with some modest values, but only two cars came up: VW ID 4 and Skoda Enyaq. The list included both current and announced models to be purchased new. The reason only two models appeared could be because of the trailer capacity selected (1000 kg) and a price (max NOK 360 000). The two cars had a price of just under NOK 350 000. Of those two, I would select the Skoda. I tried the selector again, without the trailer, but with a ground clearance of 150 mm. Again, those two models came up, along with a Hyundai Kona and a Kia Soul.

My hope is that in four years time, 2025-10-29, that there will be a vastly improved EV market, with many more vehicles in the A – C segments, and even smaller vans/ multi-purpose vehicles.

The ICE Age

Frequently, I am accused of being a Citroën 2CV fanboy. In reality, I have always preferred the more elegant Citroën Dyane and the more practical Renault 4. However, I am more enthusiastic about fourgonnettes = small panel vans. French models include: the Citroen AU, AZU, AZ and, especially, the Acadiane, based on the Dyane, and the Renault 4 Fourgonette. English models include: the Morris Minor 1000 van variants, and the Traveller, a station wagon. However, the Hillman Husky, another small wagon, was my favourite. Since moving to Norway, I have come to appreciate the Saab 95, sold as a wagon as well as a panel van. Among larger vehicles, my preference is the International Metro Van, designed by Raymond Loewy (1893 – 1986). In terms of European vehicles the Morris Commercial J-type is next best.

I would like to thank those members of School District 40, New Westminster, who ensured that teacher parking, rather than facilities for pupils, were placed in the courtyard of Vincent Massey Junior Secondary School. This provided me ample opportunity to reflect on the merits of various vehicles, and made me an avid fan of European vehicles, because they seemed so much more appropriately sized than their American equivalents. Thank you.

Tama Electric Car

This weblog post will end with a short portrait of a predecessor to the Nissan EVs, such as the Leaf, developed by Tokyo Electro Automobile Company, which was spun off from the Tachikawa Aircraft company. The Tama Electric Car, assigned vehicle code E4S-47 I. E is for electric, 4S is for 4-seater sedan, 47 is for the year 1947, and I stands for the initial type. The Tama brand name refers to the factory location, a city in the Tokyo metropolis, in the foothills of the Okutama Mountains of southwestern Tokyo. Nissan notes, “When this car first rolled out in 1947, Japan was suffering from an acute shortage of oil, goods and food while the supply of electricity had a surplus since there were almost no home appliances or bulk users of electricity.” This particular vehicle was used as a taxi until 1951. Even as I complain about the Citröen E-Berlingo Multispace, it shows how far electric vehicles have progressed during the 70 years between 1947 and 2017.

Tama 1947 Electric Car Photo: Nissan Heritage Collection

Specifications: Overall length / width / height = 3 035/ 1 230/ 1 630mm; Wheelbase = 2 000mm; Curb weight = 1 100kg; Seating capacity = 4; Range per charge = 65km; Motor = 36V DC series-wound, rated at 3.3kW; Batteries = Lead-acid 40V/ 162Ah; Speed: Max = 35 km/h, Most economical = 28km/h.