Technology

I'm fascinated by Elon Musk's exploits at the moment - originally this was fuelled by his Tesla adventure but more recently by what is happening with SpaceX and also his Starlink venture. All three of these are big and bold but the recent Dragon launch and the hook up with the International Space Station (ISS) was absolutely incredible - not least the controlled landing of the used rockets on the floating platforms at sea!

Starlink is a project close to my heart as the objective is Internet access for all with a projected number of satellites reaching into the tens of thousands to provide access from wherever you are around the globe at a competitive price. I can't imagine what he has up his sleeve for the next venture - reminds me of Steve Jobs and Apple.  

I saw this on a walk today - it's called a Smartflower POP. It's a solar power array which tracks the sun so is very efficient in capture and conversion into usable energy. Much better than the flat panels you see stuck on most peoples roofs. It looks very funky and the base platform is available in various colours - this one was purple. According to the web site they cost around £15K (excluding delivery, installation and concrete base). I estimate that this one was about 4 metres in diameter so not for your very small back yard. I like the idea and the concept though! Check out www.smartflower.com

Back in the late seventies and early eighties BT's telephony technologies were based on analogue services and included electro-mechanical, electronic and crossbar systems.To move to a new digital platform to cope with the explosion in demand then BT needed to train up an elite work force who could cope with the requirements of a micro-processor delivered platform. BT entered into a selection process and took their most capable engineers to embark on an intensive training programme including over six months at their Stone in Staffordshire facility at Yarnfield. Having already up-skilled by gaining additional qualifications in Microprocessors and Microelectronic Systems at College I became a candidate for this programme.The new platform was known as System X. This was developed and manufactured by GEC and Plessey directed by BT's R&D facilities at Martlesham. All those who passed the programme were to become X-MEN !

Time was when I can remember standing outside a phone box in the rain banging on the glass to get the guy, who had been on ages, off the phone so I could make a call.Coins in hand,dialling with a rotary dial, pressing buttons A and B was the norm whilst trying to get through to my girlfriend.With that great invention of the mobile phone arriving in the mid 80s, and all the applications it now brings, the classic K Series phone box, originally designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, now looks doomed to fade into the past. Here is one example that doesn't seem to have had much use or tlc recently. The picture was taken in 2015, in the hamlet of Nesfield, quite near to where I live.Fortunately, the birds stayed outside!

Some of my friends in the Keighley Star Centre introduced me to Astronomy a few years ago and since that time I've been an avid stargazer. Early revelations about the "Dark Side of the Moon" like - there is one all the time - really got me thinking about what we know and don't know. My most amazing moment was when I realised that you could see Jupiter and it's four biggest moons Io, Gannymede, Europa and Callisto with binoculars. It was revelation in that previously I'd just thought of it as yet another star but turns out to be a planet that actually has sixty-nine moons with four that are big enough to be easily seen from Earth. Similarly, it was like when I found out that you could see the International Space Station (all be it just a light traversing the night sky). You can find out exactly to the minute when it's coming overhead with websites such as www.heavens-above.com 

You've probably guessed by now that I do like Photoshop! This is an image that I shot in May 2016 at the Falkirk Wheel. It's an elevated interchange between two levels of canal. Previously this job may have been done by thirty locks but this machine lifts canal barges counter-balanced across a central spindle from the water below in the foreground to the canal in the top right. It uses Archimedes principles to get the huge machine to move. When I took the shots I found this one looked very "Alien" like and enhanced by using a gradient map in Photoshop looks very sinister and futuristic.

Check out https://www.scottishcanals.co.uk/falkirk-wheel/ for further information