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: Lu Abel
Date: 2013 Sep 3, 08:41 -0700
From: Lu Abel
Date: 2013 Sep 3, 08:41 -0700
To me, there is something organic about celnav. You take a shot, you go through the reduction process by hand, you get a LOP. You are personally involved every step of the way. With GPS, the black box simply gives you an answer.
It's sort of like a steam railroad locomotive vs a diesel. For a steam engine, you can see every step of the process -- fuel burning, steam generated, pistons operating, wheels turned. For a diesel, there's something magic hidden away inside a steel box and magic happens and the wheels turn. I suspect that
"see every step of the process" is why far more people are lovers of old steam locomotives than old diesels.
It's sort of like a steam railroad locomotive vs a diesel. For a steam engine, you can see every step of the process -- fuel burning, steam generated, pistons operating, wheels turned. For a diesel, there's something magic hidden away inside a steel box and magic happens and the wheels turn. I suspect that
"see every step of the process" is why far more people are lovers of old steam locomotives than old diesels.
From: Hanno Ix <hannoix@att.net>
To: luabel@ymail.com
Sent: Monday, September 2, 2013 6:13 PM
Subject: [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
----------------------------------------------------------------
NavList message boards and member settings: www.fer3.com/NavList
Members may optionally receive posts by email.
To cancel email delivery, send a message to NoMail[at]fer3.com
----------------------------------------------------------------: http://fer3.com/arc/m2.aspx?i=125056: http://fer3.com/arc/m2.aspx?i=125057
