When general Yi Song-Gye overthrew the Goryeo (Koryö) dynasty in 1392, he transferred the capital from Gaeseong to Hanyang (Seoul) and had a defensive wall built around the city. It was finished in 1398 after three years of work. In keeping with East Asian precedent there was a gate at each of the four approaches to the city: north, south, east, and west. Of the original four, the south gate is the best preserved, dating from 1447. Since goods used to flow into the city through here, a bustling market grew up along the adjacent street. Though the walls have vanished, the market remains, and is larger than ever.
The wooden part of the gate was destroyed by fire on February 10, 2008. According to some witnesses, the fire was incendiary. The identity of the arsonist is not yet known, but a taxi driver in the area observed a male approximately 50 years of age climb to the second floor with a lighted bag and run from the area.
Stonehenge, Statue of Liberty, the pyramids of Gaza… national monuments around the world have incredibly powerful symbolic value. That’s why they are often blown up in epic action movies.
My condolences to the Korean people. This was indeed a very regrettable incident.
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I was seriously considering to build a charger like this myself. After googling around a bit, I found a company (Thermo-Gen) that has already designed a commercial product that allows you to keep low power mobile electronics charged up in the wilderness. It works with water, a heat source and the Peltier effect to generate electricity.
The mobile Thermoelectric Generator / charger (TEG) is based on a Trangia stormproof stove. The TEG can be used with all types of heat sources: LPG, alcohol, kerosene, open log fire, log fired stoves…
- Electric power output: 9W with cool water and 4W with boiling water in the
kettle.
- Kettle diameter: 160mm
- The “all in one” packs into a compact unit
- Electric connection: DC plug connector
- Optional adapter: DC-plug to car cigarette lighter socket
- Cellular phones and other units are charged via a cigarette lighter charger
adapter connected to the TEG output
As long as you have firewood and water, you could easily keep a GPS, a digital camera and a Nokia communicator infinitely charged with this ingenious device. I wrote about portable power sources some time ago, but unfortunately solar power is not a realistic option here in Finland.
Posted by api at 08:02 - 4 Comments »
During my last hike in Lappland I realized what a difference a little bonfire can make to a camp site. It immediately increases the general comfort level of a wilderness camp. You can cook food, dry your gear and stay warm much more easily when you are staying next to a fire. Unfortunately modern ultralight tent and clothing materials are usually very sensitive to heat. When placed next to fire, a typical tent or synthetic clothing can catch fire in no time.
Many Finnish hikers use a traditional lean-to shelter made of aluminium coated nylon such as the one pictured above. What I cannot understand is why hasn’t anyone made one out of Nomex. Nomex is a type of aramid fibre that is used in textile products used by the military, fire fighters and car racers. It is patented by DuPont and various fabrics based on it seem to be readily available from manufacturers such as Warwick.
A company called Massif even produces fire-resistant, waterproof, breathable outdoor clothing. I’d be interested in sewing a traditional lean-to shelter out of waterproof Nomex derivative. Please drop me a line on the comment section of this post if you know of a supplier that could sell a short roll or a leftover piece of suitable fabric.
EDIT: I’ve learned that Nomex is also used in hot air balloons in the part that is closest to the burner. I’ll contact a balloon pilot tomorrow to ask for more details. All I really need is an approximately 2 x 5 meter piece or 10 square meters… I can’t afford to buy a 500 meter roll.
Posted by api at 09:20 - No Comments »
Sunshine
The director also considered the story of Sunshine as an appropriate counterintuitive approach for the contemporary issue of global warming, with the death of the sun being a threat. Originally, Sunshine was scripted to begin with a voiceover talking about how parents tell their children not to look into the sun, but once told, the children would be compelled to look. Boyle described the sun as a godly personality in the film, creating a psychological dimension for the astronauts due to its scale and power. The director also described the film’s villain as based on light, explaining, “That’s quite a challenge because the way you generate fear in cinema is darkness.” The director also sought to have the characters experience a psychological journey in which each person is worn mentally, physically, and existentially and is experiencing doubt in their faiths.
I like to get a little dose of science fiction every now and then to keep the subconsciousness nourished with far-out ideas. Sunshine was just what the doctor ordered as far as the science part of the movie is concerned. In the movie a “Q-Ball” , the nucleus of a supersymmetric particle, gets itself lodged in the Sun. The hypothetical Q ball eats through normal matter, ripping apart the Sun’s neutrons and protons and converting them into supersymmetric particles. The Earth’s last and only hope? Why, to launch and detonate a gigantic nuclear bomb to fix the problem, of course!
Here’s an interesting review with the scientific advisor of the film.
Well, science aside, I think the film makers did a pretty good job with many other aspects of the film. The art direction and visual effects in general were well made. More importantly, they were also original and refreshing, which is not an easy task to accomplish in this day and age.
I found it particularly inspiring that the sun was treated as a god-like entity much like the ancient egyptian Sun God Ra and the aztec god Huitzilopochtli. As a matter of fact, sun has been worshipped for all of recorded history.
My personal prediction is that the Sun God is about to get quite angry while us mere mortals are thinning the ozone layer which is protecting us from his angry UVB eye.
Posted by api at 11:43 - 1 Comment »
Well, I’m back from the wilderness. The bogs proved to be way too deep for my Scarpa alpine hiking shoes. I spent quite a few nights by the campfire drying my feet, shoes & socks. I also spent two nights at one of the most scenic wilderness huts in Lappland, the Vaskolompolo hut. Two other outdoor enthusiasts joined me to spend the night at the safety and comfort of the hut. One of them was Reijo, a retired border guard and the other one was Ivalo-Joe, a friendly gold miner who was hunting for bears in the area. He had a superb hunting dog with him called K.A. Lotti. I spotted a few bear droppings myself.. and half a dozen moose who chose to run away with great commotion and noise when I approached them.
We spoke about the habits of the animals, gold mining legends and other interesting and very non-urban subjects. During the first night there were some nice Aurora Borealis on the sky and we took the opportunity to take a few long exposure shots of them. (The new Aurea models by Philips remind me of them, by the way)
Once again, I was completely enchanted by the nature and the people of the North. I plan to return over there again and perhaps even do some gold panning one day. I heard that many men have panned the gold for their own wedding rings in the old days.
After I’ve returned to Helsinki, I’ve been a bit busy with work and real estate deals, so I haven’t had time to upload photograhs from the trip, but I’ll try to do it later. We’ll be moving to a new address next week.
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Ol Doinyo Lengai - The mountain of Gods
I have climbed about 50 active volcanoes in various parts of the world, but Ol Doinyo Lengai has captured my interest like no other volcano ever has. As of 2005 I have climbed Ol Doinyo Lengai 10 times and have spent 100 nights camping at the summit craters. During my first visit on July 17, 1997, I went up and down in one day and spent about 4 hours in the crater. There was some very minor activity, but four hours is not long enough to have a very good chance of seeing an eruption. I decided that I wanted to spend several nights there to increase my chances of seeing some flowing lava, which is what I did twice in 1998 and once in 1999. The more time I spent on Ol Doinyo Lengai, the more fascinated I became. In July 2000 and July 2001 I organized camping expeditions to the crater for small groups of clients. In August 2002 my expedition, which included photographers, a film team, and a volcanologist, encountered hazardous camping conditions due to violent lava fountains and extremely rapid lava flows. Part of our camp was destroyed by lava and a Tanzanian guide was injured.
Volcano spotting! Now there’s a hobby I can appreciate. Oldoinyo Lengai is the only volcano in the world that erupts natrocarbonatite lava. It’s cooler than other types of lava and looks like black mud or oil during the day, but glows in a mysterious orange hue during night. It also the most fluid lava in the world… almost like water.
This was the volcano of the week at Volcano World. The report is by Frederick A. Belton.
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This neat little gas heater has a radio frequency remote control! It also acts as a terrific replacement for a televison. The fake wood in the heater looked completely convincing with a red hot glow and all.
I believe television was originally developed partly as a replacement for a traditional fireplace in the post second world war era. Families could gather around it’s glow to spend time together and chat. Nothing beats the atmosphere a real fire creates though.
Fireplace-Direct appears to sell quite similar cast iron stoves
Posted by api at 23:01 - 1 Comment »
Kelly Kettle test
The Kelly Kettle is a unique water boiler that is essentially a water jacketed double walled aluminum chimney with a removable aluminum fire pan. To use, a small fire is built in the pan, the water filled chimney is placed on top and the fire heats the jacketed water.
Vigorous boiling was achieved in about 5-6 minutes. Additional cedar splits about 4-5 inches long were dropped down the chimney as needed. The kettle burned fast and hot using this fuel. These formed a sort of fire teepee as the splits were dropped in. The bottom seal again leaked but not as severely as the previous Laboratory Evaluation boils. A small amount of water was in the firepan, but because most of the burning wood was above the pan in the chimney this was not a problem. As the water got hotter, the leaking stopped.
Overall this is a fun and useful boiler. It is lightweight and has the ability to use found fuels; which makes it a very useful daytrip brewup kettle, and useful in boil only longer trips. This most likely will not replace my MSR stoves or other devices for longer trips where more than boiled water would be desired, but it will make its way into those daytrips/fishing trips/picnics that would benefit from a hot beverage or instant soup etc at the lunch break. The larger Kelly Kettle would be necessary for parties larger than 1 or 2.
Why on earth hasn’t anyone made one of these out of titanium yet?
Posted by api at 10:31 - 2 Comments »
This year we made a traditional Juhannus (summer solstice) cabin trip and burned a big bonfire to celebrate the longest day of the year.
Juhannus: Celebration of Summer
Close to midnight, the darkest hour of the night, which in most places is
not dark at all, the kokko is ceremoniously set on fire. The
spectators express their admiration as the flames roar up to the sky,
ferociously licking the dry wood of the boats while black smoke towers up
from the tar and oil used to render the boats waterproof in their earlier
role. But this role is the most glorious one: assuredly not fireproof,
the burning vessels brighten up the already light midnight sky to the
endless delight of the observers who linger far into the early morning
hours, enjoying the warmth and magic that burning fire somehow conjures up.
Another summer solstice is over, but in Finland it only wakes up the
sleeping winter-worn spirits, and summer comes to life in the land of the
midnight sun.
Another Juhannus tradition is to build a decorated pole not unlike the Christmas tree. We saw these in abundance on our bike trip to Ahvenanmaa last year.
Posted by api at 23:49 - No Comments »
Primitive ways
Quest for Fire is a story about the prehistoric time when man didn’t yet master the art of starting a fire. After tens of thousands of years, ask yourself… could you start a fire in the wilderness without any modern tools?
An interesting ancient invention called a fire piston is a quite sophisticated fire starting device. Getting one might be a good way to start the hobby of starting fires by friction
Starting a fire by rubbing two sticks together. Why do I always get a thrill out of doing it? Is it because there are probably less than 500 people in the United States who can consistently start a fire with a hand drill? Is it the entertainer in me? I don’t know. I assure you that the thrill is not diminished by knowing more about the scientific events that go on during the process.
The objective of this article is to provide some scientific insight into the events which happen when two sticks are rubbed together to start a fire. In particular, why is it that some woods don’t work at all, some work with great effort and others with relative ease. The principals discussed apply equally well to the fire saw, fire plow, hand spun drill or bow drill. Will it help you start a friction fire more easily or quickly? Probably not. Will it give you a deeper appreciation of the process? I hope so.
Edit: found an interesting article about a tinder tube
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