Every Rocketdyne engine was fine tuned and perfected by hand, from plans, that were modified but not updated. This means that each engine was unique. It would take trial and error to build them again....
Posts tagged “history”
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Version Control, Engineering and Rocket Engines — Sep 19, 2022
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Twitter and SMS — Feb 10, 2023Back in the good old days of Twitter the length of a tweet was limited to the length of an SMS. The aim was to make it possible for people to tweet and have conversations using GSM phones. With short messages we could leave the keyboard behind and read messages on our mobile phones.... -
Tudor Monastery Farm - A documentary series — Jun 15, 2015I took advantage of a rainy day to watch a series of documentaries by the BBC called Tudor Monastery Farm. It is a documentary series where three individuals live the life people would have lived at the relevant time period for a year. During this year they try farming, mining, fishing and other skills and crafts from the time. These are observational and experimental documentaries. They take the observational cinéma verité and Direct cinema approach to factual television production. As you watch these documentaries so you are transported to a different time period. For years or even decades I thought of this time period as a bad time period. I thought of the church as being an oppressive force. Through this set of documentaries I eventually felt sad that monasteries and the way of life that was illustrated in the series of documentaries was dissolved by Henry the Eighth. Imagine a monastery with 20,000 sheep, imagine the work that was lost by stone masons as the need for monastery construction and other activities declined. If you find this documentary series I strongly recommend watching it....
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Transmitting Photos by Phone — Apr 28, 2023Recently I watched a 1930s film about how photographs were transmitted by phone. What makes this feature so interesting is that it is explained in a simple to understand manner, using, string that has an image, of all things. This is a clear explanation of how image sending works, but also how television and other technologies would work in year to come....
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The Romans on Twitter — Jul 4, 2021Over a few months I have seen that tweeting about the Romans is growing in frequency. The accounts that I see are tweeting about Roman Britain. They share images of mosaics, digs and new discoveries. It is a way to follow archeology and Ancient history in a modern context.... -
The Bomber war - Documentary and book — Jan 25, 2020When I was in Spain I started to read “The Bomber War” because it’s a topic I do not know much about the topic. It’s interesting to read about the technology that they used for guidance, for detection and for the bombing. It’s also to read about how one thousand bomber sorties were sometimes orchestrated. I’m only 40 per cent of the way through the book at the time of writing....
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Roman Fish Salting in the Mediterranean — Dec 13, 2021Roman Fish salting bath... -
Reading to Understand The Past — Mar 14, 2023When I read books i read to be transported back to a different time and a different way of thinking. That’s why i read James Bond books, among others. The books are old-fashioned but it is that obsolescence that makes them interesting.... -
Perm 36 YouTube Video Visit — Jul 1, 2022Last night I watched a video about a visit to Perm36 but it covered just the trip. The video below is far more complete and informative. I am currently reading Gulag by Anne Applebaum, rather than The Gulag Archipelago, like she mentions. I started reading it decades ago but never finished it. I read A day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch in a single day....
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Nanook of the North — Jul 2, 2023Two days ago I watched Nanook of the North, a documentary about an Inuit man and his family. This isn’t a documentary in the conventional sense. This documentary dates back to 1922 when the Documentary film was a brand new genre. This is one of the first documentaries, if not the first. I read about it for years, until, when I was watching Northern Exposure I did a search and came across the documentary on Filmin.... -
Google Arts & Culture — Jun 13, 2017Google Arts & Culture App...
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Funerary Relief - Colourised — Feb 17, 2022When we have seen hundreds of statues and other objects over the decades of our lives, it is easy to assume that statues and other objects are just statues, that they have no colour, but of course they did. What was just a relief becomes a 3d painting after colour is added. It brings sculptures and reliefs back to life....
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Empire Of The Deep and Brexit — Jun 27, 2021I am currently reading Empire of the Deep, The Rise and Fall of The British Navy and to read it within the context of Brexit is interesting. We already know that the British gave up on the Catholic Church because Henry the Viii wanted to change wives and the Pope said no. (I am oversimplifying it, for the sake of this blog post.) While reading Empire of the Deep I see that the English have a very long history of being at conflict with Europe.... -
Dziga Vertov and Social Media — Oct 15, 2019A century ago Dennis Arkadievitch Kaufmann, more commonly known as Dziga Vertov, the spinning top, came up with the concept of the All-Seeing Eye. The Kinoki. The Cinema Eye. His idea was that with time life unawares could be documented and daily life would be captured by cameras for everyone to see....
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D-Day Film archives on Facebook — Jun 7, 2017Yesterday D-Day Film Archives were shared on Facebook. These film archives were of landing crafts landing troops on the beaches, of battleships firing rocket salvos at the coast, of gliders being pulled by planes, of paratroopers getting and more. Over the years films have been preserved by transferring the footage from one film stock to another and then transferred from film to tapes. The problem with film and tape is that they are stored in a physical location that only archivists have access to. This means that if we’re curious about seeing the footage, like the footage included in this post we would have to go to the film archive and ask for permission to see this footage. Within a few hours, days or weeks we might get an answer. We would have transport costs, access costs and more. The advantage of digital video archives accessible online is that everything is accessible within a few seconds with the right keywords. This means that a child hearing about the Second World War for the first time can do a quick search and see this footage. History, rather than being words on a page, is brought to life. It stops being an abstract subject for the mind. In this footage, we see our grandparents and our nephews and nieces see their great-grandparents. An effort, by the international community, should be made to preserve, digitise and then make available as much of this film material as possible. The technology exists today so that, at the very least, we can have digital backups of all of this material and in the best case scenario for this material to be available for future generations to watch and study. I have already spent 15 months as a video archivist and media asset manager and I would like to continue this line of work. I find it to be a fascinating and interesting way to learn about history. It inspires to find books that contextualise the material that I am seeing on screen. This material makes us more informed citizens of the society in which we live....
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Apollo Comms - A Series on YouTube — Mar 4, 2022I have not studied electronics but I have studied the Google IT support course among others so I have some basics of how computers and tech work. This type of documentary series is interesting because it brings history to life, and explains how things work. It is not sensationalist, does not use too much music and more. It just guides you through how technology works....
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A little bit of twitter history from 21/07/2007 — Feb 16, 2015Hello Twitter-ers! As you may already know, Obvious is the parent company of Twitter and it’s never a dull day around here. Today our little building is abuzz with activity surrounding an announcement that Odeo (another Obvious product) is ready for a new home. We’re entertaining offers from potential buyers because Odeo deserves the same love and attention we’ve been heaping on Twitter these days. Have you been by lately? http://twitter.com More about Odeo: http://tinyurl.com/2yoy84 Defamer Brings The Oscars to Twitter Popular Hollywood gossip blog Defamer.com is going to the Oscars this Sunday and they’re bringing Twitter! Sorta. Follow Defamer on Twitter and you’ll get live from-the-scene updates. Who won what? What’s happening in the seats? What are the stars doing? Get the updates on your phone while you watch on TV to make things more interesting or if you can’t watch, just get the updates. Text FOLLOW DEFAMER to 40404 or, Visit http://twitter.com/defamer Oscars: http://oscar.com If you haven’t set up your phone to work with Twitter yet, now is a good time! You can do that here: http://twitter.com/devices. The Oscars are broadcast live February 25 at 5pt/8et on ABC. Speaking of coveted awards, you can still vote for Twitter and help us win the SXSW People’s Choice awards. We will be so psyched if we win. Vote Twitter! https://secure.sxsw.com/peoples\_choice/ SXSW Update There’s going to be lots of folks from three industries represented at the SXSW Conference in Austin next month. We’ve heard from people in the Interactive, Music, and Film industries who are excited to get on Twitter during the week-long event. We’ll have big screens set up in the hallways and we’re setting up a special, easy way for folks to get their updates on the screens. Once we set that up, we’ll tell you more. Even if you can’t make it to SXSW, you’ll still be able to catch all the buzz. Office Full of Great Folks Obvious employs less than ten people but the building is filling up fast since we’ve opened our doors to some other really cool companies working on interesting projects. Two of the projects are still top secret, there’s a couple Y Combinator startups sharing space with us, and the other folks are 30boxes.com, Boso.com, and the illustrious Niall Kennedy. (Hi Niall!) When the secret projects launch, we’ll tell you about them–they’re cool! http://30boxes.com http://boso.com http://www.niallkennedy.com/ http://ycombinator.com/ Okay, back to work. Lots to do this week! Happy Twitter-ing, Biz Stone and the Twitter Team http://twitter.com/biz...
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A Lebanese Mosaic — Feb 14, 2022https://twitter.com/mikati\_rana/status/1490671950880022528...
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13 Minutes to the Moon — Feb 5, 202013 Minutes to the Moon is an interesting podcast dedicated to the Lunar Landings. This podcast, along with audiobooks, is interesting because they allow us not just to read the dialogues that took place but to hear what the controllers and astronauts heard....
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The Abandoned Engineering TV Documentary Series — Nov 21, 2025Recently whist playing with Galaxus TV which is just free to air television, made available via Galaxus rather than a satellite dish I have been able to revert to the habit of watching niche documentaries, as I used to years ago, when I lived in a house with a satellite dish.... -
Running from Nyon to Gland via the Toblerones — May 5, 2025Yesterday I went out in track suit trousers, a t-shirt and minimal other stuff. The plan was to run just three to four kilometres. I planned not to cross any busy roads. I had this plan because I felt that I needed a day of rest after yesterday’s bike ride.... -
A Weekend in Two Hikes — Apr 28, 2025This weekend I didn’t blog because I went on two hikes. The first hike was with the History hiking meetup group, and the second was with a GoSocial group. Both hikes were around 10km in different landscapes. The first one went from Bière to Allaman and the second one went from Haut-De-Caux to the Dent De Jaman and back.... -
Historic Photos and Facebook — Feb 6, 2025One of the reasons for which I keep using Facebook has to do with peoples’ sharing of old photos, paintings, sketches and more. I love to see photos of Nyon, Morges, Neuchatel Lausanne and other places through time.... -
Hiking to Valangin From Neuchâtel — Sep 2, 2024Yesterday I went for a hike from Neuchâtel to Valangin. This is a 14 kilometre loop that begins with a relatively steep climb out of the city before heading into the woods. You hear the sounds of the road every so often as you crisscross paths with it. The castle was used from the 12th to the 16th centuries by the Valangin lords.... -
Why Would They Build This in the Middle of Nowhere — Jul 15, 2024Recently someone said "I wonder why they would build the Abbey d’Oujon in the middle of nowhere and someone asked the same about Romainmôtier and the idea is an interesting one.... -
Facebook and Photo Archives — Nov 9, 2023Recently I have spent more time on Facebook and I have joined a few photo groups. One of them is for the Canton De Vaud, where people are sharing photos they have taken of the region. These photographs are well framed, well lit, and pleasant to look at. It feels like a community of photographers.... -
The Age Old Hatred of Pedestrians — Oct 5, 2023Last night I was reading from a book, rather than from a kindle or audible book. As a result I had to keep the bedside light on. I also had to ensure that the light light the pages of the book. I was reading from the book “Beneath My Feet, Writers on Walking” introduced and edited by Duncan Minshull and I came across an exert written by Karl Philips Moritz. He wrote Journeys of a German in England in 1782....
