Biker, Happy Joan of Arc Day!

[Goatboy]

Awell zen, you may enjoy zis film too zen. Bunraku

[video=youtube;jVabHVw4dMc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVabHVw4dMc[/video]

Zee trailer doesn't do it justice and the woodcutters axes are beautiful.

Starring
Josh Hartnett
Woody Harrelson
Gackt
Kevin McKidd
Ron Perlman
Demi Moore

 

[crosslandkelly]

Haven't heard of those two either, I'll have to look out for them. As much as I enjoy this type of movie, I thought this was a load of old toot.

[video=youtube;11Mide2KXow]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11Mide2KXow[/video]

 

[Goatboy]

Biker! Happy Ballpoint Pen Day!

Biker, put down that sharpie, drop that quill fir today in 1888 - John J Loud patents the ballpoint pen!
A ballpoint pen (also biro, and ball pen) is a writing instrument which dispenses a viscous ink from an internal reservoir through the rolling action of a metal ball at its point. This "ball point" may vary in diameter, and may be made of brass, steel, or tungsten carbide.
Originally conceived and developed as a cleaner and reliable alternative to quill and fountain pens, ballpoint pens are now the dominant writing instrument. Millions are manufactured and sold every day, worldwide, with low-cost and ubiquity assuring that there is always a ballpoint pen within reach.
This so-called "invention that changed the way we write" has also influenced the way art is made; some professional artists use ballpoints to create fine artwork. A popular disposable model has gained recognition for its industrial design as part of the permanent collection at New York's Museum of Modern Art. Designer ballpoints are also produced for the high-end market by pen manufacturers, and prized by collectors.

The concept of using a ball point within a writing instrument as a method of applying ink to paper has existed since the late 19th century. In these inventions, the ink was placed in a thin tube whose end was blocked by a tiny ball, held so that it could not slip into the tube or fall out of the pen. The ink clung to the ball, which spun as the pen was drawn across the paper.
The first patent for a ballpoint pen was issued on 30 October 1888, to John J. Loud, a leather tanner, who was attempting to make a writing instrument that would be able to write on his leather products, which then-common fountain pens could not. Loud's pen had a small rotating steel ball, held in place by a socket. Although it could be used to mark rough surfaces such as leather, as Loud intended, it proved to be too coarse for letter-writing. With no commercial viability, its potential went unexploited and the patent eventually lapsed. The manufacture of economical, reliable ballpoint pens as we know them arose from experimentation, modern chemistry, and precision manufacturing capabilities of the early 20th century. Patents filed worldwide during early development are testaments to failed attempts at making the pens commercially viable and widely available. Early ballpoints did not deliver the ink evenly; overflow and clogging were among the obstacles inventors faced toward developing reliable ballpoint pens. If the ball socket were too tight, or the ink too thick, it would not reach the paper. If the socket were too loose, or the ink too thin, the pen would leak or the ink would smear. Ink reservoirs pressurised by piston, spring, capillary action, and gravity would all serve as solutions to ink-delivery and flow problems.
László Bíró, a Hungarian newspaper editor frustrated by the amount of time that he wasted filling up fountain pens and cleaning up smudged pages, noticed that inks used in newspaper printing dried quickly, leaving the paper dry and smudge free. He decided to create a pen using the same type of ink. Bíró enlisted the help of his brother György, a chemist, to develop viscous ink formulas for new ballpoint designs.
László's innovation successfully coupled ink-viscosity with a ball-socket mechanism which act compatibly to prevent ink from drying inside the reservoir while allowing controlled flow. Bíró filed a British patent on 15 June 1938.
In 1941 the Bíró brothers and a friend, Juan Jorge Meyne, fled Germany and moved to Argentina, where they formed Bíró Pens of Argentina and filed a new patent in 1943. Their pen was sold in Argentina as the Birome (portmanteau of the names Bíró and Meyne), which is how ballpoint pens are still known in that country. This new design was licensed by the British, who produced ball point pens for RAF aircrew as the Biro. Ballpoint pens were found to be more versatile than fountain pens, especially at high altitudes where fountain pens were prone to ink-leakage.

Example of a ballpoint pen work-in-progress by artist James Mylne.

Ballpoint pens have proven to be a versatile art medium for professional artists as well as amateur doodlers. Low cost, availability, and portability are cited by practitioners as qualities which make this common writing tool a convenient, alternative art supply. Some artists use them within mixed-media works, while others use them solely as their medium-of-choice.
Effects not generally associated with ballpoint pens can be achieved. Traditional pen-and-ink techniques such as stippling and cross-hatching can be used to create half-tones or the illusion of form and volume. For artists whose interests necessitate precision line-work, ballpoints are an obvious attraction; ballpoint pens allow for sharp lines not as effectively executed using a brush. Finely applied, the resulting imagery has been mistaken for airbrushed artwork and photography, causing reactions of disbelief which ballpoint artist Lennie Mace refers to as the Wow Factor.
Famous 20th Century artists such as Andy Warhol, among others, have utilised ballpoint pens to some extent during their careers. Ballpoint pen artwork continues to attract interest in the 21st Century, with contemporary artists gaining recognition for their specific use of ballpoint pens; for their technical proficiency, imagination and innovation. Korean-American artist Il Lee has been creating large-scale, ballpoint-only abstract artwork since the late 1970s. Since the 1980s, Lennie Mace creates imaginative, ballpoint-only artwork of varying content and complexity, applied to unconventional surfaces including wood and denim. The artist coined terms such as PENtings and Media Graffiti to describe his varied output. More recently, British artist James Mylne has been creating photo-realistic artwork using mostly black ballpoints, sometimes with minimal mixed-media colour. In the mid-2000s (decade) Juan Francisco Casas generated Internet attention for a series of large-scale, photo-realistic ballpoint duplications of his own snapshots of friends, utilising only blue pens.
Using ballpoint pens to create artwork is not without limitations. Colour availability and sensitivity of ink to light are among concerns of ballpoint pen artists. Mistakes pose greater risks to ballpoint artists; once a line is drawn, it generally cannot be erased. Additionally, "blobbing" of ink on the drawing surface and "skipping" of ink-flow require consideration when using ballpoint pens for artistic purposes. Although the mechanics of ballpoint pens remain relatively unchanged, ink composition has evolved to solve certain problems over the years, resulting in unpredictable sensitivity to light and some extent of fading.
​

 

[crosslandkelly]

Interesting stuff GB.


Today in 1925.
In his workshop in London, Scotsman John Logie Baird achieved the transmission of the first television pictures using the head of a dummy as his image source.. He then persuaded a 15 year old office boy, William Taynton, to sit in front of a camera, becoming the first live person captured on camera.


View attachment 24344 View attachment 24345 View attachment 24346

 

[Biker]

The tool of my trade as "an artist" is the Bic biro. Obviously I use pencils etc but for those black lines the biro can't be beat. Thanks for choosing that as the choice for today. I enjoyed reading that GB.

As for CLK not liking Sky Captain. Your choice mate, I loved that film! It had daring do and adventure like those old boys own adventure stories I read as a kid. Giant robots, fighter planes, flying battle stations, the works Me having a liking for Gwyneth Paltrow also helped too.

 

[crosslandkelly]

As for CLK not liking Sky Captain. Your choice mate, I loved that film! It had daring do and adventure like those old boys own adventure stories I read as a kid. Giant robots, fighter planes, flying battle stations, the works Me having a liking for Gwyneth Paltrow also helped too.

Oh it has all the bits and bobs that I would usually enjoy, it just didn't float my boat. Horses for courses, as they say.

 

[Goatboy]

Biker! Happy Donner Party Day!
Biker! No despite it being Hallows Eve, we won't be around the fire eating a donner kebab, as today in 1846 - Donner party, unable to cross the Donner Pass, construct a winter camp.

The Donner Party was a California Trail wagon train of eighty-one American pioneers who in 1846 found themselves trapped by snow in the Sierra Nevada. Thirty-six members of the party perished as a result of starvation, exposure, disease, and trauma, and some of the survivors resorted to cannibalism.
The wagons left in May 1846. Encouraged to try a new, faster route across Utah and Nevada, they opted to take the Hastings Cutoff proposed by Lansford Hastings, who had never taken the journey with wagons. The Cutoff required the wagons to traverse Utah's Wasatch Mountains and the Great Salt Lake Desert, and slowed the party considerably, leading to the loss of wagons, horses, and cattle. It also forced them to engage in heavy labour by clearing the path ahead of them, and created deep divisions between members of the party. They had planned to be in the Sacramento Valley by September, but found themselves trapped in the Sierra Nevada mountains by early November.
Most of the party took shelter by Truckee Lake (now Donner Lake), in hastily constructed brush sheds and tents several miles away. Food stores quickly ran out, and a group of fifteen people attempted to reach California on snowshoes in December, but became disoriented in the mountains before succumbing to starvation and cold. The members of the Donner party who survived only did so by eating the remains of the deceased. Meanwhile, the Mexican–American War delayed rescue attempts from California, although family members and authorities in California tried to reach the stranded pioneers but were turned back by harsh weather.
The first rescue group reached the remaining members, who were starving and feeble, in February 1847. Weather conditions were so bad that three rescue groups were required to lead the rest to California, the last arriving in March. Most of these survivors also had resorted to cannibalism. Forty-five of the eighty-one trapped members of the Donner Party survived to live in California. Although a minor incident in the record of westward migration in North America, the Donner Party became notorious for the reported claims of cannibalism. Efforts to memorialize the Donner Party were underway within a few years; historians have described the episode as one of the most spectacular tragedies in California history and in the record of western migration.

This is a scan of the diary from the Bancroft Library, the text reads "Thursd. 25th froze hard last night fine & sunshiny to day wind W. Mrs Murphy says the wolves are about to dig up the dead bodies at her shanty, the nights are too cold to watch them, we hear them howl -- -- Frid 26th froze hard last night to day clear & warm Wind S: E: blowing briskly Marthas jaw swelled with the toothache: hungry times in camp, plenty hides but the folks will not eat them we eat them with a tolerable good apetite. Thanks be to Almighty God. Amen Mrs Murphy said here yesterday that thought she would Commence on Milt. & eat him. I dont that she has done so yet, it is distressing. The Donnos told the California folks that they commence to eat the dead people 4 days ago, if they did not succeed that day or next in finding their cattle then under ten or twelve feet of snow & did not know the spot or near it, I suppose they have done so ere this time"
​

 

[crosslandkelly]

That's quite a tale GB.


Today in 1992:
350 years after Galileo Galilei's death, an investigation into the astronomer's condemnation, calling for its reversal (opened in 1979 by Pope John Paul II) acknowledged the Vatican had made errors, but stopped short of admitting the Church was wrong to convict Galileo on a charge of heresy because of his belief that the Earth rotates round the sun.

Galileo Galilei (Italian pronunciation: [ɡaliˈlɛːo ɡaliˈlɛi]; 15 February 1564[4] – 8 January 1642),[5] often known mononymously as Galileo, was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who played a major role in the Scientific Revolution. His achievements include improvements to the telescope and consequent astronomical observations and support for Copernicanism. Galileo has been called the "father of modern observational astronomy",[6] the "father of modern physics",[7] the "father of science",[7] and "the Father of Modern Science".[8]

His contributions to observational astronomy include the telescopic confirmation of the phases of Venus, the discovery of the four largest satellites of Jupiter (named the Galilean moons in his honour), and the observation and analysis of sunspots. Galileo also worked in applied science and technology, inventing an improved military compass and other instruments.

Galileo's championing of heliocentrism was controversial within his lifetime, when most subscribed to either geocentrism or the Tychonic system. He met with opposition from astronomers, who doubted heliocentrism due to the absence of an observed stellar parallax.[9] The matter was investigated by the Roman Inquisition in 1615, and they concluded that it could be supported as only a possibility, not an established fact. Galileo later defended his views in Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, which appeared to attack Pope Urban VIII and thus alienated him and the Jesuits, who had both supported Galileo up until this point. He was tried by the Inquisition, found "vehemently suspect of heresy", forced to recant, and spent the rest of his life under house arrest. It was while Galileo was under house arrest that he wrote one of his finest works, Two New Sciences, in which he summarised the work he had done some forty years earlier, on the two sciences now called kinematics and strength of materials.

View attachment 24466

 

[Biker]

"Happy Donner party day"

Well I'm not quite sure how to read that but thanks for the info about it. I've got a book on my shelf about the whole event, just haven't got around to reading it. Seemed a bit ghoulish in a way to do so.

CLK like you said, mate - horses for courses. But you're wrong.

 

[crosslandkelly]

CLK like you said, mate - horses for courses. But you're wrong.

I can't possibly be wrong, my missus always says I'm Mr Right...

 

[Biker]

I can't possibly be wrong, my missus always says I'm Mr Right...

Does she do that when she's got you in a head lock and telling you that she loves you? If so, ask her to repeat it when she's sobered up. You might be in for a surprise.

Later fella. Now step away from the keyboard and get back to working on your mancave, pronto!

 

[crosslandkelly]

[video=youtube;NV0kAFsVLFA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NV0kAFsVLFA[/video]

 

[Goatboy]

Biker! Happy Cape Lookout Day!

Biker, on this day in 1859 - The current Cape Lookout, North Carolina, lighthouse was lit for the first time. Its first-order Fresnel lens can be seen for about 19 miles (30 kilometres), in good conditions. Which is a bit of a silly thing to say as one really wants to see a lighthouse in BAD CONDITIONS!
The Cape Lookout Lighthouse is a 163-foot high lighthouse located on the Southern Outer Banks of North Carolina. It flashes every 15 seconds and is visible at least 12 miles out to sea and up to 19 miles. The Cape Lookout Light is one of the very few lighthouses that operate during the day. It became fully automated in 1950. The Cape Lookout Lighthouse is the only such structure in the United States to bear the checkered daymark, intended not only for differentiation between similar light towers, but also to show direction. The centre of the black diamonds points in a north-south direction, while the centre of the white diamonds points east-west.
It is the second lighthouse that has stood at this location, and is nearly identical to the Bodie Island Lighthouse, which has horizontal stripes, and the Currituck Beach Lighthouse, which is unpainted red brick. The more famous Cape Hatteras Lighthouse bears spiral stripes. The first lighthouse at Cape Lookout was completed and lighted in 1812 at a cost of more than $20,000, which Congress authorized in 1804. It was the fourth lighthouse to be built in North Carolina and was a 96 foot high brick tower with wooden shingles painted with red and white horizontal stripes. But it proved to be too short to light the treacherous Lookout Shoals, which were nicknamed the "Horrible Headland."
The present lighthouse was completed and lit on November 1, 1859 at a cost of $45,000, which Congress approved in 1857. This lighthouse used a first-order Fresnel lens which allowed the light to shine brighter. On May 20, 1861, North Carolina joined the Confederacy and all of the lenses were removed from the coastal lighthouses and navigational beacons to prevent Union forces from using the lights to navigate the coast. Union troops captured the nearby Beaufort and Morehead City in 1862 and, by the end of the next year, a third-order Fresnel lens was installed in the Cape Lookout lighthouses. On April 2, 1864, a small group of Confederate troops under the command of L.C. Harland snuck through Union lines and out to the lighthouse. Their attempt to blow up the lighthouse was unsuccessful, however the explosion did destroy the lighthouse oil supply and damaged the iron stairs. With iron unavailable during the war, the damaged sections of the stairs were replaced by wooden ones. The Fresnel lenses from all the North Carolina lighthouses were found in 1865 in Raleigh, NC. The lenses were shipped back to their original manufacturers to be checked out and repaired. In 1867, the temporary wooden stairs were replaced when iron once again became available after the war and the original first-order Fresnel lens was reinstalled.
In 1873, the lighthouse was painted in its distinctive black and white diagonal checkerboard, or diamond, pattern. There are those who believe the Cape Hatteras Light and the Cape Lookout Light paint schemes were reversed. This belief arose since the Cape Hatteras Light protects ships from Diamond Shoals and should therefore have the diamond pattern. However, the daymark patterns were randomly assigned and there is no evidence to suggest that the Cape Lookout and Cape Hatteras patterns were switched. Diamond City, a community that once stood on the eastern end of Shackleford Banks, was named after the daymark pattern on the nearby Cape Lookout Lighthouse.
The lighthouse is part of the Cape Lookout National Seashore and can only be accessed by private ferry. During the summer, the Cape Lookout Light Station Visitor Centre and Keepers' Quarters Museum are open. Though tower climbs were suspended in February 2008, the lighthouse opened for climbing permanently July 15, 2010. The regular season lasts from mid-May to mid-September each year. During the open season, visitors are allowed to climb the 207 steps to the top of the lighthouse and experience the breath-taking view of Core Banks.
One of the reasons for todays pick was Fresnel Lenses. I've been interested in them since going up a lighthouse as a very young kid while out with my Dad and looking through a Fresnel lens pane inadvertently - the distorting magnification made me think I'd been thrown out of the lighthouse, onto the pebble beech below. It was totally WOW!

The idea of creating a thinner, lighter lens by making it with separate sections mounted in a frame is often attributed to Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon. The marquis de Condorcet (1743–1794) proposed grinding such a lens from a single thin piece of glass. French physicist and engineer Augustin-Jean Fresnel is most often given credit for the development of the multi-part lens for use in lighthouses. According to Smithsonian magazine, the first Fresnel lens was used in 1823 in the Cordouan lighthouse at the mouth of the Gironde estuary; its light could be seen from more than 20 miles (32 km) out. Scottish physicist Sir David Brewster is credited with convincing the United Kingdom to adopt these lenses in their lighthouses.
A)B)

*A)How a spherical Fresnel lens collimates light.
*B)1: Cross section of a spherical Fresnel lens
2: Cross section of a conventional spherical plano-convex lens of equivalent power.

The Fresnel lens reduces the amount of material required compared to a conventional lens by dividing the lens into a set of concentric annular sections. An ideal Fresnel lens would have infinitely many such sections. In each section, the overall thickness is decreased compared to an equivalent simple lens. This effectively divides the continuous surface of a standard lens into a set of surfaces of the same curvature, with stepwise discontinuities between them.
In some lenses, the curved surfaces are replaced with flat surfaces, with different angle in each section. Such a lens can be regarded as an array of prisms arranged in a circular fashion, with steeper prisms on the edges, and a flat or slightly convex centre. In the first (and largest) Fresnel lenses, each section was actually a separate prism. 'Single-piece' Fresnel lenses were later produced, being used for automobile headlamps, brake, parking, and turn signal lenses, and so on. In modern times, computer-controlled milling equipment (CNC) might be used to manufacture more complex lenses.
Fresnel lens design allows a substantial reduction in thickness (and thus mass and volume of material), at the expense of reducing the imaging quality of the lens, which is why precise imaging applications such as photography still use conventional bulky lenses.
Fresnel lenses are usually made of glass or plastic; their size varies from large (old historical lighthouses, meter size) to medium (book-reading aids, OHP viewgraph projectors) to small (TLR/SLR camera screens, micro-optics). In many cases they are very thin and flat, almost flexible, with thicknesses in the 1 to 5 mm (0.039 to 0.20 in) range.

Fresnel produced six sizes of lighthouse lenses, divided into four orders based on their size and focal length. In modern use, these are classified as first through sixth order. An intermediate size between third and fourth order was added later, as well as sizes above first order and below sixth.
A first-order lens has a focal length of 920 mm (36 in) and an optical area 2590 mm (8.5 ft.) high. The complete assembly is about 3.7 m (12 ft.) tall and 1.8 m (6 ft.) wide. The smallest (sixth-order) has a focal length of 150 mm (5.9 in) and an optical area 433 mm (17 in) high.
The largest Fresnel lenses are called hyperradiant Fresnel lenses. One such lens was on hand when it was decided to build and outfit the Makapuu Point Light in Hawaii. Rather than order a new lens, the huge optic construction, 3.7 metres (12 ft.) tall and with over a thousand prisms, was used there.



First-order lens






Close-up of a second-order lens






Third-order lens (Sekizaki Lighthouse, Oita, Japan)






Fourth-order lens (Nobska Light)





There are two main types of Fresnel lens: imaging and non-imaging. Imaging Fresnel lenses use curved segments and produce sharp images, while non-imaging lenses use flat segments, and do not produce sharp images. As the number of segments increases, the two types of lens become more similar to one another. In theory, with an infinite number of segments, the difference between curved and flat segments disappears.
[h=3]Imaging[/h]SphericalA spherical Fresnel lens is equivalent to a simple spherical lens, using multiple spherical arcs, thus focusing light on a single point. This type produces a sharp image, although not quite as clear as the equivalent simple spherical lens due to diffraction at the edges of the ridges.
CylindricalA cylindrical Fresnel lens is equivalent to a simple cylindrical lens, using multiple cylindrical arcs, thus focusing light on a single line. This type produces a sharp image, although not quite as clear as the equivalent simple cylindrical lens due to diffraction at the edges of the ridges.[h=3]Non-imaging[/h]SpotA spot Fresnel lens uses multiple flat segments, arranged in a circle, thus focusing light on a small spot. This type does not produce a sharp image, but has application in solar power, such as focusing sunlight on a solar panel.
LinearA linear Fresnel lens uses multiple flat segments, arranged linearly, thus focusing light on a narrow band. This type does not produce a sharp image, but has application in solar power, such as focusing sunlight on a pipe, to heat the water within.​

 

[Mesquite]

Boy, it sure is an education trip today

 

[crosslandkelly]

That's very interesting info on the Fresnel lenses GB.


Today in 1928:
Graf Zeppelin sets airship distance record of 6384 km
LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin (Deutsches Luftschiff Zeppelin #127; Registration: D-LZ 127) was a German-built and -operated, passenger-carrying, hydrogen-filled, rigid airship which operated commercially from 1928 to 1937. It was named after the German pioneer of airships, Ferdinand von Zeppelin, who was a Graf or Count in the German nobility. During its operating life, the airship made 590 flights covering more than a million miles (1.6 million km). It was designed to be operated by a crew of 36 officers and men.


[video][video]www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyANAWnWEE4[/video][/video]

 

[Huon]

I love airships! It was a great shame that the very public disasters stopped their use when it did.

Have any of you read Neville Shute's account of his aeronautical engineering days?

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk

 

[Goatboy]

I do think that airships looked such an elegant way to travel, but then most travel of that period being generally for the well to do was elegant. But there is something romantic about being wafted along quietly in a floating 4 star gondola. Would love to do a balloon ride somewhere spectacular. There are quite often balloon races up the Tay valley great to watch. (The mutt used to just sit and stare at them. Hated kites and chased helicopters though - but that's Jack Russell's!)

 

[Biker]

Just finished reading Moorcock's first book of his Oswald Bastable series Warlord of the Air. Heavy on the Zeppelin type airships aspect with a healthy mix of Steampunk in there too. Certainly did sound a romantic way of travelling. There's a sort of offshoot of Steampunk called Dieselpunk which caters for the era between the world wars. Some of the technology and machinery that's been created is just gorgeous.

 

[Goatboy]

Do you wear the "outfit" while reading still Pa?

 

[Huon]

I was wondering the same thing. Some recent posts on the word association thread got me thinking. ....

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