Monday, August 27, 2007

Arts & Crafts

The Arts and Crafts progress began mainly as a search for real and meaningful styles for the 19th century and as a response to the miscellaneous revival of famous styles of the Victorian era and to "inexpressive" machine-made manufacture aided by the Industrial Revolution. Considering the instrument to be the source cause of all repetitive and ordinary evils, some of the protagonists of this association turned completely away from the use of technology and towards handcraft, which tended to focus their productions in the hands of receptive but comfortable consumers.

Yet, while the Arts and Crafts movement was in great part a effect to industrialization, if looked at on the entire, it was neither anti-modern. Some of the European factions thought that machines were in fact required, but they should only be used to reduce the tediousness of routine, repetitive tasks. At the same time, some Arts and Crafts leaders felt that things should also be reasonable. The difference between quality production and 'demo' design, and the effort to settle the two, subject design debate at the turn of the twentieth century.

Monday, August 20, 2007

Navigation

Navigation by ships depends on the capability to measure latitude and longitude. Latitude is quite easy to determine through outer space navigation, but the measurement of longitude requires exact measurement of time. This need was a major motivation for the development of accurate mechanical clocks. John Harrison created the first highly exact marine chronometer in the mid-18th century. The Noon gun in Cape Town still fires an exact signal to allow ships to check their chronometers.

Monday, August 13, 2007

Eisenhower jacket

An Eisenhower jacket, or "Ike" jacket, is a kind of military uniform blouse, or shortened coat, terminating in a waistband. Introduced by U.S. Army General and Supreme Commander of the Allied forces in Europe Dwight David Eisenhower, his new design firstly appeared in 1943 as a modified edition of the U.S. Army's regulation service uniform coat, the idea based on the British Battle Dress coat which predated the American Ike Jacket by a number of years.

After World War II, jackets of this style became a suitable type of coat to wear when operating a vehicle and/or carrying a sidearm, which made variations of it trendy with civilian police agencies.

Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Cock ring or cock ring

A cock ring or cock ring is a ring that is located around a man’s penis, usually at the base, primarily to slow the leakage of blood from the erect penile tissue, thus maintaining erection for longer. Cock rings can be worn around just the penis or penis and scrotum, or just the scrotum alone, though this is usually designated as a testicle cuff. Rings can be made of a variety of different materials; most commonly leather, rubber, or silicone, though nylon and metal are also used either as the main component or part of the closure.