Update on Dave McKean's 'Luna' Film

Here is an update on Dave McKean's upcoming film Luna for which I folded two origami crabs in 2007. If you haven't read my previous blogs about this, they are Origami Emergency and More About the Origami Crabs.

First, some additional details about the crabs.

Luna filming began in early November of 2007. The request for the origami crabs was sent on 10-30-07 and the crabs arrived on the set 11-08-07.

Through my friend Mark Kennedy and Nick Robinson, word reached Dennis Walker, the articles editor of the British Origami Society (BOS), who asked me for permission to put my blog article in the BOS magazine. Dennis also told me that he was "VERY jealous" and "pretty chuffed that it was through the Origami Database". I think he figured that a British filmmaker should have asked the British Origami Society first.

After completing the live action shooting, and starting some editing, financing for the film collapsed at the end of 2007. About two years later, new financing allowed post production of Luna to resume in March of 2010.

Twitter Info

I extracted the following information from Dave McKean's Twitter page:

"Answering request for Luna stills, here's a few, from the live action shoot only. As we progress I'll post more: http://bundl.it/MjY2Mjk "

A "90% version of Luna" has been shown to producers. "Four people have now seen my film all the way through." "... the crab performed beautifully."

"Several small animated scenes + fx, music, sound etc." need to be done. Many 'small' details, but "a long process". Anticipate completion by the end of 2010. Listing in the Internet Movie Data Base (IMDB) by July 2010, perhaps.

"It's nothing like MirrorMask to be honest, although it does have Stephanie Leonidas in it, and some dreamlike scenes. It's an adult drama."

While looking for details on Luna progress, I came across this delightful bit of banter which I'll include for your enjoyment:

Ken Fries: Steve probably already has a copy of Luna...

Dave McKean: Great! Can I see it? Then I'll know if it's worth finishing...

Ken Fries: Nah, u shouldn't see it, I don't want to spoil the ending for you.

Photos:


Dave McKean sent me the following still shots from the film, in addition to the above photo of the crab "that will be in the book of the film." "The stills show Grant (Ben Daniels) folding the crab, with his wife Christine (Dervla Kirwan), which he symbolically buries in the sand. They hide behind a rock and watch a real crab emerge from the same place."

Folding the crab, wide shot and close-up:




The crab, on hand:


The crab burial:


Some contributors to the Luna film:

• Dave McKean (writer, director, designer, editor)


• Keith Griffiths, producer (produced 78 films, directed 16 films)


• Simon Moorhead (produced all Mckean's films, including MirrorMask)


• Antony Shearn (director of photography)


• Tessa Beazley, production manager (production manager for about a dozen films, and other production)


• Darkside Animation of London, animation support (graphics and special effects for 3 films)


• Ashley Slater, music (actor, music writer, performer, and producer; music producer, mixer, programmer, and performer for "MirrorMask" soundtrack)


• Iain Ballamy (jazz player and composer, composed the score for MirrorMask)


• Dervla Kirwan, actress (Ballykissangel, Casanova, Dr. Who, Ondine)


• Stephanie Leonidas, actress (MirrorMask, Yes, Feast of the Goat, Crusade in Jeans, Dracula)


• Michael Maloney (In the Bleak Midwinter, Babel, Notes on a Scandal, Truly Madly Deeply)


• Ben Daniels (Spooks, Doom, The State Within, Fogbound, I Want You)


• Maurice Roëves (The Damned United, Hallam Foe, Tutti Frutti, Beautiful Creatures)

The First Digitally-Controlled Designs

Since the discovery of DNA and RNA and the Genetic Code, it is indisputably clear to biologists that the structure and function of all living things is determined by the information stored in the DNA. The interpretation of the DNA information according to the Genetic Code creates a enormous set of specific proteins and other complex organic molecules that implement the structure and function of a particular organism. (See The Genetic Code - how to read the DNA record and More About the Genetic Code.) Some of these complex molecules are building blocks of the living structure; some are the tools or 'workmen' that build the structure; other organic molecules function more like supervisors that control when and where and how this work of construction is done. Still others supervise various functions of the living structure, such as digestion, breathing. sight, growth, etc. All of these complex functions are guided not exclusively by chemical laws, but also by the information from the DNA. (See Life is more than chemistry and Can Chemical Evolution Work?) This is true of all living things, whether a single-celled organism or a much larger plant or animal such as an oak tree or an elephant. Such a complex, coordinated interplay of material and function at multiple levels is clearly DESIGN.

I ought to explain that I understand and appreciate this from experience. I worked for 43 years as a designer and inventor of computers and other digital systems, acquiring 45 patents in that time; and in my retirement years, I have been studying organic chemistry. When I started my career, a typical computer was a roomful of refrigerator-sized cabinets. but less powerful than today's pocket calculator; and I have seen the technology grow functionally and shrink physically since then. In between then and now, the Quintrel computer that I designed, one of the first to do speech processing (like speech recognition) in real time (that is, as fast as you can talk) was the size of a cookie baking pan. Inside all GPS satellites, the computer system that controls all the signals is my design. So I know a design when I see one.

I especially appreciate the advantages of a digitally-controlled design over a design that is just digital. The old-fashioned mechanical adding machines did digital calculation, but the control was manual; that is, the operator had to select the sequence of operations as well as the input data. I remember the company used to have one with a typewriter-like shifting carriage so that it could do multiplication and division; but it was still manually controlled.

In human history, digitally controlled designs started with things like the 'player piano', where the keyboard was controlled by a roll of paper with punched holes to specify the sequence and timing of the notes, and the Jacquard loom, where punched holes caused threads to be raised or lowered to create intricate designs such as brocade and damask. Herman Hollerith adapted the punched cards of the weaving industry for data input for his Tabulating Machines, and Charles Babbage planned to use punched cards for his Analytical Engine, which began the age of computers. (See The Development of Information Processing.)

Let me tell a story that illustrates how "I especially appreciate the advantages of a digitally-controlled design" as I said earlier.

There was a period in my career when we designed digital devices for communication of digital messages. No calculation in the ordinary sense of the word was needed, but the digital logic needed to be 'smart'. For example, before sending a piece of a message (called a packet), an error-checking code needed to be generated and attached to the message, along with a packet number. When receiving a packet, the error-checking code needed to be checked to see if the packet had any errors. (Most errors were detectable.) If the packet had no errors, an 'ack' (acknowledgement) message was returned to the sender; but if errors were detected, a 'nak' (no-acknowledgement) message was returned. Both ack and nak messages included the number of the good or bad packet that had been checked. A nak message was a request to resend the packet (hoping to get it right on the next try), and an ack message told the sender that it no longer needed to keep a copy of the packet. A communication protocol like this was controlled by logic hardware similar to that used to construct a computer, but there was no computer and no software involved. The designs were digital, but not digitally-controlled as computers are controlled by software.

A major problem with this style of design was that if a design error needed to be corrected, or a new design feature added, new parts would need to be added, and the layout and wiring of the parts modified. The parts might not fit, so even the mechanical design might need to be redone.

An obvious solution to this problem is to include an 'embedded' computer in the design, so that software can define the functions of the design, because software is far more easily changed than the hardware. Once the software is thoroughly tested and no longer needs to be changed, it is typically embedded in read-only memory (ROM) and is called 'firmware'. This tactic is commonplace today, with embedded computers in automobiles and in nearly every electrical household appliance. That's easy today, because electronic circuits have shrunk enough for small computers, including all memory and other supporting logic, to be placed in one small, low-cost chip. But back then, electronics had shrunk only enough for simple circuits such a counter to fit in one chip. An embedded computer would require at least several chips.

We couldn't buy a general-purpose computer chip (they didn't exist then), but had to design a computer made of several chips. But this gave us the freedom to design a smaller 'custom' computer with only the functions actually needed. For example, we didn't need to add, subtract, multiply or divide; the only 'arithmetic' needed was to count the bits of a packet. Mostly, the computer needed to make decisions based on a specialized set of conditions. If such a design primarily controlled not a sequence of calculations, but a sequence of other operations (such as those needed for a communications protocol), it was usually called a 'controller' rather than a computer. Often, such a simplified computer / controller could be made with only a half-dozen parts. This 'custom' controller would thus have a 'custom' set of instructions that it could execute. (Each instruction is a group of binary codes and data that tell the computer / controller what to do for each step of its actions.)

Theoretically, a programmer (software writer) could write out the sequence of instructions (the software, or program) in the form of the ones and zeros that the hardware actually reads. But this would be very error-prone, because it is hard for people to memorize these codes, or even to copy them from a list without making mistakes. So, instead, equivalent codes that look more like English are invented, thus creating a special language that is much easier to learn and understand. Then a program called an 'assembler' is used to translate the semi-English to the ones and zeros that the hardware uses. (Also, decimal numbers are translated to binary numbers.)

Thus, almost every computer / controller design would have a different instruction set, and a correspondingly different 'assembly language', and a different assembler program. The assembler is what connected the software design to the hardware design.

Mostly, there were two kinds of designers: hardware logic designers that knew at least how to design parts of the computer hardware, and software designers that knew how to write software. A third kind of designer was a relative minority: the 'system designer', who understood both hardware and software -- the whole system, or the 'big picture'. (See The Start of System Engineering.) A few of these, who also knew the theory of formal languages, were able to write assembler programs, and even 'compilers', which can translate more abstract software languages. With my insatiable curiosity and willingness to self-educate myself in related fields on my own time, I became part of that minority.

The engineering supervisors resisted the idea of embedding computers in a design. Their reasoning was that we had hardware designers and software designers, but nobody that knew how to make a custom assembler. We would have to give such a job to outside specialists, which would be too expensive and troublesome.

It irked me that this judgement was hindering us from making compact and flexible designs. So, on my own time, I designed what I called the "General-Purpose Assembler". It was a step beyond a custom assembler, because before assembling a program, it first read a "language table", which defined the custom assembly language. So, the next time that a supervisor tried to veto a proposal for a design with an embedded computer / controller, I explained that I "happened to have" an assembler that could do the job. I did the extra work on my own time because I knew that digital control of a design was an optimum design paradigm.

I wrote an instruction manual for how to construct a "language table" and how to use the "General-Purpose Assembler", and soon other departments and projects were using it. A few years later, I estimated that about two dozen language tables had been written, creating that many custom assemblers for that many different embedded controllers. The "General-Purpose Assembler" also became a component of the assembler for the Quintrel processor that I mentioned earlier. These were all digitally-controlled designs.

Now, this story may seem like an utter digression from my initial discussion of DNA and RNA and the Genetic Code, but it was all to underscore and emphasize the following point:

I used to think of digitally-controlled designs as a modern phenomena -- but this is true only if you are limited to designs made by humans. But when I started to study organic chemistry and the workings of the Genetic Code, I soon realized that the greatest Engineer of all, God, got there first. For indeed, all living things of all kinds are digitally-controlled designs. The DNA is the read-only memory (ROM) that holds the genome, which is the software (firmware) that controls the chemistry that plays the role of 'hardware'. Each unit of DNA (nucleotide) is equivalent to two bits, having one of four values, and each codon (three DNA units) is equivalent to six bits, with one of 64 values. It compels one to ask "Where did all that DNA-software come from?" (See In The Beginning Was Information .) The reason why there is only one universal genetic code, and why so many life-forms share common design structures is not because all descended from a single common ancestor (unlikely if evolution is inevitable, as Richard Dawkins claims), but because all have a single Creator.

I know that some readers will dismiss my comparison of life designs to man-made designs as mere analogy. But my argument rests on more than analogy. It involves what in category theory is called isomorphisms. Rather than getting too technical, I will illustrate the principles involved by a simple example:

If two species have sufficient similarities (putting them in the same category), we can expect them to have similar locomotion. For example, cats and dogs both have four legs of nearly equal lengths, and the knees bend in the same directions; so we can expect them to walk and run in similar ways. Frogs, kangaroos, and apes also have four legs, but not all four of equal length, so the locomotion is different. There is greater similarity of function when there is greater similarity of structure.

With similar logic methods, we can show that DNA-controlled life forms are more similar to embedded controllers than personal computers. For example, in both, the completed design has no capability of loading new software (not true for PCs). In both computers and controllers, the same hardware with completely different software will have completely different functionality. In life, the same chemical laws, chemical resources (food, air, water, etc) and same genetic code with a completely different genome will have completely different functionality.

As an experienced designer, I not only know a design when I see one, I know a digitally-controlled design when I see one; and I appreciate that it is an optimum design paradigm. No wonder that people are using the term "Intelligent Design" to describe living things.

For more on this subject, see The Digital Control of Life.

God's Unilateral Agreement

The Bible is divided into two major parts called the Old Testament and the New Testament. "Testament" and "Covenant" are two English words that are used to translate the Hebrew "beriyth" and the Greek "diatheke" as used in the Bible. Both words are used to refer to a solemn or legally binding contract or treaty.

In the time of Abraham, a covenant between men was often solemnized by a ceremony whereby an animal was cut in half and both parties walked between the pieces of flesh, signifying "so let it be done to me if I do not keep this covenant". But when God made a covenant with Abraham (in Genesis 15:7-21) to give to his descendants the "Promised Land" (called "The Land of Israel" until the Romans renamed it "Palestine"), the ceremony was remarkably changed. After "a deep sleep fell upon Abram" (verse 12), "there appeared a smoking oven and a burning torch that passed between those pieces" (verse 17), signifying the presence of God certifying the contract. Since sleeping Abraham (then called Abram) did not also walk between the pieces, this signified that the covenant was unilateral -- God took full responsibility for keeping His promise to Abraham and his descendants.

However, God's covenant through Moses with His chosen people concerning the Law, repeated in the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, was a bi-lateral covenant, because the people promised "All that the LORD has said we will do, and be obedient" (Exodus 24:7 and elsewhere), and because curses were promised if His people broke the covenant, and blessings promised if they kept it.

Central to the Old Testament covenants was the sacrifice of animals, signifying the debt of mankind toward God for his sin, which was only symbolically paid by the animal sacrifices. The most solemn of these sacrifices occurred each year at Passover, which foretold the true sacrifice, the actual payment, to come.

In the New Testament, we read of a day when Jesus celebrated a modified Passover ceremony with His disciples. It was modified because He ended the ceremony before the third cup, and because the ceremony was given new meaning while fulfilling the old meaning. Jesus Himself was the Passover Lamb that the cup signified; and hours later, He was sacrificed on a cross. Jesus gave the first cup (Luke 22:17) to His disciples, saying "Take this and divide it among yourselves", but didn't partake Himself, saying "I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes." At the second cup (Luke 22:20), Jesus said "This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you." Since then, Christians repeat an abbreviated form of that Passover ceremony that we now call Communion or The Lord's Supper.

The sacrifice of Christ on the cross fulfilled the old covenants and introduced a new covenant because His actual and effective sacrifice ended the need for symbolic sacrifices. The apostle Paul called it the 'covenant confirmed by God in Christ' (Galatians 3:17), and 'a better covenant' (Hebrews 7:22, 8:6, 9:15, and 12:24). Paul also explains that when the prophesy of Jeremiah (31:31-34) is fulfilled, this covenant will be embraced by a rejuvenated nation of Israel.

The new covenant is also unilateral, because Jesus Christ has paid the price in full, and we bring nothing. God says that "...all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags". (Isa 64:6) There are many Bible passages that make it clear that our righteous obedience of God's laws contributes nothing to the salvation that Christ freely offers to us. A few verses are:

Gal 2:16
...a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law; for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified.

Rom 4:4-5
4 Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace but as debt.
5 But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness

Rom 11:6
...if by grace, then it is no longer of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace...

Eph 2:8-9
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,
9 not of works, lest anyone should boast.

If our righteousness is insufficient, then how can we settle our debt of sin with God, and escape condemnation? We need to "declare bankruptcy", by confessing our sin and accepting the free gift of Christ's sacrifice, His payment for our sin:

1 John 1:9-10
9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.

John 3:16-19
16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
18 He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

(The name "Jesus" means "Savior", so believing in His name means that you trust His ability to save you.) There is no other way:

Acts 4:12
Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

John 14:6
Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me."

It doesn't take a lot of faith; a genuine faith is sufficient to begin, and God will cause your faith to grow. A man once told Jesus "Lord, I believe", and then, doubting himself, added "help my unbelief". (Mark 9:24) Ephesians 2:8, quoted above, indicates that even faith is a gift of God.

Rather than righteousness saving us, it is God's saving of us that leads to righteousness, because God's Spirit works in us to change us, and God's love motivates us to please Him:

Titus 3:5
not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit

Eph 2:10
For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

Phil 2:13
for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.

There are also many verses that indicate that 'works' that result from God's work of renewal in us, demonstrate to others that we truly know God, such as:

Titus 1:16
They profess to know God, but in works they deny Him

(All verses quoted from the New King James version)

So, we start by confessing our sins, which implies a desire to stop sinning; but God, while He helps us to stop sinning, does not make our success at not sinning part of His covenant. He knows we are unable to keep such a requirement. Our righteousness, however much it was, was insufficient in the first place, and it makes no sense to add it afterward. Any righteousness we achieve afterward is by availing ourselves of His help, so how can we claim any credit for that?

It is truly comforting to know that our right standing with God rests securely on His unilateral agreement and promise to us, motivated by His unconditional love for us.

When in trouble, we may reach up as a child to grasp His hand; but His hand is too big for us. Instead, He reaches down and holds us -- and that is far more secure.

For more on trusting God, click here.

More About the Genetic Code

Sometimes I will go back to one of my blog articles to correct minor errors; and a few times I have made major additions. But a disadvantage of this is that people that have already read the original article will probably not go back to read it again.

A little more than a year ago, I wrote The Genetic Code - how to read the DNA record, and recently added some details to a paragraph and expanded the conclusion of the article. So here is the amended paragraph and the expanded conclusion.

The original article gave the impression that only the transfer RNA (tRNA) molecules define the genetic code. Actually, other, larger, molecules are also involved. So the amended paragraph clarifies this:

===
The key elements of translation are small transfer RNA (tRNA) molecules. Each kind of tRNA molecule has a region called the anticodon that can recognize and attach to a particular codon of a messenger RNA (mRNA) molecule. The tRNA molecule has another region called the "3' terminal" that attaches to a particular amino acid. This attachment is aided by molecules called aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases, of which there is generally one kind for each kind of amino acid. There are even helper molecules that provide a proofreading function to detect and correct any translation errors.
===

(Actually, there are some variations of this, but discussing these would be distracting. There are also many other types of complex molecules that control the code-translation process but do not define the genetic code -- another subject.)

Then I expanded the conclusion:

===
Where does the genetic code come from? It is not the result of chemistry or any laws of physics. It is determined by the set of tRNA molecule types, and aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase types, which are constructed according to DNA information, which encodes not only the building materials and the building plans, but also the building tools and the building methods. In other words, the genetic code is just information that has always been there since life began.

The number of possible genetic codes is a huge number, 85 digits long:

1,510,109,515,792,918,244,116,781,339,315,785,081,841,294, 607,960,614,956,302,330,123,544,242,628,820,336,640,000

and all of these many codes would work equally well. But all of life uses just one genetic code, about 280 bits of information, the one that scientists Watson and Crick discovered in 1953, but was there since creation. The theory of evolution has no explanation for how the genetic code began, because it can't explain how information can arise from no information. Nor can it explain why there is only one genetic code (out of such a huge number of equally workable codes), even though there is extreme variation of everything else. The mechanism of the present genetic code is very complex; and evolutionary theory supposes that it randomly evolved from a simpler, smaller code. But because there are so many equally viable genetic codes, random evolution should have produced species with many different codes. The evolutionary explanation is far more unlikely than dumping a bucketful of dice on the floor and expecting them to all land with the same number up.

The creationist explanation is that the universal genetic code is like a signature of the creator, who chose a uniform code for all of the designs of life. A short story will illustrate the principle:

During the Cold War, Russia was suspected of stealing American technology. Proof came when some Russian war equipment given to a third country was captured and examined. It contained an integrated circuit that was identical to an American design. It is theoretically possible that the Russians had the same design concept, leading to a similar design. But digital circuits have thousands of component parts connected by thousands of wires. There trillions of ways to position the parts on the chip and trillions of ways to route the connecting wires that work equally well. It would be impossible for the Russians to independently produce the same positions and routings even if the logical design were identical. But examination showed the details were identical, even details left over from correcting wiring errors. In effect, there was an American 'signature' in the copied design.
===

For the Math fans, I'll add a footnote on how that 85-digit number was calculated:

That big number counts the number of ways that the 64 codons can be mapped to 21 interpretations, or interpreted as 21 'messages'. One message is to start with a Methionine (or add a Methionine if already started); one is to stop, and the other 19 messages are to add one of the other 19 amino acids [to the peptide chain that will fold into a protein molecule]. This 64-to-21 mapping can be enumerated in two steps:

First, we count the number of partitions of a set of 64 items into 21 non-empty, pair-wise disjoint subsets. In plain language, this means that:

• Together, the 21 subsets must contain all of the 64 codons.
• Each codon must be assigned to only one subset.
• None of the subsets can be empty; each must contain at least one codon.

This count is calculated by a mathematical function called the Sterling number of the second kind, which is S(64, 21) in this case.

Second, we need to count the number of ways that the 21 subsets can be mapped to the 21 messages. This the number of permutations of 21 things, which is 21 factorial, written 21!

So the desired number is S(64, 21) times 21! But typical computer hardware cannot directly compute numbers that large. Special software that partitions a big number into slices small enough for the hardware is needed. When I was designing special hardware for very large integers (for public key cryptography; I have two patents, #4,658,094 and #5,289,397, for that), I wrote such software so that I could test and verify my designs. So I used my 'BigInt' software to do the arithmetic.

Dawkins' Confession

I found this video showing Gary DeMar of The American Vision discussing Richard Dawkins' new book, The Greatest Show on Earth:



DeMar points out some interesting quotes from Dawkins' book which I have reproduced below, and will comment on each.

Many churches, and even parachurch organizations, each have a 'statement of faith', or 'confession of faith' whereby they define their core beliefs. It seems that in the beginning of his book, Dawkins gives his 'confession of faith', beginning with:

"It is the plain truth that we are cousins of chimpanzees, somewhat more distant cousins of monkeys, more distant cousins still of aardvarks and manatees, yet more distant cousins of bananas and turnips..."

Notice that he speaks of cousins, not brothers, because brothers, mothers, and fathers are not to be found. He continues:

"Evolution is a fact, and [my book The Greatest Show on Earth] will demonstrate it. No reputable scientist disputes it..."

Speaking of evolution as a fact doesn't sound, at first, like a statement of faith, but given his admission of lack of evidence (quoted later), it seems that what he really means by this is that he believes so fervently in evolution that it seems like a fact to him. Thinking of my own faith, I know the feeling.

He also promises that his book will demonstrate the 'fact' of evolution, but no real demonstration of this is possible. There is experimental demonstration, where one sets up initial conditions, controls, and measurements on real physical objects, living or not. But the evolution that relates man to turnips is an interpretation of the past, and no part of it has been experimentally demonstrated in modern times. Parenthetically --

We perhaps may need, at this point, to explain to some readers the distinction between macro-evolution, also called goo-to-you evolution, and micro-evolution, the kind that when guided by man breeds cats to get more kinds of cats, but never dogs, and breeds dogs to get more kinds of dogs, but never cats. Creationists believe in micro-evolution, and that's not debated here. The relevance here is that experimental demonstrations have been applied to micro-evolution, but not macro-evolution, which remains in the realm of story-telling.

There is also logical demonstration, which in its most reliable form is a formal proof. But the lack of evidence, which Dawkins admits to, precludes logical demonstration of macro-evolution.

His statement "No reputable scientist disputes it" is a tautology in disguise. There are many reputable scientists that dispute evolution, but to evolutionists like Dawkins, that defines them as not reputable.

As though to illustrate the fervency of Dawkins' faith, the next quote sounds like an enthusiastic description of a miracle:

"The universe could so easily have remained lifeless and simple -- just physics and chemistry, just the scattered dust of the cosmic explosion that gave birth to time and space. The fact that it did not -- the fact that life evolved literally out of nothing -- is a fact so staggering that I would be mad to attempt words to do it justice. And even that is not the end of the matter. Not only did evolution happen: it eventually led to beings capable of comprehending the process by which they comprehend it."

His phrase "lifeless and simple" is similar to Genesis 1:2, where the earth is described as "formless and empty" before God gives it form and fills it with life; but in Dawkins' account, God gets no credit.

His description of dust giving "birth to time and space" contradicts physics as we now know it. According to modern physics, matter cannot exists separately from time and space, and vice versa.

Again he uses the word 'fact' to refer to his interpretation of facts. But I would agree that the idea that "life evolved literally out of nothing" is staggering -- so much so that one would be mad to believe it.

If you still doubt that Dawkins' words are a 'confession of faith', read this quote:

"We have no evidence about what the first step on making life was, but we do know the kind of step it must have been. It must have been whatever it took to get natural selection started."

In other words, Dawkins knows that there must have been an event when life began, there must have a 'first cause' that caused it to begin, and he knows that he has no evidence of how it began. He is unwilling to believe that God was that cause, so he resorts to a tautology: "It must have been whatever it took".

Given the huge amount of information and artful design that we now observe in all living things, requiring enormous intelligence, I'd say it must have been God -- it took God to get natural selection started. And by God's account, He created various kinds of living things, so natural selection started on some collection of kinds, rather than one kind of life. And the experimental evidence is that even when we give natural selection an extra push, and the advantage of our intelligence, we can't change cats into dogs, or vice versa, let alone turning turnips into chimpanzees.

I think my faith fits the evidence better.

A Seed-Catcher for Pole-Mounted Bird Feeders

We have two "shepherd's crook" type poles supporting bird feeders in our yard. The one in the back yard (shown below) provides sunflower seed, and the one on the east side of the house provides nyger seed. I have tried various methods of dealing with the seed hulls and uneaten seed that falls below the feeders, but I think the new seed-catchers that I have designed and built are the best solution. I am providing the design details here for the many other birdwatchers that have pole-mounted feeders.

From Seed Catcher Project

The Problem:

Among the seed hulls that fall to the ground are uneaten seeds or fragments, which attract mice and rats. Also attracted are ground feeders such as pigeons, grackles, and starlings, which because of their mobbing behavior tends to frighten away the more desirable songbirds. A screen a few inches above the ground with a mesh large enough to allow the seed to fall through will deter the ground feeders. But the mesh must be smaller than one inch and the sides also enclosed securely to prevent small birds from being trapped inside. However, to deter rodents from tunneling into the enclosure, the bottom must also be secured. The bottom must also allow rainwater to pass through. Also, there is the problem of how to dispose of the fallen seed when the enclosure becomes full of old seed.

My seed-catcher design solves all of these problems, using two 3-by-5 foot wooden frames that fit on either side of the pole, covering a 6-by-5 foot area. Notches on one side of each frame allow the frames to fit snugly around the pole. Hardware cloth with a half-inch grid covering the top and bottom of each frame allows seed to fall through while excluding ground-feeding birds and rodents. Above the bottom hardware cloth is a sheet of porous plastic that prevents seed from falling through the bottom onto the ground or into a rodent tunnel, but allows rainwater to drain. The fabric/plastic sold as "weed stop" fabric for use under stone or mulch beds works well here. Both hardware cloth and weed-stop fabric are available in 36-inch wide rolls.

At the center front of the pair of frames, extra boards closely spaced will support you when you need to refill the feeders, but old seed can fall between these boards.

To dispose of the old seed, turn each frame over, dumping the old seed onto a tarp or plastic sheet. Then, folding the sheet in half, you can dump the sheet into a waste container. No shoveling or sweeping of the ground is needed.

Materials List:

6 8-foot lengths of "1-by-4" inch lumber (actually 3/4" by 3 1/2")
4 pieces of 36 inch by 5 foot hardware cloth, with 1/2 inch mesh
10 feet of "weed-stop" fabric, 36 inches wide
64 wood screws, 1 1/2 inches long, (1 box, Philips head recommended)
about 150 galvanized staples, 1 inch long (1 box)
about 15 to 20 feet of tape that can stick to plastic and wood.

The "weed-stop" fabric may be called by other names. It is a porous plastic or fabric intended for use under stone beds, paving stones, or mulch to allow rain water to drain while preventing weeds from penetrating.

Cutting list for the six 8-ft lengths of "1-by-4" lumber:

Each line lists the cuts for one 8-ft board:

60" + 34 1/2"
60" + 34 1/2"
29" + 29" + 34 1/2"
29" + 29" + 34 1/2"
24" + 24" + 24" + 24"
24" + 24" + 34 1/2" + 6 3/4" + 6 3/4"

Save two pieces of scrap for temporary use.

The last 34 1/2" piece should be rip-cut in half lengthwise, so that each half will be about 1 3/4" wide.

The two 6 3/4" pieces don't need to be exactly that length. Just cut the remainder in half, and they will be about 6 3/4" each.

Recommended tools:

tape measure
square
carpenter's pencil
circular power saw
1 or 2 corner clamps (holds 2 pieces at right angles)
battery-powered drill
battery-powered screw driver
(two power drill/drivers saves changing bits)
drill bit, size to match shank of screws
hammer
scissors or knife (to cut tape)
tin snips (heavy-duty scissors for sheet metal, to cut hardware cloth)

From Seed Catcher Project

Construction:

All of the following diagrams show edge-on views of the lumber. They are not exactly to scale. (The thickness of the lumber is somewhat exaggerated.)

Predrill holes for all screws using a drill bit that matches the diameter of the solid center of the screw. I hold a screw and the drill bit parallel to each other up to the light to check that the drill bit does not obscure the threads of the screw.

Align two 29" pieces over a 60" piece, supported by the 6 3/4" piece and two scrap pieces as shown, centering the 6 3/4" piece under the 2" gap. Fasten the 29" pieces to the 60" piece with 2 screws on each side of the gap. This makes a 60" side with a notch at the center. If the screws go in too far, they may attach slightly to the 60" piece. If this happens, pry them apart with a screwdriver. Be careful of the protruding screw points when handling; but these points will end up inside the finished frame where they will be harmless. Make two notched sides like this.

From Seed Catcher Project

Next, assemble a basic frame using a notched 60" side, a one-piece 60" side, and two 34 1/2" end pieces. Be sure the notch is facing outward. A corner clamp is useful for holding two pieces together at each corner while drilling and screwing. Use 3 screws at each corner. Make two frames like this.

From Seed Catcher Project

Three 24" pieces are added to each frame to create an area that will support you when you refill the feeders. Space these 4 inches apart (3 3/4" between boards), starting at the notched side. Fasten with 3 screws each. Do two frames as shown.

From Seed Catcher Project

The frames are identical until the pieces shown in blue in the next diagram are added. These narrow pieces come from a 34 1/2" length of 1x4 lumber that is cut in half lengthwise. Orient the frames with the notched sides facing each other as shown. (When pushed together, the two frames will wrap around the pole at the notches.)

First. hold each narrow piece over the side where the 24" pieces are fastened, and copy the spacing onto the narrow piece. Then fasten each narrow piece to the free ends of the 24" pieces at the top of the frame so seed can pass below it. Use one screw for each piece. Last, fasten the ends of each narrow piece to the long sides, using one screw at each end. The frames are now mirror images of each other, and the narrow pieces mark the top side of each frame.

From Seed Catcher Project

Cover the bottom of each frame with a 3 by 5 ft piece of porous "weed-stop" plastic, holding in place with pieces of tape about six inches apart all around. Then cover with a 3 by 5 ft piece of hardware cloth as follows. First, un-roll the hardware cloth so that it is nearly flat, or slightly curled. (I sit with the roll in my lap and push the hardware cloth over my knees, working from side to side and gradually toward the other end, with the semi-flattened part extending away from me.) Anchor one corner of the hardware cloth to one corner of the frame with a screw (a washer on the screw helps), with the hardware cloth curling upward, then stretch out the hardware cloth and anchor the opposite corner in the same manner. Then anchor the remaining two corners. Check that the hardware cloth fits the long sides well; it can over-shoot the short sides at first.

Fasten the hardware cloth along the long sides, except for the corners, using 1-inch staples about six inches apart. (The staples also hold the "weed-stop" plastic in place, so the tape was needed only temporarily.) Next, remove the anchor screws and trim the ends of the hardware cloth with tin snips, cutting next to a parallel wire to avoid making sharp points. Staple the short ends. If any hardware cloth protrudes past the edge of the frame, use a hammer to bend the hardware cloth down over the edge. First angle the hammer to bend it half-way, then make another pass over it to bend it all the way.

Cover the top with only hardware cloth, in the same manner.

My Favorite Invention

(UPDATE: I've added some photos to the end of this blog.)

My favorite invention is my Phase Meter (U.S. Patent 6,441,601), for a number of reasons:

• It began as a simple insight, which led to further discoveries, and then to more complex implementation.


• Its performance seems almost magical to me.


• About a half dozen of these phase meters are being put into all new GPS satellites, where they will improve GPS accuracy, especially for military guided weapons.


• It exemplifies how designs grow top-down rather than bottom-up.

Also, a number of friends and relatives have asked me to explain at least one of my inventions. With the help of some video demonstrations, I will explain the basic concepts of this invention in simple terms and how it gradually leads to more complex details (but I won't get into the details). The reader will get an understanding of how basic concepts are developed into working designs.

The Phase Meter compares the timing of two very different clocks with a surprising degree of accuracy. In a GPS satellite, accurate clock timing is necessary for accurate measurement of global positions, that is, for accurate navigation. The Phase Meter is accurate to within five picoseconds. (How small is that? Well, if you had a rocket that could go from New Jersey to California in one second, it would go only a hair's breadth in five picoseconds.)

Some Clock Basics

Basically, a clock is a device for counting oscillations. For example, a pendulum clock keeps track of the passage of time by using gears to count the swings of a pendulum. Traditionally, we divide each day into 24 hours, each hour into 60 minutes, and each minute into 60 seconds. So we adjust the length of the pendulum as best we can so that each swing to the left and right takes exactly one second; then we count 60 swings for each minute, and 60 minutes for each hour, etc.

The more precise digital watch uses digital counters to count the oscillations (vibrations) of a quartz crystal. (Instead of tick, tock, tick, tock, etc., digital oscilators create a 1010.. repeating sequence.) The rate of oscillation can be set by the cut of the crystal (and other factors), and good performance is obtained at about ten million oscillations per second (10 megahertz). So the crystal oscillator is typically set to 10 megahertz as accurately as possible, and ten million oscillations are counted to measure one second before counting off minutes and hours.

The most precise clocks now are atomic clocks, so called because they are based on the oscillation of atoms, typically rubidium or cesium atoms. However, the oscillation rate cannot be set to some convenient figure such as 10 megahertz. Instead, the rate is set by the laws of nature. For example, the oscillation rate of the cesium atoms in an atomic clock is 9,192,631,770 oscillations per second. The figure for a rubidium atomic clock is also an 'odd-ball' number.

The GPS Clock Situation

In each GPS satellite, a crystal oscillator with 10,230,000 oscillations per second is used to control the timing of the signals sent to GPS receivers. The timing accuracy of these signals determines the accuracy of all GSP navigation. The 10,230,000 rate is a convenient number for generating the signals, but the crystal oscillator isn't nearly as accurate as the atomic clocks on each GPS satellite. So the crystal oscillator clock needs to be compared to the atomic clock and then adjusted to make it just as accurate as the atomic clock.

But comparing these clocks with very different rates is tricky -- it's like comparing a poorly made yard stick, with inch markings, with a more accurate meter stick with centimeter markings.

Here is a video showing two rulers representing two clock signals. One ruler is represented by alternating blue and green line segments of equal length, equivalent to the 101010.. sequence of one of the GPS clocks. The other is represented by marks at equal intervals on a red line, each mark equivalent to a moment when the other GPS clock changes from 1 to 0. As you play the video, notice how the marks on the red ruler sometimes align with a blue section on the other ruler, and sometimes a green section. Suppose we colored the marks to match the color opposite it on the other ruler. Then we would get a sequence of blue and green marks in a seemingly random sequence. In a similar manner, whenever one GPS clock changes from 1 to 0, the state of the other clock is sampled, generating a seemingly random sequence of ones and zeros.



Observations Leading to the Invention

Sometimes a mark on the red ruler comes very close to a blue-green boundary, so that a small shift of one ruler relative to the other will change the color sequence. Likewise, a small shift of the timing of one GPS clock relative to the other changes the seemingly random sequence of ones and zeros (the 'sample' sequence). Because the sample sequence is sensitive to timing shifts, I tried to discover some way to decipher the sample sequence to measure the timing shift. The next videos illustrate the method that I discovered.

Suppose the blue/green ruler were wrapped around a circle with a diameter such that the blue segments always fall on one half of the circle and the green segments always fall on the other half of the circle. Suppose that the red ruler is also wound around the same circle. (Imagine that the rulers are so thin that they don't stack up on the circle, not making the path around the circle progressively longer.) Actually, we don't need to wrap the blue/green ruler around the circle; we can just mark the two halves of the circle blue and green to indicate where the blue/green ruler lands on the circle. When we wind the red ruler around the circle, we can see where the marks land on either the blue or green half.

In the video, the halves of the circle are marked as blue and green; and as the circle 'wheel' turns, winding on the ruler, the marks are moved slightly inside the circle when they land on the blue half, and are moved slightly outside the circle when they land on the green half. When you play this next video, notice that even though the marks are fairly far apart on the ruler, they become spread around the circle and eventually become closely spaced. It is this close spacing that allows more precise measurement than expected, because it is normally expected that the precision is the same as the ruler spacing.



So how can we calculate the offset alignment of the rulers from the positions of the green and red (one and zero) samples? Here is an analogous example that may suggest a method:

Suppose the famous "Old Faithful" geyser in Yellowstone Park in Wyoming erupts every one hour and 13 minutes exactly. (Actually, that's close to the average interval, but it varies, usually between 65 and 92 minutes, and sometimes about 45 or 125 minutes.) Now, suppose that the first eruption on some day is 41 minutes after midnight, and some one records a list of all the eruption times starting on that day and for one week, using a digital watch. They give us a copy of the list that doesn't include any of the numbers, but only the am/pm indicators, and ask us to figure out the time of the first eruption.

It's really simple to find the answer. We assume that the first eruption is at midnight, and advancing around a 24-hour circle at intervals of one hour and 13 minutes, we mark these locations on the circle "am" or "pm" according to the list. Unknowingly, we have started our list 41 minutes early, but when we look at our circle and see that the "am" marks begin at 11:19pm instead of midnight (12am on digital watches and clocks), it becomes obvious that our list started 41 minutes early, so we conclude (correctly) that the first eruption must have been at 12:41am.

How the Phase Meter Works

The phase meter uses a similar method. Starting at a "zero" position on the circle, positions are computed that are associated with "one" and "zero" samples (analogous to the "am" and "pm" marks). An early version of the invention used a list of these samples, which would become more costly with more samples. A later improvement reduced this cost by eliminating the list, making it practical for millions of samples to be processed.

In this later version, the circle is divided into three equal parts, and the number of "one" samples falling in each third of the circle are counted, using three counters. We figured out how to estimate the angle of the line that best divides the region of the 'one' samples from the region of the "zero" samples from these three counts. (This is a little tricky, but we will skip these details.)

In the next video, you can see these three counts increasing as the samples arrive on the circle, and you can see the estimated angle (computed from these counts) becoming more accurate as the counts increase. The marks outside the circle represent "one" samples, which are counted, and the marks inside the circle represent "zero" samples, which are not counted. The thirds of the circle are divided by black lines, and the estimated angle is indicated by a magenta line.



You can see that the result is not perfect, but in this demonstration, we have only 50 samples. A phase meter in a GPS satellite can process about 30 million samples every 1.5 seconds, and the error is about one ten-thousandth of the circle.

Conclusion

When all the details are worked out, we get something fairly complex, even though the initial concepts were relatively simple. The following is a "block diagram" of the final design; there are more details inside each rectangular block:


The yellow area and the blue area below it do most of the operations illustrated by the last video above, exept that the computation of the estimated angle is done by a computer elsewhere. The areas above allow a computer to set up the measurement parameters, and the areas on the left control the measurement timing. (Click on the diagram for a larger view.)

Designs like this are not developed one detail at a time, but rather one idea at a time. The big idea leads to middle-sized ideas, ... and finally to lots of details. That is the essence of what is called "top-down design".

============================================
I recently found some photos from the time that the phase meter prototype was tested. Here is a photo of the phase meter prototype 'test bed'. Most of the circuit board is a microprocessor with its support circuits (because part of the phase meter function is software). The phase meter hardware is the small black integrated circuit in the white square at the upper-left corner of the gridded area at the near end of the board.


The next photo shows the test team gathered around the test bed, with related instrumentation in the background. In the foreground is John Petzinger, co-inventor for the second phase meter patent, who worked with me in Clifton, NJ. I don't recall the names of the other two, but one is a software engineer from San Diego, CA, and the other a hardware engineer from Ft. Wayne, IN. We worked together by email and occasional phone call for months, before meeting for the first time in Clifton for the test.


Finally, I found this graph showing the results of one of the tests. Two stable clock signals with different frequencies were compared by the phase meter prototype at 1.5-second intervals ('epochs') for five minutes, and the variation of the measurements were recorded here. Assuming that neither clock signal was jittery, we assumed that all the variation was due to phase meter errors. Sometimes the error was plus or minus two picoseconds, but the average (rms) was 1 psec -- that is 0.000,000,000,001 second.

Creation vs. Evolution -- an Overview of my blogs

I've worked as an engineer for 43 years (getting about the same number of patents) designing computers and similar electronic devices that are controlled by information (that we call software) and/or that process information (that we call data). I've even written software that creates other software, and software that creates hardware designs.

In my retirement years, I've been studying the basics of biology and applying my expertise in information systems to investigate the fundamentals of the creation/evolution debate. I look at how living things work from the molecular level on up, and as a systems engineer I recognize a system design when I see one. Living organisms are also controlled by information and process information. Chemistry does the 'hardware' function, and DNA (with its derivatives) does the 'software' function.

I have published my findings, as well as common-language interpretations of other technical sources, on my blog. My blog talks about many other subjects, too, so if you are only interested in the creation/evolution/information stuff, go to the "Find by Subject" section on the right and click on one of those key words. Or you can start with the following overview of a few basic subjects:

Information From Randomness?
In this blog, I discuss the myth that information can somehow arise out of randomness, and discuss Dawkins' Weasel Algorithm in particular. In information theory, pure randomness is zero information. All systems that process information have a tendency to lose information, like the way they lose useful energy. So information always drifts toward randomness, not the other way around.

In The Beginning Was Information
Back in Darwin's day, evolution seemed somewhat plausible, just as the ether and phlogiston were once plausible. But more modern findings have unraveled the claims of evolution (macro-evolution, to be more precise), primarily the discovery that biology is chemistry guided by information. Since we know that information doesn't come from nothing, it begs the question: where did the information come from?

Is Encoded Information an Essential Part of the Universe?
In a previous blog, I had explained that space, time, matter, and energy are inseparable aspects of the universe. Here I argue that information is transcendent to all these. The transport of information across space (communication) and across time (storage) uses various forms of matter and energy for conveyance; yet none of the physical laws that govern space, time, matter, and energy require information to exist. Indeed, in vast regions of the universe where there is no life, there is no [encoded] information.

Can Chemical Evolution Work?
Here I discuss Miller’s Experiment and related issues. The outcome of these experiments is like making jumbled piles of bricks, but no houses. The fundamental reason why experiments such as Miller’s don't make life out of non-life is that the chemistry isn't getting the informational guidance that it needs.

Life is more than chemistry
This expands on the previous blog. Life isn't just chemistry, but chemistry guided by the information stored in the DNA.

The Genetic Code - how to read the DNA record
Here I try to explain, in plain language as much as possible, how the DNA information is read and interpreted by the Genetic Code to construct the peptide chains that are the basis for all organic molecules. It is fascinating that there are potentially a vast number of possible genetic codes, or 'DNA languages', that would each work equally well; yet all living things on earth use the same 'language', and there is no evidence that there ever was any other 'language'.

The First Digitally-Controlled Designs
Here I observe that "The interpretation of the DNA information according to the Genetic Code creates a enormous set of specific proteins and other complex organic molecules that implement the structure and function of a particular organism" and that "All of these complex functions are guided not exclusively by chemical laws, but also by the information from the DNA." I point out that this is not only design, but digitally-controlled design; and I tell how in my engineering experience, I learned to appreciate that this is an optimum design paradigm. The first digitally-controlled designs were not computers, or the Jacquard looms and player pianos that preceeded computers; but were the living things that God created.

The Digital Control of Life
Here I provide further evidence of the similarity of the design of life and that of digital controllers.

My Latest Project -- A Portable Cold Frame

First, if you are not a gardener, you may be asking "What is a cold frame?" A cold frame is something like a miniature greenhouse, typically used to start plants from seed earlier in the season than out in the open, by providing a warmer, more protected environment. If a heater were used to provide warmth, it would be called a hot frame; but a cold frame just captures the heat of the sun through a window, and a simple enclosure helps to retain the warmth.

Sometimes an old window is simply placed over a bottomless box made of boards set on edge, and seeds are planted in the earth enclosed by these boards. But I wanted a portable cold frame that could be placed over a stone walkway, and moved under the deck when not used. Other suburban gardeners, and city gardeners, with limited space, might want to set up such a cold frame on a patio or paved area, and store it elsewhere. perhaps standing on edge, when it is not used. So I'm publishing my design to share it with others -- here in this blog, and in a Picaso web album.

I decided to use deck planking for the sides, because this lumber is generally treated for weather resistance, and use to plastic for the window -- the kind made as a substitute for window glass. I wanted the cold frame big enough to comfortably hold nine seedling trays (in a 3-by-3 arrangement), the kind that you get from greenhouses or gardening stores. That closely matches a 3 by 4 foot window piece.

The bottom of the cold frame is covered with 'hardware cloth', a wire mesh with 1/2-inch spacing, to allow drainage and support for the seedling trays. But that would allow stray dirt to fall through, which is not good if used over a stone or paved walkway or a patio. So 'weed-block' fabric is lain over the hardware cloth. This kind of tough porous fabric is made for use under a bed of loose stones or paving stones to allow drainage while preventing the soil from mingling with the stones, and blocking access to the soil by any seeds that fall among the stones. For the cold frame, we get drainage without allowing soil to fall through.

All my garden areas are automatically watered, controlled by timers, either by porous 'soaker' hoses for the larger areas, or by a drip system for containers and the raised-bed herb garden. So I naturally wanted a watering system for the cold frame. But this is an optional feature; the cold frame can be built without it, and you can water it with a watering can or a hose with a spray attachment.

To make the cold frame portable, it is made of three stacked frames, each one of which is not too heavy to carry. The frames begin as identical units:

From Portable Cold Frame

One of the frames is cut on an angle, like this:

From Portable Cold Frame

Then the parts are rearranged to form this sloped shape, which becomes the top frame, with a sloping window:

From Portable Cold Frame

The bottom of the bottom frame is covered with hardware cloth, held in place with stop moulding (the kind used as a door stop on a door frame):

From Portable Cold Frame

The "weed-block" fabric is stretched over and stapled to a frame of 1/2" x 1/2" moulding, and placed inside the bottom frame:

From Portable Cold Frame

Nine seedling trays fit inside the bottom frame:

From Portable Cold Frame

The middle frame has a vertical piece fastened in each corner that protrudes one inch above and one inch below the middle frame. These verticals lock the middle frame in place to the frames above and below it, like this:

From Portable Cold Frame

(The aluminum rail in the above photo is an optional support for the watering system.)

Two ventilation holes are formed in the rear wall of the top frame by cutting notches in the facing edges of the two planks of the rear wall:

From Portable Cold Frame

A slot is cut across each notch by dropping a circular saw into the plank edge, then a piece of hardware cloth is inserted into the slot, like this:

From Portable Cold Frame

The piece of hardware cloth is captured in place, with no need for fasteners. I like minimalist designs like this.

From Portable Cold Frame

Two vertical pieces hold the two rear planks of the top frame together. These verticals protrude below the top frame, and together with the rear verticals of the middle frame, form hinges. One hinge is show here, as well as one corner of the watering system at the top of the middle frame:

From Portable Cold Frame

The edge of the plastic window is sandwiched between 'stop' moulding (below) and 'ply cap' moulding (above), which are nailed to the top edge of the top frame:

From Portable Cold Frame

The next photo is looking through the top window toward the inside of the front wall of the cold frame. Here we can see a length of 1/2" x 1/2" moulding fastened to the inside of the front edge of the top frame with two screws. Below that are two pivoting pieces of 1/2" x 1/2" moulding fastened to the inside upper front edge of the middle frame with one screw each. The pivot screws are off-center, so that pointing the short end of the shorter pivot piece upward props the top frame open with a 1-inch gap, and using the longer end of the shorter pivot makes a 2-inch gap. Similarly, using the longer pivot piece provides 3-inch and 4-inch gaps when propping open the top frame.

From Portable Cold Frame

A larger prop is used to hold open the cold frame, as shown in the next photo. This also shows the inside painted black, to increase the heat energy absorbed from the sunlight coming through the window.

From Portable Cold Frame

The above photo also shows the watering system attached to the top frame, where it is lifted up when the top frame is lifted. Earlier, I had mounted the watering system on the middle frame, where it needed to hinge separately, and needed a second prop:

From Portable Cold Frame

The watering system is built on an aluminum frame that supports nine spray heads, each centered over one of the seedling trays:

From Portable Cold Frame

The spray heads, hoses, and connectors are made by RainDrip, which calls the spray heads "misters". Here is a close-up of one of the 'misters', and a wire loop that joins two pieces of the aluminum frame:

From Portable Cold Frame

The 'mister' comes mounted on a plastic stake, which I cut short and fasten to the frame by inserting it through an X-shaped hole in the frame. Each 'mister' head emits eight radial streams of water, and can be rotated to adjust the flow, or even to turn it off.

The 'misters' are connected by quarter-inch tubing to a half-inch supply line, which connects to regular garden hose, as shown here:

From Portable Cold Frame

For more details, you can view the entire Picaso web album by clicking on the link under any of the photos above. Also, we give more details of the cold frame design (except for the watering system) next, including:

Dimensions
Shopping list
Cutting lists
Tools needed/suggested
Construction

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Dimensions of the cold frame:

Seedling trays have various designs, but are generally 10 1/2 by 13 1/2 inches, and 3 1/2 inches high. If we allow 11 by 14 inches for each tray, it will allow for some size variation and room for fingers when handling them. So a 3 by 3 configuration of trays will comfortably fit in a 33 by 42 inch space, and a 2 by 4 configuration of trays will fit in a 28 by 44 inch space; and a 33 by 44 inch space will accommodate either configuration. My design adds an extra inch to this.

Width and length: 34 by 45 inches inside, 36 by 47 inches outside.

Inside height is 2 plank-widths plus 1 inch in front, and 4 plank-widths minus 1 inch in back. Some planks are 5 1/2 inches wide; these provide a height of 12 inches in front and 21 inches in back. Allowing 3 1/2 inches for the seed trays and 1 1/2 inches for the watering system, this allows 7 inches of height for seedling growth. Some planks are 5 3/4 inches wide; these provide 1/2 inch more height in front and 1 inch more in back.

For outside height, add the thickness of the "stop" moulding and hardware cloth at the bottom, and the window frame thickness ("stop"and "ply cap" mouldings) on top. This is about an inch.

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Shopping list for the cold frame, not including the watering system:

6 8-foot lengths or 4 12-foot lengths of decking planks, weather-treated; 5 1/2 or 5 3/4 inches wide and 1 inch thick. Choose straight, unwarped pieces.

2 8-foot lengths of "ply cap" moulding
(See photo of mouldings.)

5 8-foot lengths of "stop" moulding

2 8-foot lengths of 1/2" x 1/2" (or close to this) moulding

1 3-foot by 5-foot piece of hardware cloth, with 1/2" grid

1 3-foot by 4-foot piece of plexiglass, or plastic window 'glass'

1 roll of 3-foot wide 'weed block' fabric; black is preferred

1-pound box of 2 1/2" screws

1-pound box of 1 1/2" screws

1 1/4 inch nails, about 32

thin 1 inch nails, about 8

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Cutting list for 4 12-foot lengths of decking planks:

(1) 47 + 47 + 47 inches
(2) 34 + 34 + 28 + 47 inches
(3) 34 + 34 + 47 inches
(4) 34 + 34 + 7 3/4 + 7 3/4 + 12 1/2 + 47 inches

Cutting list for 6 8-foot lengths of decking planks:

(1) 47 + 47 inches
(2) 34 + 34 + 28 inches
(3) 34 + 34 inches
(4) 34 + 34 + 7 3/4 + 7 3/4 + 12 1/2 inches
(5) 47 + 47 inches
(6) 47 + 47 inches

The 7 3/4 and 12 1/2 and 28 inch pieces are cut in half lengthwise.

Mouldings, hardware cloth, and 'weed block' fabric are cut to fit the frames.

About 2 inches is cut off one short side of the plexiglass so that the window overlaps only half of the window frame all around.

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Tools - see photos.

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Construction (Also see photos):

The six 34-inch pieces and six 47-inch pieces are used to make three frames, 34 by 45 inches inside, and 36 by 47 inches outside. Use three 2 1/2 screws at each corner, but for the top frame, mark where the front (long side) will be cut one inch from the bottom edge. Two of the screws need to be centered in this one inch so that no screws will be cut. Clamp each corner joint in position, drill three holes with a drill matching the solid core of the screw, insert the screws so that the heads sink into the wood a bit, then remove the clamps.

Bottom Frame ---

Ihe hardware cloth is probably in a 3 foot wide roll; you will need to unroll a 4 foot section of it and make it approximately flat. Use 1 1/2 inch nails for the following. Lay the hardware cloth over the bottom frame, and begin by nailing down a 36-inch edge of the hardware cloth on a short edge of the bottom frame. Use only enough nails to hold this edge in place. Then stretch it out to reach the other short edge. Cut the hardware cloth to match the length of the bottom frame (47 inches). Cut three pieces of stop moulding to match the width of the bottom frame (36 inches). Nail one of these pieces over each of the short edges of the bottom frame, anchoring the two ends of the hardware cloth. Nail the third piece of stop moulding over the center, from the center of one long side to the center of the other long side. Now cut four pieces of stop moulding to cover the exposed portions of the two long sides of the bottom frame, and nail these in place. This is the bottom of the bottom frame.

Cut four pieces of the 1/2" x 1/2" (or close to this) moulding to make a rectangular frame that will fit inside the bottom frame with a margin of 1/8" all around. Fasten these pieces with two thin 1-inch nails at each corner. Cut a rectangle of 'weed block' fabric that is about 36 by 47 inches. Stretch this fabric over the frame of moulding and staple it to the outer edge of the moulding. Place this inside the bottom frame with the stretched fabric on the hardware cloth and below the frame of moulding.

Middle Frame ---

You should have four small pieces of planking 7 3/4 inches long, with a width one-half the width of a plank. These 'verticals' will be fastened to the long sides of the middle frame, at the inside corners, protruding one inch above and one inch below the frame. (See photos.) Use three 1 1/2 screws for each vertical. Clamp each vertical in position, drill three holes with a drill matching the solid core of the screw, insert the screws so that the heads sink into the wood a bit, then remove the clamp. With a coarse file, taper the outside edges of the protruding parts of each vertical to make it easier to fit the frames together.

Try stacking the frames. If the fit is too tight, try turning one of the frames around, or turning the middle frame up-side-down. If a better fit is found this way, mark the frames to indicate which sides should be aligned. If the fit is still too tight, use the coarse file to remove some wood from the outside edges of some verticals.

While the top frame is stacked on the middle frame, mark on the bottom rear plank of the top frame the location of the inner edges of the rear verticals of the middle frame. This will help to locate the verticals of the top frame.

Top Frame ---

For the top frame, mark where the front (long side) will be cut one inch from the bottom edge. On each side (short side), mark a straight angled line from the center of the top edge to one inch above the bottom of the front corner. First cut each short side on these lines. Then adjust the tilt of the saw blade to match this angle, and cut the long front side lengthwise one inch from the bottom edge.

Ventilation holes

Cut notches for the ventilation holes in the edges of the rear planks of the top frame that will be facing each other. Each notch is 4 inches wide and 1 inch deep. Mark each edge 10 and 14 inches from each rear inside corner, adjust the saw for 1 inch depth, and cut across each mark. Before cutting out the notches, mark the center of the edge across each notch, at least 1 inch past the notch on either side. Then adjust the (circular) saw depth to 2 1/8 inches, and cut a slit in the center of the edge by dropping the saw blade down on the center line. With a general-purpose saw blade, the cut should be wide enough for the hardware cloth to fit. (For a handheld circular saw, you need to lean the front edge of the saw guide on the plank edge, line it up, turn on the saw, and slowly tilt the saw down to a level position.) The center of the saw blade should land over the center of the notch; but to be sure, slide the saw a little to either side of the estimated center position.

Mark the bottom of each notch one inch from the plank edge. Here are two methods of cutting the bottom of each notch:

(1) With a 1/4 inch drill, make holes along the bottom of the notch, including the corners. The holes should be tangent to the line marking the bottom edge of the notch. Use a chisel to break away most of the wood from the notch area, then finish with a rough, then smoother, file.

(2) With a 1/4 inch drill, make holes only at the corners. With a saber saw, cut the bottom edge of the notch from one hole to the other.

Cut two 3 by 5 inch rectangles of hardware cloth, and cut away the four half-inch corners of each piece, as shown in the photos. Make sure that each piece is as flat as possible.

By now, the slit that was cut across each notch is filled with sawdust. Use one of the hardware cloth pieces to scrape out the sawdust. Now insert a hardware cloth piece in each slit of the larger piece of the top frame. The center of the hardware cloth piece should align with the edge of the plank. Now stack the smaller piece of the top frame on top so that its slits fit over the top half of the hardware cloth pieces.

Verticals

While the top frame was stacked on the middle frame, you marked on the bottom rear plank of the top frame the location of the inner edges of the rear verticals of the middle frame. This will now be used to locate the verticals of the top frame. Make a vertical line at each mark, that is, parallel to the corner of the top frame.

You should have two pieces of planking 12 1/2 inches long, with a width one-half the width of a plank. These are the verticals for the top frame. Place each piece alongside one of the vertical lines that you made, on the side of the line away from the corner. The top of each vertical piece should be 1/2 inch below the top rear edge of the top frame, and the bottom should protrude below the top frame. Clamp in place, then fasten each vertical piece with six 1 1/2 inch screws, three screws into each rear plank, and alternating the positions of the screws toward the left and right sides of the vertical. (Drill holes for the screws as before.)

Each side of the top layer of the top frame is a triangular piece that extends from a rear corner toward the center of one side. Line up each of these pieces with the plank below it, and drill a hole for a 2 1/2 inch screw 4 inches back from the pointed end down through the pointed piece into the plank edge below it. Then, holding the pieces in alignment, fasten with a 2 1/2 inch screw in the predrilled hole, sinking the head of the screw into the wood a little.

Window

Cut pieces of 'stop' moulding to go on the top sloping edge of the top frame. To make mitered corners, cut these to overlap at the corners, and hold in place, overlapped at the corners, with two temporary nails on each piece, about 10 inches away from the corners, and only partly hammered down. With a hacksaw or other fine-toothed saw, cut across each corner on an angle from the outside corner to the inside corner through both overlapping pieces. Remove the cut-off scrap, and the moulding will lie flat with mitered edges at each corner. Remove the temporary nails, and re-nail with 1 1/4 inch nails with about 10-inch spacing all around.

Lay the window plastic sheet on the top frame and position so that two or three edges of the plastic overlap half the width of the border of 'stop' moulding. Mark the remaining one or two edges of the plastic where it should be cut so that all edges of the plastic will overlap half the border of moulding. using a grease pencil or crayon and a straight-edge. Then cut the plastic as marked, with a hacksaw blade.

Cut pieces of 'ply cap' moulding to go on the top edge of the top frame. The thicker edges of the 'ply cap' moulding go toward the outside, the stepped side down and the curved side up. Make mitered corners as for the 'stop' moulding, but don't nail permanently.

Put the plastic window on the top frame, overlapping half the width of the frame of 'stop' moulding all around. Then put the 'ply cap' moulding pieces in place so that the thin inner edges lie on top of the window and the thick outer edges lie on the 'stop' moulding and trap the plastic window in place. Nail with small nails, piercing the 'ply cap' moulding at the step edge where it meets the window edge.

Props ---

Here we describe devices for propping open the cold frame, either a little bit for ventilation, or high enough to reach in and work with the contents.

Cut three lengths of the 1/2" by 1/2" moulding, 6, 10, and 13 inches long. The 1 1/2 inch screws can be used with these, but 1 1/4 inches would be better. Fasten the 12 inch piece centered on the inside of the front wall of the top frame, with two screws, 2 inches from each end of the piece. Drill a hole (for a screw) in the 6-inch piece 2 1/2 inches from one end. Drill a hole in the 10-inch piece 4 1/2 inches from one end. On the inside of the front wall of the middle frame, make two holes 1 1/2 inches down from the top edge and 4 inches from the center to the left and right, that is, 8 inches apart.

Screw the 6 and 10-inch pieces to the middle frame using these holes. With these pieces each fastened with one screw each, they can pivot on the screws. When not used, these pieces are horizontal with the longest arms pointing toward the corners of the frame. But one of the four ends of these pieces can be turned upward to prop open the top frame. Depending on which of the four ends is chosen, the top frame will be propped open 1, 2, 3, or 4 inches for varying amounts of ventilation.

Take one of the 28-inch pieces that are half the width of a plank, and cut a notch in each end. Cut each notch by making two cuts into the end 3/4 inch from each edge, and 3/4 inch deep. Draw a line for the bottom of the notch, from the bottom of one cut to the other. Cut out the bottom of the notch by either of the methods described for the notches use for the rear ventilation holes.

This prop is used to hold the cold frame wide open, for working inside. The notches keep it from slipping off the edges of the top and middle frames. When not used, it can be stored inside the bottom frame alongside the front wall, or alongside a side wall if you prefer that.

If you like, you can fasten a handle to the front edge of the top frame.