Frank Marryat Attempts to Draw the World (1840–50), from Hong Kong to California

 

Hong Kong and San Francisco (Library of Congress).

Frank Marryat (Samuel Francis ~; 1826–1855) was a traveler and writer, both of which were family professions. Marryat wrote two travelogues in the 1840s and 1850s featuring detailed lithograph and woodblock prints of places from Hong Kong to California. He sailed to both the long way.

Wi-Fi in the vineyards: Agriculture uncorks new technology

 East Bay Business Times, June 2007.

East Bay Press Club Award Winner.

Sensor and Wi-Fi technologies are putting more science into the art of vineyard management, a business known for clinging to traditional methods.

Grape Networks Inc. of San Ramon announced June 6 what it believes is the largest wireless sensor network for agriculture, consisting of 200 sensors spread over 50 acres in the Central Valley.

Livermore's Wente Vineyards has been working with sensors that attach to the leaf of plants to test for stress, as well as with other probes.

And several companies are developing new sensing devices, including Wine Technology Marlborough, of Marlborough, New Zealand, whose experimental fermentation probe may be coming to California wineries soon.

The need for sensors is great. Mildew, frost and other conditions can wreak havoc on a vineyard overnight, which makes monitoring a necessity. And viticulturists say the place to look is in the plant's immediate vicinity, as opposed to relying on aerial photos or weather reports.

Grape Networks is working with a few major California wineries including Beringer Vineyards in Napa, running large wireless sensor networks. The sensors - run by two standard AA batteries - are basically tiny computers, with a CPU, memory, and, very importantly, inexpensive, low-power radios that both receive and transmit data. They test for frost, mildew, temperature and disease.

The networks have two main advantages, says Grape Networks co-founder and CEO, Peter Tsepeleff. First, the sensors create a "mesh network," that is, one spread by a web of components, in this case the sensors. The sensors pick up one another's data and pass it on, ultimately to a gateway, from which it is sent over the Internet to be read on a computer or mobile phone.

The mesh capability allows networks to be set up in rough terrains, getting around hills, trees and other obstructions to radio reception, as sensors pass on each other's data.

Mobile sensors

Second, the wireless capability makes the sensors mobile. As conditions change or there is concern for a certain area, sensors can be moved - unlike systems on which the sensors are hard-wired to a central unit.

Other companies have worked with similar networks, including the IT consultant Accenture, which made headlines in 2004 with a 30-acre wireless network at Pickberry Vineyards in Sonoma County.

Wente Vineyards is using sensors both in the soil and on the leaves at its Arroyo Seco vineyards near Monterey.

Vineyard manager Keith Roberts explained that as the summer heats up, they need to watch for stress in vines. This is normally done once a week with pressure chambers, which are used to pressurize leaves with nitrogen to determine stress.

But the company has also been experimenting with a new type of stress sensor, called a Phytogram, at the Arroyo Seco vineyard.

The Phytogram, developed by Agricultural Electronics Corp. of Tucson, Ariz., has tiny stainless steel wires that are attached to the petiole - the stem holding the leaf - to test for stress.

Thirty to 35 of these per site - in some 10 sites at Wente - are hard-wired to a central microprocessor unit with a built-in cellphone that sends the data back to the sensor's developer for processing, with the data then made available over the Internet.

The system takes readings at 15-minute intervals 24 hours a day - as opposed to the once-a-week-readings otherwise obtained with pressure chambers.

And Roberts said the sensors have so far appeared to be reliable with consistent numbers and that they will probably be adopted into wider use soon.

The company also uses soil sensors to measure for moisture at depths of one foot to five feet, helping to determine when the plants need water. This is not only out of concern for cost, Roberts said, but also understanding of the need for sustainability.

This could become a bigger concern in Livermore, where record low rainfall and closed Delta pumps have driven home the need to conserve water.

Grape Network's Tsepeleff said his company is now adding moisture sensors to monitor water use, as customers have asked for them.

Roberts stresses that all of these are still tools, not total solutions.

He looks at them the same as shovels, which are still used to check soil.

ESkye Solutions Inc., a provider of business software for wineries and beverage companies, is also looking seriously into adapting its products to include vineyard sensors.

Wineries slowly adapt

Richard Gulson, vice president of the winery production systems division at eSkye, whose winery business is based in Glen Ellen, said they see the possibilities in such technology, but said they are moving slowly to see how quickly wineries adopt the technologies.

These tools will be among the topics discussed July 17 at the Wine Industry Technology Symposium in Napa, where participants will explore issues ranging from vineyard-management software to the use of Web 2.0 in the industry.

The symposium was begun by industry professionals in 2005 to showcase technology used in the business.

It may be that the wine industry is shedding its reputation for conservatism as it works to ferment new agricultural techniques.

Augmented Reality—Hunting Pokémon, Zombies, and New Views of the World

John Sailors, All Plus Magazine. August 2016.

The launch of Pokémon Go was a giant success with more than 100 million installations in the first month. In no time, the game was earning more than $10 million per day on the iOS and Android stores.

Pokémon Go was praised because it got young people to go outside and get exercise. The real success, though, is not about exercise or money. It's about the game's technology: augmented reality. Pokémon Go shows us just how wonderful this technology is and gives a look into the future.

Some History on the Tomato and the Love Apple

Trout, Grouse, Tomatoes (Boston Public Library, (Source.)

A trite legend but accurate anecdote for the plant’s history, in the early 1800s people across America and Europe were terrified by an ornamental fruit that was pretty but highly poisonous, the love apple. According to the story, a man named Robert Gibbon Johnson announced to the community of Salem, New Jersey, that he was going to eat a basket of the deadly fruit in public. And as the townsfolk looked on in front of the courthouse, Johnson proceeded to openly consume a quantity of love apples and failed to keel over and die as expected, demonstrating that the tomato was, surprise, no danger at all.[1]

Diogo Ribeiro: Portrait of a 'Renaissance' Cartographer

Diogo Ribeiro's 1529 Vatican Planisphere. (Source.)

Diogo Ribeiro was a Renaissance cartographer, a mapmaker who did it all. In addition to creating several of the most extensive world maps of the early sixteenth century, Ribeiro sailed with Portugal's first expeditions to India and beyond, and he was an inventor and maker of navigation instruments. With this background he defected to Castile where he became a key player in the planning for Ferdinand Magellan’s expedition, and he later served as an adviser in negotiations over whether the Spice Islands lay in Spanish or Portuguese territory—backing the Spanish case with some grand cartographical deception.

Magellan Reaches Guam: Chamorro Outriggers Take On Spanish Carracks

Reception of the Manila galleon by the Chamorro at Guam, c. 1590.

Updated.

March 6, 1521: Ferdinand Magellan's fleet reached Guam after a deadly three-month crossing of the Pacific Ocean. In explaining the encounter, biographers typically highlight the sensational story of larcenous natives that met the fleet and how the Spanish thereby chose the name Ladroni Islands ("Thieves' Islands") for Guam and Rota.[1] Stories like that sell books. But the two eye-witness reports of the experience tell a second story, of the Chamorros' amazing boating skills and boats, and the only accounts we have of course offer only the Europeans' perspective. 

John Sailors has twenty-five years’ experience writing and editing, fifteen in educational/ESL publishing (coupled with several in the classroom) and ten as a journalist. In on the successful launch of six magazines; background also with newspapers, websites, books, novels, e-books, video, and more.