Touch of Magic » History

Guns, Germs, and Steel

Jeff Bucchino — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 15:00:41 +0000

Taking part in Reddit.com’s attempt to break the world record for the largest Secret Santa gift exchange, I received this cool tome last night as my gift. My gift went out last week and as I haven’t seen confirmation of it’s receipt, I’ll keep that a secret, just in case.

Treasure

Jeff Bucchino — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 14:00:55 +0000

This past weekend, the wife and I found ourselves in Ellijay for the weekend. As we wandered around, we stopped in an antique shop, figuring to find something that might go in a room we plan to spruce up after the kids and grandkids get moved out in a couple of months. We didn’t find anything for the room, but I ran across this, buried in a corner:

…an intact 28 volume set of Time Life books on the Civil War in excellent condition. Originally sold back in the 80′s for a pretty penny, I was able to snag them for $100. I’ve been on a Civil War reading binge for a while now, and there are a number of illustrations and pictures contained in these volumes I haven’t seen. Youtube even has a commercial about the set from 1991.

Walking in the Shadow of Ghosts

Jeff Bucchino — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 14:00:16 +0000

Boing Boing linked to this site recently and I was intrigued because long ago, in another lifetime, I spent a few years in Berlin. Some of the pictures presented on the website are haunting, literally, from the juxtaposition of today and yesterday.

Sergey Larenkov has artfully fused the past and present to give history a new perspective. Contemporary pedestrians walk through the venerable spaces where fallen combatants from history lay, with little idea of the ghosts that inhabit that dimension.

Happy Birthday Dr Seuss

Jeff Bucchino — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 17:00:36 +0000

The Cat In The Hat and I are the same age. And today is the birthday of the author, Dr. Seuss.

I have more than a few people to thank for giving me the gift of reading and Dr. Seuss is one of them. But words aren’t the only joy a young reader takes from reading his books; his wonderful illustrations and fantastic characters bring you back again and again.

This Day in Flight

Jeff Bucchino — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 17:08:54 +0000

The ESSA-1 satellite provided cloud-cover photography to the US’s National Meteorological Center for the purpose of preparing operational weather analysis and forecasts. The spacecraft was designed and configured exactly the same as NIMBUS-1. The total weight of the spacecraft was 912 pounds. The spacecraft was an 18-sided polygon, 42 inches in diameter, 22 inches high and weighed 305 pounds. The craft was made of aluminum alloy and stainless steel then covered with 9100 solar cells. The solar cells served to charge the 63 nickel-cadmium batteries.
The two cameras were mounted 180-degrees opposite each other along the side of the cylindrical craft. The “cartwheel” configuration of the TIROS 9 was selected as the orbital configuration of the operational series of ESSA satellites. Therefore, a camera could be pointed at some point on Earth every time the satellite rotated along its axis. The spacecraft operating system was the same as on the TIROS 9. The craft was placed in its planned Sun-synchronous 98-degree inclination retrograde orbit. The satellite spin axis was rotated using the magnetic attitude control system into an alignment perpendicular to the orbital plane and tangent to the Earth’s surface. ESSA-1 was able to view the weather of each area of the globe, photographing a given area at the exact same local time each day.

ESSA — NASA Science