Head’s Neighborhood

What's the closest thing you have to a time machine?
Submitted by Verisimilitude.

     Memories from my past and the library to research life before I was born. I find the music and spoken word media I have in Cd format, cassette tape and vinyl to be an invaluable source of information for me or anyone interested in learning about the past.

     Visiting a museum to learn about the past world too is one of the time machine's that I use to know what was life like before my existence.

    The best time machine is listening to a senior citizen share their personal stories of what life was like in the past. I am always enlightened!

Show us an antique.
Submitted by jacolily.

Plugged in and working as of July 17: the UK boasts the world’s first tidal turbine.

I first learned about tidal power in grad school (my first stint, 97-99). Then it was something brand new and not even working anywhere. It was more of a theory with a test gadget here and there. The one we looked at was this big arse thingamabob that floated offshore and looked dangerous and weird. It looked like a UFO that had crash landed in the ocean. Water moved through a big intake and this worried me. The only thing I could think about was what would happen to any life forms from the ocean that got stuck in it. Phytoplankton and zooplankton included. That would not be good if it was a killer. Dams cause enough problems for riverine fish without the ocean critters being added to the oops patrol.

But this thing is cool. It is like a big wind turbine that instead uses wave and tide motion to turn it. (Who thought of that? Why didn’t I? Dammit! I thought of bras with see through straps years ago and was dumb enough to run my mouth about it but not do anything, then someone invented them.)

This turbine generates enough juice to power 1,000 homes. It is located off the coast of Northern Ireland, in Strangford Lough. A test model was run beforehand. It is made by Marine Current Turbines. A grant by the UK government backed the creation and implementation of the turbine. (Kudos to the UK government for being smart and having vision.)

The issue I have with the turbine, is I would think it would be bad to put any where large mammals swim. In Strangford Lough, there are grey seals who use the lough as their main pupping site, and porpoises come to feed. Apparently, there used to be Pilot Whales, but sadly, as of the early 1980s none were sighted in that area again. I hope when they implemented the test model they figured this bit out.

Greenpeace has given the SeaGen turbine a thumbs-up.

clipped from ziza.es

今日响時代廣場地下, 好多人等人既地方
It said "還富於民" next to the $ sign...  
I guess it's to do with this 公眾体息地 outside Times Square

Hi there folks - Efx is up and running thanks to Chica sorting out some banned IP addresses. Personally I've been double posting here for months but at least it's working again.

Thanks Chica xxx

I'd suggest everyone one does a back up here. If anyone doesn't know how it's simple.

After you've posted your Efx entry (not in the edit/entry control panel box) highlight and "copy" the whole entry, come to your Vox and press CREATE. "Paste" the whole entry in and give it a title. Even photos and links will copy over - so you don't have to upload everything again! It really is easy and means you have a back up - or vice versa to Efx might work too but I usually post first at Efx and copy to here.

I was born at the beginning of World War II in 1939, and was 5 or 6 years old when it finished. I can remember bits of it as experienced in my little bush town in Australia. I can remember my father listening intently on our valve radio to the war news that used to come on after the regular news. As he was a rural worker he was unable to enlist in the war. He instead belonged to the Voluntary Defence Corp, a sort of Aussie Dad's Army. I can remember him keeping his .303 rifle in the wardrobe. My elder sister tells me that my mother also had poison doses for us all if we were invaded.

 I also remember my mother taking me "down town" to see the American convoys going through town. For the first time I became aware of black Americans, and can still see their broad smiles as they drove through town. The only other thing I can remember is my mother telling me she thought the war may be over because of the cheering that came from a house we passed as we walked down town.

So, I am always conscious in Europe and the U.K. of how much more those people suffered who were at the front lines of those terrible wars. I remembered driving over the Somme in France; imagining the Nazi flag flying from the Eiffel tower; and seeing the balcony of the Summer Palace in Vienna where Hitler announced to the Austrian people that they were now part of Germany.

So, a visit to the Imperial War Museum in London was a must. It is in Lambeth Road, Southwark. That building had originally been a psychiatric hospital, Bethlem Royal Hospital (otherwise known as "Bedlam"), located in St. George's Fields. And that is where the word "bedlam" originated. You just can't escape history anywhere in London. On the way to the Imperial War Museum we passed by a building that had been the home of Bligh of the Bounty, who was also one of the early Governors of the colony of New South Wales.

This is the entrance to the Imperial War Museum:

And these are some of the planes on display including the famous Spitfire which featured in so many of my boyhood stories.

 
 
And this is a rather sad exhibit among so many sad exhibits. It is the motor cycle that Lawrence of Arabia was riding when he was killed.

There are many displays of various battles and wars, but the two displays that stick in my mind are of the Holocaust and the D day landing. The horrors of the Holocaust are sickening to see, and one wonders how otherwise civilised people could have descended to such depths. The observation that civilisation is but a thin veneer is illustrated there for all to see.

Probably the most poignant exhibit for me was the letter written on the morning of the D day landings by a young 20 year old soldier to his sister assuring her that he would be alright. He was killed that very day.