As many of you know from either long term following of the blog or by reading our introduction to the crew (aka production staff of the American Admiralty Books Blog) we as a group are highly interested in science, particularly the nautical arts and sciences but also all hard sciences that have utility in the maritime world.
Optical physics has had utility in the maritime world since before the invention of the Quartermaster's Long Glass (telescope). There have been many improvements to the Long Glass over time including the invention of the binoculars giving the conning officer and the look out depth perception when looking at objects at great distances.
The Long Glass is now often used in naval ceremony. Pictured above. NEW ORLEANS (March 10, 2007) – Retired Senior Chief Fire Control Technician Hank Wristen, a prior crew member aboard the WW II heavy cruiser USS New Orleans (CA 32), and the second ship to bear the name, passes the ship's long glass to Chief Warrant Officer Robert McLaughlin. McLaughlin became the first Officer of the Deck aboard the Navy's newest commissioned warship, the amphibious transport dock ship USS New Orleans (LPD 18) on March 10, 2007. US Navy Photo # 07310-N-9
The binocular evolved into the "Big Eyes" (really big pedestal mounted binoculars) giving a wider field of view and distance perception exceeding even the later versions of the Long Glass. Laser Range Finders, and target acquisition related devices, are among the more recent contributions to navigational safety and naval combat proficiency to emerge from the labs of the optical physics departments of universities and companies. Optical physics is not alien to the nautical arts and sciences.
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| Cryptologic Technician 1st Class Jasen Williams, right, mans the "Big Eyes" binoculars as Operations Specialist Seaman Stephani Wood stands by, waiting to pass along any instructions as USS Blue Ridge (LCC 19) gets underway. U.S. Navy Photo # 050419-N-7 |
When we were approached by Helios Ruehls Inc. to serve as an experimental forum for their fledgling ventures into popular publishing we saw no conflict, and we perceived an opportunity.
You may recall that this blog started out with advertising and as an Amazon books thresh hold. Then the Democrats won the governorship in the our state of business origin and banking. By administrative fiat of dubious legality, the Democrats placed a sales tax upon all Internet purchases by the inhabitants of the state. Amazon immediately stopped offering their thresh hold arrangement within the state of our incorporation. We had to publish notices to our visitors that purchases made over any links we provided generated no revenues for us and that individuals within states having an Internet sales tax had responsibility to report all Internet purchases to their state internal revenue departments at state income tax time and to pay all out standing sales tax if the on line vendor did not collect sales tax. Pretty soon we had no advertisers either.
Enter Helios Ruehls,Inc. looking for publishing consultants and a test bed for ideas. At the time the blog continued to exist only as a sort of hobby activity for a couple of staffers. Zero advertising meant zero funding. But as they say in show biz "if you have a hit you have a hit, but if you have an audience you have a career." Thanks to all 600,000 + of you (and growing) the blog seems to have a life of its own , if you will "a career". Helios Ruehls helps us focus more than we would normally on the hard sciences particularly optical physics. While not all of their posts have direct maritime application we hope that we are building some new categories of visitors. The day will come when Helios Ruehls will launch their own unique blog site, but thanks to our partnership not as a completely unknown entity on the Internet. If thanks to liberal progressive socialism (Democratic Party politics) we never recover our vendor status and advertisers the experience of "operating in cooperation" with Helios Reuhls, Inc. has served us well as consultants. We look forward for at least the 2018 -19 period to continuing to bring you news from the world of optical physics and hard sciences via Helios Ruehls, Inc.
If you have a technology to sell that relates to the maritime world and would like to test the waters of the Internet drop us a comment in the comment section below with your contact information and we will get back to you. Both AAB and Helios Ruehls are open and happy to consider consulting, research contracts (Helios Ruehls, Inc.) , and assignments involving market testing, skunk works lab projects (Helios Ruehls, Inc. & AAB), and cooperative endeavors of various sorts involving the maritime disciplines and applied physics.
For the Editorial Board
Johnas Presbyter
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