history – Richard's blog

Facebook and Photo Archives

Byrichard 9 November 20239 November 2023

Recently 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.

Part of my reason for wanting to return to Facebook is this group. If there is a group of local people sharing photographs then there is a good chance that there are other local groups for sharing other images, events and more.

Over the last two days I have followed groups that share archive photos, paintings, post cards and more. These images show Geneva, Nyon, Vevey, Gland, Crassier and other places as they looked several decades ago. This is a fun and pleasant journey back in time. We get to see Perdtemps when it was a park for people to walk in, and then as a park where people would play football, before finally seeing it as we know it, an ugly parking.

These groups have value, because old photos have value. They show us the ordinary world as it was at specific moments in time. It shows us place de Neuve with a tram and an old car. it shows us the castle of Nyon after an important fire in a local mill, and more.

It shows us the train that ran from Divonne to Nyon and back. I learned about this line by playing Geocache, but learned more by trying to find photos of the trains and stations. If you go to Divonne, by the pub, you can see the old train station. The former line is now a cycling and walking path. Recent history is just as interesting as ancient history.

There is an image of the Gare Cornavin before surrounding buildings were built. In another photo you can see Geneva as it looked in the 1950s or earlier. You can see Geneva airport in the middle of the countryside, before the motorway and other buildings were built.

And Finally

With old photographs, paintings and other types of images you get a feel for how places looked before they were built upon. You see places before the popularisation of cars and more. You also see how buildings used to look when each one was unique. It is worth taking time to explore these old galleries of images.

Swiss walks

The Age Old Hatred of Pedestrians

Byrichard 5 October 2023

Last 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.

In this book he writes about walking in England and about how people were puzzled that someone would want to walk from London to Richmond and back. People couldn’t fathom that someone would want to walk such a distance on foot.

Pleasant English Miles

At one point he says “Walking four miles in England feels like walking one mile in Germany”, to paraphrase. He enjoyed walking in England. He speaks of stopping by the side of the road, finding the shade of some bushes and reading. Apparently people on the road were puzzled that someone would stop by the side and read.

What is so striking about this writing is that it is from 241 years ago, before cars, before the steam age, and before the forms of transport we are familiar with today.

Several centuries later another eccentric would go for long walks, Grandma Gatewood. People were puzzled that someone her age would walk the Appalachian Trail alone, more than once.

Confused

According to Google Bard walking was normal in 1782, as was horse back riding, horse drawn carriages and sailing ships. Given the context it’s interesting that so early, before steam and trains people would have seen walking from Point A to Point B as strange.

The idea we have that the car encouraged people to stop walking is erroneous, in that people did not walk from A to B long before then. The idea that the carriage was an ordinary form of transport to get from A to B, rather than walking is interesting. Was the writer trying to save money, for his travels, or did he simply enjoy the act of walking?

And Finally

I found copies of the book in electronic format so I will take the time to read a copy, to understand more about the reasons for this long walk.

Documentary | Video

Nanook Of The North

Byrichard 2 July 20232 July 2023

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkW14Lu1IBo

Two 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.

No Voice Over

The documentary has no voice over because it’s a silent film. You get intertitles instead that explain what you’re seeing. For many decades the documentary genre existed hand in hand with anthropolgy, the idea that the documentary could be used to document old ways of life, fascets of life and more. Nanook of the North was an early experiment

The Setback

At first Robert Flaherty filmed when he had time during an expedition. He would take the free time he had to document the lives of the Inuit. Eventually, the rushes burned due to a fire. He had shot 70,000 feet of film, almost twelve hours of 35 mm film. Hee was left with just the edit print. He showed it around before deciding that he didn’t like it, so he reshot Nanook of the North. (source: A New History of Documentary film, Jack C. Ellis and Betsy A. McLane, p12, 2005)

The content

Nanook of the north is a series of static shots that show an inuit family living their lives. We see them at a trading post, discovering the gramophone tasting it and more. We read about the children enjoying some sweets, to excess, and then taking castor oil, and smiling. We also see a seal hunt, a walrus hunt and the trapping of a fox, among other scenes. We see some traditional forms of doing these various activities.

At the start of the documentary there is an amusing moment where the Kayak comes to shore, and you see the entire family climb out of it, including a dog.

If not for Nannok of the North then such a scene would be read or heard about, but never seen.

The Interior Igloo scene

Nanook of the North did some controversy because it was seen as setup, as not really illustrating inuit life, especially the igloo scene. It’s interessting to see how clear ice was used as a window, with the adding of a block of snow as a reflector to get more light inside. I mention this because at least two or three times we see scenes that are supposed to happen within the iglood.

Due to how cramped an igloo is, and due to the lack of light, and film stock of the time, it would have been impossible to film within the igloo, so they faked it, outdoors. It illustrates the morning ritual. At one point we read, and see, the wife chewing a shoe, to defrost it in the morning, due to the cold night freezing it over. If the Igloo scene had not been faked outdoors, then the interior layout of an igloo would have been lost. By taking a small liberty we preserve history.

Watchability

Although the film is 101 years old, at the time of the writing of this post it is still easy to watch today, and it is pleasant. It shows various moments of inuit life, without being boring. At moments it even feels more like a home video than a documentary. I found myself thinking that anyone with a family could watch it and enjoy it. It has survived the test of time.

The Man With the Movie Camera

For historical context, the Man with the Movie Camera would be shot seven years later, in 1929.

The Digital Age

One of the luxuries of the Digital Age is that many of these films have been digitised, and in so doing they have been made easier to access. When I was reading about these documentaries I had to imagine them. I had to rely on frames of the film and descriptions. Now with a quick Google or other search we can find and watch these documentaries. They may be old, and they may be part of history, but students of the genre don’t need to search through university libraries to find VHS copies of old films like I did. Within seconds you can find content that took me years, or even decades to find. Nanook of the North is a key film, so to understand documentary we must watch it.

Swiss walks

Reading to Understand The Past

Byrichard 14 March 202314 March 2023

When 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.

They take us to a time before travel as we know it today. Imagine reading about being sun burned and sun oil. Imagine reading about speeding cars. Imagine reading about a time before road safety laws and speed limits. Imagine reading about when scuba diving was still exotic and more.

Recently people have been reading old books and destroying them by changing words and meanings. By editing books to be socially acceptable today we are behaving like the priest with a bell in Il Nuovo Cinema Paradiso. Do you remember the scene. Clang clang clang, insert a paper into the film reel where the kiss has to be spliced out.

The morality police isn’t splicing kisses or sex. It is neutralising gender, offensive terms and more. Words that make children giggle and laugh are being removed by grown ups.

They, the adults, see this as a social good but I don’t. In the age of Brexit, COVID denialism and a shift by political parties to the Far Right why are we worrying about books when the real social ill comes from what politicians are saying, of how populism is being used, to mislead people to vote against their own best interests?

A book is just a glimpse into the past and i am worried about the present.

My view on books is that we read them to understand how people saw the world before, whether from the 90s, the 50s or a century ago. We read Jane Austen A) because our English teacher told us to, but second to understand a different age and way of seeing the contemporary world. The world, contemporary to the writer, not to us.

I remember reading The Tiger that came to tea, thinking, “this is old fashioned and sexist” but that doesn’t stop me from reading it for a sibling’s offspring. Instead, it would be an opportunity for a well brought up child to say “but that tiger was not kind, that tiger was rude, and so was the dad when he came home.”

This brings me on to “All Creatures Great and Small”. “Oh I do wish you would pay attention” and more. Siegfried tells James off on a number of occassions for what he told James to do. James gets angry, but doesn’t say anything.

The issue with sensitivity readers is that they are moving on to adult books, with adult themes. James Bond is old fashioned, but if it is re-written then it loses some if its allure. I read James Bond while working in a humanitarian organisation. I knew that it was written in a different age, when people had different values and norms.

I worry about what contemporaries think, say and write, rather than what people wrote 60 to seventy years ago. The past is the past. Modern conversations, and modern books should reflect modern values. Will old films be re-edited to remove smoking? Will old films be edited for modern values?

Where will the line be drawn, on changing the past, to suit the views of people today?

And Finally

Roald Dahl was edited for modern audiences but the originals are still available, so you can have the “modern politically correct version” or the old fashioned historical version. Will you read the old fashioned version, and have a conversation about values, or read the sanitised version, and skip the conversation on morality and ethics?

social media

Twitter and SMS

Byrichard 10 February 202310 February 2023

Back 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.

Jaiku was similar except that it was more advanced, having an app that played well with Symbian devices. With time, and the advent of the iphone and ubiquitous data plans so platforms like Twitter and Jaiku could add images and more. With time Seesmic experimented with video and instagram with images. Instagram thrived because it made uploading and sharing images fast and easy, even in the days of limited bandwidth.

Over the years Twitter and other social media platforms have forgotten about their origins and now a single tweet can take an entire 27″ computer monitor, let alone a laptop screen. What was one short and succinct became long winded, and inefficient.

Twitter wants to extend the character limit to 4000 characters, but that’s absurd. The entire reason for Twitter being, is to have short messages, that are quick to read, a list of headlines, rather than full blown essays.

Remember that blogging platforms have snippets and sub-headings for a reason, to make them easy to skim.

Twitter has lost its bearings now. They are trying to be different products, at a high price, rather than highlight their unique selling point. I don’t want to read long tweets. I want short tweets. I even want to turn off images, to make the feed shorter and more succinct.

And Finally

I want to joke that the reason for “cargo pants” or cargo trousers as I prefer to call them is to store FFP2 masks during a pandemic. They are the ideal size for masks. It’s easy to store them during your outdoors walks, and pull them out once you are back indoors, or near people.

archeology | Video

Version Control, Engineering and Rocket Engines

Byrichard 19 September 202219 September 2022

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.

With GIT and other forms of version control the entire process could theoretically have been logged and preserved, not so, in this context. Interesting video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovD0aLdRUs0

archeology | Video | youtube

Perm 36 YouTube Video Visit

Byrichard 1 July 20221 July 2022

Last 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.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgtjgPtGmx0

Reading Gulag, The Gulag Archipelago and other books helps give some context to what Soviet Russia was like. As I read Gulag by Applebaum I get the feeling that Soviet Russia was about enslaving people to make profit for some whilst everyone else suffers. From this perspective what the Soviet Union would morph into, at the end of the Soviet age would make more sense.

I recommend watching this video. It is informative.

archeology | tech related

Apollo Comms – A Series on YouTube

Byrichard 4 March 20224 March 2022

I 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.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v49ucdZcx9s

I was surprised to hear that transmission was as low as 2 watts and as high as just 11 watts. I also learned that for some communications they used just two watts of power for Apollo 13, 57 hours into the mission, to reduce power consumption. Of course on Earth they had a 270ft antenna to receive the signal. Compare this to a radio station that may use 50,000 watts. I don’t remember how many watts were used in satellite broadcasting but from a quick skim it’s about 20 watts but this goes to smaller and smaller dishes on earth. Starlink uses about 2 watts of power.

I frequently heard about travelling wave tubes over the years, but I didn’t understand how they work, until this video. I still don’t understand how they work. If my understanding is correct the cathode emits electrons at 20 percent of the speed of light. An RF signal is sent into the tube but has to travel a far greater distance. This slows it down enough for the electrons and the RF signal to synchronise, and the result to be used to transmit. I still don’t understand how it works but I have a starting point. More info can be found here.

There are at least twelve episodes, so if you watch all of them you will get a better understanding of how the comms systems worked during the Apollo space missions. This content is for geeks, who have a basic understanding of at least some of the key topics.

Although this content doesn’t count as archeology in the conventional sense I have put it in that category because it is the study of modern history. People are looking at, and trying to understand objects from a different time. It is within living memory. Living memory doesn’t exclude it from being archeology.

Archeology Tweets

Funerary Relief – Colourised

Byrichard 17 February 202217 February 2022

When 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.

https://twitter.com/chapps/status/1393686718033719301

With 3d modelling it is easy to reproduce an exact replica of a painting or sculpture and then imagine how it would have been colouried. Tweets are frequently shared, that show statues and other objects as they would have looked when new. With mosaics we see them dry and dull, but with water they come back to life.

I considered playing with colours in photo editing software to bring colours from a mosaic back to vivid life.