View allAll Photos Tagged Compacter
These tiny leaves are sort of peculiar. I don't know if the plant is dehydrated or if it's just a part of the physiology of the plant, but the stem of the leaf looks rather flat, doesn't it? Plants are such bizarre creatures in the first place when you compare them to animals.
Almost exclusively do they not rely on other animals for direct nutrition. Almost all of them are rooted in one way or another to a substrate. Their gross anatomy is so unlike ours.
Then again. Earth teems with plants. Maybe we're the odd ones.
The theme for today in the Kerrisdale Cameras daily photo challenge is “Compact”. I struggled with this one until I saw one of my daughters CD’s (Compact Disc) sitting on the table reflecting light from a nearby window #kcphotochallenge
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Jamison Valley,
Katoomba, Blue Mountains,
New South Wales, Australia.
Sony RX100 MkI test
All hand-held photos taken with the Sony on a rainy & misty day.
I bought myself a pocket-sized Sony RX100 MkI compact online to replace my old Canon G9.
The G9 is a great camera but not so good at high ISO’s whereas the Sony is pretty decent up to ISO1600.
I got a great deal online ($375), so decided to go with the old version of this camera.
The new versions (now up to MkIV) sell for up to $1200 dollars which is way more than what I wanted to pay.
Later versions have faster lenses and wider focal lengths, built-in EVF, and better video.
The Sony RX100 is a great camera!
The image quality from RAW files in such a small body is quite impressive.
You can really customise the rear controls to put most of the important functions like exposure compensation, ISO, and white balance at your fingertips.
It’s great not having to dive into the menus to change settings.
The high ISO performance is pretty good as well - up to ISO800 is fairly clean and ISO1600 is definitely acceptable.
I’ve even managed to get some usable gig and astro shots with it!
Some users reckon that its good at up to ISO3200, but the image quality is not so great in my opinion.
Auto-ISO works quite well too.
Video (1080p HD) is pretty impressive for a compact camera.
The built in pop-up flash is not that great though.
There is that shutter lag that you get with most compacts too.
There are times when I get tired of lugging around heavy DSLR gear, so its great to have a lightweight camera I can use.
I bought the Sony to basically take with me wherever I go, and I’m enjoying having it in my kit quite a lot.
Sony are really making some innovative camera gear these days and are shaking things up in the camera world!
The small size of the Black Hills Central's Baldwin 2-6-6-2 tank locomotives--38 foot wheelbase-- can really be seen from above--in this aerial view, #108 has topped the steep initial climb out of Hill City and is now winding between the hills on a light downgrade before the drop into Keystone.
From where I sit at this moment, Orkney seems so remote. It's easy to forget that it sits just off John o' Groats and was a bit of Scotland nibbled away and submerged at the end of the Last Glacial Period. Prior to that, the lowered sea levels left Doggerland high and dry — a convenient stepping stone for humans to repopulate Britain from the rest of Europe. Yes, I've been to the very north of the archipelago, to North Ronaldsay. Today I'm away to South Ronaldsay — ironically juxtaposed at opposite ends from its northern namesake. This won't take me to Orkney's most southerly isle, Stroma, which to be honest has less water between it and Scotland that it has between itself and the rest of Orkney.
Here's a reminder of how compact these islands are. This is the northern tip of Glimps Holm looking back across Lamb Holm to Mainland. By now I've crossed two of the causeways constructed as navigation barriers in WWII. There are what appears to be military installations, there on the cliffs of Lamb Holm. In the middleground lie relics of the block ships sunk here early in WWI. I think this was the SS Numidian, an almost 5000 ton steel hulled steamer scuttled here on 30 December 1914. She was sunk in the company of SS Aorangi, SS Thames and SS Minieh with, I think, Numidian in the shallow water near this spot. I could be wrong. If you need a better answer there's a kind of trainspotters' guide to the wrecks of Scapa Flow.
Orkney is so user-friendly. It's a small place, compact, packed to the gunwales with history; so much that with sea level rise its, Plimsoll line is in peril of disappearing beneath the waves. Getting about is quick and easy; all that and it has a village named Twatt.
Could be a very cool Live/Work space… in Central Porto- just east of the Main Retail Shopping Street- kinda like how State Street in Chicago was during The Jane Byrne administration ( meaning mostly closed to Auto & Bus traffic)
Camel hair
Pencil, from Old French pincel, from late Latin penicillus a "little tail" originally referred to an artist's fine brush of camel hair, also used for writing before modern lead or chalk pencils.
Though the archetypal pencil was an artist's brush, the stylus, a thin metal stick used for scratching in papyrus or wax tablets, was used extensively by the Romans and for palm-leaf manuscripts.
As a technique for drawing, the closest predecessor to the pencil was silverpoint or leadpoint until, in 1565 (some sources say as early as 1500), a large deposit of graphite was discovered on the approach to Grey Knotts from the hamlet of Seathwaite in Borrowdale parish, Cumbria, England.
This particular deposit of graphite was extremely pure and solid, and it could easily be sawn into sticks. It remains the only large-scale deposit of graphite ever found in this solid form.
Chemistry was in its infancy and the substance was thought to be a form of lead.
Consequently, it was called plumbago (Latin for "lead ore").
Because the pencil core is still referred to as "lead", or "a lead", many people have the misconception that the graphite in the pencil is lead, and the black core of pencils is still referred to as lead, even though it never contained the element lead
The words for pencil in German (Bleistift), Irish (peann luaidhe), and some other languages literally mean lead pen.
The value of graphite would soon be realised to be enormous, mainly because it could be used to line the moulds for cannonballs; the mines were taken over by the Crown and were guarded.
When sufficient stores of graphite had been accumulated, the mines were flooded to prevent theft until more was required.
The usefulness of graphite for pencils was discovered as well, but initially graphite for pencils had to be smuggled out of England.
Because graphite is soft, it requires some form of encasement. Graphite sticks were initially wrapped in string or sheepskin for stability.
England would enjoy a monopoly on the production of pencils until a method of reconstituting the graphite powder was found in 1662 in Germany.
However, the distinctively square English pencils continued to be made with sticks cut from natural graphite into the 1860s. The town of Keswick, near the original findings of block graphite, still manufactures pencils, the factory also being the location of the Derwent Pencil Museum.
The meaning of "graphite writing implement" apparently evolved late in the 16th century.[18]
Wood encasement
Palomino Blackwing 602 pencils
Around 1560, an Italian couple named Simonio and Lyndiana Bernacotti made what are likely the first blueprints for the modern, wood-encased carpentry pencil. Their version was a flat, oval, more compact type of pencil.
Their concept involved the hollowing out of a stick of juniper wood. Shortly thereafter, a superior technique was discovered: two wooden halves were carved, a graphite stick inserted, and the halves then glued together—essentially the same method in use to this day.
Graphite powder and clay
The first attempt to manufacture graphite sticks from powdered graphite was in Nuremberg, Germany, in 1662. It used a mixture of graphite, sulphur, and antimony.
English and German pencils were not available to the French during the Napoleonic Wars; France, under naval blockade imposed by Great Britain, was unable to import the pure graphite sticks from the British Grey Knotts mines – the only known source in the world.
France was also unable to import the inferior German graphite pencil substitute.
It took the efforts of an officer in Napoleon's army to change this. In 1795, Nicolas-Jacques Conté discovered a method of mixing powdered graphite with clay and forming the mixture into rods that were then fired in a kiln.
By varying the ratio of graphite to clay, the hardness of the graphite rod could also be varied. This method of manufacture, which had been earlier discovered by the Austrian Joseph Hardtmuth, the founder of the Koh-I-Noor in 1790, remains in use. In 1802, the production of graphite leads from graphite and clay was patented by the Koh-I-Noor company in Vienna.
In England, pencils continued to be made from whole sawn graphite. Henry Bessemer's first successful invention (1838) was a method of compressing graphite powder into solid graphite thus allowing the waste from sawing to be reused.
United States
Pencil manufacturing.
The top sequence shows the old method that required pieces of graphite to be cut to size; the lower sequence is the new, current method using rods of graphite and clay
.
American colonists imported pencils from Europe until after the American Revolution. Benjamin Franklin advertised pencils for sale in his Pennsylvania Gazette in 1729, and George Washington used a three-inch (7.5 cm) pencil when he surveyed the Ohio Country in 1762. William Munroe, a cabinetmaker in Concord, Massachusetts, made the first American wood pencils in 1812.
This was not the only pencil-making occurring in Concord. According to Henry Petroski, transcendentalist philosopher Henry David Thoreau discovered how to make a good pencil out of inferior graphite using clay as the binder; this invention was prompted by his father's pencil factory in Concord, which employed graphite found in New Hampshire in 1821 by Charles Dunbar.
Munroe's method of making pencils was painstakingly slow, and in the neighbouring town of Acton, a pencil mill owner named Ebenezer Wood set out to automate the process at his own pencil mill located at Nashoba Brook. He used the first circular saw in pencil production. He constructed the first of the hexagon- and octagon-shaped wooden casings. Ebenezer did not patent his invention and shared his techniques with anyone. One of those was Eberhard Faber, which built a factory in New York and became the leader in pencil production.
Joseph Dixon, an inventor and entrepreneur involved with the Tantiusques graphite mine in Sturbridge, Massachusetts, developed a means to mass-produce pencils.
By 1870, The Joseph Dixon Crucible Company was the world's largest dealer and consumer of graphite and later became the contemporary Dixon Ticonderoga pencil and art supplies company.
By the end of the nineteenth century, over 240,000 pencils were used each day in the US. The favoured timber for pencils was Red Cedar as it was aromatic and did not splinter when sharpened. In the early twentieth century supplies of Red Cedar were dwindling so that pencil manufacturers were forced to recycle the wood from cedar fences and barns to maintain supply.
One effect of this was that "during World War II rotary pencil sharpeners were outlawed in Britain because they wasted so much scarce lead and wood, and pencils had to be sharpened in the more conservative manner – with knives.
It was soon discovered that incense cedar, when dyed and perfumed to resemble Red Cedar, was a suitable alternative. Most pencils today are made from this timber, which is grown in managed forests.
Over 14 billion pencils are manufactured worldwide annually. Less popular alternatives to cedar include basswood and alder.
In Southeast Asia, the wood Jelutong may be used to create pencils (though the use of this rainforest species is controversial).
Environmentalists prefer the use of Pulai – another wood native to the region in pencil manufacturing.
Eraser attachment
Attached eraser on the left; Pencil lead on the right
On 30 March 1858, Hymen Lipman received the first patent for attaching an eraser to the end of a pencil.
Car: BMW 316 Compact (E36/5)
Date of first registration: 6th March 1995.
Registration region: Newcastle-Upon-Tyne.
Latest recorded mileage: 61,125 (MOT 9th November 2018).
Date taken: 19th March 2019.
Album: Street Spots
Car: BMW 316i Compact.
Year of manufacture: 1999.
Date of first registration in the UK: 20th May 1999.
Place of registration: Chelmsford.
Date of last MOT: 7th April 2021.
Mileage at last MOT: 100,621.
Last change of keeper: 9th August 2020
Date taken: 3rd June 2021.
Album: Carspotting 2021
It started with the LC-A, that I got in a 2nd hand shop in Budapest 2 years ago, I took it to test it the next days on my way by train across Bulgaria/Romania to Istambul, and I finally figured out that P&S were the way to travel without worries. always ready, and in a simple pocket. SET
Eventually the lc-a fell and so I could try to fix the frame counter it had to get a new dress.
Also, missing some shots because of the zone focus it was not ideal, so I started looking for some cheep AF ones, and they had to be as pocketable as the lc-a, on that area the mju II is the winner.
I don't think this collection will grow much more, unless I stumble upon some expensive models or so, for very cheap (ricohs gr, minolta TC-1 etc...) I'm happy with these ones for now, let's see what comes next.
(1 week after)
I just came back from the fleamarket with some more P&S cameras, Mju I (another),
Ricoh FF70(it's a DOA after all), Fuji HD-M, Konica EU-min and a Porst 135AE
#2 UPDATE
additions : Olympus XA2, Ricoh FF-1, Leica C2-zoom, Nikon AF600, Rollei 35B
Not many if any places to see a pair of SD35's running now days in the US, here GLC 383 and 384 work the interchange with the Ann Arbor RR at Osmer siding just north of Ann Arbor, Michigan. Nice compact packages these SD35's seen from above, if only EMD had cataloged an SD30, that would have been a pretty swell looking unit - August 23, 2024.
Southerness is a small, compact coastal village in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. Southerness is located approximately 2 mi (3.2 km) south of the A710 between Caulkerbush and Kirkbean. The town today is mainly a tourist village and has for many years had a large number of static caravans, some private and many rented to holiday makers. The local bus services to and from Dalbeattie and Dumfries are more frequent during the summer season.
Southerness has a large, shallow, sandy beaches on both sides of the rocky next to the village and to the west extend out to the vast Mersehead Sands exposed at low tide. The only landmark is its Southerness lighthouse which was built in 1749 and is one of the oldest lighthouses in Scotland. The lighthouse stands approximately 56 feet (17 m) tall and was decommissioned in the 1930s.
One of the two golf courses was redesigned in 1947 by course manager Mackenzie Ross.
The village has to the north a magnificent backdrop of the "marilyn" Criffel, and to the south the sandy (please note the quick sand) bay of Gillfoot. On clear days the views stretch across the Solway Firth to the Lakeland fells.
Tourist facilities
18-hole golf course
JJ's fish and chip shop
Paul Jones Hotel
19th Hole bar
Mermaid Bar
The Venue
The Minimarket
Evening entertainment "during the high season"
Two ParkDean caravan parks
LightHouse Leisure is a family run park with about 200 caravans. It also has the Mermaid Bar on site where bingo is offered most evenings during the season, and a swimming pool with tanning booth. LightHouse Leisure is about a 2-minute walk away from the beach and lighthouse of Southerness.
Southerness Holiday Park is owned by Parkdean Resorts. There is a new multi-purpose swimming pool, built in 2011, with flumes, a toddlers' pool, and a 25-metre swimming pool. The site also has a nature trail.
The Solway Firth (Scottish Gaelic: Tràchd Romhra) is a firth that forms part of the border between England and Scotland, between Cumbria (including the Solway Plain) and Dumfries and Galloway. It stretches from St Bees Head, just south of Whitehaven in Cumbria, to the Mull of Galloway, on the western end of Dumfries and Galloway. The Isle of Man is also very near to the firth. The firth comprises part of the Irish Sea.
The firth's coastline is characterised by lowland hills and small mountains. It is a mainly rural area, with mostly small villages and settlements (such as Powfoot). Fishing, hill farming, and some arable farming play a large part in the local economy, although tourism is increasing.
The northern part of the English coast of the Solway Firth was designated as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, known as the Solway Coast, in 1964. Construction of the Robin Rigg Wind Farm in the firth began in 2007.
Within the firth, there are some salt flats and mud flats that can be dangerous, due to their frequently shifting patches of quicksand.
There are over 290 square kilometres (110 sq mi) of Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) in the area of the firth (one of which is Salta Moss), as well as national nature reserves — at Caerlaverock and in Cumbria. On the Cumbrian side, much of the coastline has been designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB). The Solway Coast’s AONB has two separate sections: the first runs westward from just north of Carlisle to Skinburness; the second runs south from the hamlet of Beckfoot, past Mawbray and Allonby, to Crosscanonby.
In 2013, the honeycomb worm and blue mussel were designated as targets of conservation efforts, and Allonby Bay (an inlet of the Solway Firth) was put forward as a candidate for a Marine Conservation Zone.
A 53-mile (85 km) long-distance walking route, the Annandale Way, runs through Annandale, from the source of the River Annan, in the Moffat Hills, to the Solway Firth; it was opened in September 2009.
Unlike other parts of the west coast of Scotland, the Solway Firth has only a few islands. They are:
Hestan Island
Rough Island
Little Ross
The so-called Isle of Whithorn (which is actually a peninsula).
The Islands of Fleet
The Solway Firth is the estuary of the River Eden and the River Esk.
The name 'Solway' (recorded as Sulewad in 1218) is of Scandinavian origin, and was originally the name of a ford across the mud flats at Eskmouth. The first element of the name is probably from the Old Norse word súl 'pillar', referring to the Lochmaben Stane, though it may instead be from súla, meaning 'solan goose'. Súl and súla both have long vowels, but the early spellings of Solway indicate a short vowel in the first element. This may be due to the shortening of an originally long vowel in the Middle English period but may also represent an original short vowel. If this is the case, the first element may be *sulr, an unrecorded word cognate with Old English sol 'muddy, pool', or a derivative of sulla, meaning 'to swill'.
The second element of the name is from the Old Norse vað, meaning 'ford' (which is cognate with the modern English word wade).
The area had three fords: the Annan or Bowness Wath, the Dornock Wath (once called the Sandywathe), and the main one —the Solewath (also called the Solewath or the Sulewad).
A wooden lighthouse was built in 1841 at Barnkirk Point (grid reference NY 1903 6425). It was destroyed by fire in 1960.
On 9 March 1876, a 79-ton French lugger St. Pierre, was stranded - and finally declared lost - on Blackshaw Bank, an ill-defined feature which extends for a considerable distance on both sides of the channel of the River Nith.
Between 1869 and 1921, the estuary was crossed by the Solway Junction Railway on a 1780 m (5850 ft) iron viaduct. The line was built to carry iron ore from the Whitehaven area to Lanarkshire and was financed and operated by the Caledonian Railway of Scotland. After the railway, which was not a financial success, ceased operating in 1921, the railway bridge became a popular footpath, enabling residents of Scotland to easily cross into England, where alcoholic drink was legally available seven days a week. (Scotland was dry on Sundays at the time.) The viaduct was demolished between 1931 and 1933.
The Ministry of Defence had by 1999 fired more than 6,350 depleted uranium rounds into the Solway Firth from its testing range at Dundrennan Range.
The Solway Firth has been used as the location for films. For example, the 1973 film The Wicker Man was filmed around Kirkcudbright and Burrow Head on the Wigtownshire coast.
In July 2019, the American metal band Slipknot released a song called “Solway Firth” that is named after the firth.
Dumfries and Galloway is one of the 32 unitary council areas of Scotland, located in the western part of the Southern Uplands. It is bordered by East Ayrshire, South Ayrshire, and South Lanarkshire to the north; Scottish Borders to the north-east; the English ceremonial county of Cumbria, the Solway Firth, and the Irish Sea to the south, and the North Channel to the west. The administrative centre and largest settlement is the town of Dumfries. The second largest town is Stranraer, located 76 miles (122 km) to the west of Dumfries on the North Channel coast.
Dumfries and Galloway corresponds to the historic shires of Dumfriesshire, Kirkcudbrightshire, and Wigtownshire, the last two of which are collectively known as Galloway. The three counties were combined in 1975 to form a single region, with four districts within it. The districts were abolished in 1996, since when Dumfries and Galloway has been a unitary local authority. For lieutenancy purposes, the area is divided into three lieutenancy areas called Dumfries, Wigtown, and the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright, broadly corresponding to the three historic counties.
The Dumfries and Galloway Council region is composed of counties and their sub-areas. From east to west:
Dumfriesshire County
the sub-area of Dumfriesshire – Annandale
the sub-area of Dumfriesshire – Eskdale
the sub-area of Dumfriesshire – Nithsdale
Kirkcudbrightshire County
the sub-area of Kirkcudbrightshire – Stewartry (archaically, Desnes)
Wigtownshire County
the sub-area of Wigtownshire – Machars (archaically, Farines)--divided into census areas (civil parish areas)
the sub-area of Wigtownshire – Rhins of Galloway divided into census areas (civil parish areas)
The term Dumfries and Galloway has been used since at least the 19th century – by 1911 the three counties had a united sheriffdom under that name. Dumfries and Galloway covers the majority of the western area of the Southern Uplands,[1] it also hosts Scotland's most Southerly point, at the Mull of Galloway in the west of the region.
Water systems and transport routes
The region has a number of south running water systems which break through the Southern Uplands creating the main road, and rail, arteries north–south through the region and breaking the hills up into a number of ranges.
River Cree valley carries the A714 north-westward from Newton Stewart to Girvan and Water of Minnoch valley which lies just west of the Galloway Hills carries a minor road northward through Glentrool village into South Ayrshire. This road leaves the A714 at Bargrennan.
Water of Ken and River Dee form a corridor through the hills called the Glenkens which carries the A713 road from Castle Douglas to Ayr. The Galloway Hills lie to the west of this route through the hills and the Carsphairn and Scaur Hills lie to the east.
River Nith rises between Dalmellington and New Cumnock in Ayrshire and runs east then south down Nithsdale to Dumfries. Nithsdale carries both the A76 road and the rail line from Dumfries to Kilmarnock. It separates the Carsphairn and Scaur Hills from the Lowther Hills which lie east of the Nith.
River Annan combines with Evan Water and the River Clyde to form one of the principal routes into central Scotland from England – through Annandale and Clydesdale – carrying the M74 and the west coast railway line. This gap through the hills separates the Lowthers from the Moffat Hills.
River Esk enters the Solway Firth just south of Gretna having travelled south from Langholm and Eskdalemuir. The A7 travels up Eskdale as far as Langholm and from Langholm carries on up the valley of Ewes Water to Teviothead where it starts to follow the River Teviot to Hawick. Eskdale itself heads north west from Langholm through Bentpath and Eskdalemuir to Ettrick and Selkirk.
The A701 branches off the M74 at Beattock, goes through the town of Moffat, climbs to Annanhead above the Devil's Beef Tub (at the source of the River Annan) before passing the source of the River Tweed and carrying on to Edinburgh. Until fairly recent times the ancient route to Edinburgh travelled right up Annandale to the Beef Tub before climbing steeply to Annanhead. The present road ascends northward on a ridge parallel to Annandale but to the west of it which makes for a much easier ascent.
From Moffat the A708 heads north east along the valley of Moffat Water (Moffatdale) on its way to Selkirk. Moffatdale separates the Moffat hills (to the north) from the Ettrick hills to the south.
There are three National scenic areas within this region.
Nith Estuary: this area follows the River Nith southward from just south of Dumfries into the Solway Firth. Dumfries itself has a rich history going back over 800 years as a Royal Burgh (1186). It is particularly remembered as the place where Robert the Bruce murdered the Red Comyn in 1306 before being crowned King of Scotland – and where Robert Burns spent his last years. His mausoleum is in St Michael's graveyard. Going down the east bank is the village of Glencaple, Caerlaverock Castle, Caerlaverock Wild Fowl Trust, an ancient Roman fort on Ward Law Hill and nearby in Ruthwell is the Ruthwell Cross and the Brow Well where Robert Burns "took the waters" and bathed in the Solway just before his death. On the west bank, there are several walks and cycle routes in Mabie Forest, Kirkconnell Flow for the naturalist, the National Museum of Costume just outside New Abbey and Sweetheart Abbey within the village. Criffel (569 metres) offers the hill walker a reasonably modest walk with views across the Solway to the Lake District. The house of John Paul Jones founder of the American Navy is also open to visitors near Kirkbean.
East Stewartry Coast: this takes in the coast line from Balcary Point eastward across Auchencairn Bay and the Rough Firth past Sandyhills to Mersehead. There are several coastal villages within this area – Auchencairn, Kippford, Colvend, Rockcliffe, and Portling. There is also a round tower at Orchardton and the islands of Hestan Isle and Rough Island can be reached at low tide outside the breeding season for birds. Mersehead is a wildfowl reserve. The area has a number of coastal paths.
Fleet Valley: this area takes in Fleet Bay with its holiday destinations of Auchenlarie, Mossyard Bay, Cardoness, Sandgreen and Carrick Shore. The area also includes the town of Gatehouse of Fleet and the historic villages of Anworth and Girthon – there is a castle at Cardoness in the care of Historic Scotland.
The region is known as a stronghold for several rare and protected species of amphibian, such as the Natterjack toad and the Great crested newt. There are also RSPB Nature Reserves at the Mull of Galloway, Wood of Cree (Galloway Forest Park), Ken Dee Marshes (near Loch Ken) and Mereshead (near Dalbeattie on the Solway Firth)
There are five 7Stanes mountain biking centres in Dumfries and Galloway at Dalbeattie, Mabie, Ae, Glentrool and Kirroughtree. The Sustrans Route 7 long distance cycle route also runs through the region. There is excellent hill walking in the Moffat Hills, Lowther Hills the Carsphairn and Scaur Hills and Galloway Hills. The Southern Upland Way coast to coast walk passes through Dumfries and Galloway and the 53-mile long Annandale Way travels from the Solway Firth into the Moffat hills near the Devil's Beef Tub. There is also fresh water sailing on Castle Loch at Lochmaben and at various places on Loch Ken Loch Ken also offers waterskiing and wakeboarding. The Solway Firth coastline offers fishing, caravaning and camping, walking and sailing.
Dumfries and Galloway is well known for its arts and cultural activities as well as its natural environment.[citation needed]
The major festivals include the region-wide Dumfries & Galloway Arts Festival, and Spring Fling Open Studios. Other festivals include Big Burns Supper in Dumfries and the Wigtown Book Festival in Wigtown – Scotland's national book town.
Places of interest
Galloway and List of Category A listed buildings in Dumfries and Galloway
Annandale distillery - Scotch Whisky
Bladnoch Distillery & Visitor Centre - Scotch Whisky
Caerlaverock Castle – Historic Scotland
Caerlaverock NNR (national nature reserve)
WWT Caerlaverock – a reserve of the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust
Cardoness Castle
Castle of St John, Stranraer
Corsewall Lighthouse, privately owned
Drumlanrig Castle
HM Factory, Gretna, Eastriggs – site of a munitions factory during World War I
Galloway Forest Park, Forestry and Land Scotland
Galloway Hydro Electric Scheme, Scottish Power
Glenlair – home of 19th century physicist James Clerk Maxwell
Glenluce Abbey
Hallhill Covenanter Martyrs Memorial - near Kirkpatrick Irongray Church.
Isle of Whithorn Castle
Kenmure Castle – a seat of the Clan Gordon
Loch Ken
MacLellan's Castle, Kirkcudbright
Motte of Urr
Mull of Galloway – RSPB/ South Rhins Community Development Trust
Ruthwell Cross
Samye Ling Tibetan Monastery
Southern Upland Way – long distance footpath
Sweetheart Abbey, New Abbey
Threave Castle
Prior to 1975, the area that is now Dumfries and Galloway was administered as three separate counties: Dumfriesshire, Kirkcudbrightshire, and Wigtownshire. The counties of Scotland originated as sheriffdoms, which were established from the twelfth century, consisting of a group of parishes over which a sheriff had jurisdiction. An elected county council was established for each county in 1890 under the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1889.
The three county councils were abolished in 1975 under the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973, which established a two-tier structure of local government across Scotland comprising upper-tier regions and lower-tier districts. A region called Dumfries and Galloway was created covering the area of the three counties, which were abolished as administrative areas. The region contained four districts:
Annandale and Eskdale, covering the eastern part of Dumfriesshire.
Nithsdale, covering the western part of Dumfriesshire and a small part of Kirkcudbrightshire.
Stewartry, covering most of Kirkcudbrightshire.
Wigtown, covering all of Wigtownshire and a small part of Kirkcudbrightshire.
Further local government reform in 1996 under the Local Government etc. (Scotland) Act 1994 saw the area's four districts abolished, with the Dumfries and Galloway Council taking over the functions they had previously performed. The council continues to use the areas of the four abolished districts as committee areas. The four former districts are also used to define the area's three lieutenancy areas, with Nithsdale and Annandale and Eskdale together forming the Dumfries lieutenancy, the Stewartry district corresponding to the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright lieutenancy, and the Wigtown district corresponding to the Wigtown lieutenancy.
The council headquarters is at the Council Offices at 113 English Street in Dumfries, which had been built in 1914 as the headquarters for the old Dumfriesshire County Council, previously being called "County Buildings".
The first election to the Dumfries and Galloway Regional Council was held in 1974, initially operating as a shadow authority alongside the outgoing authorities until the new system came into force on 16 May 1975. A shadow authority was again elected in 1995 ahead of the reforms which came into force on 1 April 1996. Political control of the council since 1975 has been as follows:
Since 2007 the council has been required to designate a leader of the council. The leader may also act as the convener, chairing council meetings, or the council may choose to appoint a different councillor to be convener. Prior to 2007 the council sometimes chose to appoint a leader, and sometimes did not. The leaders since 2007 have been:
Fujica Compact 35. Objectif Fujinon 38mm f/2.8 Vitesses 1/30 1/250.
Posemètre au sélénium qui contrôle les conditions d'éclairage correctes, en plus du mode automatique, la possibilité de régler manuellement. Synchro X sur la face avant du boîtier. Année 1967.
A very basic Compact. Top spotting points if you see one of these now.
Plate comes back to a Piaggio T5 (a scooter?)
Car: BMW 316i Compact.
Date of first registration: 17th March 1999.
Region of registration: Swansea.
Latest recorded mileage: 13,578 (MOT 28th March 2019).
Date taken: 16th August 2019.
Album: Street Spots
A compact experiment aimed at enhancing cybersecurity for future space missions is operational in Europe’s Columbus module of the International Space Station, running in part on a Raspberry Pi Zero computer costing just a few euros.
“Our CryptIC experiment is testing technological solutions to make encryption-based secure communication feasible for even the smallest of space missions,” explains ESA software product assurance engineer Emmanuel Lesser. “This is commonplace on Earth, using for example symmetric encryption where both sides of the communication link share the same encryption key.
“In orbit the problem has been that space radiation effects can compromise the key within computer memory causing ‘bit-flips’. This disrupts the communication, as the key on ground and the one in space no longer match. Up to now this had been a problem that requires dedicated – and expensive – rad-hardened devices to overcome.”
Satellites in Earth orbit might be physically remote, but still potentially vulnerable to hacking. Up until recently most satellite signals went unencrypted, and this remains true for many of the smallest, cheapest mission types, such as miniature CubeSats
But as services delivered by satellites of all sizes form an increasing element of everyday life, interest in assured satellite cybersecurity is growing, and a focus of ESA’s new Technology Strategy for this November’s Space19+ Ministerial Council
.
CryptIC, or Cryptography ICE Cube, - the beige box towards the top of the image, has been a low-cost development, developed in-house by ESA’s Software Product Assurance section and flown on the ISS as part of the International Commercial Experiments service – ICE Cubes for short. ICE Cubes offer fast, simple and affordable access for research and technology experiments in microgravity using compact cubes. CryptIC measures just 10x10x10 cm.
“A major part of the experiment relies on a standard Raspberry Pi Zero computer,” adds Emmanuel. “This cheap hardware is more or less flying exactly as we bought it; the only difference is it has had to be covered with a plastic ‘conformal’ coating, to fulfil standard ISS safety requirements.”
The orbital experiment is operated simply via a laptop at ESA’s ESTEC
technical centre in the Netherlands, routed via the ICE Cubes operator, Space Applications Services in Brussels.
“We’re testing two related approaches to the encryption problem for non rad-hardened systems,” explains ESA Young Graduate Trainee Lukas Armborst. “The first is a method of re-exchanging the encryption key if it gets corrupted. This needs to be done in a secure and reliable way, to restore the secure link very quickly. This relies on a secondary fall-back base key, which is wired into the hardware so it cannot be compromised. However, this hardware solution can only be done for a limited number of keys, reducing flexibility.
“The second is an experimental hardware reconfiguration approach which can recover rapidly if the encryption key is compromised by radiation-triggered memory ‘bit flips’. A number of microprocessor cores are inside CryptIC as customisable, field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), rather than fixed computer chips. These cores are redundant copies of the same functionality. Accordingly, if one core fails then another can step in, while the faulty core reloads its configuration, thereby repairing itself.”
In addition the payload carries a compact ‘floating gate’ dosimeter to measure radiation levels co-developed by CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, as part of a broader cooperation agreement
.
And as a guest payload, a number of computer flash memories are being evaluated for their orbital performance, a follow-on version of ESA’s ‘Chimera’ experiment which flew on last year’s GomX-4B CubeSat
.
The experiment had its ISS-mandated electromagnetic compatibility testing carried out in ESTEC’s EMC Laboratory
.
“CryptIC has now completed commissioning and is already returning radiation data, being shared with our CERN colleagues,” adds Emmanuel. “Our encryption testing is set to begin in a few weeks, once we’ve automated the operating process, and is expected to run continuously for at least a year.”
Credits: ESA; CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
My first pass at the building was only three stories, then I added an additional three. If I had to fit the building in a more compact space or if looked out of place in a layout, I could go back to three.
Car: BMW 316i Compact.
Date of first registration: 20th May 1999.
Registration region: Chelmsford.
Latest recorded mileage: 126,397 (MOT 10th June 2019).
Last V5 issued: 20th June 2020.
Date taken: 8th July 2020.
Album: Carspotting
Compact is a neat little studs up font. Basic, but gets the job done. Perfect for signing mosaics.
Try writing with the font or check the details on Swooshable.