Archive for the tag 'Navigation'

Apr 14 2010

The Coolest Little Abandoned Barometer

Published by Laureen under Uncategorized

I am talking about the Weems & Plath 4002 Electronic Barometer. I bought this thing based on a recommendation from Shirley Doell at Waypoints. And it has turned out to be an awesome little piece. Unlike a traditional barometer, because of the graphing function, you can see the change in the pressure clearly. It’s got [...]

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Feb 28 2010

Active Captain X

Published by Laureen under Uncategorized

We here at the Excellent Adventure are huge fans of ActiveCaptain. Jeffrey and his team have done amazing things, and we really feel that this kind of guide is the way of the future. So it’s with no small amount of congrats that we forward along his recent announcement: ActiveCaptain “X” is now live… ========================================== [...]

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Jan 29 2010

Wolf Moon and War Planet

Published by Laureen under Uncategorized

This, from Spaceweather.com: FULL MOON AND MARS:  Friday night’s full Moon is the biggest and brightest full Moon of the year.  It’s a “perigee Moon,” as much as 14% wider and 30% brighter than other full Moons you’ll see later in 2010.  But that’s not all.  Mars is having a close encounter with Earth, and [...]

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Jun 15 2009

More cool stuff about magnetism

Published by Laureen under Uncategorized

HT to Jonathan, more awesome physics-geek stuff about the magnetosphere: The Earth’s magnetic field remains a charged mystery Professor Gregory Ryskin from the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science at Northwestern University in Illinois, US, has defied the long-standing convention by applying equations from magnetohydrodynamics to our oceans’ salt water (which conducts electricity) and found [...]

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May 05 2009

Multipolar Dance

Published by Laureen under Uncategorized

No, I don’t mean psychology. Researchers in France have developed a new model of Earth’s magnetic field that includes a simple explanation for why it has flipped direction many times throughout Earth history. Most geophysicists agree that the main component of Earth’s magnetic field is generated by convection currents in the molten iron of the [...]

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Jan 12 2009

Spare a Sextant 2 — NOVA

Published by Laureen under Uncategorized

Thanks to the Mighty Toast, I find that NOVA was doing a show about this phenomenon back in 2003. And as one of my marina compatriots asked me, as I was telling him about what I’d found out, “Why the heck aren’t people talking about this?” I have no answer there. Although I have some [...]

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Jan 06 2009

Spare a Sextant?

Published by Laureen under Uncategorized

From National Geographic News You find the most important news in the most unexpected places, sometimes. Totally without the fanfare that such an announcement should be getting, I found this buried in my feeds from National Geographic: An unexpected, thick layer of solar particles inside Earth’s magnetic field suggests there are huge breaches in our [...]

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Sep 19 2008

Aquaculture and Big Oil

Published by Laureen under Uncategorized

This gem, just in from the Ethicurean: Rigging the aquaculture game Federal regulations mandate that when an oil company decides to stop using an offshore rig, it must remove the platform and associated equipment within a year. Doing so, according to some sources, can cost up to $5 million. Under the MMS’ proposed “rigs-to-reef” program, [...]

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Dec 20 2007

Best Application of Google Earth Ever

Published by Laureen under Uncategorized

Caught this on the Google Earth blog: The second presentation I wanted to mention was by the Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping, Univ. of New Hampshire (summary here). Working in conjunction with NOAA, they have developed an excellent visualization in Google Earth to illustrate where shipping traffic has been accidentally killing right whales (these [...]

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Feb 26 2007

The Navigator

Published by Laureen under Uncategorized

Last Oct/Nov/Dec, I took the U.S. Sailing Coastal Navigation course. Eight weeks of class, each one on some new impenetrable mystery related to answering the questions “where are we going” and “how can we get there?” Who knew that Navigation was such a rich, textured, ancient art? So much passion, so much money, so much [...]

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