Elon Musk

Elon Musk

For a presentation to our U3A science and Technology group I’ve been researching Elon Musk. Musk who is about 45 and an American born in South Africa is a remarkable man. After making millions in Silicon Valley ( he was part founder of PayPal) he has used his money to found some amazing companies which may well transform our lives.

Firstly he helped to found Tesla, the electric motor car company. Tesla, although a minnow in motor industry standards with only about 50 thousand cars built last year, is valued greater than Ford. Not only is Tesla selling premium cars but more recently launched  a model designed for the mass market. Tesla also now owns Solar City a major US solar power venture. In conjunction with Panasonic Tesla is building a giant factory to produce batteries. The name of this, Gigafactory One hints at Musk’s PR obsession. The difference is that Musk while sometimes making apparently wild claims actually follows through and delivers. One gamble he is taking is to build a gigantic 100MW battery in Australia This he has undertaken to deliver in 100 days. If he fails on the 100 day target the battery will be free.

The most astonishing delivery of advanced technology has been with SpaceX. This rocket company founded by Musk is providing Falcon 9 rockets which are on contract to supply the International Space Station as well as selling satellite launches. One amazing thing about the Falcon 9 is that it designed to be reusable in a practical way. Musk is keen to reduce the cost of space launches. The Falcon 9 first stage lands back on barges at sea and then with refurbishment can be reused on subsequent launches.

Musk has near term ambitions to develop larger rockets and develop man rated spacecraft. At present the Falcon’s Dragon spacecraft is limited to delivering and returning freight. Musk has a headline grabbing habit recently shown by announcing a lunar flypast in 2018 with the yet untested Falcon Heavy and Dragon 2. Two very rich people are paying to be passengers on this trip.

Musk does have longer term ambitions which essentially are to travel to, and inhabit, Mars. His famous saying is that he would like to die on Mars but not on impact.. Although this ambition seems very difficult the track record of SpaceX suggests a serious attempt will be made. The hopes for colonisation of Mars are huge, with talk of a settlement of one million people. Obviously SpaceX  sees itself as just a pioneer and such immense plans will demand the involvement of many others.

Musk has been throwing off many ideas such as the apparently outlandish Hyperloop. This is for a sort of train in a vacuum tunnel which would travel at many hundreds of miles per hour. The maglev train would be powered by a linear electric motor. Trains in tunnels are hardly a new idea but serious attempts are being made to develop and test new technology. Part of his idea is to reduce the cost of tunnel boring- it has suited his sense of humour to set up “the boring company” to develop his ideas..

Another illustration of his humour is that the Falcon 9 recovery barges are named ( following the type of name used by the science fiction writer, Iain M Banks ) “of course I love you” and “first read the instructions”.

Trained in both science and business, Musk is now worth billions. He is putting a good chunk of that into developing the futuristic businesses above. Although he is an adept self publicist his ambitions have been realised so far to a remarkable extent. He has set out to change the world and he is well along the way.

His latest venture is to found Neuralink which is exploring man-computer interlinks. Again he seems to have in mind the neural lace of brain-computer interaction first presented as a science fiction idea.

Musk is famously cautious about artificial intelligence ( AI ). He has set up Open AI,  a non profit making company, to try to ensure that it’s development is benign.

Life outside earth

Life outside Earth

First of all dismiss any thoughts of UFO’s , visitors from another universe etc. The evidence is zero and all the speculation is bunkum. There are two main threads to serious investigation. The first is to search for microscopic, bacteria like life within our solar system and the second is the search for extra-terrestrial intelligent life( often abbreviated to SETI).

There are no little green men on Mars or anywhere else in the solar system. We have explored enough to be very confident about this. What there may be is bacterial life. Much of the exploration of Mars is presently driven by the search for bacterial life. These bacteria may well be dead, certainly the surface of Mars is too hostile for bacteria to survive. However there could be live bacteria underground.

The interest has been triggered by investigation of so called extremophiles on Earth. Over recent decades ideas about the conditions for bacterial survival has expanded a lot. High temperatures ( or low ), acidity and alkalinity, radiation, vacuum and many other environments once thought too hostile have in fact shown bacteria surviving and living. In fact the one thing thought necessary is liquid water.

It is the discovery that Mars once had water and maybe still has which has encouraged scientists to keep looking. It isn’t just Mars which is of interest. The moons of Jupiter and Saturn may also repay investigation. Enceladus, a small moon of Saturn, with a frozen surface is thought to have liquid water seas underneath an icy exterior. It shows monstrous plumes of geyser type which contain mainly water and a variety of other chemicals necessary for life. The energy driving this geological activity is thought to arise from tidal effects.

Exploration of life on Earth is not yet complete. Biologists have been fascinated by primitive eel like creatures around undersea hydrogen sulphide plumes. These are hot and tube worms use symbiotic bacteria to extract energy from the vented gas and derive nutrients from trace chemicals in the water

The SETI search is totally different. Essentially this looks for signals over astronomical distances typically using radio telescopes. The search was triggered by the now famous Drake equation. Essentially Drake put a guesstimate on the probability of life by multiplying up the number of galaxies, stars, planets, of planets containing liquid water  etc.. The numbers involved are so large that even if the probability is low for each factor life is likely.  Many billions of stars exist. Personally I’m very unconvinced as the unknowns are simply too large.

At any rate the SETI search has been going on for about 50 years. While some anomalies have been seen there is nothing consistent. Partly the problem is what to look for. While certain constants like the ratio of the radius of a circle to its circumference ( pi ) should be universal we don’t know how information may be encoded.

There is a more fundamental issue. Space is big, very big with distance often measured in light years( the distance light travels in a year, nothing travels faster than light ). This means that radio signals travelling at the speed of light would still take many years to reach us. The nearest star is just over 4 light years away and most stars are much, much further. It is likely that any signal would take hundreds of years to reach us. This means a two way conversation would be impossible unless some presently unknown physics is found. We would need to be content knowing we were not alone.

Ashby

Ashby

We make occasional trips to Ashby which is fairly easy to travel from home. Our main reason is to go to the St Giles Hospice bookshop. I’m clearing out some of my library and this charity bookshop is my chosen recipient. We can park fairly nearby so a short walk carrying heavy bags isn’t too much of a burden.

Having deposited books we then had a short walk around town. Annette is commissioned to look for T shirts for Alex. As these will be for casual wear we are looking in charity shops of which there are a number in Ashby. I thought we found two which were likely but Annette decided against both. It is a common observation that women like shopping while men tend to see it as a chore to be done as quickly as possible. I don’t mind lingering a bit, particularly if there is something of interest, but this expedition became tiresome.

We were also looking for large inexpensive ornaments with which to fill two alcoves on the stairs up to our Whitby flat. The staircase is rather grand and the alcoves need something on display. So far Annette has found a rather nondescript green vase which I feel is marginal and I’m sure we can do better. We also have a problem in that the alcoves are quite high and will need a stepladder.

After all this I felt we deserved a snack break. I suggested a Costa which Annette pooh-poohed as it is so expensive and, walking on, by chance came across the Copper Leaf craft café. Situated above a shop we were drawn by the sandwich board outside. It turns out the concept is rather interesting. This is to both be a modest tea room but also as the main business run craft courses and sell work exhibited on the walls.

The exhibits were somewhat similar to Annette’s work and she was very interested to examine them. I just sat and drank my tea and ate my flapjack.

The middle aged lady inside was delighted to have us as her only customers. She was obviously feeling starved of conversation with the result we practically had her history, the café history and most of all news about her son. At 14 he is moving from intermediate to senior school. The senior school with be Ashby School where my cousins attended 60 odd years ago.

To mark the transition a school prom had been organised the night before. We  had a blow by blow account from this proud mum. Apparently her son’s suit had cost £95 to hire while some of the girls were in dresses costing hundreds. Equally one looked charming in a slip dress and white trainers. All kinds of conveyances were used, stretch limos, horse and buggy, Hummers and loads more. The most original was apparently some boys in child’s pedal cars ( don’t know how they squeezed in we were told. ) All this accompanied by photos on her mobile phone

Annette is opposed to the leaving prom idea which has now become  commonplace. She sees it as an unfair popularity poll. I’m fairly agnostic- it just seems like a modern day version of school dances. I can’t say I ever enjoyed these, particularly as I was a rubbish dancer and very shy around girls..

The last one I attended was with Annette. She was quite determined that I should put up a decent show and forced me to rehearse with her beforehand. I suppose I was quite pleased really that she wanted to show me off. That practice stood me in good stead as it was about the only tuition I ever had, and have used ever since. I can do a ( very limited ) waltz and quickstep and that’s my repertoire. The twist was invented for people like me; so simple even a two left feet guy can manage.

Brexit

As the Brexit tragedy rolls on there  is disturbing news. British companies with EU operations are flocking to set up subsidiaries in the EU. An example in Easyjet setting up an Austrian base.

British Aerospace is excluded from the new Franco-German fighter plane.

There have been a ( few ) glimmers of hope as reportedly tech investment has held up.

There has been a slightly greater sense of realism since the election such as accepting that there is an exit bill to pay. Boris Johnson saying they can whistle for it is just plain stupid. We took on commitments such as pensions and long run programs. It is only fair we pay our share of these.

Yes it is boring to state these facts but you certainly won’t get them from the red tops. The latest insult is that ultras like Liam Fox are claiming it is unpatriotic not to back Brexit. Like too many others he must live in a dreamworld

Kings Norton school and summer fair

We went with Matt and the kids to join Frances at the school fair. This is being held on the same day as the Kings Norton Sumer Fair in conjunction with their monthly Farmers Market.

We have been to the school fair before. On a pleasant summer day the playground was covered with stalls. These were mainly of two types. There was the table top sales ( can’t say  car boot type as this needs a licence! ) by independents and the school games manned by the PTA. I guess there were roughly equal numbers.

Frances had a Lego card game to win a food hamper. Really this was pure chance, 30p to buy a card whose number is entered into the draw. Apparently the hamper was donated via the university indirectly as it was an acknowledgement from a group using university facilities. All the cards were sold; the last few by Annette going around with Alice and browbeating folk. Frances half shared with a table selling dress up clothes, board games, books and the like. This meant as well as Matt doing stints on selling others did also including us.

We were next to a rather strange table top with “Mad Moo” selling new personalised ceramics plus an eclectic range of children’s and adult clothes. Neither was selling and Mad Moo gave up and left early.

Part way through the event we went for a visit to the Kings Norton fair. This was held by the village green but mainly in the churchyard. This I always think is very strange. Although the area of the churchyard is largely grassed there is the occasional grave. Anyway the “performance area” when we visited was occupied by some lady tap dancers. They were fairly elderly and the pace was decidedly slow. ( This is not a criticism as I couldn’t do it myself )

We walked through the Farmers Market where we bought some purple sprouting broccoli plants and at a confectionary stall an apple Danish for me and apricot turnover for Annette.

Earlier we had beef burgers at the school fair. I must say these were better and cheaper that our village church fair but they were without onions.so swings and roundabouts I suppose. The burger meister was very chatty and I found out later he was former head of PTA. Burger server was apparently the headmaster. Several staff were helping in various roles. I was a bit taken aback to get a cheery greeting from one: I assume that was her default for any attendee. ( of course she may have been thinking “poor old soul, bet he doesn’t get out much “)

Next to France’s table were two old ladies selling plants for a hospice. They only had a few but the plants looked in excellent shape. We bought one and Frances a couple. I admired their pluck as sales were very slow. When they brought books for the nearby bric-a-brac stall I donated a pound to them as I admired their effort. Re-reading this I realise those old ladies were probably younger than me!

Inevitably at these things the kids bought various trinkets plus lots of tombola goes. Annette bought an evacuee costume pack for Alex at the next forties day on the North Yorks railway.

We were very pleased to see all the reception class had individual plants outside their classroom. Each was in a decorated tin can. We duly admired Ben’s

I wrote this a couple of years ago for the Tamworth LitFest website

Sue Grafton and the Alphabet Books

By Philip Hall

Sue Grafton is an American crime writer whose series of books all feature private detective Kinsey Millhone. Their titles are all lettered in sequence starting with A is for Alibi and now reaching nearly the end of the alphabet. Although there is slight sense of history moving on it moves much more slowly in the books. Kinsey is still the same thirtyish woman she always was and recent books are still set in the late eighties.

She lives in a tiny dwelling designed specifically for her by her landlord Henry. She and Henry are close. Henry is an old man in his eighties although Kinsey has been known to speculate that if he was much younger she would have married him. Henry is a strongly written character and his experience as a retired baker is a frequent source of comment.

Author Sue Grafton – image courtesy of Wikimedia

In fact Kinsey has been in two earlier failed marriages. The second ending abruptly when her husband left but later he is a character brought back to feature in a later book. Kinsey lives in the fictional southern California town of Santa Teresa, closely modelled upon real life Santa Barbara. Grafton makes use of the environment to create a strong sense of place. The books reflect Grafton’s exposure to American crime fiction with many features such as the location reflecting her fandom of earlier famed authors such as Ross Macdonald and John D MacDonald. Sue Grafton is the daughter of C W Grafton who was himself a thriller writer and she is steeped in the subject.

The character of Kinsey has suffered a traumatic childhood with her parents killed when she was five. She was raised by her strict Aunt Gin and this is reflected in her self reliant character. She pays little attention to her feminine attributes and generally deals with men at arms length. Henry is the man to whom she gives such affection as she can give. Henry has two older siblings one of whom marries Rosie, a rather comic character.

There are curious parallels between Sue Grafton and Sara Paretsky who created a somewhat similar character in V I Warsawski also a female private detective. V I is based in Chicago and is a rather more gritty person. Her underdog bias reflects the authors views. V I also has a strong friendship with her landlord, again a much older man called Mr Contreras. In both cases the older man are strongly involved partly with the women as surrogate daughters but in small part as unrequited lovers.

For both Grafton and Paretsky the plots are ingenious, even thrilling. They are both in the American private eye tradition but with the twist that the private eye is a woman. While not overtly feminist there is a sub text of female empowerment. Although the plots require subtlety and determination from the protagonists neither is averse to occasional physical action.

Both authors major on their chosen characters, Grafton never stepping beyond and Paretsky only rarely.

Gettysburg

In the early 90’s I gave a paper at an international conference in Washington on  replacements for ozone destroyers. This sounds posher than it is although speaking to an audience of hundreds was daunting. The idea was to put forward alternative cleaning methods which did not use chlorofluorocarbons ( known ozone depleters ). Following the Montreal protocol there was a very successful international process to replace ozone depleting chemicals with alternatives.

Castrol had a modest business in  ozone depleters and was anxious to do the right thing and replace them. It happened we had a relationship with a company which made very high pressure water jetting cleaning equipment. For use in cleaning steel components they needed a suitable corrosion inhibitor. Our existing one had some problems( it was essential not to entrain air ) and I put forward an inhibitor used by my metal working fluid colleagues. Fortunately this worked well- I say fortunately as I had no way of testing it as the high pressure was extremely high; many thousands of pounds per square inch.

So the paper I gave wasn’t particularly my work but I was the frontman. It happened that Castrol really had some new technology to show in lubricants compatible with new refrigerants. It was decided to have a stand at the show for this. The meeting was over several days and naturally when I wasn’t speaking I hung out on the stand. I was rather peeved one day when they all went off for lunch and left me holding the fort. I tried to speak with conviction to visitors about something of which I had only sketchy knowledge.

After the conference I travelled from Washington up to the Castrol laboratories which were en route to my departure airport of Newark. This travel was over a weekend so I could see something of the country. Travelling through Pennsylvania I was mildly surprised to overtake an Amish horse drawn buggy.

On my journey I made a small detour to visit the civil war battlefield at Gettysburg. I took the battlefield tour along roads bordered by cannon from the battle. I was very forcibly struck by how even handed everything was between the Union and the Confederacy. The Confederates were battling to retain slavery, the Unionists to abolish it. The battle at Gettysburg was a pivotal victory for the Union although you wouldn’t know it by visiting the site. The Confederacy is held in high esteem even now in the south and clearly there is a wish to pander to southern sentiment.

The site is also famous for Lincoln’s address made some months later to commemorate the dead. For this occasion a famous orator, Edward Everett, spoke for over an hour  while Lincoln added a few short words.. In about 200 words Lincoln famously expressed the democratic ideal concluding “ that we highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth”.

Leaving Gettysburg I stayed overnight in Philadelphia at a hotel on the outskirts. This hotel was by the freeway and I remember going out to local shops and having great difficulty in finding my way back. I could see the hotel but to get back to it. I had to get back on the freeway and off again to retrace my steps.

The next day quite by chance just as I was leaving a city tour bus came into the car park. On impulse I joined the tour which just consisted of myself and a group of middle aged ladies. They were very curious about me and hearing that I was from Oxford, England and had just been to a conference in Washington obviously concluded I was a high powered academic. I basked in their approbation which was completely undeserved.

The tour was very interesting and included the statehouse where congress first met, the Liberty Bell and Betsy Ross’s house. I was gently joshed for not knowing who Betsy Ross was. There is a story ( rubbished by Wikipedia ) that she sewed the first US flag.

When I eventually continued on my journey I passed through Oxford, Pennsylvania stopping to take a few photos ( sadly lost when my camera was stolen in Oxford, England )

I can’t help feeling that the Trump administration could learn some important lessons although equally the Gettysburg exhibition is almost fake news in its pandering to racists

Foden

Or ”how I visited a truck factory and bought a truck”.

I’m sure everyone who has travelled with children in a car knows the problem of entertaining them. Different things work for different children. Ellie and Nate now use a tablet during trips. This was frowned upon by us as likely to lead to motion sickness. My father-in-law had a game called “arms and legs”. This works for two by looking their side for pub signs and scoring numbers of arms and legs. The “Coach and Horses” is a jackpot as 4 horses scores 16 legs. Doesn’t work on motorways of course.

Alex liked to have Classic FM on the radio. I don’t think he had refined musical taste as he found it soporific and was asleep within a few minutes.

We were travelling regularly from Merseyside to the Midlands when our children were young. We had particular sights on the journey such as the gnome filled garden south of Stone. Particularly of interest was a full sized statue of a lady in a blue dress- sadly all disappeared years ago. We would alert them as we approached-“look out for the blue lady”

Of longer interest for Martin was lorry spotting. To keep it simple we spotted Foden trucks with their distinctive shield logo on the front. Martin could see this coming and easily identify it. I got a package of badges and literature from the factory and used the surplus to decorate my office- actually my part as it was shared.

One day a lady who worked nearby visited me, commented on the décor, and said her father had recently retired from Foden and would be delighted to give us a factory tour. Foden’s factory was in Sandbach not very far away so I was delighted to accept. Incidentally Sandbach was then the truck manufacturing centre of the UK . Not only were Foden there but a relative E R Foden also had a large business trading as ERF. Sadly ERF has disappeared having been taken over by German MAN   Foden is also very different now owned by Paccar of the US. Sadly latter day Foden’s are just rebadged DAF trucks from Holland and Lancashire. The factory finally closed in 2006

We duly took our factory tour. I suppose it was near the end of the 1970’s and Martin would have been 7. Foden had been noted for building a lot of components in house. For example most truck makers were assemblers of bought in components. Foden bought engines but made their unique worm drive rear axle. This was hopelessly uneconomic for a small scale manufacturer and was being discontinued when we visited. It was rather sad to see the massive machine tools lying idle. Although I didn’t know it the company was in crisis as users were no longer willing to buy expensive local trucks.

Foden had a long tradition as a supplier to the military; although we didn’t realise it was military business that was keeping the plant going. They were working on an order for gun tractors when we visited. These massive 6x6 trucks ( wheels as high as me ) were to tow the largest guns then in use at 155mm calibre. As well as towing, the gun tractors carried ready use ammunition.

We finished up in the canteen, and I bought a truck, a model one for Martin.