sisyphean task

The always engrossing Kottke directs our attention to a classic, low-tech solution to a very modern problem with renewable energy generation: an innovative Swiss demonstration project that illustrates the efficient storage of energy in stacking heavy blocks.
We’ve previously explored how surplus energy (the excess over and above demand when the sun is shiny or it’s windy) can be “saved” for the doldrums by converting it from kinetic to potential energy, a controlled surrender to the struggle against gravity hard won in times of plenty with other applications—including dams and the Sisyphus Train—but this proposal which involves constructing and dismantling a tower seems especially precise and calibrated to needs. In its fully-charged state, a central crane would be surrounded with a block tower it built up using excess energy and when the power supply runs low, blocks are removed one by one and descend to the ground slowly, churning out electricity with a turbine in the process.

ultragoth

Thanks to a clever member of the Twitterati, we learn to our delight that there was a sixth century consort of the king of the Neustrain Franks of the Merovingian dynasty (previously here, here and here), wife of Chodebert I who ruled Paris and the western part of Gaul, called Ultragoth.
Charitably, Childebert is credited for bringing Roman Catholicism to Spain, at the request of his sister Chlortilde who claimed she was being berated and abused for her faith by King Amalaric of the Visigoths (an attested follower of Arius), who brought an army to settle this domestic dispute and invaded the peninsula, ousting the heretical Visigoths in favour of a dynasty more closely aligned with the Church.  Childebert also plundered some relics from Spain, including the dalmatic vestments of Saint Vincent of Saragossa, which Ultragoth found suitable homes for. Likely spelt Ultrogothe (or Vulthrogotha, which is also cool) in Franconian, not to be a spoil-sport, there’s no indication of frequency or popularity for the name but other female regnants and consorts (which seem to never be repeated) included Ermengarde, Himiltrude, Chimnechild, Radegund, Amalberga, Bilichild, Waldrada, Fulberte, Wulfegundis and Wisigard. Nothing else is known of Childebert’s wife other than that she, having failed to produce sons and therefore heirs, and her daughters, Chrodoberge and Chrodesinde, were sent into exile after the king’s death—as was their custom, and his share of the kingdom reverted to his younger brother, Chlothar.

split-screen

As former Trump attorney Michael Cohen pled guilty to eight charges levied against him including silencing two women that Trump had affairs with (implicating Trump in the deed in violation of campaign finance rules) in a federal courthouse in Manhattan, nearly simultaneous a jury in Washington, DC announced its verdicts for Paul Manafort, finding the former campaign chairman guilty on eight of eighteen counts.
Declaring mistrial on some of the accusations—those he was found guilty for include tax evasion, obtaining lines of credit on false pretences and bank fraud—speaks to the fairness of the court proceedings and impartiality of the jurors. Next on the docket for Manafort, he will stand trial next month for failure to declare himself as acting on behalf of a foreign agent when he lobbied for Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, ousted by the Orange Revolution of 2014 and wanted in the country for crimes of high treason, malversation and murder. While the later had less to do with Trump than the former, the outcome does confer more protections on the Special Council’s investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia against interference on the part of Republicans who would like to see the matter closed by demonstrating conspiracy and the charges materialised and were substantiated directly as a result of the Special Council’s work.

rolling stock

Via Londonist, we are treated to the handiwork of Matthew Sommerville who has made a real-time map of the trains moving through the London Underground. Each yellow dot represents a carriage winding its way from station to station, drawing its telemetry from the same public data sets that inform time-tables and station information boards, and will at a click reveal more information about its route and one can toggle between geographic and schematic projections.