Cool Pictures 14: no , it wasn't me who painted Mona Lisa
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This foreboding satellite image shows Hurricane Milton gathering strength as it prepares to make landfall in Florida. It was captured by external cameras on the International Space Station, and scientists were quick to draw attention to the hurricane’s tiny eye. The eye is the calmest point of a storm, and ‘pinhole’ eyes, which have a diameter of less than 16 kilometres, indicate very fast, highly dangerous winds. Milton made landfall in Siesta Key, Florida, as a category 3 hurricane on 9 October, less than two weeks after the same area was battered by Hurricane Helene.
A shark picking at the last pieces of flesh on a whale carcass in Australia’s Ningaloo Reef. It was taken by underwater photographer Daniel Browne.
Bonyduck Campersang
Odd lookin duck
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Depth by M.C. Escher
^Location?
I do not know. It is an old download from more than a few years ago. I was going through one of my archive HDD today and noticed it. The size of the waves impressed me.
I'm not criticizing the picture. It's just that when people post pictures of real places and events, I like to know where it is, in case I want to know more and can look it up.
This is a tessarakonteres, a massive hellenistic galley. Takes its name from the fact that (εδιτ) each column (for the three rows) used 40 rowers.
It was also carrying cavalry. In byzantine times, analogous galleys would be in use for establishing a beachhead by having cataphract cavalry gallop to the shore from inside the galley.
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Okay, my first thought was that this must be a bronze-age cruise ship. Obviously I've been watching too many cruise videos lately!
Indeed, not pairs of rowers, but rowers per column (to operate the three levels). Assuming only half of them were concurrently used (for the external sides), 2000= 50 columns(40 rowers), with the other 2000 as reserves.
Looks like Ben-Hur had it easy:
Spoiler :
"Tessarakonteres (Greek: τεσσαρακοντήρης, "forty-rowed"), or simply "forty", was a very large catamaran galley reportedly built in the Hellenistic period by Ptolemy IV Philopator of Egypt. It was described by a number of ancient sources, including a lost work by Callixenus of Rhodes and surviving texts by Athenaeus and Plutarch. According to these descriptions, supported by modern research by Lionel Casson, the enormous size of the vessel made it impractical and it was built only as a prestige vessel, rather than an effective warship. The name "forty" refers not to the number of oars, but to the number of rowers on each vertical "column" of oars that propelled it, and at the size described it would have been the largest ship constructed in antiquity, and probably the largest human-powered vessel ever built."
Lots of details here:
en.wikipedia.org
"Each column or section of the ship would be composed of twenty rowers; perhaps eight rowers on each section's top rank, seven in the middle, and five on the bottom rank."
Lots of details here:
Tessarakonteres - Wikipedia
"Each column or section of the ship would be composed of twenty rowers; perhaps eight rowers on each section's top rank, seven in the middle, and five on the bottom rank."
I just ran across this in the Heinlein Society group on FB:
Robert A. Heinlein loved cats.
Robert A. Heinlein loved cats.
Bonyduck Campersang
Odd lookin duck
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This is me when I don't check in on social media for a week
Speaking of Russia....This picture was taken in 1911 (in color) at the Borodino battlefield for the 100th anniversary commemoration. It was taken from a tower in the Shevardino Monastery that was built on the site of the Russian fleches. The view looks west, across the field of battle and the open ground the French crossed. The monastery was later demolished.
Mauna Loa, Hawaiian shield volcano on the Big Island. Photo taken from sea level in Hilo. Summit is 13,679'. From the sea floor the summit is 30,985'. The summit is 38 air miles from Hilo. Mauna Loa is still active and last erupted for 2 weeks in December 2022.
This is Mt. Robson, in British Columbia (tallest mountain in the Canadian Rockies). The last time I traveled through BC with my dad was in the late '80s, and my grandmother was excited for me to see this mountain.
Naturally, my dad was in such a *censored* hurry to get home that by the time we got to this point on the highway, it was midnight and I couldn't see a damn thing. He finally realized that no, we weren't going to make it all the way back to Red Deer and would have to stop for some sleep (we'd set out from Vernon in early afternoon so I could hit the bookstores before we left; this was a quick trip to attend a funeral).
So we pulled into the David Thompson campground across the border in Alberta, after midnight in the pouring rain, and discovered that the skylight in the Winnebago was leaking... right where my bed was, in the top bunk. There was nowhere else for me to sleep, so I had a somewhat soggy night even after we rigged up a cover for the skylight and I held a pail in place to catch anything that made it through.
Naturally, my dad was in such a *censored* hurry to get home that by the time we got to this point on the highway, it was midnight and I couldn't see a damn thing. He finally realized that no, we weren't going to make it all the way back to Red Deer and would have to stop for some sleep (we'd set out from Vernon in early afternoon so I could hit the bookstores before we left; this was a quick trip to attend a funeral).
So we pulled into the David Thompson campground across the border in Alberta, after midnight in the pouring rain, and discovered that the skylight in the Winnebago was leaking... right where my bed was, in the top bunk. There was nowhere else for me to sleep, so I had a somewhat soggy night even after we rigged up a cover for the skylight and I held a pail in place to catch anything that made it through.