Monthly Archives: September 2016

Miscellaneous

Autumn Has Arrived

The Autumnal or September Equinox occurred yesterday. There are two equinoxes in the year: March and September.  When these equinoxes occur the sun is directly on the equator, and the length of day and night is almost equal. In the Northern hemisphere, the September Equinox heralds autumn while in the South it is the beginning of spring.

For those of us in the North, it means a transition from summer to winter during this period. Days start getting shorter and nights longer. Depending on where you live, you will likely have moderate warm days followed by long and cooler nights. Harvests of many crops often take place during the fall and in the old days you would make preparations to store food for the winter. Harvest festivals are very popular and in particular Halloween. Pumpkins begin appearing along with all kinds of Halloween decor culminating, of course, in All Hallows Eve (Halloween) on October 31.

English Autumn George Hodan (publicdomainpictures.net)
English Autumn
George Hodan (publicdomainpictures.net)
Brittanic, Titanic, Titanic Miscellaneous

Recent Titanic News

W.T.Stead 1881 Public Domain (Wikipedia)
W.T.Stead 1881
Public Domain (Wikipedia)

1.Memorial plaque to regional editor who died on Titanic vandalised(holdthefrontpage.co.uk,20 Sep 2016)
The plaque in memory of the Northern Echo editor WT Stead has been removed by Darlington Borough Council from outside the town’s library after it was daubed with felt-tip by vandals and is now being cleaned.

2.Just Cool Cars: This 1911 Benz has a Titanic link(USA Today, 17 Sep 2016)
Gerhard and Adrienne Schnuerer of Huntington Beach, Calif., are owners of this one-of-a-kind 1911 Benz, rare because of its German heritage and New York coachwork.The car was ordered by Charles Hayes, a railroad tycoon from Chicago who went down with the Titanic after she struck an iceberg. Part of his legacy becomes the car he left behind — although he never saw it. It was still being built when he died.

3.Keys From Titanic Among Items Auctioned By Jersey Collector(ITV,15 Sep 2016)
A set of keys from the Titanic, which were previously owned by a Jersey collector, has sold for twice the estimate at auction. David Gainsborough Roberts put the set of four up for auction at Christies in London. The keys, which are thought to have belonged to Samuel Ernest Hemming, the lamp trimmer on board the ship, sold for £20,000 yesterday evening.

HMHS Britannic seen during World War I. Image:public domain
HMHS Britannic seen during World War I.
Image:public domain

4. Exploring The Britannic Wreck, Titanic’s Sister Ship (Engineering and Technology, 12 Sep 2016)
To get around this huge wreck in the limited time – only 45 minutes – that the divers have at depth, they use underwater scooters. Even with rigorous safety measures in place, the sea is still unpredictable, especially at these depths. Britannic claimed the life of world-renowned technical diver Carl Spencer in 2013 and Kovacs says that it’s not uncommon to hear the explosions of illegal fishermen nearby.Kovacs’ holy grail for this wreck is a rivet-accurate blended acoustic and optical model of the entire exterior yielding a hugely accurate picture of the bulkheads. What this means in practice is a 3D volumetric model. The acoustic images have been taken with multibeam and side-scan sonar from the Perseo ROV and these will be overlaid with the optical results from the divers.

5.Titanic Floats While Some Sink At Annual United Way Cardboard Boat Race(Mlive.com,9 Sep 2016)
It was a replica of the most famous sinking ship in history. Made with cardboard and deliberately cracked at its center, the vessel defied its design and the notorious fate of its predecessor. It floated. “We can’t even sink the Titanic,” designer and builder Dave Turk said Friday as he loaded the too-successful boat into the back of a pickup truck at the close of the United Way’s cardboard boat race.

Titanic, Titanic Miscellaneous

Titanic Wreck Gone In 14 Years Experts Say

Titanic Wreck Bow Image: Public Domain (NOAA-http://www.gc.noaa.gov/images/gcil/ATT00561.jpg)
Titanic Wreck Bow
Image: Public Domain (NOAA-http://www.gc.noaa.gov/images/gcil/ATT00561.jpg)

Titanic not only sank but now the wreck itself will be mostly gone in 14 years according to a scientific study. The study done by experts from Institut Laue-Langevin, the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry and the Institut de Biologie Structurale has determined “extremophile bacteria” will eat away the ship by 2030.
Source:Titanic wreck ‘will dissolve in 14 years’(Belfast Telegraph,9 Sep 16)

Southampton has a very strong connection to Titanic. Yet as a writer for Daily Echo points out, the city elders did not capitalize their connection as strongly as Belfast did. Titanic Belfast is a major tourist attraction for Belfast yet Southampton’s Sea City Museum only draws modest numbers. Sea City overlooks the area where Titanic docked but since the area is still a major working port, expansion is not as easy as Belfast had. Others agree more should be done to promote Southampton.
Source:Has Southampton missed the boat with Titanic museum? (Daily Echo,11 Sept 2016)

History, Holidays

Labor Day (U.S.)

usa flagLabor Day is a U.S. federal holiday observed on the first Monday in September. It became a federal holiday in 1894 to celebrate workers and their achievements. It has also become the “unofficial”end of summer as by this time schools have reopened and most summer vacations have ended. Also by this time the days (in the northern hemisphere) are starting to get shorter as we get closer to the autumnal equinox. As all fifty states observe the holiday, state and local government offices are closed as well. Banks are closed as are the U.S. financial markets. Most people who work in office jobs get the day off but retail stores do not observe the holiday usually offering special “Labor Day Sales” to draw customers in.