Two views of one of the interesting technological sights as you head closer to Port Augusta. This is Sundrop Farm - consisting of this amazing 127 metre tall solar collector tower, combined with 24,000 mirrors aiming the plentiful sunlight at the collector. It produces electricity to provide power for desalination of the salt water from the nearby Spencer Gulf and provide heat and cooling to the 200,000 square metres of greenhouses, all of which help produce a continuous and sustainable supply of food. I believe, if you have eaten truss tomatoes purchased from Coles supermarkets, there is a good chance that they were grown right here. There is some great information and video of this amazing place on the Sundrop Farm website if you are keen to learn more. I was suitably amazed.

 

Being a very long lens, and taken from some distance away, this has picked up the amazing shimmering heat haze being generated on the day, and highlights how much the sun can heat the area when it was only a mild 18 degrees C.

The new Learning Hub Nanyang Technological University of Singapore.

The new Learning Hub which also known as "dim sum basket building" stems from a simple idea that people learn best from one another. Each of the new 56 new-generation, "smart" classrooms will be equipped with flexible clustered seating, electronic white boards, multiple LCD screens and wireless communication tools, bringing students together in a university environment, they can collaborate to develop their thoughts further and faster than would be possible alone.

August 21, 2005

The Breaking Point

By PETER MAASS

 

The largest oil terminal in the world, Ras Tanura, is located on the eastern coast of Saudi Arabia, along the Persian Gulf. From Ras Tanura's control tower, you can see the classic totems of oil's dominion -- supertankers coming and going, row upon row of storage tanks and miles and miles of pipes. Ras Tanura, which I visited in June, is the funnel through which nearly 10 percent of the world's daily supply of petroleum flows. Standing in the control tower, you are surrounded by more than 50 million barrels of oil, yet not a drop can be seen.

 

The oil is there, of course. In a technological sleight of hand, oil can be extracted from the deserts of Arabia, processed to get rid of water and gas, sent through pipelines to a terminal on the gulf, loaded onto a supertanker and shipped to a port thousands of miles away, then run through a refinery and poured into a tanker truck that delivers it to a suburban gas station, where it is pumped into an S.U.V. -- all without anyone's actually glimpsing the stuff. So long as there is enough oil to fuel the global economy, it is not only out of sight but also out of mind, at least for consumers.

 

I visited Ras Tanura because oil is no longer out of mind, thanks to record prices caused by refinery shortages and surging demand -- most notably in the United States and China -- which has strained the capacity of oil producers and especially Saudi Arabia, the largest exporter of all. Unlike the 1973 crisis, when the embargo by the Arab members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries created an artificial shortfall, today's shortage, or near-shortage, is real. If demand surges even more, or if a producer goes offline because of unrest or terrorism, there may suddenly not be enough oil to go around.

 

As Aref al-Ali, my escort from Saudi Aramco, the giant state-owned oil company, pointed out, ''One mistake at Ras Tanura today, and the price of oil will go up.'' This has turned the port into a fortress; its entrances have an array of gates and bomb barriers to prevent terrorists from cutting off the black oxygen that the modern world depends on. Yet the problem is far greater than the brief havoc that could be wrought by a speeding zealot with 50 pounds of TNT in the trunk of his car. Concerns are being voiced by some oil experts that Saudi Arabia and other producers may, in the near future, be unable to meet rising world demand. The producers are not running out of oil, not yet, but their decades-old reservoirs are not as full and geologically spry as they used to be, and they may be incapable of producing, on a daily basis, the increasing volumes of oil that the world requires. ''One thing is clear,'' warns Chevron, the second-largest American oil company, in a series of new advertisements, ''the era of easy oil is over.''

 

In the past several years, the gap between demand and supply, once considerable, has steadily narrowed, and today is almost negligible. The consequences of an actual shortfall of supply would be immense. If consumption begins to exceed production by even a small amount, the price of a barrel of oil could soar to triple-digit levels. This, in turn, could bring on a global recession, a result of exorbitant prices for transport fuels and for products that rely on petrochemicals -- which is to say, almost every product on the market. The impact on the American way of life would be profound: cars cannot be propelled by roof-borne windmills. The suburban and exurban lifestyles, hinged to two-car families and constant trips to work, school and Wal-Mart, might become unaffordable or, if gas rationing is imposed, impossible. Carpools would be the least imposing of many inconveniences; the cost of home heating would soar -- assuming, of course, that climate-controlled habitats do not become just a fond memory.

 

But will such a situation really come to pass? That depends on Saudi Arabia. To know the answer, you need to know whether the Saudis, who possess 22 percent of the world's oil reserves, can increase their country's output beyond its current limit of 10.5 million barrels a day, and even beyond the 12.5-million-barrel target it has set for 2009. (World consumption is about 84 million barrels a day.) Saudi Arabia is the sole oil superpower. No other producer possesses reserves close to its 263 billion barrels, which is almost twice as much as the runner-up, Iran, with 133 billion barrels. New fields in other countries are discovered now and then, but they tend to offer only small increments. For example, the much-contested and as-yet-unexploited reserves in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge are believed to amount to about 10 billion barrels, or just a fraction of what the Saudis possess.

 

But the truth about Saudi oil is hard to figure out. Oil reservoirs cannot be inventoried like wood in a wilderness: the oil is underground, unseen by geologists and engineers, who can, at best, make highly educated guesses about how much is underfoot and how much can be extracted in the future. And there is a further obstacle: the Saudis will not let outsiders audit their confidential data on reserves and production. Oil is an industry in which not only is the product hidden from sight but so is reliable information about it. And because we do not know when a supply-demand shortfall might arrive, we do not know when to begin preparing for it, so as to soften its impact; the economic blow may come as a sledgehammer from the darkness.

 

Of course the Saudis do have something to say about this prospect. Before journeying to the kingdom, I went to Washington to hear the Saudi oil minister, Ali al-Naimi, speak at an energy conference in the mammoth Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, not far from the White House. Naimi was the star attraction at a gathering of the American petro-political nexus. Samuel Bodman, the U.S. energy secretary, was on the dais next to him. David O'Reilly, chairman and C.E.O. of Chevron, was waiting in the wings. The moderator was an éminence grise of the oil world, James Schlesinger, a former energy secretary, defense secretary and C.I.A. director.

 

''I want to assure you here today that Saudi Arabia's reserves are plentiful, and we stand ready to increase output as the market dictates,'' said Naimi, dressed in a gray business suit and speaking with only a slight Arabic accent. He addressed skeptics who contend that Saudi reservoirs cannot be tapped for larger amounts of oil. ''I am quite bullish on technology as the key to our energy future,'' he said. ''Technological innovation will allow us to find and extract more oil around the world.'' He described the task of increasing output as just ''a question of investment'' in new wells and pipelines, and he noted that consuming nations urgently need to build new refineries to process increased supplies of crude. ''There is absolutely no lack of resources worldwide,'' he repeated.

 

His assurances did not assure. A barrel of oil cost $55 at the time of his speech; less than three months later, the price had jumped by 20 percent. The truth of the matter -- whether the world will really have enough petroleum in the years ahead -- was as well concealed as the millions of barrels of oil I couldn't see at Ras Tanura.

 

For 31 years, Matthew Simmons has prospered as the head of his own firm, Simmons & Company International, which advises energy companies on mergers and acquisitions. A member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a graduate of the Harvard Business School and an unpaid adviser on energy policy to the 2000 presidential campaign of George W. Bush, he would be a card-carrying member of the global oil nomenclatura, if cards were issued for such things. Yet he is one of the principal reasons the oil world is beginning to ask hard questions of itself.

 

Two years ago, Simmons went to Saudi Arabia on a government tour for business executives. The group was presented with the usual dog-and-pony show, but instead of being impressed, as most visitors tend to be, with the size and expertise of the Saudi oil industry, Simmons became perplexed. As he recalls in his somewhat heretical new book, ''Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy,'' a senior manager at Aramco told the visitors that ''fuzzy logic'' would be used to estimate the amount of oil that could be recovered. Simmons had never heard of fuzzy logic. What could be fuzzy about an oil reservoir? He suspected that Aramco, despite its promises of endless supplies, might in fact not know how much oil remained to be recovered.

 

Simmons returned home with an itch to scratch. Saudi Arabia was one of the charter members of OPEC, founded in 1960 in Baghdad to coordinate the policies of oil producers. Like every OPEC country, Saudi Arabia provides only general numbers about its output and reserves; it does not release details about how much oil is extracted from each reservoir and what methods are used to extract that oil, and it does not permit audits by outsiders. The condition of Saudi fields, and those of other OPEC nations, is a closely guarded secret. That's largely because OPEC quotas, which were first imposed in 1983 to limit the output of member countries, were based on overall reserves; the higher an OPEC member's reserves, the higher its quota. It is widely believed that most, if not all, OPEC members exaggerated the sizes of their reserves in order to have the largest possible quota -- and thus the largest possible revenue stream.

 

In the days of excess supply, bankers like Simmons did not know, or care, about the fudging; whether or not reserves were hyped, there was plenty of oil coming out of the ground. Through the 1970's, 80's and 90's, the capacity of OPEC and non-OPEC countries exceeded demand, and that's why OPEC imposed a quota system -- to keep some product off the market (although many OPEC members, seeking as much revenue as possible, quietly sold more oil than they were supposed to). Until quite recently, the only reason to fear a shortage was if a boycott, war or strike were to halt supplies. Few people imagined a time when supply would dry up because of demand alone. But a steady surge in demand in recent years -- led by China's emergence as a voracious importer of oil -- has changed that.

 

This demand-driven scarcity has prompted the emergence of a cottage industry of experts who predict an impending crisis that will dwarf anything seen before. Their point is not that we are running out of oil, per se; although as much as half of the world's recoverable reserves are estimated to have been consumed, about a trillion barrels remain underground. Rather, they are concerned with what is called ''capacity'' -- the amount of oil that can be pumped to the surface on a daily basis. These experts -- still a minority in the oil world -- contend that because of the peculiarities of geology and the limits of modern technology, it will soon be impossible for the world's reservoirs to surrender enough oil to meet daily demand.

 

One of the starkest warnings came in a February report commissioned by the United States Department of Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory. ''Because oil prices have been relatively high for the past decade, oil companies have conducted extensive exploration over that period, but their results have been disappointing,'' stated the report, assembled by Science Applications International, a research company that works on security and energy issues. ''If recent trends hold, there is little reason to expect that exploration success will dramatically improve in the future. . . . The image is one of a world moving from a long period in which reserves additions were much greater than consumption to an era in which annual additions are falling increasingly short of annual consumption. This is but one of a number of trends that suggest the world is fast approaching the inevitable peaking of conventional world oil production.''

 

The reference to ''peaking'' is not a haphazard word choice -- ''peaking'' is a term used in oil geology to define the critical point at which reservoirs can no longer produce increasing amounts of oil. (This tends to happen when reservoirs are about half-empty.) ''Peak oil'' is the point at which maximum production is reached; afterward, no matter how many wells are drilled in a country, production begins to decline. Saudi Arabia and other OPEC members may have enough oil to last for generations, but that is no longer the issue. The eventual and painful shift to different sources of energy -- the start of the post-oil age -- does not begin when the last drop of oil is sucked from under the Arabian desert. It begins when producers are unable to continue increasing their output to meet rising demand. Crunch time comes long before the last drop.

 

''The world has never faced a problem like this,'' the report for the Energy Department concluded. ''Without massive mitigation more than a decade before the fact, the problem will be pervasive and will not be temporary. Previous energy transitions (wood to coal and coal to oil) were gradual and evolutionary; oil peaking will be abrupt and revolutionary.''

 

Most experts do not share Simmons's concerns about the imminence of peak oil. One of the industry's most prominent consultants, Daniel Yergin, author of a Pulitzer Prize-winning book about petroleum, dismisses the doomsday visions. ''This is not the first time that the world has 'run out of oil,''' he wrote in a recent Washington Post opinion essay. ''It's more like the fifth. Cycles of shortage and surplus characterize the entire history of the oil industry.'' Yergin says that a number of oil projects that are under construction will increase the supply by 20 percent in five years and that technological advances will increase the amount of oil that can be recovered from existing reservoirs. (Typically, with today's technology, only about 40 percent of a reservoir's oil can be pumped to the surface.)

 

Yergin's bullish view has something in common with the views of the pessimists -- it rests on unknowns. Will the new projects that are under way yield as much oil as their financial backers hope? Will new technologies increase recovery rates as much as he expects? These questions are next to impossible to answer because coaxing oil out of the ground is an extraordinarily complex undertaking. The popular notion of reservoirs as underground lakes, from which wells extract oil like straws sucking a milkshake from a glass, is incorrect. Oil exists in drops between and inside porous rocks. A new reservoir may contain sufficient pressure to make these drops of oil flow to the surface in a gusher, but after a while -- usually within a few years and often sooner than that -- natural pressure lets up and is no longer sufficient to push oil to the surface. At that point, ''secondary'' recovery efforts are begun, like pumping water or gas into the reservoirs to increase the pressure.

 

This process is unpredictable; reservoirs are extremely temperamental. If too much oil is extracted too quickly or if the wrong types or amounts of secondary efforts are employed, the amount of oil that can be recovered from a field can be greatly reduced; this is known in the oil world as ''damaging a reservoir.'' A widely cited example is Oman: in 2001, its daily production reached more than 960,000 barrels, but then suddenly declined, despite the use of advanced technologies. Today, Oman produces 785,000 barrels of oil a day. Herman Franssen, a consultant who worked in Oman for a decade, sees that country's experience as a possible lesson in the limits of technology for other producers that try to increase or maintain high levels of output. ''They reached a million barrels a day, and then a few years later production collapsed,'' Franssen said in a phone interview. ''They used all these new technologies, but they haven't been able to stop the decline yet.''

  

The vague production and reserve data that gets published does not begin to tell the whole story of an oil field's health, production potential or even its size. For a clear-as-possible picture of a country's oil situation, you need to know what is happening in each field -- how many wells it has, how much oil each well is producing, what recovery methods are being used and how long they've been used and the trend line since the field went into production. Data of that sort are typically not released by state-owned companies like Saudi Aramco.

 

As Matthew Simmons searched for clues to the truth of the Saudi situation, he immersed himself in the minutiae of oil geology. He realized that data about Saudi fields might be found in the files of the Society of Petroleum Engineers. Oil engineers, like most professional groups, have regular conferences at which they discuss papers that delve into the work they do. The papers, which focus on particular wells that highlight a problem or a solution to a problem, are presented and debated at the conferences and published by the S.P.E. -- and then forgotten.

 

Before Simmons poked around, no one had taken the time to pull together the S.P.E. papers that involved Saudi oil fields and review them en masse. Simmons found more than 200 such papers and studied them carefully. Although the papers cover only a portion of the kingdom's wells and date back, in some cases, several decades, they constitute perhaps the best public data about the condition and prospects of Saudi reservoirs.

 

Ghawar is the treasure of the Saudi treasure chest. It is the largest oil field in the world and has produced, in the past 50 years, about 55 billion barrels of oil, which amounts to more than half of Saudi production in that period. The field currently produces more than five million barrels a day, which is about half of the kingdom's output. If Ghawar is facing problems, then so is Saudi Arabia and, indeed, the entire world.

 

Simmons found that the Saudis are using increasingly large amounts of water to force oil out of Ghawar. Most of the wells are concentrated in the northern portion of the 174-mile-long field. That might seem like good news -- when the north runs low, the Saudis need only to drill wells in the south. But in fact it is bad news, Simmons concluded, because the southern portions of Ghawar are geologically more difficult to draw oil from. ''Someday (and perhaps that day will be soon), the remarkably high well flow rates at Ghawar's northern end will fade, as reservoir pressures finally plummet,'' Simmons writes in his book. ''Then, Saudi Arabian oil output will clearly have peaked. The death of this great king'' -- meaning Ghawar -- ''leaves no field of vaguely comparable stature in the line of succession. Twilight at Ghawar is fast approaching.'' He goes on: ''The geological phenomena and natural driving forces that created the Saudi oil miracle are conspiring now in normal and predictable ways to bring it to its conclusion, in a time frame potentially far shorter than officialdom would have us believe.'' Simmons concludes, ''Saudi Arabia clearly seems to be nearing or at its peak output and cannot materially grow its oil production.''

  

Saudi officials belittle Simmons's work. Nansen Saleri, a senior Aramco official, has described Simmons as a banker ''trying to come across as a scientist.'' In a speech last year, Saleri wryly said, ''I can read 200 papers on neurology, but you wouldn't want me to operate on your relatives.'' I caught up with Simmons in June, during a trip he made to Manhattan to talk with a group of oil-shipping executives. The impression he gives is of an enthusiastic inventor sharing a discovery that took him by surprise. He has a certain wide-eyed wonder in his regard, as if a bit of mystery can be found in everything that catches his eye. And he has a rumpled aspect -- thinning hair slightly askew, shirt sleeves a fraction too long. Though he delivers a bracing message, his discourse can wander. He is a successful businessman, and it is clear that he did not achieve his position by being a man of impeccable convention. He certainly has not lost sight of the rule that people who shout ''the end is nigh'' do not tend to be favorably reviewed by historians, let alone by their peers. He notes in his book that way back in 1979, The New York Times published an investigative story by Seymour Hersh under the headline ''Saudi Oil Capacity Questioned.'' He knows that in past decades the Cassandras failed to foresee new technologies, like deep-water and horizontal drilling, that provided new sources of oil and raised the amount of oil that can be recovered from reservoirs.

 

But Simmons says that there are only so many rabbits technology can pull out of its petro-hat. He impishly notes that if the Saudis really wanted to, they could easily prove him wrong. ''If they want to satisfy people, they should issue field-by-field production reports and reserve data and have it audited,'' he told me. ''It would then take anybody less than a week to say, 'Gosh, Matt is totally wrong,' or 'Matt actually might be too optimistic.'''

 

Simmons has a lot riding on his campaign -- not only his name but also his business, which would not be rewarded if he is proved to be a fool. What, I asked, if the data show that the Saudis will be able to sustain production of not only 12.5 million barrels a day -- their target for 2009 -- but 15 million barrels, which global demand is expected to require of them in the not-too-distant future? ''The odds of them sustaining 12 million barrels a day is very low,'' Simmons replied. ''The odds of them getting to 15 million for 50 years -- there's a better chance of me having Bill Gates's net worth, and I wouldn't bet a dime on that forecast.''

 

The gathering of executives took place in a restaurant at Chelsea Piers; about 35 men sat around a set of tables as the host introduced Simmons. He rambled a bit but hit his talking points, and the executives listened raptly; at one point, the man on my right broke into a soft whistle, of the sort that means ''Holy cow.''

 

Simmons didn't let up. ''We're going to look back at history and say $55 a barrel was cheap,'' he said, recalling a TV interview in which he predicted that a barrel might hit triple digits.

 

He said that the anchor scoffed, in disbelief, ''A hundred dollars?''

 

Simmons replied, ''I wasn't talking about low triple digits.''

 

The onset of triple-digit prices might seem a blessing for the Saudis -- they would receive greater amounts of money for their increasingly scarce oil. But one popular misunderstanding about the Saudis -- and about OPEC in general -- is that high prices, no matter how high, are to their benefit.

 

Although oil costing more than $60 a barrel hasn't caused a global recession, that could still happen: it can take a while for high prices to have their ruinous impact. And the higher above $60 that prices rise, the more likely a recession will become. High oil prices are inflationary; they raise the cost of virtually everything -- from gasoline to jet fuel to plastics and fertilizers -- and that means people buy less and travel less, which means a drop-off in economic activity. So after a brief windfall for producers, oil prices would slide as recession sets in and once-voracious economies slow down, using less oil. Prices have collapsed before, and not so long ago: in 1998, oil fell to $10 a barrel after an untimely increase in OPEC production and a reduction in demand from Asia, which was suffering through a financial crash. Saudi Arabia and the other members of OPEC entered crisis mode back then; adjusted for inflation, oil was at its lowest price since the cartel's creation, threatening to feed unrest among the ranks of jobless citizens in OPEC states.

 

''The Saudis are very happy with oil at $55 per barrel, but they're also nervous,'' a Western diplomat in Riyadh told me in May, referring to the price that prevailed then. (Like all the diplomats I spoke to, he insisted on speaking anonymously because of the sensitivities of relations with Saudi Arabia.) ''They don't know where this magic line has moved to. Is it now $65? Is it $75? Is it $80? They don't want to find out, because if you did have oil move that far north . . . the chain reaction can come back to a price collapse again.''

 

High prices can have another unfortunate effect for producers. When crude costs $10 a barrel or even $30 a barrel, alternative fuels are prohibitively expensive. For example, Canada has vast amounts of tar sands that can be rendered into heavy oil, but the cost of doing so is quite high. Yet those tar sands and other alternatives, like bioethanol, hydrogen fuel cells and liquid fuel from natural gas or coal, become economically viable as the going rate for a barrel rises past, say, $40 or more, especially if consuming governments choose to offer their own incentives or subsidies. So even if high prices don't cause a recession, the Saudis risk losing market share to rivals into whose nonfundamentalist hands Americans would much prefer to channel their energy dollars. A concerted push for greater energy conservation in the United States, which consumes one-quarter of the world's oil (mostly to fuel our cars, as gasoline), would hurt producing nations, too. Basically, any significant reduction in the demand for oil would be ruinous for OPEC members, who have little to offer the world but oil; if a substitute can be found, their future is bleak. Another Western diplomat explained the problem facing the Saudis: ''You want to have the price as high as possible without sending the consuming nations into a recession and at the same time not have the price so high that it encourages alternative technologies.''

 

From the American standpoint, one argument in favor of conservation and a switch to alternative fuels is that by limiting oil imports, the United States and its Western allies would reduce their dependence on a potentially unstable region. (In fact, in an effort to offset the risks of relying on the Saudis, America's top oil suppliers are Canada and Mexico.) In addition, sending less money to Saudi Arabia would mean less money in the hands of a regime that has spent the past few decades doling out huge amounts of its oil revenue to mosques, madrassas and other institutions that have fanned the fires of Islamic radicalism. The oil money has been dispensed not just by the Saudi royal family but by private individuals who benefited from the oil boom -- like Osama bin Laden, whose ample funds, probably eroded now, came from his father, a construction magnate. Without its oil windfall, Saudi Arabia would have had a hard time financing radical Islamists across the globe.

 

For the Saudis, the political ramifications of reduced demand for its oil would not be negligible. The royal family has amassed vast personal wealth from the country's oil revenues. If, suddenly, Saudis became aware that the royal family had also failed to protect the value of the country's treasured resource, the response could be severe. The mere admission that Saudi reserves are not as impressively inexhaustible as the royal family has claimed could lead to hard questions about why the country, and the world, had been misled. With the death earlier this month of the long-ailing King Fahd, the royal family is undergoing another period of scrutiny; the new king, Abdullah, is in his 80's, and the crown prince, his half-brother Sultan, is in his 70's, so the issue of generational change remains to be settled. As long as the country is swimming in petro-dollars -- even as it is paying off debt accrued during its lean years -- everyone is relatively happy, but that can change. One diplomat I spoke to recalled a comment from Sheik Ahmed Zaki Yamani, the larger-than-life Saudi oil minister during the 1970's: ''The Stone Age didn't end for lack of stone, and the oil age will end long before the world runs out of oil.''

  

Until now, the Saudis had an excess of production capacity that allowed them, when necessary, to flood the market to drive prices down. They did that in 1990, when the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait eliminated not only Kuwait's supply of oil but also Iraq's. The Saudis functioned, as they always had, as the central bank of oil, releasing supply to the market when it was needed and withdrawing supply to keep prices from going lower than the cartel would have liked. In other words, they controlled not only the price of oil but their own destiny as well.

 

''That is what the world has called on them to do before -- turn on the taps to produce more and get prices down,'' a senior Western diplomat in Riyadh told me recently. ''Decreasing prices used to keep out alternative fuels. I don't see how they're able to do that anymore. This is a huge change, and it is a big step in the move to whatever is coming next. That's what's really happening.''

 

Without the ability to flood the markets with oil, the Saudis are resorting to flooding the market with promises; it is a sort of petro-jawboning. That's why Ali al-Naimi, the oil minister, told his Washington audience that Saudi Arabia has embarked on a crash program to raise its capacity to 12.5 million barrels a day by 2009 and even higher in the years after that. Naimi is not unlike a factory manager who needs to promise the moon to his valuable clients, for fear of losing or alarming them. He has no choice. The moment he says anything bracing, the touchy energy markets will probably panic, pushing prices even higher and thereby hastening the onset of recession, a switch to alternative fuels or new conservation efforts -- or all three. Just a few words of honest caution could move the markets; Naimi's speeches are followed nearly as closely in the financial world as those of Alan Greenspan.

 

I journeyed to Saudi Arabia to interview Naimi and other senior officials, to get as far beyond their prepared remarks as might be possible. Although I was allowed to see Ras Tanura, my interview requests were denied. I was invited to visit Aramco's oil museum in Dhahran, but that is something a Saudi schoolchild can do on a field trip. It was a ''show but don't tell'' policy. I was able to speak about production issues only with Ibrahim al-Muhanna, the oil ministry spokesman, who reluctantly met me over coffee in the lobby of my hotel in Riyadh. He defended Saudi Arabia's refusal to share more data, noting that the Saudis are no different from most oil producers.

 

''They will not tell you,'' he said. ''Nobody will. And that is not going to change.'' Referring to the fact that Saudi Arabia is often called the central bank of oil, he added: ''If an outsider goes to the Fed and asks, 'How much money do you have?' they will tell you. If you say, 'Can I come and count it?' they will not let you. This applies to oil companies and oil countries.'' I mentioned to Muhanna that many people think his government's ''trust us'' stance is not convincing in light of the cheating that has gone on within OPEC and in the industry as a whole; even Royal Dutch/Shell, a publicly listed oil company that undergoes regular audits, has admitted that it overstated its 2002 reserves by 23 percent.

 

''There is no reason for any country or company to lie,'' Muhanna replied. ''There is a lot of oil around.'' I didn't need to ask about Simmons and his peak-oil theory; when I met Muhanna at the conference in Washington, he nearly broke off our conversation at the mention of Simmons's name. ''He does not know anything,'' Muhanna said. ''The only thing he has is a big mouth. We should not pay attention to him. Either you believe us or you don't.''

 

So whom to believe? Before leaving New York for Saudi Arabia, I was advised by several oil experts to try to interview Sadad al-Husseini, who retired last year after serving as Aramco's top executive for exploration and production. I faxed him in Dhahran and received a surprisingly quick reply; he agreed to meet me. A week later, after I arrived in Riyadh, Husseini e-mailed me, asking when I would come to Dhahran; in a follow-up phone call, he offered to pick me up at the airport. He was, it seemed, eager to talk.

 

It can be argued that in a nation devoted to oil, Husseini knows more about it than anyone else. Born in Syria, Husseini was raised in Saudi Arabia, where his father was a government official whose family took on Saudi citizenship. Husseini earned a Ph.D. in geological sciences from Brown University in 1973 and went to work in Aramco's exploration department, eventually rising to the highest position. Until his retirement last year -- said to have been caused by a top-level dispute, the nature of which is the source of many rumors -- Husseini was a member of the company's board and its management committee. He is one of the most respected and accomplished oilmen in the world.

 

After meeting me at the cavernous airport that serves Dhahran, he drove me in his luxury sedan to the villa that houses his private office. As we entered, he pointed to an armoire that displayed a dozen or so vials of black liquid. ''These are samples from oil fields I discovered,'' he explained. Upstairs, there were even more vials, and he would have possessed more than that except, as he said, laughing, ''I didn't start collecting early enough.''

 

We spoke for several hours. The message he delivered was clear: the world is heading for an oil shortage. His warning is quite different from the calming speeches that Naimi and other Saudis, along with senior American officials, deliver on an almost daily basis. Husseini explained that the need to produce more oil is coming from two directions. Most obviously, demand is rising; in recent years, global demand has increased by two million barrels a day. (Current daily consumption, remember, is about 84 million barrels a day.) Less obviously, oil producers deplete their reserves every time they pump out a barrel of oil. This means that merely to maintain their reserve base, they have to replace the oil they extract from declining fields. It's the geological equivalent of running to stay in place. Husseini acknowledged that new fields are coming online, like offshore West Africa and the Caspian basin, but he said that their output isn't big enough to offset this growing need.

 

''You look at the globe and ask, 'Where are the big increments?' and there's hardly anything but Saudi Arabia,'' he said. ''The kingdom and Ghawar field are not the problem. That misses the whole point. The problem is that you go from 79 million barrels a day in 2002 to 82.5 in 2003 to 84.5 in 2004. You're leaping by two million to three million a year, and if you have to cover declines, that's another four to five million.'' In other words, if demand and depletion patterns continue, every year the world will need to open enough fields or wells to pump an additional six to eight million barrels a day -- at least two million new barrels a day to meet the rising demand and at least four million to compensate for the declining production of existing fields. ''That's like a whole new Saudi Arabia every couple of years,'' Husseini said. ''It can't be done indefinitely. It's not sustainable.''

 

Husseini speaks patiently, like a teacher who hopes someone is listening. He is in the enviable position of knowing what he talks about while having the freedom to speak openly about it. He did not disclose precise information about Saudi reserves or production -- which remain the equivalent of state secrets -- but he felt free to speak in generalities that were forthright, even when they conflicted with the reassuring statements of current Aramco officials. When I asked why he was willing to be so frank, he said it was because he sees a shortage ahead and wants to do what he can to avert it. I assumed that he would not be particularly distressed if his rivals in the Saudi oil establishment were embarrassed by his frankness.

 

Although Matthew Simmons says it is unlikely that the Saudis will be able to produce 12.5 million barrels a day or sustain output at that level for a significant period of time, Husseini says the target is realistic; he says that Simmons is wrong to state that Saudi Arabia has reached its peak. But 12.5 million is just an interim marker, as far as consuming nations are concerned, on the way to 15 million barrels a day and beyond -- and that is the point at which Husseini says problems will arise.

 

At the conference in Washington in May, James Schlesinger, the moderator, conducted a question-and-answer session with Naimi at the conclusion of the minister's speech. One of the first questions involved peak oil: might it be true that Saudi Arabia, which has relied on the same reservoirs, and especially Ghawar, for more than five decades, is nearing the geological limit of its output?

 

Naimi wouldn't hear of it.

 

''I can assure you that we haven't peaked,'' he responded. ''If we peaked, we would not be going to 12.5 and we would not be visualizing a 15-million-barrel-per-day production capacity. . . . We can maintain 12.5 or 15 million for the next 30 to 50 years.''

 

Experts like Husseini are very concerned by the prospect of trying to produce 15 million barrels a day. Even if production can be ramped up that high, geology may not be forgiving. Fields that are overproduced can drop off, in terms of output, quite sharply and suddenly, leaving behind large amounts of oil that cannot be coaxed out with existing technology. This is called trapped oil, because the rocks or sediment around it prevent it from escaping to the surface. Unless new technologies are developed, that oil will never be extracted. In other words, the haste to recover oil can lead to less oil being recovered.

 

''You could go to 15, but that's when the questions of depletion rate, reservoir management and damaging the fields come into play,'' says Nawaf Obaid, a Saudi oil and security analyst who is regarded as being exceptionally well connected to key Saudi leaders. ''There is an understanding across the board within the kingdom, in the highest spheres, that if you're going to 15, you'll hit 15, but there will be considerable risks . . . of a steep decline curve that Aramco will not be able to do anything about.''

 

Even if the Saudis are willing to risk damaging their fields, or even if the risk is overstated, Husseini points out a practical problem. To produce and sustain 15 million barrels a day, Saudi Arabia will have to drill a lot more wells and build a lot more pipelines and processing facilities. Currently, the global oil industry suffers a deficit of qualified engineers to oversee such projects and the equipment and the raw materials -- for example, rigs and steel -- to build them. These things cannot be wished from thin air or developed quickly enough to meet the demand.

 

''If we had two dozen Texas A&M's producing a thousand new engineers a year and the industrial infrastructure in the kingdom, with the drilling rigs and power plants, we would have a better chance, but you cannot put that into place overnight,'' Husseini said. ''Capacity is not just a function of reserves. It is a function of reserves plus know-how plus a commercial economic system that is designed to increase the resource exploitation. For example, in the U.S. you have infrastructure -- there must be tens of thousands of miles of pipelines. If we, in Saudi Arabia, evolve to that level of commercial maturity, we could probably produce a heck of a lot more oil. But to get there is a very tedious, slow process.''

 

He worries that the rising global demand for oil will lead to the petroleum equivalent of running an engine at ever-increasing speeds without stopping to cool it down or change the oil. Husseini does not want to see the fragile and irreplaceable reservoirs of the Middle East become damaged through wanton overproduction.

 

''If you are ramping up production so fast and jump from high to higher to highest, and you're not having enough time to do what needs to be done, to understand what needs to be done, then you can damage reservoirs,'' he said. ''Systematic development is not just a matter of money. It's a matter of reservoir dynamics, understanding what's there, analyzing and understanding information. That's where people come in, experience comes in. These are not universally available resources.''

 

The most worrisome part of the crisis ahead revolves around a set of statistics from the Energy Information Administration, which is part of the U.S. Department of Energy. The E.I.A. forecast in 2004 that by 2020 Saudi Arabia would produce 18.2 million barrels of oil a day, and that by 2025 it would produce 22.5 million barrels a day. Those estimates were unusual, though. They were not based on secret information about Saudi capacity, but on the projected needs of energy consumers. The figures simply assumed that Saudi Arabia would be able to produce whatever the United States needed it to produce. Just last month, the E.I.A. suddenly revised those figures downward -- not because of startling new information about world demand or Saudi supply but because the figures had given so much ammunition to critics. Husseini, for example, described the 2004 forecast as unrealistic.

 

''That's not how you would manage a national, let alone an international, economy,'' he explained. ''That's the part that is scary. You draw some assumptions and then say, 'O.K., based on these assumptions, let's go forward and consume like hell and burn like hell.''' When I asked whether the kingdom could produce 20 million barrels a day -- about twice what it is producing today from fields that may be past their prime -- Husseini paused for a second or two. It wasn't clear if he was taking a moment to figure out the answer or if he needed a moment to decide if he should utter it. He finally replied with a single word: No.

 

''It's becoming unrealistic,'' he said. ''The expectations are beyond what is achievable. This is a global problem . . . that is not going to be solved by tinkering with the Saudi industry.''

  

It would be unfair to blame the Saudis alone for failing to warn of whatever shortages or catastrophes might lie ahead.

 

In the political and corporate realms of the oil world, there are few incentives to be forthright. Executives of major oil companies have been reluctant to raise alarms; the mere mention of scarce supplies could alienate the governments that hand out lucrative exploration contracts and also send a message to investors that oil companies, though wildly profitable at the moment, have a Malthusian long-term future. Fortunately, that attitude seems to be beginning to change. Chevron's ''easy oil is over'' advertising campaign is an indication that even the boosters of an oil-drenched future are not as bullish as they once were.

 

Politicians remain in the dark. During the 2004 presidential campaign, which occurred as gas prices were rising to record levels, the debate on energy policy was all but nonexistent. The Bush campaign produced an advertisement that concluded: ''Some people have wacky ideas. Like taxing gasoline more so people drive less. That's John Kerry.'' Although many environmentalists would have been delighted if Kerry had proposed that during the campaign, in fact the ad was referring to a 50-cents-a-gallon tax that Kerry supported 11 years ago as part of a package of measures to reduce the deficit. (The gas tax never made it to a vote in the Senate.) Kerry made no mention of taxing gasoline during the campaign; his proposal for doing something about high gas prices was to pressure OPEC to increase supplies.

 

Husseini, for one, doesn't buy that approach. ''Everybody is looking at the producers to pull the chestnuts out of the fire, as if it's our job to fix everybody's problems,'' he told me. ''It's not our problem to tell a democratically elected government that you have to do something about your runaway consumers. If your government can't do the job, you can't expect other governments to do it for them.'' Back in the 70's, President Carter called for the moral equivalent of war to reduce our dependence on foreign oil; he was not re-elected. Since then, few politicians have spoken of an energy crisis or suggested that major policy changes are necessary to avert one. The energy bill signed earlier this month by President Bush did not even raise fuel-efficiency standards for passenger cars. When a crisis comes -- whether in a year or 2 or 10 -- it will be all the more painful because we will have done little or nothing to prepare for it.

 

Peter Maass is a contributing writer. He is writing a book about oil.

 

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Quelque part entre la singularité technologique et la singularité écologique

francois-quevillon.com/w/?p=5231

 

Somewhere between technological singularity and ecological singularity

francois-quevillon.com/w/?p=5242

 

On Kibbelsteg (pedestrian bridge) looking west along Brook, Hamburg.

 

One of Hamburg's famous attractions is its historic warehouse district known as "Speicherstadt" (literally: warehouse city). It is the largest warehouse district in the world where the red-brick warehouses were built on on oak-log pile foundations next to the Hamburg harbour and canals between 1883 and 1927. The district was created as a free-trade zone to transfer goods without paying customs. After the 1960s, vast technological changes in shipping and logistics diminished the area's importance in trade. From the 1980s onward, the old warehouses were converted into offices for media companies, advertising agencies, art studios, museums and galleries, restaurants and cafés, and a few retail shops. Speicherstadt is entirely surrounded by water, crisscrossed by canals and connected by numerous bridges. It is a confusing but interesting area to explore. (With some information from Wikipedia.)

Inspired by these guys and what P@UŁ♤ said.

One of Tennessee Tech’s oldest and most historic buildings is Jere Whitson Hall, which originally housed the university library. It has now been transformed into a campus visitor and welcome center housing the offices of admissions, financial aid, advisement, academic services, records and registration and military and veteran affairs. Renovation of the building began in 2016 and ended 2017. It was originally built in 1949 and named for Jere Whitson, one of the founders of Dixie College (the original name of Tennessee Tech University).

 

Three bracketed photos were taken with a handheld Nikon D7200 and combined with Photomatix Pro to create this HDR image. Additional adjustments were made in Photoshop CS6.

 

"For I know the plans I have for you", declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." ~Jeremiah 29:11

"This quadrangle was part of the grounds of the University of Dixie, commonly called "Dixie College," chartered 18 Nov. 1909. Jere Whitson and other Cookeville citizens led the drive for the college; Whitson donated twelve acres for the institution. Construction began 16 May 1911. In Sept, 1912, high school and junior college classes began in a building where Derryberry Hall now stands. In 1915 the Dixie Board ceded its property to the State to endow the present University"

 

Once the college was endowed to the State, it was renamed Tennessee Polytechnic Institute and remained known as TPI until 1965. At this time, the name was changed to Tennessee Technological University and it continues to operate as TTU or just simply Tech today.

 

In the background of this photograph is Derryberry Hall (aka the Administration Building). It is the oldest building on campus… more or less. When Jere Whitson donated land for the formation of the private school, this was the first structure built on the land. In its early years, the Administration Building was the center of most activities at the college. It held the offices and classrooms. In 1921, the rather simple building had an east and west wing added and was completely overhauled. As time went on and the campus grew, the Administration Building continued to be the main part of campus. It housed all the administrative offices, the Business Department, and the Home Economics Department. In 1960, TPI mostly tore the Administrative Building down so that it could be rebuilt better than before. The new building was doubled in size, was fireproofed, and modernized. In 1962, the State Board named the new building after the Derryberrys. At that time, Everett Derryberry served for over 20 years as the University president with his wife, Joan Derryberry, who was a major supporter and developer of the Art and Music Departments at Tech.

 

Three bracketed photos were taken with a handheld Nikon D7200 and combined with Photomatix Pro to create this HDR image. Additional adjustments were made in Photoshop CS6.

 

"For I know the plans I have for you", declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." ~Jeremiah 29:11

 

The best way to view my photostream is through Flickriver with the following link: www.flickriver.com/photos/photojourney57/

Technological waste in the leaves ...

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Even in our seemingly rational and technological world, myths and legends have their place. While most do not believe in evil wizards and fairies good, but. Poisonous spider in the Yucca or parallel civilizations in the sewers Our modern fairy tale called Urban legends. And a friend of a friend of a ... she has really experienced.

 

My friend, is a stewardess. And a colleague of hers who has experienced quite a crazy story : On a flight from New York to LA, it was found that an elderly lady was sitting next to two African-Americans in the same row. She had them less than enthusiastic and tried several times to make the flight attendant on these 'maladministration' attention . After subtle hints were ignored, the lady put her concerns quite dramatically ,

 

"Well, now listen here ! This is an outrage that I have to sit in these niggers here ! I refuse to continue to sit with such sub-humans in the same bank "

 

The flight attendant recognized the situation at a glance and then smiled warmly . " Yes , of course , I understand. Gentlemen , please come. In the first Class are still two places free! "

 

This story tells of a 27 year old engineer from Hamburg. He was deemed to wearing it when he completed an internship at Airbus. The story is quite popular with people who work in the airline industry . It also circulates in this or similar form as a joke and to point out the absurdity of prejudice and xenophobia.

___________________________________________________________________________________

 

Auch in unserer scheinbar so rationalen und technisierten Welt haben Mythen und Legenden ihren Platz. Zwar glauben die meisten nicht mehr an böse Zauberer und gute Feen, dafür aber an die giftige Spinne in der Yucca-Palme oder an Parallelzivilisationen in der Kanalisation. Unsere modernen Märchen heißen Urban legends. Und ein Freund von einem Freund von einem … hat sie wirklich erlebt.

 

Also, meine Freundin, die ist Stewardess. Und eine Kollegin von ihr, die hat eine ganz verrückte Geschichte erlebt: Bei einem Flug von New York nach L.A. ergab es sich, dass eine ältere Dame neben zwei Afroamerikanern in derselben Sitzreihe saß. Sie war davon alles andere als begeistert und versuchte mehrfach, die Stewardess auf diesen „Missstand“ aufmerksam zu machen. Nachdem subtile Andeutungen ignoriert wurden, formulierte die Dame ihr Anliegen recht drastisch: „Also, jetzt hören Sie mal! Das ist eine Unverschämtheit, dass ich hier bei diesen Niggern sitzen muss! Ich weigere mich, weiterhin mit solchen Untermenschen in derselben Bank zu sitzen!“ Die Stewardess erfasste die Situation mit einem Blick und lächelte dann freundlich. „Ja, natürlich, ich verstehe. Meine Herren, kommen Sie doch bitte mit. In der 1. Klasse sind noch zwei Plätze frei!“

 

Diese Geschichte wurde von einem 27jährigen Ingenieur aus Hamburg berichtet. Zugetragen wurde sie ihm, als er ein Praktikum bei Airbus absolvierte. Die Geschichte ist recht beliebt bei Leuten, die in der Luftfahrbranche arbeiten. Außerdem kursiert sie in dieser oder ähnlicher Form auch als Witz und soll auf die Absurdität von Vorurteilen und Fremdenfeindlichkeit hinweisen.

 

Aufgezeichnet von Janika Rehak

 

Copyright: Goethe-Institut Prag

Dezember 2012

 

Source: jadu || More UrbanLegens: jadu - UrbanLegens

DSCF5183-Edit

 

I believe we are in the middle of a new technological revolution. On an almost weekly basis, I am seeing things become possible in video and stills and it is so exciting. Of course those angel wings aren't real, but they are pretty detailed and they could be real, or rather they are closest I have got to creating realistic angel wings in the digital space. The feathers and the shadow they cast look pretty real on the original, but there was a lot (I mean the fair part of a day) 'mucking around' to see what worked and jettison the rubbish (of which some was pretty laughable). But, I am going to enjoy AI I think. Apart from the gravestone, the background is all generated. Thanks to Jorji for braving chilly January weather. 2 strobes used on her portrait.

 

I noticed the 1k wide image wasn't doing this process justice, so I have replaced with the full sized image.

 

Folks, I am trying to grow my YouTube channel. There are travel videos, a camera or lens review here and there and just nice views of nice places. If any of that piques your interest, can you follow me up there?

 

www.youtube.com/@nicklaytonUK

 

Plus, in the near future, 'how to shoot a levitation' video, a visit to Wroclaw and another fashion style about to shoot. Thanks!

 

Fortù, Fortù, my beloved one,

Sit here by my side,

On my knees put up both little feet!

I was sure, if I tried,

I could make you laugh spite of Scirocco.

Now, open your eyes,

Let me keep you amused till he vanish

In black from the skies

While no technological masterpiece, this old egg beater is an obsolete dinosaur by today's standards - these days cakes are mostly made using electric mixers or food processors. But this old egg beater has served me well, having mixed cakes week in, week out when my family was growing up.

 

I could have taken a shot of the egg beater doing nothing, but thought I should whip up a 'throw it all in together and mix' type cake. The recipe called for the eggs to be beaten with some caster sugar till thick and creamy and then add the rest of the ingredients and combine. Now it's cooked, I suppose I'm going to have to eat it so my efforts aren't wasted.

The Nuva archer is a skilled warrior and technological wonder. The concept was brought about by General Taka's imagination and executed by the hands of the most skilled matoran. This archer differs from traditional archer units in that he does not need to carry his ammunition on his body during battle. His "arrows" or bolts are stored, generated, and replinished within his technologically advanced left arm which coordinates with the "crossbow" or bolt thrower that he wields. The bolt thrower is one of a kind and is viewed as a breakthrough in modern weaponry. Though quite bulky, the bolt thrower allows the archer to fire single highly charged energy bolts, which have the power to penetrate light/medium armor, at a rate of 1.5 seconds. After firing 10 bolts the archer's arm requires a cool down period which lasts approximately 8 to 10 seconds. Once completed, the archer may continue raining destruction down upon the enemy. The archer's built-in optical system allows the archer to target enemy's from a greater distance than the typical archer. The Nuva archer's advanced weaponry and overal engineering give the Nuva army a great advantage on the battlefied when facing overwhelming numbers.

 

I hope you guys enjoy this one! Building him really inspired me to go back and revamp General Taka and the Nuva Infantry, so stay tuned for those guys in the future! Thanks for all of your support this past year! Looking forward to the next year!

Advanced Technological Designs Incorporated is proud to present, hot off our assembly lines, the all new AWT (Assisted Walking Transport)!

 

Are you an older gentleman or gentlewoman? Are you tired of not being able to get around as easily as you could once? Well, that's not a problem anymore, with the AWT! Simply sit down into the comfy harness and strap your legs in for a wild ride!

 

There's no more need for your old canes. Throw those old things out, because you won't need them anymore. Not if you have the AWT! Completely self propelled, the AWT multiplies the energy you have stored in those run-down legs of yours and allows the owner to move at a much faster pace.

 

The AWT's padded design allows for strolls of comfort, making sure your skin never rubs against the joints of the suit. Are you ready to get back out on the streets? Call now and get your very own Assisted Walking Transport! Our operators will be standing by.

 

Firearm was a notorious, technologically-advanced bounty hunter who continuously threatened the Hero Factory. Firearm is a mercenary more than capable of carrying out assignments but lacking in the ambition to mastermind his own agenda.

 

Shortly before the betrayal of Von Ness, Firearm came to operate exclusively out of the Delta Quadrant, gaining experience as a mercenary and branching out his services. For some time, Firearm established his headquarters along the edge of the Necron Expanse, a vast region of frontier space with no stars systems for 200 lightyears. Following the success of Hero Factory in the galactic neighborhood, Firearm was able to inflate his service charges exponentially, with bounty hunters coming in short supply.

 

Over the course of his career, Firearm has utilized a number of weapons and gadgets to carry out his assignments, initially starting with standard issue Meteor Blasters and later diversifying to carry heavily customized gear for each mission. Most prominently, he has been known to carry a modified Combat Rifle looted from a Makuhero Industries factory.

 

Unlike many of his contemporaries, Firearm has been known to keep several extensive weapons and ammunition caches on planets around the Delta Quadrant, often containing launchers looted from Heroes or other criminals.

La catedral de San Isaac, oficialmente catedral de San Isaac de Dalmacia (en ruso: собор преподо́бного Исаа́кия Далма́тского)? es una catedral ortodoxa rusa erigida en el siglo XIX en la ciudad de San Petersburgo, la más suntuosa y grandiosa de las iglesias de la ciudad y uno de los monumentos neoclásicos más interesantes de la arquitectura rusa del siglo XIX. Fue diseñada por el arquitecto francés Auguste Montferrand y fue construida desde 1818 hasta 1858.

La catedral se encuentra en la plaza del mismo nombre y la de los Decembristas, y tiene una de las cúpulas más grandes del mundo, siendo la segunda iglesia ortodoxa oriental más alta, después de la catedral del Cristo Salvador de Moscú. Desde 1931 se ha convertido en un museo. Es visitada actualmente por aproximadamente un millón de turistas cada año.

Anteriormente, en la zona del Almirantazgo existió una pequeña iglesia de madera dedicada a Isaac (monje), a la que sustituyó otra de piedra, que quedó inservible a mediados del siglo XVIII.

Por último, a comienzos del siglo XIX, se decide levantar la nueva catedral. Participan en el concurso destacados arquitectos de aquella época. Sale vencedor el joven arquitecto francés Auguste Montferrand. Los andamiajes para la catedral de San Isaac fueron realizados por el ingeniero español Agustín de Betancourt. Las obras se prolongaron desde 1818 hasta 1858.

La construcción comenzó en 1818. Antes de demoler el edificio anterior, se consolidó el suelo debido a que la ciudad está construida sobre un terreno muy pantanoso. La operación fue muy larga y compleja: a los 11.000 pilotes de pino alquitranados de la cimentación anterior, se añadieron 13.000 más, con un diámetro de 25 cm cada uno. Las losas de granito se colocaron directamente sobre los pilotes y fueron cubiertas con losas de piedra caliza.

Las cimentaciones tienen un grosor de 14,5 m (7,5 m de altura de los pilotes y otros 7 m de espesor de las losas de piedra). Fueron necesarios 10 años de sentar las bases y 125.000 trabajadores participaron en su instalación. Dado que tenían que conservar los muros de la vieja iglesia, se observaron algunos asentamientos irregulares después de la colocación de los cimientos. Después de que apareciesen algunas grietas en las paredes se tuvieron que suspender los trabajos y demoler las partes restantes del edificio anterior. El director de las obras fue el arquitecto suizo Domenico Adamini (1792-1860).

En la decoración de la catedral de San Isaac se emplearon 43 tipos de minerales. El zócalo fue revestido de granito, el interior de la catedral, paredes y suelos de mármoles rusos, italianos y franceses, las columnas del retablo fueron revestidas de malaquita y lapislázuli. Para sobredorar la cúpula de 21,8 m de diámetro, se emplearon cerca de 100 kilos de oro. Adornan la catedral casi 400 obras entre esculturas, pinturas y mosaicos. Tiene capacidad para 14 mil personas.

Desde 1931 la catedral es un museo.

Se puede subir hasta el tambor de la cúpula, desde donde se puede contemplar una vista de San Petersburgo.

 

es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catedral_de_San_Isaac

 

Saint Isaac's Cathedral or Isaakievskiy Sobor (Russian: Исаа́киевский Собо́р) is a cathedral that currently functions as a museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It is dedicated to Saint Isaac of Dalmatia, a patron saint of Peter the Great, who had been born on the feast day of that saint. It was originally built as a cathedral but was turned into a museum by the Soviet government in 1931 and has remained a museum ever since. In 2017, the Governor of Saint Petersburg offered to transfer the cathedral back to the Russian Orthodox Church, but the church has not exercised this offer.

The church on St Isaac's Square was ordered by Tsar Alexander I, to replace an earlier structure by Vincenzo Brenna, and was the fourth consecutive church standing at this place. A specially appointed commission examined several designs, including that of the French-born architect Auguste de Montferrand (1786–1858), who had studied in the atelier of Napoleon's designer, Charles Percier. Montferrand's design was criticised by some members of the commission for the dry and allegedly boring rhythm of its four identical pedimented octastyle porticos. It was also suggested that despite gigantic dimensions, the edifice would look squat and not very impressive. The members of the commission, which consisted of well-known Russian architects, were also particularly concerned by necessity to build a new huge building on the old unsecure foundation. The emperor, who favoured the ponderous Empire style of architecture, had to step in and solve the dispute in Montferrand's favour.

The cathedral took 40 years to construct, under Montferrand's direction, from 1818 to 1858. The building of the cathedral took so long, that it left an idiom to Finnish language: rakentaa kuin Iisakinkirkkoa (To build like the church of Isaac) when speaking of long-term construction projects.

To secure the construction, the cathedral's foundation was strengthened by driving 25,000 piles into the fenland of Saint Petersburg. Innovative methods were created to erect the giant columns of the portico. The construction costs of the cathedral totalled an incredible sum of 1 000 000 gold rubles. Under the Soviet government, the building was stripped of religious trappings. In 1931, it was turned into the Museum of the History of Religion and Atheism, the dove sculpture was removed, and replaced by a Foucault pendulum. On April 12, 1931, the first public demonstration of the Foucault pendulum was held to visualize Copernicus’s theory. In 1937, the museum was transformed into the museum of the cathedral, and former collections were transferred to the Museum of the History of Religion (located in the Kazan Cathedral).

During World War II, the dome was painted over in gray to avoid attracting attention from enemy aircraft. On its top, in the skylight, a geodesical intersection point was placed, to determine the positions of German artillery batteries.

With the fall of communism, the museum was removed and regular worship activity has resumed in the cathedral, but only in the left-hand side chapel. The main body of the cathedral is used for services on feast days only.

On January 10, 2017 Georgy Poltavchenko, the Governor of St. Petersburg, announced that the cathedral would be transferred to the Russian Orthodox Church. The key protocols of the transfer were defined by the order issued by St. Petersburg’s Committee on Property Relations on December 30, 2016. The document expired on December 30, 2018. The new order can be issued upon request from the Russian Orthodox Church, but no such request has yet been submitted.

The transfer of Saint Isaac's Cathedral in use the ROC agreed in January 2017, but the decision has caused discontent of the townspeople, who defended the status of the museum. The decision of the city authorities was disputed in the courts. Currently, the status of the building is museum. Today, church services are held here only ecclesiastical occasions.

The neoclassical exterior expresses the traditional Russian-Byzantine formula of a Greek-cross ground plan with a large central dome and four subsidiary domes. It is similar to Andrea Palladio's Villa La Rotonda, with a full dome on a high drum substituted for the Villa's low central saucer dome. The design of the cathedral in general and the dome in particular later influenced the design of the United States Capitol dome, Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison, Wisconsin, and the Lutheran Cathedral in Helsinki.

The exterior is faced with gray and pink stone, and features a total of 112 red granite columns with Corinthian capitals, each hewn and erected as a single block: 48 at ground level, 24 on the rotunda of the uppermost dome, 8 on each of four side domes, and 2 framing each of four windows. The rotunda is encircled by a walkway accessible to tourists. 24 statues stand on the roof, and another 24 on top of the rotunda.

The cathedral's main dome rises 101.5 metres (333 ft) and is plated with pure gold. The dome is decorated with twelve statues of angels by Josef Hermann. These angels were likely the first large sculptures produced by the then novel process of electrotyping, which was an alternative to traditional bronze casting of sculptures. Montferrand's design of the dome is based on a supporting cast iron structure. It was the third historical instance of cast iron cupola after the Leaning Tower of Nevyansk (1732) and Mainz Cathedral (1826).

The cathedral's bronze doors, covered in reliefs by Ivan Vitali, are patterned after the celebrated doors of the Battistero di San Giovanni in Florence, designed by Lorenzo Ghiberti. Suspended underneath the peak of the dome is a sculpted white dove representing the Holy Spirit. Internal features such as columns, pilasters, floor, and statue of Montferrand are composed of multicolored granites and marbles gathered from all parts of Russia. The iconostasis is framed by eight columns of semiprecious stone: six of malachite and two smaller ones of lazurite. The four pediments are also richly sculpted.

The interior was originally decorated with scores of paintings by Karl Bryullov and other great Russian masters of the day. When these paintings began to deteriorate due to the cold, damp conditions inside the cathedral, Montferrand ordered them to be painstakingly reproduced as mosaics, a technique introduced in Russia by Mikhail Lomonosov. This work was never completed.

William Handyside and other engineers used a number of technological innovations in the construction of the building. The portico columns were raised with the use of large wooden frameworks before the walls were erected. The building rests on 10,000 tree trunks that were sunk by a large number of workers into the marshy banks upon which the cathedral is situated. The dome was gilded by a technique similar to spraypainting; the solution used included toxic mercury, the vapors of which caused the deaths of sixty workers. The dozen gilded statues of angels, each six metres tall, facing each other across the interior of the rotunda, were constructed using galvanoplastic technology, making them only millimeters thick and very lightweight. St. Isaac's Cathedral represents the first use of this technique in architecture.

The meticulous and painstakingly detailed work on constructing the St. Isaac's Cathedral took 40 years to complete, and left an expression in the Finnish language, rakentaa kuin Iisakin kirkkoa ("to build like St. Isaac's Church"), for lengthy and never-ending megaprojects.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Isaac%27s_Cathedral

 

Buy it, use it, break it, fix it,

Trash it, change it, mail - upgrade it,

Charge it, point it, zoom it, press it,

Snap it, work it, quick - erase it,

Write it, cut it, paste it, save it,

Load it, check it, quick - rewrite it,

Plug it, play it, burn it, rip it,

Drag and drop it, zip - unzip it,

Lock it, fill it, call it, find it,

View it, code it, jam - unlock it,

Surf it, scroll it, pause it, click it,

Cross it, crack it, switch - update it,

Name it, rate it, tune it, print it,

Scan it, send it, fax - rename it,

Touch it, bring it, Pay it, watch it,

Turn it, leave it, start - format it.

 

Technologic. Technologic. Technologic. Technologic.

 

Anyone else on Tumblr? You can listen to this song there.

 

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

This picture captures how most people felt during COVID, isolated and consumed by technology. During quarantine, we didn't have any human connection, so instead, we replaced it with tech...

"Simply Technological"

 

Bü 131 Jungmann - Journées Portes Ouvertes à l'aérodrome de Vesoul-Frotey (Bourgogne/Franche-Comté 2017)

 

Website : www.fluidr.com/photos/pat21

 

"Copyright © – Patrick Bouchenard

The reproduction, publication, modification, transmission or exploitation of any work contained here in for any use, personal or commercial, without my prior written permission is strictly prohibited. All rights reserved

Firearm was a notorious, technologically-advanced bounty hunter who continuously threatened the Hero Factory. Firearm is a mercenary more than capable of carrying out assignments but lacking in the ambition to mastermind his own agenda.

 

Shortly before the betrayal of Von Ness, Firearm came to operate exclusively out of the Delta Quadrant, gaining experience as a mercenary and branching out his services. For some time, Firearm established his headquarters along the edge of the Necron Expanse, a vast region of frontier space with no stars systems for 200 lightyears. Following the success of Hero Factory in the galactic neighborhood, Firearm was able to inflate his service charges exponentially, with bounty hunters coming in short supply.

 

Over the course of his career, Firearm has utilized a number of weapons and gadgets to carry out his assignments, initially starting with standard issue Meteor Blasters and later diversifying to carry heavily customized gear for each mission. Most prominently, he has been known to carry a modified Combat Rifle looted from a Makuhero Industries factory.

 

Unlike many of his contemporaries, Firearm has been known to keep several extensive weapons and ammunition caches on planets around the Delta Quadrant, often containing launchers looted from Heroes or other criminals.

Así, casi así es, como me gustas, como más me gustas.

 

*

 

This way, that's almost as, I like, as I like you the most.

 

#

  

Part of Pandora's hub series

Curls up on Kindle , instead of "old fashioned book" LOL !!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy Caturday !

Pier 1 and Curtis Wharf, Port of Anacortes. Guemes Channel.

The 2035 ban on the sale of new cars with internal combustion engines is often criticized as a misguided decision. A central argument is the lack of technological openness. Critics of the ban point out that the exclusive focus on electromobility ignores other promising alternatives such as synthetic fuels (e-fuels) or hydrogen technologies. For example, e-fuels could represent a climate-friendly solution for existing vehicles, thereby having a much greater impact than the sole transition to electric cars. Furthermore, the production of e-fuels is generally carbon-neutral, as carbon dioxide is extracted from the atmosphere during their production. A technology-agnostic approach would enable engineers and the industry to develop the most efficient and sustainable solutions instead of being limited to a single, politically mandated option.

 

Another crucial point of criticism is the dependency on global supply chains and scarce resources. The production of batteries for electric vehicles requires a large amount of critical raw materials such as lithium, cobalt, and nickel. These raw materials are often mined under environmentally damaging and ethically questionable conditions, and the supply chains are dominated by a few countries. A one-sided focus on electromobility could therefore lead to new geopolitical dependencies and bottlenecks. In addition, the energy supply for widespread e-mobility is not yet sufficiently secured in many countries. A too-rapid transition could overload the power grid and lead to a greater need for electricity from fossil fuels, which would undermine the desired climate goals.

 

The German head of Mercedes, Ola Källenius, has also been critical of the rigid focus on the combustion engine ban. He advocates for a reassessment of the decision to strengthen technological openness again. Källenius emphasizes that the internal combustion engine could be operated in a climate-neutral way through the use of synthetic fuels and would thus represent an attractive alternative to pure e-mobility. He argues that a technology-agnostic policy would enable manufacturers to develop innovative solutions and find the best ways to decarbonize transport. From his perspective, the combustion engine ban is an unnecessary restriction that weakens the innovative power of the European automotive industry and jeopardizes its competitiveness against other markets. He suggests that politicians should re-evaluate the situation to ensure that the best and most efficient technologies for reducing CO2 emissions are used.

Memorial Gym, on the campus of Tennessee Tech University in Cookeville, TN, is home to the Department of Exercise Science, Physical Education and Wellness. The building includes a large gymnasium with a basketball court, two smaller intramural gymnasiums, handball courts, and a swimming pool. Built on the original Quad, this is one of the older buildings on campus. Most of the university's athletics are held at other facilities around campus these days with this gym being mostly used for intramural games and teaching.

 

Three bracketed photos were taken with a handheld Nikon D7200 and combined with Photomatix Pro to create this HDR image. Additional adjustments were made in Photoshop CS6.

 

"For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." ~Jeremiah 29:11

TECHNOLOGICAL MURMURS IN A RED WORLD BY AEON VON ZARK.

15/365

We live in a technological world. A world that I sometimes do not understand, and a world that both isolates us and brings us out of our shells. It promotes instant gratification, and yet it tests our patience at times.

Pian del Lago

Some Haiku Notes:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Technological

my mix media collage

the evolution

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In the beginning,

it all started with the wheel;

now it's nano tech.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Cybernetic Systems Theory

Cybernetics and Systems Science (also: "(General) Systems Theory" or "Systems Research") constitute a somewhat fuzzily defined academic domain, that touches virtually all traditional disciplines, from mathematics, technology and biology to philosophy and the social sciences. It is more specifically related to the recently developing "sciences of complexity", including AI, neural networks, dynamical systems, chaos, and complex adaptive systems. Its history dates back to the 1940's and 1950's when thinkers such as Wiener, von Bertalanffy, Ashby and von Foerster founded the domain through a series of interdisciplinary meetings.

Systems theory or systems science argues that however complex or diverse the world that we experience, we will always find different types of organization in it, and such organization can be described by concepts and principles which are independent from the specific domain at which we are looking. Hence, if we would uncover those general laws, we would be able to analyse and solve problems in any domain, pertaining to any type of system. The systems approach distinguishes itself from the more traditional analytic approach by emphasizing the interactions and connectedness of the different components of a system. Although the systems approach in principle considers all types of systems, it in practices focuses on the more complex, adaptive, self-regulating systems which we might call "cybernetic".

............................ Copyright © 1992-2000 Principia Cybernetica

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Cybernetics is a transdisciplinary approach for exploring regulatory systems, their structures, constraints, and possibilities. In the 21st century, the term is often used in a rather loose way to imply "control of any system using technology;"

Cybernetics is relevant to the study of systems, such as mechanical, physical, biological, cognitive, and social systems. Cybernetics is applicable when a system being analyzed incorporates a closed signaling loop; that is, where action by the system generates some change in its environment and that change is reflected in that system in some manner (feedback) that triggers a system change, originally referred to as a "circular causal" relationship.

System dynamics, a related field, originated with applications of electrical engineering control theory to other kinds of simulation models (especially business systems) by Jay Forrester at MIT in the 1950s.

Concepts studied by cyberneticists include, but are not limited to: learning, cognition, adaptation, social control, emergence, communication, efficiency, efficacy, and connectivity. These concepts are studied by other subjects such as engineering and biology, but in cybernetics these are abstracted from the context of the individual organism or device.

Norbert Wiener defined cybernetics in 1948 as "the scientific study of control and communication in the animal and the machine." The word cybernetics comes from Greek κυβερνητική (kybernetike), meaning "governance", i.e., all that are pertinent to κυβερνάω (kybernao), the latter meaning "to steer, navigate or govern", hence κυβέρνησις (kybernesis), meaning "government", is the government while κυβερνήτης (kybernetes) is the governor or the captain. Contemporary cybernetics began as an interdisciplinary study connecting the fields of control systems, electrical network theory, mechanical engineering, logic modeling, evolutionary biology, neuroscience, anthropology, and psychology in the 1940s, often attributed to the Macy Conferences. During the second half of the 20th century cybernetics evolved in ways that distinguish first-order cybernetics (about observed systems) from second-order cybernetics (about observing systems). More recently there is talk about a third-order cybernetics (doing in ways that embraces first and second-order).

Fields of study which have influenced or been influenced by cybernetics include game theory, system theory (a mathematical counterpart to cybernetics), perceptual control theory, sociology, psychology (especially neuropsychology, behavioral psychology, cognitive psychology), philosophy, architecture, and organizational theory.

.................................................................................. Wikipedia

Home of the first (record breaking) turbine driven boat and housing the history of Newcastle and Tyneside told through permanent displays and temporary exhibitions, covering the area's martime, scientific and technological importance to Britain and the rest of the world.

 

The family BIS: The Bank for International Settlements is working with various other crime syndicates (central banks) to build digital financial networks and platforms along with technological tools to support a new era of international monetary cooperation in the digital money ecosystem.

 

I’m gonna make you a deal you can’t refuse. It’s not personal, it’s strictly business. The banker with the briefcase can steal more money than the man with a gun.

 

The future is a tokenized world. The tokenization of real-world assets (RWAs) will enable the buying and selling of digital assets through blockchain technology. Blockchain is a digital ledger, a digital list of records, a digital database that records financial transactions in a business network. Most payment systems are designed for domestic use; therefore, Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) must be interlinked to a shared global platform. Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) must be combined with Fast Payment Systems (FPS) in order to calculate various exchange rates for real-time cross-border transactions. CBDCs will then be transferred via digital bridges between domestic platforms and transnational networks. This transnational blockchain network will act like an interbank foreign exchange.

 

There are two main forms of CBDCs: retail CBDCs and wholesale CBDCs. Retail CBDCs are used by the general public and wholesale CBDCs are used by the banking industry. Principles for Financial Market Infrastructures (PFMIs) will be the international standard for this distributed ledger wholesale interbank financial market infrastructure payment settlement system. Indeed, collaboration between global partners will push the boundaries of central bank innovation and efficiency.

 

“Give me control of a nation’s money and I care not who makes its laws.” The banking mafia will extort your money and assets. You’ll own nothing and be happy. You’ll be controlled by a Social Credit Score system. You’ll be given an allowance: Universal Basic Income (universal welfare/socialism). The mob will control you.

 

The Godfather will eventually consolidate the family business, creating a One World Digital Currency (OWDC) called the MARK. The Godfather’s symbol will be a number, and his number will be 666.

 

2 Thessalonians 2:3-4 “Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God.”

 

(Reuters) – “The first human patient implanted with a brain-chip from Neuralink appears to have fully recovered and is able to control a computer mouse using their thoughts, the startup’s founder Elon Musk said late on Monday.” (One day they’ll be able to do this on an industrial scale: The Fourth Industrial Revolution).

 

The Nuva archer is a skilled warrior and technological wonder. The concept was brought about by General Taka's imagination and executed by the hands of the most skilled matoran. This archer differs from traditional archer units in that he does not need to carry his ammunition on his body during battle. His "arrows" or bolts are stored, generated, and replinished within his technologically advanced left arm which coordinates with the "crossbow" or bolt thrower that he wields. The bolt thrower is one of a kind and is viewed as a breakthrough in modern weaponry. Though quite bulky, the bolt thrower allows the archer to fire single highly charged energy bolts, which have the power to penetrate light/medium armor, at a rate of 1.5 seconds. After firing 10 bolts the archer's arm requires a cool down period which lasts approximately 8 to 10 seconds. Once completed, the archer may continue raining destruction down upon the enemy. The archer's built-in optical system allows the archer to target enemy's from a greater distance than the typical archer. The Nuva archer's advanced weaponry and overal engineering give the Nuva army a great advantage on the battlefied when facing overwhelming numbers.

 

I hope you guys enjoy this one! Building him really inspired me to go back and revamp General Taka and the Nuva Infantry, so stay tuned for those guys in the future! Thanks for all of your support this past year! Looking forward to the next year!

And with advance to REALITY COPY there’s certainly no way of changing this perception only enforcing it, nothing in reality is good enough for “REALITY COPY” that is just another paradox that is not futuristic.

We might be still skeptical about the arrival of REALITY COPY, but its only before its sold at the supermarkets.

What would happen after “Reality Copy” when the progress of all possible levels of true “reality copy” (in technical sense, not psychologically-philosophical) are achieved. The reality hence is copied and sealed.

Technology won’t stop there… one wonders. What is next.

In political sense when reality in representation is something embraced by conservative social power than with “reality copy” the conservative power is the dominating from the social point of view having new level of reality and it’s copy to be controlled.

*seems like the only possibly alternative to REALITY COPY could be ultra radical Invisibility)

In principle the artist aims to deform the reality subjectively to create not the “reality copy” lacking such skills but to convey the artistic poetic goal of expressing whatever given artist wants to express.

In a matter of “reality copy” what is left for the artist to argue with and deform… to question and test… Nothing really changes socially except for more pressure applied to the issue of dealing with self-image and tools to “sell” When a person changes the image the higher the technology the more transformed is the final product.

The progress of mental growth is just as conservative as control on the “visual image of reality” and its copy.

The ongoing technological progress is irreversible as it carries percent of good with bad,

It is common knowledge how for instance internet is benefit and at the same time does damage. A person who knows about the addiction and suffers would acquire the knowledge and hope from the place the person suffers the internet of course.

Same thing is with photography and video. Reality copy would add more psychological problems to the present but create more visual attraction of true-life experience with whatever could be rediscovered in Lifecopy style. Probably is benefits pornography since it will continue same as consumption of food. The basic things… Consumerism benefits since it is super-trained for “instant reach” affect and will commercially exploit the “reality copy” to sell more of “reality copy” gadgets the phones, screens, etc.

New generation of people will repeat the cycle in new technological means of having “reality copy” as nothing new but similar to any visual information currently available.

The creative people are the ones BEHIND the time it seems in a matter of “reality copy” and being unable to have anything is an alternative.

The Invisible alternative is the ONLY ONE to question “reality copy”

That is the power of UNKNOWN.

Techno progress can deal in “reality” bringing higher resolution to the fore to sell new generation of phones and gadgets.

But it really doesn’t change the philosophical issue of questions asked by philosophers, what is life, what is art, why do we live. Questions remain unanswered when techno progress veils those questions with the promise that higher technology would bring the end to all unanswered questions and answer them for people.

So far the techno advance puts the artistic, literary and philosophical field out of business. As when people get the toys (gadgets) and the playground (the podium of internet) the art is irrelevant and completely disconnected from the social phenomenon of self-representation. Art is not interested to question something with no philosophical substance to it.

The commercial art is willing to supply more stuff for consumerism. If its reality-copy than someone empowered by financial wealth (born rich) would come up with more decorative solutions that could serve REALITY COPY in needed fashion, add more details to the “reality set” to those who can afford it.

Same way it is now when people with means live with more things.

“Reality Copy” of people without means would look just as it is in reality, gray and unexciting. To help people without means the software would offer “decoration” solutions to add the faux details able to transform the surroundings to less depressing. It would enter the person into “life copy” of vacation at Caribbean resorts… etc.

What in such situation could be philosophically questioned, if nothing changed in human morality, but techno advance manage to involve people into self-entertainment to such degree that a person is no longer interested to read books about other people or watch movies and hear news. Self-promotion is the ongoing and time-consuming thing. One has to research the “popular” topics.

As to participating in reality activities, there’s the issue of not having time for anything that doesn’t deal with self-promotion and earning a living.

ART commerce is growing commercially going Industrial since supplying consumer goods is always rewarding in sales. On the other hand this and techno revolution reduces interest of writers and philosophers to dig in depths where there is no depth. It makes such people disengaged with the process. When there are no critical voices to the established situation or some few art critics pretend to do what is expected of them – know about current situation not only on the art scene but at large - socially, and have strong voice against the trends that contribute to the lowering of culture. There’s no more liberal freedom since nobody reads the newspapers. Even if the working critics were principal enough to write articles and books they know their voice would not be heard. They are not vociferous about anything at all because there’s a concept of supporting and art endavour since art is in decline and anything that relates to art needs their support.

There are no voices to oppose the current situation for many reasons such as no younger people would be interested in such undertaking also for many reasons of being disoriented in expectation of techno changes or living their me-life.

The young ones are the invisibility movers, every day someone who is young, information and internet savvy adds the invisibility statement to their online identity. I saw it on tumblr and Iheart. (samples year web address – source)

Art consumer goods sell and make the seller get the goods since sale is the rule.

Art critics silently agree and actually it seems if they even try to disagree there is nothing in art that presently shows any direction against the established art situation.

There isn’t anything not saying a serious claim to deny aesthetic values of the art present and past, to turn away from any influence and history by the fashion avant-garde to question than resuscitate (bring back from death) art that lost vitality and practically is a dead art of dominating taste in an authoritarian culture and conformity.

Bring new blood to reinvent the art into weapon against the outlived old and positioning itself as direct opposition AGAINST art that represents culture of the present time.

Culture of consumerism that turned into visual consumerism with the help of internet is hard to oppose and challenge in any attempt of making bid public art spectacle, won’t challenge any concept but serve certain need for entertainment.

 

Invisible art of Paul Jaisini stands against all that is dominating and culturally regressive in the present, false visual multiplicity that imply democracy and absence of segregation in visual sphere, all inclusiveness.

On so many levels Paul Jaisini brings knowledge of how the present condition reflect on a mind. (non-linear thinking, information processing, constant analysis is the advanced state of high analytical creative mind /osd, adad is the side effect but there are more worse side effects) Shows the burst to create in manifestation of genius mind (can do any task without training) but unable to maintain the creative process as wholesome, bored with the immediate results. Invisibility is theoretical stability and result of high impact activity that gives fast result of creativity and genius realized in art. Then instability in the fact of the created art un--preserved and lost, destroyed.

On a lower level of people who start building some blog with enthusiasm dedicating time, research than abandoning it to become digital graveyard demonstrates inability to continue and search for new. Inability to face what yesterday seemed interesting and capture someone’s mind to give the creative boost.

(fast life, no sleep, high tech knowledge, constant search for new, unsatisfied… new is old – altogether supports “CONSUMERISM” when buying is haul more than physically needed, quantity is the need for new.

Invisible art as a concept seem to attract wide public and elite in such diametrically opposed combination, of people without high aesthetics in mind or the complete opposite illuminati-culturati. People with average or below average taste and aesthetic requirements are as interested and supportive as the elite. When it comes to someone in the middle- another phenomena, quite often those who are educated and intelligent take a stand against even one mention of the art being possibly somehow invisible.

These people respond very well and willing to agree with the concept as Invisible art is brought to them by mass media. In the beginning I was using internet to send out essays and saw the proof that as avant-garde wanted to reach people who never acquired artistically developed taste the invisible art was and now is more than ever suits their taste even to degree of obsession.

That’s adds insult to injury when nobody even pay attention and there’s nothing to offer as the alternative.

They want something tangible as the alternative, the grown philosophy to brew in the minds of people and artists as the sign of time.

The invisibility is the idea that has the power to antagonize the “reality copy” but not in a sense that is widely used in the present time. To express social isolation in case of the teens as seen on tumblr. (examples and variations of Invisibility trend in primitive pictures shared every day in such huge quantities no art publication ever knew, teens and pre-teens are those with passion among the rest of us, when they spread the word it goes far, same as the early internet time, when the word would go far distances to large number of people)

Historically known of the episodes when many artists tried to create the so-called invis art but it really didn’t involve much creativity except for the concepts they came up with, but in reality it involved the reduction of visual means and performance art when the audience came up with more ideas acting around the non-existent artwork than the artist.

Personally I discovered high interactive value of the “PRESUMED” invisible painting when I was getting a lot of responses with very interesting commentaries from the people who actually insisted I was sending them info about the invisible artworks. I never made any claims when sending written essays. People decided for me and probably this is the best way for the interactive dialogue to let people decide.

The only known versions of invisible artworks would be not something that can turn into a philosophical school of thought but random reductions of visual means of various artists. It all came to same MOA that involved frames etc., not the process of creativity or life long creativity that would show how such artistic philosophy develops and what various periods of the artist’s life produce by his belief in his artistic style.

The known precedents of exhibiting so-called invisible art were always random statements that never continued to develop in a distinct style.

What one usually expects is a blank canvas, a picture with some written ideas which is more a topography art, a picture that is in a wrapping of covered up and is a found object art. The only known artists who continued wrapping is Christo but his art is not considered invisible even though he hides or attempts to hide what is inside the wrapping….

Recently same as in more distant periods in time many artists are trying to reduce their visual means. There’s a difference though. In previous times artists ventured into reduction of visual means with more ease. The artworks from older times with reduced visual means had much less labor and look less worked on.

Now the reduction of visual means is something that doesn’t fall under the artistic philosophy when an artists trying to prevent an overkill of the visual imagery.

If Rothko worked on his abstract painting laboriously than in current standards his work would be considered not sale’s worthy. Now to be sale-worthy the abstraction is worked to show a lot of workmanship. Surely Rothko doesn’t want anyone to see a lot of workmanship quite the opposite, he wanted his paintings to look fresh and not overdone. And in current standards he would have to toil on every dot in his painting to perfect it.

Today’s abstract paintings look like very hard-worked on simulations of surfaces that look like some textures (varieties of plain or distressed surfaces /stone and whatever is the decorative surfaces of abstracts, patterns that are used in interior design.

Overworked, machine-like is expensive looking enough to sell in the gallery but it creates a certain amount of fatigue in time. The commerce knows about it, the fatigue would bring the art buyer to buy more to add some new life to the art collection ed infinitum.

Art commerce wants more art collectors in the times when art is selling and makes money and should be called what it is – decorative luxury items.

Art or luxury decorative items was always meant for people with wealth and they always wanted to get their money worth.

When abstract painting is done in a manner to be worthy of selling price it is not creativity of conceptual thought and has no abstracted meaning. The craft of simulating surfaces is widely known and is used in interior design. When it is unique that no other craftsman can repeat it is recognized nearly as jewelry and rag-making, etc. All the items that cost money due to the high workmanship and hours, months and sometimes years of creation. Same way was built the historical hand-made furniture. Same way the current abstract decorations will hold in time. It is made for someone as rich as royalties but it doesn’t mean that it has anything to do with artistic creativity, the most mysterious and unexplained human phenomenon.

So anyone who is interested to earn money as a maker of such luxury items and be able to place them in the store for sale – the art gallery, can come up with own recipe for surface replica and start working will find a paying job on the art scene nowadays...

It doesn’t involve questioning of morals, times and life. It involves many hours of working and ability to produce varieties of the same surfaces in good taste. Instead of questioning human spirituality, or questioning art means that someone considers irrelevant and outdated, not for any breakthrough to create something revolutionary new.

I chose this shot of the Raptor for this rant because it does not glorify the technological marvel that it is. It shows the culmination of the 20 year+ path it took to get to this picture. Here it shows a Raptor taxing out for a sortie over the Nellis ranges amongst its operational stablemates. The F-22 has come a LONG way to deliver the goods and now, once its capability is just being understood Secretary Gates and the Obama Administration TERMINATED THE PROJECT in favor of the F-35. Here is my response to a fraternity brother who wrote me in response to today's cuts. He stated he is happy that the money is going more towards the troops on the ground and not these flying overpriced techno-dream machines. To his credit he served heroically 18 months in iraq during the worst of the Shiite uprising. Please take the time to read it and tell me your thoughts on today's events.

______________________________

 

You are right right, our ground troops need a much higher focus going forward. But Gates has not given them that at the expense of the F-22. No he actually cut our battalions from a goal of 48 to 45 and shelved the badly needed Future Combat System that would give the ground guys "netcentric" 21st century technology. OH but he did increase Pentagon bureaucracy by a HUGE margin.

 

Why is the F-22 needed.

1.) Although 183 airframes seems like a lot, it is NOT. If we were to go to war tomorrow it would only leave a SUSTAINED force of about 30-40 jets that would be combat ready at any given time. The rest believe it or not are stuck in training, upgrades, depot, systems testing or tactics development. Each raptor carries 8 missiles, 6 of which (beyond visual range AIM-120Cs) would be used if everything goes RIGHT. If it does not the other 2 (AIM-9M) plus the 480rds of 20mm are for self defense. In other words after 6 shots the raptor runs. Further they usually volley 2 AIM-120Cs per target. That leaves a real world potential kill probability of 3 airframes per sortie against a serious threat. Raptors fight in divisions of 4 at a time so that is 12 enemy aircraft destroyed before they have to re-arm. This is NOT ENEOUGH CAPABILITY AGAINST THREATS SUCH AS CHINA OR EVEN LOWER TIER FOES WITH CRUISE MISSILES. Enemies will now know that all they have to do is saturate the Raptor to break through to our high value assets (AWACS, JSTARS, TANKERS, NETWORK RELAY AIRCRAFT, CARRIERS, GARRISONS ETC.) it simply is not enough capability for first day of war scenarios.

 

2.) The Raptor can do things the F-35 cannot. The F-35 can only carry 4 AIM-120s with no close in heaters like the AIM-9X (Infra Red homing and highly maneuverable). That means the F-35 can only kill 2 targets at beyond visual range with high probability of kill. Further only the USAF version of the F-35 will carry and internal gun for self defense close in.

 

3.) The Raptor can supercruise (obtain sustained supersonic speed without gas guzzling afterburner) the F-35 cannot. The F-35 is a heavy single engine aircraft that is not even as maneuverable as an F-16 in certain areas of the flight envelope. It has no thrust vectoring for super maneuverability and is not as stealthy nor stealthy in all aspects like the F-22. Simply it is not even close to a replacement for air superiority. They are apples and oranges.

 

4.) The F-15 is old, if we retain 173 "GOLDEN EAGLES" with the new Electronically Scanned Array Radars (APG-63V3) along with other upgrades it will only be ON PAR with the Suckhoi Su-27 derivatives that are being exported by Russia RIGHT NOW. The upgraded F-15s will rely on the F-22 using its supercomputer listening and targeting technology to forward targets to it to shoot beyond visual range. If you don’t have enough F-22s to maintain battlefield persistence then these upgraded Eagles will have a greater possibility of be destroyed.

 

5.) THE BIG ONE: WHY DO WE NEED THE F-35 IF WE HAVE ENOUGH RAPTORS????????

WE DONT. It is a handout to industry. If we had enough F-22s we could kick down the door of the enemy in the first hours of war, destroying all their aircraft in the air and on the ground as well as the enemy's air defense networks (yes the F-22 is a FANTASTIC bomber too when paired against modern integrated air defense systems). Instead of buying the F-35 we could buy new block F-16s and F/A-18E/Fs at HALF the cost of an F-35. Once air superiority is obtained, you don’t need stealth, you need reliable proven platforms to SUPPORT THE WARFIGHTER ON THE GROUND.

 

6.) The F-22 is a "known" weapon system. In other words it is PROVEN to be highly effective, flying today, in production and beating all the goals set out in its genesis. The F-35 has only flown 200 hours in a pre-production prototype configuration, yet the DoD and Lockheed have ALREADY put it into full production!!!! Its insane and unprecedented. The F-22 took 8 years of FLIGHT testing in this stage to be validated and reach initial operational capability. DoD has bypassed TESTING because we need it now and partner export countries need it yesterday. In reality the aircraft will be YEARS over schedule and we are throwing HUGE money away building an invalidated aircraft yet alone a vetted integrated weapons system. Remember the grounding of the F-15s last year leaving the US with its pants down do to cracks in the forward "longeron" structural booms? Well these types of flaws can now be tested for over years of evaluation. This is especially scary for the F-35 because they literally lightened up its structure dramatically so it could meet the weight qualification needed for the vertical takeoff version intended for the marines. The F-15 was originally OVER built in true McDonald Douglas fashion and after 30 years it experienced airframe ending cracks. The F-35 is under built from the get-go and UNTESTED and will need to last 30 years!!!! Good luck.

 

7.) The F-35 is a one size fits all airframe. The F-22 is a thoroughbred built to KILL ANYTHING. The F-35 is a compromise in every since of the word. I mean do you really think the Marines are going to keep such a fragile aircraft flying in dusty desert environment while keeping up the radar absorbent materials? Have you ever seen a deployed USMC AV-8B harrier? They DO NOT win the housekeeping seal of approval! NO WAY. PIPEDREAM. Its an overcomplicated solution for marines especially that will result in low availability rates and high costs.

 

8.) The F-35 is made to be exported to tens of allied nations like the F-16 was. We will order over 2500, the partner nations another 1000 or more. We don’t need this weapon system, but our industry does. So DoD, instead of buying enough raptors to gain full air supremacy while SAVING money buy purchasing rugged and cost effective F-16s, AV-8Bs, F/A-18E/Fs decides to purchase a high risk, over complicated one size fits all airframe in order to make Lockheed a little bit more wealthy and ensuring our weapons exports for the next couple of decades. In effect saying, SCREW THE WAR FIGHTER WHILE SLEEPING WITH THE BIGGEST OF ALL DEFENSE CONTRACTORS. Its stupid, expensive and a bad choice for America.

 

9.) As far as costs go, you site a flyaway cost of over 150million, you are right. But what you don’t mention is that the first HUNDREDS of F-35s will cost the US almost as much money for much less capability! Yes that’s right the F-35 will cost well over 125million for first decade of lots! Only after hundreds and hundreds have been built will cost come down to almost twice that of a well equipped F-16!!!!! This is NOT a cost effective piece of machinery. No, very much the opposite! It is a poster child for the DoD’s “capability creep” that is PARALYZING good weapon systems by making them too expensive to field in appropriate numbers.

 

10.) Does it really make sense to have a stealth techno marvel giving air support to grunts months after the aerial opposition has been dismantled? NO! Why pay the huge premium of an all stealth force when the Raptor, B-2, UCAVs, and cruise missiles can do the job more cost effectively? We need to go back to the classic Hi-lo mix of airframes. The high end to kick down the door, the low end to make sure the forward air controllers always have something with weapons ready to deliver above troops in contact’s heads.

 

In essence this is not an argument about redistributing funds from the air to the ground but what to BUY for the air! The answer is F-22s AND reliable, tried and trusted platforms that are cheap to build and operate. Instead, we have a one size fits all force for very NOT ONE SIZE FITS ALL threat profiles which we face around the world. Its dangerous, near sighted, distracting, expensive, biased toward corporate America and not the war fighter and its just plane WRONG.

 

Remember you don’t need an F-22 until you really need an F-22!

 

My thoughts.

 

Ty

 

***NOTE: READ THROUH THIS BLOG, AN AMZING SERIES OF EVENTS THAT HAVE PRETTY MUCH COME TO PASS EXACTLY AS STATED.

Mercedes 500K Spezial Roadster Evocation (1979) Engine 5700cc (350 cu in) V8 Chevrolet

Chassis No: 1Q87G9N582287

Registration Number SIB 2960

 

Among the most stylish and technologically advanced cars of the 1930s, each Mercedes-Benz 500K Spezial Roadster took five months to build. An Art Deco masterpiece with Streamline Moderne overtones, the two-seater was penned by Hermann Ahrens, proof that Mercedes-Benz in-house coachbuilder, Karrosserie Sindelfingen, could hold its own against the likes of Italy’s Touring or France’s Figoni & Falaschi. With a supercharged 5-litre straight-eight engine under the bonnet and independent suspension at each corner, the Mercedes-Benz had the speed and poise to match its looks. Fearsomely expensive when new and rare as hen’s teeth, surviving 500K Spezial Roadsters can command upwards of $10 million today.

 

SIB 2960

The documentation lists this car as a Mercedes Sports, this Evocation of the Mercedes Benz Spezial Roadster sits on a box-section steel chassis featuring independent front suspension, rear axle, power brakes and power steering. A 350 cu in (5.7 litre) Chevy V8 engine with manual transmission. Declared manufactured in 1979 and UK road registered since 1992,

 

This impressive car was offered at the H+H Classic Car Auction, Duxford in May 2021 having covered a warranted 8,200 miles since completion and described as all good.

 

H+H page and more pictures

www.handh.co.uk/auction/lot/104-19791992-mercedes-500k-sp...

 

Diolch am 88,522,342 o olygfeydd anhygoel, mae pob un yn cael ei werthfawrogi'n fawr.

 

Thanks for 88,522,342 amazing views, every one is greatly appreciated.

 

Shot 10.10.2021 at Bicester Scramble, Bicester, Oxon. Ref. 122-254

Firearm was a notorious, technologically-advanced bounty hunter who continuously threatened the Hero Factory. Firearm is a mercenary more than capable of carrying out assignments but lacking in the ambition to mastermind his own agenda.

 

Shortly before the betrayal of Von Ness, Firearm came to operate exclusively out of the Delta Quadrant, gaining experience as a mercenary and branching out his services. For some time, Firearm established his headquarters along the edge of the Necron Expanse, a vast region of frontier space with no stars systems for 200 lightyears. Following the success of Hero Factory in the galactic neighborhood, Firearm was able to inflate his service charges exponentially, with bounty hunters coming in short supply.

 

Over the course of his career, Firearm has utilized a number of weapons and gadgets to carry out his assignments, initially starting with standard issue Meteor Blasters and later diversifying to carry heavily customized gear for each mission. Most prominently, he has been known to carry a modified Combat Rifle looted from a Makuhero Industries factory.

 

Unlike many of his contemporaries, Firearm has been known to keep several extensive weapons and ammunition caches on planets around the Delta Quadrant, often containing launchers looted from Heroes or other criminals.

Technological Coffin

 

Check my website: photography.marcinbaran.com

Straight out of the camera.

DDC-Technological Dog!

Poetography-Dog

 

I had to use this photo and quote because with Shizandra it isn't true! She is very aware of the camera. Whenever I set her up for a photo she goes into her "pose mode!" She is so aware of what's going on around her. So perhaps Border Collies are the exception to this rule? She posed for me with my Fuji X-30. She got a cookie too!

Contax T3 Kodak 400UC

 

sf/ca 2011

 

www.terrybarentsen.com

Maker: Jacques-Athanase-Joseph Clouzard (1820-1903) & Charles Soulier (1840-1876)

Born: France

Active: France

Medium: albumen on glass stereoview

Size: 6 3/4 in x 3 1/4 in

Location: France

 

Object No. 2023.007

Shelf: C-38

 

Publication: John B Cameron & Janice G. Schimmelman, The Glass Stereoviews of Ferrier & Soulier, 1852-1908, The Collodion Press, Rochester, MI, 2016, fig 120

 

Other Collections:

 

Provenance:

 

Notes: In 1854 Clouzard & Soulier obtained a patent for a transparent passe-partout glass stereoview, which eliminated the need for a third piece of glass, a milestone in the international production of glass stereoviews.

 

Ferrier was born in 1811 in Lyon, France. He began his career as an artist, studying at the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts de Lyon. He then became interested in photography and began to experiment with the new medium, initially becoming known for his portraits of notable French people. By 1851 he had settled in Paris and in that year he exhibited at the Great Exhibition in London. His work so impressed the organisers that, together with the English photographer, Hugh Owen, he was asked to make photographs of the exhibits. More than 140 bound sets of reports and accompanying photographs, known as the Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, 1851: Reports by the Juries on the Subjects in the Thirty Classes into which the Exhibition was Divided were presented to, among others, Queen Victoria, Heads of Foreign Governments, the Exhibition commissioners, and the British Museum. In 1855, Ferrier exhibited at the Exposition Universelle of Paris, where he was awarded a silver medal. He is credited with creating the first glass stereoviews for the Brewster stereoscope in 1852. These became very popular and in 1857 he produced several series of stereoviews of France, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, Greece and Turkey. Initially he collaborated with Jules Duboscq, with the two selling each other’s stereoviews. This arrangement came to an end when Duboscq experienced financial difficulties. In 1859 Ferrier went into partnership with his son and with another stereo photographer, Charles Soulier, with the business being sold in 1863 to Léon & Lévy, a company that specialized in stereoscopic views and picture postcards. However, Ferrier and Soulier continued to sell their photographs through the company. Ferrier continued to work as a photographer until his death on 13 July 1889.

 

The Exposition Universelle of 1855 was originally conceived as a French response to the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, held in 1851 at the Crystal Palace in London, and widely considered the first modern world’s fair. Comprised of four sections [Raw Material, Machinery, Manufacturers, and Fine Arts] and over 109,000 exhibits, the Paris Exhibition was a financial and critical success. Determined to outdo their English rivals, French organizers mounted an even greater exposition to showcase the technological prowess of their newly industrialized society. The 1855 Exposition Universelle drew more than five million visitors during its six-month stint on the Champs-Élysées. It featured luxury items, foreign goods, and inexpensive, mass-produced consumer items to appeal to the needs of middle and working class visitors. Although these products of “domestic economy” received little critical notice at the time, they were integral to the Exposition’s success as a celebration of commodity culture, in which “the display of goods was surpassed only by the display of people… who came to look at them”

 

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For information about reproducing this image, visit: THE HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY ARCHIVE