I’m sending in the mob…

:
The organizers thus decided to postpone the workshop. We apologize for any inconvenience that this postponement might cause for you and your travel plans.

Me: [bolds added to make my point here]
Together with the submission of my abstract last Friday, I also booked and paid for my flight tickets, since one month in advance is a very reasonable term for taking care of these practical issues (just as for the hotel booking deadline). In compliance with the budgetary constraints of my research group, I purchased a basic economy class ticket with SN Brussels Airlines (worth € 233,85 including insurance and administrative costs), which is not refundable, nor can it be changed unless in case of diseases, accidents, and so on. Obviously, the postponement of a conference is not a valid reason. As you can see, I’m very concerned about the loss of this amount and wondered if you can suggest any reasonable settlement on this?

: [bolds added]
To those of you who had already booked their travel and that notified me about maybe non-refundable low-cost carrier tickets, I sincerely apologize and hope you can re-book to the new workshop date.

1. SN Brussels = low cost carrier?? Why would they think I didn’t book with Virgin??? Is it compulsory to book business class to go to a conference these days or something? Do they expect me to come in a private Citation (believe me, that’s what I’d prefer as well)? My professor (38 years in business) tells me he can’t advise anything on this issue for he’s never experienced the likes of it!
2. Can’t people ever ANSWER THE G***** QUESTION!!! *points the desk lamp brutally towards the tied down representative in the dark interrogation room*
3. Any volunteers to throw me out of a window (preferably on the first floor) to help me out of this?

To be continued… next season?

Or should I keep the tickets and take a few days off?

What I’ve been up to the last couple of months

Getting from this to this.

FAQ

What the hell is that?
The first pictures represents the bays just east of Mirbat in Dhofar, one of my research areas seen from 615 km altitude. The image was acquired by the British CHRIS sensor onboard the Belgian PROBA satellite on September 27. The second one is a map featuring a 15m-resolution black and white Landsat image (of which you can see the village of Mirbat and roads and mountains shining through), a naval chart (showing names and depth lines) and the processed satellite image showing the areas covered by coastal habitats and some of our waypoints.

Are these flashy colors added to increase the fun level?
They actually represent different habitat types. For instance, purple represents coral, while green, red and (some of the) brown stand for green, red and brown seaweeds. Yellow is sand, orange shows beach cast (dead algae) and light blue delimits bare rock.

Did you superimpose the colors by chance?

I tried to tell the computer how to recognize different colors in the original image by using a small sample set and a shitload of formulas.

Are you any good at it?

The map has an overall accuracy of 66%, which means that if you go to a place where the map says, for instance, coral, you have a two third chance of actually finding coral. On the other hand, a “real life” coral patch has a chance of two third of being recognized as coral by the implied mapping algorithm. In practical terms: a 66% map accuracy is a good start, but it’s worthless when it comes to actual policy applications. I still need to correct some major issues (you can see half of the deep water area has been falsely colored brown; this confusion is due to the limited discrimination depth around 10 m), but I guess these results are already presentable on the ESA congress next month.

Then why the hell did it take you so long to come up with this worthless map?

I had to invent the formulas all by myself. Additionally, you can see the British experimental sensor heavily suffers from noise (the vertical and horizontal lines), which makes it extremely difficult to get any good information out of it.

Why should I want a map showing corals and algae instead of pubs and bars?

If I’m able to improve the mapping process, it could serve as a basis for decision making in environmental policy. For instance, where are the habitats useful for fish spawning and turtle feeding? Also, comparing these kinds of maps obtained from seasonal acquisitions could tell something indirectly about the intensity of the seasonal changes in physical conditions and hence on climate change. Lastly, without ever going there on prospection, a satellite-based map could help in detecting interesting areas for commercial exploitation of, for instance, algae. There’s no weed like seaweed!

Will you ever live the accomplishment of these noble goals?

Definitely not.

Shocking…

How much does nature provide us?

(one football yard (fy) = 0.5 Ha)

The whole of Planet Earth offers 17 fy p.p. for 6 billion inhabitants. After omitting oceans (with the exception of coastal zones) and all biologically non-productive areas, this gets down to 4 fy p.p. If you acknowledge that one fourth should be reserved for other animals and nature conservation in general, this leaves only 3 fy p.p. living at this very moment.

If everyone would live just as I do today (with an ecological footprint of about 9.75 fy), 3.66 Earths would be needed to ensure a sustainable future… Oops…
Although I don’t always agree with the questions and the respective “scores” and I know I could improve some aspects in my lifestyle, I should become a complete vegetarian and quit my job and most of my hobbies in order to get my footprint down to as less as 4.59. Huh???

Sun, sea and… shivering

Yesterday evening I was almost too tired to write anything meaningful, but I couldn’t just not tell anything about this fantastic relaxing day on the sea I’ve been longing for soooo badly…
1. a very cozy group of 10
2. amazing weather (up to 5 degrees, with a Mediterranean sun and a 4 bft SE wind)
3. one of the world’s greatest sailing vessels – well, at least one of Belgium’s greatest… B-)
4. time for both some genuine sailing action and sun-bathing
5. beginning and ending with a considerable amount of booze to counteract hypothermia
6. lasagne with salmon in a cafe in the center of Oostende by dusk
Thanks again Geert, the marvelous skipper, for giving the opportunity to shipless people to sail such a beauty!! Loads of piccies (low res) on the Antwerp Flyer community, and a few vids coming up soon.

To think that I was almost convinced this day would be totally ruined… after a whole week of accumulating a lack of sleep, saturday morning after a very intense dream I woke up 15 minutes before the start of my Arabic class, which is 15 minutes by bike from my apartment. I leaped out of my bed and after 5 minutes of getting dressed and packing my stuff I made it there in 10. However, while leaping out of my bed something got stuck in my spine… By the end of the day I couldn’t even breath normally anymore. I’m soooo lucky my dad is a physiotherapist, and he helped me out of my misery with one rather complex manipulation… As I woke up yesterday morning, I was stiff as hell and had a very painful back, but according to my father this was merely the aftermath of the manipulation while the problem itself was solved. So I went off to the yacht, and by the time we sailed out my pain was miraculously blown away by the wind…

And in an attempt to add something meaningful anyway: my brother just pointed out that sailing is the ultimate sensation of being alive, and for that reason young delinquents should be placed as a team on a Volvo Ocean Race-style yacht, with the assignment to sail it around and bring every one home safely. And if possible, to peek a 70 km/h en passant. They’d be far better off than by rotting further away from daily life in a closed institution…

Sheherazade?

For those of you planning to travel to a warm, beautiful and fascinating country: I’m no longer the only one recommending the Sultanate of Oman
11 years after her previous journey, Weekend Knack journalist Tessa Vermeiren returned to Oman to find out that the country had enormously evolved under the reign of His Majesty Sultan Qaboos Bin Said. The country’s development from an extremely isolated, 19th (or even 18th) century lifestyle towards a wealthy, adapted nation under the last 30(!) years must have been beyond imagination. After 11 years, Tessa describes her astonishment of being able to discover Oman’s beauties which were hidden behind inaccessible tracks and mountains for centuries, in a very informative and illustrated Weekend Knack article published last wednesday (pdf in Dutch, click here).
Actually you don’t even have to wait for 11 years to see a (r)evolution going on in Oman: I can’t tell you how amazed I am every six months I get there! And even more amazingly, it’s true Omani have found a way to integrate authenticity into modern daily life (which probably characterizes Ibadi Muslims which almost all Omani are: orthodox and tolerant at the same time). This way, only a western, romantic way of thinking will regret the loss of “Sheherazadian” Oman. With one hospital for a UK-sized country at that time – resulting in a lot of crippled elderly people (often suffering from cataract and polio-like diseases) nowadays, the legacy of this era is still prominently present in the streets of Oman. The proof that most people welcomed this development lies in how they worship their Sultan – and no, this veneration is not Saddam-style imposed.
The development has been extremely efficient and swift, and it really needed to be that way. Although blessed with some oil and gas reserves, Oman isn’t half as big a producer as other Gulf countries are and resources will probably be exhausted within 25 years. While still thriving on oil and gas revenues, this is the reason why Sultan Qaboos has always been insisting very strongly on the protection of the environment in order to assure continuing fisheries resources and tourism interests.

However, if you travel to Oman, keep it simple. Don’t get blinded by devastating mass development like this decadent luxury hotel complex being built right in a former designated marine protected area, just(!) to the right of the “idyllic” first picture in Tessa’s article (I’m not a racist, but damn expats for this project)! You can already book it before it’s even finished… And believe me, although the rates are well above Belgian hotel averages, they do not match the damage caused by the construction at all! For instance, I can tell you it took Louisa Ponnampalan, Iain Benson and me a 10h working day to try and move 1% of a tiny 400 years old coral reef (the ocean’s “rain forest”) threatened by the construction of the hotel’s marina. The chances for this 1% to survive such a treatment are unknown but estimated below 50%… It makes you see things in perspective, doesn’t it…

I thought I’d better end with a few more attractive Omanscape piccies showing the unexpected lush green side of the country. This is Wadi Sbah, which means Wadi “Morning”, for it’s running towards the eastern Gulf of Oman coast between Muscat and Sur.

Replace the camels by cows, and you’d reckon you’d be in Rwanda or something. This is the graded road winding to Tawai Atair (“Source of the Birds”, a 200m wide and deep sinkhole) through the subtropical rainforest on the Dhofari mountains (southern province along the Arabia Sea coast).

To hi-tech or not to hi-tech

Quote: “Crystal blue water, a lovely sun and warm enough to get out wearing a light shirt”.

Illustrated with a nice representative picture of his new biotope, Pieter did a great job making us extremely jealous, merely one day after his arrival at the Mediterranean coast. I had the pleasure to live one of the best “after-summers” I’ve ever had over there, while on a 2 week training course in September 2004. Two weeks of snorkeling (in the framework of our job, mind you), sun-bathing, nights at the beach, open-air cinema in the ancient castle, visiting Monaco and Nice… It hurts to see it all back…

Anyway, one of the first things I noticed on the picture he posted was the same research vessel we used last year. Simple things always last, and as much is true for oceanographic research vessels.

One week ago I stated the 70 Ft R/V Song of the Whale II, built in 2004, was my absolute favorite. But let’s face it: how long will a yacht of this calliber last, given that its predecessor, the 46 Ft R/V Song of the Whale I was a mere 26 years old upon dismissal (our 4.20 sailing dinghy is now 30 years old and still in the running)! In 2003, I had the honor to join a trip on the R/V Le Mysis in Roscoff (Bretagne, France). Built in 1962, this ship offers all you desire in a more modest design, and at least up to a respectable age. Ever since, it has served as a source of inspiration for other research vessels in France, among which the R/V La Sagitta at Villefranche (Cote d’Azur). But when it comes to modesty, Mediterranean people don’t need any lessons, as they clearly demonstrate with their fabulous R/V La Velelle.

So have we reached the limits in simple research vessel design?

Nope. Meet the R/V Sun, Sea and S…erendipity, my personal multi-functional 6,5 Ft inflatable Party Barge, which so far has done a great job carrying up to 350 kg of concrete, steel, diving gear and divers up to 350 m out into the open ocean, day after day, for two entire months, separated by 4 months of intensive attempts to ruin it, carefully carried out by a bunch of small kids (the offspring of fellow-researchers in Oman). And I am completely confident to find it in good shape again in about 1,5 months. Ha!

What are you still doing here??

Let me paste this “Coral-list” e-mail I got from one of the world’s leading coral and marine satellite remote sensing researchers:

Dear Coral-list,
I’ve placed around 550 video clips, designed for use in PowerPoint, on the web and they’re available free of charge for educational and scientific use. The clips cover reef ecology, diseases, coral bleaching, hurricane impacts,human impacts on reefs, corals, fish, sponges, mangroves, seagrass beds and so on. They can be inserted into PowerPoint to illustrate your presentations.Feel free to take a look and download anything that’s useful: www.reefvid.org
Please note, we are getting a lot of traffic at the moment so if the system seems slow don’t give up and try again. Lastly, if you encounter any problems and then find a solution please let me know and I’ll post additional advice on the site.
All the best for the New Year,
Pete Mumby

I am soooo thrilled about this!! 550 high quality vids showing everything related to our planet’s most diverse ecosystems! From habitats to species, from dive sites to field work, from healthy to sick systems, all in crystal clear blue “swimming pool” waters. If you sort the clips by topic, my favorites are caves, cleaning stations, dive sites, divers (showing exactly the same work as I do in Oman – great to see, because I could never shoot this incredible images for I never have visibilities over 20m), habitats, islands, hard corals, human impacts(!), nursery habitat, reef at night, reef geomorphology, tourism and tourism impacts(!).

PLEEEAAAAASSSE, have a look at it and get a small glimpse of how valuable these ecosystems are! I know, living in a country merely boarded by a small coast of a cold, grey sea in which all life almost is exterminated doesn’t help raising awareness, but this really does, for free! And please, accredit these people for their fantastic job by always referring to www.reefvid.org whenever you use any of the vids!

By the way, unlike the technical concerns expressed by Pete, they seem to dispose of an extremely powerful server, as I was able to download tens of vids at a time, at a rate varying between 1 and 8 Mb/s!

In parantheses…

I just noticed the previous post actually was my first ironic reaction to my own debacle three months ago…

Welcome to the world – Toyota! (Or something…)

During one of those (generally boring) conversations at the New Year’s reception of our department, we started discussing the options to have our expeditions sponsored by whatever company involved. For instance, I tend to loot A.S. Adventure outdoor and Hubo hobbyist stores prior to every departure, so why not make a real-life, spectacular publicity photo-shoot and let them pay for it? This is quite an appealing strategy, and it could even be extrapolated to, let’s say, oil companies. After all, we are working in an oil producing country and hey, every oil company wants to clean its image these days, generally by presenting some nice publicity concerning ecological research they fund, don’t they?

We actually did take some publicity pictures of our rented Toyota Landcruiser in the past. First of all, well, because it is some nice equipment, but more importantly, to make a little trade with the renting company people: we provide you convincing action-pictures, you lower the rates. (Mmmm… Well… Actually, our reasoning might have been a bit more complicated, like: your car gets trashed during our tough off-road expedition, but we take some nice convincing action-piccies, so you don’t charge excess rates for trashing your car…)
I even took publicity pictures of the Landrover Discovery (in Oman: a.k.a. “European trash”) last time. I wonder which one they’d most gladly accept as publicity: the real stuff, the way I felt about the real stuff, or the snuff stuff…

أهلاً و سهلاً

Well well… A friend looking for my blog using google just pointed out to me that one of the hits was linked to a search prompt “vision of Islam” in another search engine, where my blog was ranked first out of 343550 other related sites! I couldn’t help bursting into laughter as I saw this: I didn’t even say anything about Islam! I just pointed out the absurd contradiction in the relationship between American creationists and the Arab world… I’m pleading innocent, Your Honour! Anyway, now I’m definitely going for #1 on Google!

So I guess I’m certainly on the black list of US intelligence agencies now, as my mom was already worried for when I started to take Arabic classes ? And I guess this post, again, won’t exactly help me out?

Yours truly amused,
كلاس