The Devil’s a sneaky bastard (though technically, he has no parents). Ever since his early days in the Garden of Eden, he’s been plotting to pervert and enslave man. His latest trick was the internet. Initially, it was intended as the digital era’s apple: a means to drown man in a world-engulfing sea of knowledge of everything and all, in …
The Wolf Who Cried Rain
Having lost World War II because of the Allies’ superior weather forecast capabilities, Germany was anxious for success on the weather front. On any front, really, as long as it wasn’t one of the military kind. But how could they possibly trump the breakthrough of the home weather station network? Meteorologists agreed that mapping and forecasting global weather was now …
How the War Was Won
In the history of humanity, no topic has been discussed more than the weather. In fact, even before humanity, birds were tweeting about sunrises, rain and wind. Cavemen would look at the sky and grunt approval or dismay, and later they even communicated forecasts based on earlier weather experiences. Nowadays, we all have weather radars and two week worldwide forecasts …
Men and Their Mighty Rods
Fishing used to be the pastime of kings. Not the sport of kings, nor the breakfast of champions, mainly because fishing isn’t a breakfast or –perhaps less obviously- a sport. It used to be either hard work, if you had to cast your nets to make a living, or a pastime. The pastime of kings. Or the pastime of men …
Understanding 1970s Design 101
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and there’s no accounting for taste. These trivial truths are generally true, as truths tend to be. Except for a remarkable decade in the history of industrial design: the 1970s. Back then, ugly was the new groovy. It’s not that people in the 70s thought those designs were beautiful. Everyone knew full …
If at First You Don’t Succeed, <BR>Tri and Tri Again
The Triffids were a mutated plant species that threatened to take over the world just after World War II –as documented in John Wyndham’s The Day of the Triffids. These plants were mobile and intelligent, and they were armed with a deadly stinger. Ultimately mankind all but wiped them out by spraying the planet with Agent Orange, a potent defoliant. …
Fat Boys Unite
Just like me, the Agfa Clack is lovely and chubby. Also a bit like me, it’s a camera, a device recording the world around it without taking part in most of its activities. There’s also a few obvious differences. Its focus is better than mine, it’s from Germany and it was born in 1954, fifteen years before me. The Clack …
Quartz 5 Film Camera <BR>Part III
Good things come to those who keep at it till it’s done. Taking apart the Quartz 5 camera was a pleasant challenge, photographing all 340 parts and cleaning them up in Photoshop a bore, and sorting out the mess a devilish molehill of mountainous proportions, but the result is a great sense of achievement and my fourth largest Deconstruction to …
Bronze medalist: <BR>Agfa Synchro Box
As the Quartz 5 film camera is still Under Deconstruction -at a steady pace of two steps forward, one step back- I’d like to present one I did earlier, in order to keep myself mo- and my audience captivated. I proudly present: The Agfa Synchro Box. Though the rust would suggest otherwise, the Synchro Box isn’t all that old. This …