NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: The Future of Celestial Navigation: A British Viewpoint
From: Bruce J. Pennino
Date: 2013 Sep 2, 22:13 -0400
From: Bruce J. Pennino
Date: 2013 Sep 2, 22:13 -0400
Well said Hanno! And I agree! For me it is a hobby
and a curiosity. It is marginally useful, a challenge , and helps a person
understand the universe a little bit. Satisfying because you must use your
brain. Historically very important!
I got into CN because my father-in-law enjoyed
watching stars at night from a dark point on Lake Champlain. Because I knew more
math than he did, he started asking me astronomy and spherical
geometry questions. I asked him astronomy questions. Then in my
wife's family homestead on Cape Cod there was a broken octant (her side of
family comes from a line of New Bedford whalers). Now I am a CN
hobbyist. Amazing how many nice people you meet and some of the
questions, crazy and relevant, you are asked. I bet this past summer I
pointed out Venus to 10 or more kids. One night a large family delayed leaving a
beach after sunset. They wanted to see Venus pop out...... and it appeared where
I said it would (more or less). I think people are interested in seeing
people doing "real" things. Kids are interested in geometry.
By the way, the funniest question I've been asked
when I was taking a noon sight from a Provincetown dock ....... "Are you
testing the water quality? " Any other funny questions?
Fun.
Bruce
----- Original Message -----From: Hanno IxSent: Monday, September 02, 2013 9:13 PMSubject: [NavList] Re: The Future of Celestial Navigation: A British Viewpoint
May I chime in - even though I am not an active CelNav guy?I cannot imagine there beeing still a technical reason for using CelNav.No serious modern seafarer or pilot would use it to travel the Earth -except in exotic circumstances, for instance as a back-up when you want todeliver a single-engine airplane to some remote place across the seaCelNav is an avocation, a hobby if you will. It could also be a sport withcompetitions just like sailing. But a practical navigation tool? Not more sothan using wind jammers to transport oil!And actually, that adds to its beauty. It is an elegant entry to astronomy,it allows virtually anyone to fathom his location in the Universe, it introducesyou to the strange world of Non-Euklidean Geometry, it will demonstratethe fantastic concepts of planetary movements, it allows you toretrace the journeys of the great explorers.... I could find many morereasons why people still do CelNav - no, why they are stilldeeply fascinated by it.This will not change in future centuris - CelNav touches the soul of man.hFrom: Frank Reed <FrankReed{at}HistoricalAtlas.com>
To: hannoix{at}att.net
Sent: Monday, September 2, 2013 3:19 PM
Subject: [NavList] Re: The Future of Celestial Navigation: A British Viewpoint
Wolfgang, you wrote:
"regarding "PowerPoint is evil" I can only remember someone giving a - pretty interesting, by the way - PowerPoint presentation on the use of lunar distances..."Ahh, Wolfgang. I'm afraid you don't really understand what people are saying when they talk about the PowerPoint problem and its "cognitive style". You should do some reading on it. The links I provided in my last post should get you started. Those two presentations of mine at Greenwich were NOT PowerPoint presentations in the narrow sense, and they were not PowerPoint-like in style. In fact, the slides that I created were very INTENTIONALLY not PowerPoint in style. I chatted with someone after the first talk who specifically inquired about the style of the presentation slides and how much he liked them. Many of my slides were pure visuals --photos of logbook pages, for example. Others had a single image and only three or four words of text. They were TOOLS of the presentation rather than a slavish PP-style outline with a bullet for every point.And you added:
"But what I really admire is the ease with which you utter scathing judgements about institutions and people you hardly know anything about."Oh wow, Wolfgang... it's been a while since I've seen this sort of thing from you. But oh yes, it's still familiar. I am so sorry that you saw my comments as "scathing judgements". If you disagree with anything I said, I would be happy to discuss it with you --if you can be specific. As for any chance that I may have offended the hard-working staff of HMNAO, I am sure that they are well aware of the very limited relevance of their work in the year 2013 and the resulting precarious nature of their employment status. This does not in any way reflect on their characters, and like everyone in the world (EVERYONE), I am sure they look after the apparent importance of their positions in the eyes of their employers.-FER
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