We’ve Come a Long Way Since the Early Flights of Kitty Hawk

Snapshot of the complex components of a plane’s landing gear. It’s amazing that all of this technological achievements came from a simple flight at Kitty Hawk. Photo by ©Omar Upegui R.

Photo by ©Omar Upegui R.

Photo by ©Omar Upegui R.

Buoyant over the success of their 1902 glider, the Wright brothers were no longer content to merely add to the growing body of aeronautical knowledge; they were going to invent the airplane. Still, they recognized that much hard work lay ahead, especially the creation of a propulsion system. During the spring and summer of 1903, they were consumed with leaping that final hurdle into history.

On December 17, 1903, Wilbur and Orville Wright made four brief flights at Kitty Hawk with their first powered aircraft. The Wright brothers had invented the first successful airplane. We’ve come a long way since the first flight at Kitty Hawk.  Good Day.

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The Inventions of Leonardo Da Vinci

“A mind forever voyaging through strange seas of thought, alone.”—William Wordsworth, English poet (1770-1850)

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519) has often been described as the archetype of the Renaissance Man, a man of “unquenchable curiosity” and “feverishly inventive imagination.”

Leonardo Da Vinci applied his knowledge in a practical way to the creation of mechanical devices.  In this exhibition, I found many schematics and models for the kind of devices he designed.  They include ball bearings, gears, a wind meter, a spinner machine, a printing press, a block and tackle, clocks, a coin stamping machine, and other devices I couldn’t get the description of.

It is interesting to highlight that many of the inventions he created in the early sixteenth century only became practicable in the twentieth century.

While walking through the halls and aisles of the venue, and seeing all these ingenious inventions, the name of Steve Jobs revolved around my head.  He was also a visionary, and together with Leonardo Da Vinci, has made a dent in the world.

Below are some of the inventions of this prodigious man of the Italian Renaissance.  Here we go.

Snapshot of a man attached to a mechanical flying machine. Leonardo Da Vinci had a passion for mechanical airplanes and other similar devices. Photo by ©Omar Upegui R.

Snapshot of a man dropping from the sky in some kind of mechanical parachute. Photo by ©Omar Upegui R.

Snapshot of a strange-looking mechanical helicopter created by Da Vinci. Photo by ©Omar Upegui R.

Snapshot of a mechanical flying glider similar to the ones we use today for sports. Photo by ©Omar Upegui R.

Snapshot of a lifesaver of the XVI century. We still use those today. Photo by ©Omar Upegui R.

Snapshot of an ocean diver very similar to the ones of modern times. Photo by ©Omar Upegui R.

Snapshot of a large mechanical drilling screw. Photo by ©Omar Upegui R.

Snapshot of a mechanical hydraulic saw. Photo by ©Omar Upegui R.

Snapshot of a transparent device used to measure the inclination of a surface. Photo by ©Omar Upegui R.

We have reached the cul-de-sac of our exciting journey through the accomplishments of one of the most remarkable men of Western History.  A man with “a mind forever voyaging through strange seas of thought, alone.”  Thank you for sharing this most rewarding experience with me.  Good Day.

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Introducing Leonardo Da Vinci, The Genius, The Artist, The Inventor

As I said yesterday, I recently assisted to a wonderful exhibition of the accomplishments of Leonardo Da Vinci at the Museo Antropólógico Reina Torres de Araúz.  The display of paintings, TV programs, wall explanations, posters, spotlights, drawings, and other decorations aroused the interest of the visitors.  This exhibition was organized with great care and dedication by the National Institute of Culture (INAC).  Walking through the aisles of the venue, was like going to a college course.  Information was abundant and well displayed.

The work of Leonardo Da Vinci is remarkable.  He painted intensely naturalistic religious scenes and animated portraits.  Even though he lived in Italy in the XVIth century, he still has the rare power to please modern crowds. Many of his exhibitions are attended by thousands of people similar to an event of a modern rock star.

Even as we speak, lines are forming at dawn outside the National Gallery in London, with a tenacious public patiently hoping to get the only 500 tickets a day, not sold in advance, for its blockbuster exhibition “Leonardo da Vinci:  Painter at the Court of Milan,”  which opened last month and focuses on that artist’s years as court painter to Ludovico Maria Sforza, the duke of Milan, in the 1480s and 1490s.

Because the works are so fragile, the show cannot travel and is on view only through Feb. 5.  Museum officials say they do not have an estimate of how many people will have seen the show by the time it closes.

Realizing that Leonardo has recently been prized more as a scientist than as an artist, exhibition’s curators want the public to see how painting was actually central to the master’s way of thinking.  Judging by the show’s popularity, that point is getting across.

Leonardo was and is renowned primarily as a painter. Among his works, the Mona Lisa is the most famous and most parodied portrait and The Last Supper the most reproduced religious painting of all time, with their fame approached only by Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam.  Leonardo’s drawing of the Vitruvian Man is also regarded as a cultural icon, being reproduced on items as varied as the euro, textbooks, and T-shirts.

The interest in Leonardo’s genius has continued unabated; experts study and translate his writings, analyze his paintings using scientific techniques, argue over attributions and search for works which have been recorded but never found.

Liana Bortolon, writing in 1967, said: “Because of the multiplicity of interests that spurred him to pursue every field of knowledge … Leonardo can be considered, quite rightly, to have been the universal genius par excellence, and with all the disquieting overtones inherent in that term. Man is as uncomfortable today, faced with a genius, as he was in the 16th century. Five centuries have passed, yet we still view Leonardo with awe.”

Below are several pictures taken while attending the special exhibition of Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci a.k.a Leonardo Da Vinci.  Enjoy.

A large sign at the entrance of the exhibition. It reads, "Leonardo Da Vinci, The Exhibition. Genius, Artist, Inventor." Photo ©Omar Upegui R.

Snapshot of one of Da Vinci's famous quotes, "Wisdom is the daughter of experience." Photo by ©Omar Upegui R.

Snapshot of an unusual picture of a lady selling tickets for the exhibition with a large face of the famous Mona Lisa above her. Photo by ©Omar Upegui R.

Snapshot of a self-portrait of Leonardo Da Vinci in red chalk circa 1512 to 1515. Picture taken with my Canon PowerShot A720 IS. Flash was not used; only the light emitted by a strong spotlight behind me. Photo by ©Omar Upegui R.

Self-portrait in red chalk of Leonardo Da Vinci. The picture was illuminated by a bright spotlight behind me. Photo by ©Omar Upegui R.

Snapshot of the same self-portrait of Leonardo Da Vince with better lighting. Photo by ©Omar Upegui R.

This drawing in red chalk is widely (though not universally) accepted as an original self-portrait.  The main reason for hesitation in accepting it as a portrait of Leonardo is that, to modern eyes, the subject appears to be of a greater age than Leonardo ever achieved. It is possible that Leonardo drew this picture of himself deliberately aged, specifically for Raphael’s portrait of him in The School of Athens.

Snapshot of The Vitruvian Man (c. 1485). This image was sent to outer space to communicate to other inhabitants of the Universe and depict what man was like on Planet Earth. Photo by ©Omar Upegui R.

The series on Leonado Da Vinci continues tomorrow.  You are cordially invited to return.  Let me remind you, that by clicking the image, you will be able to view it in a larger dimension.  Good Day.

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A Mouse With an Appetite For White Cheese

The electronic device that we use to execute commands in our computers looks a lot like a mouse and that’s the name we call it.  If you look closely, its resemblance to a house mouse is remarkable.  It even has a tail, which is the cord that connects it to the CPU.  Technically, in computing, a mouse is a pointing device that functions by detecting two-dimensional motion relative to its supporting surface.  The first known publication of the term “mouse” as a pointing device is in Bill English’s 1965 publication “Computer-Aided Display Control”.

Douglas Engelbart at the Stanford Research Institute, invented the first mouse prototype in 1963, with the assistance of his colleague Bill English. They christened the device the mouse, as early models had a cord attached to the rear part of the device looking like a tail and generally resembling the common mouse.

While holding this so called mouse in my hands, yesterday afternoon, it came to my mind that I could play with this concept.  I went to the kitchen, grabbed a large portion of white cheese from the fridge, cut a small slice, and placed it in a yellowish plate.  Then I extracted a red sweater from our closet to use as a cushion for my humorous composition.

The idea was to take a picture of a mouse trying to eat a slice of white cheese.  Photography doesn’t have to be rigid, formal and full of unbreakable rules.  Photography can also be lots of fun.  This is what came out of my naughty behavior on a sullen and  rainy Sunday afternoon.

Snapshot of my HP mouse simulating to eat a slice of white cheese on an adjacent plate. I was in a playful mood yesterday afternoon. Photo by ©Omar Upegui R.

Snapshot of a composition of a computer mouse and a plate with white cheese. The red cloth is one of my sweaters. If you look closely, you will see on the background, one of the computer's speakers. Photo by ©Omar Upegui R.

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Apple’s Eminence Grise is Dead

Steven Paul "Steve" Jobs (1955-2011)

Yesterday evening about seven o’clock, while composing a message to a dear friend in the States, I bumped into Yahoo News.  There was only one headline in my Yahoo Mail page.  It read, “Steve Jobs is Dead.”  I couldn’t believe my eyes.  Tears came to my eyes and I felt a lump in my throat.  I was almost is a state of shock, like when you’re hit on the head with a baseball bat.  I never knew the man, but I certainly knew who he was and what he had done.

Today, as I surfed the Cloud, I saw that the whole world is mourning the death of this one-of-a-kind visionary.  That is who he was—a visionary.  Steve Jobs told us what we needed before we knew.  He saw the future and led the world to it.  I never thought he would die so young—56 years—he had so much ahead of him and we depended so much on him for our normal everyday life.  His extraordinary gadgets became part of the daily life of millions of mainstream citizens around the globe.

Steve Jobs will be remembered for many things, among them for his now famous words before a group of students in California.  In 2005, following his bout with pancreatic cancer, Jobs delivered Stanford University’s commencement speech.

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life,” he said.  “Because almost everything—all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure—these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.”

Steve Jobs is survived by his biological mother, his sister Mona Simpson; Lisa Brennan Jobs, his obscure daughter with Chris Ann Brennan, his wife Laurene, and their three children, Erin, Reed, and Eve.

Today is a sad day for the world.  A genius compared with Thomas Alva Edison has passed away.  May he rest in peace wherever he is.

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Under the Spotlight When it Rains

Harnessing rainpower to generate electricity under an umbrella.

Designer Sang-Kyun Park is a man who likes to be under the spotlight, specially when it rains.  The heavier the rainfall, the more attention he will attract.  How is this?  Let me explain.

San-Kyun Park invented a peculir umbrella that generates light from falling rain.  The heavier the amount of rain that fall into the umbrella, the brighter the umbrella will shine.  He named his invention Light Drops.

The LightDrops umbrella transforms the potential energy of falling water into electrical energy by using a PDVF conductive membrane. This electrical energy then powers an array of LEDs, making the umbrella glow bright in the dark.

The LightDrops umbrella is both stylish and energy conscious, a symbol of all the power in the world that we can harness if we put our minds to it. Beyond the symbolic, we have to admit—this is a bright idea.  :-)  Good Day.

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