From the “more proof Walmart is evil” department, comes this bit of serendipity. While looking for a marine deep cycle battery to serve as storage for a solar powered remote weather station and webcam I’m designing, this turned up in the Walmart product search:
Intrigued by the photo, since I had never seen it before, and because it showed a clear view of the sea at Battery Park from the early years of aviation, I set about trying to find the source of it. Usually, photos that are for sale tend to be well protected so that hi-res versions don’t make it onto the net. To my complete surprise, not only did I find the source, but also a high-res version. To my even bigger surprise, it turned out to be in NOAA’s public domain photo collection.
The source:
A flying boat cruising by Battery Park at the south end of Manhattan Island. In: “Flug Und Wolken”, Manfred Curry, Verlag F. Bruckmann, Munchen, 1932.
Image ID: line0987, NOAA’s America’s Coastlines Collection
Location: New York City
Photo Date: 1930 Circa
Credit: Fairchild Aerial Surveys Inc.
Category: Coastline/Mid-Atlantic New York/Historical/
And here is the hi-res version:
Click to enlarge (BTW, since this is public domain, save and print it yourself if you like it. COSTCO offers print services, as Dr. Mike Mann found out) – Anthony_
Available at: http://www.photolib.noaa.gov/htmls/line0987.htm
(Update: Michael Ozanne writes in comments:
That’s the Dornier Do-X , the biggest plane in the world of its day and one of the worst aeronautical engineering exploits in history. Famous for its mishap ridden marketing flight from Friedrichshafen to New York which ended up taking 9 months. Longer than it would probably take to swim it….. more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dornier_Do_X )
Note in the background, you can see what looks to be the Empire State Building (or possibly the Chrysler building) nearing completion. Empire state officially opened on May 1st, 1931. The Chrysler building May 20, 1930. That puts the photo above around 1930 to early 1931. (any readers that can help identify for sure, leave a comment please).
Now compare that photo to this one taken 80 years later in 2010 from Wikipedia with a nearly identical vantage point:
While there have been a lot of changes, most notably the mature trees now in Battery Park, one thing is clear – the city has not been inundated by sea level rise even though the NOAA Battery Park tide gauge indicates a rise of about 0.22 meter ( 8 3/4 inches):
Granted, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference in sea level from 1930 to 2010 just by looking at the two photos, but that’s the point, especially when we see idiotic stories like this one in National Geographic:
Or this one of La Guardia airport by Climate Central’s Andrew Freedman, which is the all-time dumbest in my opinion, since I’m pretty sure sea level rise can’t catch airplanes:
What La Guardia Airport could look like with 5 feet of sea level rise, an amount that could occur by 2100, according to some estimates. Click on the image to enlarge. Credit: Nickolay Lamm/StorageFront , for Climate Central, using Climate Central data.
As always, I remind our readers:
Freaking out about NYC sea level rise is easy to do when you don’t pay attention to history
Related articles
- From the Scientific Urban Legend Department: ‘AGW Sea Level Rise Made Sandy More Destructive’ (wattsupwiththat.com)
nutso fasst says:
September 21, 2013 at 9:47 am
Good possibility the photo was taken Aug 27, 1931.
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If that date is correct, then that was the day before a full moon.
Steven Mosher says:
September 21, 2013 at 10:06 am
nobody asks about the time of observation. interesting to see skepticism in action. selective skepticism
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From what I can judge by looking at the building shadows in the photo, I would place the picture between late morning or slightly after noon, as a range of possibility.
nutso fasst says:
September 21, 2013 at 12:26 pm
“It seems to me that if bedrock didn’t subside, there would be no such thing as isostatic adjustment and the belief in plate tectonics would need to be de-consensualized.”
Point taken. But, in the context of the weight of buildings and other development, these should not affect it.
Darren Potter says:
September 21, 2013 at 9:17 pm
“But back to Tidal gauge, it has been reported it sits on fill dirt and is not anchored to bedrock.”
My point is simply that the mass of the buildings and such is not really relevant. Or, at least, I don’t think it should be. If you find evidence otherwise, by all means share it. It would be interesting, I think, to compare the mass of all the buildings in NYC with the mass of the Earth beneath. I would bet the latter is much greater, since it is closely compacted and dense everywhere, whereas the buildings do not cover the ground everywhere and are mostly empty air.
Jeff (of Colorado) says:
September 21, 2013 at 11:17 pm
Look at the shadows on the buildings, the West sides are in shadow so it is before noon to 1-ish. The buildings seen to the left of the wings have shadows that are closer to noon shadows than 8:00am. What was the tide at at 11:00 am?
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I see that Jeff had the same thought before me regarding the shadows cast by the buildings. I posted after reading S Mosher,s comment.
Jeff
http://tinyurl.com/kulg44p
Zeke, Wal~Mart in Arkiefornia is not saving people money. Since they have basically run out all the competition they can and do charge whatever suits their fancy and still not pay their non-management associates nearly a living wage. Albertson’s is their only competitor in NW Arkansas, they are employee owned and have customers who prefer better quality/ service at a store that pays a decent wage.
This is my favorite store in the entire US of A.
Woodman’s Food Market
1 (262) 857-3801
7145 120th Ave, Kenosha, WI 53142
http://goo.gl/maps/7nKxz
There are other Woodman’s scattered about Wisconsin and Northern Illinois and are just as good. I know you can save a thousand or more off of Wal~Mart’s prices. I load up when able to get by one. I’m considering a second home just to be nearby.
WinCo Foods probably comes in second. Sam’s Club, Meijer, Giant, Country Mart, Kroger all rate above Wal~Mart. Giant Eagle, Ingles, Hy Vee, Wegman’s, HE Butt and Food City. I shop at them all. Probably every one of them pays better living wages than Wal~Mart. Wal~Mart is actually rather in the way of better buying power and wages for the poor.
What is a ‘living wage’ Ed? Are these people not living, or just not “living it up” (as the saying goes?)
I found out this pat week, Ed, that we have the ‘richest’ poor people in the world! Did you know that? How can that be?
Ed, who is poor that they should receive this ‘living’ wage? Are you also not aware of assistance programs such as SNAP?
There are also those that would contend that the minimum wage is not a “living wage” so much as an “entry level wage”, a starting wage, a training wage, and a stepping stone wage to better wages. Just like a job at McDonald’s is not a job to raise a family on. It’s an entry level job, a starting job, a training job, a stepping stone job to bigger and better jobs.
.
My best guess is that Dornier contracted Fairchild Aviation to take aerial pictures of the arrival due to the fact it was a big marketting (or propaganda) operation from the start. It is reasonable to think a FC-2 was used for the job. Sharpness of the aerial picture suggest Fairchild equipment used.
From another source: [www.letletlet-warplanes.com/2008/06/04/german-flying-boats-part-1-1914-1935/] “From Brazil the Do-X continued its flight following the coast of the continent and later it crossed the Caribbean to Miami -Florida. It arrived here on 22 August 1931. Four days later it reached the harbour of New York.” This one suggest 26 August.
As stated by another commenter, if we look at shadows, the Sun seem high & south or slightly to the east. Also, according to: [http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov] THE BATTERY,NY Station ID: 8518750 for 27-08-1931 had high tide around 13:00z (09:00LOCAL), measured 4.12ft at this time (this is not the max point but very near), and low tide around 19:00z (15:00LOCAL) at 0.02ft. Note that these NOAA data use GMT-4 for LOCAL, and I have no clue if NY still used EDT after WWI & there is no mention AFAIK of original data used system. Anyway, midday is 17:00z & shadows suggest time of picture 16:00z where reported tide data are at 1.82ft & falling (if we assume orig. data in GMT). For anyone knowledgeable in these matter, would it be reasonable to assume the pilot of the flying boat tried to match high tide for arrival, but was little late?
According to: [http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/cgi-bin/vphase-post.sh], 27-08-1931 was near full moon.
FYI, there is a treasure trove of historical map of Manhattan accessible at: [www.davidrumsey.com/]
From Jeff Alberts on September 22, 2013 at 9:42 am:
Which did absolutely nothing useful as this is an established side-topic that came from the original post. It would be ungentlemanly to speculate as to your true motives at this point so I shall forgo such for now.
So the wheelchairs use batteries in series, not parallel. Easy enough to just say here without massive re-quoting over there. Makes sense to keep the voltage higher thus less amperage for reduced wire size and otherwise less-costlier devices.
So replace an individual 12v with two 12v that are half the size, connect in parallel, connect the sets in series for the voltage. If one battery fails then you only have about half the amperage so you can’t go too fast, but you’re still moving.
Is the failure rate really so low it is acceptable to risk operation on all of two or three of the larger batteries remaining functioning? Around town I see people use their chairs in place of a car, traveling dozens of blocks for shopping. We definitely do not have 24/7 taxi service. Any breakdown would be a tragedy.
Also, you said in the wrong place:
But this is not exactly a solar battery array. Instead of high drain and fast charge, for this application it’s low drain and trickle charge. It’ll still be deep cycling, but not as harsh a treatment. As for the weather conditions, comparable as earlier stated.
Thus a battery suitable for scooters and “personal mobility systems” may be slightly more than the requirements, but would cover them cheaply.
About the NOAA sea level graph for NY sloping at 2.77mm/yr, call me stupid if you want since this is not my field, but is there any correction for isostatic rebound? It is repported by [http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~ecalais/projects/noam/jgr06/] as near -2.5mm/yr (minus = rock going down) for around Manhattan. Coincidence?
Also, Anthony, I think that Lead Acid chemistry for solar energy storage is not a good solution. Pb/H2SO4 need to be kept at full charge level to avoid sulfation. Since your usage is not calling for high discharge rate, deep cycle w/t its stronger plate structure is a good choice, but Plante battery (if you can find a true one) and weight & low current are no problems would be better & support desulfation torture better. Dont think VRLA (AGM/Gel) are strong enough, they are optimised for safety.
I’m no expert in battery but since your application seem to be located in the “wild” Lithium is probably too fragile. Ni-Cd seem to me a good choice to investigate. Maybe LiFePo4 worth a look also.
If you select Pb/H2SO4 deep cycle, use a big margin of supply production for your solar pannel vs needed load to try to keep the battery most of the time at >= 80% & it shall do fine.
Didn’t read all of the replies, but in the RV world, about the best value in batteries that you can find are 6v golf cart batts. Costco usually has them for about $80ea, and they are a much better deep cycle than marine batts.
Many RVers who “boondock” use them due to their deep discharge charactaristics and high capacity.
Jim
Wal-Mart Stores Profit Margin Quarterly:
3.48% for July 31, 2013
Plainly, Walmart is making less than 4cents per dollar and they know what to pay employees, while still offering the thousands of dollars in savings per year to families across the country.
Perhaps the poster above would like to dictate and militate that companies must not make more than 3cents per dollar? What exactly is being suggested here? May I have the profit margin this poster assumes is ideal? And if less than 4cents is too much profit, go after a tech company which does 20%. THHEEEN, after you have destroyed the continual improvements and innovations in technology (which requires re-investment of high profits into R&D, capital and employment) at some company like Microsoft, bring your worthless, useless, failed business model to Walmart and ruin more efficiency and innovation – as well as increased purchasing power for the customers – there.
What many people do not understand about our economy is that those who are poor at any given time are not the same people who are poor after a decade. Home ownership, marriage, long term employment with a company or continued education are all factors which show in longitudinal studies to contribute to upward mobility. It is no sin to have a starter home and to have an entry level job, or to be in retail until you formulate your plan for a career. Walmart is in the business of providing what people need at the best prices.
However, I do not feel sorry for or look down on these employees. Over 75% of the management started as hourly associates, and Walmart offers education benefits to get a degree.
I know this is really late now, but anyone notice the sky scraper in the “new” photo where the peir once was, I believe it may be the Ritz Carlton Battery Park? Some of the buildings are the same as the original photo, so it’s easy to see. But the new building is Southwest “in the water” across from what I believe is the Whitehall building. Sea levels my be rising, but seriously, they have been for thousands of years, doesn’t seem to stop people from developing by the sea….
And like the other stores I mentioned don’t do the same thing and maybe better. Without having the EDF inside their corporate offices ready to come visit vendors and say hey we’re not going to buy from you unless you do these emissions improvements. Hurting their margins or driving them to foreign countries.
I’ve worked quite a few tornado, hurricanes and other disaster in my 25 year career spotting dry box trailers and containers for people to put their belongings in. Brought in quite a few relief supplies from a lot of other places besides just Wal~Mart. That’s how I met Ross Perot.
When I get time I’ll be back. It’s Harp’s, not Albertson’s in NWA competition. Busy, busy, busy as a monkey tree.
I saw Paul Ryan in Janesville, WI right after the election buying ammo at Gander Mountain. Didn’t get a chance to ask wuwt? He did say he left the Stench on the east coast.
I bloody worked at Wal~Mart in the early eighties and got polygraphed 4 times as did the whole bunch of us by them money grubbing control freaks anytime anything went missing. Sam’s bird dog tried to run oft with me. They don’t promote many associates to management. They go to colleges and do recruiting.
Neither the Chrysler nor Empire State building are are south of the Brooklyn bridge which the building in the photo clearly is.
According to Google Earth, The skyscraper with the azure roof top is on Wall St, next to Trinity church. The other is on Pine St, ~200 meters further East as the crow flies. I could not fine the names for these buildings and street level views of NY are difficult to follow.
I was trying not to go OT. That should have been obvious, and was spelled out. Just because this is an “established side-topic” doesn’t mean it should continue here.
And the “copious quoting” was so that others would know what was being discussed to a degree if they were interested.
Sorry to have wasted your time, and mine.
Perhaps you should switch to decaf…
“” Zeke says:
September 21, 2013 at 11:01 am
WUWT says “From the “more proof Walmart is evil” department…”
…Our tremendous infrastructure and fossil fuel-based trucking and shipping not only give purchasing parity to those who would not otherwise have it, it allows flexible and powerful responses in local areas when needed.””
By “Our” are you saying that you work for W-mart?
kbc says, “Are you saying that you work for Walmart?”
No. I have delivered to distribution centers before, more than 15 years ago, but not regularly. Our economic interest in Walmart’s successful model is in maintaining a single income home.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan is counting on parents both going to work because of rising living expenses as an opportunity to keep schools open all year, 7 days a week, for 14 hours a day, along with a “health care center” and after school activities beyond that. Parents should be aware of the two-income trap, and that there is an alternative to two incomes. A family can do reasonably well mainly through saving money on groceries and gas. Savings of several thousand dollars a year offered by Walmart can keep The Goddess at home.
The purchasing power of these single income homes is extremely important to the discussion of the real strength of the economy in the US.
From Jeff Alberts on September 23, 2013 at 7:20 am:
Jeff, unclench. Think about how much suffering in the world comes from people who decide they will allow themselves to feel insulted by someone else.
There was nothing personal, and as you can see above, discussion on the subject continued here as others joined in. I don’t know if those commenters followed the discussion from there to here or just continued it from here, but either way it’s happening here instead of at two different posts.
The only thing on this blog that conclusively shifts a conversation, by my observations, is management shutting down all comments and directing us elsewhere.
I have found having regular coffee as my primary intaken liquid keeps my mind focused so I don’t dwell on trivial matters. I make a pot then let it cool to room temperature, drink it African-American.