Semi-truck Anti-jackknife System

A semi-truck is said to be jackknifing if the angle between its tractor 41 and its trailer 42 increases undesirably – the tractor has veered leftward and is drifting rightward (as in Fig B), or it has veered rightward and is drifting leftward.  The rig becomes an unsteerable, multimillion-dollar threat to itself and others.  Drivers instinctively steer in the direction of drift, which would realign the tractor with its trajectory, if the front wheels could roll freely while other wheels are braked.

We (David M Regen, Samuel M Regen, Ingrid L Regen) recently patented our Jackknife-Prevention System.  It is a set of sensors (lateral-acceleration sensor 15, steering-direction sensor 16) and effectors (front-wheel-brake disablers 18,19) which help restore alignment of a sideward-skidding (drifting) semi-truck tractor 41 with its trajectory 43.  The lateral-acceleration sensor could be a mercury-ball tilt sensor, the steering-direction sensor could be a steering-angle sensor with appropriate processor or a three-way switch without a processor, and the brake disablers could be electrically powered three-way solenoid valves or three-way ball-cock valves.  In essence the system disables both front brakes of a leftward-drifting tractor when it is steered leftward or of a rightward-drifting tractor when it is steered rightward.  This allows the front wheels to advance faster than other wheels, thereby aligning the tractor with its trajectory and making the rig again steerable.  These actions should occur only when the key is on and the brakes are applied, so the sensors should receive signal power from the brake-light circuit and should trigger a relay to pass power from the key-on circuit to the effectors.

The actions to restore alignment of a sideward-skidding trailer-hauling tractor with its trajectory will also help restore alignment of any sideward-skidding vehicle with its trajactory, thereby reversing spin-out of any vehicle, including a trailerless semi-truck tractor.  Semi-truck drivers fear spin-outs as much as jackknifes.

A tractor can become misaligned several ways.  For example, the driver might apply brakes when the tractor’s right wheels are on a slippery area (liquid or gravel) or vise versa.  The tractor will veer to the side with greater traction.  If it veers leftward (as in Fig B), it will drift or skid rightward, and vise versa.  Another jackknife cause is braking while turning -- for example, braking while changing lanes, braking while dodging an obstacle or braking while exiting the highway via an off-ramp.  The trailer's inertia pushes the tractor's rear in the direction of the trailer's trajectory 43.  This push, being off-center with respect to the tractor's footprint, constitutes a spinning force to exaggerate the tractor's yaw.  Front-wheel unbraking in response to appropriate steering of a sideward-drifting tractor will restore alignment regardless of cause.

We contend that our jackknife-prevention system is effective under circumstances where alternative systems might fail.  We hope to licence our invention to at least one established semi-truck manufacturer or air-brake manufacturer.  The patent can be seen at:  JACKKNIFE PREVENTION SYSTEM  

Below is how the Jackknife Prevention System can be  conveniently implemented:

Design and Manufacture of Anti-jackknife/Anti-spinout Module

The Anti-jackknife System disables a semi-truck’s front-wheel brakes when the tractor is skidding sideward and the front wheels are steered in the direction of skid, so as to restore alignment of the tractor with its trajectory when the front wheels roll freely.

We have designed a module (Fig 1, below) with the steering-direction sensor 20+30 and lateral-acceleration (tilt) sensor 11 both in a single module which surrounds the steering column 1 and is anchored to the firewall via a brace 42,43,44 on which a relay 60 is mounted.  It's prototype is illustrated below:

The steering direction sensor has a rotor 20 pressed to the steering column 1 and bearing a strong magnet in its top front edge, and a stator 30 surrounding these and bearing a steel ball in a tunnel just outside the magnet's course, the tunnel having left-side conductors and right-side conductors.  The steel ball following the magnet joins the left-side conductors with each other when steering is leftward or joins the right-side conductors with each other when steering is rightward.

The lateral-acceleration sensor 11 is a transversely positoned elliptical chamber containing a mercury ball and a pair of left-end conductors and a pair of right-end conductors, the left-conductor pair or right-conductor pair being joined by the mercury ball depending on innertial forces sending the ball left or right in the elliptical chamber.

The sensors are essentially robust three-way switches (left on, right on, mid-off) connected in a left-side series and a right-side series from the key-on circuit to a relay which activates front-wheel brake-disabling valves.  If the mercury ball moves left and the rotor's magnet pulls the stator's steel ball left, then volts and amps pass to the relay which sends power to both left and right brake-disabling valves 18,19.  If the mercury ball moves right and the rotor's magnet pulls the stator's steel ball right, then volts and amps pass to the relay which sends power to both left and right brake-disabling valves 18,19.  No other condition activates the brake-disabling valves.

For tractors with antilock brakes, it may be possible for their front ABS valves to double as anti-jackknife/anti-spinout brake-disabling valves 18,19.

Memorable Music Making

Almost a decade ago, Bill and Larry Brown created a couple of BGA events: 1) an evening of Camp HyLake songs and reminiscing on stage in the auditorium,  2) Camp HyLake reunion lunch followed by spontaneous recollections and a couple of camp songs in the athletic building.  Both events were led by some of us octogenarian guitar-playing camp alumni.

We met a few times to prepare for these occasions and to enjoy some country tunes from our youth.  One of them sounded pretty good, Blue eyes crying in the rain.  The lead singer in this video was Larry Stumb, who assembled some pickers perhaps a year later to lead music down at the Nashville Rescue Mission for morning devotionals led by one of Larry’s friends.  We did that several times over the next year or so.  Preparing for those events evolved into a song circle that met every few weeks at the homes of the pickers, early on in Larry Stumb’s back-room den, then in Coach Stewart's sun room and eventually in Bill Brown’s basement den.

We were all in our eighties and unsteady, so we decided to name ourselves “The Stumblers” – alluding to our infirmities and honoring our founding member, Larry Stumb.  Early on, Bill’s energetic young friend and helper Ashlie Jewel joined the group and became the sine-qua-non of the circle, as can be appreciated in the following videos:  I am weary  and  Last Cheater's Waltz .

I had to quit a few years ago, having dozed off at a few traffic stops on the way home.  Larry Stumb became too crippled to continue and he died about a year ago.  He was the consummate people person, interested in and supportive of everyone he knew.  His devotion to country music was inspiring; his knowledge of it encyclopedic.  This long-lasting song circle, The Stumblers, keeps on regenerating itself owing to Bill Brown's generous hosting and Ashlie's loving direction.  It is a worthy tribute to its namesake, our modest and devoted friend, Larry Stumb.

Ethical international relations

        Sometimes I try to analyze complex systems, to articulate cause-effect laws and to describe mechanisms accounting for them.  For example, what is evil, and what are its causes?

  Basic drives to preserve, enhance and procreate the self characterize all living things: single cells, plants, animals, families, species, religions, ethnicities, geographic regions.  Selves typically relate to nonselves (others) competitively, predatorially and/or selfishly.  Thus, our natural drives often cause suffering.  Unnecessary or unjust suffering is evil.  

    Generosity toward offspring is common and constitutes preserving and enhancing the self.  Truly altruistic relations among non-spousal adults are rare.  The essential feature of civilization is restraint of natural drives by most citizens.

Typically we, ourselves, lack the empathy to appreciate the evil done to others.  We are even thrilled by the sight of competitors, enemies and perpetrators harmed by our agents (military,  law enforcers).  We even dream of inflicting such harm.  Concern for our enemy’s suffering seems unpatriotic.  Concern for a perpetrator’s suffering seems misguided.

Sadly, my tribe has made many harmful mistakes over the years.  For example, we as White People should have treated non-whites more justly for centuries.  We as Americans should have behaved more rationally in Palestine, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, Viet Nam, Grenada, Afghanistan, Iraq, Egypt, Lybia and Syria.  Many of our actions were in response to and for the sake of wealthy insiders.  Some were criminal.  Many could have been avoided by application of ethical standards, including Just War Principles, UN Charter and Geneva Conventions.

Our sanctions of Venezuela are irrational and spiteful.  We, the USA, are causing unnecessary and unjustified suffering in Venezuela, and that makes our actions evil.  By the way, their economic woes are due to the oil-price drop and amateur leadership, not communism.  The Russia embargo might eventually raise oil prices and help Venezuela.  It would be in our interest to help them get their oil industry up and running.

Likewise our sanctions of Cuba for the past two decades are irrational and spiteful.  Their attempts at managed economy haven't threatened us or anyone else for several decades.  Back in the Bay-of-Pigs and Missile-Crisis days, we had real conflicts, but that might have been avoided had we respected Cuba's sovereignty.

We should reconstruct our relations with these two struggling neighbors along ethical lines.

The Ukraine War

Some thoughts about the Ukraine war:

    It seems to me that the Russian convoys could have been stopped just inside the Ukrainian border, had there been a little forethought.  

    1. Ukraine should have placed tank barriers near the border crossings decades earlier, certainly after the Crimean invasion.  Many barriers could have been permanent and others could have been positioned when the threat became imminent, not to obstruct domestic traffic prematurely.  An array of disabled tanks and trucks on and about the border-crossing roads would be a barrier to those lined up to invade.

    2. Ukraine should have built up an arsenal of anti-tank/anti-truck drones, as soon as such weapons became available.  All too late, they are using drones effectively to drop explosive darts on the vulnerable tops of tanks.  Drones could deliver a wide variety of non-destructive and non-lethal vehicle-stopping and personnel-stopping bomblets.  These would be essentially radio-controlled fireworks that scatter Gorilla Glue on windshields and other vision ports as well as on personnel and door parts, or that spread itching powder and nauseating odoriphores on or in vehicles.

    3. Ukraine should have installed anti-aircraft weapons around its cities to be manned by trained teenagers and women.

    4. Ukraine should have accumulated a substantial fleet of fighter planes and pilots over the post Soviet years, these planes being stored beneath reinforced concrete surfaces and tested systematically.

    5.  There was a time when access to the Black Sea might have been a reason for Russia to conquer south-east Ukraine.  That reason seems invalid now that Russia has Georgia.

Cream of asparagus soup

Based on Moosewood Cookbook by Mollie Katzen

2 cups water with 2 cubes bouillon, or 2 cups stock.

1½ cup chopped onion

6 tblsp butter

6 tblsp flour

1 tsp dill weed

1½ lbs fresh asparagus

4 cups scalded milk

1 tsp salt

white pepper

dash of tamari

1 tsp curry powder

Break off and discard tough asparagus bottoms.

Chop asparagus stalks and cook them with onions in butter, salting lightly.

After 10 min when onions are translucent sprinkle in the flour.

Continue to cook on low heat 8 minutes.

Add stock or bouillon water.

Cook with stirring until thickened ~ 10 min.

Homogenize thoroughly.

Over low heat, add dill, salt, white pepper and tamari.

Heat very gently.  Makes about four quarts.

Mama Lilo’s Oxtail Soup

In two large liberally oiled skillets (preferably cast iron) braise >4 pounds of oxtail segments, all sides deeply brown.  Avoid smoking.  Big segments present 6 sides, middle-size segments present four sides, and finger-size segments are cylindrical.

As they finish, put them in a >3-gallon pot on low heat.

Add:

Green half of a leek tied in a sheaf.

Several pieces of celery cut in 5-in lengths

1 celery root in 1/2-in slice

In the now meatless skillets saute mixture of:

3 adult yellow or sweet onions, peeled and sliced

1 garlic bulb =12 cloves peeled and sliced

1 large green bell pepper, cleaned and sliced

6 minipeppers, cleaned and sliced or 1 big red bell pepper

The white half of a leek ½-in sliced

3 carrots sliced longituinally

1 tblsp tomato paste

Deglaze thoroughly into pot of brazed oxtail segments

Add 1 gallon water

Add 2 10-oz cans of beef consume

Add 4 cubes beef bouillon and 2 cubes chicken bouillon.

In a gewurzkugel (gewurzball) to hang in the pot, place 1 bay leaf, 

6 peppercorns, 4 cloves, handful of parsley stems.

(Keep leafy parsley to add after cooking)

Add hot water to about 2-in below rim of pot, cover and boil slowly for 6 hours, then leave on burner until cool enough to proceed.

Shake fluid from gewurzball into soup and discard gewurzball solids.

Using tongs, pick vegetables off the sunken layer of oxtail pieces and transfer them to a colander in a bowl.  Examine carefully for small bony discs which must be removed.  Place the vegitables in a round bowl and puree very thoroughly, perhaps with a little water.

Using tongs, transfer meat and bones to a glass bowl.

Tilt pot slightly and try to transfer last bits of meat and bone from bottom of pot to this glass bowl, which can now go into refrigerator.

Pour from the big pot to another big container through a sieve.  Discard bone bits.

Put one cup flour and 1/2 stick of butter in the big pot and gently roast while scraping and mixing constantly until the flour is light brown.  To this rue add half of the stock and boil.  Add remainder of stock.  Return the main volume to the big pot and mix.

Add the pureed vegetables and mix.

Add more bouillon and ground black pepper to taste. 

Now schmeck.

Mama Lilo’s Minestrone

Derived from recipe in Moosewood Cookbook by Mollie Katzen

3 full size sweet or yellow onions pealed and diced

12 mini bell peppers, red and yellow

1 full size large green bell pepper

1 whole large garlic bulb with 12 cloves peeled, sliced and diced

1 cup 1/5-inch-sliced carrots

1 leek, white part

2 cups 1/3-inch-sliced celery

saute veggies in 1/4 cup olive oil

add 1 quart chicken broth

add 1/3 cup chopped parsley

add 28-oz can of pealed & roasted Marzane tomatoes, rince in with V8

add 1 tblsp Kroger Italian Seasoning

add 1 tsp dried basil

add 1 tsp dried aregano

add 2 crumbled Knorr chicken bouillon cubes

add 1 tblsp chicken Better Than Bouillon

add 1.5 cups canned garbanzo beans

add 1/4 cup red wine

Cook until carrots are tender

add ½ cup dry Orzo noodles and cook until desired dente

We add some water to make it more fluid.  Still tastes rich. We end up with about 1.5 gallon.

Perilous People

To me, “evil” is unjust and avoidable suffering and its causes.  Evil now taints many honest, responsible, generous, loyal, talented, creative, helpful, intelligent people, including those to whom I am deeply indebted for years of tranquility and joy.  To be specific, evil taints all Republicans since the party morphed from conservative to deceptive, seditious and racist -- since it ceased respecting truth and loving justice.  The gifted people of whom I speak are now endangering democracy and peace.  Not one Republican has apologized for the Jan-6 attempt to end America's experiment with democracy.  Judging from their media appetites, they are hostile to evidence and reason.  They'd rather follow a messiah than analyze socio-ethical dynamics.  Some fear economic repercussions of intellectual independence.  The compassionate people who volunteer to help victims of storms, fires, earthquakes and famines are the same people who now threaten democracy.

The places where I felt meaningful and experienced joy during the past quarter century were Woodmont Christian Church and Bellevue Christian Church.  There I was inspired to care about and help the disadvantaged, I gladly volunteered time and resources to upkeep of the church buildings, and I was welcome to exercise my love of music, for example: orchestrations, bands, and singalongs.

But now I’m afraid to expose my thoughts in those places for fear of driving congregants away and for fear of demoralizing the old and sick who deserve to feel worthy as they face their dooms after lives of faith and decency.