What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye.
I’m posting an image every day (or as often as I can). A photo, an image from the internet, a diagram or a map. Whatever takes my fancy.
Roof timbers
How would we manage without roof timbers? They are by far the most common form of support for tiles, slates, thatch, or any other waterproof roof covering. The roof timbers in the photo are a couple of hundred years old, but they’re not significantly different from Medieval or even Roman roof timbers. Even today, although the timbers are much slimmer and are pre-manufactured as truss structures, the principle remains that a wooden roof frame is constructed and then covered to form a roof. Good ideas tend to last a long time!
Is the same true for some of our institutions? From parliaments to town councils, from universities to infant schools, and from multinational corporations to village shops, many of the fundamental patterns are inherited from past generations. If it works well, why change it?
What other examples can you think of? But if you don’t want to ponder that question, just click on the image and enjoy those amazing roof timbers in more detail.
Themed image collections
The links below will take you to the first post in each collection
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What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye.
I’m posting an image every day (or as often as I can). A photo, an image from the internet, a diagram or a map. Whatever takes my fancy.
Windows have multiple functions, they let in light and they provide a view, if they can be opened they provide fresh air and allow a room to cool down, when they’re closed they prevent rain from entering and enable sunshine to warm the room.
Windows have been around almost as long as houses. At first the only opening was the way in and out of the building – think of a tent or an igloo, or an Iron-Age thatched hut. Later, other openings, too small and high to walk through, took over the functions of letting in light and so forth, and the doorway could then be closed off with a curtain or a wooden door.
Today we take all of this for granted, of course. As you know, I like to find parallels between the objects in the images and anything else that comes to mind. So today, I’d like to point out the parallel between a window allowing light and fresh air into a room and whatever it is that lets thoughts and fresh ideas into our minds. Some people are more observant than others, some of us have minds that are closed to certain ideas but open to others.
This time I’ll avoid drawing conclusions, but I invite you to give it some thought and share your own ideas and ponderings below.
Themed image collections
The links below will take you to the first post in each collection
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This new space launch system may well be the means by which we really do make spaceflight far cheaper and colonise, not just Mars, but any part of the Solar System that we wish.
It occurred to me that many highly significant events, situations and occasions pass us by almost unnoticed, only to burst into history and affect our lives rather later. I thought it might be fun to look at some of these, perhaps some historical examples. but also things going on today that might loom very much larger in future. I’m going to start with an article on some spaceflight technology that’s in the news precisely because it may be the start of human expansion into the Solar System.
SN9, an early prototype of Starship
Because I posted just five days ago on Starship‘s planned integrated test flight (IFT-4), and because of how that flight went (stunningly successfully) , now might be a good time to look at the significance of Starship in general and this test flight in particular.
Why was Starship built?
Good question. I’m glad you asked! SpaceX is by far the foremost builder and operator of space launch vehicles. So far in 2024 they’ve launched 52% of all rockets worldwide, and their share is growing. No other American rocket company and no other nation comes close!
The rationale behind their Falcon 9 was to build a reusable rocket to reduce the cost of launches. And although only the first stage and the fairings proved to be recoverable, that is still far, far more economical than building new for every launch. Falcon Heavy increased the payload capacity by using three boosters together.
The next step is to build a fully reusable system that will reduce kilogram to orbit costs by another massive factor and will make it possible to send over 100 tonnes to any destination in the Solar System. A further goal is to use this new system to build a self-sufficient city on Mars of, perhaps, a million or more people. That’s why Starship is being developed.
Integrated Flight Test Four (IFT-4)
Well, what can I say? The purpose of this flight was to go beyond IFT-3 which was a successful launch, but both the Super Heavy booster and the Starship orbiter were lost on their return through the atmosphere.
What was so remarkable about IFT-4 is that both parts of Starship survived. Super Heavy made it back to a precise location over the Gulf of Mexico (close to the launch site), and Starship made it half way around the world and also succeeded in reaching the ocean surface at essentially zero velocity and then plunged into the water.
The loss of both parts of the system was intentional and the flight provided useful data for further improvements. In the case of Super Heavy it may be possible to recover it following IFT-5, the launch tower doubles up as a catch tower, to grab the returning booster in mid-air. Starship suffered a lot of thermal damage, parts of it even melting, but despite that it made a good approach for a catch attempt to be tried later in the test programme.
Further work on both vehicles should improve things. But knowing both are capable of recovery, at least in principle, opens the way for almost certain success in the long term.
What does that imply? This new space launch system may well be the means by which we really do make spaceflight far cheaper and colonise, not just Mars, but any part of the Solar System that we wish.
Yes. Of course. We are a long, long way from colonising other planets. But for the first time it seems we may have taken a step that will enable us to at least try at some point in the future.
Steps in the future
Let’s finish by setting out possible further developments with some guesses about the timescales.
The next test flight, IFT-5, will probably come in late July. Any time between late June and late August seems possible, it’s really hard to say with any certainty.
A Superheavy booster will be successfully caught, if not on IFT-5 then certainly before the end of 2024. Once success is achieved, by mid 2025 it might be completely routine to catch both boosters and Starship spacecraft.
Some time in 2025 we should expect Starships to be reaching orbit with payloads (initially they will be Starlink 2 satellites).
We will also see the beginning of a system of tanker Starships capable of refuelling cargo and passenger Starships to travel to the Moon and Mars. This is not going to remain science fiction for very much longer.
Eventually the heat shield protection needed for Starship to return reliably to Earth will become safe enough that crewed flights can begin.
We might see the Moon Landing version Starship HLS take astronauts to the surface and return them to lunar orbit, but that’s quite some time away, maybe 2030 or later.
Automated Starship landers will carry equipment and supplies to the Moon and to Mars. At first they’ll remain on the surface as they will be a useful source of materials and potential habitats.
People will follow as safety issues are resolved, permanent settlements will become possible in both places.
Fifty years from now Starship and its successors will enable human exploration and settlement throughout the Solar System – on asteroids, moons of Jupiter and Mars, more or less anywhere will become possible.
See also:
List of SpaceX launches (excl Falcon 1 and Starship) – Wikipedia
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Barges were able to move goods of all kinds between London and the River Severn via Oxford, Cirencester and Stroud
The parapet at the NW tunnel portal (Click image to enlarge)
The Thames & Severn Canal tunnel was opened in April 1789. The work was a major engineering achievement at the time.
There had been serious difficulty with the contractor originally chosen to do the work. But now it was complete, and barges were able to move goods of all kinds between London and the River Severn via Oxford, Cirencester and Stroud.
Here’s a short extract from the Gloucester Journal from 4th May 1789.
By a letter from Cirencester, dated the 19th ult., we learn that a great undertaking of conveying a tunnel sixteen feet high and sixteen feet wide, under Sapperton-hill and Hayley-wood (very high ground) for two miles and a quarter in length, through a very hard rock, lined and arched with brick, is entirely completed, and boats were to pass through it on the 21st ult.
By this opening communication is made between the river Severn, at Framiload, and the Thames near Lechlade, and will be continued over the Thames below St. John’s Bridge, and so to Oxford, etc., and London, for conveyance of coals, goods, etc.
It is now navigable from the Severn to Themsford by way of Stroud, Cirencester, Cricklade, being filled with water for the purpose near forty miles.
At the time of its execution the tunnel was considered a great undertaking; old King George III visited and expressed himself astonished with it, and that part of the canal at the east end of the tunnel is called “The King’s Reach,” probably in consequence of the visit.
The opening of the canal did not take place until the month of December, 1789, and the Journal of Monday, the 30th of that month, gives the following description of the event: —” On Thursday last was effected the greatest object of internal navigation in this kingdom. The Severn was united with the Thames by intermediate canal, ascending by Stroud, through the Vale of Chalford, to the height of 343 feet, by locks there entering a tunnel through the hill of Sapperton, for the length two miles and three furlongs, and descending 22 [sic 16] locks, it joined the Thames near Lechlade.
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Together, all these engines produce 75.9 MN of thrust, much more than Saturn 5’s 34.5 MN.
The first question you might want answered as you read this title will be, ‘What on Earth is a ‘Mach diamond’?’ I’m glad you asked.
If you’re interested in rockets and spaceflight you may already know. Where there are rocket engines, there will be Mach diamonds (also known as ‘shock diamonds’). They are formed by the high velocity of the gases leaving a powerful jet or rocket engine. The shock waves created by this process interact with the ambient air around the nozzle, sculpting the exhaust into angled zones. When seen from the side, these appear as a repeated diamond pattern.
The largest rocket ever built is SpaceX’s Super Heavy booster designed to lift Starship to a high altitude on the first part of its journey to orbital velocity. This booster is powered by 33 Raptor engines clustered closely together; they behave rather like a single engine with a 9 m diameter nozzle. When the rocket flew for the second time in 2023, giant Mach diamonds appeared, 9 m across and 6 m in length. These truly are the world’s biggest Mach diamonds ever – by a very considerable margin.
This view shows all 33 Raptors firing shortly after liftoff on the 2nd flight test (IFT-2). Each engine bell has a diameter of 1.3 m and the rocket itself has a diameter of 9 m. Together, all these engines produce 75.9 MN of thrust, much more than Saturn 5’s 34.5 MN.
Here’s an image of the IFT-2 vehicle shortly after launch. The first Mach diamond is very sharply defined, subsequent diamonds less so as the exhaust plume slows, cools and becomes more ragged. Four can be clearly identified with some hints of a fifth and sixth.
So what is happening here? How are the diamonds generated?
Because a rocket engine is all about producing thrust, the velocity of the exhaust is paramount. Rocket engines are designed to maximise velocity and in doing so they minimise pressure. Inside the combustion chamber, pressures are extremely high; but the bell shape of a rocket nozzle expands the gases and directs them downwards. The pressure inside the exiting plume is much lower than the ambient air pressure. This pressure difference ‘squeezes’ the plume and prevents it spreading out sideways.
Higher in the atmosphere, air pressure is lower and the mach diamonds vanish; as atmospheric pressure drops away towards the vacuum of space, the exhaust plume spreads out sideways more and more because the exhaust gas is now at a higher pressure than the diminishing, surrounding air. Notice how the spacing of the diamonds decreases with distance from the rocket. This is because the exhaust velocity is falling off as the plume interacts and mixes with the air around it.
That’s the essence of the process in everyday language. Check the links below if you want more technical detail.
Notes from bygone years – Julys duly remembered Hint: Click on the thumbnails for larger images.
A year ago
On 7th July 2022 I noted that ‘the Conservative party is in a state of confusion right now’. Not a lot has changed in the last twelve months; it seems the Conservative ship is still foundering. I included a picture of a sinking ship in my article, here it is again. I also argued for a general election as soon as possible and we’re still waiting on that one! So the big question now is, ‘Will the Conservatives still be in power in July 2024?’ Hard to say, isn’t it! In my judgement it’s very unlikely, but we’ll have to wait and see. The last possible date for the next general election is 28th February 2025. (See the original post.)
Starship’s first launch, 20th April 2023 – Image from Wikimedia
In July 2021, SpaceX‘s Superheavy Booster 3 was being tested at Boca Chica in Texas. They continue to develop and build boosters (and Starships too) at a prodigious rate, and have already launched the full stack on it’s first test flight. That flight failed to reach orbit, and caused serious damage to the launch mount but, following repairs, they are very nearly ready for a second attempt and have made a lot of changes following lessons learned from flight 1.
In July 2018 I shared an extract from my short guide, JDMC. I emphasised the work of the Holy Spirit in church life and looked at ways we can recognise and value his activity.
I didn’t want JDMC to be only about what we do, but more significantly about what Jesus does. (Read the original article)
Research shows we are often in situations where we’re amongst people we recognise, but know almost nothing about. In July 2013 I was thinking about this and how I might notice and engage with such people. (Read the original article)
In July 2008 I wrote about the famous Welsh hymn, ‘Dyma gariad fel y moroedd’ or in English ‘Here is love vast as the ocean’. Read about the hymn’s origins and listen to it in the original article.
July 2003 saw us meeting at home to listen to what the Spirit would say and watch what he would do. And of course, we were not disappointed. Afterwards I posted ‘Fallen and lifted up‘ to capture something of that evening.
In July 1998 we visited Kimbolton, just a short distance from our home in Tilbrook. Although it’s a village, Kimbolton always seemed much more like a small town with a market place and Kimbolton Castle, now a private school.
In July 1993 Judy, Debbie and Beth went to see a Sealed-Knot re-enactment of a Civil War battle. I didn’t go to this as I was probably at work at the time.
In July 1988 My Mum was sixty and we had a party at The Catherine Wheel pub in Bibury. Here she is unwrapping a present – a Mickey Mouse landline telephone. She had always wanted one of these!
In July 1983 my mathematician friend, Phil, and I had a scientific paper published. Phil built a mathematical model for the effect of temperature on apple pollen tubes. This was based on experimental measurements I’d made in spring 1982.
In July 1978 Beth was just two months old (whoops, I think I just gave her age away). We were living in a terraced house in Yatton and I was working on plum and apple pollination.
In July 1973 I inspected the base for a greenhouse with my father-in-law, Ron Hill. Here we are, having a good look. As you can see, Ron’s garden in Charlton Kings was beautifully maintained.
In July 1968 I celebrated my 20th birthday. I don’t remember the occasion, but it would have involved a bit of a party with my Mum and Dad, my three sisters, Judy, and possibly her parents and brother too. From my current perspective it seems a very long time ago!
In July 1963 I was 14 years old and we might have been on holiday, but more likely it would have been August. In any case, here’s my Dad taking a photo of the family on the beach on the coast of Ceredigion, Wales.
In July 1953 I was four, turning five and hadn’t yet started school. Mum, Dad, my little sister, Cindy, and I lived in Queen Anne’s Road on the Beeches estate in Cirencester.
July 1948 was the month I was born. I was one of the first two children to be delivered at Cirencester’s new maternity hospital. It’s now the main building of today’s Cirencester Hospital.
The podcast discusses whether it may be possible to develop AGI without causing an existential threat to humanity. This is a hugely important issue, we all need to be informed and we should all have an opinion.
Personally, I think the threat is real and potentially impossible to stop with very little time for effective countermeasures.
It’s fair to say that few people are currently thinking about the future of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). Those who do are mostly researchers and engineers working on the topic.
The hope is based around alignment, a term used broadly to mean the degree to which an AGI can be made to conform to human goals and objectives. Poorly aligned AGI would probably be diasastrous and unsafe, well aligned AGI might be beneficial and safe. And let’s be clear at the outset: there are concerns about how AGI (and even current technology like ChatGPT) will cause disruption and harm by affecting social behaviour or employment in the way new technologies have done in the past. But that’s not what we are addressing here. The more significant thinking is about the existential threat to humanity. Will an AGI spell the end, will it render humans extinct?
Nor are we discussing here whether or not it will be possible to develop an AGI, some people argue not, that there’s some kind of unbridgeable leap between current AI systems and an intelligent system with thoughts, ideas of its own, and self-awareness. But we know this is incorrect; such a system has already been created by evolution – humans! This level of intelligence is achievable and it’s already been done. It may take time, it might not be easy, but developments in neural networks and related systems will lead to AGI sooner or later. ChatGPT can already write workable computer code – just think about that for a moment.
The hopeful news
The hopeful news comes from OpenAI, the company that created ChatGPT and the GPT software behind it. They have found that process supervision produces better results than outcome supervision. And this gives us a much better chance of understanding how the AI makes its choices. Process supervision feeds back on the quality of the interim stages of an AI’s processing; but outcome supervision feeds back on only the quality of the final result.
Understanding how an AGI works might help developers build in robust alignment features; and if process supervision is more effective than alternatives, it stands a good chance of being employed by developers.
The less hopeful news
The unhopeful news comes from discussions about the nature of risk and human thinking about risk, expressed in discussions on LESSWRONG and elsewhere.
Closing thoughts
Currently, only a very small number of people are concerned about a possible existential threat from AGI. But most of the people with that concern are some of the same people that have knowledge and experience of AGI, what AI can currently do, and how quickly the systems might advance and escape our control.
Personally, I think the threat is real and potentially impossible to stop with very little time for effective countermeasures. But I also think it might just be possible to avoid the danger, but only if we have binding international agreements and strong oversight. However, I further suspect that it might be impossible to agree those necessary measures completely enough, rigorously enough, or fast enough to be fully effective.
In my judgement we are on rather shaky ground, and the more people who give this serious thought as soon as possible, the better. When the stakes are so very high there can be no such thing as too careful or too thorough.
For such an alarming topic it’s a remarkably calm discussion, but also a very informative and thought-provoking conversation.
The rise of AI and the possibility (some would say certainty) that this means the end of human civilisation and the extinction of our species, are topics being seriously warned against by a number of thinkers, scientists, and AI experts.
The Guardian discusses these issues with ‘the father of AI’, Geoffrey Hinton.
Listen to the podcast and see what you think. The potential end of humanity is not something to be swept under the carpet. We need to think about it right now. It would be extraordinarily foolish to wait, it might already be too late. For such an alarming topic it’s a remarkably calm discussion, but also a very informative and thought-provoking conversation.
I believe everyone should have the chance to listen to this.
In May 2022 we visited St Neots in Cambridgeshire, our home town before moving to Cirencester where we live today. We were visiting friends for a big party in their local village hall.
Pretending to be on a tropical beach
The whole thing was themed for a Caribbean feel, and we all had our photos taken against a backdrop of palm fronds, a golden beach, and sparkling sea dotted with distant islands.
In May 2021 I took a photo of this plaque in Black Jack Street, Cirencester. It commemorates 1900 years of the town’s existence, founded by the Roman invaders in 75 AD. I wonder what they’d make of it now?
The phoenix rising from the ashes has long been Cirencester’s emblem. Corinium, as the Romans called it, was a frontier settlement in 75 AD and the years immediately following, but it grew to become the regional capital of south western Britain – the province of Britannia Prima.
In May 2018 I wrote about the work going on in our new house. The builders had done much of the work on the new extensions, but nothing was finished yet and a lot of our possessions were inaccessible – including our summer clothes. And the weather was getting warmer and warmer!
In May 2013 I was reading ‘The Shaping of Things to Come’, an excellent book by Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch. Amongst other things, they remark on the fact that Jesus was a Jew, the New Testament was written almost entirely by Jewish authors (the exception being Luke), and the earliest church (in Jerusalem) was Jewish in nature too. If we are to understand Jesus, the New Testament, and the church, we have to pay attention to their Jewishness. Read the original post.
May 2008 – We had a holiday in Catalonia and visited Barcelona where we took a look at the famous Sagrada Familia with its amazing ‘biological’ shapes. What an astonishing place it is!
To learn more about this wonderful feat of design and engineering by the architect Antoni Gaudi, read the Wikipedia article.
In May 2003 I was reminded about the significance of rivers and their behaviour and about the river in the books of Ezekiel and Revelation. Life is not about the mundane things we do from day to day, and we don’t get far by our own abilities. Real life has an essentially spiritual focus. I wrote a blog post about a meeting that helped me see these things more clearly.
May 1998 saw me designing an automated news website for internal use by research teams at Unilever. I’d only been in the job for a month, and I already had an overall mechanism in mind and was working on the programming required.
In May 1993 we made some very large bubbles in the back garden. We had a special bubble-making kit with a large fabric loop on the end of a wand. It was an amazing process! The picture shows my daughter Beth and nephew Tom experimenting with a bubble.
In May 1988 I was working at Long Ashton Research Station near Bristol, developing techniques for imaging water droplets on waxy leaves by rapid freezing and scanning electron microscopy. This led to a paper on the topic.
In May 1978 I borrowed a friend’s car (we didn’t have a car at the time) and drove with a very excited daughter to visit her baby sister at Bristol Maternity Hospital.
In May 1968 I was in lodgings in Pershore, working on a fruit and vegetable farm nearby as part of my undergraduate degree at Bath University. It was a sandwich course in horticulture, and the summers were the industrial experience part of the course.
Journeys of Heart and Mind 
