Archive for the ‘Photowalks’ Category
like shuddering
Winter is coming? Winter will never leave.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
For the record, my fear is that a new glacial age has begun, and TV weather reports back up my suspicions. Problem is that I’m not that good with a spear, and when the mastodons return I’m going to get bossed around by a group of hirsute Pachyderms. This sort of humiliation would be fairly typical for me, as your humble narrator is extremely easy to bully, especially by those megafauna which prosper during Ice Ages. Luckily, I can definitely do the cave paintings, so there will be some rationalized utility by which the strong can justify keeping me alive. Of course, this scenario isn’t all that much different from normal life, as there’s always someone trying to boss me around.
from wikipedia
The energy balance of the snowpack itself is dictated by several heat exchange processes. The snowpack absorbs solar shortwave radiation that is partially blocked by cloud cover and reflected by snow surface. A long-wave heat exchange takes place between the snowpack and its surrounding environment that includes overlying air mass, tree cover and clouds. Heat exchange takes place by convection between the snowpack and the overlaying air mass, and it is governed by the temperature gradient and wind speed. Moisture exchange between the snowpack and the overlying air mass is accompanied by latent heat transfer that is influenced by vapor pressure gradient and air wind. Rain on snow can add significant amounts of thermal energy to the snowpack. A generally insignificant heat exchange takes place by conduction between the snowpack and the ground. The small temperature change from before to after a snowfall is a result of the heat transfer between the snowpack and the air. As snow degrades, its surface can develop characteristic ablation textures such as suncups or penitentes.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s my own fault, being bullyable, as I was born “less than.” Vast physical cowardice, combined with a naturally ugly mind, renders one somewhat less than a “leader.” It has never been my joy to hit the game running home run, rather I’m the fellow who fouls out and sets up the hero for his or her savior moment at the bottom of the ninth. In an ice age overrun by giant Moose and hairy Elephants, it would be vainglorious to suggest that I’d be of much use to society, and admission is offered that one such as myself would have made a terrible Viking.
from wikipedia
Ice was originally thought to be slippery due to the pressure of an object coming into contact with the ice, creating heat, melting a thin layer of the ice and allowing the object to glide across the surface. For example, the blade of an ice skate, upon exerting pressure on the ice, would melt a thin layer, providing lubrication between the ice and the blade. This explanation, called “pressure melting”, originated in 19th century. It however did not account for skating on ice temperatures lower than −3.5 °C, which skaters often skate upon.
In the 20th century an alternative explanation, called “friction heating,” was proposed, whereby friction of the material was the cause of the ice layer melting. However, this theory also failed to explain skating at low temperature. Neither sufficiently explained why ice is slippery when standing still even at below-zero temperatures.
It is now believed that ice is slippery because ice molecules in contact with air cannot properly bond with the molecules of the mass of ice beneath (and thus are free to move like molecules of liquid water). These molecules remain in a semi-liquid state, providing lubrication regardless of pressure against the ice exerted by any object. However, the significance of this hypothesis is disputed by experiments showing a high coefficient of friction for ice using atomic force microscopy.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Perhaps my bag in this new Cryosphere, or snowball Earth, will be to handle the weaker animals which will populate the nooks and crannies of our world. This wouldn’t put any meaningful protein on the table, but would be a service sought out by others by which some occupation could be found. Squashing bugs and chasing rodentine manifestations would at least keep me busy enough to stay warm. Also, like the Mongols, I could wear clothes made of sewn up amalgamations of Mouse leather.
from wikipedia
Ice sheets are bigger than ice shelves or alpine glaciers. Masses of ice covering less than 50,000 km2 are termed an ice cap. An ice cap will typically feed a series of glaciers around its periphery.
Although the surface is cold, the base of an ice sheet is generally warmer due to geothermal heat. In places, melting occurs and the melt-water lubricates the ice sheet so that it flows more rapidly. This process produces fast-flowing channels in the ice sheet — these are ice streams.
The present-day polar ice sheets are relatively young in geological terms. The Antarctic Ice Sheet first formed as a small ice cap (maybe several) in the early Oligocene, but retreating and advancing many times until the Pliocene, when it came to occupy almost all of Antarctica. The Greenland ice sheet did not develop at all until the late Pliocene, but apparently developed very rapidly with the first continental glaciation. This had the unusual effect of allowing fossils of plants that once grew on present-day Greenland to be much better preserved than with the slowly forming Antarctic ice sheet.
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better shelter
Titus, Paulo, and Ronald in today’s post.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I’ve been hunting around in my archives a bit lately, looking for shots that might have gotten buried. I’m pretty prolific, it would seem, and when you add up all the shots produced just for Newtown Pentacle and Working Harbor Committee – the numbers approach staggering. Not bragging or anything, 50% or more are dross crap, just stating that there are so many shots that some cool ones get buried and forgotten.
Just like the Roman Saint, Titus, and today’s his feast day.
from wikipedia
Titus was an early Christian leader, a companion and disciple of Paul the Apostle, mentioned in several of the Pauline epistles. He is believed to be a gentile converted by Paul to Christianity and, according to tradition, was consecrated by him as Bishop of the Island of Crete. Titus brought a fundraising letter from Paul to Corinth, to collect for the poor in Jerusalem. Later, on Crete, Titus appointed presbyters in every city and remained there into his old age, dying in the city of Candia (modern Heraklion).
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Some shots didn’t fit into a particular narrative, and got set aside for future usage. Some were difficult to explain, or required so detailed a set of prerequisite explanations that it was difficult to fit them into a post.
Sort of like the Japanese Saint, Paulo Miki, who is also remembered on February 6th.
from wikipedia
Paulo Miki was born into a wealthy Japanese family. He was educated by the Jesuits in Azuchi and Takatsuki. He joined the Society of Jesus and became a well known and successful preacher – gaining numerous converts to Catholicism. The Japanese daimyo, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, fearful of the Jesuit’s influence and intentions began persecuting Catholics. Miki was jailed, along with others. He and his fellow Catholics were forced to march 600 miles (966 kilometers) from Kyoto to Nagasaki; all the while singing the Te Deum. On arriving in Nagasaki, the city with the largest Catholic population in Japan, Miki was crucified on February 5, 1597. He preached his last sermon from the cross, and it is maintained that he forgave his executioners, stating that he himself was Japanese.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Others convey subject matter with which one does not want to delve too deeply into, as it leads directly into a complicated minefield of political issues. Such reportage is the purview of others, as it would require listening to and interacting with the humans, something which both repels and terrifies one such as myself. The humans are unpredictable, and engage in bizarre behavior.
Such as commemorating a feast day for the American Saint, Ronald.
from wikipedia
Ronald Reagan Day is a day of recognition that occurs every February 6, starting in 2011, in the state of California for Ronald Reagan, who was that state’s Governor from 1967–1975 and President of the United States from 1981–1989.
Ronald Reagan Day has also been declared a state holiday in Wisconsin. For the 100th anniversary of Reagan’s birthday in 2011, governors in 21 states issued proclamations designating February 6 Ronald Reagan Day.
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peopled with
Today’s post is for the birds.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
One remembers that time when the world was not frozen, an era when water ran freely, and there were wholesome creatures which existed in the open air. Some of these entities were classified as birds, holdovers and descendants of the mega saurians who ruled the planet in antiquity, and these bird things were actually capable of flight. This was, of course, before Ithaqua was given regency over the planet, and before New York City began to resemble the Plateau of Leng.
from wikipedia
Ithaqua is one of the Great Old Ones and appears as a horrifying giant with a roughly human shape and glowing red eyes. He has been reported from as far north as the Arctic to the Sub-Arctic, where Native Americans first encountered him. He is believed to prowl the Arctic waste, hunting down unwary travelers and slaying them gruesomely, and is said to have inspired the Native American legend of the Wendigo and possibly the Yeti.
Ithaqua’s cult is small, but he is greatly feared in the far north. Fearful denizens of Siberia and Alaska often leave sacrifices for Ithaqua—not as worship but as appeasement. Those who join his cult will gain the ability to be completely unaffected by cold. He often uses Shantaks, a dragon-like “lesser race”, as servitors. A race of subhuman cannibals, the Gnophkehs, also worshiped him, along with Rhan-Tegoth and Aphoom-Zhah.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
We dwell within now, building walls thickened by ice, cowering in the glow of electrical lights – and the burning thermonuclear eye of god itself occluded by frozen clouds. In the gloom and slush outside, shapes move about. Some are huddled masses of textiles wrapped around stiffly articulated ape things, others are vast encrustations of sodium with metallic endoskeletons and four robustly cylindrical rubber feet. The latter spews noxious gas which paints the ice black, and the former have been observed attacking the precipitants with curious tools and devices.
Remember the birds, remember the birds.
from hplovecraft.com
Searchers after horror haunt strange, far places. For them are the catacombs of Ptolemais, and the carven mausolea of the nightmare countries. They climb to the moonlit towers of ruined Rhine castles, and falter down black cobwebbed steps beneath the scattered stones of forgotten cities in Asia. The haunted wood and the desolate mountain are their shrines, and they linger around the sinister monoliths on uninhabited islands. But the true epicure in the terrible, to whom a new thrill of unutterable ghastliness is the chief end and justification of existence, esteems most of all the ancient, lonely farmhouses of backwoods New England; for there the dark elements of strength, solitude, grotesqueness, and ignorance combine to form the perfection of the hideous.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Televisual news and information services operate in a fever pitch, describing roof collapses and downed power lines, informing and feeding a populace anxious for elevated states of emotion and experience. A new dark age is upon us, perhaps, and the foolish notion that the titans retreated out of weakness is proven out. Woe to you, mankind, for the great old ones of primal myth – those towering, all conquering masses that once ruled this planet have been awoken from their icy tombs and are on the move. The birds have survived them before, and likely will again, what of humanity however?
Leviathan, Jörmungandr, Tiamat – whatever your culture describes them as – these frozen giants whose very body can swell to continental levels – the Glaciers are returning. Lament!
also from hplovecraft.com
It is absolutely necessary, for the peace and safety of mankind, that some of earth’s dark, dead corners and unplumbed depths be let alone; lest sleeping abnormalities wake to resurgent life, and blasphemously surviving nightmares squirm and splash out of their black lairs to newer and wider conquests.
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marching things
Infrastructure geekery today.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The center of the Williamsburg Bridge span offers a clearance to river going vessels of about 135 feet.
A building story is conventionally calculated as being around 10-12 feet, so that makes the Williamsburg Bridge tall enough to fit a roughly 11-12 story building under the apogee of its arc, water towers notwithstanding. That gives us a bit of an idea about the sort and size of maritime vessels which used the mercantile river during the late 19th and early 20th century. Remember that engineers always work around restrictions, and inadvertently create standards when they do.
from wikipedia
Construction on the bridge, the second to cross this river, began in 1896, with Leffert L. Buck as chief engineer, Henry Hornbostel as architect and Holton D. Robinson as assistant engineer, and the bridge opened on December 19, 1903 at a cost of $24,200,000
– photo by Mitch Waxman
A 75,000 ton pile of steel, we call it Queensboro, and this deck is around 130 feet over the water. When it went up in 1909, there were still concerns about navigability for warships and other large ocean going vessels moving between the Navy Yard in Williamsburg and Long Island Sound (via Hells Gate). This has never been the front door for NY Harbor though, most mariners prefer the shallow but safer route which carries them through Gerritsen Bay and the Narrows, which we call the Ambrose Channel, to Jamaica Bay and the open ocean.
from wikipedia
Serious proposals for a bridge linking Manhattan to Long Island City were first made as early as 1838 and attempts to finance such a bridge were made by a private company beginning in 1867. Its efforts never came to fruition and the company went bankrupt in the 1890s. Successful plans finally came about in 1903 under the city’s new Department of Bridges, led by Gustav Lindenthal (who was appointed to the new position of Commissioner of Bridges in 1902), in collaboration with Leffert L. Buck and Henry Hornbostel, designers of the Williamsburg Bridge.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
149 feet over the water, Manhattan Bridge offers a significant amount of clearance to shipping, nearly 20 feet more than its northern brethren. Admittedly, this has always been a busier part of the river than that spanned by Queensboro and Williamsburg, but I’ve always wondered why East River Bridge 2 (MB) was built higher than 3 (WB) and 4 (QB). I’m sure the answer is pedantic, and will likely be depressing.
from wikipedia
The bridge was opened to traffic on December 31, 1909 and was designed by Leon Moisseiff, who later designed the infamous original Tacoma Narrows Bridge that opened and collapsed in 1940. It has four vehicle lanes on the upper level (split between two roadways). The lower level has three lanes, four subway tracks, a walkway and a bikeway. The upper level, originally used for streetcars, has two lanes in each direction, and the lower level is one-way and has three lanes in peak direction. It once carried New York State Route 27 and later was planned to carry Interstate 478. No tolls are charged for motor vehicles to use the Manhattan Bridge.
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little visible
It ain’t winter time this year, it’s Ragnarok.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
It’s snowing again, so hooray! It was nice being able to leave the house again this weekend, which temporarily alleviated my status as a housebound invalid. Unfortunately, today’s snow caused one to cancel an appointment with the Manhattan based team of physicians that maintain the delicate balancing act which describes my physiology. Alas, putting myself into a hospital by visiting the doctor would be the sort of ironic consequence which has and does define the miserable life path of a humble narrator.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Dreams of tropical splendor suffuse my thoughts, although the idea of suffering insectivorous assault and the deprivations offered by fungal and bacterial infections of the skinvelope retards my desire for the warmth and blooming foliage of the equatorial band. Ultimately, everything wishes to eat something, and your humble narrator is apparently delicious to contagion and pestilence alike.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
How one misses the halcyon days of spring and summer, when gazing upon the world and recording its little lessons are governed only by the long interval between dusk and dawn. Winter is definitely not nepenthe to me, and I’ve had to reschedule the visit with my team of physicians. Later in the week, it seems, will be the day that I go to the Shining City to have wires attached and be subjected to the examinations of esoteric machinery.
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The Newtown Pentacle 