New Florence. New Renaissance.

The history of ice cream

Thanks to Frank Scavo saw this

“Just 350 years ago, ice cream was a rare delicacy, reserved for kings and the richest of aristocrats. To enjoy it a person had to be able to afford refrigeration, which in the pre-industrial world was arduous and expensive.

Back then, to refrigerate foodstuffs, people needed the land to build an ice house (to store the ice), fresh water access, and servants to cut and hull the ice. The ice would have to be regularly restocked and was available only in some climates at some times. But thanks to technological and scientific progress, ice cream has become available to pretty much everyone.

The first recorded mention of ice cream was on the menu of a feast given in 1671 by King Charles II. The banquet was held to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Charles’ ascendency to the British throne. The flavour remains unknown, but the dessert was exclusive to the King’s table and served with “one plate of white strawberries”.

The new treat quickly took off. Eating ice cream not only demonstrated very high social status, but flavours themselves were a means to show off. From cucumber to carnation, sherry to daffodil (even though daffodil is poisonous), the more outlandish the flavour, the more it was valued by aristocrats.”

Human Progress

And if that whets your appetite you may also enjoy this video

 

America’s Best Idea

National Parks have been called America’s Best Idea and I have to agree.  I certainly did when I was younger. I swore I would collect the iconic “Unigrid” design brochures for every park and get stamps on my park Passport. Then I gradually realized the National Park Service and the Department of the Interior did not just manage the 60 major parks like Yosemite and Yellowstone, but another 354 National Monuments, Battlefields, Seashores and other designations.

Then came family and the definition of parks changed. Disney, Anheuser-Busch and other corporations provided park destinations for a couple of decades.

Now that the kids have moved out, Margaret and I are back to visiting National Parks again.   I am not sure we will get to 414 brochures and stamps but it is good to see a growing number of digital resources on each park.

Matt Holly works as a Park ranger but on his own time he’s created a massive site with over 1,700 free high-res maps on the parks. National Geographic has a series of episodes on parks.  One way to appreciate many parks even if you cannot physically make it there. And when you get to one, there are plenty of digital resources to mine on your phone.

As for us, we enjoy a few minutes with rangers like Matt when we visit these parks. Some memorable conversations have been at bottom of a cave at Carlsbad, on a cruise boat on Glacier Bay in Alaska (only two cruise boats are allowed a day and rangers come aboard and provide commentary for several hours), with a Park Policeman at the foot of the Statue of Liberty.

Teddy Roosevelt has moved up in my list of favorite US Presidents for his pioneering support of Parks. And I am very grateful to visionaries like John Muir and Henry David Thoreau for inspiring the country to preserve millions of wild acres for generations to come.

Poignant moments at Inforum in Washington, DC

Infor has over the last few years introduced us to many iconic neighborhoods in New York City – the location of its headquarters and the site of its user event, Inforum. This year Inforum moved to Washington, DC and I asked my wife to join me in the city for the weekend. Our Congresswoman requested tickets for us for a tour of the US Capitol and the White House. Our daughter had a car accident (she’s fine) so we ended up cancelling the weekend, but there was still plenty of Washington pomp and history to enjoy during Inforum.

The event was held at the Walter E. Washington Center, which traces history back to 1874. Over the decades it has seen many Presidential Balls and events.

Inforum kicked off with the famous Howard University marching band – “Showtime”. Infor CEO Charles Phillips told the audience people line up to witness the band play in what he called the “fifth quarter”.

Infor organized for analysts a tour of Washington monuments. Dion, our tour guide and ex-Marine brought Washington to life with lots of tidbits of US history including that of Marian Anderson's historic performance at the Lincoln Memorial in 1939. She inspired a young MLK to make his even more impactful speech there in 1963. Eleanor Roosevelt, the First Lady, broke through race barriers and helped Marian get that platform. As we walked by Blair House Dion told of the time foreign leaders would stay at the White House. Nocturnal Churchill liked to wake up FDR at awkward hours. Eleanor made sure on future trips such visiting dignitaries had a 'hotel' of their own:)

I spent a couple of hours at the Smithsonian Museum of American History. I am a big fan of American history, especially in the 1800s, and I was thrilled to see a replica of the compass Lewis and Clark used on their epic frontier trek; an ingot from the 1849 Gold Rush; Winchester, the majestic horse that Union General Phil Sheridan rode in many a Civil War battle, the replica of the golden spike used to finish the transcontinental railroad in 1869 and many other artifacts. 

The final poignant moment for me came during the opening keynote. In these days where it seems like Washington politicians cannot agree on anything, Inforum managed to get two extreme ends of the political spectrum – executives from Koch Brothers (an investor in Infor, and a customer of its products) and Van Jones, the TV commentator - back to back on the same stage

Photo Credit Winchester

Reference Elevation Model of Antarctica

The new map, named the Reference Elevation Model of Antarctica (or REMA for short), was created by researchers at Ohio State University led by professor Ian Howat. His desire to create the incredibly detailed map was the simple fact that, up until now, maps of Antarctica were just plain bad.

To construct the map, Howat and his team had to sift through an immense amount of data that was constantly being gathered by satellites cruising over the continent. To aid in piecing together the various high-resolution images, the researchers built a tool that matched the images up, overlapping edges and aligning it to be as accurate as possible.

The end result is a map that is not only incredibly sharp, but also extremely large in terms of file size. The full map’s size actually tops 150 terabytes. Yes, you read that correctly. Assuming the smartphone in your pocket holds around 64 GB of data, you’d need over 2,300 of them to hold the amount of data in this one map image.

BGR

Image

Floating Nuclear Plant

A massive floating nuclear power plant is now making its way toward its final destination at an Arctic port, after Russia's state nuclear corporation Rosatom launched the controversial craft over the weekend. It's the first nuclear power plant of its kind, Russian officials say.

Called the Akademik Lomonosov, the floating power plant is being towed at a creeping pace out of St. Petersburg, where it was built over the last nine years. It will eventually be brought northward, to Murmansk – where its two nuclear reactors will be loaded with nuclear fuel and started up this fall.

From there, the power plant will be pulled to a mooring berth in the Arctic port of Pevek, in far northeast Russia. There, it will be wired into the infrastructure so it can replace an existing nuclear power installment on land.

NPR

Calling for Time

We ask Alexa or Siri what time it is. Our cars use satellites to keep up with Daylight Saving Time changes. We use our phones as alarm clocks.

So how many of us even remember that we used to call our telcos for a time check?

From The Atlantic

“In the 19th century, big railroad companies had used the telegraph to transmit the time to major railway stations. By the early 20th century, people could simply pick up the telephone and ask a human operator for the time.”

Amazingly people still use a U.S. Naval Observatory time-by-phone line 202-762-1401

“We get 3 million calls per year!” said Demetrios Matsakis, the chief scientist for time services at the Naval Observatory. “And there’s an interesting sociology to it. They don’t call as much on the weekend, and the absolute minimum time they call is Christmas. On big holidays, people don’t care about the time. But we get a big flood of calls when we switch to Daylight [saving] time and back.”

 

Our cable cutting experience

They say let sleeping dogs lie. We have been customers of our cable company for over two decades – Paragon, then part of Bright House, now part of Spectrum.  We have a couple of old Vizio TVs and a more recent Roku smart TV. We share a Netflix subscription with the kids. Some Amazon Prime shows on a FireStick. We have deliberately not bundled – our internet used to be streamed by Verizon DSL, then its FiOS, now it is by Frontier.

I watch baseball while working when I am not traveling. Some Sunday football. Some historical documentaries. Very little political TV or sitcoms. Margaret watches even less TV. We are not big TV content consumers.

Then our cable company decided to wake us up. They are going all digital and wanted us to get new receivers. So I made a trek to their store. Activate the receiver and many previous channels were no longer available. Called them and they offered a plan for another $ 70 a month. I escalated – the exec could only offer a plan for another $ 50. I told him after two decades they were going to lose us. And by the way I told him it was an awfully sneaky way to try and squeeze more revenues from us.

That started my cord cutting exercise. I bought a Terk digital antenna. Neat design – paper thin to position on a window with a detachable digital signal amplifier.  May sound retro but Consumer Reports says one-fifth of U.S. homes with broadband access now use an antenna to get live TV. They recommend you move it around a bit and rescan to get even more channels. If I were a telco executive, I would be embarrassed to see so many consumers regress to rabbit ears.

This antenna recognized 50 channels in our area. Not bad for a one-time $ 50 investment with no monthly fees, but I would like to watch some shows on my electronic devices and on the road. That led to exploring Hulu, Sling and YouTube TV.

Am trying out YouTube. One touch on the smart TV remote allows us to easily compare the YouTube stream for a network compared to that from the Spectrum digital receiver. My daughter says YouTube is far better. I can watch it on several mobile devices. Here is what it looks like on my laptop.

Even better, I can have a game on in background while I am researching and writing on the device. The Spectrum app only streams if you use their hotspots. No thanks. The real game changer - YouTube has a family sharing plan. I have invited my kids to check it  out in their cities. Only 3 devices can simultaneously use the service so we will have to occasionally coordinate.

So, I call Spectrum to cancel and they try to upsell, cross-sell and I go “I gave you a shot earlier in the week – should be notated on the account” The rep goes “Yes I see it but don’t you want to hear the specials we just announced today?” Announced today, yeah sure Anyways, she offers me more channels than what we had for $ 10 a month more.

For now, we have both Spectrum and YouTube. I want to check out how YouTube works on the road. As they say “You can enjoy YouTube TV while traveling in the United States, but what you can see or do in the app may vary based on your location. If you visit an area where YouTube TV hasn't launched, you'll get a notification explaining what you can watch in that specific area. “

I have a feeling Spectrum should have let this sleeping dog lie.

My blood runs cold. My memory has just been sold.

Apologies to J. Geils Band but this is not about humans being digitized into centerfolds. This is about digital screen savers and wallpapers being turned into human touch and feel experiences.

My wife and I spent a weekend recently in and around Page, AZ on the Utah border in the Glen Canyon National Recreation Center. One of the highlights was a visit to Upper Antelope Canyon and a boat ride on Lake Powell, a man made reservoir on the Colorado river, through the canyon walls.

You have probably seen digital images of Antelope Canyon on your PC or TV. Going to this slot canyon in person is a spiritual experience. We both left our tour group and explored the “cathedral” and the “heart” of the canyon on our own. Indeed, it is a sacred Navajo site, like nearby Horseshoe Bend where the Colorado river makes a spectacular U-turn, the Rainbow Bridge Monument, the Grand Staircase all of which adorn many digital pages on the web.

It’s a bit of a trek to get there – we drove from Las Vegas and wove in and out of Nevada, Utah and Arizona through time zones and speed limits to get there. The journey has several rewards – within a couple of hours are 3 national parks – Grand Canyon (the less visited North Rim is accessible from this side), Zion and Bryce Canyon.  Lake Powell must be the house boat capital of the world. The view of the shooting stars at night is spectacular.

Lots of technology angles I noticed on our trip – the NOAA Weather Radio and alarm horn to warn of flash floods that are common to Antelope Canyon, the 8 generator, 1320 MW Glen Canyon dam, the 2250 MW coal -fired Navajo generating station, the technology on the luxurious house boats and RVs that visit the area.

Beyond the rugged beauty of the area, I was fascinated by the local history – that of the Navajo, Hopi and other tribes, the history of the 3 states under the Spanish and since, the silver rush to many places in the area, the history of how Lake Powell came to be and more.

Much of that history is controversial – environmentalists hated the damming of the Colorado river, others cannot wait for the coal-fired plant to be shut down. The Mormon migration to these parts and the treatment of the Native Americans invariably raises emotions.

Go with an open mind and enjoy the breathtaking vistas. Go touch and feel the eye candy which adorns your PC screen. 

Ocean Farm 1

Oxygen sensors and high-definition cameras monitor the salmon for, among other things, growth and signs of illness. Midway through Ocean Farm 1’s yearlong trial run, SalMar says it’s seen strong growth and low mortality rates.

Sixteen movable, submerged valves disperse food at set times and allow fish to live at depths of up to 180 feet, rather than clustering them near the surface, as in other farms.

Bloomberg

It is similar to this farm in China

The discount Euro-rail model

Soon, rail operators such as France’s SNCF and Germany’s Deutsche Bahn AG could face a similar shake-up as Europe pushes for competition in passenger train service. Lower fares could attract “millions of new passengers,” says Jacques Gounon, chief executive officer of Getlink SE, the company formerly known as Eurotunnel that manages the English Channel Tunnel. Getlink already runs a car-and-truck shuttle through the tunnel and is considering a discount high-speed service that would challenge Eurostar International Ltd., which now offers the only high-speed passenger service through the tunnel, with fares often topping £400 ($510) for a London-Paris round trip. “We’re convinced the demand is there” for a lower-priced alternative, Gounon says.

Businessweek