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There’s a series showing in the US at the moment called When we left Earth. It’s all about the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions. Great stuff, made even greater because lots of the original crew and mission controllers (Gene Kranz, Gene Cernan, Chris Kraft, etc) are interviewed and discuss the details of what went on. Fantastic stuff. I can’t get enough of Apollo documentaries. Mankind’s greatest achievement, without any doubt whatsoever. The Saturn V rockets used in the Apollo programme are still the most powerful machine anyone has ever constructed.

If you share my love of this stuff, you have to check out the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal. It’s an incredibly detailed resource providing transcripts of all communications between the spacecraft and mission control, many of the transcripts with annotations by astronauts and mission control staff. Here’s an example.

I still get a lump in my throat when I read the CDR (commander) notes at 112:45 on this page.

Oh, and I still laugh my ass off at The Onion’s take on it. Lots of NSFW language, but really funny.

One of the hidden secrets of flickr is The Commons. It’s an area of the site where various institutions contribute items from their photographic archives.

Lots of institutions are represented: The Smithsonian, National Galleries of Scotland, George Eastman House (founder of Kodak and inventor of roll film), US Library of Congress, and others.

My personal favourite is the collection that the NSW state library are publishing. I like that it’s relatively close to home (give or take ~900km) and I can relate to lots of the images they’re showing. The shot to the left, for example, is rush hour at Kings Cross in 1938. I’ve driven through that area a few times.

The staff are very accessible, too: any comments left against photos where they can add further information are usually responded to pretty quickly.

Some images are foreign to me because I don’t know Sydney super well, but some are very familiar. The shot to the right, for example, is absolutely unmistakable. Any boy growing up in Australia could pick this bloke.

Click through to see the State Library of New South Wales collection. There’s some great photos there, and it’s well worth exploring.

In case you didn’t already know, I’m in California at the moment. I’m here for two training courses; this means I’m fortunate enough to have a free weekend here.

Yesterday I drove 140 miles to visit Mission San Antonio de Padua. It’s one of the original missions that the Spanish Catholics built when they were trying to bring civilisation to Native Americans. It was the third such mission built, and was founded on 14th July 1771. Since then it’s moved from its original location, grown and shrunk, fallen into disrepair and been restored, but all the while it’s remained an active mission community.

There are some missions that are closer than this, but I chose to visit this site in particular because it’s the most authentic of those that are still standing. Many of the remaining missions have had towns grow around them, but Mission San Antonio de Padua is unique because it’s a little isolated and unlikely to have anything built around it. It helps that it’s situated in the middle of an active US Army base.

To visit the mission you have to leave highway 101, take 15 miles of country backroads, then present yourself at the gatehouse of Fort Hunter Liggett. The guard will ask for drivers licence and car registration/insurance details (or hire car agreement), look over you and the car, then let you through. A further 6 miles into the base and you arrive at the mission. It’s just near the main buildings of the Army base, as can be seen from above.

The buildings are traditional Native American adobe buildings (mud and straw). It was the first building in California to be covered with fired clay roof tiles.

It was also the site of the first Catholic marriage in California.

The church at the centre of the missions is fairly large with a raised bell at the front (at the right in the top picture of this post).

Next to the church is a large quadrangle that’s referred to as the Padre’s Garden (second photo in this post). That’s surrounded by the main missions buildings. Many of the walls and doors facing into the garden are painted with themes relating to mission life and the local wildlife (some of which were circling overhead while I was there).

There’s a public gallery of mission photos on SmugMug. No photos of the army base.

Link cloud shamelessly stolen from Thomas Hawk.

Interesting times.

The political philosopher John Gray, who recently retired as a professor at the London School of Economics, wrote in the London paper The Observer: “Here is a historic geopolitical shift, in which the balance of power in the world is being altered irrevocably.

“The era of American global leadership, reaching back to the Second World War, is over… The American free-market creed has self-destructed while countries that retained overall control of markets have been vindicated.”

“In a change as far-reaching in its implications as the fall of the Soviet Union, an entire model of government and the economy has collapsed.

“How symbolic that Chinese astronauts take a spacewalk while the US Treasury Secretary is on his knees.”

More here.

I just finished watching Deep Water, a film about Donald Crowhurst. He was a competitor in the 1968 Sunday Times Golden Globe Race, a single handed, round the world yacht race. There’s a trailer for the film on the the official film website.

Warning – spoiler follows.

In order to compete he had entered into a financial arrangement with a local businessman, as this was the only way he could fund the boat he needed. The contractual arrangement was such that if he didn’t finish the race he would need to repurchase the boat from his financier.

He was extremely under-prepared. His sailing skills probably weren’t up to the job, he didn’t have any real experience in the open water, and his boat was only just constructed in time. His overall lack of preparation caught up with him during the race, and he ended up falling far behind the rest of the field. He then started misreporting his position and taking a shortcut back to the start line.

The final section of the film is about his mental state unravelling as he realised that he couldn’t continue with the lie about where he was, because if he did win his logbooks would be scrutinized and the game would be up. He was caught between the prospect of financial ruin or shame and humiliation. His only option was to finish in second place and hope that his logbooks weren’t looked at too closely. That option disappeared when the boat in front of him sank, virtually handing him victory. Knowing that he would be publicly humiliated he turned his boat around.

It was later found by a cargo ship, but he wasn’t on board. His body was never found.

The photographic records he left behind, along with his journal and logbooks (both accurate and falsified) paint a picture of how the human mind can come undone in situations of extreme stress and isolation.

It would be easy to dismiss him as simply being a cheat, and although he did that, the film left me feeling sad for him and the family he left behind. The pressure of the situation he found himself in simply overtook him, and he was left in a position where he could see no clear way forward. It was a very moving film.

Sir Edmund Hillary, first man to climb Everest, died this morning, aged 88. Good innings.

Lisa’s parents came over for lunch on Sunday and during the course of the afternoon discussion turned to an old cottage that used to be in the family in nearby Taradale. After a brief discussion we decided that we’d spend yesterday over there.

After a pub lunch in Castlemaine we kicked off at the cemetery. Lisa and her parents spent some time cleaning up one of the family graves, and The Kid and I wandered around with our cameras.

We then moved on to the Taradale railway bridge. It’s a very impressive 1800’s structure; lots of wrought iron and bluestone.

Next stop was the cottage we initially went to see, and we finally wandered up to Talbot Cottage, another house that used to be in the family. We spoke to the current owner (it’s for sale right now) about what he knew of the history, and found a bunch of interesting stuff.

It turns out that the current owner had a copy of the original title to Talbot Cottage, complete with flourished handwriting detailing all the Talbot owners going back to 1825. He sent it into the titles office when they computerised everything, expecting they’d scan it and send it back, but it never came back to him. I think I’ll go in there next time I’m in the CBD and see whether I can get a copy of it.

As expected there’s some shots up on flickr. I’ve also got a few more shots of the kids up on SmugMug.

Here’s a world clock with a twist.

My high school math and physics teacher.