Posted by jerry on September 20th, 2008 — Posted in History, Journal, Travel
Well, the evening passed – along with dinner, my body absorbing minimal nutritional value on its way through, but it was still a delicious meal for all that. And the hotel guy cheerily informed us that the air conditioning was still on heat … I decided not to go there.
Nature’s alarm clock in the form of a mob of screeching cockatoos woke us at 6.30am from our hour or so’s sleep – there is just no arguing with a parrot! so if I seem grumpy or churlish today I would just put it down to the lack of sleep and the fact that I am due in the recording studio in 2 hours to play bright and happy tunes like ‘Farewell to Chernobyl’….
The Sienna Marina coffee shop and restaurant is a good place to start one’s caffeine intake, along with free wireless internet access. It will be warm today – 31C is forecast – which would be the height of Summer for Canberra. Two days ago we had minus 2C overnight, so we are unaccustomed to the warmth and humidity. The clear sky and sharp shadows attest to a truly beautiful day ahead.
Woolloomooloo is one of Sydney’s forgotten gems – close to the multi-million dollar Wharf development, and built on reclaimed land beneath and adjacent to the Domain parkland, you can find inexpensive accommodation within easy walking distance of the City, and similar easy walking distance to Oxford Street for the bookshops, art shops and fashion designers.
And everywhere you find evidence of the Convict workings – like the various historic stairs cut directly into the rock face to get to the city and thence via The Rocks to Observatory Hill – which I wrote about previously.
Horderns Stairs in Potts Point is a prime example – they were built in 1882 – and you can still see the tooling marks on the rocks. Noting the signs for falling rocks, I don’t think I’ll be investing in the apartments above that have been built right to the edge of the rock face.
Cheers
Jerry
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Posted by jerry on August 21st, 2008 — Posted in History, Journal, Technology, Travel
The Powerhouse museum encompasses a massive collection of technology and design. One aspect of particular interest is the computer and telecommunications collection.
Before the Internet, there was the Victorian internet – the telegraph. One of the more sophisticated telegraph machines is this one – the Wheatstone 5-needle telegraph. It was a combination transmitter and receiver, and was used used on English railways. This one was made c. 1837 – 1842.
The needles were activated in pairs by electromagnets to point to the letters. Perhaps this was the sort of machine used by Abraham Lincoln when he checked his t-mail (telegraph mail)
Another radical development was the Apple computer – the first version was built in 1976 in Steve Wozniak’s garage along with Steve Jobs, later joined by Daniel Kottke, Randy Wigginton and others. They made 200 of them – but it was the start of a personal computer revolution.
Each was handmade and users built them into a small case – bearing some resemblance to the ‘enigma’ encoding machine used by the Germans in WWII. Storage was by cassette audio tape, and a TV was the monitor. The machine used a MOS Technology 6502 motherboard with 8kb of RAM. The later ones used a Motorola 6800 board.
Then came telepresence in the form of virtual reality technology – remember the VR cafes of the 1990s? This was the start of truly immersive 3D environments. The accompanying data glove enabled the user to interact with the environment and fight dinosaurs and the like. When these were around I remember people complaining that the refresh rate was too slow and that the sense of disconnected movement gave people motion sickness. But it was a major step forward in immersive environment technology.
The Powerhouse is well worth a visit – check out the ‘Wedge’ 3D environment – one of the prototypes developed by the Australian National University.
It is open every day except Christmas day 10.00am-5.00pm, and is located at 500 Harris Street, Ultimo, Sydney NSW. There is an admission charge – you can find the details on their website.
Cheers
Jerry
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Posted by jerry on August 16th, 2008 — Posted in History, Journal, Travel
The The Rocks and Sydney Observatory provide wonderful vantage point to see some of Sydney’s iconic constructions.
The Sydney Harbour Bridge – known locally as “the coat hanger” was completed in 1932. The single span bridge was completed in eight years – the £6.25m loan took a little longer, and was paid off only in 1988!
The arch spans 503m (1,650 feet) and supports the weight of the road and rail beds on steel cables.
Over 150,000 vehicles cross the bridge each day and if you’re feeling adventurous you can join one of the three hour climbs to the summit, led by specially trained guides.
The Sydney Opera House, designed by Danish architect Jorn Utzon, took 17 years to complete at a cost of $102m. A competition was announced in 1955 and won by Utzon’s design in 1957. But the design entailed novel building techniques and several controversial design compromises were made, resulting in Utzon resigning from the project in 1966. The building was completed by Australian designers. More recently, Utzon was brought back to help prepare a set of design principles to guide any future modifications.
The building is not a single opera house, but rather a series of performance spaces, including an opera theatre, a concert hall and a drama theatre, which are housed beneath its ten roof sails. The building covers 2-hectares and contains more than 1000 rooms. Check their website for what’s on and when.
Luna Park – Sydney’s famous fun fair was built on the site of the workshops used to build the Harbour Bridge. It was modeled on New York’s Luna Park on Coney Island, and was built in South Australia and moved to its present site in 1935.
Its entrance – a giant laughing face – is flanked by twin art deco towers. Today’s face is the eighth in the series. The first four only lasted between 1935 and 1945. In 1977 a catastrophic fire in the ghost train killed seven people, leading to Luna Park’s eventual closure in 1988. The funfare was renovated in the 1990s and reopened in 1995.
Check the Luna Park website for opening hours and prices. Group discounts are available.
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Posted by jerry on August 15th, 2008 — Posted in History, Journal, Travel
Sydney’s observatory and astronomy museum is located at Watson Road, Observatory Hill, The Rocks. And it is well worth a visit. The observatory started life in the 1850s as a time ball tower – at 1.00pm each day the ball would be raised and dropped exactly on the hour as a time signal for ships in the harbour below. A canon would be fired simaltaneously so there was both a visual and audible time signal. The custom continues today.
Today in the museum you can see the transit telescope used to map the Southern sky between 1880 and 1962 as part of an international project to map the entire night sky.
The 29-inch telescope is the oldest working telescope in Australia. It was installed to observe the 1874 transit of Venus. It is housed in a copper dome. The telescope is kept on track by a clockwork mechanism similar to that used on the Oddie telescope that was destroyed by Canberra’s 2003 bushfire.
The observatory is open 10.00am-5.00pm daily, and you can book for night viewings – check their website for details.
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Posted by jerry on August 11th, 2008 — Posted in History, Journal, Steam, Technology
In 1784, William Murdoch – a Scot working in Cornwall servicing Boulton and Watt beam engines – began making models of what may well have become the first self propelled steam vehicle after Joseph Cugnot’s experimental steam military tractor.
Employed by Boulton and Watt – who were possessive of their patents – Murdoch was said to have invented a coal-gas lamp so he could build models at night. Intriguingly, Watt wrote to Boulton in 1784 to say he had taken out a patent on self-propelled vehicles, which suggests he might have had his suspicions about what his employee was up to.
Although the replica built by the ‘Murdoch Boys’ is somewhat conjectural, it is clearly based on extant models, and plausibly uses a version of the Watt beam engine on wheels. The machine – known as ‘The Murdoch Flyer’ is said to be capable of 12 mph (about 20kph) at which speed it is apparently a rather exciting ride. It would have been quite a feat of engineering in its day.
Interestingly, it is a three-wheeler, making it similar in some respects to Cugnot’s wagon and the later Gardner-Serpollet which both survive in Paris at the Musee des Arts et Metiers.
The machine is powered by a single cylinder sitting inside a boiler which drives a beam up and down. A vertical shaft transits power to a crankshaft in front of the boiler behind the driver’s seat. Gears then power the rear wheels.
It may look decidedly Victorian steam punk – but the original was built in the reign of George III. It was the same year that the Italian Vincenzo Lunardi made the first hydrogen balloon ascent in England.
Thanks to Bob Blackman’s blog. You can read more about steam cars at the Steam Car Club of Great Britain.
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