Yang-sui, in a need of a good polishing
One of the great stories from ancient history is of Archimedes Burning Mirrors. Legend has it that Archimedes designed a series of curved mirrors to reflect and focus the rays of the sun and that these mirrors were used to set a fleet of Roman ships on fire during the Siege of Syracuse in 214–212 BC. Historians have often dismissed the story as a fanciful folk-tale. In January of this year, however, we posted of a modern, if accidental version of the burning mirrors in the form of London’s “Walkie Scorchie,” a glass office tower whose curved surface has been reflecting focussed sunlight, and has melted cars and fried eggs on the sidewalk. A month later we also posted about a very intentional version of the “burning mirrors” at the Ivanpah Solar Thermal Power Facility, which is currently the world’s largest solar thermal power system.
Recently, author John Perlin wrote the discovery of Bronze Age Chinese hand-sized “burning mirrors” in his book Let It Shine: The 6,000-Year Story of Solar Energy. Perlin writes: During the sixth century BCE, Confucius wrote about the common use of curved mirrors shaped from shiny metal to concentrate the rays of the sun for making fire. These became known as yang-suis – translating to solar ignitors, or burning mirrors.
I believe that this is the first straight-out restaurant review that we have done on the Old Salt Blog. Then again the 
HMS Pickle is for sale on Ebay
The US Coast Guard in Florida faced an unusual challenge earlier this week. Virtually the entire crew, 19 out of 21, on the 
Today, Great Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II christened the Royal Navy’s new aircraft carrier, 
The composite clipper, 
Last December, 
