voyage led

LightCorp Voyage LED Task Light

Call 619-546-0872

Voyage is your high performance, yet subtle workspace companion. Its linear arms and joints flow gently into a broadened head shade that shields bright LEDs from view. An integrated USB port in the base conveniently charges mobile devices. Voyage unites functional ergonomics with timeless aesthetics with its full articulation, extended reach, and dimmable touch technology. All secured in a small, 6″ desktop footprint.

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Voyage is your high performance, yet subtle workspace companion. Its linear arms and joints flow gently into a broadened head shade that shields bright LEDs from view. An integrated USB port in the base charges mobile devices. Voyage unites functional ergonomics with timeless aesthetics with its full articulation, extended reach, and dimmable touch technology.

FEATURES • Single touch on/off and touch-and-hold continuous dimming pad with last state memory. • The optional occupancy sensor will turn the fixture off after 30 minutes of inactivity and back on as the user re-enters the workspace. If occupant is present, the light will remain on. • Fixture arm is attached to the base and ships assembled. • Knuckle tension is adjustable with an allen wrench. • A properly diffused light source under the linear head provides a softly blended light pattern that reduces eye strain. • The arm and head can be used universally with any of the six mounting options.

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Abba voyage.

Our work for Swedish pop superstars ABBA is currently the largest and most complex permanent kinetic lighting installation in the world. It is this lighting that connects the physical with the digital in the all-new ABBA Voyage concert arena. And it plays a key role in this show, which is unlike anything audiences have ever experienced before. “Breathtaking. A triumph,” to quote The Guardian.

Part of the kinetic light installation for ABBA Voyage is a reinterpretation of our large-scale art installation SKALAR. Moving mirrors and light reflections as well as a new type of LED pixel strings are combined to create a huge three-dimensional light display. Almost 700 powered winches of two different types cover an area of 2.500m2 and a volume of 2.5000m3. With 30.000 individually controllable and additionally spatially moving light points, this installation is currently probably the largest and most complex permanent kinetic light installation in the world.

WHITEvoid and KINETIC LIGHTS were responsible for the design and planning of the kinetic show as well as for the complete production of the hardware and programming of the kinetic show part. The unprecedented size and complexity of the system also required a complete redevelopment of the control software. For this purpose, a new function was integrated into the Kinetics Control Software KLC that allows 30.000 RGB LED light points to be generatively moved and animated freely in space in real time.

Another software innovation is the transfer of the kinetic position data to a 3D software to extend the visualisation into the virtual space of the large-format ABBA Voyage screen. The 3D simulation multiplies the physical kinetic light points to almost infinity. This effect was developed and implemented in close cooperation with the world-famous 3D animation studio ILM (Industrial Light & Magic).

Our special thanks go to ABBA, the director of the show Baillie Walsh and the producers Svana Gisla and Ludvig Andersson, who planned and realised this mammoth kinetic project together with us for almost 3 years.

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Global Voyage Single Arm LED Lamp

• Brand: Global Total Office
• Description

Voyage LED Task Light by Global

Enhance your office lighting with the Voyage LED lamp from Global. The fully articulating body can be mounted via freestanding bases, grommet, or clamp on mechanisms. The Voyage lamp features a touch and hold dimmer control. Choose from 3 finish options.

Fully articulating body

6' power cord

Touch and hold dimming capability

Auto shut-off after 10 hours

Brightness adjustment from 100% to 15%

18 fractional LEDs

3500K color temperature

94% post consumer recyclability by weight

Attractive finish options

Multiple mounting options

Commercial quality

Dimensions:

6"D x 6"W x 14.1"H

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• News & Events
• Central Role for ROE Visual LED at the ABBA Voyage

ROE Visual Travels Along on the ABBA Voyage

Solotech selects roe visual as display supplier.

Leek, The Netherlands (June 21, 2022) –  Taking many months of meticulous preparations, the highly anticipated ABBA Voyage concert premiered at the ABBA Arena on May 26 in London. The specially created digital versions of the famous ABBA personages come to life on a vast ROE Visual LED wall supplied by Solotech.

This eagerly anticipated live music event of the decade, ABBA Voyage, is performed in the purpose-built ABBA Arena, designed by Stufish Entertainment Architects in London, bringing the 70s supergroup back to the stage in a seamless blend of the virtual and physical worlds.

The digital versions of ABBA were created following weeks and months of motion-capture and performance techniques with the four band members, director Baillie Walsh and legendary VFX company Industrial Light & Magic, the company's first foray into music.

The ABBA avatars are realized through a vast 65-million-pixel ROE Visual LED screen, rendered life-size on stage and in photo-realistic close-ups, resulting in a breath-taking experience with the look and feel of a full-fledged live show.

As the complete audio visual package supplier, including 20 lighting rigs , more than 500 moving lights , 291 speakers, and all the LED displays, Solotech delivered the technology and, foremost, its in-depth expertise to the show.

Solotech worked under the direction of director Baillie Walsh, working alongside Aniara's Technical Producer Nick Levitt and Technical Director Joe Frisina, and collaborating with concert producers Svana Gisla and Ludvig Andersson, Industrial Light and Magic (ILM,) and TETRO and Greenwall's Fredrik Stormby to provide audio, lighting, and video solutions capable of pushing the boundaries for live productions. Scott Willsallen from Auditoria supervised the audio elements of the show, with VYV Photon servers specified and programmed by Anthony "Bez" Bezencon.

Working in close collaboration with ABBA's production team, Ian "Woody" Woodall, Solotech UK's Director of Special Projects, led the project, with Paul "Macca" McCauley overseeing the installation of the rental equipment in the venue, and serving as the host to technical demos of the system in the many months leading up to the show. Solotech's Robin Conway oversaw audio, Oli James handled lighting, and Alex Mulrenan managed video and cameras.

State-of-the-art equipment was chosen from leading manufacturers, including ROE Visual, VYV, Robe, L-Acoustics and others, to augment the filmed performance footage with the technology used throughout the venue. The show features one of the largest installations of ROE Visual Black Pearl BP2V2 LED screens, driven by Brompton 4K Tessera SX40 LED processors. It is one of the tallest installations of Black Pearl screens, standing 19 panels high. Next to the Black Pearl LED wall, the ABBA Voyage is decorated with over 4200 ROE LED strips.

The Black Pearl LED panels were selected based on their immaculate track record in virtual production technology. With the panels' performance being so stable, the technical team could focus on bringing all technologies together without unnecessary distraction.

"When you embark on something as ground-breaking as this, most people think it's a crazy idea until it becomes a reality and then suddenly it's the best thing ever! ROE Visual has been very supportive throughout the whole process, supporting our 'crazy ideas'! We have pushed the product beyond its standard capabilities, and thanks to the reliability of Black Pearl BP2V2, it allowed us to bring so many different technologies together to achieve our goal", comments Woody.

Besides the Black Pearl, ROE Visual also supplied over 4200 pieces of ROE Strip in various lengths. The ROE Strip was used creatively to join the virtual and physical worlds together. They not only feature in the internal tunnels that transport the audience from the 'real outside world' to the inside of the ABBA Arena but feature prominently in the show across the stage, walls and even roof, where the vertical timber battens incorporate the iconic ABBA logo made of the ROE Strip LED lights.

The ROE Strip is an elegant linear LED element suited for all sorts of creative applications. The multiple cover options and variable lengths make it an ideal LED element to accentuate set designs, structures or interior features. The LEDs are freely mappable so that any video content can be played on them.

Woody says: "This project has been special as we've spent two years of our lives working on it. It is the most technically complicated and challenging project I have ever been involved in, underlined by the fact that everyone who has been there cannot find the words to describe it. The show's technical elements have been virtually flawless from the rehearsals through to opening night on a show that is breaking new ground. These are accomplishments that we are extremely proud of."

Discover ROE Strip

Discover Black Pearl

Products Used: ROE Visual Black Pearl BP2V2 – 2262 pieces ROE Visual Strip – 30cm – 2538 pieces, 60 cm 245 pieces, 120 cm 1385 pieces

More information: https://www.solotech.com/uk/ https://abbavoyage.com/

Sources: https://www.inavateonthenet.net/news/article/solotech-handles-staggering-avl-installation-for-abba-voyage

https://www.wallpaper.com/technology/abba-voyage-director-baillie-walsh-interview

https://www.dezeen.com/2022/06/09/abba-arena-stufish-virtual-tour/

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Ferdinand Magellan

By: History.com Editors

Updated: October 4, 2023 | Original: October 29, 2009

In search of fame and fortune, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan (c. 1480-1521) set out from Spain in 1519 with a fleet of five ships to discover a western sea route to the Spice Islands. En route he discovered what is now known as the Strait of Magellan and became the first European to cross the Pacific Ocean. The voyage was long and dangerous, and only one ship returned home three years later. Although it was laden with valuable spices from the East, only 18 of the fleet’s original crew of 270 returned with the ship. Magellan himself was killed in battle on the voyage, but his ambitious expedition proved that the globe could be circled by sea and that the world was much larger than had previously been imagined.

Ferdinand Magellan’s Early Years

Ferdinand Magellan (c. 1480–1521) was born in Sabrosa, Portugal, to a family of minor Portuguese nobility. At age 12 Ferdinand Magellan ( Fernão de Magalhães in Portuguese and Fernando de Magallanes in Spanish) and his brother Diogo traveled to Lisbon to serve as pages at Queen Leonora’s court. While at the court Magellan was exposed to stories of the great Portuguese and Spanish rivalry for sea exploration and dominance over the spice trade in the East Indies, especially the Spice Islands, or Moluccas, in modern Indonesia. Intrigued by the promise of fame and riches, Magellan developed an interest in maritime discovery in those early years.

Did you know? Clove was the most valuable spice in Europe during Magellan's day. It was used to flavor food, but Europeans also believed that its essence could improve vision, its powder could relieve fevers and that it could enhance intercourse when mixed with milk.

In 1505, Magellan and his brother were assigned to a Portuguese fleet headed for India. Over the next seven years, Magellan participated in several expeditions in India, Southeast Asia, and Africa and was wounded in several battles. In 1513 he joined the enormous 500-ship, 15,000-soldier force sent by King Manuel to Morocco to challenge the Moroccan governor who refused to pay its yearly tribute to the Portuguese empire. The Portuguese easily overwhelmed the Moroccan forces, and Magellan stayed on in Morocco. While there he was seriously wounded in a skirmish, which left him with a limp for the rest of his life.

Magellan: From Portugal to Spain

In the 15th century, spices were at the epicenter of the world economy, much like oil is today. Highly valued for flavoring and preserving food as well as masking the taste of meat gone bad, spices like cinnamon, clove, nutmeg and especially black pepper were extremely valuable. Since spices could not be cultivated in cold and arid Europe, no effort was spared to discover the quickest sea route to the Spice Islands. Portugal and Spain led the competition for early control over this critical commodity. Europeans had reached the Spice Islands by sailing east, but none had yet to sail west from Europe to reach the other side of the globe. Magellan was determined to be the first to do so.

By now an experienced seaman, Magellan approached King Manuel of Portugal to seek his support for a westward voyage to the Spice Islands. The king refused his petition repeatedly. In 1517, a frustrated Magellan renounced his Portuguese nationality and relocated to Spain to seek royal support for his venture.

When Magellan arrived in Seville in October 1517, he had no connections and spoke little Spanish. He soon met another transplanted Portuguese named Diogo Barbosa, and within a year he had married Barbosa’s daughter Beatriz, who gave birth to their son Rodrigo a year later. The well-connected Barbosa family introduced Magellan to officers responsible for Spain’s maritime exploration, and soon Magellan secured an appointment to meet the king of Spain.

The grandson of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, who had funded Christopher Columbus ’s expedition to the New World in 1492, received Magellan’s petition with the same favor shown by his grandparents. Just 18 years old at the time, King Charles I granted his support to Magellan, who in turn promised the young king that his westward sea voyage would bring immeasurable riches to Spain.

Strait of Magellan

On August 10, 1519 Magellan bade farewell to his wife and young son, neither of whom he would ever see again, and the Armada De Moluccas set sail. Magellan commanded the lead ship Trinidad and was accompanied by four other ships: the San Antonio , the Conception , the Victoria and the Santiago . The expedition would prove long and arduous, and only one ship, the Victoria , would return three years later across the Pacific, carrying a mere 18 of the fleet’s original crew of 270.

In September 1519 Magellan’s fleet sailed from Sanlúcar de Barrameda, Spain, and crossed the Atlantic Ocean, which was then known simply as the Ocean Sea. The fleet reached South America a little more than one month later. There the ships sailed southward, hugging the coast in search of the fabled strait that would allow passage through South America. The fleet stopped at Port San Julian where the crew mutinied on Easter Day in 1520. Magellan quickly quelled the uprising, executing one of the captains and leaving another mutinous captain behind. Meanwhile Magellan had sent the Santiago to explore the route ahead, where it was shipwrecked during a terrible storm. The ship’s crew members were rescued and assigned out among the remaining ships. With those disastrous events behind them, the fleet left Port San Julian five months later when fierce seasonal storms abated.

On October 21, 1520 Magellan finally entered the strait that he had been seeking and that came to bear his name. The voyage through the Strait of Magellan was treacherous and cold, and many sailors continued to mistrust their leader and grumble about the dangers of the journey ahead. In the early days of the navigation of the strait, the crew of the San Antonio forced its captain to desert, and the ship turned and fled across the Atlantic Ocean back to Spain. At this point, only three of the original five ships remained in Magellan’s fleet.

The Magellan Expedition: Circumnavigation the Glob e

After more than a month spent traversing the strait, Magellan’s remaining armada emerged in November 1520 to behold a vast ocean before them. They were the first known Europeans to see the great ocean, which Magellan named Mar Pacifico, the Pacific Ocean, for its apparent peacefulness, a stark contrast to the dangerous waters of the strait from which he had just emerged. In fact, extremely rough waters are not uncommon in the Pacific Ocean, where tsunamis, typhoons and hurricanes have done serious damage to the Pacific Islands and Pacific Rim nations throughout history.

Little was known about the geography beyond South America at that time, and Magellan optimistically estimated that the trip across the Pacific would be rapid. In fact, it took three months for the fleet to make its way slowly across the vast Mar Pacifico. The days dragged on as Magellan’s crew anxiously waited to utter the magic words “Land, ho!” At last, the fleet reached the Pacific island of Guam in March 1521, where they finally replenished their food stores.

Magellan’s fleet then sailed on to the Philippine archipelago landing on the island of Cebu, where Magellan befriended the locals and, struck with a sudden religious zeal, sought to convert them to Christianity . Magellan was now closer than ever to reaching the Spice Islands, but when the Cebu asked for his help in fighting their neighbors on the island of Mactan, Magellan agreed. He assumed he would command a swift victory with his superior European weapons, and against the advice of his men, Magellan himself led the attack. The Mactanese fought fiercely, and Magellan fell when he was shot with a poison arrow. Ferdinand Magellan died on April 27, 1521.

Magellan would never make it to the Spice Islands, but after the loss of yet another of his fleet’s vessels, the two remaining ships finally reached the Moluccas on November 5, 1521. In the end, only the Victoria completed the voyage around the world and arrived back in Seville, Spain, in September 1522 with a heavy cargo of spices but with only 18 men from the original crew, including Italian scholar and explorer Antonio Pigafetta. The journal Pigafaetta kept on the voyage is a key record of what the crew encountered on their journey home.

Impact of Ferdinand Magellan

Seeking riches and personal glory, Magellan’s daring and ambitious voyage around the world provided the Europeans with far more than just spices. Although the trip westward from Europe to the east via the Strait of Magellan had been discovered and mapped, the journey was too long and dangerous to become a practical route to the Spice Islands. Nevertheless, European geographic knowledge was expanded immeasurably by Magellan’s expedition. He found not only a massive ocean, hitherto unknown to Europeans, but he also discovered that the earth was much larger than previously thought. Finally, although it was no longer believed that the earth was flat at this stage in history, Magellan’s circumnavigation of the globe empirically discredited the medieval theory conclusively.

Though Magellan is often credited with the first circumnavigation of the globe, he did so on a technicality: He first made a trip from Europe to present-day Malaysia, eastward via the Indian Ocean, and may have continued further east to the Spice Islands. He then later made his famous westward voyage that brought him to the Philippines. So he did cover the entire terrain, but it was not a strict point A to point A, round-the-world trip, and it was made in two different directions. His enslaved servant Enrique was born in the region, possibly near Malacca or Cebu, and had come to Europe with Magellan by ship. Enrique reached Cebu (and possibly Mallaca) on the expedition’s westward voyage, meaning he may have been the first person to circumnavigate the world in one direction to return to the same starting point.

HISTORY Vault: Columbus the Lost Voyage

Ten years after his 1492 voyage, Columbus, awaiting the gallows on criminal charges in a Caribbean prison, plotted a treacherous final voyage to restore his reputation.

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240 men started Magellan's voyage around the world. Only 18 finished it.

The explorer died on a Philippines beach in April 1521, joining the scores who perished in Spain's quest to circumnavigate the globe.

As it moored under Seville’s imposing skyline on September 8, 1522, the Victoria   may not have stood out as anything exceptional among the bustle of Spanish ships arriving from the Americas. When 18 men stepped off board, “leaner than old, worn-out nags,” as one of them later recalled, they stepped into the history books as the first people to have sailed entirely around the world.

It had been a brutal voyage, led by the brilliant, if ruthless, Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan. When they set out from Seville, three years before in summer 1519, they were a crew of 240 manning five ships. A series of blows—including starvation, illness, mutiny, executions, and the death of their leader—decimated their numbers and their fleet before returning to Spain.

These men had, however, completed their global journey, despite the violence and greed that marred it from the outset. The venture would be remembered for the skill and endurance of many of its members. As the first Europeans to enter the eastern Pacific, the expedition radically altered Europe’s understanding of the world, while posterity would lionize Magellan for an accomplishment that he never lived to see.

Despite the aura of heroism that has formed around Magellan, his voyage was not driven by geographic curiosity, but by trade and Spain’s struggle to surpass Portugal. Following Christopher Columbus’s voyages of the 1490s and the discovery of a landmass to the west, the two premier naval powers competed to control the new vistas opening before them. In 1493 Pope Alexander VI drew a line from north to south down the Atlantic, decreeing that Spain could exploit the new continent to the west. The papal bull did not specify, however, that Portugal could exploit the territory to the east of the line.  

Portugal cried foul, pointing out that the pope, a Borgia of Spanish descent, was not an impartial arbiter. To avoid a war, direct talks opened between Portugal and Spain and the line was moved farther west in the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas. This allowed Portugal more room to maneuver down the eastern coastline of Africa. Happily for the Portuguese, Pedro Álvares Cabral’s 1500 discovery of the eastern coastline of South America fell on Portugal’s side of the 1494 line.

Portugal had already bested Spain in the exploration race, when in 1497 Vasco de Gama was the first European to discover a sea route to India around Africa. While this period of global exploration is often associated with the Americas, both powers were also seeking riches in the Asia-Pacific. It was there that Magellan gained experience vital to his later expedition. ( Was Magellan the first to sail around the world? Think again. )

For Hungry Minds

A sea change.

Born Fernão de Magalhães in northern Portugal in 1480, Magellan grew up in a noble family. At age 10 he was sent to Lisbon to train as a page in the court of Queen Leonora. He came of age as Europe began shaking off its medieval sensibilities and looking outward. The few sources on his early life suggest he became fascinated with maps and charts, an interest that may have coincided with the news, at age 13, of the Spanish expedition under Columbus that had made landfall in the Americas.

Portuguese eastward expansion began to move rapidly after Vasco de Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1497. By 1505 the 25-year-old Magellan was with the Portuguese fleet heading around the Cape, and up the other side, to East Africa. The aim of King Manuel of Portugal was to wrest control of the entire Indian Ocean from the Arabs so as to control trade with India.

In 1507 Magellan participated in a naval battle that consolidated Portuguese power over the Indian Ocean. More Portuguese victories followed in Goa (western India), and in 1511 the Portuguese seized Malacca on the Malay Peninsula. The city overlooks the strait through which the spices from modern-day Indonesia were funneled westward. By controlling Malacca, Portugal could exert control over the spice trade.

An older relative (and possible cousin) of Magellan, Francisco Serrão, had also forged a dramatic career as a sailor and took part in the seizure of Malacca before going on an expedition to the Moluccas, or Spice Islands, in 1512. His venture would later inspire Magellan’s own goal to reach them by sailing west from Europe.

Magellan took part in the battle for Malacca and honed his navigational skills during Portugal’s eastern victories. After returning to Europe, in 1514 he entered into a bitter dispute with King Manuel over the king’s refusal to reward him. Having used up all his appeals, Magellan rejected his native land and traveled to the Spanish court at Valladolid in 1517 to offer his services to the Spanish king Charles I (who would become Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in June 1519). From that day, Fernão de Magalhães would be known by his Spanish name, Fernando de Magallanes.

By offering his services to Spain, Magellan was not engaging in any truly scandalous behavior. Seafaring expertise often crossed borders, and crews were drawn from different nations. Columbus too, a Genoan from northern Italy, had offered himself to the Spanish crown after initially working for the Portuguese. Magellan’s plan was strikingly similar to Columbus’s from nearly 30 years earlier: to sail west to bring back spices from the Moluccas, the Spice Islands of Indonesia.   ( Discover the secrets hidden in a 500-year-old map used by Columbus. )

Citing the theories of other navigators at the time, Magellan postulated that a strait cut through the Americas to a sea whose eastern shore was first glimpsed by Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa in 1513. If he could find it, this passage would allow Spain a kind of “back-door” access to the Moluccas, bypassing Portugal’s Cape route. Magellan’s reputation as a sailor and his knowledge of the east convinced Charles, and the expedition received royal assent.

Not all were happy that this Portuguese interloper had gained such favor with the king. The nobility and the Casa de Contratación (the state body that controlled such expeditions) took every opportunity to obstruct Magellan’s preparations. Under two-thirds of the crew were Spaniards; of the foreigners, 24 were Portuguese and 27 were Italian.

Marvels and mutiny

Among the crew was a young Venetian nobleman named Antonio Pigafetta, a student of astronomy and geography. Pigafetta’s lively journal became history’s principal written source for detailed information on the entire voyage.

“On Monday, August 10, St. Lawrence’s day, the fleet, having been supplied with all the things necessary for the sea, made ready to leave the harbor of Seville,” Pigafetta recorded in his log. Five ships in total—the San Antonio,   the Concepción,   the Victoria,   the Santiago , and the flagship, the Trinidad —struck out west from Spain via the Canary Islands. Pigafetta’s observations were not solely nautical. He took a lively interest in geography and zoology and science, noting different kinds of birds and wildlife.

While Pigafetta wrote his log, Magellan was deeply concerned about his authority. He was officially the supreme commander, but prior to departure, pressure from the Spanish authorities had forced him to accept a nobleman, Juan de Cartagena, as the voyage’s second-in-command. This decision led to violent power struggles during the voyage. Early on, Magellan was forced to arrest and demote Cartagena for insubordination. As a royal appointee, he was otherwise untouchable, but his resentful presence would prove nearly catastrophic for Magellan later.

The coast of modern-day Brazil, which Europeans had only been aware of for 20 years, was a source of wonder. But it was its inhabitants that captured Pigafetta’s attention most. He recorded in his journal that some of the people of “Verdin” (as he called it)

live a hundred, or a hundred and twenty, or a hundred and forty years, and more; they go naked, both men and women. Their dwellings are houses that are rather long . . . [and] in each of these houses . . . there dwells a family of a hundred persons, who make a great noise. In this place they have boats, which are made of a tree, all in one piece, which they call “canoo.” These are not made with iron instruments, for they have not got any . . . Into these thirty or forty men enter.  

Pigafetta’s writings revealed a condescending attitude toward the indigenous peoples. His descriptions of the peoples he meets in Patagonia, the Pacific Islands, and lands in Asia are centered on the amount of clothing worn, physical traits including skin color, height, and build, and whether they could be converted to Christianity. He recorded certain words from their languages, many of which related to commodities that could be of use to colonial Spain. ( See a shipwreck from explorer Vasco da Gama's fleet. )

The small armada sailed south, scanning for any strait or opening in the great landmass to starboard. A great inlet in early 1520 aroused much excitement. Once it had been ascertained it was not the longed-for strait, but a river mouth (the Río de la Plata), the fleet continued south to San Julián, where, in April, surrounded on all sides by the frozen expanse of Patagonia, a full-scale mutiny was launched against Magellan by the captains of the four other ships.

Played out across five vessels, the scenes were chaotic and confusing, but Magellan prevailed. In the ensuing skirmishes, the rebellious captains of the Victoria and the Concepción were arrested and executed. One of the leaders of the revolt was the demoted and resentful Juan de Cartagena. Magellan opted to maroon him on an island, thus avoiding shedding the blood of a powerful nobleman, while also ridding himself of an incompetent troublemaker. Cartagena’s fate is unknown, but other mutineers were pardoned, including one of the officers, Juan Sebastián Elcano.

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Shortly after the failed mutiny, as resentments still simmered, Magellan lost the Santiago   in a storm. Unbowed, the reduced fleet continued south until glacial conditions forced a halt for two months to provision; then it set out once more. Finally, as Pigafetta records on “the day of the feast of the eleven thousand virgins,” St. Ursula’s Day which falls on October 21, they sighted a strait “surrounded by lofty mountains laden with snow... Had it not been for the captain-general, we would not have found that strait, for we all thought that it was closed on all sides.”

For over a month, buffeted by storms and currents, the fleet ventured down the strait that Charles V would later name for Magellan. The commander named an archipelago they saw on the south side Tierra del Fuego (“land of fire”) in reference to the many bonfires lit there by its indigenous hunter-gatherer peoples, who had occupied this tip of South America for millennia.

In the course of this passage, another ship disappeared: the San Antonio . Pigafetta records it had been believed lost; in fact, it had deserted and was returning to Spain. Equipped now with only three vessels, Magellan and his men “on Wednesday, November 28, 1520, . . . debouched from that strait, engulfing . . . in the Pacific Sea.” They were the first Europeans to enter that vast ocean from its eastern shore.

Hard crossing

After being borne northward along what is today the Chilean coast, Magellan’s fleet finally struck out northwest in search of land beyond. Magellan knew that the Malay archipelago he had visited years before must lie somewhere to the west. To find it, the limping expedition had to sail through rough seas for over three months.

Hunger and disease stalked the crossing. Pigafetta records how he and his crewmates ate sawdust, ox hides, and “biscuit, which was no longer biscuit, but powder of biscuits swarming with worms, and which stank strongly of the urine of rats.” General privation, the lack of food, and illness greatly reduced their numbers. Perhaps the most devastating was scurvy, the distinctive symptoms of which Pigafetta captured: “[I]t was that the upper and lower gums of most of our men grew so much that they could not eat, and in this way so many suffered, that nineteen died.” ( Scurvy killed more people than the American Civil War. )

Savaged by scurvy

While crossing the Pacific, Pigafetta recorded how many of Magellan’s crew seemed to waste away from a horrific illness: Their gums bled, their limbs ulcerated, and delirium addled their minds. Scurvy and its symptoms, which are caused by a lack of vitamin C, would ravage many European expeditions. The captain who completed the Magellan expedition, Juan Sebastián Elcano, succumbed to scurvy on a later voyage, and it killed an estimated two million sailors between the 15th and 18th centuries. The medical properties of vitamin C were not discovered until the 1920s, but it became common wisdom in the 1700s that citrus fruit could be a preventative, a remedy that was resisted by some in the British Navy. It was not until the 1790s that fruit was distributed routinely among crews. 

On March 6, 1521, after 100 days in Pacific waters, the exhausted armada finally was able to make landfall in the Mariana Islands where they restocked the ships and then continued west. Days later, they reached an archipelago (later christened the Philippines by another Spanish explorer) of many inhabited islands that Magellan would attempt to claim for Spain. The crew celebrated mass on the island of Limasawa in late March and then converted the rulers of Cebu Island to Christianity.

Magellan heard that rivals of the Becu who lived on the nearby island of Mactan refused to convert and submit to Spain. Magellan tried to claim their land for Spain and their souls for the church, but the occupants of Mactan Island, led by the chieftain known traditionally as Lapulapu, stood firm in the face of Spanish guns and swords. On April 27, 1521, Magellan led 60 men to the island with an ultimatum to surrender. The islanders refused, and a fierce battle ensued, which Pigafetta recounted:

When we reached land we found the islanders fifteen hundred in number . . . they came down upon us with terrible shouts . . . seeing that the shots of our guns did them little or no harm [they] would not retire, but shouted more loudly, and . . . at the same time drew nearer to us, throwing arrows, javelins, spears hardened in fire, stones, and even mud, so that we could hardly defend ourselves.  

Pigafetta reported that Magellan was killed by Lapulapu and his warriors on the shore. Despite Spanish firepower, the islanders quickly overcame the invaders with their numbers and bravery and drove them back. The Europeans retreated, leaving their commander to die on the beach; Magellan’s body was never recovered. Later, the king of Cebu would turn against the Europeans, too, and kill 26 of them. The remaining Europeans soon departed.

Their numbers dwindling, the surviving crew, under the command of Juan Sebastián Elcano, did finally reach the Moluccas in November 1521. They were able to stock up the ships with spices and goods to bring back to Spain. Having been forced to abandon two of their three remaining ships, the crew would return to Spain in a fleet of one—the Victoria . Ten months later, the ship and its bedraggled crew of 18, including Pigafetta, entered Seville’s harbor. ( Who really discovered Antarctica? )

Final frontier

The first continuous circumnavigation of the world was complete. It took almost exactly three years and, surprisingly, turned a profit. The 381 sacks of cloves brought back by the Victoria   were worth more than all five ships that had set out on the voyage. Despite the hopes and funds invested, it did not translate into immediate meaningful economic benefits for Spain. The treacherous course around the tip of South America was never a practical route for trade with the Moluccas.

Despite the death and destruction brought on by the voyage, many historians believe Magellan’s expedition was a worthy accomplishment. The careful records kept by Pigafetta and others dramatically expanded Europe’s knowledge of the world beyond the Atlantic, giving cartographers a firm sense of the world’s actual size and future navigators intelligence on the conditions and currents of the Pacific Ocean. Europeans had known of the eastern shore of the Pacific since 1513, but Magellan revealed its sheer size and power, knowledge that transformed Europeans’ understanding of the extent of the globe.

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Home / Products / Lighting / Desk Lighting / Voyage Double Arm Desk Light

Voyage Double Arm Desk Light

Why you'll love it, occupancy sensor option.

This energy-saving feature will turn the fixture off if it senses extended inactivity, and back on again upon your return.

Continuous Dimming

Adjust Voyage’s intensity with its touch-and-hold dimming feature with last state memory.

USB Charging

Conveniently charge devices with the optional USB port housed in the base.

Dozens of Color Finishes

Express your style with a choice of colors to complement any work space.

Multiple Mounting Options

Six mounting options provide flexibility for tight desktop real estate.

Auto Shut-off

Save energy with 10-hour auto shut-off.

Metallic Silver

Silver sage, key specifications.

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• Limited Warranty

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Behind the Design

This graceful and lithe ergonomic design by Thomas Newhouse features die-cast knuckle connections with exposed counterbalance springs, highlighting the extended reach and articulation of this double-armed fixture. A structural form factor at the hinges playfully evokes the human eye, while the fixture’s cross-section pleasingly presents very slim edges to the user. Manufactured in Grand Haven, Michigan.

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Good e-Reader

Everything You want to Know about the Kindle Voyage

19 September 2014 By Michael Kozlowski 20 Comments

Many companies involved in the e-reader sector are paying attention to what Amazon has created with the new Kindle Voyage. This new device has a number of innovative hardware features such as Page Press and the front-lite controlled by an ambient light sensor. Amazon has also developed exciting new software that even allows you share content with family members. Has Amazon set the bar so high now that no one else can compete?

The Kindle Voyage features a six inch e-ink carta display with a resolution of 1430 x 1080. It has 300 PPI, which is the highest we have ever seen for an e-reader. The upcoming Kobo H20 has a 6.8 inch screen with the same resolution but a lower 265ppi. The Barnes and Noble Nook Glowlight is the most affordable one, but only has a resolution of 1024 x 758 and 212 PPI.

Lets face it, people are used to interacting with touhscreen smartphones and tablets on a daily basis. All prior Kindle models had a sunken screen and employed infrared touch. The Voyage has the screen completely flush with the bezel, which is the same sort of tech that the Kobo Aura and Tolino Shine used. A capacitive touchscreen allows for better interaction and better pinch and zoom capabilities.

Instead of physical page turn buttons, the new Kindle Voyage has a feature called PagePress. This is a custom-designed force sensor made of carbon and silver, which reacts to a subtle increase of pressure, triggers a page-turn, and provides a haptic response only your thumb can perceive. Because PagePress has no moving parts, the haptics provide you with the most minimal indication that you have pressed the button, to reduce distraction from reading.

The Kindle Paperwhite 2 had one of the best illuminated screens in the world. Unlike tablets and smartphones that have light emitting from behind the screen, most e-readers have five small LED lights on the bottom of the bezel that project light evenly access the screen. Many companies got this technology wrong, by having splotches all over the screen, or by a pale blue hue, as seen on the Nook Simple Touch with Glowlight. The new adaptive front light automatically adjusts the brightness of the display based on your environment, and can even be fine-tuned further to your personal preferences. When reading in the dark, the adaptive front light slowly lowers the display’s brightness over time to match the way the eye responds to darkness.”

According to The Verge “The ambient setting is actually smarter than you’d expect. If it detects you’re reading in the dark — say, in bed — it will slowly lower the brightness. The idea is that your eyes naturally adjust to darkness over time, so what seems bright enough at first will be too bright once your pupils dilate. It’s a thoughtful, clever feature, and Amazon also says that you can fine tune the behavior if you don’t like the default.”

Sure, the hardware is really good on the new Voyage, but what improvements has Amazon made on software front? Likely the most important one is the Kindle Family Library, which allows users connect their Amazon accounts to share content with family members. The new feature “links your Amazon account to that of your spouse or partner so you can easily share apps, games, audiobooks, books, and Prime Instant Video content,” according to the company. What is even better about the sharing program is that Amazon says it will work across Amazon devices and Amazon’s third-party apps for platforms including iOS and Android. It can link the accounts of two adults, who can, in turn, manage up to four child accounts.

Amazon has also improved their internal searching feature to work smoother when browsing the Kindle Store to discover new books. It previews results based on your past purchases and GoodReads. In addition Amazon has added a small timer on the books you are reading. Based on your reading habits it will let you know how long it will take you to complete the chapter or the book itself. Take THAT traditional page numbers! I really like the About the Book function, which tells you all about the author and if the eBook apart of an established series.

Amazon has many advantages over their competitors. Apple sees the iBooks business as an afterthought. During their entire iPhone event they never mentioned their bookstore once. Barnes and Noble is floundering, continuing to lose money and is still piggy backing technology from late last year. Kobo is going to release their H20 e-reader very soon and is likely going to generate strong revenue. Many of the smaller companies such as Onyx, Ectaco, Tolino, Bookeen and Pocketbook are very hard to come by. They are mainly sold by small websites in Poland, France or Russia. Shipping alone to the US or UK is enough to frighten off any prospective buyers.

When you buy the Voyage e-reader you are going to have access to over 600,000 titles, by legitimate bestselling authors and indie ones. It has arguably the best eBook social networking site, in the form of GoodReads firmly integrated into the entire eBook discovery experience. I think one of the big strengths of Amazon, that no one really talks about is their user review system. Whenever someone leaves a written review, its automatically populated in their e-readers, tablets, apps or websites. Companies like Kobo fetch their reviews from 3rd parties, and even their Android app is comprised of reviews left just on that specific platform.

Michael Kozlowski

Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

The Voyage Personal Task Light is a high performance, yet subtle workspace companion. The linear form of the arms and joints flow gently into a broadened head shade to shield the highly efficient power LED’s from view.

• 18 fractional LED's with a 50,000 hour lifespan
• Color Temperature - 3500K
• Wide selection of mounting options
• Single or Double Arm
• 100% - 15% Continuous Dimming
• 34 standard colors (custom colors available)
• Made in the USA
• 10 year warranty

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Voyage - Double Arm

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Voyage is your high-performance yet subtle workspace companion. Its linear arms and joints flow gently into a broadened head shade that shields bright LEDs from view. Voyage unites functional ergonomics with timeless aesthetics with its full articulation, extended reach, and dimmable touch technology.

Additional finishes and mountings are available.  To order, please contact Inside Sales at 800.544.4899.

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Beth Gibbons – ‘Lives Outgrown’ review: Portishead vocalist’s solo bow is an enthralling study of time and loss

Gibbons' first solo studio record is a mesmerising collection from a singular talent and voice

The thing about time is that it has no concern for the constants in our lives — they will eventually fall away one by one, just like everything else. It’s fascinating to hear Beth Gibbons work over the grim certainty of this idea on her first solo record, not least because of the friction it creates with her own musical past as vocalist with Portishead .

As the Bristol band evolved, moving on from the found-sound trip-hop of Dummy towards their disorienting, abrasive comeback masterwork ‘Third’, she remained their emotional and stylistic anchor, offering introspective presence and melodies that felt like they existed outside of modes and trends, as though they’d been pulled from the earth.

On ‘Lives Outgrown’ Gibbons uses this history to her advantage. She cannily foregrounds the weather-beaten gravitas of her vocal at each turn, its familiarity holding us tight so that, in parallel, she can undercut that feeling of safety by continually pointing out the grains of sand falling into the wrong half of the hourglass.

In tandem with producers James Ford and Lee Harris, who also played drums on ‘Out of Season’, her 2002 collaborative LP with his former Talk Talk bandmate Rustin Man, Gibbons swaps out Portishead’s weighty electronics for a texturally adventurous and pleasingly odd acoustic palette. She falls in with crepuscular violins, incidental percussion and choppy, Björk-ish rhythms, pulling on traditional folk threads while jousting with Raven Bush’s strings, which are at turns orchestral in their sweep and designed to evoke the lonely creak of doors that perhaps should have stayed closed.

Throughout, Gibbons and her collaborators maintain a needling sense of unease that, when punctured, allows for fabulous melodic blowouts. ‘Reaching Out’ initially resembles a drunk on slick cobbles, its drums bucking and sliding, before cohering into something almost celebratory, while the spiralling hooks of ‘Beyond the Sun’ only just manage to keep the track’s core dissonance at bay.

These compositional about-faces match up to lyrics that lurch from heavy to heavier as Gibbons reflects upon grief and mortality in middle age. “All going to nowhere,” she sings during the lavish ‘Floating on a Moment’. “All going, make no mistake.” She doesn’t provide an easy out, instead letting us wonder how much more pat carpe diem bilge we can stomach. In the process, she subverts the roots of own legacy with vital new work that exists in the now because it has to.

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