One Quotation: “I don’t think I was born to be an entertainer, I used to really be afraid of playing live on-stage. Obviously it’s terrifying! But now I look forward to it every time. I’ve learned not focus on myself, cause it’s not about me. Now I only think about giving everyone the best experience. A magic moment.”
One Comment: Aurora was chosen as a singer-songwriter in an attempt to focus on women musicians, composers and songwriters under age fifty. On the date of publication, she has finally reached twenty-five years old. Running with Wolves was released in 2015, when she was eighteen. Wikipedia describes Aurora as having an eclectic musical style that is a composite of eight genres: art pop, Nordic-folk, synth-pop, electropop, electro-folk, indie pop, dark pop and avant-garde pop. I appreciate the fact that she in-sources costumes and makeup to her sisters.
When people feel that society is not working for them, they create their own solutions. Many become criminals. Some participate in guerrilla actions, ranging from one-off events to lifestyle transitions. A few found institutions, businesses and organizations to resolve these points of conflict. In this post, one will meet numerous people, and institutions that have arisen to gain free access to scientific information.
In the beginning, there was The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), an international non-profit digital rights group based in San Francisco, California. The foundation was formed 1990-07-10 by activist John Gilmore (1955 – ), poet, essayist and cattle rancher John Perry Barlow (1947 – 2018) and entrepreneur Mitch Kapor (1950 – ) to promote Internet civil liberties.
The EFF “provides funds for legal defense in court, presents amicus curiae briefs, defends individuals and new technologies from what it considers abusive legal threats, works to expose government malfeasance, provides guidance to the government and courts, organizes political action and mass mailings, supports some new technologies which it believes preserve personal freedoms and online civil liberties, maintains a database and web sites of related news and information, monitors and challenges potential legislation that it believes would infringe on personal liberties and fair use and solicits a list of what it considers abusive patents with intentions to defeat those that it considers without merit.”
The EFF had noted that more than half of all academic publishing is controlled by five publishers, using paywalls justified on the premise that they compensate publishers for their investment in editing, curating, and publishing. Yet, a large portion of that work involves uncompensated peer-reviews by scholars. In addition, much of the research behind these articles is publicly funded. Because of this, the EFF and many others argue that the results should be freely available.
On 2005-06-15, Reddit was born, a website with 1.) social news aggregation, 2.) web content rating, and 3.) discussion. It claims to be the front-page of the internet. It was founded by spez = Steve Huffman (1983 – ) and Alexis Ohanian (1983 – ), students at the University of Virginia. Later, Aaron Swartz (1986 – 2013) was given founder status for his work rewriting Reddit’s Lisp codebase using Python and web.py. Already in 2006-10, Reddit had been acquired.
According to Alexa Internet, Reddit ranks as the 18th-most-visited website in the world and 7th most-visited website in the USA. Somewhat less than half of its user base is from USA, and with users from the UK and Canada, Anglophiles dominate. Most of these are young. Some would even say that a large portion of the user base is eager to change the world. They are in part inspired by Swartz as computer programmer, entrepreneur, writer, political organizer, and Internet hacktivist.
Reddit looks somewhat old fashioned with a bulletin board system that displays user-generated content (texts, photos, videos, links) and content discussions. Reddit is a play-on-words with read it. According to Reddit, there were approximately 430 million monthly users, or redditors (in 2019). Content is divided into 138 000 subreddits = categories/ communities. Redditor posts and comments result in a conversation. These can be voted upon using positive upvotes and negative downvotes. These votes determine a post’s site visibility. Redditors earn karma for their posts and comments. After six months, posts are automatically archived, prohibiting comments and votes.
Sci-Hub was founded by Kazakhstani computer programmer Alexandra Elbakyan (1988 – ) in 2011 in response to the high cost of research papers behind paywalls. The site is extensively used worldwide. One estimate is that it serves 400 000 requests per day to provides free access to an archive over 85 million research papers and books using 77 TB of data, without regard to copyright. It uses a variety of approaches to bypass publishers’ paywalls. Science journalist John Bohannon described Sci-Hub as “an awe-inspiring act of altruism or a massive criminal enterprise, depending on whom you ask.”
In 2019, a community of redditors downloaded and released 33TB of scientific papers and books from Library Genesis, a site similar to Sci-Hub. Now, the r/DataHoarder subreddit is involved in a new rescue mission for Open Science. It involves approximately 8 500 individuals torrenting papers in order to download the entire library. The goal is to make an open-source library that cannot be taken down.
Torrenting? Torrenting is a form of downloading where a torrent (aka tracker) will break up a file into smaller pieces, called packets. Some participants in the process (seeders) will have the entire file in their possession. Others, varyingly called peers or leechers, will only have some of the parts, but are in the process of acquiring them all. The torrent file being downloaded keeps track of who has which packet and alternate sources.
Harvard University warned in 2012 that subscription fees for scientific journals were becoming prohibitively expensive. The European Union, through European Commissioner covering the portfolio of Research, Science and Innovation, Carlos Moedas (1970 – ), announced 2016-05-28 that all publicly funded scientific papers published in Europe could be made free to access by 2020.
Guidelines were released in 2017, and in part state: “Modern research builds on extensive scientific dialogue and advances by improving earlier work. The Europe 2020 strategy for a smart, sustainable and inclusive economy underlines the central role of knowledge and innovation in generating growth. Broader access to scientific publications and data therefore helps to[:] build on previous research results (improved quality of results)[;] encourage collaboration and avoid duplication of effort (greater efficiency)[;] speed up innovation (faster progress to market means faster growth)[;] involve citizens and society (improved transparency of the scientific process)[.]” (p. 4)
Now, Redditors at the r/DataHoarder subreddit are trying to preserve the numerous papers available on Sci-Hub. In a post dated 2021-05-13, the moderators of r/DataHoarder, provided “… a clearer message about the fate of Sci-Hub and open science. We are the library, we do not get silenced, we do not shut down our computers, and we are many.” Redditors aim to release all of the downloaded data via a new uncensorable open-source website.
The Sci-Hub logo: An aside
In the next three paragraphs, Alexandra Elbakyan comments on the Sci-Hub logo, “The history of Sci-Hub logo is less intriguing than it appears to be. When Sci-Hub started in 2011, its first logo was a simple Soviet hammer and sickle, and when the mouse pointer hovered upon it, a text showed up stating: „Communism is … common ownership of the means of production with free access to articles of consumption.“
I took this communism definition from a Wikipedia page and it fitted Sci-Hub very neatly. I was lucky because that definition of communism in Wikipedia was only in 2011 – if you check earlier versions of Wiki article about communism or later versions, they do not contain anything about „free access to articles“.
In 2014 I created a group in a social network to bring together Sci-Hub users (vk.com/sci_hub). First I used the Mendeleev table as a logo, after that it was an alchemical serpent. Later I decided to look up some picture in Google with a key and books to use as a group logo, and found that Raven sitting on books, holding a key. I loved that picture and immediately put it up as a logo on Sci-Hub’s social network group. Later in 2015, I decided to re-design Sci-Hub website and create a modern design, and used the group raven logo as a website logo.”
Weighing almost 4 000 kg, the Dream Car 123 EV has a range of almost 400 km at a speed of 60 km/h, with 3.5 hours of charging. Greg Zanis, the Dream Car 123’s developer, built the car’s tower garage to harvest solar and wind power to provide the vehicle with a personalized V1G capability. Photo: Zapcar.ru
V2G = Vehicle-to-Grid, involves one basic question. Who can a person trust? Technically, this is a weblog post about the transfer of electrical power to and from an electric vehicle (EV). This topic is forcing electrical vehicle stakeholders to think in new ways. It is a bit too early to call it a paradigm change, but that is the direction in which it is heading. One of the main challenges is to find out who is going to control (and profit from) this transfer. There are at least four potential answers: consumers, electricity producers/ grid owners, regulators and EV manufacturers. One’s approach to this control, may have much to say about the attractiveness of EV brands.
First, this blogger would like to criticize the Wikipedia article on the topic that begins by putting V2G into a purely economic perspective, essentially a system in which plug-in electric vehicles (PEV), “communicate with the power grid to sell demand response services by either returning electricity to the grid or by throttling their charging rate.” There can be other reasons for connecting a vehicle to the grid other than economic considerations. Security from power outages is one of these. Speed can be another. The type of ownership can be yet one more consideration, especially if one is a member of a co-operative. If economic considerations are to be made, then it is important that all costs associated with it are taken into consideration. Battery degradation is one of these, especially when the cost of a battery in a battery electric vehicle (BEV) is about one-third of the vehicle cost, in 2021. Then there are regulations, which impact stakeholders in different ways, some technical, some economic, some social and even some that are cultural.
Second, for a century consumers have been persuaded that their role in the electricity supply system is to use electricity, and to pay for it. With more discussion of a smart grid, this narrow role is being expanded. At a minimum, consumers living between 60 degrees S and 60 degrees N, are being encouraged to install solar panels. Increasingly, electrical power does not just need to be produced. It needs to be stored. Electrical producers and grid managers are also having difficulty responding to this change. This has necessitated grid regulators to enter the arena, and to make decisions that are typically unpopular with one group or the other.
Third, there are numerous variations on the theme, involving electrical power flow. Here are some of them.
V1G = Unidirectional power flow, from one source
V1G, from several sources
V1G, with fragmented actor objectives
V2G = Bidirectional power flow
V2H = Vehicle-to-home
V2B = Vehicle-to-building
V2L = Vehicle-to-load
V2X = Vehicle-to-everything
Apart from this paragraph, V2X will not be discussed further in the post. It is less about the transfer of (electrical) power, than communication between a vehicle and any entity that may affect, or may be affected by, that vehicle. It may incorporate other more specific types of communication, including: V2I (vehicle-to-infrastructure), V2N (vehicle-to-network), V2V (vehicle-to-vehicle), V2P (vehicle-to-pedestrian), V2D (vehicle-to-device) and V2G (vehicle-to-grid). The main motivations for V2X are road safety, traffic efficiency and energy savings.
Fourth, there are at least three approaches to V2G from automakers. These will be examined in terms of three different EV manufacturers: Tesla, Volkswagen and Hyundai.
Avoidance
Tesla seems to want to avoid V2G altogether. Jeffrey B Straubel (1975 – ), Tesla’s chief technical officer, stated his opposition to V2G technology, because battery wear outweighs its economic benefits. This might be a satisfactory solution in areas that do not experience power outages, but even in California power companies are cutting off power, to prevent forest fires, during extreme weather situations. The deadliest and most destructive forest fire in California history, the Camp Fire in Northern California in 2019, is thought to have been caused by downed power lines. According to at least one source, during the Texas blackout of 2021, a Tesla owner who rigged up such a system to provide basic needs for his family, had his Tesla Warranty voided.
Tesla often undertakes unilateral actions, including software updates, that sometimes impact consumers negatively. On such change occurred in 2019, when Tesla updated system software to “protect the battery and improve battery longevity,” and it resulted in a range loss for only “a small percentage of owners.” In Norway, a lawsuit was filed with the (consumer) Conciliation Board, 2020-12. Tesla did not respond to this. On 2021-04-29, the board found Tesla guilty of throttling charging speed and battery capacity through this 2019 software update. It ordered Tesla to pay NOK 136 000 = ca US$ 16 000 for each vehicle registered in the case. There are about 10 000 such vehicles in Norway, and this judgement would also apply to many of them. The decision could also be even more significant, with similar legal cases in other countries.
Control
On 2021-04-05 Volkswagen Group announced that starting 2022-01-01, all vehicles built on its MEB platform will have V2G capability. This is probably a good enough reason for anyone considering a new Audi, Seat-Cupra, Skoda or Volkswagen vehicle should wait until then before buying such a vehicle.
At Volkswagen’s Power Day (2021-03-15) Elke Temme, Head of Charging & Energy at Volkswagen Group Components, stated that 6 500 GWh a year of renewable energy is not used due to lack of energy storage. She suggested that grid operators could store that electricity in car batteries if they have the technical and regulatory ability to do so. This is sufficient energy to power 2.7 million BEVs. She did not discuss how much Volkswagen could earn from such an arrangement.
Consumers may once again be concerned about how their interests are going to be taken into consideration, by Volkswagen Group. As individual consumers produce more power through solar panels, and other devices, it can be more economically beneficial for them to power their own houses – and vehicle batteries – first, before sending power into the grid. From the description of the Volkswagen system provided so-far, Volkswagen seems to want to take on the role of being an electrical system power broker, but one that is only capable of a binary relationship, in which either power is supplied to the grid, or taken from it. Similarly, there was no mention of compensating BEV owners for any battery degradation.
Flexibility
On 2021-02-22 Hyundai announced that its Ioniq 5 would offer V2L capabilities. V2L enables it to provide up to 3.6 kW of power to external devices. This is managed through 1) an Integrated Charging Control Unit (ICCU); 2) a Vehicle Charging Management System (VCMS); and 3) an on-board charger (OBC) . Users can access up to 70% of the vehicle’s battery capacity. This includes the ability to charge other vehicles. The Hyundai approach seems to offer a much more flexible solution, than those offered by Tesla or Volkswagen.
Hyundai’s new Electric-Global Modular Platform (E-GMP) will be underpinning new Genesis, Hyundai and Kia EVs. Between 2021 and 2025, they will be releasing 23 different models that use this platform. Its main components will be 1.) a battery pack under the cabin, 2.) an all-in-one motor, transmission, and inverter designed/ developed/ manufactured by Hyundai. This bundling will raise the maximum speed of the motor by up to 70 percent compared to existing motors, despite its small size, allowing it to produce up to 450 kW of power. Equipped with a 50 kWh vehicle battery pack, an EV will be able to provide 35 kWh of electrical energy that can be fed into a house during an outage. While the size of batteries has not been disclosed, they should offer a range of about 500 km, and allow 80% charging in 18 minutes, with an 800 V architecture and 350 kW charging speeds. A five-minute charge can add about 100 km of range.
Consumer Responses
What should consumers do? A first step is for every consumer to show a healthy scepticism to all proposals from other electricity stakeholders, including electricity producers and EV manufacturers. Assume they will not be acting in consumer interests, but in their own interests, until proven otherwise. If something seems too good to be true, it probably is. A second step is to understand how a smart grid operates, and the role of the various stakeholders in it, including consumers. Part of this could be a household level microgrid (MG). A third step is to understand, and potentially advocate for a broad right-to-repair legislation, to ensure that the consumer is fully in charge of the vehicle.
When an EV is connected to a MG, rather than to the larger grid directly, the consumer has an opportunity of using both energy production and energy storage sources optimally. The consumer can decide if power should flow from an EV to the main grid, a V2G strategy, or to the load, a V2L strategy, at any given time. Consumers should be encouraged to reduce loads in peak periods, or shift them to off-peak periods. EV scheduling and demand response programs help MGs to reduce costs/ increase profits. Sahbasadat Rajamand has used simulations to show costs can be reduced by 14.67% using optimized EV scheduling.
One energy related stakeholder that has not been heard from so far, in the presentation of this debate is the consumer’s insurance company. They are, in fact, not particularly keen about shifting electrical consumption to off-peak hours, particularly if those hours involve the night when consumers are sleeping. In Norway, they are actively discouraging consumers from using equipment such as washing machines, driers and dish washers during the night because of the fire risk. While potential cost savings look significant as a percentage, they are totally insignificant if lives are put in danger.
For consumers maximizing energy usage to off-peak hours, can be a tedious chore. Norwegian consumers have decided that the economic benefits are not worth the cost. Major electricity producers are advocating it, so that they can profit from selling power outside of their traditional market. The advantage of V2G comes from emergency preparation. As implied in a weblog post about the ACE EV, auxiliary electrical power offers an almost normal lifestyle during an electrical power outage. It can power refrigerators and freezers, hot water tanks, induction stove tops, conventional and microwave ovens, computers and their screens, lighting or broadband interconnections.
As readers can see from the above, this writer is more impressed with the V2L solution offerd by Hyundai Group than that offered by either Tesla or Volkswagen Group. It remains to be seen how other EV manufacturers, such as BMW, Ford, General Motors, Honda, Mercedes Benz, Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi (including Avtovaz and Dacia brands), Stellantis (Chrysler, Citroën, DS, Fiat, Opel, Peugeot, Vauxhall), Toyota and numerous Chinese brands will develop, with respect to V2G.
Pauline Oliveros in the studio at the San Francisco Tape Music Center, in 1966, at a Buchia-100 series modular synthesizer. Photo: David Bernstein, from Mills College Center for Contemporary Music archive.
One quotation: Deep listening is a term invented by Oliveros. It involves “an aesthetic based upon principles of improvisation, electronic music, ritual, teaching and meditation. This aesthetic is designed to inspire both trained and untrained performers to practice the art of listening and responding to environmental conditions in solo and ensemble situations”. She presented some of her ideas on the difference between hearing and listening at a Ted Talk in Indianapolis, 2015-11-12.
One Comment: Pauline Oliveros became world-famous in Port Townsend, Washington, because of her 1988 descent into the Dan Harpole underground cistern and the resulting recording. Deep listening is more than a pun. It incorporates principles of improvisation, electronic music, ritual, teaching and meditation. It inspires everyone to listen to the environment.
Yet Another Comment: In 1966, Pauline Oliveros had been working with tape delay techniques in the San Francisco area, where she lived. That summer, she went to Toronto to study circuit-making with Hugh Le Caine for two months, and while working there she suddenly found that she had access to some of the most innovative and sophisticated electronic sound processing and recording equipment available anywhere. That summer she completed ten tape compositions and six ultrasonic tape studies.
Hugh Le Caine, with his analogue synthesizer, the Electronic Sackbut.
Hugh Le Caine (1914-05-27 – 1977-07-03) was a Canadian physicist, composer, inventor and instrument builder. This weblog post asserts his claim as an inventor of the synthesizer, the Sackbut, in 1945.
Before continuing, there are two predecessors who do not quite meet the bar in terms of inventing the synthesizer. Thadius Cahill (1867 – 1934) is credited by Thom Holmes in Electronic and experimental music: pioneers in technology and composition (2002) p. 42 – 49, with inventing the term synthesizer in 1896. He did not build or design one. Instead, he constructed three telharmoniums, the first electromechanical musical instruments. These were essentially electric organs, operated by an organist/ performer sitting at a keyboard with 153 keys. The Mark I weighed 7 tonnes = megagrams (Mg), to be politically correct. The Mark II and Mark III each weighed 210 Mg. Invented and patented in 1896, before the advent of vacuum tubes, these used tone wheels and additive synthesis to generate musical sounds as electrical signals. These signals were amplified by dynamos before being sent to horn speakers. Cahill used the term synthesizer to describe these dynamos. When operating, a telharmonium consumed 671 kW of power.
The second, non-inventor of a synthesizer is Homer Dudley (1896 – 1980) who in 1939, working at Bell Labs, invented the Vocoder (a portmanteau of voice and encoder), a method/ machine that electronically reproduced speech, so that it could be transmitted over distances through telephone lines, providing greater clarity, but compressed to use less transmission bandwidth. Key features included envelope control and amplification using voltage control components.
Unfortunately, there are a pair of inventors who do have a prior claim to what some experts consider the first true synthesizer, that appeared at the end of the 1920s. French Edouard E. Coupleaux (or Coupleux) and Joseph A. Givelet demonstrated an Automatically Operating Musical Instrument of the Electric Oscillation Type at the 1929 Paris Exposition. It used four vacuum-tube oscillators to control pitch, then from that output varied the amplitude and introduced further filtering to vary its timbre. The instrument incorporated a paper-tape reader with a pneumatic tracker bar like a player piano. Holes punched in specific rows of the tape varied the instrument’s parameters, allowing the sequencing and articulation of predetermined notes and audio control.
Coupleaux and Givelet built and installed organs that generated sound from hundreds of vacuum tubes in French churches (and radio stations) during the 1930s. Yet, their synthesizer disappeared. One wonders if the potential offered by their 1929 musical instrument, was in some way beyond their comprehension. Personally, I think not. It was undoubtedly, the dismal economic outlook of the 1930s that forced them to concentrate on the most profitable options available.
Hugh Le Caine was a physicist who, after helping develop early radar systems during World War II. When the war ended, he turned his attention to electronic music devices. Le Caine invented an early voltage-controlled synthesizer nearly 20 years before Robert Moog and Donald Buchla. As an academic his work was published in engineering journals. In 1954 he was working at Canada’s National Research Center on inventing and developing electronic music technology. His technology equipped electronic music studios at the University of Toronto (from 1959), the Centre for Electronic Music in Jerusalem (in 1962) and McGill University in Montreal (from 1964).
One criticism of Le Caine was that his inventions were always in a state of flux. There was no cut-of date, at which a particular design was fixed, so that it could be built as a production model. Instead, there was always just another adjustment that needed to be made.
Electronic Sackbut (1945–73)
Le Caine began working on the Electronic Sackbut synthesizer in 1945. As this was a time when major advances were being made in electronics, the Sackbut continuously improved until it was completed in 1971. It was monophonic, but conceived with enough synthesizing flexibility to serve as the starting point of musical thinking. When it was finally launched commercially, it met with little success, because other synthesizers were much more visible.
The Sackbut used voltage control to trigger and modify sounds, a keyboard – with spring-mounted/ pressure sensitive keys, for pitch control, Sideways movement of a key resulted in a gliding of toward the next higher or lower key. Waveform and timbre could be modified using a touch-sensitive pad for the left hand with individual finger controllers. Minimal dexterity was needed to control the instrument. The thumb had two pads. One controlled the overtone balance in a note, while the other controlled frequency. The index finger rested on a movable circular pad. Pressing it changed the waveform and timbre of the sound. Touch-sensitive controls for other sound parameters. The other three fingers each had their own pressure pad that could modify the periodicity of the waveform.
Touch-Sensitive Organ (1952–57)
Le Caine recognized the advantage of a pressure-sensitive keyboard for an electronic organ, and invented a keyboard whose output volume varied in proportion to key pressure. This technology was made into a prototype, and patented. The patent was acquired by the Baldwin Organ Company in 1955. A mass-produced commercial model neve apperared. The touch-sensitive organ was used as an audio source for Le Caine’s tape compositions, such as Ninety-Nine Generators (1957).
“Multi-Track” or Special Purpose Tape Recorder (1955–67)
This was a tape recorder capable of recording and mixing multiple individual tracks. It did not record sound using multiple tape heads on a single reel of tape but synchronized playback on six individual tape reels. The resulting sound was mixed down into asingle track. Each of the six tapes was fitted with variable speed controller, a touch-sensitive, 36-key keyboard. Many composers were especially enthusiastic about this, because it provided control over speed transposition, unavailable using other technologies. Its effectiveness was demonstrated on Dripsody (1955), the sound of dripping water transposed to different speeds. The device was refined over the years, ending with a compact, solid-state version in 1967.
Oscillator Banks (1959–61) and Spectrogram (1959)
Le Caine built several versions of a device for controlling and experimenting with multiple audio oscillators. A touch-sensitive key triggered the individual oscillators, that could play sine, pulse and sawtooth waves. Versions were built with 12, 16, 24 and 108 oscillators. The oscillator bank could be programmed using an optical reader, the Spectrogram. It allowed graphical input of program instructions using a paper roll scanned by an array of 100 photocells.
Serial Sound Generator (1966–70)
Regarded as the forerunner of analogue sequencers, this device used hardwired switches to program a series of tones and effects. It was an analogue computer for programming musical sequences, giving the composer control over pitch, duration, timbre and sound repetition. It used a voltage-controlled oscillator as its sound source.
Sonde (1968)
The Sonde was designed to control multiple sine wave generators. The 200 signals were controlled by 200 slide controls. Transistor circuits reduced space requirements. Despite this, the Sonde was about 1 200 mm high and 600 mm wide
Polyphone Synthesizer (1970)
While the rest of the world was enthralled with Moog monophonic synths, Le Caine ventured into powerful polyphonic, analogue synthesizers. This voltage-controlled instrument was built for the McGill University Electronic Music Studio. Once again, the Polyphone had touch-sensitive keys and individual pitch and waveform controls for each key. There were 37 keys, each with their own dedicated oscillator.
Hugh Le Caine retired from the National Research Council, in 1974. During his career, he had produced 15 electronic instruments, and composed a number of electronic music studies. His retirement did not last long. His other interest, motorcycles driven at high speeds, claimed him as an accident victim in 1976. He died of injuries suffered, in 1977 in Ottawa, Ontario.
For additional information about Hugh Le Caine one can read Wikipedia, or visit the Le Caine website.
Ronan Harris aka VNV Nation, walking the streets in, When is the Future? (2018).
To celebrate Goth Day #13 (2021-05-22), this webblog post is focusing on Goth music. Goth Day #14 (2022-05-22) will focus on Goth fashion.
Note: It is proposed that content for future Goth Days be co-ordinated by an elite group of readers of this weblog to be referred to informally as the coven. Anyone interested in participating is asked to send an email to brock@mclellan.no using the subject heading Coven. The term coven was introduced into English in The Witch-Cult in Western Europe: A Study in Anthropology (1921) by Margaret Murray (1863 – 1963), who used it to describe a meeting of witches, that required precisely 13 of them to be present.
In preparation, music was sampled to create a top of the Goths list. The list is totally fake. No actual Goths were consulted. Rather, goth music was searched for on YouTube. While a few Gothish songs were randomly selected, and arbitrarily placed on the list almost in the order in which they were heard, a weakness was soon detected. All of the musicians were male. To rectify this, a new search was made using female goth music as a search phrase. Unfortunately, the result was almost as bad. The results typically showed male bands with a female vocalist. The most feminine band, Xmal Deutschland, had three women out of five musicians. Despite this imperfection, the results from the two searches were used to find the music. The order represents my personal preferences at the time of selection, with VNV Nation at the top, and K.U.K.L at the bottom. From the list one will discover that Hamburg, is the capital of Gothland.
10. K.U.K.L., Anna. This post-punk band from Reykjavík, Iceland, existed from 1983 – 1986. Björk Guðmundsdóttir (1965 – ) is its best known band member. Other members included Einar Örn Benediktsson, aka Einar Ørn (1962 – , trumpet, vocals), Einar Arnaldur Melax (keyboards), Birgir Mogensen (bass), Sigtryggur Baldursson aka Trix (1962 – , drums) and Guðlaugur Kristinn Óttarsson aka God Krist (1954 – , guitar). The track is from the Album, The Eye (1984). The video was made by Islandic director Óskar Jónasson (1963 – ), although comments suggest that the music accompanying the video, originally differed from that on the album.
9. Semblant, What Lies Ahead. This Goth metal band is from Curitiba, Brazil. The track’s music and lyrics were attributed to Juliano Ribeiro. The band consists of Mizuho Lin (vocals), Sergio Mazul (vocals), J Augusto (keyboards), João Vitor (bass), Sol Perez (guitar), Juliano Ribeiro (guitar), Welyntom Sikora aka Thor (drums). The track appears on the album, Lunar Manifesto (2014), that was produced/ gngineered by Adair Daufembach in São Paulo.
8. Katra, One Wish Away. This symphonic metal band from Tampere, Finland was founded by vocalist Katra Solopuro (1984 – ) in 2006. It is augmented with musicians from other bands in related genres. This track originally appeared on the album, Out of the Ashes (2010), released by the Austrian label, Napalm Records.
7. Sirenia, Voyage Voyage. This heavy metal band from Stavanger, Norway consists of Morten Veland (1977 – ) from Stavanger, and Emmanuelle Zoldan (1977 – ) from Aix-en-Provence, France. It appears on their tenth studio album Riddles, Ruins & Revelations (2021), released 2021-02-12.
6. Mono Inc., Children of the Dark. This gothic rock band is from Hamburg, Germany. It has existed since 2000. Karl Fornia (guitar and backing vocals) and Martin Engler (originally drummer, but lead vocalist since 2007) have been with the band since its start. Manuel Antoni joined the band in 2003 (bass and backing vocals), while Katha Mia (drummer) joined in 2007,
5. Clan of Xymox, Brave New World. Originally formed in Amsterdam, Netherlands, this darkwave band originally consisted of three songwriters Ronny Moorings (1961 – , guitar, keyboards, bass), Anka Wolbert (1963 – , vocals, guitar, bass guitar, keyboard, programming) and Pieter Nooten (1961 – , analog synth, keyboards). Now, only Moorings remains, but with additional musicians. This track was released 2021-05-07. It was reissued 2021-04-23.
4. Project Pitchfork, Rain. This dark wave/ electronic rock band is also from Hamburg, Germany. Members are Peter Spilles (composition, lyrics, vocals, 1989–present), Dirk Scheuber (keyboards, 1989–present), Jürgen Jansen (keyboards, 1996–present) and Achim Färber (drums, 1999–present).
3. Xmal Deutchland, Mondlich. Xmal Deutschland was formed in 1980 in Hamburg, Germany. Mondlich is the first track on the band’s second album, Tocsin (1984). The musicians on this video are: Anja Huwe (vocals), Manuela Rickers (guitar), Fiona Sangster (keyboards), Wolfgang Ellerbrock (bass) and Peter Bellendir (drums). The band disbanded in 1990.
2. AnsoticcA, I’m Alive. This video was made by Roax Films, that takes its name from Ronald Mattes & Alexander Max Braune, of Berlin, Germany. The symphonic metal band, AnsoticcA, is from Tilberg, Netherlands. It was formed in 2008 by guitarist Adrian Delborg, with Carie Van Heden (Vocals), Vincent LaBoor (Guitars), Jay Zee (Bass), Maarten De Vries (Keyboards) and Zack Rabart (Drums). Their debut album, Rise (2010), was released by Rockfeld Records.
1. VNV Nation, When is the Future?Noire (2018) is the tenth studio album by the Irish alternative electronic band, which consists of Ronan Harris (1967 – ) who provides the songwriting, production, lyrics, vocals and programming of the synths. In 1988, Harris moved from Dublin, Ireland to London, England where he worked for Q8 Petroleum in his day job, and as a journalist and webmaster for the dark-electro magazine, Side-Line, as a sideline. VNV Nation started in 1990. Later that year Harris moved to Toronto, Canada. He moved to Hamburg, Germany in 1994. VNV = Victory Not Vengeance, Its motto: One should strive to achieve, not sit in bitter regret.
Bonus #1. Imperial Age, Turn the Sun Off! Imperial Age is a symphonic metal band from Moscow, Russia, It was founded in 2012 by Alexander Osipov = Aor (tenor/ composer) and Jane Odintsova = Corn (mezzo-soprano/ composer/ keyboards). This video is part of a 180-minute online concert from locked-down Moscow and achieved ground-breaking success with 38,000 people streaming the live concert from all 7 continents, including Antarctica, on 2020-04-25. In addition to Osipov and Odintsova, other musicians on the video include: Anna Moiseeva = Kiara (soprano), Max Talion (drums), Pavel Maryashin = Vredes (guitar), and Dmitry Safronov = Belf (bass, vocals).
Bonus #2. Kerrang is providing a list of 16 Gothic albums. It notes that: Gothic music has a tendency to lean towards the dramatic and artistic, often with a literary or poetic bent. There’s a romance to it, even when it’s dealing with dark and melancholy themes.
Content for this weblog post was first written and saved as a draft on 2021-04-03, then promptly forgotten about, until 2021-05-16, when a calendar entry reminded me of the upcoming Goth day. About a week before this, a new weblog post on construction materials had been written and scheduled for 2021-05-22. At the time, I wondered how this date was available, when there are over 50 weblog posts already written that are awaiting scheduling, in addition to the over 50 weblog posts written and scheduled weeks and months into the future. The reason was that I had already reserved for this date for a Goth day post. The construction post was subsequently unscheduled, which gives me time to research the topic even better.
One fun aspect of making collections of videos during these Covid times, is experiencing how the same sub-culture in different countries, can create divergent musical artefacts. On 2021-05-17, after this weblog post was written, a new video appeared on my YouTube feed by Imperial Age. It appears as a bonus, for those who cannot get enough Goth videos. On 2021-05-21, a link to the Kerrang article appeared in a search, and was added to this weblog post as a second bonus item. Two additional weblog posts on music related topics are scheduled on 2021-05-27 and 2021-05-30, respectively.
The Australian Clean Energy Electric Vehicle (ACE EV) group is a startup founded in 2017 by Australian engineer Gregory McGarvie (ca. 1952 – ) and Chinese entrepreneur Will Qiang, in Maryborough, Queensland, Australia. Its goal was to manufacture electric vehicles in Australia, especially small, city vans aimed for small businesses.
In August 2019, ACE EV unveiled their range of three electric vehicles: the Cargo van, the Yewt pickup, and the Urban 3-door hatchback. Sales of vehicles on the Australian market are expected to start in 2021, with prices of about AU$ 40 000 = NOK 250 000 = US$ 25 000. Castle Placement has been engaged to find AU$ 230 million in capital. Their prospectus provides further insights into ACE EV.
In addition to the Australian domestic market, developing countries throughout the world represent another target market for ACE EV. Competitive product pricing requires some changes to product development. The focus is on providing the underserved with access to electric vehicles and battery technologies. This will be done by offering kit based or do it yourself (DIY) modular packages for easy assembly and maintenance anywhere in the world; onboard Alternating Current Bidirectional/Vehicle to Grid (V2G) capabilities; and, Carbon Fibre Reinforced Plastic (CFRP) components that are 3D printable and recyclable.
Australia’s legacy auto-makers have closed down, with the last mass-market vehicles being produced in Australia in 2017. Now, only insignificant quantities of niche products are made.
The assembly of an electric vehicle kit could facilitate the training of EV service personnel, as well as more general education at secondary schools, and in other forums. This comment is addressed in particular to readers at Melvindale secondary school in Detroit, Verdal prison school, and the Inderøy Radio Control Club.
It may be less advantageous for private individuals to construct their own vehicles. If any problems arise, one wonders if Ace EV would accept responsibility, or attempt to deflect responsibility onto the builder/ owner. I asked my daughter if she would want me to spend some of her potential inheritance buying an EV kit? She tactfully replied that “a car is best purchased, not diy’ed.” Two minutes later, she added, “To put it bluntly, it sounds like a recipe for disaster.”
V2G capability could quickly become a must-have feature of an EV. In areas where short duration power outages are a relatively common occurrence, V2G could eliminate the need for a smelly, noxious wood stove. At cliff cottage, we removed the wood stove from our living room, with the intention of replacing it with a more modern variant. This would cost about NOK 50 000.
Unfortunately, a wood stove is an inferior substitute for electrical power. It does not power refrigerators or freezers, hot water tanks, induction stove tops, conventional and microwave ovens, computers and their screens, lighting or broadband interconnections. Its only function is space heating. One proposal is to invest in some form of a battery pack that could feed electricity to the house during an outage. V2G is one such answer.
I am eagerly awaiting a YouTube video, made by an Australian outback station owner, describing an Ace EV’s capabilities after a year of driving. Will it withstand driver abuse? is a critical question.
One Quotation: “The whole album is based off of actual insecurity. My mental health, self-love, me sabotaging everything in my life, am I good enough for this relationship? […] It was really just taking the real-life stuff that I’m going through, which is really important for me to write about. There’s still guitar, but there’s a lot of hip-hop in it, but it’s still pop. And there are some really pop records. It’s not really dance music, but you can bop to it. But when you listen to it, it’s really a body of work. And we worked really hard sonically to make sure that everything leads into one another, and it sounds like body of work instead of just having a playlist.”
Comments:
This is not the regular, monthly tidbit about a woman composer/ songwriter/ musician, but an extra. The Bebe Rexha (1989- ) track/ video may not appeal to everyone, as musical tastes are highly individual. I have only known about Bebe since 2021-04-16 at 06:00, when I opened a link to the video track, sent to me by a young reader (under 40). He was probably too polite to say it, but I suspect that he was reacting to the fact, that the average age of the people in this series so far is over 70 years, giving an mean birth year of 1951.
The track was released as a single on 2021-03-05, with the video being released a day later. The album in the quotation refers to Better Mistakes, which will be released 2021-05-07, the date of publication for this weblog post. This is undoubtedly the first time in my life that I am ahead of the release curve. More recently, I have been up to twenty or more years behind.
Bebe is from Blete = Bletë (in Albanian) meaning bee. She was born in New York, but is of Albanian heritage.
The first issue of the Manchester Guardian, 200 years ago, on 1821-05-05. (The Guardian)
Today, The Guardian newspaper is 200 years old, having established itself as The Manchester Guardian on 1821-05-05 by cotton merchant John Edward Taylor (1791 -1844) with backing from the Little Circle, a group of non-conformist businessmen. They launched their paper after the police closure of the more radical Manchester Observer, a paper that had championed the cause of the Peterloo Massacre on 1819-08-16 when cavalry charged into a crowd of 60 000 – 80 000 who had gathered to demand the reform of parliamentary representation, killing 18 and injuring 400 – 700.
John Edward Taylor was editor of the newspaper from its founding, until his death in 1844. His younger son, also John Edward Taylor, jr. (1830–1905) became a co-owner in 1852 and sole owner in 1856. He was editor of the paper from 1861 to 1872.
Charles Prestwick Scott (1846 – 1932) was editor of The Manchester Guardian from 1872 until 1929 and its owner from 1907 until his death. He was also a Liberal Member of Parliament. Not everything about Scott is admirable, yet he was a man of his time. He was hostile to militant suffragettes and Irish rebels, but supporting of Zionists.
John Scott followed C. P. as editor and owner. In 1936, he established a trust following the deaths, in quick succession, of his father and brother, He wished to prevent future death duties forcing the closure or sale of the newspapers, and to protect the liberal editorial line of The Manchester Guardian from interference by future proprietors. This trust was dissolved and reformed in 1948. Five months after the signing of the new trust deed, John Scott died.
Its name was changed to The Guardian on 1959-08-24.
In 2008 the trust was wound up and its assets transferred to a new limited company, The Scott Trust Limited, to strengthen the protection it offers to The Guardian and because like all non-charitable trusts, and unlike limited companies, the Scott Trust has a finite lifespan. The core purpose of the Trust was enshrined in the constitution of the Limited company and cannot be altered or amended. The new company is barred from paying dividends, and its constitution has been carefully drafted to ensure that no individual can ever personally benefit from the arrangements.
In 2014, The Guardian launched a membership program to reduce financial losses without introducing a paywall, thus maintaining open access to the website. Website readers can pay a monthly subscription, with three tiers available. There are currently more than one million subscriptions or donations.
For the bicentenary edition, 2021-05-05, The Guardian provided an annotated version of its first edition. “Ads on the front page, news on the back, and a frankly unbelievable story about a ghost” are unearthed. One hundred years before, editor C. P. Scott published an essay in The Manchester Guardian on the centenary of the paper’s first issue, 1921-05-05. It is replicated here:
“A hundred years is a long time; it is a long time even in the life of a newspaper, and to look back on it is to take in not only a vast development in the thing itself, but a great slice in the life of the nation, in the progress and adjustment of the world.
In the general development the newspaper, as an institution, has played its part, and no small part, and the particular newspaper with which I personally am concerned has also played its part, it is to be hoped, not without some usefulness. I have had my share in it for a little more than fifty years; I have been its responsible editor for only a few months short of its last half-century; I remember vividly its fiftieth birthday; I now have the happiness to share in the celebration of its hundredth. I can therefore speak of it with a certain intimacy of acquaintance. I have myself been part of it and entered into its inner courts. That is perhaps a reason why, on this occasion, I should write in my own name, as in some sort a spectator, rather than in the name of the paper as a member of its working staff.
In all living things there must be a certain unity, a principle of vitality and growth. It is so with a newspaper, and the more complete and clear this unity the more vigorous and fruitful the growth. I ask myself what the paper stood for when first I knew it, what it has stood for since and stands for now. A newspaper has two sides to it. It is a business, like any other, and has to pay in the material sense in order to live. But it is much more than a business; it is an institution; it reflects and it influences the life of a whole community; it may affect even wider destinies. It is, in its way, an instrument of government. It plays on the minds and consciences of men. It may educate, stimulate, assist, or it may do the opposite. It has, therefore, a moral as well as a material existence, and its character and influence are in the main determined by the balance of these two forces. It may make profit or power its first object, or it may conceive itself as fulfilling a higher and more exacting function.
I think I may honestly say that, from the day of its foundation, there has not been much doubt as to which way the balance tipped as far as regards the conduct of the paper whose fine tradition I inherited and which I have had the honour to serve through all my working life. Had it not been so, personally, I could not have served it. Character is a subtle affair, and has many shades and sides to it. It is not a thing to be much talked about, but rather to be felt. It is the slow deposit of past actions and ideals. It is for each man his most precious possession, and so it is for that latest growth of time the newspaper. Fundamentally it implies honesty, cleanness, courage, fairness, a sense of duty to the reader and the community. A newspaper is of necessity something of a monopoly, and its first duty is to shun the temptations of monopoly. Its primary office is the gathering of news. At the peril of its soul it must see that the supply is not tainted. Neither in what it gives, nor in what it does not give, nor in the mode of presentation must the unclouded face of truth suffer wrong. Comment is free, but facts are sacred. “Propaganda,” so called, by this means is hateful. The voice of opponents no less than that of friends has a right to be heard. Comment also is justly subject to a self-imposed restraint. It is well to be frank; it is even better to be fair. This is an ideal. Achievement in such matters is hardly given to man. We can but try, ask pardon for shortcomings, and there leave the matter.
But, granted a sufficiency of grace, to what further conquests may we look, what purpose serve, what task envisage? It is a large question, and cannot be fully answered. We are faced with a new and enormous power and a growing one. Whither is the young giant tending? What gifts does he bring? How will he exercise his privilege and powers? What influence will he exercise on the minds of men and on our public life? It cannot be pretended that an assured and entirely satisfactory answer can be given to such questions. Experience is in some respects disquieting. The development has not been all in the direction which we should most desire.
One of the virtues, perhaps almost the chief virtue, of a newspaper is its independence. Whatever its position or character, at least it should have a soul of its own. But the tendency of newspapers, as of other businesses, in these days is towards amalgamation. In proportion, as the function of a newspaper has developed and its organisation expanded, so have its costs increased. The smaller newspapers have had a hard struggle; many of them have disappeared. In their place we have great organisations controlling a whole series of publications of various kinds and even of differing or opposing politics. The process may be inevitable, but clearly there are drawbacks. As organisation grows personality may tend to disappear. It is much to control one newspaper well; it is perhaps beyond the reach of any man, or any body of men, to control half a dozen with equal success. It is possible to exaggerate the danger, for the public is not undiscerning. It recognises the authentic voices of conscience and conviction when it finds them, and it has a shrewd intuition of what to accept and what to discount.
This is a matter which in the end must settle itself, and those who cherish the older ideal of a newspaper need not be dismayed. They have only to make their papers good enough in order to win, as well as to merit, success, and the resources of a newspaper are not wholly measured in pounds, shillings, and pence. Of course the thing can only be done by competence all round, and by that spirit of co-operation right through the working staff which only a common ideal can inspire.
There are people who think you can run a newspaper about as easily as you can poke a fire, and that knowledge, training, and aptitude are superfluous endowments. There have even been experiments on this assumption, and they have not met with success. There must be competence, to start with, on the business side, just as there must be in any large undertaking, but it is a mistake to suppose that the business side of a paper should dominate, as sometimes happens, not without distressing consequences.
A newspaper, to be of value, should be a unity, and every part of it should equally understand and respond to the purposes and ideals which animate it. Between its two sides there should be a happy marriage, and editor and business manager should march hand in hand, the first, be it well understood, just an inch or two in advance. Of the staff much the same thing may be said. They should be a friendly company. They need not, of course, agree on every point, but they should share in the general purpose and inheritance. A paper is built up upon their common and successive labours, and their work should never be task work, never merely dictated. They should be like a racing boat’s crew, pulling well together, each man doing his best because he likes it, and with a common and glorious goal.
That is the path of self-respect and pleasure; it is also the path of success. And what a work it is! How multiform, how responsive to every need and every incident of life! What illimitable possibilities of achievement and of excellence! People talk of “journalese” as though a journalist were of necessity a pretentious and sloppy writer; he may be, on the contrary, and very often is, one of the best in the world. At least he should not be content to be much less. And then the developments. Every year, almost every day, may see growth and fresh accomplishments, and with a paper that is really alive, it not only may, but does. Let anyone take a file of this paper, or for that matter any one of half a dozen other papers, and compare its whole make-up and leading features today with what they were five years ago, ten years ago, twenty years ago, and he will realise how large has been the growth, how considerable the achievement. And this is what makes the work of a newspaper worthy and interesting. It has so many sides, it touches life at so many points, at every one there is such possibility on improvement and excellence. To the man, whatever his place on the paper, whether on the editorial or business, or even what may be regarded as the mechanical side — this also vitally important in its place — nothing should satisfy short of the best, and the best must always seem a little ahead of the actual. It is here that ability counts and that character counts, and it is on these that a newspaper, like every great undertaking, if it is to be worthy of its power and duty, must rely.”
A moth (International Moth Class) “flying” over the water in the port of Kiel in 2008. Photo: VollwertBIT
Wikipedia comments on the Moth class, “Originally a small, fast home-built sailing boat designed to plane, since 2000 it has become an expensive and largely commercially-produced boat designed to hydroplane on foils. The pre-hydrofoil design Moths are still sailed and raced, but are far slower than their foiled counterparts.”
There have been many iterations of the Moss dinghy, with the exact number dependent on how they are counted. First, it began life in Australia in 1928 when Len Morris built a cat rigged = single sail, wooden scow = a flat-bottomed boat with a horizontal rather than a more common vertical bow. It was hard chined = with a sharp change in angle in the cross section of a hull, 3.4 m long, with a single 7.4 m2 mainsail. A second iteration emerged in North Carolina in 1929, with a 6.7 m2 sail, on a somewhat shorter mast. In 1933, The Rudder, an American boating magazine, published an article about the American Moths. A third iteration came about in 1932, when a British Moth class was started. This was a one-design, which meant that there could be very little variation between the boats. One designs are used in competitions so that winners can be distinguished on the basis of sailing ability, rather than in boat characteristics.
The fourth iteration was initiated with the Restricted Moth of the 1960s and 1970s. With few design restrictions, individuals were allowed to modify their boats. This allowed the class to develop and adjust to new technology and materials. An International Moth arose in Australia and New Zealand.
The Europa Moth, which became the Olympic Europe dinghy, can be regarded as a fifth iteration. This was followed by a sixth iteration, in the form of a New Zealand Mark 2 Scow Moth, in the 1970s. Finally, a seventh iteration emerged with the International Moth, a fast sailing hydrofoil dinghy with few design restrictions.
Most people who choose a Moth do so because it is a development class. In much the same way that there are two types of motorsport enthusiasts, those who want to keep their vehicles stock, and those who want to modify it. The Moth appeals to those who want to modify their boat. There are plenty of other one-design classes, some designed for racing, others more suitable for cruising, for sailors without genes that demand they experiment, and take risks.
The Moth of the 1930s was a heavy, narrow scow that weighed about 50 kg. Today’s foiling moth has a hull weight of under 10 kg. During some periods wider skows without wings have been popular. Now, hulls are narrow and wedge-shaped, but with hiking wings stretching to the maximum permitted beam. Sail plans have evolved from cotton sails on wooden spars, through the fully battened Dacron sails on aluminum spars, to today’s sleeved film sails on carbon spars.
While foiling moths are mainly used in protected areas, they can also be used offshore. On 2017-01-21 Andy Budgen sailed Mach 2 a foiling International Moth Nano Project to complete the 60 nautical mile (nm) = ca. 111 km (1 nm = 1852 m) Mount Gay Round Barbados Race at a record pace of 4 hours, 23 minutes, 18 seconds, to established the Absolute Foiling Monohull record.
In 2021, the much larger 75 feet = 23.86 m foiling AC75 monohulls were competing. First, the Prada Cup series was held to determine who would challenge New Zealand in the America’s Cup. It ended with Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli/ Circolo della Vela Sicilia’s Luna Rossa defeating American Magic/ New York Yacht Club’s Patriot and Ineos Team UK/ Royal Yacht Squadron’s Britannia. Speeds were regularly over 50 knots = 92.6 km/h = 25.7 m/s = 57.5 mph. In the subsequent America’s Cup, Emirates Team New Zealand/ Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron’s Te Rehutai defeated Luna Rossa, to retain the cup. Here is a 10 minute summary of the last race. This video will also show the massive size and speed of these vessels.
Readers may, at this point, wonder why this weblog post is being written, especially when this writer has no interest in sailing such a vessel. He would only be interested in helping to make one for others to use and enjoy. The typical person who could be interested in this, is an inmate at a Norwegian prison, perhaps this unidentified person who drove at 288 km/h = 179 mph, through a tunnel, and bragged about it on social media. Working with cutting edge technology, and sailing at the limits this technology allows, should be a perfect combination of activities for such a risk-oriented person. The advantage of sailing is that it doesn’t put other people in danger, although I would want to have a high-powered rigid inflatable boat (RIB) available during test runs, to rescue this person when (rather than if) he capsizes.
Unfortunately, I don’t expect the prison system to welcome this suggestion. They seem to think that having inmates make pallets will in some way create law-abiding citizens. It won’t. A previous weblog has discussed Flow as a means of motivating inmates.