Winter Moon in the City

There was a nice morning moon yesterday (early December). Fresh white snow, blue sky, nice day for a winter morning walk. 

 

 

There is plenty of other content about moons at the blog.  Just click on the tag "moons".  Here is a sample, about Jupiter's moon Europa, which is thought to possibly have life in its oceans below the ice (caused by tidal heating).  Perhaps the interstellar object 3I/Atlas will give it a look, as it passes by Jupiter this spring.

https://dodecahedronbooks.blogspot.com/2016/08/jupiters-moon-europa.html

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And here is a book plug for a novel that features moons quite a bit (note that blogger seems intent on throwing in lots of different fonts today - that's just how it rolls sometimes):

The Witches’ Stones Book 2: Love and Intrigue Under the Seven Moons of Kordea

Go on a romantic science fiction adventure with Terran Confederation agents Sarah Mackenzie and Coryn Leigh as they grapple with the forces of Earth’s galactic rival, The Or, a their own growing attraction for each other. 

The novel is about 100,000 words and is priced at $3.99 U.S. (or equivalent in other currencies). It is also available on Kindle Unlimited and is periodically offered as free promotion.

 

It is also available in paperback at Amazon, currently priced at $9.99.

Amazon U.S: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00YGB2KC0

Amazon U.K.: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00YGB2KC0

Amazon Canada: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B00YGB2KC0

Amazon Germany: https://www.amazon.de/dp/B00YGB2KC0

Amazon Australia: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B00YGB2KC0

Amazon Japan: https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B00YGB2KC0

Amazon India: https://www.amazon.in/dp/B00YGB2KC0

Amazon Spain: https://www.amazon.es/dp/B00YGB2KC0

Amazon France: https://www.amazon.fr/dp/B00YGB2KC0

Amazon Italy: https://www.amazon.it/dp/B00YGB2KC0

Amazon Netherlands: https://www.amazon.nl/dp/B00YGB2KC0

Amazon Mexico: https://www.amazon.com.mx/dp/B00YGB2KC0

Amazon Brazil: https://www.amazon.com.br/dp/B00YGB2KC0

Here’s a more detailed summary of the novel:

The feisty, ESP-talented Earth woman Sara Mackenzie has arrived on the anomalous planet Kordea to take up studies in Witch-lore, among the race of wise women on that planet, known as the Circle Witches of Kordea. The Terra Confederation Agent, Coryn Leigh, who helped her to escape the clutches of the authoritarian enemies of the democratic Terra Confederation, has also arrived on Kordea, taking on the diplomatic posting of the Kordean-Terran Liaison Officer. His duties include helping the Witches to keep Sarah and the cache of ESP-enhancing gems known as amartos, or Witches' Stones, safe from their enemy’s hands. That adversary, known sometimes as The Organization, will stop at nothing in their attempts to grab the Stones and an ESP-capable human, in order to gain the ultimate power with which to take over the inhabited galaxy.

It is not long before the planet Kordea comes under attack. The Organization turns their latest weapon upon the planet and its unusual moon, Lina. That moon is nearly wrested out of its orbit - only the emergency interventions of Sarah and her colleagues can prevent planet-wide catastrophe.

It becomes clear that Sarah, Coryn, and others, including the Witches of Kordea, must undertake a risky project involving an undercover mission to destroy this threatening super-weapon, in order to safeguard Kordea and the peace of the galaxy.

At the same time Sarah and Coryn have to deal with their growing attraction to one another. Coryn is in a conflict-of-interest position, since he has taken on a guardianship role toward Sarah, necessitated by his new, diplomatic position. Sarah, on her part, must struggle with self-doubts: about her looks, her worth, even her identity—although not about her ESP abilities, which are considerable. They must struggle with their personal dilemmas, even while trying to counter the enormous threat to the democratic way of life of the humanity of the galaxy.

Race Track Diary, Entry Number Six: Century Mile Racetrack (April 11, 2025)

 

Race Track Diary, Entry Number Six

Century Mile Racetrack (3) (April 11, 2025)

Introduction

This blog and some following blogs are sections from an informal diary of “visits to the race-track” at a particular time and place, by a person who has followed the races with varying levels of participation over a long period. These relate primarily to some visits to the track and/or off-track betting venues in the 2025 period and onward. They contain observations about the activity, both specific and general. Although these remarks are personal, they also reflect general cultural and historical trends, as they have impacted horse-racing, wagering and culture in general.

The setting is Edmonton, Alberta, Canada (population of about one million plus). However, I imagine that the observations would apply to many places in the world, as they are a reflection of how changing trends in technology, globalization and culture in general have affected this ancient and honourable activity of horse-racing.

For now, I will use what I call “polished point-form” for the narrative.

Century Mile 3 (April 11, 2025)

• This is the third visit to Century Mile. My brother Craig seems to like this place, though I would also like to hit a few other spots, for a complete tour of race-track betting shops in the area. Some of the places far from the city would be interesting.

• Long ago, the only off-track betting one could do was in a place called Wetaskiwin, about a 45 minute drive south of the city. It drew fairly good crowds – some rural people, and some Edmonton people who wanted to get out of town and bet on the spring meet, which was going on in the nearby city of Calgary. I had a great spring meet there one year, lots of early speed horses were coming in at excellent prices. That was a good deal of fun.

• So much for memories. Now we can bet on horses at any of a number of tracks in North America, depending on what was being simulcast that day. Betting on a local bunch of racehorses that mostly ran between a few tracks in western Canada seems like a story from the distant past, but it wasn’t actually all that long ago. You really got to know the horses and riders in those days. Now, it’s all numbers – too many horses to ever get a feel for it in any way but numbers. That said, I was always a numbers person anyway.

• On this day in 2025 there was a pretty good afternoon crowd at the new racetrack, Century Mile, by the standards of our visits so far this year. This was a Friday afternoon, so that may have had something to do with it. The weather was also very pleasant for this time of year in central Alberta, so undoubtedly that also helped.

• Some of the guys behind us were a bit boisterous, but not in an irritating way. I heard someone say that they were a crowd that generally played the races from Fitzgerald’s, another local offtrack betting shop that Craig and I have visited. That place had a pretty good atmosphere, but the machine that printed programs and racing forms didn’t work on the day that we were there. Not good for someone like me, who likes to speed handicap, using horse’s past performances. For that, you need a program.

• Another guy, who was sitting in front of us, was a pretty good fellow. We chatted a bit, but not so much as to detract from the business at hand (i.e. racing). When he left, he gave us his program for Keeneland, which still had a few races to go. So, that was nice, though I didn’t win any of those. Apparently that is in Lexington Kentucky. The grass already looked very green and lush – they have a turf track as well as dirt.

• Another one of the tracks was called Evangeline. We didn’t know where that was, but I guessed Louisiana, based on the well-known poem by Longfellow. The fellow in front of us seemed to recognize the reference, and agreed about that. He looked it up, and we were correct. You never know when you will run into someone educated in the classics, even at the racetrack.

• The waitress was a bit of a looker, quite pleasant, according to the fellow who gave us the Keeneland program. She seemed a bit standoffish to me, but maybe that was just because I got some chips and a beer rather late in her shift. She perked up when she saw a decent tip on the payment machine. They had a fairly nice IPA draft beer, and their French fries and gravy are reliably edible.

• There was something interesting about the cutlery that came with the French fries – they were magnetic. After taking them out of the cloth serviette, I moved the fork handle, sliding it along the counter. It happened to be next to the knife, and when I moved the fork, the knife slid alongside of it. Voila! The cutlery was magnetized! Apparently magnetic knife bars are a thing (they can be used for storing knives on a wall). However, this was the cutlery itself that was magnetized.

• And it was a fairly strong magnetization at that, though not strong enough to pick up one implement with other (I tried – they were fairly substantial implements). The other odd thing was that I could get them to attract, but not to repel. Theory tells you that they must have been acting as bar magnets, so they should have had both a north and south magnetic pole. Nonetheless, I couldn’t get them to repel, no matter how I arranged their orientations. It was as if magnetic monopoles actually exist, but only when made into knives and forks.

• I displayed this trick to he waitress. She was very surprised and was not aware of their being magnetic. She gave me an odd look at that time, when I think about it. Maybe she thought that I was somehow behind this phenomenon.

• Enough of exotic physics. Back to the races. We got there at about 1:30. Many of the racetracks on tap were well into their cards by then, up to the 5^th or 6^th race already. I picked up a program with past performances for Aqueduct, a big popular track near New York City, not far from the airport there.

• For such a big track, some of the fields were pretty small (i.e. not many horses in some races, even less after considering scratches). But, there is a lot of money in that area, so one assumes that the racing will be high quality (i.e. honest). In terms of betting, that didn’t really help me much. They weren’t really running to form, as they say.

• We also tried a few races at Oaklawn Park. Apparently that is in Arkansas. Not much luck there, either.

• Oddly enough, our big break was at Woodbine/Mohawk, in Toronto, with the bucket pullers (i.e. harness horses). I handicapped some horses on a race late in the day, and Craig threw in a lucky long-shot, so we won a pretty nice trifecta.

• Harness races have the virtue of being pretty easy to speed handicap, as the races are all at a mile; that makes races easy to compare. The program also shows the actual times for each horse, not just the time of the winner, so there is very little tedious transforming the data.

• For the thoroughbreds you need to do something like this (not easy mental math, if there are a lot of past performances to consider):

  • Horse time = winner time + (lengths behind winner * 0.2), in seconds.

• As noted above, the nice score on the trifecta meant that I left the track with more money than I arrived with. That always makes the visit seem worthwhile.

• As during an earlier visit, the horse-racing cashier was closed by the time we were leaving, so I couldn’t cash in my voucher there and had to go to the casino cashier instead. Some day, I will meet the mysterious cashier of the horse-races, but that day is not here yet.

• Traffic on the way back was quite reasonable, which isn’t usually the case. I don’t know why it varies like that, it is one of those little mysteries of life, something like the horse races themselves.

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Since I am running a book publishing blog, here is a plug for a horse-racing oriented short story that I wrote.

A Dark Horse

In “A Dark Horse”, a gambler’s desire to hit a big win seems to lead him to make a Faustian bargain with a supernatural evil.  Or is it all just a string of unnaturally good luck?

The story is just $0.99 U.S. (equivalent in other currencies) and about 8000 words. It is also available on Kindle Unlimited and is occasionally on free promotion.

U.S.: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01M9BS3Y5

U.K.: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01M9BS3Y5

Germany: https://www.amazon.de/dp/B01M9BS3Y5

France: https://www.amazon.fr/dp/B01M9BS3Y5

Italy: https://www.amazon.it/dp/B01M9BS3Y5

Netherlands: https://www.amazon.nl/dp/B01M9BS3Y5

Spain:https://www.amazon.es/dp/B01M9BS3Y5

Japan: https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B01M9BS3Y5

India: https://www.amazon.in/dp/B01M9BS3Y5

Mexico: https://www.amazon.com.mx/dp/B01M9BS3Y5

Brazil: https://www.amazon.com.br/dp/B01M9BS3Y5

Canada: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B01MDMY2BR

Australia: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B01M9BS3Y5

Here’s an interesting review from Goodreads

(BTW, the writer has never met the reviewer and was not even aware of the review until very recently – You can look up the review on Goodreads, if you like)

A Dark Horse

Every gambler is bound to run out of luck eventually, right?

By far my favourite type of horror is psychological horror. I was quite pleased with how Mr. Olausen frightened his audience without spilling a single drop of blood or so much as hinting at anything gory. He knew exactly what hints to drop for us that made us deliciously dread the next scene simply by throwing out hints about who or what the dark horse might actually represent. This is the kind of stuff I love getting scared by, especially as Halloween approaches.

It would have been helpful to have more character development in this short story. While I certainly wouldn’t expect to see as much time spent on this as I would for a full-length novel, I did have trouble connecting to the main characters due to how little I knew about them and how much their personalities seemed to remain the same no matter what happened to them. If not for this issue, I would have felt comfortable choosing a much higher rating as the plot itself was well done.

I must admit to not knowing much about gambling at all, so I appreciated the brief explanations the narrator shared about how placing bets works and why some people have so much trouble walking away from a bet. While I will leave it up to experts on these topics to say how accurate everything was, I did enjoy learning more about the main character’s addiction and what he hoped to gain from betting on just one more game or race. It gave me a stronger sense of empathy for folks in his position.

A Dark Horse – A Gothic Tale was a deliciously chilling story for the Halloween season and beyond.

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And here is a book about my dad’s sapper unit that I wrote:

The Sappers' War: 12th Field Company Royal Canadian Engineers, Oct 1943 to Sept 1945

What follows is a review of the history of the 12th Field Company, Royal Canadian Engineers, primarily relating to the time that the company was in the Italian and Northwestern European theatres during World War II. Though the book focuses on the experiences of a particular company of Canadian military engineers, it also discusses some of the wider issues of the second world war and how it affected the people wholived through the era, civilian and military. Among those are my father (a sapper or military engineer) and mother (a war worker in wartime Britain and ultimately a war bride).

Thus, this is meant to be an informal and unofficial history of the company, written by an interested party in an effort to understand what these men went through during this period, and how that experience affected them and other people who lived through the war. The military aspects of the company's history are there (e.g. training, fighting, building bridges, detecting mines, maintaining routes), as are the cultural factors that influenced them and their times (e.g. the movies that they watched, the drinking they did, the many diseases they faced, their interactions with the Italian, British and other civilians that they lived among, their worries for the future). Some focus on life on the British home front is also given, via the experiences of my mother and her family.

Since many people had family and relations that lived during this time, it is my hope that the account will be of general interest to them, and to any that have a particular interest in this critical interval in history. Also, though the text relates specifically to Canadian sappers, I believe that many of the experiences will be common to the soldiers and loved ones of other nations who lived through the war, especially Americans and those from Britain and the British Commonwealth.

The primary sources of this document are the 12th Field Company War Diaries and related orders, with some material from The History of the Corps of Royal Canadian Engineers, Volume 2 as well as various official histories by the Department of National Defence. Various other published sources are used as well, especially when discussing the wider issues of the war or the army experience (e.g. Churchill’s history of the war), or conversely when relating very specific episodes of the war (e.g. Popski’s Private Army in late 1944). Personal accounts of my father’s or mother’s stories also augment the narrative. I have tried to fit those in during appropriate time periods, though some stories are more general and have therefore don’t necessarily relate to the time period being discussed. Nonetheless, they do help capture the essence of “being there” during the war years.

The War Diary is a day by day account of the primary activities of a given unit, as recorded by personnel in the headquarters staff of that unit, and signed off by the commander of the unit. As such, it is an official record, though the writers often brought a bit of their own character into the document. Naturally, as a relatively brief document it can’t hope to capture the complexity of the individual stories of 280 or so men, so the family lore generally has no corresponding entry in the War Diary, though there are sometimes tantalizing hints and near-verifications of these personal accounts.

There are a number of other sources for the book, from official histories to popular history books. I include quotations and references from these works (an eclectic mix), as I believe that they also shed light on different aspects of this period of time, and besides that, are just interesting accounts, in and of themselves.

U.S.: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09HSXN6Q2

U.K.: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09HSXN6Q2

Germany: https://www.amazon.de/dp/B09HSXN6Q2

France: https://www.amazon.fr/dp/B09HSXN6Q2

Spain: https://www.amazon.es/dp/B09HSXN6Q2

Italy: https://www.amazon.it/dp/B09HSXN6Q2

Netherlands: https://www.amazon.nl/dp/B09HSXN6Q2

Japan: https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B09HSXN6Q2

Brazil: https://www.amazon.com.br/dp/B09HSXN6Q2

Canada: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B09HSXN6Q2

Mexico: https://www.amazon.com.mx/dp/B09HSXN6Q2

Australia: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B09HSXN6Q2

India: https://www.amazon.in/dp/B09HSXN6Q2

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Finally, since I mentioned magnetic monopoles, here's a novel that I wrote in which these particles (which may or may not actually exist) figure prominently.  Just for the record, I do have a degree in physics/math:

 

The Magnetic Anomaly – A Science Fiction Novel

The novel version of The Magnetic Anomaly is now available on Amazon (ebook, print version, also audible version soon to come). The cover images are by Corrie Olausen an up-and-coming book illustrator of my acquaintance.  :)

Summary

Two young Earth scientists, Alex and Mary, get caught up in a vast conflict, based on an accidental finding that they make at a diamond exploration camp in the far north. Eventually, this discovery leads them on a perilous quest and involvement in an interstellar war, a conflict of literally cosmic proportions with a rogue AI, which considers itself duty-bound to destroy sentient life (or, from its point of view, liberate sentient life).

During this time, they encounter a variety of enigmatic persons, as well as other entities, all of whom are also engaged in this struggle. With some of them they end up allying; with others, they contend in deadlyconflict. The struggle takes them around the world, and eventually into the far reaches of the solar system.

During this time their relationship continues to evolve and deepen. Circumstances demand that they grow in courage and confidence, though within the scope of (mostly) normal people, as has been the case for countless people throughout history.

The story also showcases some historical events, relating to different versions of what went on in Antarctica, shortly after World War 2. Several versions of these events, official and unofficial UFO lore are given. This becomes a springboard to much of the action. Some philosophical and scientific concepts are also explored, though not in such a way as to get in the way of the plot.

Amazon:

U.S.: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F9J3HHFW

UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0F9J3HHFW

Canada: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0F9J3HHFW

France: https://www.amazon.fr/dp/B0F9J3HHFW

Italy: https://www.amazon.it/dp/B0F9J3HHFW

Netherlands: https://www.amazon.nl/dp/B0F9J3HHFW

Spain: https://www.amazon.es/dp/B0F9J3HHFW

Japan: https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B0F9J3HHFW

Mexico: https://www.amazon.com.mx/dp/B0F9J3HHFW

Australia: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B0F9J3HHFW

Germany: https://www.amazon.de/dp/B0F9J3HHFW

India:  https://www.amazon.in/dp/B0F9J3HHFW

Brazil: https://www.amazon.com.br/dp/B0F9J3HHFW

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Halo Moon

Halo Moon 

A couple of nights ago, there was a beautiful halo around the moon. These don't really do it justice, but it's worth a try. Note: the green thing near the bottom is not 3I/Atlas, but part of a clothes line. 

It was a cold, clear night with great seeing, but ice crystals created a nice halo, that had quite quite a few colours in it, though primarily the GBIV part of ROYGBIV.

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And here is a book plug for a novel that features moons quite a bit (note that blogger seems intent on throwing in lots of different fonts today - that's just how it rolls sometimes):

The Witches’ Stones Book 2: Love and Intrigue Under the Seven Moons of Kordea

Go on a romantic science fiction adventure with Terran Confederation agents Sarah Mackenzie and Coryn Leigh as they grapple with the forces of Earth’s galactic rival, The Or, a their own growing attraction for each other. 

The novel is about 100,000 words and is priced at $3.99 U.S. (or equivalent in other currencies). It is also available on Kindle Unlimited and is periodically offered as free promotion.

 

It is also available in paperback at Amazon, currently priced at $9.99.

Amazon U.S: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00YGB2KC0

Amazon U.K.: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00YGB2KC0

Amazon Canada: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B00YGB2KC0

Amazon Germany: https://www.amazon.de/dp/B00YGB2KC0

Amazon Australia: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B00YGB2KC0

Amazon Japan: https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B00YGB2KC0

Amazon India: https://www.amazon.in/dp/B00YGB2KC0

Amazon Spain: https://www.amazon.es/dp/B00YGB2KC0

Amazon France: https://www.amazon.fr/dp/B00YGB2KC0

Amazon Italy: https://www.amazon.it/dp/B00YGB2KC0

Amazon Netherlands: https://www.amazon.nl/dp/B00YGB2KC0

Amazon Mexico: https://www.amazon.com.mx/dp/B00YGB2KC0

Amazon Brazil: https://www.amazon.com.br/dp/B00YGB2KC0

Here’s a more detailed summary of the novel:

The feisty, ESP-talented Earth woman Sara Mackenzie has arrived on the anomalous planet Kordea to take up studies in Witch-lore, among the race of wise women on that planet, known as the Circle Witches of Kordea. The Terra Confederation Agent, Coryn Leigh, who helped her to escape the clutches of the authoritarian enemies of the democratic Terra Confederation, has also arrived on Kordea, taking on the diplomatic posting of the Kordean-Terran Liaison Officer. His duties include helping the Witches to keep Sarah and the cache of ESP-enhancing gems known as amartos, or Witches' Stones, safe from their enemy’s hands. That adversary, known sometimes as The Organization, will stop at nothing in their attempts to grab the Stones and an ESP-capable human, in order to gain the ultimate power with which to take over the inhabited galaxy.

It is not long before the planet Kordea comes under attack. The Organization turns their latest weapon upon the planet and its unusual moon, Lina. That moon is nearly wrested out of its orbit - only the emergency interventions of Sarah and her colleagues can prevent planet-wide catastrophe.

It becomes clear that Sarah, Coryn, and others, including the Witches of Kordea, must undertake a risky project involving an undercover mission to destroy this threatening super-weapon, in order to safeguard Kordea and the peace of the galaxy.

At the same time Sarah and Coryn have to deal with their growing attraction to one another. Coryn is in a conflict-of-interest position, since he has taken on a guardianship role toward Sarah, necessitated by his new, diplomatic position. Sarah, on her part, must struggle with self-doubts: about her looks, her worth, even her identity—although not about her ESP abilities, which are considerable. They must struggle with their personal dilemmas, even while trying to counter the enormous threat to the democratic way of life of the humanity of the galaxy.

 

 

 

 

The Recent Windows 11 Upgrade and Related Technology

 The Recent Windows 11 Upgrade and Related Technology Shenanigans That I have Known and not Loved 

We have just passed the Day of Doom for Windows 10 computers (Oct 14, 2025), wherein they will no longer be supported by Microsoft, via updates to the operating system. There is the possibility of getting a reprieve for a year, if you pay a $30 shakedown fee and diligently sign on to your MS account (which must now have, even if your system is a standalone one). To compound the high-handed nature of this MS move, EU and UK users will not have to pay the $30 fee.

So, what happens if you just ignore all this and go ahead with using your W10 computer without the benefit of upgrades? There is a potential cost and benefit:

• Cost – you may get hacked, as you don’t have the Microsoft updates, which are (in part) meant to block such attacks.

• Benefit – You won’t have to pay 30 bucks, be forced to have an MS account or have to suffer through bad upgrades of Windows 10 or 11.

Bad Windows upgrades are a problem. Within the past few months I have lost the Bluetooth drivers for two devices – one a radio/audiobook device and the other a wireless mouse. A Windows 10 update blew away the radio/audiobook drivers and a Windows 11 upgrade blew away the wireless mouse upgrade. I still haven’t got the radio working and I switched to a regular cabled mouse to solve that problem. (I do have a Windows 11 machine in the house as well as my regular Windows 10 machine).

To compound the Windows 11 problem, my HP printer (Laserjet Pro MFP M227 fwd) won’t work with W11, due to driver incompatibility. HP has discontinued this model of printer (its about 7 years old, lightly used, works fine), so there are no drivers available.

A Solution

The most obvious solution to these problems is to just desert the Windows system, in favour of some version of Linux. So that’s what I did with the orphaned Windows 10 machine.

To be precise, I set up a dual boot on that W10 computer that can’t be updated to W11. There seemed to be no point in getting the one-year extension for $30, as Microsoft has said that this is a one-year shot and nothing more. After that, you are on your own, against the hacker ecosystem.

I put Linux Mint on one partition and W10 on the other. The machine has a big hard drive, so space isn’t a problem. It took a while, but it seems to be working. We will see if that continues.

I had a dual boot Windows7/Linux system on a laptop some years back and liked that. But eventually neither Windows nor the version of Linux that I had would recognize the internet. The hardware was too old to upgrade to new version of Linux and/or you needed an internet connection to do so, which of course, I no longer had on that machine. However, at about that time I had to get a new computer to work from home (i.e. Covid lockdowns) so it wasn’t actually an issue anymore. That said, I might try to rescue that old laptop out of curiosity, now that I have more experience with the Linux install. Of course, that might be impossible by now. 

Earlier Operating System Computer Shenanigans

This stuff has been going on for a long time. Here are some examples from my past experiences:

• My Microsoft Surface tablet quit working after I had attempted to use an aftermarket power supply unit, when replacing the original unit, as the cord had frayed badly. I don’t know if MS even makes these anymore. Besides, had W8 on it, which Microsoft has cast to even farther outer limits than Windows 10.

• My Apple iPad quit working, for the most part. Its Amazon app was good for reading books, but it and/or Amazon quit supporting it, so it was no longer useful for that. Then, it went into some weird loop upon opening it up, telling me that "AppleTunes space is full", over and over again. So now, all it is good for is as a clock and alarm. It lets me know when it is 8:00 a.m., since I set up the alarm to do that long ago. Basically it has died (or been killed), with only the ghost of the alarm clock duck remaining (on weekdays). I guess that’s something.

• An ink jet printer quit working when I used a recycled ink unit some years back. It (the ink) was sold by the University of Alberta bookstore, so presumably it was not a sketchy ink unit. But it seems as if some of these printers had a way of identifying a non-OEM ink supplies and were programmed to shut down when that happened.

I could add more, but you get the point.

Summary

Big corporations routinely decide that your device is no longer to be supported, regardless of what condition it is in (e.g. the Windows 11 forced transition). Added to that, there is issue of Bluetooth drivers constantly being clobbered by updates (MS has a notoriously poor Bluetooth stack). Consumers have a natural wariness of technology because of these practices.

Consider the so-called "Internet of Things". Imagine that one day you discover that your refrigerator or oven stopped working because it doesn't have the latest software or chip. But, hey, you can just buy another appliance from the company that discontinued your current one. And it will be great because there has been some trivial change that you didn't want or need. Ditto for your furnace, your water heater, your AC, your toaster, your light bulbs, your dishwasher, your wall clock, etc.

So not only is this stuff not needed, it also makes you captive to forced obsolescence on a huge scale. I think most consumers know this explicitly, or at least intuit it. So, they simply don't trust the concept of internet of things.

This feeds into cynicism about corporations and governments. For example, why do governments insist on banning plastic bags and plastic straws, but allow corporations to force people to throw a way hundreds of millions of working computers, printers and other peripherals? From an ecological standpoint, it makes no sense.

Anyway, I could continue the rant, but I will leave it at that (for now). Though I could go on and on about how we are having unwanted AI shoved at us constantly...

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And here is a somewhat related book which I wrote, that deals with what might happen if and when computer companies really take AI to the logical limit:

Energy and Other Constraints on a 3I/Atlas Type Object, if it is of Artificial Origin

 Energy and Other Constraints on a 3I/Atlas Type Object, if it is of Artificial Origin

There have been speculations that the interstellar object 3I/Atlas might be of artificial origin, rather than being a natural object. This is obviously highly contentious, but I thought it would be interesting to see just how likely it would be for a civilization much like the Earth’s to send an object on an interstellar journey.

Even now, we know that Earth has already sent an interstellar object or two on their way out of the solar system. These are rather small probes, such as Voyager, Pioneer or New Horizons, that were sent to study the outer planets and as a result of those missions, are now proceeding out of the solar system. So, clearly it can be done, though it must be kept in mind that gravity assists (so called sling-shots) increased the velocity of these craft, such that they were significantly faster than they would have been with launch energy alone. That required some very specific orbital manoeuvres and planetary alignments – those conditions would not necessarily exist for other hypothetical journeys out of our solar system or out of any similar solar system.

Energy Constraints

So, I did a very high-level (i.e. approximate) analysis of the energy budget possible for a craft, using the energy various sources that we now have or could soon have, here on Earth. Those are:

Energy Available

Fuel                                              Mass Density (Kg/M3)     Energy Density MJ/Kg

Methalox (Methane/Oxy)             810                                         10

RP-1 with Oxidizer                     2074                                          12

Hydrogen, Liquid & LOX             641                                         17

U-235 (25% enriched)                 4000                                     3,900

Hydrogen, Fusion (DT)             4000                                     15,600

Here are the escape velocities from some points within the Solar System.

Energy Required to Escape the Solar System

Initial Point     Escape Velocity (km/sec)

Earth             42.1

Mars              34.1

Ceres             25.3

Jupiter          18.5

Saturn          13.6

Uranus           9.6

Neptune         7.7

Pluto             6.6

The basic idea is simple (below is the example of a 10 km radius "spacecraft", similar to the 3I/Atlas speculations):

• given a radius for the object, calculate the volume (assuming a sphere)

• make some of this the fuel mass and some of it the object mass, using representative densities for both.

• This example postulates a very high porosity in which a metholox (liquid methane and liquid oxygen mix) fuel supply could be contained.

Radius

- km 10

- m 10,000

Volume (assuming sphere)

- km3 4,189

- m3 4.19E+12

Mass (kg)

Fuel Methalox

- mass density (kg/m3) 810

- porosity 90%

- total fuel mass 3.05E+15

Non-Fuel (rock/metal)

- mass density (kg/m3) 3,000

- pct non-porosity 10%

- total non-fuel mass 1.26E+15

Total Fuel & Non-Fuel Mass

- porosity 90%

- Mass 4.31E+15Energy

Energy density (MJ/kg) 10.0

- Total (max avail, MJ) 3.05E+16

- porosity 90%

- Total, given porosity est. (MJ) 2.75E+16

For a very rough estimate of the velocity that could be obtained by burning this much fuel, given the mass of the object, a simple kinetic energy calculation is used. This assumes that all of the available energy could be "somehow" converted to the kinetic energy of the object:

Escape Velocity (km/sec)

- from solar system

Starting at Pluto

- km/sec 6.6

- m/sec 6,600

Escape Velocity – Kinetic Energy Required

- from solar system

Earth

- 6.65E+16 MJ

So, about 6.6 X 10E16 megajoules would be needed, but only about 2.8 X 10E16 megajoules would be available, even given simplistic and unrealistically optimistic estimates of the theoretically available energy. That gives an Energy Available/Required ratio of only about 0.41, not even half of what is needed to escape the solar system, even from the distance of Pluto.

Perhaps a significant payload could be launched out of a sun-like star’s solar system with a long series of gravity assists, though that would probably be extremely complicated and time consuming. Perhaps a long series of "stepping stones" might work, moving slowly to the outer parts of the system, always making use of local resources, such as dwarf planets, comets and asteroids.

However, if nuclear energy could be used, the situation would be dramatically different, due to the huge energy density of nuclear energy sources. Even from Earth distance, it could probably be done if enough enriched uranium was available and the object was assembled far from the Earth’s gravitational influence. I think the surface or near-surface of the object would have to be festooned with nuclear reactors, at least of the power of hundreds of nuclear submarines. At any rate, the energy would potentially be there, if it could be converted into kinetic energy (maybe by accelerating ions in a strong electric field).

The case is improved further, if the object was powered by fusion energy from deuterium-tritium reactors, should those actually be feasible. The main advantage would be availability of fuel. That would be even more true for deuterium- deuterium reactors. Again, the object’s surface and near-surface would probably have to contain hundreds of such reactors and devices for accelerating ions in strong electrical fields.

Detailed calculations for several fuels and several solar system distances from the sun are given in an appendix at the end of the blog.

Other Constraints

The next obvious question is "who would want to do this, given the vast expenses and the long time scales involved?". After all, even at fantastic velocities (e.g. 1000 km/sec) it would take millennia to get anywhere interesting. (e.g. at about 30 billion km per year, it would take about 1000 years to get to Alpha Centauri).

I think it would have to be a long-lived species, very possibly a non-organic one, that could make plans and then execute those plans on time scales like this. That assumes that members of a machine species could actually exist without breakdown for those kinds of time scales. On Earth, I don’t think we have kept any machine running for even centuries, let alone millennia.

So, my conclusion is that something like 3i/Atlas could conceivably be artificial, but it would indicate many technologies that we have still not achieved and planning horizons and motivations that we can’t even begin to comprehend.

That said, I suppose if something is possible, it might well be done, eventually.

Appendix

Below is a table with back-of-the-envelope calculations for various types of fuel and various distances from the sun-like central star.

Assuming Asteroid Radius=10 km
Starting from 1 AU (Earth Distance)
Initial Point	Earth	Earth	Earth	Earth	Earth
Initial Point escape Velocity	42.1	42.1	42.1	42.1	42.1
Fuel	Methalox	RP-1 with Oxidizer	Hydrogen, Liquid & LOX	U-235 (25% enriched)	Hydrogen, Fusion (DT)
Porosity	90%	90%	90%	90%	90%
Energy Available:	2.75E+16	8.47E+16	3.68E+16	5.29E+19	2.12E+20
Energy Required:	2.71E+18	6.93E+18	2.14E+18	1.34E+19	1.34E+19
Energy Index (Avail/Required)	0.010	0.012	0.017	3.96	15.84
Starting from 1.52 AU (Mars Distance)
Initial Point	Mars	Mars	Mars	Mars	Mars
Initial Point escape Velocity	34.1	34.1	34.1	34.1	34.1
Fuel	Methalox	RP-1 with Oxidizer	Hydrogen, Liquid & LOX	U-235 (25% enriched)	Hydrogen, Fusion (DT)
Porosity	90%	90%	90%	90%	90%
Energy Available:	2.75E+16	8.47E+16	3.68E+16	5.29E+19	2.12E+20
Energy Required:	1.78E+18	4.55E+18	1.40E+18	8.77E+18	8.77E+18
Energy Index (Avail/Required)	0.015	0.019	0.026	6.04	24.15
Starting from 2.77 AU (Ceres Distance)
Initial Point	Ceres	Ceres	Ceres	Ceres	Ceres
Initial Point escape Velocity	25.3	25.3	25.3	25.3	25.3
Fuel	Methalox	RP-1 with Oxidizer	Hydrogen, Liquid & LOX	U-235 (25% enriched)	Hydrogen, Fusion (DT)
Porosity	90%	90%	90%	90%	90%
Energy Available:	2.75E+16	8.47E+16	3.68E+16	5.29E+19	2.12E+20
Energy Required:	9.77E+17	2.50E+18	7.73E+17	4.83E+18	4.83E+18
Energy Index (Avail/Required)	0.028	0.034	0.05	10.97	43.87
Starting from 5.2 AU (Jupiter)
Initial Point	Jupiter	Jupiter	Jupiter	Jupiter	Jupiter
Initial Point escape Velocity	18.5	18.5	18.5	18.5	18.5
Fuel	Methalox	RP-1 with Oxidizer	Hydrogen, Liquid & LOX	U-235 (25% enriched)	Hydrogen, Fusion (DT)
Porosity	90%	90%	90%	90%	90%
Energy Available:	2.75E+16	8.47E+16	3.68E+16	5.29E+19	2.12E+20
Energy Required:	5.23E+17	1.34E+18	4.14E+17	2.58E+18	2.58E+18
Energy Index (Avail/Required)	0.05	0.06	0.09	20.51	82.05
Starting from 9.6 AU (Saturn)
Initial Point	Saturn	Saturn	Saturn	Saturn	Saturn
Initial Point escape Velocity	13.6	13.6	13.6	13.6	13.6
Fuel	Methalox	RP-1 with Oxidizer	Hydrogen, Liquid & LOX	U-235 (25% enriched)	Hydrogen, Fusion (DT)
Porosity	90%	90%	90%	90%	90%
Energy Available:	2.75E+16	8.47E+16	3.68E+16	5.29E+19	2.12E+20
Energy Required:	2.82E+17	7.23E+17	2.23E+17	1.39E+18	1.39E+18
Energy Index (Avail/Required)	0.10	0.12	0.16	37.95	151.82
Starting from 19.2 AU (Uranus)
Initial Point	Uranus	Uranus	Uranus	Uranus	Uranus
Initial Point escape Velocity	9.6	9.6	9.6	9.6	9.6
Fuel	Methalox	RP-1 with Oxidizer	Hydrogen, Liquid & LOX	U-235 (25% enriched)	Hydrogen, Fusion (DT)
Porosity	90%	90%	90%	90%	90%
Energy Available:	2.75E+16	8.47E+16	3.68E+16	5.29E+19	2.12E+20
Energy Required:	1.41E+17	3.60E+17	1.11E+17	6.95E+17	6.95E+17
Energy Index (Avail/Required)	0.20	0.24	0.33	76.17	304.69
Starting from 30.0 AU (Neptune)
Initial Point	Neptune	Neptune	Neptune	Neptune	Neptune
Initial Point escape Velocity	7.7	7.7	7.7	7.7	7.7
Fuel	Methalox	RP-1 with Oxidizer	Hydrogen, Liquid & LOX	U-235 (25% enriched)	Hydrogen, Fusion (DT)
Porosity	90%	90%	90%	90%	90%
Energy Available:	2.75E+16	8.47E+16	3.68E+16	5.29E+19	2.12E+20
Energy Required:	9.05E+16	2.32E+17	7.16E+16	4.47E+17	4.47E+17
Energy Index (Avail/Required)	0.30	0.37	0.51	118.40	473.60
Starting from 39.5 AU (Pluto)
Initial Point	Pluto	Pluto	Pluto	Pluto	Pluto
Initial Point escape Velocity	6.6	6.6	6.6	6.6	6.6
Fuel	Methalox	RP-1 with Oxidizer	Hydrogen, Liquid & LOX	U-235 (25% enriched)	Hydrogen, Fusion (DT)
Porosity	90%	90%	90%	90%	90%
Energy Available:	2.75E+16	8.47E+16	3.68E+16	5.29E+19	2.12E+20
Energy Required:	6.65E+16	1.70E+17	5.26E+16	3.28E+17	3.28E+17
Energy Index (Avail/Required)	0.41	0.50	0.70	161.16	644.63

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