Back in 1996, I became very, very into Sailor Moon (and still am). Conveniently, my school had also gotten access to the Internet (sharing a 33.6 kbps modem was fun then) compelling my parents to buy book on how to use it. This is how I found out about Internet Relay Chat and channels to talk about various topics including the aforementioned anime.

However, when I went to connect to IRC, instead of connecting to one network, I connected to another and for sometime I was in another Sailor Moon chat room that was not the one I had found on some Geocities website. Eventually I came to discover this, but it didn’t matter to me because I had gotten used to the space I was in.

The IRC channel I joined was on DALnet and not EFnet. The latter network refers to itself as “the original IRC network” and exists after abuse from when IRC was a free-roaming protocol with interoperability.

Here’s the explanation from Wikipedia:

Initially, most IRC servers formed a single IRC network, to which new servers could join without restriction, but this was soon abused by people who set up servers to sabotage other users, channels, or servers. Restriction grew and, in August 1990, eris.Berkeley.EDU was the last server indiscriminately allowing other servers to join it, Eris being the Greek goddess of strife and discord.

A group of operators, with the support of Jarkko Oikarinen, introduced a new “Q-line” into their server configurations, to “quarantine” themselves away from eris by disconnecting from any subset of the IRC network as soon as they saw eris there.

For a few days, the entire IRC network suffered frequent netsplits, but eventually the majority of servers added the Q-line and effectively created a new separate IRC net called EFnet (Eris-Free Network); the remaining servers which stayed connected to eris (and thus were no longer able to connect to EFnet servers) were called A-net (Anarchy Network). A-net soon vanished, leaving EFnet as the only IRC network.

Continuing problems with performance and abuse eventually led to the rise of another major IRC network, Undernet, which split off in October 1992.

The parallels between the discord leading to EFnet’s existence and subsequent further fragmentation of IRC networks with today’s modern-day Mastodon are painfully obvious.

IRC became segmented because of disagreements, abuse, and then eventually differences in software suites. To add to this, DALnet exists because the original IRC network didn’t offer services to prevent people from stealing channels or usernames.

Mastodon is already facing down this road. We’ve already seen the software forked to allow right-wing conservatives have their own little social media island and I am certain that there are others out there. Disagreements over terms of service and or the permissible content on a specific instance has led to de-federation.

What Mastodon has done is create a situation where someone who wants to talk about their favourite anime has to find an instance and then hopefully make a home there. Is this a bad thing? I don’t know, but like IRC, having connections to multiple instances is quite annoying and thus I don’t like it.

Twitter is Eris. Mastodon is EFnet.

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Plaza of Nations at Expo 86 (City of Vancouver Archives)

Expo 86 was Vancouver’s “coming out” party and its theme was transportation. This of course coincided with the opening of what is now the Expo Line from Waterfront to its then terminus at New Westminster. However, there were a few rapid transit systems built for the exposition including one very useful monorail system.

Map showing the transfer point between then “Stadium” station to the Expo 86 monorail (City of Vancouver Archives)

During the event, a monorail platform was situated to the west of what was then Stadium station and it provided speedy service across the sprawling World’s Fair. The entire length of the service spanned over five kilometres and it was vital in not only connecting the parts of the False Creek portion of the fair, but also back to SkyTrain itself which was a link to the Canada Pavilion at what is now Canada Place, next to Waterfront station.

Monorail cruising through the Expo 86 grounds (City of Vancouver Archives)

The monorail itself had several other stops including two near what is now Yaletown-Roundhouse station on the Canada Line, inside of the Plaza of Nations near BC Place Stadium, one at the Cambie Street bridge, and one more just a block from Main Street-Science World (which would then have been just “Main Street” as Science World was simply “Expo Centre” during the fair).

Expo 86 and the Monorail (City of Vancouver Archives)

One interesting thing about the monorail was that it was envisioned as a possible rapid transit system for Metro Vancouver as early as the 1950s (at some point I should write about this). However, when finally built, it simply hugged False Creek and after the fair was over, was dismantled and sent off to England where it became a staple of an amusement park starting in summer 1987.

Proposed tram or street car system (City of Vancouver)

The route it took however is still an option under consideration for a street car service (see green-coloured line above), but Vancouver City Council has been speaking about this idea for decades and it probably could be decades more before we ever see that happen even though as early as last year it had another report released on it.

This originally appeared on cohost.org/VancouverTransit but has been moved here due to the site’s shutdown.

This image bugs me. It has always bugged me. So I want to know: could Sodor send Thomas to space and if so, how much would it cost? Since Sodor is modelled on the Isle of Man, I figured I can have some fun here.

The GDP of the island, the train and fuel, and then its cost will all be discussed here. I am not an economist nor a rocket scientist, so just enjoy this chost and get in the comments if you have a better answer.

Figuring out Sodor’s GDP

This is important since we want to know if the economy of the island could pull it off.

The population of Sodor is suggested to be about 60,000. The Isle of Man is estimated to be around 81,000, which makes Sodor 74% of its population size.

We don’t have any details from Sodor about its economy, but it certainly has more railways than Isle of Man, which has only one and it is just a tourist steam line. I feel comfortable with just US$5.54 billion being Sodor’s annual GDP since it’s 74% that of the Isle of Man’s.

Interestingly enough, the real world Isle has been home to a few private space ventures.

Physical details on Thomas the Tank Engine

This wasn’t too hard to figure out as it turns out to be a LB&SCR E2 class engine built in England between 1913 and 1916.

Why this is important is pretty simple: we need to know how much he would weigh and how much water is required to allow him to function.

As it stands, its dry weight is 53,600 kg. However, it also has to carry water, and its capacity there is 5,710 litres. Water is great since with the metric system we can immediately covert those litres into kilograms by switching the units, making the whole weight of the train sans coal 59,310 kg.

The coal part is tricky. Steam locomotives traditionally used anthracite coal, which weighs about 1.5 g per cm^3. This information is otherwise useless to me because I have no idea how much coal Thomas requires in order to function.

However, I lucked out and found a diagram of the train and it specifies 2.5 imperial tons of coal! That is an additional 2,540 kg, for a grand total of 61,850 kilograms for a fully-functional Thomas the Tank Engine.

Can a rocket send that much mass to space?

This is where the situation starts to get a bit dire: the best we’re going to do today is low-earth orbit.

Most modern rockets are in the range of a few thousand kilograms and as we increase the mass of the payload, the shorter the distance we’re able to travel. Getting off the ground is expensive-fuel wise as we have to fight the gravitational forces that our planet forces on us.

However, if we’re satisfied with low-earth orbit and just being a satellite or possibly docking with the International Space Station, the Falcon Heavy rocket is capable of lifting 63,900 kg to around that height, meaning we’re just about 2,000 kg under its maximum payload capacity.

So how much will this cost Sodor?

SpaceX claims that it will cost about US$1,200 per kilogram to send something to space on its Falcon Heavy–it is also the cheapest out of any competitor government or private.

At 61,850 kg, that translates to US$74.2 million to just lift Thomas up into orbit. This of course does not take into account the cost to prepare Thomas nor transporting him across the Atlantic to a launch site, but it’s a base cost. I’d pad this to US$100 million to just consider all the nonsense required to make this happen.

Going back to Sodor’s GDP, this means that 2% of the island’s economic output would be devoted to this stunt. To compare this back to Isle of Man, this would be on par with their entire tourist sector.

So it’s possible to send Thomas to space then?

It’s doable, but it would be a rather weird stunt. I have no idea how he’d get back.

Okay. So I have a really weird thing I really love and that is arbutus trees. They’re absolutely my favourite tree in the world and I am fortunate to have quite a few within a reasonable distance from where I live.

You can find them commonly on the southern coasts of British Columbia, but they have been known to extend all the way down to northern California. You generally only find them near beaches and they prefer to be exposed and in areas with little to no water. This is why when you do encounter them you tend to be on steep hills or cliffs as opposed to flat land. They grow rather tall and can reach as high as 30 metres.

As a consequence, having one of your own in a yard is not practical. Additionally, they are terrible for making anything out of as the wood tends to grow quite crookedly due to the nature of the environments it is found in. Growing them in the city is difficult as evident by this Vancouver tree census data, there are only 9 of them on public property.

In any event, for my birthday this year, I made a point to book a place near where the trees could be found since they make me so happy. I hope that this share made you happy too!

My favourite video game of all time is Chrono Trigger. I literally cannot express enough how much I love this game, its music, and its story. I have had friends get me copies of this game when travelling and it is at this point I am now just short of one final copy: the EU DS release.

I figured I’d write about my thoughts about each type of release and then tell you the version I think you should play.

PlayStation

The release of Chrono Trigger for PlayStation is weird. SquareSoft decided to use the original SNES binary of the game to provide things like graphics and text, but then added FMV and audio separate–the audio part makes sense when you think about it anyway.

However, this decision to use the SNES ROM made the game run so freaking slow. Its disc read times are abysmal and really ruins the experience if you ignore the beautiful Akira Toriyama-derived animation cuts.

The North American release happened twice on that note. Sony really loves to do “greatest hits” releases and this version is no exception. However, they really messed with the artwork in the game case as evident here.

They just shifted the whole art to the right to put the hideous green label. I know that this is just a game case, but come on.

I don’t recommend making this your solo experience with this game.

Super Nintendo / Super Famicom

This is the original version and it plays as you expect it. Honestly, if this is to be your only experience with the game, it is actually great. If you decide to speedrun it, this is the only version you should bother with.

The catch with this release is the North American version is super expensive. I was lucky in that I was able to get a copy from a friend on the cheap without a game box. I ended up buying a replica box since I don’t really care about having the originals.

The Japanese version is dirt cheap however.

Nintendo DS

Okay. So hear me out: this version is probably the best to get especially if you want to buy it at an affordable price, have reasonable load times (it includes the FMV), and for the bonus extra ending that doesn’t exist in the other physical releases.

The downside of the DS release in my opinion is that it plays slightly differently due to the second screen. It doesn’t really change the gameplay, but I always felt like the experience was better on a solo display.

The bonus ending I will avoid elaborating too much on, but it does a good job intertwining the game with its sequel, Chrono Cross.

So what is the best version?

The Nintendo DS is the best version if you want a bonus ending and want a copy on the cheap.

The SNES version is the best if you want the original experience.

Choose your poison, but either way enjoy the ride!