Author: Rick Sutcliffe

Is There Enough energy available to power our planet? Russia’s war of aggression and nation destruction has the obvious consequences of squeezing Western Europe on energy supply, as much of the oil and gas for that region comes from there–a deal done with the devil with payment now coming due, as Russia is counting on Europe blinking in the face of turned off taps. Given the choice between freezing this coming winter and abandoning Ukraine to dismantlement, it is difficult…

It’s often been said that  half of Physics can be summed up in the sentence “You can’t push on a rope.” The other half is: T M A U H S W T Well, the Spy has said both often enough, at least. It’s a common belief, reinforced by a boatload of Speculative Fiction led by Isaac Asimov’s books featuring thinking robots, that RSN (Real Soon Now) we will succeed in creating true thinking machines that will either be equal…

Technologically speaking it has been the worst of months, it has been the best of months, or perhaps neither. On the low tech side of things, the Acme engine (never terrific) on his 40+ year old BCS Mainline walk behind tractor that he lately uses only as a tiller, choked out its last while preparing his garden for planting. Moreover, it went out with a bang, one that in the Spy’s experience, strongly evidences a broken rod. Dead dead in…

The Spy has it on good authority that on Monday next week after the markets close, Apple will announce the takeover of one-time rival IBM for a cash and stock package valued at $162B, just under a 25% premium over where the latter’s stock was trading this week. Given that Apple’s own market cap at nearly $3T is some 23 times that of the company that once dominated the tech world, Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO brushes the purchase off in…

Last Month’s chat ended with Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping are no doubt laughing at the North Americans who must seem to them bent on destroying the very democracy we once touted as superior to their brutal and genocidal dictatorships. Surely they can now go to war, annex their neighbours (and eventually us) into a totalitarianism that brooks not a whisper of dissent from the glorious leader’s agenda, and expect the west to remain supine as it is swallowed whole….

A couple of recent purchases  are worth a mention here. First up is Apple’s second generation TV+ Siri remote –product A2540 with the aluminum case, now sold with the Apple TV. 4K, but also available for standalone purchase. This is the replacement for earlier iterations of the Siri remote in the black case–a rather poorly designed piece of work in the Spy’s view. Its touch pad was far too sensitive, making cursor control difficult, even haphazard. Moreover, it had no…

On the world stage, 2021 started with the failed violent coup attempt against the government in Washington, proceeded through an assortment of bad to worse COVID-19 news, the Afghanistan fiasco, deepening hostile divisions in the formerly more temperate and tolerant United States, worsening political situations in many parts of the world, the first potential breezes presaging the winds of war in India, Pakistan, China, Russia, Europe, and of necessity, the United States. The only plus for general peace was the…

It used to be that the three most important things to business success were location, location, and location. Today they are the content of your inventory, the content of your web site that permits access to ordering said inventory, and how content you make your customers (you don’t want your reputation slagged on social media do you?) Apple seems to consistently navigate all this in a manner that leaves many of its competitors in the dust. Yes, there have been…

Some four decades ago when many of us knew some form of net-based document linkage was coming, just not who would instantiate it and what form it would take, the Spy coined the term “metalibrary” to refer to the collection of all a society’s knowledge, in whatever medium, together with the means of accessing them. He reserved the term “The Metalibrary” for such  collection in electronic form, somewhat anticipating the linguistic distinction later adopted for “internet” versus “The Internet”. The…

To the thieves  who stole jewelry from my Bradner home on September 16–two questions: 1. How much did your fence give you for 52 priceless years of memories? Enough for a couple of fixes each of your favourite narcotic? 2. Why didn’t you also take the flowers in the living room? You could have made a “big spender” impression on your significant other. They were, after all, still fresh from my wife’s funeral. And a comment: I do not pray…

Joyce Sutcliffe March 5 1947 – August 27, 2021 Joyce Arlene Sutcliffe (nee Madland) was born at home in Surrey, B.C. on March 5, 1947 to Philip and Grace (Halls) Madland and lived her early life near Whalley’s corner. Her parents were in fellowship at Westminster Gospel Chapel, where at a young age she accepted God’s grace and received his gift of eternal life. She in turn has been a faithful and practical witness to Christ and his loving grace…

A hot summer gasps to an end in numerous western wildfires that spew smoke across the continent, the degree of Arctic ice melt is unprecedented, high temperatures and drought set records–all visual evidence that the climate is indeed changing, and more rapidly than even the worst pessimists once predicted. Meanwhile billionaires engage in a space race for publicity and pleasure, elected officials and influencers dispute whether election results, COVID, and violent insurrections are real or fake, vaccine deniers threaten their…

And the not entirely so grimas, once again, Canada persists in celebrating the Spy’s birthday a couple of daysearly and the Excited States a day late. ‘Course, both have been at it a tad longerthan he, so he extends best wishes that both will outlast him, despite at least someindicatiors to the contrary. Truth and ConsequencesThere was a time in the increasingly distant past when the truth of one’sstatements was considered non negotiable, for it had to founded on actualrepeatable…

With apologies to “Our Anne” (with an “e”) the Spy this months takes note of some notable disappointments, failures, and wonders who or what is on the brink. We start with the technological realm itself of course, but this column has always been about much more than machinery.  The industry giants have had their share  of embarrassments over the years. The much-touted, but poorly assembled Apple /// from late 1980 gets an honourable mention, as does the Power Mac powered…

Technology News and Views Since 1983May 2021 The academic realm   is often stereotyped as an impregnable, remote-from-life, unscalable ivory tower with little to say to the real world. The Spy’s corner of said kingdom is actually an ivory basement overdue for new carpeting and a coat of paint, and he likes to think his students are becoming well-equipped to tackle the real world–not just as it is today, but as it is becoming for the years to come. Oh,…

With the announcement this past week that  Volkswagen was to embrace the electric era by changing the corporate name to Voltswagen, the Spy decided to research the matter of pending corporate name changes and related issues. He made some fascinating discoveries.  And, in an exclusive to this intrepid reporter comes word on internal debates at Apple between those who want to embrace the current name and are trying to sell the slogan “An Apple a day keeps MS away,” and…

Some things just last longer than others Those comfortable old sweaters, housecoats, a few pants and shirts worn to threadbare, and even beyond as they get relegated to gardening work, the 91 Buick Regal we kept till last year, and traded in before it was really finished with life, the forty year old rototiller, the house the Spy built in 1992 (the one before that was 1972), this old column he started in 1983, the Church he’s been involved in…

Technology News and Views Since 1983February 2021 Why is understanding so difficult? The Spy’s opening lectures to both his first year calculus classes, and his third year computing students taking programming language concepts start with much the same words. “To date you have been shown recipes for ways to manipulate your algebras (that’s what a programming notation is) in order to solve a few canonical problems. But now, you are done with rote learning. This course focuses on what may…

January 2021 The Technology Industry did well in the otherwise annus horribilis of 2020. Remote teaching, learning, business and personal teleconferencing, combined with the need to outfit and/or upgrade home offices meant that sales of computing equipment finished well after a short-lived COVID-induced slowdown. Preliminary indications to the third quarter show that Lenovo, GP, and Dell still dominate the Windows-compatible market; Apple is increasing market share, and Chrome books are now dominating the bargain basement ultramobile market. Indeed, if the…

The global villagewas much touted back in the 60s and 70s. Better knowledge of our neighbours, countrypersons and those of other nations was supposed eventually to bring about unity, prosperity and a great love-in. The Spy has noted before in this space that his own prediction back in the day was quite the opposite, that the better we knew each other in an information age, the larger the divisions and even hatreds would likely become. He might today revise this…