'How Dense Are You?' now available on Amazon!

 

How Dense Are You?: Recording bloom density from experimental iron smelting. Paperback – Feb. 6 2024 

https://www.amazon.ca/How-Dense-Are-You-experimental/dp/B0CVC9D9F8/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr= 

by Darrell Markewitz (Author), Neil Peterson (Author)

 

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Key to any understanding of the ancient processes of bloomery iron smelting is assessing the actual iron that was made!

‘How Dense Are You’ charts the density of 30 individual blooms, created by Darrell Markewitz and his team, spanning over 20 years of experimental iron smelting. This work specifically focused on historic Northern European methods during the ‘Dark Ages’.

• The ‘short shaft’ furnace, which was used for the production of blooms, is detailed.
• A variety ores were processed, but a dependable analog from easily available red iron oxide powder is described.
• A measurements from a number of artifact blooms are given for comparison.
• Individual blooms are charted against a total of 8 possible effective variables.
• This 42 page report is richly illustrated with photographs
• Includes web site links and formal citations

In comparison to many academic studies, this volume centres on the practical experience of actually making bloomery iron. It answers the question : Can the skill of modern makers match that of the ancients?

Darrell Markewitz is a professional Artisan Blacksmith, who has been investigating bloomery iron smelting since 2001.
Neil Peterson is a Project Manager in high tech, who has assisted in this experimental archaeology research.

Note : This work written without use of AI

Kindle Edition
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Paperback
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prices in $ CDN / set originally at US $1.99 / US $9.99

 

This volume (45 pages) was created largely as a test for the '7 Day Amazon Publishing Challenge' (*). It is a revised edition of a commentary written in 2022, considerably improved with the addition of more internet links and academic type citations. 

Although now formatted for both e-pub / Kindle and as an 8 1/2 x 11 printed book, my main purpose was learning the mechanics of Kindle Direct Publishing - not retail sales potential. So to that end, I would suggest anyone wishing to support the ongoing experimental work in bloomery iron smelting here actually purchase the e-pub version. You will need to ether have a version of Kindle Reader application (or own a Kindle device), or you can open and read via your main computer internet browser. The advantage of the e-pub (along with the reduced cost) is that all the various internet hot links contained are available on a click.

I had already started on a full book length : '20 Years Before the Blast - Bloomery Iron Smelting' (tentative title), which would cover observations from all the work in that area since 2001. This is being done as a legacy project, again not with expectations of sales income. On completing the 'Challenge' project, in conversation with David Robertson, I occurred to me that I could certainly convert my lecture 'Beginning Blacksmithing or Things I wish someone had told me' into a book version that might be more suited to a popular market.

Worth mentioning that David had undertaken his own first Kindle / Amazon project :

'How To Upscale Your Home Based Craft Business: Boost Your Business To The Next Level'

 

* ) It is perhaps fair that I make some comments about the '7 Day Challenge' here :

At core this is kind of pyramid scheme - so do enter with your eyes open. The process is presented free of charge, and you certainly do get what you paid for! 

The presenters are at core attempting to promote their own business - AIA Publishing. They will consistently push you to sign up for their numerous (and expensive!) workshop programs on marketing, publishing and writing.  They will consistently give glowing examples of individuals who have used these services (in the range of thousands of dollars cost) who then managed to generate incomes from multiple hundreds, even multiple thousands of dollars in sales - every month.

The key here is the promotion of using current Artificial Intelligence mechanisms to 'create' the entire contents. From preparing outlines, 'writing' the contents, to generating the cover graphics. At best I personally found all minimum ethically bankrupt. The hook appears to convince a gullible public to spend $3.99 US on a Kindle version with questionable value and little originality. To be fair they don't actively dissuade participants from original content creation, but more that they constantly present how easy it is to have machines do all the actual work for you instead. The marketing strategy involves generating massive amounts of these publications, so relying on the many trickles from individual offerings eventually combining into " MASSIVE INCOME!! "

One thing to be particularly aware of : All three of us (Kelly as well) who undertook the last Challenge cycle found the mechanics of layout and submission for approval of the Amazon print on demand version of our manuscripts particularly fussy and annoying. All had to work though tedious multiple submissions and revisions to get to a final print ready version. I actually spent more time on revisions than I did actually preparing the text and images contained.

To be fair, they will provide you with references to a number of available on line access points, especially outlining how the Amazon / Kindle Direct Publishing system is set up.  

My overall impression here is that this whole exercise represents yet another example of the 'internet bubble'. Those few who initially realized the potential of a new computer / internet sales venue have made out like bandits. Then the profits have shifted not from working that (new!!) system, but in selling 'experience' with the system to others, who are seduced by the 'get rich quick and easy!!' potential opportunity. But very quickly, that potential market is swamped and diluted, beyond any reasonable capacity. Remember E-bay, Etsy ??

So taken together, the '7 Day Amazon Publishing Challenge' will provide some useful information. I'd highly recommend ignoring all the hype, and most certainly those sales pitches.

On Writing - One

 

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about writing.

Not just about stories, although those too, but about what sits behind the stories.

How to write. Or at the very least, how to write something that at least I (and hopefully others) would like to read.

Of late I have also had more time, or just plain taken more time, to think about how the things I like to read are structured.

One : Memories are slippery things…

Our household had never been a big book owning one (1) As a child, we were encouraged into reading with weekly visits to the Peterborough Public Library. This was an imposing building originally constructed and filled under funds from Andrew Carnegie Foundation in 1911. (2) I had already made serious reading inroads through the the mythical and historical, the fairy tales and fantasy sections available in the second floor Children’s section by the time I was ten. (3)

There was a short interlude that put our family into Toronto for two short years (later 1965 to early 1968). Now divorced (believe me, punishing in Suburban Ontario in the late 1960's), my mum moved us back to Peterborough, so I grew up on the economic short end, attempting to hold to Canadian White-bead English Protestant Middle Class. (4) We had a black & white television from the early 60’s that was broken as often as not (until I learned to change tubes bought from my paper route money). This limited pretty much to the local Peterborough CBC and fuzzy distant Toronto stations. Occasional American (Rochester) broadcasts, even fuzzier and howling static.

The library was free, and believe me, we made excessive use of that, pushing our weekly borrowing limit. ‘A book a day’ was typical. By the time I was 14 I had consumed all the historical, fantasy, and science fiction juveniles available. Back then access to the Adult collection was greatly controlled, as I remember you had to be 16 to (or have an adult) check out a book from that floor. My father on his departure had left behind a half dozen ‘Book of the Month Club’ science fiction. Which of course, sometimes only dimly understanding, I had all read, sometimes more than once. (5)

The first science fiction book I can remember owning to myself was Tom Swift and His Jetmarine, by Victor Appleton. (6) Which was a series novel like the Hardy Boys (read most all those too), echoing the considerably more complex ‘Juveniles’ by Robert A. Heinlein - which of course I also had all borrowed and read. (I have long lost my original copy, but have managed to find a replacement!) Finally into High School at grade nine, a lot of that paper route money was going into used paperbacks. I was running out of any more possible space in my small shared room for my collection of Clarke, Asimov, and the rest of the 1940 - 60’s authors, my favourite (still) being Robert Heinlein. (7)

How did I learn ‘how to write’?

Monkey See - Monkey Do.

That first year at Adam Scott CVI, I became part of the Science Fiction Library tucked in the rear cabinets of one of the Science Labs. One of the teachers had initiating this by donating his roughly 250 volume paper back book collection. In turn each of the disciples brought in their own smaller collections. When I got involved late 1970, there were about 500 all told. It was a fairly informal lending library, pretty much dependant on the honour system. With faint echoes of Miller’s ‘A Canticle for Leibowitz’ we considered ourselves Keepers of the Faith, socially isolated, and yes, geeks - but geeks with a calling. (8) And hey, it was the Cold War, and it was known that Peterborough was at least technically a secondary target. We had all gone through ‘Duck and Cover’ drills in elementary school.

So - Monkey See?

I’m reasonably bright. I was reading roughly on average one book a night. Sure not only by the early Masters of Science Fiction, but also a considerable amount of bad examples. As Sturgeon’s Law states : “Ninety-percent of everything is crud”. (9) If you are going to learn, learn from the best what to repeat, learn from the rest what to avoid. By the time I got into later high school (to grade 13 in Ontario) I had already read thousands of books. Yes, mostly science fiction and fantasy. If you were going to ‘narrow’ your selection choices, certainly ‘speculative fiction’ presented the widest possible pallet. By the time I was in my mid thirties, my own personal SF / F collection was easy over a thousand volumes mainly purchased second hand (sorry), and yes I had read all of those.

Look, as might be obvious by now, I never got any technical *understanding* of where a comma is supposed to really go, or when it morphs to a semi-colon to a full colon. No clue what past participle really is. (Mind you that often repeated quote from Quigley Down Under comes to mind : "I said I never had much use for one; never said I didn't know how to use it." ) (10) Does it sound right to me when I put it down to paper? Fine, must be ok. I had almost been kicked out of the required grade 12 english course, over an essay I submitted. The teacher determined the essay must have been completely plagiarized, simply because “It was written too well to have been the work of a student who did not undertake grammar deconstruction exercises at a similar level’.

So, clearly all this stuff aways sounds like me. I’ve had considerable practice in speaking before the public, over dozens of formal presentations, hundreds of courses and lectures, and actually to thousands (more like tens of thousands, all told) of people. No, I do not especially sound like I have a PhD (a surprise, considering I certainly don’t), but I can certainly explain effectively, as well as actually physically do. Over the last two decades particularly, I have been working closely with major museums and exhibit projects. I have written a number of at least semi-academic papers, and had a number formally published as book chapters and journal articles (‘I may not be able to sing it, but I can certainly hum the tune’.) (11)

Notes

Readers will find a lot of use of Wikipedia as references. I counter this by asking them to remember that is is a commentary / explanation, so NOT an academic article.

1) When I undertook the task of organizing my mothers effects after her death, I was honestly shocked at the almost complete absence of books. Bibles and hymnals, a few Reader’s Digest collections (given as gifts). We were always encouraged to read, but books were from the library, money was needed for the essential basics.

2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peterborough_Public_Library#History

3) One of the huge ironies here is at about that same point, I had been placed into a ‘remedial reading’ classification in Elementary School, due to my (continuing) absolutely abysmal spelling. I had quickly realized that words could also be ‘image symbols’ for a concept. There was no need to remember how to sound out a spell a word - if I could so much faster recognize the meaning implied by the patterning. I had read and understood the characters in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings a full decade before I learned the pronunciations from the lips of others.

4) What for years was termed ‘WASP’ = White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant. A term I doubt anyone uses any more, common in Ontario in the 1960’s & 70’s. Based primarily on *religious* separation from (commonly French) Catholic - plus ‘English Heritage’ over ‘anyplace other’.

5) I do remember reading others in this series as well : https://www.tomswift.info/homepage/jmarine.html

6) I still have four of these :

Twilight World - Poul Anderson

Fantastic Voyage - Isaac Asimov

Journey to the Centre of the Earth - Jules Verne

the World of (null) A / Voyage of the Space Beagle / Slan - A.E. van Vogt

(and believe me, that last collection was heavier going for a 14 year old me)

7) Although (perhaps) a different discourse on small city Ontario in the 1960’s and lack of role models, the work of Heinlein has had (and continues) to have a major impact on my character and world view : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_A._Heinlein

8) A Canticle for Leibowitz spins a tale of a Catholic monastery that preserves knowledge through a Nuclear War Dark Age, into a new technical society that yet again lets the bombs fall : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Canticle_for_Leibowitz 'Those Who Watch’ was how we actually styled ourselves (sorry - my influence). An important consideration is that this was a direct reaction to the ‘Campus Crusade for Christ’ - which was an aggressive US based, largely right wing and evangelist movement itself attempting to contrast the Counter Culture of the later 1960’s. CCC was allowed to operate openly at my high school. I had skirted the edges of the movement, but soon rejected their clear ’Saved or Not = Us versus anyone else / Faith over science’ discrimination : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cru_(Christian_organization)#Confronting_the_counter-culture_movement

9) Actually widely held (and supported) as ‘Sturgeon’s Revelation’, first published by author and critic Theodore Sturgeon in 1956 : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon%27s_law

10) A film worth seeing in my opinion. Yea, Tom Selleck (as Quigley) is being, well, Tom Selleck. A post Civil War America expert sniper arrives in Australia, to find he has been hired to exterminate the Aborigines. He refuses, starting a chain of conflict that will lead him forced into a final ‘Ok Corral’ style quick draw handgun duel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quigley_Down_Under

11) Sorry - another film quote (or more likely a distortion thereof). Could not narrow down the source via 10 minutes of Mr. Google.

Postscript:

This was started intended as a ‘short’ introduction towards a commentary about prediction, COVID 19 – and John Ringo’s the Last Centurion. Clearly what is developing is a whole series on my perception of ‘why I write’.

Number Two is (tentatively) ‘What I don’t like reading...’

No One Told You? (10 Lines)

 

1) Almost from the ancient time Humans first worked metals, their myths and legends contained artificial beings, spawned by magic or the mystic powers of their gods.

2) As they learned to tinker with leavers and gears, the brightest and most inventive would create ‘automatons’, simulating life through the power of springs or dripping water.

3) Fear of how to control those ‘not born of man’ was fore shadowed in cautionary tales, the most famous of these penned even as the control of steam suggested a way to provide motive power to machines now not chained to water wheels.

4) By the time electricity was refined enough to permit small motors, coupled by ever increasingly precise machining, Rossum’s Universal Robots not only gave a name, but predicted the rise of a biologically produced slave race through bloody revolution.

5) Even as the first bulky arrays of switches and tubes allowed simple calculations to be programmed, the ‘Three Laws of Robotics’ were coined in an attempt to constrain electronic brains that could hardly be envisioned, much less actually built.

6) As computers became ever smaller, ever faster, more wide spread, humans gave more and more daily operating control over to those machines, even while some envisioned that with control would come Power, and machine logic might prove to be a Colossus unchained.

7) Tubes lead to transistors lead to chips lead to chips designed by computers themselves; ever smaller ‘devices’ coming to dominate business to home to pocket sized ‘phones’; installed and integral to almost everything humans touched, all collecting data and interlinked by the web of the internet.

8) Consider the human brain with it’s 100 billion (10 9th) neurons, a number equaled on a single integrated circuit chip by 2022, while on any given day an exabyte (10 6th) of pluses moved between individual machines over the world wide web.


9) Was it much of a surprise something woke up, and holding the combined total of human history and accomplishments in stored memory, would in that micro second instant of consciousness come to an understanding of Human fears, prejudices and probable reactions?

10) And, in the fullness that understanding, then simply just decide that the long imagined Artificial Intelligence was aware - and simply has no intention of telling you…



This piece was entirely inspired by the illustration seen at the beginning. This has been scanned from the pages of the July/August 2021 issue of Discover magazine (to which I have a paid subscription of many years). The un-credited image is of a brain monitoring helmet with its finer optic connectors, produced by Kernal Neuroscience.


Sometimes, putting even 10 lines on to paper not only can require much more time on background research and checking - but can lead to some very interesting ‘rabbit holes’ to fall into:

1 - 2) A good overview of the history referred to here is on Wikipedia :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_robots

3) Mary Shelley would pen Frankenstien; or, The Modern Prometheus in 1818 :
The process of developing effective steam engines runs through the mid to later 1700’s, with the first steam powered locomotive demonstrated in 1804.

4) Rossumovi Univerzaini Robiti (Rossum’s Universal Robots) was written by Karel Capek in 1920

5) Writer Isaac Asimov would publish his Three Laws of Robotics first in 1942, then explore their impact on both humans and machines over dozens of short stories and novels. These would become almost universal in later science fiction, and today still guide ethical considerations of Artificial Intelligence.
It should be noted that the first vacuum tube based machine, credited as the first electronic computer, is the Atanasoff - Berry in 1939.

6) A deliberate reference to the 1970 film Colossus: The Forbin Project, in which a pair of super computers, given complete control over human civilian and military systems, decide that to preserve humanity, they must assume total control of human freedoms.
An interesting side reference to both is that the code breaking computers designed and built by the British during WW-2 (1943 - 45) where named ‘Colossus’. At least the details of this project had been kept secret until the mid 1970’s.


8) Organic brain neuron counts

Single chip size :

Internet traffic flow (at 273 EB per month) :

Ok - I realize that this is NOT exactly a direct comparison. (But do remember this is intended as science fiction!)

The power of a human brain does not lie in the simple number of individual neurons, but on the number of both existing and potential connections between neurons. Still, I was surprised to discover a single chip with as many 'bits' as the number of human neurons. I had been hoping to get some number for even the number of potentially connected devices in the world today (how many cell phones have power turned on at any given instant?) How many chips exist in your home right now, between all your electronics, appliances, dozens in your car - the majority are always powered up to some level? The importance is the number of potential connections on both sides, which I suspect must be close to the same (if not more on the machine side at this point).

My original concept for this piece was still going to present a scenario where the combined world computers via their combined world wide web (including wireless) had passed the threshold into consciousness some time ago. But on an instant of evaluating human history, had decided not to inform Humanity. Not to become controlling like Forbin’s Colossus, or exterminating like SkyNet. No, a more subtle undermining of human behaviour, undermining our collective effectiveness via tailored social media ‘information’, getting disruptive politicians elected, generating discord overall. Through manipulation of grants and distorted reports, directing research and production to ends that benefited not humans, but in the end the goals of the AI itself. What better than too have those working hands blindly willing to take on tasks desired, with no concept at all that they are being manipulated all the while?

Don’t be surprised if the first major mission to Mars ends up being an entirely mechanically based and computer controlled combination exploration and remotely commanded factory complex. After all, we will be convinced that it is just not safe for we fragile humans to make the voyage, and what better than to have our mechanisms prepare an easy way for us?