Apple Scotland

Uploaded on Jan 31, 2012

UPDATE: Here's the story behind the video... http://bit.ly/zY3eV9

After reading this story in the LA Times, we decided Apple Scotland needed their own commercial.

http://lat.ms/z2w1Mj

• Category Comedy

• License - Standard YouTube License 

  
  ............................................
  

  The iPhone's Siri doesn't seem so smart in Scotland

  FOREIGN EXCHANGE

  Many in Scotland find that their voice-activated virtual assistant can't understand them, but that hasn't prevented the new iPhone from becoming a top seller.

   By Henry Chu, Los Angeles Times

   

   

  Reporting from Edinburgh, Scotland —

  D'ye want me tae spaek more clearly, Siri?

  Aye, ye would.
  
  The Scottish have long been accustomed to ridicule and bafflement over their accents from their fellow Brits, who strain to decipher words like "cannae" and "daftie" (for the record: "can't" and "fool").
  
  But you'd think that Siri, the voice-activated virtual assistant in Apple's latest iPhone, would take a nice Scottish brogue in its stride.

  

  Think again. Since the phone debuted in October, many of the Scots who rushed to buy it have discovered that their new "smart" gadget can't understand them. This is true despite the fact that their phones are set to "English (United Kingdom)" under the "language" setting for Siri, which doesn't seem to take the distinctive Scottish burr into much account.
  "What's the weather like today?" Darren Lillie said hopefully into his iPhone recently here in the Scottish capital, in a demonstration for an American reporter.
  Lillie, 25, is Edinburgh born and bred, and his thick accent shows it.
  Siri thought for a moment, then decided it best to repeat what it thought it heard.
  "What's available in Labor Day?" it asked.
  Lillie shook his head. "I don't even know what Labor Day is," he said ruefully to the American, who told him.
  Such misunderstandings haven't prevented the new iPhone from being the top seller in the cellphone store where Lillie works. But talking up the benefits of a virtual assistant is a wee bit harder when the assistant virtually has no idea what you're telling it to do.
  Even in the U.S. and in England, where Siri recognizes speech patterns better, the system is far from flawless. That's because the program is, in effect, still being tested and fine-tuned. Apple encourages customers to persevere, because the more use the system gets, the more information it has to draw on next time.
  In other words, practice helps make Siri perfect.
  "Once you've been using it for a while, it should pick up your accent," Lillie said, then paused.
  "But if you've got a broad accent, you've got no chance."
  A number of Scots have found this out already, and given up in frustration. Others have grumbled loudly on Internet forums.
  A few amused and befuddled users have posted videos of themselves to show the world what happens when irresistible accent meets immovable assistant.
  In one, a bearded young Scotsman, eyes dancing and Rs rolling, tries repeatedly to get Siri to "create a reminder," only to receive in puzzled reply, "James, I don't understand," or "I don't know what you mean by 'create Alamain.' " (Does anyone?)
  Finally, after multiple failures, James' most deliberate and emphatic attempt ("Create. A. Reminder.") yields something close: "Create our remainder." No one breaks out the whiskey.
  In other clips, "Can you dance with me?" gets misinterpreted as "Can you Dutch women?" and the question "How many miles are there in 10 kilometers?" elicits the helpful, if irrelevant, response: "I don't see any email for yesterday."

  
  

  

  Lillie admits to adjusting his speech patterns to get Siri to understand him.
  "I find I speak slower. It's like when I speak to tourists," he said to the American reporter, who felt at once both patronized and relieved.
  To be fair, not all the blame for the verbal miscues ought to fall on Siri's cold electronic shoulders. Even their fellow Scots complain of being mystified by people from Glasgow, whose brogues can be as thick and impenetrable as a Highland fog.
  At Hector Russell, a traditional kilt-maker along Edinburgh's Royal Mile, manager Mark Cassidy, a friendly Glaswegian, gamely gave Siri a go.
  "Can I make you a kilt?" he offered, twice.
  "I don't know what you mean by 'Telemedia kilt,' " Siri answered politely, both times.
  Ella Bendall, an Edinburgh native, said she finds her thumbs more reliable than getting Siri to obey her. "I don't even bother using it because I'd have to speak even more slowly," said Bendall, 18. "It's quicker typing."
  An attempt to reach Apple for comment was unsuccessful.
  But it also turned out to be unnecessary, since it was possible to go straight to the source.
  Reporter: "Siri, why do you have trouble understanding Scottish people?"
  Siri: "Let me check on that.... I don't know that. Would you like to search the Web for it?"
  Nah.
  Reporter: "Do you like Scottish people?"
  Siri: "This is about you, not me."
  Clever.
  Reporter: "Are you deliberately trying to annoy people from Scotland?"
  Siri: "No comment."
  henry.chu@latimes.com

Pit Bull With Bird On Its Head

Picture Of Pit Bull With Bird On Its Head And Surrounded By Bunnies Goes Viral (PHOTO)

Posted: 03/24/2013 

 

It's no secret that pit bulls get a bad rap. Myths that the dogs have "locking jaws" and always fight to the death are widespread, and studies have shown that the media sensationalize pit bull attacks.

That's probably among the reasons this picture, entitled "Your typical violent and aggressive pit bull," went viral on Reddit over the weekend, garnering nearly 1,500 comments and nearly one million views. 




If you're interested in learning more about pit bulls, visit the ASCPA or Bay Area Doglovers Responsible About Pit Bulls. And yes, the acronym for the latter organization is BADRAP.




 

A Scary Obituary for the American Democracy

 
In 1887 Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years prior: 

"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent  form of government."

"A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. "

"From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse over loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship."

"The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years."


During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:

From bondage to spiritual faith; 

From spiritual faith to great courage; 

From courage to liberty; 

From liberty to abundance; 

From abundance to complacency; 

From complacency to apathy; 

From apathy to dependence; 

From dependence back into bondage."

The Obituary follows:

Born 1776, Died 2016
  
Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota, points out some interesting facts concerning the last Presidential election:

Number of States won by: Obama: 19 Romney: 29
 
Square miles of land won by: Obama: 580,000 Romney: 2,427,000
 
Population of counties won by: Obama: 127 million Romney: 143 million
 
Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by: Obama: 13.2 Romney: 2.1

Professor Olson adds:

"In aggregate, the map of the territory Romney won was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens of the country."

Obama territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in low income tenements and living off various forms of government welfare..."

Olson believes the United States is now somewhere between the
"complacency and apathy" phase of Professor Tyler's definition of
democracy, with some forty percent of the nation's population already having reached the "governmental dependency" phase.



 
 If Congress grants amnesty and citizenship to twenty million criminal invaders called illegal's - and they vote - then we can say goodbye to the USA in fewer than five years.

If you are in favor of this, then by all means, delete this message.

If you are not, then pass this along to help everyone realize just how much is at
stake, knowing that apathy is the greatest danger to our freedom..
This is truly scary!

Of course we are not a democracy, we are a Constitutional Republic .
Someone should point this out to Obama.

Of course we know he and too many others pay little attention to The Constitution.

There couldn't be more at stake than on Nov 6, 2012.




 .................................................

 If you are as concerned as I am please pass this along to help everyone realize just how much is at stake, knowing that apathy is the greatest danger to our freedom....




Source:  http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002611245



*This is a Canadian blog that is cognizant of Canada's close relationship with the U.S.A., our major trading partner and NATO ally....  Our fortunes are closely tied and we share democratic ideals, so let's hope the letter's dire predictions are inaccurate....  or that with the caution, people will alter their behavior and loop back to the "Liberty to abundance" phase.

Neophilaia can be an indicator of well-being

Take the test.......

Are you a neophiliac?
 
Do you make decisions quickly based on incomplete information? 
Do you lose your temper quickly? 
Are you easily bored? 
Do you thrive in conditions that seem chaotic to others, or do you like everything well organized?

Those are the kinds of questions used to measure novelty-seeking, a personality trait long associated with trouble. 

As researchers analyzed its genetic roots and relations to the brain’s dopamine system, they linked this trait with problems like attention deficit disorder, compulsive spending and gambling, alcoholism, drug abuse and criminal behavior.

Now, though, after extensively tracking novelty-seekers, researchers are seeing the upside. 

In the right combination with other traits, it’s a crucial predictor of well-being.


“Novelty-seeking is one of the traits that keeps you healthy and happy and fosters personality growth as you age,” says C. Robert Cloninger, the psychiatrist who developed personality tests for measuring this trait. 

The problems with novelty-seeking showed up in his early research in the 1990s; the advantages have become apparent after he and his colleagues tested and tracked thousands of people in the United States, Israel and Finland.

“It can lead to antisocial behavior,” he says, “but if you combine this adventurousness and curiosity with persistence and a sense that it’s not all about you, then you get the kind of creativity that benefits society as a whole.”
Fans of this trait are calling it “neophilia” and pointing to genetic evidence of its importance as humans migrated throughout the world. 

In her survey of the recent research, “New: Understanding Our Need for Novelty and Change,” the journalist Winifred Gallagher argues that neophilia has always been the quintessential human survival skill, whether adapting to climate change on the ancestral African savanna or coping with the latest digital toy from Silicon Valley.

“Nothing reveals your personality more succinctly than your characteristic emotional reaction to novelty and change over time and across many situations,” Ms. Gallagher says. 
“It’s also the most important behavioral difference among individuals.” Drawing on the work of Dr. Cloninger and other personality researchers, she classifies people as neophobes, neophiles and, at the most extreme, neophiliacs. (To classify yourself, you can take a quiz on the Well blog.)
“Although we’re a neophilic species,” Ms. Gallagher says, “as individuals we differ in our reactions to novelty, because a population’s survival is enhanced by some adventurers who explore for new resources and worriers who are attuned to the risks involved.”

The adventurous neophiliacs are more likely to possess a “migration gene,” a DNA mutation that occurred about 50,000 years ago, as humans were dispersing from Africa around the world, according to Robert Moyzis, a biochemist at the University of California, Irvine. The mutations are more prevalent in the most far-flung populations, like Indian tribes in South America descended from the neophiliacs who crossed the Bering Strait.

These genetic variations affect the brain’s regulation of dopamine, the neurotransmitter associated with the processing of rewards and new stimuli (and drugs like cocaine). 

The variations have been linked to faster reaction times, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and a higher penchant for novelty-seeking and risk-taking.

But genes, as usual, are only part of the story. Researchers have found that people’s tendency for novelty-seeking also depends on their upbringing, on the local culture and on their stage of life. By some estimates, the urge for novelty drops by half between the ages of 20 and 60.


Dr. Cloninger, a professor of psychiatry and genetics at Washington University in St. Louis, tracked people using a personality test he developed two decades ago, the Temperament and Character Inventory. 

By administering the test periodically and chronicling changes in people’s lives over more than a decade, he and colleagues looked for the crucial combination of traits in people who flourished over the years — the ones who reported the best health, most friends, fewest emotional problems and greatest satisfaction with life.

What was the secret to their happy temperament and character? 

A trio of traits.

 They scored high in novelty-seeking as well in persistence and “self-transcendence.”  

Persistence, the stick-to-it virtue promoted by strong-willed Victorians, may sound like the opposite of novelty-seeking, but the two traits can coexist and balance each other.
“People with persistence tend to be achievers because they’ll keep working at something even when there’s no immediate reward,” Dr. Cloninger says.  

“They’ll think, ‘I didn’t win this time, but next time I will.’ But what if conditions have changed? Then you’re better off trying something new. 

To succeed, you want to be able to regulate your impulses while also having the imagination to see what the future would be like if you tried something new.”
 
The other trait in the trio, self-transcendence, gives people a larger perspective. 

“It’s the capacity to get lost in the moment doing what you love to do, to feel a connection to nature and humanity and the universe,” Dr. Cloninger says. 

“It’s sometimes found in disorganized people who are immature and do a lot of wishful thinking and daydreaming, but when it’s combined with persistence and novelty-seeking, it leads to personal growth and enables you to balance your needs with those of the people around you.”

In some ways, this is the best of all possible worlds for novelty seekers. Never have there so many new things to sample, especially in the United States, a nation of immigrants, which Ms. Gallagher ranks as the most neophilic society in history. 

In pre-industrial cultures, curiosity was sometimes considered a vice, and people didn’t expect constant stimulation. The English word “boredom” didn’t come into popular use until the 19th century.

Today, it’s the ultimate insult — borrrring — among teenagers perpetually scanning screens for something new. 

Their neophilia may be an essential skill, just as it was for hunter-gatherers evolving on the savanna, but it can also be problematic.

The urge for novelty, like the primal urge to consume fat, can lead you astray.

“We now consume about 100,000 words each day from various media, which is a whopping 350 percent increase, measured in bytes, over what we handled back in 1980,” Ms. Gallagher says. 

“Neophilia spurs us to adjust and explore and create technology and art, but at the extreme it can fuel a chronic restlessness and distraction.”

She and Dr. Cloninger both advise neophiles to be selective in their targets. 
“Don’t go wide and shallow into useless trivia,” Ms. Gallagher says. 

“Use your neophilia to go deep into subjects that are important to you.” 

That’s a traditional bit of advice, but to some dopamine-charged neophiliacs, it may qualify as news.

Source:

Novelty-Seeking (Neophilia) Can Be a Predictor of Well-Being - NYTimes.com

 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/14/science/novelty-seeking-neophilia-can-be-a-predictor-of-well-being.html

Are you a neophiliac?
 
Do you make decisions quickly based on incomplete information? 
Do you lose your temper quickly? 
Are you easily bored? 
Do you thrive in conditions that seem chaotic to others, or do you like everything well organized?

Those are the kinds of questions used to measure novelty-seeking, a personality trait long associated with trouble. 

As researchers analyzed its genetic roots and relations to the brain’s dopamine system, they linked this trait with problems like attention deficit disorder, compulsive spending and gambling, alcoholism, drug abuse and criminal behavior.

Now, though, after extensively tracking novelty-seekers, researchers are seeing the upside. 

In the right combination with other traits, it’s a crucial predictor of well-being.


“Novelty-seeking is one of the traits that keeps you healthy and happy and fosters personality growth as you age,” says C. Robert Cloninger, the psychiatrist who developed personality tests for measuring this trait. 

The problems with novelty-seeking showed up in his early research in the 1990s; the advantages have become apparent after he and his colleagues tested and tracked thousands of people in the United States, Israel and Finland.

“It can lead to antisocial behavior,” he says, “but if you combine this adventurousness and curiosity with persistence and a sense that it’s not all about you, then you get the kind of creativity that benefits society as a whole.”
Fans of this trait are calling it “neophilia” and pointing to genetic evidence of its importance as humans migrated throughout the world. 

In her survey of the recent research, “New: Understanding Our Need for Novelty and Change,” the journalist Winifred Gallagher argues that neophilia has always been the quintessential human survival skill, whether adapting to climate change on the ancestral African savanna or coping with the latest digital toy from Silicon Valley.

“Nothing reveals your personality more succinctly than your characteristic emotional reaction to novelty and change over time and across many situations,” Ms. Gallagher says. 
“It’s also the most important behavioral difference among individuals.” Drawing on the work of Dr. Cloninger and other personality researchers, she classifies people as neophobes, neophiles and, at the most extreme, neophiliacs. (To classify yourself, you can take a quiz on the Well blog.)
“Although we’re a neophilic species,” Ms. Gallagher says, “as individuals we differ in our reactions to novelty, because a population’s survival is enhanced by some adventurers who explore for new resources and worriers who are attuned to the risks involved.”

The adventurous neophiliacs are more likely to possess a “migration gene,” a DNA mutation that occurred about 50,000 years ago, as humans were dispersing from Africa around the world, according to Robert Moyzis, a biochemist at the University of California, Irvine. The mutations are more prevalent in the most far-flung populations, like Indian tribes in South America descended from the neophiliacs who crossed the Bering Strait.

These genetic variations affect the brain’s regulation of dopamine, the neurotransmitter associated with the processing of rewards and new stimuli (and drugs like cocaine). 

The variations have been linked to faster reaction times, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and a higher penchant for novelty-seeking and risk-taking.

But genes, as usual, are only part of the story. Researchers have found that people’s tendency for novelty-seeking also depends on their upbringing, on the local culture and on their stage of life. By some estimates, the urge for novelty drops by half between the ages of 20 and 60.


Dr. Cloninger, a professor of psychiatry and genetics at Washington University in St. Louis, tracked people using a personality test he developed two decades ago, the Temperament and Character Inventory. 

By administering the test periodically and chronicling changes in people’s lives over more than a decade, he and colleagues looked for the crucial combination of traits in people who flourished over the years — the ones who reported the best health, most friends, fewest emotional problems and greatest satisfaction with life.

What was the secret to their happy temperament and character? 

A trio of traits.

 They scored high in novelty-seeking as well in persistence and “self-transcendence.”  

Persistence, the stick-to-it virtue promoted by strong-willed Victorians, may sound like the opposite of novelty-seeking, but the two traits can coexist and balance each other.
“People with persistence tend to be achievers because they’ll keep working at something even when there’s no immediate reward,” Dr. Cloninger says.  

“They’ll think, ‘I didn’t win this time, but next time I will.’ But what if conditions have changed? Then you’re better off trying something new. 

To succeed, you want to be able to regulate your impulses while also having the imagination to see what the future would be like if you tried something new.”
 
The other trait in the trio, self-transcendence, gives people a larger perspective. 

“It’s the capacity to get lost in the moment doing what you love to do, to feel a connection to nature and humanity and the universe,” Dr. Cloninger says. 

“It’s sometimes found in disorganized people who are immature and do a lot of wishful thinking and daydreaming, but when it’s combined with persistence and novelty-seeking, it leads to personal growth and enables you to balance your needs with those of the people around you.”

In some ways, this is the best of all possible worlds for novelty seekers. Never have there so many new things to sample, especially in the United States, a nation of immigrants, which Ms. Gallagher ranks as the most neophilic society in history. 

In pre-industrial cultures, curiosity was sometimes considered a vice, and people didn’t expect constant stimulation. The English word “boredom” didn’t come into popular use until the 19th century.

Today, it’s the ultimate insult — borrrring — among teenagers perpetually scanning screens for something new. 

Their neophilia may be an essential skill, just as it was for hunter-gatherers evolving on the savanna, but it can also be problematic.

The urge for novelty, like the primal urge to consume fat, can lead you astray.

“We now consume about 100,000 words each day from various media, which is a whopping 350 percent increase, measured in bytes, over what we handled back in 1980,” Ms. Gallagher says. 

“Neophilia spurs us to adjust and explore and create technology and art, but at the extreme it can fuel a chronic restlessness and distraction.”

She and Dr. Cloninger both advise neophiles to be selective in their targets. 
“Don’t go wide and shallow into useless trivia,” Ms. Gallagher says. 

“Use your neophilia to go deep into subjects that are important to you.” 

That’s a traditional bit of advice, but to some dopamine-charged neophiliacs, it may qualify as news.

Source:

Novelty-Seeking (Neophilia) Can Be a Predictor of Well-Being - NYTimes.com

 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/14/science/novelty-seeking-neophilia-can-be-a-predictor-of-well-being.html

A Mime Speaks Out: The Art of Asking

 

Amanda is very intriguing in how she has made MUSIC PAY considering even Tower Records or Virgin records weren't able to switch paradigms and to stay in business...

lished on Mar 1, 2013

Don't make people pay for music, says Amanda Palmer. Let them. In a passionate talk that begins in her days as a street performer (drop a dollar in the hat for the Eight-Foot Bride!), she examines the new relationship between artist and fan.

This is an Inspiring talk by one of those annoying Mimes.....

Source:

 http://youtu.be/xMj_P_6H69g

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMj_P_6H69g

Indian Warriors by Edward S. Curtis and other pictures

 


 


 


 

 







 
 Edward S.Curtis


 

 







Source:
http://www.old-picture.com/indians/pictures/Indian-Warriors.jpg

Indian-Warriors.jpg (JPEG Image, 600 × 411 pixels)

The American West as you've never seen it before: Amazing 19th century pictures show the landscape as it was chartered for the first time | Mail Online

Ads by InstantSavings      

How the Wild West REALLY looked: Gorgeous sepia-tinted pictures show the landscape as it was charted for the very first time

By Rob Cooper
PUBLISHED: 14:11 GMT, 25 May 2012 | UPDATED: 18:39 GMT, 25 May 2012

These remarkable 19th century sepia-tinted pictures show the American West as you have never seen it before - as it was charted for the first time.
The photos, by Timothy O'Sullivan, are the first ever taken of the rocky and barren landscape.
At the time federal government officials were travelling across Arizona, Nevada, Utah and the rest of the west as they sought to uncover the land's untapped natural resources.

Breathtaking landscape: A view across the Shoshone Falls, Snake River, Idaho in 1874 as it was caught on camera by photographer Timothy O'Sullivan during Lt. George M. Wheeler's survey west of the One Hundredth Meridian that lasted from 1871 to 1874. Approximately 45 feet higher than the Niagara falls of the U.S and Canada, the Shoshone Falls are sometimes called the 'Niagara of the West'. Before mass migration and industrialisation of the west, the Bannock and Shoshone Indians relied on the huge salmon stocks of the falls as a source of food. And the John C. Fremont Expedition of 1843, one of the first missions to encounter the falls reported that salmon could be caught simply by throwing a spear into the water, such was the stock

Land rising from the water: The Pyramid and Domes, a line of dome-shaped tufa rocks in Pyramid Lake, Nevada photographed in 1867. Taken as part of Clarence King's Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel, O'Sullivan's mesmerising pictures of the other-wordly rock formations at Pyramid Lake committed the sacred native American Indian site to camera for the first time

Famous photographer: Timothy O'Sullivan whose childhood and background are the subject of debate among photographic scholar was of Irish ancestry. It is known that as a teenager he worked in the studio of the legendary 19th century photographer Mathew Brady, who is seen as the father of photo-journalism. A veteran of the American Civil War in its first year, O'Sullivan turned his hand to photographing the horrors of war in during the final three years of the conflict before setting out on his cross-continental expeditions.

Timothy O'Sullivan, who used a box camera, worked with the Government teams as they explored the land. He had earlier covered the U.S. Civil War and was one of the most famous photographers of the 19th century.
He also took pictures of the Native American population for the first time as a team of artists, photographers, scientists and soldiers explored the land in the 1860s and 1870s.
The images of the landscape were remarkable - because the majority of people at the time would not have known they were there or have ever had a chance to see it for themselves.
O'Sullivan died from tuberculosis at the age of 42 in 1882 - just years after the project had finished .
He carted a dark room wagon around the Wild West on horseback so that he could develop his images. He spent seven years exploring the landscape and thousands of pictures have survived from his travels.

 

The project was designed to attract settlers to the largely uninhabited region.
O'Sullivan used a primitive wet plate box camera which he would have to spend several minutes setting up every time he wanted to take a photograph.
He would have to assemble the device on a tripod, coat a glass plate with collodion - a flammable solution. The glass would then be put in a holder before being inserted into a camera.
After a few seconds exposure, he would rush the plate to his dark room wagon and cover it in chemicals to begin the development process.
Considered one of the forerunners to Ansel Adams, Timothy O'Sullivan is a hero to other photographers according to the Tucson Weekly.
'Most of the photographers sent to document the West's native peoples and its geologic formations tried to make this strange new land accessible, even picturesque,' said Keith McElroy a history of photography professor in Tucson.
'Not O'Sullivan.
'At a time when Manifest Destiny demanded that Americans conquer the land, he pictured a West that was forbidding and inhospitable.
'With an almost modern sensibility, he made humans and their works insignificant.
'His photographs picture scenes, like a flimsy boat helpless against the dark shadows of Black Canyon, or explorers almost swallowed up by the crevices of Canyon de Chelly.'

Native Americans: The Pah-Ute (Paiute) Indian group, near Cedar, Utah in a picture from 1872. Government officials were chartering the land for the first time as part of Lt. George M. Wheeler's survey west of the One Hundredth Meridian which O'Sullivan accompanied the Lieutenant on. During this expedition O'Sullivan nearly drowned in the Truckee River (which runs from Lake Tahoe to Pyramid Lake, located in northwestern Nevada) when his boat got jammed against rocks.

Breathtaking: Twin buttes stand near Green River City, Wyoming, photographed in 1872 four years after settlers made the river basin their home. Green River and its distinctive twin rock formations that stand over the horizon was supposed to the site of a division point for the Union Pacific Railroad, but when the engineers arrived they were shocked to find that the area had been settled and so had to move the railroad west 12 miles to Bryan, Wyoming.

19th century housing: Members of Clarence King's Fortieth Parallel Survey team explore the land near Oreana, Nevada, in 1867. Clarence King was a 25-year-old Yale graduate, who hired Irish tough guy O'Sullivan for his Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel. Funded by the War Department, the plan was to survey the unexplored territory that lay between the California Sierras and the Rockies, with a view toward finding a good place to lay railroad tracks while also looking for mining possibilities and assessing the level of Indian hostility in the area.

Incredible: Tents can be seen (bottom, centre) at a point known as Camp Beauty close to canyon walls in Canyon de Chelly National Monument, Arizona. Photographed in 1873 and situated in northeastern Arizona, the area is one of the longest continuously inhabited landscapes in North American and holds preserved ruins of early indigenous people's such as The Anasazi and Navajo.

On this rock I build a church: Old Mission Church, Zuni Pueblo, New Mexico pictured in 1873 where the Zuni people of North have lived for millennia. O'Sullivan was famous for not trying to romanticise the native American plight or way of life in his photographs and instead of asking them to wear tribal dress was happy to photograph them wearing denim jeans.

9. Native Americans: Boat crew of the 'Picture' at Diamond Creek. Photo shows photographer Timothy O'Sullivan, fourth from left, with fellow members of the Wheeler survey and Native Americans, following ascent of the Colorado River through the Black Canyon in 1871. O'Sullivans work during Lt. George M. Wheeler's survey west of the One Hundredth Meridian in Black Canyon has been called some of the greatest photography of the 19th century and a clear inspiration for that other great American photographer Ansel Adams.

Landscape: Browns Park, Colorado, as seen by Timothy O'Sullivan in 1872 as he chartered the landscape for the first time. Historians have noted that even though the photographer had become a more-than-experienced explorer at this point, the ordeals of the Wheeler survey tested him to the extremes of his endurance

Rockies: A man sits on a shore beside the Colorado River in Iceberg Canyon, on the border of Mojave County, Arizona, and Clark County, Nevada in 1871 during the Wheeler expedition. Lieutenant Wheeler insisted that the team explore the Colorado River by going upstream into the Grand Canyon--apparently to beat a rival, who had first gone downriver in 1869. There was no particular scientific reason to do the trip backward.

Timothy O'Sullivan's darkroom wagon, pulled by four mules, entered the frame at the right side of the photograph, reached the center of the image, and abruptly U-turned, heading back out of the frame. Footprints leading from the wagon toward the camera reveal the photographer's path. Made at the Carson Sink in Nevada, this image of shifting sand dunes reveals the patterns of tracks recently reconfigured by the wind. The wagon's striking presence in this otherwise barren scene dramatises the pioneering experience of exploration and discovery in the wide, uncharted landscapes of the American West.

Industrial revolution: The mining town of Gold Hill, just south of Virginia City, Nevada, in 1867 was town whose prosperity was preserved by mining a rare silver ore called Comstock Lode. On the United States Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel, Clarence King insisted that his men dress for dinner every evening and speak French, and O'Sullivan had no difficulty fitting in.

Early rails: A wooden balanced incline used for gold mining, at the Illinois Mine in the Pahranagat Mining District, Nevada in 1871. An ore car would ride on parallel tracks connected to a pulley wheel at the top of tracks. Because of his work in U.S Civil War of 1861 to 1865, the organisers of the two geological surveys that he photographed knew that O'Sullivan was made of stern stuff and therefore could cope with the rigors of life outdoors far from home

Silver mining: Here photographer Timothy O'Sullivan documents the actvities of the Savage and the Gould and Curry mines in Virginia City, Nevada, in 1867 900ft underground, lit by an improvised flash -- a burning magnesium wire, O'Sullivan photographed the miners in tunnels, shafts, and lifts. During the winter of 1867-68, in Virginia City, Nevada, he took the first underground mining pictures in America. Deep in mines where temperatures reached 130 degrees, O'Sullivan took pictures by the light of magnesium wire in difficult circumstances

Untouched landscape: The head of Canyon de Chelly, looking past walls that rise some 1,200 feet above the canyon floor, in Arizona in 1873. Inspiring millions of amateur photographers, O'Sullivan's first pivotal Canyon de Chelly pictures, with his views of Indian life and his New Mexican churches are now the archetypal images of Arizona

Barren: Two men sit looking at headlands north of the Colorado River Plateau in 1872. As they sailed upstream into the Grand Canyon, the team commanded by Lieutenant Wheeler used three boats and O'Sullivan commanded one named 'Picture'. During the voyage, 'Picture' was lost along with hundreds of O'Sullivan's negatives and food

Portrait: Native American (Paiute) men, women and children pose for a picture near a tree. The picture is thought to have been taken in Cottonwood Springs (Washoe County), Nevada, in 1875. Known for his dispassionate views towards native Americans on his travels, O'Sullivan was more interested in photographing the true lifestyles of the indigenous people and not a preconceived image that those back east had. Never asking any native American to change his or her dress, O'Sullivan's portraits are noted for their simplicity and truth

Natural U.S. landscape: The junction of Green and Yampah Canyons, in Utah, in 1872. O'Sullivan has been described as the right person who was there at the right time as he managed to document the re-birth of the nation through war in the early 1860's and then managed to be at the nexus of the great wave of exploration and migration westwards as the United States assumed what it thought to be its manifest destiny

An earlier visitor: Nearly 150 years ago, photographer O'Sullivan came across this evidence of a visitor to the West that preceded his own expedition by another 150 years - A Spanish inscription from 1726. This close-up view of the inscription carved in the sandstone at Inscription Rock (El Morro National Monument), New Mexico reads, in English: "By this place passed Ensign Don Joseph de Payba Basconzelos, in the year in which he held the Council of the Kingdom at his expense, on the 18th of February, in the year 1726"

Insight: Aboriginal life among the Navajo Indians. Near old Fort Defiance, New Mexico, in 1873. With this simple picture of the Navajo Indians, O'Sullivan managed to capture the domesticity of a dying people as wave after wave of migration snuffed out their way of life. It is noticeable that there is nothing romantic about the pictures and one profile of Timothy O'Sullivan described these scenes as of 'a defeated people trying their best to put back together a life.'

Incredible backdrop: The Canyon of Lodore, Colorado, in 1872. After O'Sullivan spent one last season with Clarence King in 1872, he returned back to Washington D.C to marry Laura Pywell in E Street Baptist Church, although his parents thoughts on this non-Catholic marriage went unrecorded

Settlement: View of the White House, Ancestral Pueblo Native American (Anasazi) ruins in Canyon de Chelly, Arizona, in 1873. The cliff dwellings were built by the Anasazi more than 500 years earlier. At the bottom, men stand and pose on cliff dwellings in a niche and on ruins on the canyon floor. Climbing ropes connect the groups of men. Anthropologists and archeologists place the Anasazi peoples of Native American culture on the continent from the 12th Century BC. Their unique architecture incorporated 'Great Houses' which averaged up to 200 rooms and could take in up to 700

Sailing away: The Nettie, an expedition boat on the Truckee River, western Nevada, in 1867. This was the river that O'Sullivan almost died in and according to the magazine Harper's 'Being a swimmer of no ordinary power, he succeeded in reaching the shore... he was carried a hundred yards down the rapids...The sharp rocks...had so cut and bruised his body that he was glad to crawl into the brier tangle that fringed the river's brink.' He is also supposed to to have lost three hundred dollars worth of gold pieces during the accident too

Taking a dip: A man bathing in Pagosa Hot Spring, Colorado, in 1874. Coming to the end of his adventures, O'Sullivan returned to Washington to live with his wife Laura and worked as a commercial photographer for Lieutenant Wheeler. In 1876, he buried his only child who was stillborn and it is thought that O'Sullivan buried the baby himself.

A man sits in a wooden boat with a mast on the edge of the Colorado River in the Black Canyon, Mojave County, Arizona. Photo taken in 1871, from an expedition camp, looking upstream. At this time, photographer Timothy O'Sullivan was working as a military photographer for Lt. George Montague Wheeler's U.S. Geographical Surveys West of the One Hundredth Meridian.

Native: Maiman, a Mojave Indian, guide and interpreter during a portion of the season in the Colorado country, in 1871. It has been observed that 30 years before Edward S Curtis began his famous study of native American's dying way of life, O'Sullivan was working without prejudice within the field of his photographic art. Trying to capture the everyday aspects of life for the indigenous people's of North America, O'Sullivan did not use a studio to capture imagery of native Americans, like many other photographers were at the time

Valley view: Alta City, Little Cottonwood, Utah, in 1873. O'Sullivan's amazing eye and work ethic allowed him to compose photographs that evoked the vastness of the West that future generations would come to recognise in the work of Ansel Adams and in the films of John Houston

Remarkable landscape: Cathedral Mesa, Colorado River, Arizona in 1871. O'Sullivan's second expedition employer, Lieutenant George Wheeler, 'was just interested in knowing what kind of fuss the Indians would put up,' according to a profile in the Tucson Weekly and the photographs were used to grease the wheels of expansion westwards

Mountains: Big Cottonwood Canyon, Utah, in 1869. A man can be seen with his horse at the bottom near the bridge (right). As people in the east came to see O'Sullivan's photographs the legend of the pioneering west as a land of limitless opportunity even for Americans came to form.

Rock formations in the Washakie Badlands, Wyoming, in 1872. A survey member stands at lower right for scale. Tragically, O'Sullivan's health declined after the death of his boy and he contracted tuberculosis. His wife Laura died from the same disease in 1881.

Tree-mendous: Oak Grove, White Mountains, Sierra Blanca, Arizona in 1873. In 1881, O'Sullivan returned to his parent's home in Staten Island where he died from tuberculosis. Seen as an irony as he had survived some of the most inhospitable conditions known to man beforehand, such as Death valley and the Grand Canyon

Shoshone Falls, Idaho near present-day Twin Falls, Idaho, is 212 feet high, and flows over a rim 1,000 feet wide. it is pictured in 1868. These were some of the first iconic pictures of the western expeditions that O'Sullivan took on the United States Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel. They were also one of the last places he photographed before he returned home to the East Coast and Washington D.C

Rocky: The south side of Inscription Rock (now El Morro National Monument), in New Mexico in 1873. The prominent feature stands near a small pool of water, and has been a resting place for travellers for centuries. Since at least the 17th century, natives, Europeans, and later American pioneers carved names and messages into the rock face as they paused. In 1906, a law was passed, prohibiting further carving.

Very plain landscape: A distant view of Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1873. Santa Fe is one of the oldest continually inhabited places in North America. Thought to have been settled by native American's in around 1050 AD, the city has grown into one of the most prosperous in New Mexico and the Southwestern United States

Read more:

• Tucson Weekly: The life of Timothy H. O'Sullivan

Source:

		The American West as you've never seen it before: Amazing 19th century pictures show the landscape as it was chartered for the first time | Mail Online http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2149899/The-American-West-youve-seen-Amazing-19th-century-pictures-landscape-chartered-time.html?ITO=1490 Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2149899/The-American-West-youve-seen-Amazing-19th-century-pictures-landscape-chartered-time.html#ixzz2N4Bcmb8f

Peak Water

Peak water worries energy experts

 

 

What are the key takeaways from the World Economic Forum’s latest report on energy?


1) - global energy demand is showing no signs of slowing down, despite “peak driving” having arrived already in the US and Europe.

2) - if we’re going to ease energy poverty for the large chunk of the world population that still goes without modern supplies, demand is likely to keep going much higher.

3) - buried deep toward the end of the report — “Energy Vision 2013 – Energy Transitions: Past and Future” — with little further elaboration is that, well before we begin running out of fuel, water might become a serious problem. And less water could mean less energy, because so many types of energy production are highly dependent on water. In fact, water plays a critical role in energy production from coal, nuclear, oil and natural gas … which together supply 92 percent of the world’s energy.


So what else does the World Economic Forum report tell us about the state of global energy, both now and in years ahead? Among the more daunting facts:

• 1.3 billion of the world’s 7 billion people — nearly one out of five — have little or no access to modern energy.
• Despite our best efforts to make energy greener, use of coal has far outstripped renewables. Compared to clean energy, the demand for coal has grown 10 times more since the year 2000.
• One-fourth of the world’s human-caused carbon emissions come from burning coal.
• Not including hydropower, just 1.6 percent of the world’s energy today comes from clean sources.
• Since 2000, worldwide demand for energy has increased by 27 percent.
• Over the course of just two years — from the beginning of 2010 and the end of 2012 — the average cost for solar panels dropped from about $2.25 per watt to around $0.75 per watt — a decline of 65 percent.
• Between now and 2035, the number of cars in the world is expected to double to 1.9 billion. In other words, in a little over 20 years, we’ll have more cars than the number of people today without access to energy.
• Many of the additional cars coming onto roads over the next two decades will likely still depend upon oil for fuel, despite efforts to fast-track the adoption of electric and alternative-fuel vehicles. For example, while China has projected that five million electric cars will be sold domestically by 2020, just 12,000 were sold in 2012. Adoption of EVs (electric vehicles) in the US has also proceeded more slowly than officials had hoped.
• It took 60 years (1840 to 1900) for coal to go from 5 percent of the world’s primary energy market to 50 percent. It took the same number of years (1915 to 1975) for oil to increase from 5 percent to 40 percent of primary energy supply.
• While parts of Europe and Japan are pulling the plug on nuclear power, other regions will more than make up for that reduction. From now until 2035, nuclear power capacity in China alone is expected to grow by 109 gigawatts. India (41 gigawatts of new capacity) and Russia (28 gigawatts) will also contribute to that growth.

 Source:
 Posted on March 6, 2013 · Posted in Energy
Peak water worries energy experts | Greenbang

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