Category: flickr

Swedish Sun Shot

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The solar eclipse passed over a cloudy UK yesterday, annoying many would-be observers and photographers. When it passed over Umeå in Sweden, however, things were a bit different – giving us stuff like this:

16871384241_87ae93a7fc_bI’m not sure if this was a planned shot, or if Joakim Poromaa Helger (for it was he wot took it) meant to catch the moment.
A quick look at his photostream suggests it may well have been the latter. It’s a bit wow. Check out his shots from South Africa in particular.

What makes this shot even more incredible is the fact that the crew at flightradar24 got hold of it, did some calculations, and worked out that this was flight SK5:

SK5 is the daily SAS flight from Luleå to Stockholm.

Now we know.

World’s Biggest Windmill

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Not really, but still – nice story: they’ve put a couple of VAWTs on the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Well, they couldn’t really put them on the Eiffel Tower anywhere else, could they?

If you’ve ever seen the Eiffel Tower in real life, you’ll know that it’s not small. Here it is with its head in the clouds in the height of summer, 2012 with the boy wonder in the foreground, and a handy indicator of where the turbines have been fitted just above the 2eme étage:

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Amazingly, despite their hugely elevated position, they’re not even at the height of the wind turbines in Caledon just up the road from Cape Town. Suddenly, Gustav’s big project doesn’t seem quite so huge. Or maybe wind turbines are just generally horribly invasive. Hey, you decide.

The 10,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity they’ll produce each year is about enough to self-sustain the commercial section on the tower’s first floor, but not much else.

Look, it’s something. And I do understand that this is really all just about visibility. To be honest, short of putting a set of huge blades on the top of the tower itself, it’s probably about as good as it’s going to get. Especially in a country which produces around 80% of its electricity from nuclear. But while wind is good because it’s renewable, it’s may not be quite as green as you think. Here’s an interesting “back-of-the-envelope calculation” by Popular Science magazine on which are the nastiest forms of electricity generation if you happen to be, say… a bird (as one of the endangered Blue Cranes near Caledon might self-identify, for example).

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You can read more here, but the gist of it is that Coal is downright evil (we knew this), solar plants fry birds:

Rewire reports that during the test, operators fired up a third of the 110-megawatt facility’s mirrors, concentrating sunlight on a spot 1,200 feet off the ground. Over a six-hour period, biologists counted 130 “streamers,” or trails of smoke and water left behind as birds ignited and plummeted to their deaths. Rewire’s anonymous source said that at least one of the birds “turned white hot and vaporized completely.”

and we already knew that wind turbines kill birds and bats.

Sadly, despite our current (no pun intended) electricity woes, it seems like nuclear isn’t the er… cleanest option for SA either (although not necessarily for environmental reasons).

So we have the choice of evil coal (which we’re going to use), the horribly inefficient and not-ever-so-nice-after-all solar and wind, or the allegedly dangerously corrupt nuclear.

Or we could do fracking… Now there’s a good idea.

More Parisian flickritude

Low level training

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I spotted this image over the weekend and it was duly Pocketed for blogging. Because it’s incredible.

I believe that it shows a USAF F-15 aircraft doing low level flight training – I think – in Wales (although there’s some suggestion it may be the Lake District in Cumbria, England).

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Shots like this are obviously incredibly difficult to take as the aerial vehicle in question is going quite fast. For most, just getting the plane in shot would be achievement enough, so this shot with the people in the foreground gives it depth and perspective. It’s simply amazing.

But the skill of the photographer is matched, if not bettered by the skill of the pilot. To take a 20 metre long plane with a wingspan of 13m and a top speed (at low altitude) of Mach 1.2 or 1,450 kph (Mach 2.5 or 2,665kph at high altitude) through the valleys of the Welsh countryside takes some ability. And some beeg balls.

Here’s a pilot’s eye view of a Typhoon doing the same thing.

250 feet is 76 metres. About half the height of the Portside Tower in Cape Town. Wibble.

I remember family holidays to the Lake District being punctuated by the RAF Tornados doing this same sort of training, and was amazed to learn that most of the planes we saw (and heard) there had flown up from RAF Coningsby, some 300+km away.

Still, with the same sort of speed as the F-15, I guess that as a Tornado or Typhoon pilot, you can pretty much choose wherever you want to play and then be there fairly promptly.

Art of the Brick

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We left it (quite) late to go and see this, and it’s in no way a cheap day out. In fact, it’s neither cheap, nor a day out – but it IS definitely worth your time and money to go and see it.

We went down at 9 o’clock on a Sunday morning (this one, in fact) and despite struggling to get into the actual building it was being staged in, which didn’t open til later, had a fantastic time.
It’s one of those things where you can spend as much or as little time as you want on the way around, but each and every exhibit you see is more breathtaking than the last. The time, effort, patience and detail that’s gone into the sculptures is incredible. Each of the pieces has a short description next to it, which includes the number of bricks used. Most are well into 5 figures. Wow.

Parthenon: 30,201 bricks

The short video introduction by the artist, Nathan Sawaya, was a little ‘American motivational chat show’ for my liking, but when you see the work he has created, you almost want to know exactly how or why he does it. The exhibition is beautifully laid out, cleverly lit (although it does make for difficult photography conditions) and, as I said above, awe-inspiring. It’s fun, it’s serious, it’s whatever you want to make of it – much like Lego – there are no rules.

At the end, there’s even a couple of rooms and an outside area where you can build and create from Lego yourself.
I made a little Table Mountain. It was amazing.

FAQ:
> Tickets are R95 for kids, R140 for Adults, R395 for a family of four. [Computicket]
> It’s worth it, yes.
> It’s in Cape Town til 28th February, then Joburg 13th May – 12th August.
> You don’t need to have kids to enjoy it, but kids will enjoy it too.
> Early mornings seem to be quiet.
> This is not a sponsored post.

Photos are on my Flickr, but don’t really do it justice (in any way, shape or form).
Go, see, enjoy.
#6000Recommends

Moar exercise!

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Even after yesterday’s exertions, there was still time for a bit more healthy wandering this morning – this time inland with the beagle and the kids in Newlands Forest.
Considering that this is virtually on our doorstep and I run past it fairly regularly (I drive past it even more often), it’s amazing that this was my first time wandering up past the fire base and into the forest proper.

  

The lower areas are pretty ugh. They were busy and parking was packed, despite it being early. Much like in Tokai, the dog owners (not us) don’t clear up after themselves, so given that the first thing the dogs do when they get out of the car is defaecate, it’s fairly unpleasant around the car park. But once you’re far from the madding crowds and their lack of concern and respect for other people, and into the peace and quiet of the trees, it’s all good. We didn’t even get mugged.

Porcupine quills and feathers told us what we could have seen, but the fresh air and filtered sunshine was enough to keep us all happy. Not knowing what to expect, I didn’t take my camera (I know, this doesn’t make sense to me either), but next time (and there will be a next time), maybe I will.

Still, there are a few photos of the weekend on Flickr.