Just in time

F-f-freezing f-f-for f-f-fun

Getting out on Boxing Day… It had been a way too long since I last took a walk on Nieuwpoort’s pier…

I almost forgot how magical sunset seen from the pier could be…

So today we boldly went out in search of the infamous Lesser White-fronted Goose and the Red-breasted Goose… In vain. Nevertheless, it yielded some fine hard-core birdwatching action piccies.

Trying to “digiscope” a Shoveler on lake Blankaert near Diksmuide through a 60x telescope. It didn’t quite yield the result I aimed at, but of course this is fully due to the weather which made my fingers freeze off completely… :-p

Post Scriptum

Okay… I know I may have said presents don’t matter… But that doesn’t mean at all I wasn’t extremely pleased (beyond these words) to find out that all the others at home were involved in surprising me with this magnificent drawing-room table! It really does a great job showing my Omani coral and shell collection (including century-old sextant) to full advantage and bringing a touch of sea into my city-apartment! I guess this really urges me to bring home more beautiful sea creatures… Cheers!!

The only disadvantage might be the fact that we always need to keep a little water gun within reach now… Just to make it clear to Speedy that he is not to try and touch anything displayed in the table…!

A gene for thinking-averse?

Socialism and homosexuality were some of them. Picture that! I’m talking about a pamphlet spread by creationists in the US that Johan Braeckman showed us during a lecture I attended on Tuesday. The pamphlet showed “evil things produced by natural evolution”, represented in a tree due for demolition by the chainsaw of creationism. Distinguishing explanatory theories from causes doesn’t seem to be the strongest side of creationists. Remarkably, I didn’t see “Islam” pictured in the tree. Of course, Allah created the world as well. However, for some reason I believe US creationists wouldn’t like their Creator being called Allah… On the other hand, at least racism was also one of the evil things mentioned in the tree. Except for “racism” against gay people, clearly. The ideas of Intelligent Design aren’t any better, except that they are desperately avoiding being linked to any kind of religion (which actually makes it even more absurd).

However, the lecture was far from merely about politics. It presented a broad perspective of the time in which Darwin presented his ideas and on how to conceive the impact of the theory today.

Spontaneous hilarity and laughter by the audience on some of the presented non-darwinistic ideas and reasonings clearly demonstrated how our visions differ from those generally accepted in this region in the past and in most(!) parts of the world nowadays. Can someone explain me why only such a small minority of people is convinced by what is real??? Is it simply due to an inequality in access to reliable sources? Is reality genetically predetermined? Or is a sense of reality genetically predetermined?

Anyway, I’m not getting elaborately philosophic today since I’m afraid I went a bit too far in the “end of times”-discussion I think I’ll leave the word to the expert and go to the library to borrow his book Darwins moordbekentenis. That’ll be some nice literature to let my thoughts slip away from business. Sitting in a comfortable coach, next to the open fireplace, red wine within reach… mmm…. Winter holidays….

Doom II

Is doom’s day nearing? Will civilization as we know it seize to exist shortly? Will we live that day? Or will fatality strike in a sequence of utterly stressing years rather than in one painful day?

It might be New Year coming up, but during our coffee break today these questions suddenly popped up, “out of the blue”. I can’t remember how we came to this subject exactly, but I do remember I had this discussion with various people several times during the last year. On the other hand, I don’t recall whether I had this conversation so many times in the past years as well… If anyone asks me this kind of questions, I usually tend to answer with something like “well… there are things going on that can’t last forever, but frankly I don’t have a clue whether we’re doomed or not. Sometimes I believe so, sometimes I don’t…”. It depends on the time left for a potential discussion whether I elaborate or not. The strange thing was that most of the colleagues of my generation firmly believed we’ll be history within 50 years, while the older generation was a bit more optimistic. Is it a matter of perspective? Does getting older mean that you can moderate better or does it just mean that you don’t care as much anymore?

Some things about this discussion are beyond any doubt, whether we like it or not. If the question is: “Is mankind doomed? Will the species Homo sapiens seize to exist?”, the answer is a definite “yes”. It’s like life itself: will I die some day? Will you, dearest reader? Oh yes. When will that happen? Well, we don’t know. The species has now lived well over the average “lifespan” of a biological species in general, so the least you could say is that we’re probably over halfway. The thing is, as with life itself, we now have the ability to actively finish it at any given day. Fire all those nukes and we’re done. But what about civilizations? When will our western civilization crash? When will most modern civilizations finish? That’ll probably be a bit sooner. Throughout history civilizations have come and gone. Though frequently ended by wars and conquests, I’d guess the most frequent cause was natural disasters. And again, we now have the ability to speed up the latter if we feel like it. Our world population now needs more resources than the whole surface area of the Earth (most of it being water!) could ever yield using our contemporary techniques, so it’s only a matter of time before this meta-status collapses. Sure, Homo sapiens is a very flexible species, able to adapt the environment to meet its own conditions with continuously developing techniques – that’s why we haven’t disappeared yet. But no matter how seemingly drastic, climate change during the last 5 million years (!) was absolutely nothing compared to some changes during the previous 495 million years of life. And even rapid climate fluctuations characteristic of the last 5 million years couldn’t be met by such a crowd living at critical places today. And contrasting to what people find attractive places today, these places I’m talking about are mostly coastal areas. Oh, and the edges of those other vaste oceans of unendlessness, deserts, as well. Death toll of a sudden temperature increase or decrease like in the past 100000 years and wars resulting from increased pressure on decreasing available land resources could now easily range into billions… billions! Wiping out some entire cultures, and favoring others…

It has always happened and it will definitely happen again. Does it mean the end of Times? No. But surely this is no comfort to the people who will be struck by it. And the only thing that makes this whole course of thoughts so dazzling is the number of people that will suffer from it. Imagining how insignificant we are in the history of Earth is as difficult as actually trying to comprehend the distances in outer space. Thanks BBC, we really enjoy your documentaries on geological history

So I was thinking about this (which I actually find quite amusing) on the train from Gent to Leuven. And when I finally got there – oh well, what does a 15 minutes delay mean in the course of Earth history – you know what we sang during the rehearsal?

I live too long,

come gentle death and end,

my endless torment,

or my grief amend.

Gent doesn’t (yet) rule the swimming pools!

1. Mantis Zwevegem(23 points)

2. Genk (22)

3. Brussel1 (21)

4. Lille (France) (18)

5. Brussel 2 (16)

6. Koraalduivels Gent (14)

7. Bilzen (10)

8. Lille (France) Women team (10)

9. Brussel Women team (10)

So this is were we ended up in the official first division underwater hockey competition after the fourth competition day.

Euhm… you might have roared with laughter a couple of times while reading the former sentence, but I don’t care. Alright, we ended up second last if you ignore the women teams (at least, we defeated them!). But we have a good excuse: as we are short of proper swimming pools in Gent, we need to go to Zwevegem (a half an hour drive from Gent!) for training, which makes it extremely difficult to find people willing and able to come to training on a regular basis. But yes, underwater hockey really exists, and it is as cool as it is breath-taking (take a look at http://www.mantisowh.be). And again, yes, there is an official national competition. However, I exaggerated a little, as there is only one division. Hence, from the moment you start playing underwater hockey in Belgium, you are playing first division. Cool eyh!

I put some piccies and underwater vids on http://users.ugent.be/~kpauly/owh. The piccies show the atmosphere on a competition day without any public or press attention. The vids show a bit more of the game, featuring a goal and the clash at the beginning of each game – the games are often as rough as ice-hockey games. (I admit the vids are somewhat of poor quality and the arbiter sometimes swims right in front of the camera, but at least they give you some idea. I would recommend using a broadband connection and downloading the videos to a local hard disk prior to opening them…)

Don’t try this at home kids, but if you’re desperate to try it upon watching the action scenes: drop me a line!

Britannia rules the wav… euhm… roads!

Take a close look at this:

1. Ellen MacArthur 1.46.7

Established by Top Gear (world’s coolest TV car show) this means world’s fastest yachtswoman has now become Top Gear’s fastest celebrity, on top of a list of 60 famous competitors! She pushed this Suzuki Liana soooo close to the edge… Really incredible… (I’ve actually driven the same car in Oman, after I trashed my Landrover last time) Well, this confirms my ideas about extreme yachtsmen/women, and urges me to reconsider my thoughts about women drivers

I’m saaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiling in the rain…!

Apparently you need to deal with some minor issues, but breaking the 24h world sailing record makes it all worth, doesn’t it? On average 22,75 knots or 42 km/h, covering over 1000 km in one day without consuming one drop of liquid black gold – why do we still need motorboats? I think I’ll reconsider equipping my 4.20m sailboat with a 31.5 m tall mast, a 175 sqm main sail and a 500 sqm spi… See who wins the next Nieuwpoort Regatta :-p

How would you like your tuna steak sir? – Bloody!

Yep, they did it again yesterday. Blocking some harbors, shouting some old Celtic curses, throwing some rotten fish… must be good fun you know. Okay, this time it was in the Boulonnais (France), but with new European stock limits negotiations coming up in December, be sure of some demonstrations of the same kind here in Belgium as well. With their jobs at stake, fishermen are reacting overprotective and they don’t seem to accept the fact that they’re running eyes wide open into technical unemployment – even if they would be allowed to go out, there would be nothing left to catch (or at least not enough to pay off all costs). And if they won’t encounter this desert anymore, their sons will.

Or should we twist the question: why do consumers keep on asking for huge amounts of cheap fish if there isn’t any? For instance, take the small young soles which are extremely popular these days (“they’re cheaper, tastier and they cost less, so why should we choose the big ones?”). They should give rise to new populations, but we’re eating them instead! I know, I know, being a non-vegetarian, I like seafood dishes (which are actually very healthy as well) as much as many of us, but I do get questioned a lot about this “non-ethic” taste. “You, as a marine ecologist, you’re even investigating the impact of fisheries yourself, how can you possibly enjoy eating tropical prawns?? You could as well take a chainsaw and get medieval in a mangrove forest your bloody self, and on your way over there, why don’t you torpedo some of the few left whales you might encounter!!” The sad truth is, dear fellow-gastronomes, these people are absolutely right. Why do good things in life taste so bitter? Because we’re not willing to pay for a sustainable use. If we would be willing to pay, like, 10 times more for prawns, maybe we might enjoy this kind of dishes without feeling guilty, because that way producers would be able to develop other growth methods. At the same time, the cost would reduce the question to acceptable, sustainable amounts. Again, moderation is the key to most of our problems (or is it politically incorrect to cite the Holy Koran these days?). But until then, some fish species just need to be left alone.

http://www.goedevis.nl/seafoodlist (both in Dutch and English) presents a (limited) list of species ranked by how sustainable they are harvested, considering place of origin, wild stand, methods used,… Actually there’s a great book available with details for every species. I know, the “best” species appear in the lower half… But hey, where are the Jamie Olivers among you? Just create some new recipes, be creative, let the less tasteful species taste as the better ones… And no-one will know what he’s eating