Deployment

Deployment
Originally uploaded by Mark Ciccarello.

I've added a small gallery of photos of the SEACOOS buoy deployment in June to my new flickr account. Here is a test blog entry, generated from flickr.

J.H.C. It's Hot

Another scorcher today. Walking out of an air-conditioned building into the heat feels like you just walked into an oven. I'm riding around in a Jeep without air conditioning, which doesn't help. I have the side and rear panels off, but the wind feels like a hair-drier.

Moving to Chapel Hill won't help. It was 101 there yesterday.

The Wilmington trip was unpleasant. Not only was it hot, but there was a wind blowing at 5 or 6 knots to the north, exactly keeping pace with out boat doing northerly transects, resulting in no net breeze, for all the hottest part of the afternoon.

Tomorrow I make the seven-hour drive to Asheville to clean out my apartment there. (I don't yet have a place in Chapel Hill, so stuff is going in storage for now). I've debated renting a car just so I can have some air, but I think I've just decided to suffer.

Oceanography Fun Fact of the Week

The most venomous creatures in the world are not snakes but jellyfish, specifically the Cubozoa, commonly called box jellies or sea wasps. The largest species, Chironex fleckeri, can be as large as a basketball and trails up to 60 15-foot-long tentacles. It is a plague on northern Australian beaches, having killed about 100 people there. Death can come within 30 seconds of a serious sting, and survivors of less serious stings bear scars for life. Many beaches in northern Australia are protected with "stinger" nets.

Cubozoans are a separate class from the true jellyfish, known as scyphozoans, and are much more advanced. Square in cross-section, they are fast-swimming and have complex eyes, with a lens, cornea and retina, though they have no brain.

Bonus fact: sea anemones, the flower-like invertibrates often found in tide pools, also capture their prey by stinging it, with cells in their tentacles. They are unable to sting through human skin, such as on the hand, but be careful. Reportedly at least a few people who tried licking sea anemones have wound up in the hospital with their tongues so swollen they were unablet to breath.

For the Heat it Heateth Every Day

I can't believe how hot it's been this summer. Absolutely miserable. People are dropping dead by the dozen out west and it's not a whole lot better here. On top of that, I have a crazy Puerto Rican housemate who doesn't like to run the air conditioning.

Tuesday and Wednesday are supposed to be the worst yet, with 98 degree temperatures and a heat index of 110 to 115. Tuesday I'll be on a boat all day on the Cape Fear estuary.

Looking for Web Site Tool

I'm looking for new tool to publish this site. I still want the blog to be the central feature, but I also want to be able to create articles and photo galleries easily. And I want the blog/articles/galleries to have the same look.

It doesn't seem too much to ask for, but the catch is that I really want it to be a strictly web-based publishing tool, like blogger. I don't want to install software on my machine because that would keep me from blogging from other machines.

If any of you Daves know of anything out there, please let me know.

I LOVE Netflix

Netflix's level of service continues to impress me. In my first month I managed to watch 12 movies for a total cost of $17.99. $1.50 a movie. That's a fraction of Blockbuster, and that's not even counting the costs of driving down there.

I read somewhere that Netflix was started by a guy who was pissed off at Blockbuster's late fees, which of course they've dropped now. It must feel good to stick it to a big corporation like that, and get rich in the process. (Blockbuster has lost more than two-thirds of its value since its peak three years ago).

I'm still not getting enough movies for my plan to replace television entirely, though, so I'm moving up from the 3-out-at-a-time plan to the 5-out-at-a-time plan. That may be too much once classes get started.

New Hobby?

This came to my attention recently. At least it would be something Heidi and I could do together.

Why Is Music Instruction So Incredibly Lame?

I've been wondering why music instruction, as commonly practiced in the public schools, is so outrageously lame. I spent 5 years in band class and learned essentially nothing about music. I learned to toot out a few notes on the saxophone, and how to read notes on the treble clef. That's about it. What's worse, I'm sure that 90% of my classmates learned even less than I did.

I was never exposed to basic ideas in music theory, like chords, intervals or modes -- they were never mentioned. I wasn't taught a single thing about different styles of music, or music history. I got no training in listening to music in any critical way, or in a technical way that would allow me to transcribe it.

Even as an exercise in music performance it was lame. Who wants to listen to any of the crap band music that we were forced to play?

What an unbelievable waste of life.

My theory is that music in the schools should be taught mostly on computer, using synthesizer software. Kids get very turned on by this sort of thing, and it could be used to take the emphasis off of the development of manual dexterity required to play an instrument and onto learning about music. A piano-type keyboard would allow for some level of performance, but kids should spend most of their time learning theory, acquiring listening skills, exploring different musical styles and composing their own music. I learned none of these things in all those years of band.

Saxophone

Lately I've been listening to a little jazz, and it's got me interested in taking up the saxophone again (I used to play in high school).

When I was a kid, 11 years old, I chose to play sax strictly based on how the instrument looked. It combined all the nifty-looking keys of a clarinet with the big shiny body of a brass instrument, and had that super-cool shape besides. But now I love the way a sax sounds -- it's the most expressive wind instrument by far, I think.

I also love to listen to all sorts of guitar music, and a while back bought a guitar and even took a few lessons. I don't really think it was the instrument for me because I never really enjoyed the physical act of playing guitar -- twisting my left hand into all sorts of unnatural positions.

Unfortunately the sax is less versatile and practical than guitar. You really need other people to play with, and it's a very loud instrument, so practicing can be a problem if you're in an apartment. I once had an apartment lease that contained a clause forbidding me to "practice any musical instrument or saxophone." I would love to know the story behind that.

I played alto and a little baritone sax in school. I think if I did it again I'd choose tenor, which seems like the truest of all saxes.

Oceanography Fun Fact of the Week

Japan experiences more tsunamis than any other place on earth, due to several nearby subduction zones. The largest tsunami ever recorded hit the Ryukyu Islands of southern Japan in 1971, raising the sea level by 85 meters (278 feet).

Another Shark Trip Down the Tubes

I got up this morning in plenty of time to get here for the shark trip (7:00 AM), but then I couldn't find my car keys. I'd had them in my hand and put them in my pocket earlier in the morning too, but then they disappeared and it took me half a hour to find them, by which time I had missed the trip. There's nothing that pisses me off as much as not being able to find something that has to be right under my nose. I finally found them on the floor in front of the kitchen counters, but too late.

Uvula-Related Difficulties

It was the strangest thing. This morning I woke up about 4:30 AM and felt like I had something large in the back of my throat I needed to swallow. It turned out to be my uvula, swollen to at least twice its normal size. I had a hard time getting comfortable so that I could breath, and started to feel claustrophobic or like I was suffocating. I could see the headline: "Oceanographer Strangled By Own Uvula in Wilmington Motel."

I think it was because I was snoring, and had the air conditioner turned up full blast, drying the air out. It's never happened to me before, though.

Anyway, I spent all yesterday in total misery, doing more transects on the Cape Fear estuary. We got up at 5:30 in order to be on the water at 7:00 AM, and didn't pull the boat out of the water until 10:30 PM. No breaks. It was probably the most god-awful day of my working life -- even worse than the job in the tomato-packing plant the summer between high school and college, or death march days around product launch time at Microsoft. But the difference is that the death march went on and on, whereas I pretty much blew off all work today, and tomorrow, if the weather improves, I'll actually get paid for going shark fishing.

Movie Review: War of the Worlds: B minus

As another reviewer has said, "War of the Worlds" is three quarters of a great movie. The special effects are the best I've ever seen, and the script and acting are pretty good too for a sci-fi/action film. Unfortunately, the movie uses H.G. Wells' original ending (or at least what I understand to be the ending -- I've never read it), so it just sort of peters out in a very anticlimactic way. I guess it works for a novel, but not for a movie.

Spielburg's sappiness is pretty much under control, and Tom Cruise even seemed less objectionable than usual. (I think that if synthetic humans from the future walk among us today, one of them is probably Tom Cruise).

Bill Greene

It's come to my attention that I have a connection to the sad story of Terri Schiavo. A friend of mine in junior high, Bill Greene, grew up to be a conservative fundraiser and political activist. He was responsible for raising the money for the recent right-wing loon-fest in the Schiavo case. Probably we'll be hearing a lot more from him in the future; it wouldn't surprise me if he winds up the next Karl Rove.

The funny thing is that even in 8th and 9th grade the two of us debated politics, with Bill taking the conservative side and me the liberal. At the time it was very friendly -- we were just having fun. Somewhere I have a yearbook with a note from him about how we'd grow up and have great debates some day. But even at that young age, our political leanings seem to have been formed.

The last time I saw Bill personally, I think I was a freshman in college and he was a high-school senior. (We were in the same class, but I skipped out of high school a year early). He was taking my little sister out on a date, if I remember correctly.

You should be ashamed of yourself, Bill. Did you read the autopsy report, or do people like you even care about the facts?

Dennis

Hurricane Dennis, a category 4 storm, is about 3.5 hours away from plowing into the gulf coast, somewhere near the Florida/Alamaba border. Winds are currently 140 MPH. A couple of days ago Dennis was nearing a category 5 and was the most powerful storm ever recorded this early in the season. It's following the path of last year's Ivan, but is even more powerful. No category 4 storm has ever hit the Florida panhandle or Alabama, and no category 4 has hit the U.S. this early in the season since Audrey struck Lousiana and Texas in 1957.

I'm So Ashamed of Myself

Time: this morning around 11:00 AM
Place: my front door

Nice lady: "Hi, I'm from the First Baptist Church and I was going through the neighborhood letting people know that we're having our annual..."
Me: "Sorry, not interested. I'm not a Baptist."
Nice lady: "Oh, that's allright. We don't have anything against any denomination."
Me: "Yeah, but I do."

I think she was already a little freaked out when she saw that there were two guys living there, one of them a big sweaty muscular black guy doing housework without a shirt in the background.

Overwhelmed

I decided to go into oceanography because it's such a broad, interdisciplinary field. The physics, chemistry, biology and geology all interact, so even though oceanographers typically specialize in one of the four areas we need to know something about them all.

I'm more certain than ever that this is the right field for me, but I'm starting to feel a little bit overwhelmed about how much I don't know. It's hard to know where to start, especially since I'm just jumping into things this summer, and haven't even started classes yet.

To be the sort of oceanographer I want to be, I'll need to know much more about:

• Math and physics
  
• Ecology (my main interest is in applying physics to problems in ecology)
  
• Computer modeling (probably involving more advanced programming techniques than I ever used as a software engineer, actually, namely programming for massively parallel supercomputers)
  
• Electronics (for designing/troubleshooting instrumentation)
  

I also need a lot of practical skills in areas like observational techniques, SCUBA, small boat handling and giving scientific presentations. Maybe most important of all, I need to be able to write proposals to get grant money.

I also have an interest in doing some popular-level science writing. The broad training that oceanographers get seems like it would be ideal for this. I could work my photography skills into this as well.

On my plate right now, I'm trying to work on a "box model" for the Neuse River estuary, which is a simple mathematical model of water flow. I'm starting to learn MatLab (a mathematical computer program) so I can produce graphics for the wave and current data coming out of the ADCP on our buoy. (Of course I first have to go through the ADCP documentation to figure out the data format) I'm starting to learn ecology by reading "Fundamentals of Ecology", a classic in the field. And I'm occassionally being interrupted by the need to do something for May's project in the Cape Fear estuary.

Diving

It looks like they're going to dive for the CTD after all. I don't like the idea, but fortunately it won't be me doing it.

I've been a recreationally-certified diver forever (PADI), but the institute won't allow me to dive for them until I complete a scientific diver certification through a research diving agency. As far as I can tell it's not that much beyond recreational certification (which is a prerequisite) as far as the material covered, though the physical standards are quite a bit tougher. For one thing I have to pay for a very thorough $400 dive physical out of my own pocket.

So I'm not really looking forward to getting that, especially since a lot of the diving we do for the job is not exactly fun -- retrieving an instrument off the bottom of some muddy estuary in February in 55-degree water, wearing a drysuit, for example. It will potentially make my own research projects go more quickly, though, if I can do my own diving. On the other hand, I'll probably spend a lot of time diving for other people's projects.

I do want to take advantage of the recreational wreck diving here, since this is such a fantastic area for it. I really need a refresher course first, since it's been a long time and most of those dives are pretty deep. I may also decide to work toward becoming a SCUBA instructor.

Netflix Rocks

I'm starting to sound like a commercial for Netflix, but I can't help it. Turnaround time is unbelievably fast -- I put disks in the mail on Monday and get my new ones on Thursday!

It looks like they're shipping the DVD's from Greensboro NC. I found somebody's web site that lists a bunch of their centers -- 43 of them. It seems unlikely that they're stocking all those titles in all those locations. Maybe I've just gotten lucky so far?

Recent rentals:

• Fog of War B plus
  Documentary interview with Robert McNamara.
  
• Dr Strangelove A
  
• War Photographer B minus
  Profile of the world's most prominent war photographer, James Nachtwey.
  
• American Movie B
  Funny documentary about a modern-day Ed Wood.
  

Dirty Dog

I went home to get lunch and found that my dog Heidi had managed to get the gate open and escape from the back yard. Seconds later she ran up to me; she had decided to go exploring in one of the salt marshes/mudholes that surround our neighborhood. Normally she's black on her back and tan on her legs and lower body, but today she was a solid black dog. I barely recognized her. I just bathed her yesterday.

A minor panic today as we seem to have stopped receiving data via the Argos satellite system for our Cape Lookout buoy. After some investigation it looks like it's still sitting out there, though. At least it answers the cell phone, so it can't be too far away. If I could figure out the cell phone data transfer connection well enough I could get its GPS location, but it's complicated and out tech that wrote the software and understands it is out of town. It's a bad day for this to happen, since all the people in Chapel Hill that understand the thing seem to be on vacation too.

My advisor wants us to spend some more time trying to find the lost CTD. I'm willing to do it, but somehow we need to be more intelligent about it. We spent way too much time Friday dragging locations that were too far from the GPS waypoint we set when we realized the thing was lost, due to currents and a GPS that kept cutting out. And I'm not entirely sure all our grapnels were actually on the bottom the whole time. We've talked about borrowing a sonor system from the marine fisheries people, and maybe there are some other things we can use, but the main thing is to spend more time dragging the right location. A capstan would help too, so we would have to haul the grapnels up by hand.

Oceanography Fun Fact of the Week

Satellites can only see the surface of the ocean. Nonetheless, microwave satellite instruments have been used to create a map of the sea floor.

The strength of gravity at the ocean's surface depends on the topography of the sea floor (also known as bathymetry). An underwater mountain thousands of feet high would create a hump in the surface of the ocean , perhaps two or three feet high, due to enhanced gravity; a trench would cause a depression in the sea surface.

Satellite instruments can measure surface height to within about 4 centimeters. After subtracting out other factors that affect local sea level (currents, tides, waves, atmospheric pressure) a reasonably accurate map of the ocean floor can be inferred from the shape of the sea surface. Sonar techniques are more accurate, but generate data for only a small portion of the ocean at a time, and there are many regions of the ocean for which no such data is available.

Bonus fact: Bull sharks have the highest testosterone levels of any shark species. At least according to the latest issue of People magazine.

Can't Stop With the Sharks

I don't know why this drives me so nuts, but it does.

Again catching up with the news, the media are, as predicted, in a shark-attack frenzy. As happened during the Summer of the Shark,^tm a dramatic first attack leads to reports of progressively less severe and interesting subsequent attacks to keep the "story" alive. So a teenage girl was killed and then a few days later a teenage boy lost his leg. Now they're reporting a guy who was "bitten on the ankle." Next up: guy stubs his big toe on a spiney dogfish.

I guess I keep blogging about this because it's the intersection of two of my favorite topics: the ocean and what a bunch of losers the news media are.

Uh oh...

Catching up on the news late last night, after being on the stupid boat all day yesterday, I found that Sandra Day O'Conner has announced her retirement. This should be interesting.

Part of me is hoping that Jackass nominates some right-wing loon who overturns Roe v Wade and does a bunch of other drastic stuff. It's about time the mainstream of this country realizes how dangerous these Jesus freaks are and sets about doing something about it. So far there's been a lot of complacency.

If the average American doesn't have the balls or the brains to stand up to these useless pricks, then I'm outa here anyway. I've seriously started to take a look at what it would take to move to another country. My uncle Loren, who is further along in the research process, thinks Panama is a good candidate.

I'm going to start brushing up on my Spanish. Then it might just be "beso mi culo, amigos!"

What a Drag

Alas, I spent the whole day dragging the Cape Fear estuary for the lost CTD, to no avail.

My friend Dave (not you, Dave, another Dave) informs me via email that the voice of Piglet was also Jack the Ripper in the original Star Trek series.

Now that I have two confirmed readers I've decided to enable comments in my blog. So all you Daves have at it.