31 July 2022

Fishing with Cormorants

It is partnership between man and animal which has lasted over a millennia. A fisherman needs to catch enough fish to sell and feed himself and his family. Sometimes that means that he needs an assistant.  The Ark in Space takes a look at the fascinating relationship between the cormorant and the fishermen of China's inland rivers.

Image Credit Pathos Photos

28 November 2010

The Tower of Hercules

Just outside of Corunna, in Galicia, Spain you will find a peninsula. There, almost 1900 years ago, the Roman authorities commanded the building of a lighthouse. Even the engineers who built the 180 foot tall structure would not have had the prescience to imagine the same building would be carrying out its original function so many centuries later. Yet it is, making it the oldest lighthouse in the world to do so.

It is known as the Tower of Hercules, which although has the whiff of hyperbole about it, is difficult to argue as an inappropriate name. Although this Torre de Hércules as it is known in Spain was called the Farum Brigantium until the twentieth century you can easily imagine a thirteenth labor being ordered and Hercules, with heavy heart, constructing the giant tower with his bare hands.

In fact there is a local legend around the lighthouse. Hercules had an epic battle with the grandson of Medusa, Geryon. After beheading the giant Geryon, Hercules buried the head at the point of battle. So that people would remember this particular seventy two hour clash, Hercules set about building the lighthouse as a lasting monument to his triumph.

Yet this is simply myth albeit an interesting and exciting one. Although it is debated when exactly the tower was built, it is thought most likely that it was done under the reign of the Emperor Trajan (98-117AD). This has a certain romanticism to it as Trajan was himself from the province of Hispania Baetica which although did not encompass modern day Corunna, is certainly close enough for Trajan to have been personally familiar with the place.

It is certainly an astounding amount of time for any structure to be standing. Even the town of Corunna is thought to have been bestowed its name by the presence of the lighthouse, being close to the Latin word columna, meaning column. Majestically overlooking the North Atlantic coast of Spain, it looks set to weather further millennia. Even now, it remains the second tallest lighthouse in the entire country.

Whether it was Trajan or some other emperor who ordered its construction, records indicate that it was in situ by the second century AD. The design is considered to have Phoenician origins, an ancient culture unique in its significant seafaring accomplishments.

An inscription at its base tells us that the architect was one Gaius Sevius Lupus (not Hercules after all) who was from a town called Aeminium (Coimbra in Portugal). The tower was dedicated to the Roman god of war, Mars, who represented military authority as a method to secure peace, and was considered a father of the Roman people.

You may have wondered about the significance of those ascending lines on the exterior of the lighthouse. Originally there would have been a wooden ramp, wrapping around the tower, to enable oxen to carry up large amounts of wood which would have kept the light aflame at night.  These are, however, vestigial.  The original brickwork is underneath the exterior.

Of course, the tower has undergone changes throughout its history. When first constructed it was 112 feet high and its height ended at the third storey. In 1788 a fourth was added by the naval engineer Eustaquio Giannini. It was a necessity. Although the region was known by the Romans as Finisterra – the end of the earth, it was still notorious for shipwrecks in the eighteenth century.

The Tower of Hercules still receives many thousands of visitors each year – and rightly so – this is truly one of the supremely cool buildings of Europe.

(Note: the sculptures you can see in some of the pictures are from the city’s sculpture garden which features work by Francisco Leiro and Pablo Serrano.

26 October 2010

Vintage Computer Ad Fest

It is easy to forget, sometimes, which products made us excited in the past. Back in 1984, the year of Big Brother (original stylee), one of the neatest little portables around was the Epson Geneva.  It even had plug-in application ROMs to make up for the lack of disk space.  Show a teenager this today and the first thing they will point out is that the screen is tiny and - where on earth is the mouse? Well as this was the year that the Apple Macintosh was introduced (remember that advertising campaign?) you could tell them that it was the year the mouse really took off.  But not for the Epson Geneva, which you could get for just under a thousand dollars. Talking of money...

Sorry about the length of this ad but you have to give it to the people who designed it - make it as loooong as possible and get the customer excited about the 286 processor (ah the days before they put the p in to pentium.  Yet look at the price!  As Shaggy would say - yikes!  Despite the high class processing power of the 286, $2,699 is rather steep for 1987 prices, don't you think?  A real WTF moment before the term acronym was invented.

If that price is something they would not get away with nowadays, the advertisment above harkens back to when the Mad Men could be overtly sexist and get away with it.  If she can only cook as well as Honeywell can compute is the byline.  Oh dear.  The Honeywell Kitchen Computer never quite did what it promised either - to revolutionise kitchen planning but although you may mark them down for the innate sexism of their ad they were prescient in one way.  Many people do use their laptops (etc) in the kitchen these days, albeit not always to help them cook. This product came out in 1969, the year after 2001: A Space Odyssey.  More optimistic times perhaps?

Although the word hubris might spring immediately to mind with the advertising campaign for the short lived Honeywell Kitchen Helper, then chutzpah might be an appropriate word to describe Apple's 1976 ad above.  Two hunded years after the revolution and they had the audacity to tell the business world that they could make better decisions than Jefferson by using their computer systems.  Crikey!

Staying with Apple for a while, they certainly knew how to shock - male nudity (partial or otherwise) was virtually unheard of in advertising in1980 but Apple were struggling with getting their products' uses across to the wider population.  So, they started a creative writing competition, asking people to write about the unusual or interesting use you've found for your Apple.  It can only be wondered how many of the entries were deemd unsuitable for digestion by the general population.  Today, the wording of the competition would have to be thought through very, very carefully.

Perhaps it was a hard lesson, but there was more than a single fatal flaw comparing utilities software with superheros as Norton did in 1995. Mmm.


One company that could see the future was Atari - this ad from 1982 does play it safe in a number of ways.  It emphasises the educational advantages of a home computer, it stresses that you can solve problems like mortage and loan analysis and that their home computer will allow you to manage your world a lot better.  However.  The little girl is playing Caverns of Mars.  Way ahead of their time!

Before we discuss the ad itself, what is the name of the actor at the far right?  I recognise his face but cannot put a name to it - he was obviously jobbing at the time but went on to greater things. This ad stresses the fact that it will be computing power that will extend productivity and that one programmer will be able to do so much more work but within the same hours. In other words, don't panic, it won't be you doing an eighty hour week.  They lied.

ISC gave us the Intercolor 3261 in 1979 and it was one of the first ever desktops to give the world a color visual display unit.  It didn't come cheap, however - at the time it was priced at $3,300 which would be the equivalent of spending $10K on a PC these days.  Similar then to one of those ultra expensive cars in the showroom that people (OK, mostly men) gaze at longingly before moving in to their prcie range.

The Old Spice guy may have brought facial hair back in to the fold when it comes to advertising but there was a time back in the eighties when a lot of facial hair was no drawback to being the star of an advert.  If the crystal ball had been available to the makers of some of the products above they would have withdrawn the R&D money years before the product ever necessitated the advertisment.  Yet although in some ways these adverts would not see the light of day in 2010 you can't help but feel sometimes plus ca change.

26 September 2010

The Old Man of Hoy - A Giant Due to Fall

The Old Man of Hoy is, at just inches off four hundred and fifty feet one of the largest sea stacks in the world.  A stack is formed through geomorphology – erosion which is totally natural.  Man had no hand in his existence – only water, wind and time. Here he looks like a giant  Bart Simpson from the back, gazing out to sea but it is as The Old Man that we know him.  Yet what looks like it might last all eternity could topple in to the sea today.

The inexorable force of water and wind has slowly but surely created cracks in the headland.  These crack enlarge and force a collapse, leaving a stack isolated and standing alone.  The Old Man of Hoy was formed like this – some think as little as four hundred years ago. Maps older than this show no evidence of its existence.


After 1750 the sea stack appears on maps.  Situated on the west coast of the Orkney Islands, the Old Man of Hoy is like a red cloth to mountaineers but it was not until 1966 that it was conquered for the first time, by the legendary mountaineer Chris Bonnington and his team.



Image Credit Flickr User ant2ant41
When William Daniell painted the Old Man in 1817 it had an arch at the base and a smaller section on the top which very much made it look like a hobbling old man.  The elements have done for the arch which formed the impression of legs and the top has slowly weathered until it is as wide as we see it today.

When Bonnington and his team of Rusty Baillie and Tom Patey climbed the Old Man of Hoy for a second time in 1967 it caused something of a media event which is associated with the twenty first century rather than the era of The Beatles.  A live broadcast showed their progress over three days, attracting more than 15 million viewers.

Ascents are rare.  In 2008 Sir Ranulph Fiennes climbed the Old Man when he was preparing to clime the Eiger but there only around twenty ascents each year.  When the summit is reached climbers can find a RAF log book tucked away inside a Tupperware container which itself is buried in a small mound of rocks (known as a cairn).  It is considered one of the personal pinnacles of mountaineering to have your name recorded in the log book.

The Old Man of Hoy has remnants of past climbs dotted around his almost sheer side.  Wooden wedges, ironmongery and a deadman anchor are just some of the items which have been left on the rocky Cliffside, as if he were some kind of giant geological voodoo doll.

Yet mountaineers recognise the fact that the Old Man of Hoy might not be around too much longer.  True, he may persevere for hundreds of years to come but that is unlikely.  The chances are that someday soon he will tumble in to the sea, creating a mini tsunami.  A shame in many ways as, in geological terms the Old Man of Hoy has been around for a nano-second.

6 June 2010

10 US Military Aircraft That Never Quite Made It

Over the years the USA has developed many formidable aircraft.  However, there were many that didn’t ever get far from the drawing board for a variety of reasons.  

Some were simply before their time while others were of no time in particular (or perhaps shouldn’t have been).  

Others still look like they were designed for a science fiction movie.  Take a look at ten US military aircraft that never quite made it.

X-13 Vertijet

In 1947 the US Navy awarded the Ryan Company a contract to see whether or not a fighter plane would take off vertically and the result was ultimately the X-13, after the Air Force took over the project in 1943.  The ultimate aim at the beginning was to evaluate whether or not submarine based aircraft would be feasible and it is easy to imagine this beauty leaping from the seas.  Later still, once the Air Force became involved the aim was to develop a jet powered VTOL (Vertical Take-Off and Landing) aircraft.

It did indeed make a vertical take-off, transitioned to horizontal flight and back again in 1957. It was then demonstrated in Washington DC where it crossed the Potomac River, coming to rest at the Pentagon.  Unfortunately the Air Force chose not to develop the Ryan X-13 Vertijet any further because there was a lack of operational requirement.

HZ-1 Aerocycle

Reconnaissance is important in the field and the US Army wanted, in the 1950s, to have a simple personal helicopter that could be operated by pilots with limited flight experience and with a small amount of instruction.

It was seen as a potential motorcycle of the air and, certainly, the early tests showed quite a lot of promise.

However, once further studies had been conducted it was discovered that the HZ-1 was too difficult to control in untrained hands.

This was further evidence when on test flights the contraption crashed twice.  The project was cancelled. (Image Credit)

F2Y Sea Dart

Only a prototype for the Convair F2Y Sea Dart was ever made, but you can see where perhaps the inspiration for Thunderbird 4 came from.  It does hold one record, despite its short-lived life – it is the only seaplane to ever go faster than the speed of sound.  The seaplane was a result of a 1948 competition by the US Navy for a supersonic interceptor aircraft.

In November 1954 the Sea Dart disintegrated in mid-air during a demonstration for the Navy and the media, killing its test pilot.  That was the end of that, but the Navy had been losing interest anyway as problems with supersonic fighters on aircraft carriers had been solved and the Sea Dart had outlived its potential and use.

Northrop YB-49

You would be forgiven for thinking that the above flying wing heavy bomber was developed in the 1980s or 90s.  In fact, the YB-49 was designed and constructed just after the Second World War.  It was passed over for a much more conventional design from Convair, the B-36. 

The first prototype suffered massive engine failure and the second came down in 1948, killing its pilot (Captain Glen Edwards, after whom Edwards Air Force Base is named).  The aircraft suffered structural failure and the outer wing sections became detached from the center section, effectively putting paid to the program.

There is quite a neat coda attached to the aborted project.  In 1980 the owner of the company, Jack Northrop, elderly and wheelchair bound, was taken back to where the company was founded.  There he was taken to a top secret area and shown a model of the Air Force’s plans for their new Advanced Technology Bomber, the B-2A.  It was a flying wing.  Northrop is said to have exclaimed I know why God has kept me alive for the past 25 years.

XC-120 Packplane

We have already seen Thunderbird 4, so here is a glimpse of the real life Thunderbird 2.    It was quite unique when developed and flown for the first time in 1950 as it has a removable cargo pod.  This huge pod was positioned below the fuselage and was intended to make the loading of cargo much quicker – the pod could be removed, a new one placed in and the plane would be ready for take off again.

The aircraft was tested extensively and made appearances at a number of air shows in the 1950s.  However it was eventually scrapped for more traditional cargo carrying models.

XF-85 Goblin

The Goblin was conceived during the Second World War and was designed to be a plane within a plane.  The intention was for the Goblin (nicknamed the Flying Egg) to be carried in the bomb bay of the enormous Convair B-36.  Its duty was to act as a defender – a parasite fighter – which would be dropped from the bomb bay of the mother ship in times of need and could harry enemy fighters while the B-36 went on its way.

All in all a really cool idea, however, the project was soon scrapped.  The reason for its cancellation is almost mundanely obvious.  The US Air Force decided that aerial refuelling was a much safer way to extend the range of its fighters.

Republic XF-103 Thunderwarrior

The Thunderwarrior was developed at the beginning of the cold war and was the response to the need to develop a high speed interceptor to destroy soviet bombers.  Thunderbird 1 anybody?  The Thunderwarrior never passed the mock up stage, however.   Work on the prototype was continuously delayed by engine problems.  The nose of the aircraft was completely taken up by enormous radar set which offered (for the time) very long ranges of detection.  Its missiles were carried in bays on the side of the fuselage and they would be released through the bay flipping yup and effectively rotating the missiles out of the bays. The project was finally cancelled in 1957.


A-12 Avenger II

The Avenger II still manages to look futuristic and it was part of a program from McDonnell Douglas and General Dynamics.  It was intended to be based on aircraft carriers and would act as an all weather stealth bomber.

The project was however, way too expensive and it was cancelled in 1991.

The flying wing concept was back in vogue by the nineties and the Avenger was in the shape of an isosceles triangle with the cockpit at its apex. The internal weapons bay would carry smart bomns and other air-to-ground ordnance.  Perhaps not unsurprisingly the A-12 gained the nickname the Flying Dorito. (image Credit)

Convair XFY Pogo

The Pogo was an experiment in vertical takeoff and landing and was known as a tailsitter. It launched and landed on its tail.  Due to standing on its tail it was designed to be able to operate from small warships.  Take off was fine, although the problems really came with the landing.  The pilot had to look over his shoulder to judge the distance between the plane and the ground while at the same time working the throttle to ease the plane down to its landing position.

Technical problems such as this aside, had they persisted it would have meant that only the most experienced pilots could have flown the Pogo and so putting one on every small warship would not have been feasible.  However, with only half the speed of contemporary jet engine fighters which were at the time approaching Mach 2, the project was put on hiatus in 1954.

Lockheed YF-12


We will finish with one that was successful – well, almost. The Lockheed YF-12 was a prototype interceptor which spawned the SR-71 Blackbird.  However, despite breaking all sorts of records during testing, including a speed record of 2,070.101 mph (3,331.505 km/h) and altitude record of 80,257.86 ft (24,462.6 m), both on 1 May 1965, the program ended in 1968.  One word says it all – Vietnam.  At the time defense of continental USA was less of a priority and so the project was shelved.

However, there is a happy ending for the Lockheed YF-12.  They continued flying for many years with the USAF and with NASA in the role of research aircraft.

3 June 2010

Deadvlei – Amazing Graveyard of 900 Year Old Trees

Trees in a desert is an unusual enough sight but there is always the occasional oasis. Sometimes, though, the water dries up completely and given the right conditions, reminders of life can be left behing. It is estimated that these acacia trees have been dead for more than nine hundred years. Frozen in time, their twisted and contorted branches immovable even against the occasional breeze, Sleepy Hollow comes, as it were, to the desert.

It is little wonder that Deadvlei, a clay pan in the Namib-Naukfluft Park in Namibia attracts many photographers willing to risk the arduous journey in order to capture its intense beauty. At dawn, when the trees are silhouetted against the lemon and apricot colored sand dunes it is a perfect time for photographers to take advantage of what they call the Golden Hour. The often cloudless, dazzlingly blue sky just adds to the stunning dichotomy of color.

Deadvlei derives its name from two languages. Self evidently, the first syllable works as an adjective and one that is instantly recognizable to any English speaker. The second, vlei, means lake or marsh in Afrikaans. The clay pan does give the impression of a lake – and that its trees are quite dead beyond argument. They last lived when William the Conqueror invaded England.

The pan was formed when the nearby Tsauchab River flooded. This created pools and allowed the acacia and camel thorn trees to grow and flourish. Then, nine hundred years ago, the climate changed and the area was h it by drought. The sand dunes encroached on the pan, effectively cutting off the trees from the river.

What happened next is something quite amazing. The trees did not, as you might expect, become petrified which is where the organic materials of a tree are slowly replaced by minerals. Rather, the sun scorched the trees, rendering them as black as charcoal. The dryness of the area was such that the wood could not decompose because it was so dry. The trees of Deadvlei are desiccated rather than petrified.

Deadvlei is situated near the more famous salt pan of Sossusvlei, the name of which spookily translates in to the place of no return. It also happens to be surrounded by the biggest sand dunes in the world, the largest of which is known as Big Daddy.  These dunes have no doubt contributed to the conditions needed to preserve the trees in their dried out state, a scorched testament to their own destruction.

Don’t be fooled, though, life always manages to find a way. Clinging to life in the pan are beetles, gerbils, ostriches, oryx, and a few other species. The plants and animals manage to cling on to their precarious existence thanks to a light morning mist which sweeps in each morning from the coast of the Atlantic ocean many miles away.