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Earliest names in the Hall family tree

 Pontifex

 

The Pontifex family can be traced back to as early as 1550. If this is correct, John Pontifex is Corinne’s 9th great grandfather (Corinne’s father is Arthur John Hall, his mother was Annie Woods, her mother was Anne Pontifex). 

The earliest Pontifex in the family tree we have been able to trace is John Pontifex (1550-1589) who lived in West Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, England. The family stayed in Buckinghamshire until around 1800.

According to a Pontifex family legend, their family was descended from Pope Martin V, originally Oddo Colonna (1368-1431), a Prince of the house of Colonna. He was married and had two sons who went to England and took the name Pontifex, of the Pontiff. 


Nairn

Corinne’s grandfather Fasham Venables, was previously Fasham Nairn King before he adopted his stepfather’s name. The Nairn family can be traced back to 1670 in Kent, England.

 


Remington, Hobbins, Hadley

 

These ancestral names of Fasham Venables (previously Fasham Nairn King, Corinne’s grandfather) can be traced back to the mid-1600s, and were all in Warwickshire, England.

 

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Travel

Southern Africa

 

 

In April 2023 we took a package tour to South Africa with our friends Craig and Sonia. We flew via Singapore to Cape Town.

 



Cape Town is the country's legislative capital and location of the South African Parliament.
It's long been renowned for Table Mountain, that dominates the city.

Read more: Southern Africa

Fiction, Recollections & News

Australia Day according to ChatGPT

 

I've long been interested in the advent of artificial intelligence (AI). It's a central theme in my fictional writing (The Cloud and The Craft) and is discussed in my essay to my children 'The Meaning of Life' (1997-2017). So, I've recently been exploring the capabilities of ChatGPT.

As today, 26 January 2024, is Australia Day, I asked ChatGPT to: 'write 1000 words about Australia Day date'.  In a few minutes (I read each as it arrived) I had four, quite different, versions. Each took around 18 seconds to generate. This is the result:

Read more: Australia Day according to ChatGPT

Opinions and Philosophy

Carbon Capture and Storage (original)

(Carbon Sequestration)

 

 

 


Carbon Sequestration Source: Wikimedia Commons

 

At the present state of technological development in NSW we have few (perhaps no) alternatives to burning coal.  But there is a fundamental issue with the proposed underground sequestration of carbon dioxide (CO2) as a means of reducing the impact of coal burning on the atmosphere. This is the same issue that plagues the whole current energy debate.  It is the issue of scale. 

Disposal of liquid CO2: underground; below the seabed; in depleted oil or gas reservoirs; or in deep saline aquifers is technically possible and is already practiced in some oil fields to improve oil extraction.  But the scale required for meaningful sequestration of coal sourced carbon dioxide is an enormous engineering and environmental challenge of quite a different magnitude. 

It is one thing to land a man on the Moon; it is another to relocate the Great Pyramid (of Cheops) there.

Read more: Carbon Capture and Storage (original)

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