Apologies

are certainly in order, as the Spy let not just a day or two of July go by with no column, but the entire month. Put the lapse down to senility setting in if you will, for he simply forgot until queried at month's end by the editor of one of the magazines to which these random ramblings are syndicated. Even then, the Spy thought "no, impossible; I surely wrote and sent it, but for some reason he never received it." But no, time had passed by so swiftly, he never noticed. Time flies like and arrow, fruit flies like a banana, and Flench flies like ketchup.

No excuse, mind, but the reason was busy, busy, busy. The reader may recall that in November 2021 an "atmospheric river" dumped immense amounts of waTer on the BC Fraser Valley. The Spy's manse itself was unaffected, as by deliberate choice, he had built it on high ground. Indeed, from the house to the bottom of the ravine in which the two creeks flow into the property (and one out) is over 20 metres. Usually the combined creek never surpasses a metre or two wide and half a metre deep. The atmospheric river made a real river of it several metres wide and a couple to three deep, washing away one nearby path through the surrounding woods, and multiplying the accumulation of twigs, branches, mud, and downed trees choking up the creek bed.

In an attempt to work on this, the Spy suffered a fall, with some minor cuts and bruises, but followed up by a bad hernia that took many months of tests and waits to get a surgery date, but that meant he could do no more heavy lifting.

Along the way, his dean and boss suffered a concussion in a bad fall of his own, and the Spy found himself doing two jobs from November To February, working 14+ hours most workdays, except two weeks off from December fifteenth, the day after he marked final exams and posted letter grades (abolished in local schools up to grade nine; what are the theorists thinking?) for that ides was day of his surgery (local freeing and no pain killers due to allergies, so he got the full experience). Family did up Christmas with him mostly a spectator, shopping having done long in advance.

So, work on the creek with shovel, clipper, and trusty chain saw could not begin till late spring after he recovered and the incessant dry heat wave had emptied it except for a few tricklets here and there, and some mud, the latter exacerbated by a day or two of sloppiness on the part of the oil pipeline construction crew working upstream and in front of his property to twin the line. Did you know (calculus assignment) that the carrying capacity of a pipe increases by the fourth power of its radius--all other things, such as pressure differential, being equal, which they seldom are. Thus in theory, of two pipes, one 50% larger than the other, the larger one could theoretically handle five times the throughput, were pumps available to maintain the pressure and move that volume. (The practice of theory ain't the same as the theory of practice.)

That work led to discussions concerning this old man's safety out in the woods alone, and in turn to the strong suggestion he equip himself with a smart watch that could in a disaster call 911 for an ambulance. The Spy mulled this a while, recalling his once expressed opinion that he saw no particular use for Apple's smart watch, but in the end found the argument persuasive. Checking his "cash back" credit card that he uses for everything from peanuts to screwdrivers to yoghurt to airline tickets, he found there was more than enough owed him for the top of the line model and a couple of Pods to boot, so, having effectively already spent the money, he could tell himself "it's free so why not?" and he bit.

The new toy

albeit a practical one, or so he had convinced himself, is the latest ultra model, with titanium case, and both GPS and cellular. Apple claims it has up to 36 hours of battery life, but after seven weeks, the Spy would say that's the minimum when the display is set to always on and the watch is used extensively. If the display is instead set to activate when the user's wrist is raised, and the wearer in not watching security cameras or doing navigation on the linked iPhone--activities mirrored on the watch, and battery draining for both--the useable life between charges is at least 48 and can be has much as 72 hours. The standard Apple charger can top up the juice from three quarters empty in an hour or so, from one day's light use in minutes. A downside is that the phone gets extra work and now has to be recharged every night.

The price included a loop, so he added the trail model in black, but picked up a couple of others and some protective cases for variety and experimentation. The latter reveals that loops closing with a magnet are definitely contraindicated if one wants a reliable compass, as the magnet renders directionality completely random. His go-to loop has become a classic tortoise shell closing metal link loop in titanium from MaKTek. He tried a couple of cases, but found them of limited use, for water can easily get between the case and the actual screen.

In use, and though he has not yet full explored everything the watch can do, he finds the watch more practical than he expected, particularly for the health functions. Pulse and blood oxygen are readily taken. Not blood pressure, though. That would take a specialized band, one not yet available, so the functionality is not yet incorporated. Emergency calling does work, but is a little too aggressive. Several times while moving a rock or log down in the ravine, the watch became alarmed at sudden movements and assumed a fall. The emergency call had to be cancelled. Ah...I'm actually all right mommy watch. He also appreciates the variety of customizable watch faces, of which he has installed five. The page that displays all installed apps via icons is intimidating, though. What do all those little pics represent? Most are far less than obvious.

The bottom line? The watch is more useful than the Spy thought it would be, and he has some distance to go in exploring those uses. Recommended, though not everyone would want to go top of the line.

England and Europe

were the destinations he was preparing for in July, and where the Spy writes from late that month and in early August on a visit with family. Everything here reeks of history, much of the emphasis in the many museums being on the numerous wars that have wracked the continent for centuries. For instance, Juno beach stretches peacefully for an eight kilometre span, a stark contrast to the day Canada landed troops here along with Britain and the U.S. in their blood soaked but successful attempt to storm Hitler's Atlantic Wall and rescue Europe from Hitler's brutal, criminal dictatorship.

Technique/technology of the day was vital to the effort, from the cracking of the Enigma machine coding system, to the tanks, landing vehicles, air cover, and personal weaponry. Military strategy, deception, and a psychological warfare that played on the overweening egos of the oppressors: all can be seen as techniques, and also factored in that opening of the battle for Normandy, victory in which months later would become seen as the beginning of the end for one of history's more barbaric regimes.

But as the museums starkly depict, it was far from the first such war. Rather, there is scarce a square metre of land in Europe that has not been fought over, in most cases many times. For instance, Arras, from which this sentence is written, is the site of the largest surprise attack in military history. In WW I the Commonwealth nations joined up a number of underground chalk quarries under and near the all but destroyed village, where they built connecting tunnels and dorms far below the surface for 24000 troops before attacking in concert with ground offensives over a long front, including the Canadians at Vimy Ridge. Quite an amazing stunt, one that required precision timing and sophisticated (for the day) communication systems to coordinate, along with the expertise of the world's most skilled tunnellers.

There is scarce a modern nation of our world that has not seen war sometime in the past century, and most centuries in its past. Technique, if you will, the applied science of politics and warfare, played a role in all. It does again in war today and will in every one in the future.

Last month, the Spy mentioned the technology of AI. It too is harnessed in today's war rooms, as would-be war god Putin, makes yet another bid for a land grab while his henchmen openly say the real goal is to exterminate an entire nation with its people and language. Again there are those who would rather appease barbarity than defend the freedom of others, in the dreamy delusion that Ukraine's annihilation could not affect them. But there is no reason to imagine that another aggressor would stop until placing at least all of Europe under the iron fist, or that other extremists (including those already active in North American politics) would not then be encouraged to do likewise to internal minorities, external scapegoated enemies, or whole countries whose land they covet or whose people they regard as vermin.

It's not a video game any more, folks. It's the real thing. The technologically forged knives of war are being sharpened on all continents, and techniques already exist to sterilize the entire world of life by pressing a few red buttons. Going to vote for the extremist haters or going to do anything to stop or prevent another bloodbath that could include yours?

QEW

Quite enough war.

--The Northern Spy

Opinions expressed here are entirely the author's own, and no endorsement is implied by any community or organization to which he may be attached. Rick Sutcliffe, (a.k.a. The Northern Spy) is professor of Computing Science and Mathematics and Assistant Dean of Science at Canada's Trinity Western University. He completed his fifty-third year as a high school and university teacher in 2023. He has been involved as a member of or consultant with the boards of several organizations, and participated in developing industry standards at the national and international level. He was co-author of the Modula-2 programming language R10 dialect project. He is a long time technology author and has written two textbooks and ten alternate history SF novels, one named best ePublished SF novel for 2003. His various columns have appeared in numerous magazines and newspapers (dead tree and online formats) since the early 1980s, and he's been a regular speaker at churches, schools, academic meetings, and other conferences. He and his wife Joyce celebrated their fiftieth anniversary in 2019 and lived in the Langley/Aldergrove/Bradner area of B.C. from 1969 to 2021, where he latterly continues alone, depending heavily on family and friends to manage.

URL s for Rick Sutcliffe's Arjay Enterprises:

The Northern Spy Home Page: https://www.TheNorthernSpy.com

opundo : https://opundo.com

Sheaves Christian Resources : https://sheaves.org

WebNameHost : https://www.WebNameHost.net

WebNameSource : https://www.WebNameSource.net

nameman : https://nameman.net

General URLs for Rick Sutcliffe's Books:

Author Site: https://www.arjay.ca

TechEthics Site (Fourth edition of text; the fifth is in preparation) : httpss://www.arjaybooks.com/EthTech/index.htm

Publisher's Site: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Richard-Sutcliffe.html

Products mentioned

MaKTek's Amazon Site: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0BZMKJ2YF?ref=ppx_pop_dt_b_asin_title&th=1

Apple Canada: https://www.apple.com/ca/apple-watch-ultra/