The engineering of retention ponds

The above video discusses the engineering needed for retention ponds. Basically, the ponds don't just capture and store excessive rainfall, rather they exist to regulate water runoff during storms. Regulating the flow of water to prevent, or at least minimize, flooding. 

I live in Florida which has enormous amounts of water areas coexisting with the land. There are retention ponds everywhere, in fact there is one a couple of hundred yards away from my humble abode. I've never given much thought to them and how they function -- they were just ponds plopped down in new developments. It is interesting to see what purpose they actually serve and how they function.    

  

Lucy Willis paintings

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Lucy Willis (1954 - today) is a contemporary English artist who works as a painter and printmaker. She is best known for her watercolors. She uses somewhat subdued colors and captures the play of light and shadow. She has travelled through southern Europe, the Middle East, and India and frequently portrays scenes from them.

Lucy Willis self-portrait

Good Vibrations

Get ready for a juddering weekend with the REO Brothers.

 

Cooking in the Amazon

This video takes place in a small settlement somewhere in the Amazon basin. The houses are  rather ramshackle looking, but there is power brought into it so it may be less remote than one would first expect. In one scene you see a TV playing in a back room, and there are satellite dishes on some of the houses. 

It starts with a man and his son going out to gather fruits and greens. They return to their home via a boat. It looks like it is setup as tour boat, so perhaps this settlement is somewhere around Manaus? 

When they return the women cook a meal -- fish covered with onions and greens wrapped in a leaf cooked over a fire, as well as some sort of a flour, perhaps casava, as a side dish. They also have fruit drinks.

The video ends with several shots of the settlement.

     

Columbus Day

Columbus's fleet departs for its historic trip

This is a reposting of a previous Columbus Day post. Again, the significance of his voyage is not that he steps foot on a Caribbean island, rather it is that his voyage led to the connecting of the Americas to Europe and the trade and the expansion of our world view that followed.

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It is Columbus Day. Some of the common talking points around it strike me as being rather puerile. For example, we have the 'stolen land' bit, and the strange 'Columbus didn't really discover it because other people were already there' point. 

As for the first, while the Indians undoubtably got ravaged in their encounter with Europeans, throughout history populations have sloshed back and forth taking and losing land. In fact, prior to the arrival of the Europeans the Indian tribes had been long engaged in chronic warfare with each other, with their areas of control shifting as their fortunes ebbed and flowed. If you had the misfortune of being a captive atop an Aztec pyramid you were already being ravaged.

As for the 'Columbus didn't really discover it' snark, Columbus isn't only, or even principally, known for being the first European to step foot on the soils of the Americas. We know other Europeans had travelled that far already. Rather, his voyage led to something theirs did not, the meaningful connection of the two hemispheres. As I've said in an earlier Columbus Day post, "The world changed from an academic's sphere to a physical globe on which the oceans were routes to all its lands." That is the importance of his achievement. 

His discovery was world altering. We have a term for its consequence -- the Columbian Exchange. Columbus's discovery led to the opening of transatlantic trade, and with that plants, animals, diseases, and people passed from one hemisphere to the other. Wheat, corn, potatoes, rice, barley, cattle, pigs, and horses all crossed the Atlantic to the benefit of all. Unfortunately, diseases did as well, much to the detriment of the Amerindians. That transfer greatly impacted both sides of the Atlantic. It shaped the world we live in today, and that is the legacy of Columbus's voyages and the true reason he is to be remembered. 

Carl Blechen paintings

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Carl Blechen (1798 – 1840) was a German Romantic painter. He was one of the later Romanticists and his work, while still overly dramatic, is more grounded than the earlier Romanticists. He is best known for his landscapes. His mental health gradually deteriorated and he died of a total mental breakdown.

Carl Blechen self-portrait

Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye

Get ready for a leave taking weekend with Sophia Ammann.