The story of my academic life (in three cartoons...)

Cruise-onomics: how to (not) save money

The good folks at Expert Cruiser have compiled an astounding list of tips how to spend and where to save money on a cruise. Having never been on a "real" cruise, only on "expedition cruises", this insight was a bit of an eye-opener:

"Cruising is one of the best vacation values going. The all-inclusive fare includes accommodations, meals and entertainment. But did you know that cruise lines get most of their revenue from the things passengers buy aboard ship? Yep. That’s why they aggressively peddle their photos, spa services, art auctions, shore excursions, jewelry, casino and drinks of the day." (click on the text for full article).

Historical whaling tools retrieved and dated

As I blogged already last autumn, some whaling tools recently retrieved from bowhead whales witness both historical hunting techniques and the amazing life spans of these whales. Now an arcticle of the scientific journal "Polar Biology" has appeared with detailed information on the dating of these harpoon and lance fragments. See the article online here:

"The age of bowhead whales captured by Native Alaskan hunters in the Bering, Chukchi and Beaufort Seas has been estimated via chemical analyses of the eye lenses, and other techniques. The racemization-age estimates indicate that bowhead whales (Balaena mysticetus) have a lifespan of more than a century. Stone and ivory weapon fragments recovered from bowhead whales hunted in Wainwright and Barrow (Alaska) in 1981, 1992, 1993 and 1997, provided rough but independent assessments of the whales’ longevity; however, their date of manufacture was unknown. Adding further confirmation of these age estimates, this note describes bomb lance fragments recovered recently (2007) and about 30 years ago (1980) from bowhead whales harvested by Eskimo hunters that were “dateable” and likely manufactured between 1879 and 1885. (Source: Polar Biology's website).

What really sank the Titanic (apart from the iceberg...)

"Crime Scene Investigations" and "Forensic Evidence" seem to be ubiquitous and irresistible these days, and some people have decided to apply these techniques to another irresistibe and iconic desaster topic: the "Titanic".

So what good can come from applying modern-day material science to an old wreck? It turns out that the rivets might be part of the explanation. For those of us not familiar with historical ship-building, riveting was to early 20th century metal workers what welding is today, i.e. the most common technique to join pieces of metal together.




Apparently, there were approximately three million rivets used to in the Titanic's hull to connect all its metal plates. According to the authors of "What Really Sank the Titanic: New Forensic Discoveries", Jennifer Hooper McCarty and Tim Foecke, substandard rivet material and possibly also "riveter" craftsmanship may be to blame for the Titanic's fate.



Indeed, when inspecting the wreck, these researchers claim to have found several narrow slits rather than a huge gash, pointing to multiple hull breaches (due to failing rivets) instead of the big hole assumedly ripped open by the contact with the iceberg.

So although this is of course highly speculative, let's venture back into the past and have a look how "riveting" actually was done:

"At a central location near the areas being riveted, a furnace was set up. Rivets were placed in the furnace and heated to a glowing hot temperature, at which time the furnace operator would use tongs to individually remove and throw them to catchers stationed near the joints to be riveted. The catcher would place the glowing hot rivet into the hole to be riveted, and quickly turn around to await the next rivet. One worker would then hold a heavy rivet set against the round head of the rivet, while the hammerer would apply a pneumatic rivet hammer to the unformed head, causing it to mushroom tightly against the joint in its final domed shape. Upon cooling, the rivet would contract and exert further force tightening the joint. This process was repeated for each rivet." (from Wikipedia's post on rivets).

So for all of us making a living on ice-filled oceans: get decent welders to put your ship together!

Of course, you could also try to avoid hitting icebergs...

Polar Bear Knut - the sibling sequel (cont.)

In November I predicted a sequel to the marketing success story of Polar Bear ""Knut" - here it is: Polar Bear "Flocke" of the Nuremberg Zoo!

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LONDON, England (CNN) -- A fluffy white polar bear cub that has captured German hearts is making her first public appearance Tuesday at the Nuremberg City Zoo.

Flocke (FLOCK-uh), whose name means "snowflake" in German, was born at the zoo in December. She gained international attention in January after zookeepers said they had taken Flocke away from her mother because of concerns she would eat her.

The zoo's other female polar bear had recently eaten her two offspring, and the zoo was concerned that Flocke's mother would do the same.

Zookeepers bottle-fed Flocke and kept her warm with blankets and heatlamps.

Sweet pictures of the young bear being cuddled by her keepers or sleeping with her tongue sticking out boosted Flocke's popularity, and she quickly eclipsed Knut (knoot), the polar bear at the Berlin Zoo.

Knut was a sensation when he was born in December 2006, but at 16 months old he's no longer considered as cute as his Nuremberg counterpart.

Flocke has grown into a bouncy young cub who is learning how to use her large paws. The zoo's latest pictures of Flocke, from early last week, show her frolicking in her enclosure and paddling in a pool of shallow water.

The first chance to see Flocke up close is Tuesday, when the zoo is holding a media event with about 50 members of the public. Starting Wednesday, people visiting the zoo will be able to see Flocke in her enclosure from 9-11 a.m. and 1-4 p.m. daily -- "if Flocke plays along" and decides to step outside, the zoo said.

On-site comments on the UN Climate Change Conference

A friend of mine found this journalistic gem in the Jakarta Post:

"France, which appears to be the only country displaying non-English language posters, is directly next to Germany. Both stands were unmanned during the two hours that I was walking the hallways.
Someone cheekily remarked that they were having lunch together. If so, it was a long one. Vivre Amitie Franco-Allemande!

But my award for the most useless stand must surely go to the United States whose representative told me that she was not authorized to discuss the issue of climate change. So much for freedom of speech."

Explorer II = Minerva; Alexander von Humboldt II = Jules Verne

It used to be so simple:

"Explorer" was the former "Lindblad Explorer" that turned into "Society Explorer" and finally "GAP Explorer" or simply "Explorer".

Then there was "Explorer II", which was at times also "Alexander von Humboldt" when it was operated by Phoenix Reisen. Otherwise Abercrombie & Kent would call her "Explorer II", simply because they used to charter the original "Explorer" before.

But now Phoenix Reisen does not charter the same vessel any more, so one would think that A & K have it all to themselves.

But wait: while Phoenix Reisen is now chartering the "Jules Verne" - calling her "Alexander von Humboldt II" - the new owners of the vessel, Swan Hellenic have come up with an idea: why not rename "Explorer II" into "Minerva" (again)?

Meanwhile, the original "Explorer" is assumed to have sunk, while the expedition cruiser "Alexander von Humboldt" simply ceased to exist...

And did I mention that the previous operator of the "Explorer", Lindblad Expeditions, is now refitting a former Hurtigruten ship, the former Lyngen, and they will call her National Geographic Explorer.

As usual, Wikipedia helps solve these and other riddles. Here is a list of cruise ships, replete with dates and previous names!

Polar Bear Knut - the sibling sequel?

Knut, the Berlin Zoo's well-known polar bear, may soon have as many as three little siblings before Christmas, the zoo's veterinarian said Friday.

Knut's mother, Tosca, and the zoo's two other female polar bears, Katjuscha and Nancy, may all be pregnant after mating earlier this year with Knut's father, Lars, and could give birth before the end of December, according to veterinarian Andre Schuele.

But polar bear pregnancies are hard to detect and to track. Tests like those humans use do not work, and polar bear embryos are so small the mothers do not grow big tummies.

The zoo is hopeful enough, however, to have built three special caves for the female polar bears to use to give birth.

Just joined Facebook

Trafficking Ganja Scuba Tanks

From X-Ray Mag Blog (posted by Willy Volk):

"Jamaican diver Joseph Campbell told his family that he was heading to Kingston to visit his sick father. Instead, the so-called “ganja diver” was discovered dead in Kingston Harbor.

Wearing a wetsuit and a tank, police located a second tank nearby — along with an adjustable wrench, a hacksaw, a screwdriver, and various nuts and bolts. The police claim Campbell was in the process of attaching the second canister, containing more than 100 pounds of compressed ganja, to the hull of a ship when he was struck in the head by the ship’s propeller and killed.

In Jamaica, certified divers — like Campbell — are offered up to $5,000 for each canister they affix to commercial vessels heading for the US or the UK."

Trafficking Sperm Whale Teeth

PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- The former director of a whaling museum and an antiques dealer pleaded guilty Thursday to illegally importing hundreds of sperm whale teeth from England and selling them to U.S. merchants.

Lewis Eisenberg, 60, the former director of The Whalers Village Museum in Lahaina, Hawaii, bought many of the teeth and resold them to collectors of scrimshaw, an art form in which designs are etched into whale bone. Eisenberg, of Oak Harbor, Wash., sold teeth he got from antiques trader Martin Schneider for more than $45,000.

Schneider, 59, of Blue Bell, Pa., got the teeth of the endangered whale in Britain and smuggled them into the country by hiding them among other goods he was importing. Prosecutors said he sold a total of $500,000 worth of teeth from 1995 to 2005.

Both pleaded guilty to violations of the Endangered Species Act, the Mammal Protection Act and the Lacey Act, which forbids the import or export of wildlife that is illegally transported or sold.

For the full story, visit the Daily Freeman

Dilbert for the weekend

Glacier attack!

Watch Al Gore sum up his past 6 years as President on Saturday Night Live. Nice try, but somehow I am still glad this guy did not make it into office...

Arctic Diver Frozen Out of Record Attempt

Since I am always curious what other 'Arctic Divers' are up to, this news story caught my eyes immediately:

from Edinburgh Evening News:

"Former Broughton High School pupil Daros Gray, who specialises in Arctic diving, was forced to abandon his quest to swim underwater in Sweden's deepest lake after temperatures plummeted to -30 C above ground and -3 C under water.

Mr Gray, a security contractor in the Capital, hoped to "free dive" in Lake Tornetrask, about 160 miles north of the Arctic Circle, and swim for up to 100m underwater without any scuba equipment.

But the ice was too thick for Mr Gray's team's cutting equipment and they were not able to carve out a channel for the attempt.

...

The diver, a champion spear-fisherman who killed a five-metre great white shark in self-defence off Cape Town, South Africa, said he planned to return to the lake next year."

What can I say: security contractor, under-ice free-diver, spear-fisherman, great white shark killer (apparently in self-defence...).

Any questions?

'James Bond Island' on the Market

Okay, maybe it is not Pesce Spada Island, but at least it has a "private" coral reef...

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The longtime retreat of late James Bond author Ian Fleming, Goat Island, has just come on the market for $8 million. The 10-acre island sits in warm Caribbean waters about a mile from the shores of tiny Tobago. It comes with a two-story, West Indian-style villa done in cheerful yellow and blue. Perched next to a pocket-sized beach, it includes three bedroom suites, a large kitchen and a reception area. For guests, there are two one-bedroom guest apartments on a small hill.

A spectacular coral reef lies just off the island, and Fleming is said to have gone diving for an hour each morning when he was in residence. Included in the price is a 5,600-square-foot boat house parcel on the mainland; the island features a stone and concrete pier for landing.

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Source: Forbes.net

LA seen through a phonecam

California Sunset



Drugs on Balboa



Wonderpills of Hollywood



Pretend You#r pregnant - then take the Catholic pills

Woman marries Dolphin

In Eilat, apparently an English woman named Sharon Tendler, 41, of London, married a dolpin named Cindy, 35, of Eilat. Apparently, they know each other for quite some time already, in fact they met 15 years ago. For the full story, click Woman marries Dolphin.

I found it through a posting on Divester.com which by the way is an excellent dive blog, and here is how they comment it, and I can only agree (and thus scavenge;-)

"Of course, all scuba divers just love dolphins. But when I read about Sharon Tendler recently, I wondered if perhaps she hadn’t taken her love of dolphins just a bit too far. Dressed in a white dress, a veil, and sporting pink flowers in her hair, Tendler got down on one knee on a dock in the southern Israeli port of Eilat and married a dolphin. After she kissed the 35-year-old dolphin, she gave it some fish. And then she went swimming with it. Ah…there’s nothing purer and more wonderful than true love. Oh, who am I kidding? The whole story, frankly, is just too freakin’ bizarre.

First, the dolphin – a male – is named Cindy. Second, although Sharon is leaving open the option of “marrying human” in the future, for now she’s strictly a “one-dolphin woman.” Which is a bit strange, I think, because according to Sharon , she arranged a pre-nup, which allows Cindy to “play with all the other girls” in the ocean. “I hope he has a lot of baby dolphins with the other dolphins. The more dolphins the better," she said.

Among the approximately 3 million other questions I have, I wonder how one arranges for a pre-nup with a dolphin? How did Cindy sign it? What lawyer in their right-mind would draft this agreement? I wonder if their first dinner as a couple was held at The Red Sea Star? If you need to see it to believe it, I found some video of the ceremony."

The link to the video can be found here.

Dare to dream

So here we go: another record attempt at diving, this time on the total time one could spend immersed underwater. This guy, Khow Swee Chiow, apparently has tried a bit of the extremes already, among them several high mountain peaks (he had done the famous "seven summits"), the South Pole, the North Pole (twice), Mt Everest without oxygen, and so on. Guinness (the brewery) even sponsored him for the "English Channel Swim" from which he unfortunately had to be pulled out of after a few hours, as hypothermia had gotten to him.

So what does somebody who has "Singapore's first professional adventurer" as job description and a mission to "...have others believe in themselves and to dare to dream..." pull as his next stunt? He locks himself into a giant aquarium, and stays in there - until yet another record is broken. Sure, he had a continuous surface air support, a professional diving helmet to breathe and communicate easily, and lots of support stuff to keep him from complete boredom. Also, he only has the privacy of a small cubicle (underwater) to do all the things you could wish to do in private, if you decide to live in a publicly accessible aquarium.

So he managed to spend a whole 220 hours under water, which run up just on christmas day, but in contrast to the rest of us, he managed losing 3.6 kg of weight in the process ;-)

My other blog is on

My second blogging attempt, PolarLitBlog, is on and my first 'review' on the a piece of polar literature (you might have guessed it from the title;-) has just been posted.

I decided to put it under a separate heading for reasons also mentioned in the "welcome" post of PolarLitBlog: while this here is supposed to be an update on what I do, where I am and why I am crazy about it, the new blog will give you an account on a couple of books that I have read and which I find interesting and recommendable. I also plan to include movies, newspaper articles and maybe even games (?!) if they fit in.

There are by now a fair number of volumes and topics present on my bookshelves, and I felt they deserved their own site. So if you are interested in books and or other media to read/watch/play about the polar regions, you can cut out my ramblings on my computer stuff, what is in my newsfeeds, what my PhD project is all about, and vice versa.

And if you have any suggestions, please post a comment or go to my homepage and use my email link there.

and another piece from WIRED, this time on video blogs

Hey, if you think that I rely mostly on WIRED rss feeds to cannibalize for my own blog, you are probably right (-; at least tonight)

Anyway, the linked piece about video iPod and video blogging (yeah: VLOGGING *yuk*) is a nice list of pros and cons for video instead of audio-only content for blogs. As it boils down, there is a lot less hype and increase in offered content going on in video blogs (and no, I won't type that acronym again...) than there was after the advent of audio blogs and there are several good reasons for that. Probably the most important is that you need to actually add something that makes sense on video, or more sense on video than on audio-only to make it work. And then there are the costs to consider (cited from the WIRED article):

"It's a much more costly endeavor to start a videocast... You'll need to purchase a video input card or a digital video camera and the tools for encoding to video. Currently, there's no standard video format that exists like MP3 for audio. DivX/XviD encoding is popular but run into problems requiring extra software. QuickTime, Real and Windows Media video encoders run into the usual problems inherent with proprietary formats."

first impressions from Stavanger

Here are some first phonecam snaps and impressions from Stavanger where I spent a few weeks recently to study the stress level (really!) in small critters living under the ice (click this link to a previous post if you want to know how they look like). It turned out my stress level was a lot higher than theirs, but then I could not blame them. They had been stored on liquid nitrogen first and later at about -80°C so they were pretty cool about the whole procedure *cheesy sitcom laugh* while I was working up a sweat jumping around between the different analysers, homogenisers, autosamplers, microplate readers, multipipette robots etc.

I first thought of showing some pics of these wonders of scientific high-tech but decided against it for now. (I first have to figure out how I can in uplink some mpeg movies that I shot of the robot systems in action).

Instead, here is a view from our lab's window on an oil rig dismantling unit.



Moored to it for some time was SAIPEM 7000, apparently the world's biggest, largest, heaviest-lifting floating crane rig, sporting twin cranes capable of 7000 tons each (hence the lyrical name) as well as a number of smaller "feeder" cranes to shuffle smaller things around on deck. It moved in and out of the fjord at astonishing speed (I guess some 6-8 knots) and "swerved" sharply to lay to the pier without any tug assistance, which makes sense if you have to move in close to large offshore constructions to take them down. And then it started to unload parts of a platform it had been taking apart some place out in the oil fields onto the large pier in front of the lab. Like a giant "grown-up boy's dream toy" come true!

Here is another shot:



If you piched your eyes, you could see small ant-like creatures crawling around on it, the deck crew. The cranes swung around more or less simultaneously to avoid too much veering on the deck, since they were "riding high" i.e. had not flooded the huge tanks in their legs as they would do once they were stationary and anchored "in the fields". With empty tanks the rig has a lot more freeboard i.e. a lot less bulk to push through the water when "sailing".

So even though Stavanger really is just a sleepy little town loosely strewn over a few islands and along the fjord and sounds, which reportedly have some of the oldest (known) human settlements of Scandinavia, it also happened to be situated closest to the largest (known) oil reserves of western Europe.

And by the way: parts of that pier the SAIPEM 7000 was moored to originate from the BRENT SPAR (ring a bell?), i.e. its concrete legs were modified into a pier extension while the metal superstructure was cut into scrap iron on the flat expanse between the lab and the fjord. I would love to dig up pictures of the thing, apparently the rig was tugged around in "Byfjorden" for some time while the authorities were still contemplating to sink it some place convenient to avoid the costly deconstruction.

video-blog/podcast - what's the deal?

Judging from this blog's header, you will have guessed it already:

I am an iPod owner. Do I use it a lot? Nah. Not any more. And I guess I am not the only one in this.

I bought it a year ago to bring all my (digitalized) music with me on a 3-month shipboard expedition to the Weddell Sea. It was great, I could listen to every track I owned (and soon to a few new ones - figure it out yourself...) without having to bring stacks of CD's or other media in my already extensive personal baggage. For some time, I was even running games from it taking advantage of the FW/USB connection, which was surprisingly decent even for a 1-person-shooter that I did not have enough disk space for on my (work) laptop. And of course I could save backups of all my data to the drive as well (my initial excuse to buy this in the first place ;-)

I admit that I am a great fan of multi-purpose devices and purchases. Things that DO more than one thing are definitely cooler than things that do only one thing. So I admit to be a follower of the "swiss army knife faith" ... ;-)

But now I am one of the Lost Generation, together with (probably) millions of other people:

a pre-photo (ugh!) pre-video (argh!) iPod owner - who doesn't even use the darn thing a lot any more. Outdated.

And that got me thinking:

Really? Should I now be a Good Consumer and Update Myself?

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So let's see:

The iPod photo cannot only play music and store files but can also show all my (stored) pics. Hm.

The iPod video can all that, PLUS let me watch video clips. Er, okay. Its screen is bigger and better, too. Nice.

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I have to say that I'll pass on the photos - I really do not see the point, I am sorry - reduce a pic to THAT size and look at it there, instead of on a proper screen? Why would anybody want to do that?
I was also sceptical to the video part, although I thought "well, maybe blogs or podcasts might work". So I started looking for an interesting example to watch (on my PowerBook) to see whether it was all worth it. Or at least any good. The following example is a video blog/podcast about a guy driving to work. And back. With videoed monologue or interview sequences. Judge for yourself, here it is:

DriveTime

For me this resulted in one basic observation: the content (the blog) is low-res standard and semi-interesting material (sorry, Ravi) and not suitable to watch on a "big" screen (it all breaks up in swaths of pixels). I do not mean to say that this is a representative sample of what video blog (vlogs, I hear they call them now) content is about, but it probably represents the style and certainly the technical specs and standards available to the, right!, the vloggers (yeah, I know how it sounds...).

So is the iPod principle - making a 'superior' music player/storage device/photo+video display unit - really just a rip-off as people say? High-priced packaging for low-quality content? Wouldn't a cheap plastic USB stick with a phone jack (you know, the sort of thing that looks like a disposable lighter, only bulkier) do just the same job, play low-def tunes downloaded from the net while working out/commuting/jogging/walking the dog etc.?

Looking at the numbers of purchased songs from iTunes compared to the number of iPods sold I would always have rejected that idea: there are WAY too many iPods around for that given amount of (legally) downloaded and shared music from iTunes and others. So people were presumably loading their own music (let's hope in the highest available encoding quality) on their players to carry them all around in a pocket. I really bought into this idea (having 400$ worth of proof in my hand ;-)

But a 'new' device capable of displaying mediocre-to-poor-standard video looks like a bad deal to me.

Maybe the swiss army knife that cuts, files, pulls screws and opens beer and wine bottles is a great invention.

But a portable music player that runs video sounds like a pocket knife that also is a chain saw: you can cut your toothpicks into smaller toothpicks. Half a toothpick, anyone?