Newsletter 2013

Innovation 

Surprisingly, there are people out there who can still handle my sermons! Those close to me have no doubt had enough of my sermons on innovation. In March the World Intellectual Property Organization invited me to speak at a conference in Dar Es Salaam. 

The president of Tanzania, who was due to open the conference, was late (or rather delayed). So the conference only started some hours late. To make up for lost time, some of the afternoon speeches had to be abandoned. I was one of the casualties. So I ended up with just an all expenses paid holiday!

I was not always so lucky. I had three more speaking engagements during the year where no such excuses were forthcoming.

They say the length of a progress report is inversely proportional to actual progress. Accordingly, considering I spoke at length about innovation this year, I made little actual innovation.  Probably the only useful thing I developed this year is a gasket-less boss for heating elements.

Traditionally, asbestos gaskets were standard in thermal engineering. With the phasing out of asbestos, synthetic substitutes had to be found. Unfortunately the performance of the substitutes I have used has been less than satisfactory. Fortunately I have found an idea that does away with the need for gaskets altogether. The solution I settled on is a tapered boss

for heating elements. I have done more than six months' trials of it and looks very promising.  Initially I was considering going to  China to find someone who could machine threads with a taper. Then I was pleasantly surprised to find someone who could do it in Msasa, Harare!

I also had a monumental catastrophe on my hands this year.  It was a case of more haste, less speed. To save money, I mounted a water tank up a tree.

It worked well for a while until one fateful windy day. The tank swayed and eventually keeled over.

When the wooden pallet it was resting on cracked, it made a racket so loud that dogs in the neighborhood barked!

So I'm now up there with The Tacoma Narrows Bridge in the league of monumental failures. 

However failure often comes with the territory of innovation. It cannot be eliminated but its probability can be reduced. One tool for doing that is mathematical modeling. With that objective in mind I have resumed meaningful effort towards my maths degree. 

To test new ideas I still have to fabricate pilot models by trial and error. Needless to say that is a slow and expensive way of doing it.  It happens to be one reason why the central cooling (the reverse of central heating) project is taking long.

If successful, it could obviate the need for  separate aircon compressors for each room. 

It could also help work on the Testikooler ( a mobile personal air conditioner). 

A decent grasp of mathematical modeling would speed up everything. 

Adventure

In the local council elections held on 31 July 2013, I stood as the Christian Democratic Party candidate for Ward 2, Harare. After a  grueling campaign trail, I garnered a princely sum of 76 votes.  I was disappointed but it was therapeutic to remember Simon Pitt's words from a prior council election in which he was pitted against Rev Alan Spence.

Simon said gravely, "God looks after his own." So maybe there is good reason why I didn't get in this time. 

After my election defeat I retreated to Montenegro to lick my wounds in peace and seclusion. 

You can read about the holiday in a separate post below. 

Business

One of my boyhood heroes, Frederick Sanger passed away this year. 

Reading about how he bagged two Nobel prizes is among my most enduring formative experiences.

I vividly remember the newspaper article in which he described himself as "probably above average but not an outstanding scholar."

If a non-outstanding scholar could do so well, then there was hope in biochemistry even for me! That's partly how I was inspired to study biochemistry. My other heroes at the time were pop stars. Without Sanger, I might have followed a very different course.  In which case the Gwatamatic(http://youtu.be/7k0Dyi6UwuQ) would never have been. I probably would have ended up playing lead guitar with the Sex Pistols, Four Play or similar sounding groups. 

The only biochemistry I do now is sadza cooking. Needless to say I don't expect to win a Nobel prize for that. But I do win Gwatamatic contracts from time to time. 

In common with other businesses of a contract nature, it entails a feast-or-famine trend. Feast when the contracts are flowing and famine when they dry up. Business was terrible this year but my body and soul are still together, so there must have been a net feast. Maintenance work used to pay the bills when there were no contracts. However things have changed somewhat. 

In a sense, the business is hoist with its own petard. The Gwatamatic rigs are now so sturdy thanks to German gearboxes and Korean PLCs(programmable logic controllers).

Sturdy enough to cope with even ZESA power surges. As a result maintenance revenue is now minimal! One day I might have to invent gremlins to create some maintenance work!

This year I came up against the first serious "technology transfer" attempt that I am aware of. That is the euphemism they use nowadays for theft of intellectual property.

A certain large organization attempted to violate my Gwatamatic patent. Fortunately they haven't got very far, so far anyway. They are probably finding it more involved than they bargained on. 

Underneath all that hardware, intellectual property is at the core of what I sell. So I view threats like this as on par with attempted burglary. It's one reason why I won't partake in illegal downloads of music or other proprietary software. 

Spiritual

During the year I retired from the Easyworship (video projection) team at the church after an eight year stint. 

My idle interval was short lived though. I was soon invited to join the remuneration committee. That together with regular elders' duties is enough to keep me out of mischief. 

Family

My nephew has succeeded where I'm still to succeed. He's found a bride and the wedding is in the Christmas week.  So the whole clan is likely to descend on Harare this Christmas. I'm looking forward to it. 

I wish you all a good Christmas. 

Finally, it appears selfies are in. Even the Pope is doing it! So I've weighed in too: