Eureka!

has finally managed to get their archive right – meaning all files have names, and guess what, all files even have the correct name! So I was finally able to download the missing satellite image of my research site acquired during winter, essential to develop a seasonal study. 5 months after date, but of course better late than never, as I was already starting to fear the image was lost in the chaos of their database… So instead of presenting the Ministry of Environment in Oman and the congress in Italy some nice finished results, I’ll have to stick to a preliminary exploration and complete the study after returning from Oman… Fair enough.

While the former organization is doing their utter best to mess up cherished datasets, automated real-time end products of processed data continue to find their way to the average man-with-the-moustache on the internet. By far the coolest example, especially in these thunderstorm-forsaken days, is this lightning detection tool. As I’m writing this, 4 major thunderstorms in and around Belgium are mercilessly barraging Earth and its inhabitants. Muhahahaha Another impressive example of live statistics are the worldometers. While you read this sentence, somewhere in the world 14 people die and 7000 metric tons of anthropogenic CO2 are released into the atmosphere… And lightning has hit the Earth almost 2500 times

The sky is not the limit

My satellite remote sensing research goes hand in hand with two huge developments in geography – a very exciting coincidence. First of all, remote sensing has left the strictly geographical field, and where remote sensing studies were carried out solely by geographical experts and focused mainly on technical aspects in the past (even when the subject was strictly biological), a wealth of remote sensing studies now relies heavily on biologists (or archaeologists or whatever) for data interpretation. Secondly, remote sensing software and GIS is getting widely available and straightforward to use. One of the leading examples today is Google Earth, incorporating several GIS layers and satellite imagery of different resolutions to offer a continuously browsable digital globe. I think we’re merely starting to see the potential of such freeware.

Look at this one: where molecular-phylogenetic studies created merely trees of life in the past, potentially linked with a database of sample localities whether or not plotted separately on a 2D map, Bill Piel now developed a tool allowing to plot phylogenetic trees on a Google Earth’s 3D globe, based on uploading a simple text file linking the studied specimens with their occurrence site. Think of the possibilities this creates! Not only will it allow for visually establishing hypotheses of geographical forcing mechanisms in evolution (vicariance, etc.), but this could potentially allow to include a 4th dimension: if the tree nodes can be dated, several globe layers could be added like an onion, showing the position of continents at several evolutionary nodes, thus helping to prove biogeographic hypotheses!

The Holy IKEA

Whether the escalating Israeli-Lebanese war is religious or purely strategic, the UN has to stop hesitating over details and to put an immediate and unconditional stop to the outbreak of violence. First stop fighting, then start talking. Proposing a half cease-fire with an exception for retaliation (in this stage, this is the chicken or the egg: who could ever undoubtedly indicate which action is a strike and which is a revenge??) has no point at all: no-one will sit down to talk while outside his troops still have a chance of getting attacked. Clearly, Hezbullah begged for retaliation with their initial raid, but exterminating innocent Lebanese people would be the answer? Seriously…

While clearly people are now the first and most important victims who deserve priority of help, I’m a bit afraid few attention (as usual) is paid to environmental damage. The thing is, (hopefully soon) there will be an after-war period in which to settle down, reconstruct cities and get the economy going again. But especially immediately after such a crisis, people will depend on the environment to achieve this. Much of the water resources (already critical in the area) are threatened, and fisheries will collapse if oil continues to pollute the sea. No tourists will visit polluted beaches (and dive sites) and burnt down forests. Additionally, where will people get wood to do the most necessary construction if the woods are already burnt down? The only hope is that the aftermath of the war will be used to speed up the installation of the area’s first Marine Protected Area, as was the case for the Jubail Wildlife Sanctuary shortly following the first Gulf War oil spills. In any case, the pollution is getting as huge as it was back then, or, as the well-known Exxon Valdez oil spill.

In the meantime, almost as a statement, an article published exactly 3 years ago (and at the time completely unnoticed) in the Norwegian Dagbladet now got dug up and spread out in the media: the bible no longer is the most spread printed book. Nowadays, the IKEA catalogue is…

In that case, my new apartment is the new Jerusalem :-p And as far as I’m concerned, I’d make a new Beirut branch a priority – seems like they will desparately need one there soon…

How snobbish can you go

Dear client,

Congratulations!
The image for your bank card is approved. We continue to process your application. If your personal data are correct and your application is accepted, you will be notified shortly to fetch your card at your local bank office.

Not that I’m usually sensitive to this kind of publicity stunts, but you gotta admit this KBC get-your-self-made-bank-card-for-free action is cool! I needed a new one anyway, my current chip is so dirt it gets refused half the times and some letters have almost completely vanished.

I’m sending in the mob, again…

: You had submitted an abstract for the 4th Wokshop when it was still scheduled for February 2006. We would like to request again your confirmation whether this abstract is still valid for consideration for the new workshop date 19-21 September.
In order to consider your abstract for the presentation planning, please confirm until the 26th July at latest the validity of the abstract. Additionally, could you please let us know which abstract is the correct one, as we received two versions: number 260005 or number 260116 – the titles are different but the text is the same.

Me: [bolds added to make my point here]
There seems to be some misunderstanding: in e-correspondance with B.H. on May 2 I already stated my submission was still valid. She added that she would just notify the conference team to keep the submitted abstract and I shouldn’t submit a new one.
As for the ambiguity between the abstracts 260005 and 260116 as you state, I recall only submitting one abstract, and I can only find one definite file on my computer; can I review these abstracts on the internet or could you show me the difference in titles?
One more thing: I’m still lacking some datasets, acquired in March. I found imagery of one of my research sites (Sur, Gulf of Oman) in the archive, but wrongly named SE_Australia (all of the three images of this site are named like this – fairly surprising, since “SE_Australia” is nowhere mentioned in my proposal or request). I found this by browsing all images in the archive potentially matching the acquisition dates I was looking for, since some have no names at all. However, I was still not able to locate the imagery of Mirbat (Dhofar, Arabian Sea, Oman) in the archive. I tried to access the released ftp server as adviced on May 3 through e-mail with B.H. several times, but didn’t succeed to gain access. Could you advice on this please?

: We are delighted to notify you that your submission (260005 ) for the upcoming 4th workshop from 19-21 September has been accepted as poster presentation.

So no word about the two titles anymore. There’s a good thing about that: they seem to have the ability to solve problems, created by themselves, on their own after all. But still no word about the missing imagery… What did I say about answering the goddamn question before? And of course my abstract is merely accepted as a poster presentation: without the lacking image I couldn’t fill 45 minutes to talk in the plenary session anyway (although I could fill 1,5 hour talking about the problems to aquire a f***** image in the first place)!

*Weary sigh*

Paklenica National Park

Dis-moi où sur la planète
Est-ce qu’on trouve un vide-tête
Un espace vide sonore
Une île bruit mort

Zita Swoon
Individu Animal

Wuthering heights	A mule job	Shelter from thunderstorms
The best sauce is appetite	Evening walk	Timeless
Water filtering and deciding on tomorrow’s plans in dusk	Unwilling to carry out the plans in dawn	Retrospective
Mines – fate and badly indicated trails lead us well past the sign only minutes later	Gotcha!	Salt or snow?
Parnassius apollo	Longicorn Beetles busy with business	Otherwordly
A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do	Reconciliation	Read the manual

Blue

With these cloudbursts the last few days, all I can think of is putting on my wetsuit and diving…
As we dropped anchor in the bay of Komiza on Vis island in Croatia, the two dive centers located at the waterfront immediately caught our eye and we just couldn’t resist the appealing wreck dive offers. It wasn’t cheap, but a good deal seen the quality of their offer. We dived on the wreck of a steam ship carrying cobblestones, which crashed in a narrow passage between two islands (which we passed the evening before under spinnaker sail, taking over two other yachts as we did, and indeed we had to keep full attention to avoid the shallow zones). The steam ship lies between 10 and 34 meters deep in amazingly clear and blue waters. Of the approximately 100 dives I’ve made, this was the deepest, and apart from the five training dives, the only one outside Oman and hence the first one in the Mediterranean, and merely my third strictly recreational (non-scientific sampling) dive! You bet I enjoyed it, and I’m still sorry two other dives on natural drop-offs at the Kornati islands were cancelled due to overbooking…

An additional video fragment can be downloaded here.

Rays of sunshine lure one down	Unfortunate octopus	“Gee, some dude seriously messed up here…”
Strange, yet peaceful combination of two worlds	Deeper and deeper	Sponges have taken control
Bottom line

Unjealousing

Going out on a sailing trip was the most boring thing I ever did. While in the best case the sea remains calm, the land starts wobbling like a rocking chair after staying some time on a boat. The interior of the boat is designed for 4 dwarfs instead of 8 adults and is competitive to an old oven. The sun is beating on your head and cooking your brains all day, and when it doesn’t, it’s because the sails are blocking the sun, causing the chilly wind to prevail. Winds change unpredictably between too weak and too strong, but share the property of forcing you to the opposite direction you wanted to head. By the time sailing eventually got you where you wanted, your holiday is over and your bank account has dropped far below freezing point. You’re continuously forced to face the same people, day after day, so in the end 25-years-of-marriage-style fighting takes the upper hand in regular conversations. Nothing designed to ease up this hell ever works properly: the hand-pumped toilets, the autopilot, the GPS, the plotter, the VHF and even the motor – all apply for instant demolition in a sudden mood of deep frustration.

Observe and weep.

I’m rich!	“Mariette” has control.	Hardly 6 bft, but it looks cool.
Dos rifos.	“Sjett’n”!	Land? Where?
Bored, again.	A wide-angle, my kingdom for a wide-angle!	Coolness.
I’ll take the spi road and ye’ll take the genoa road and I’ll be on the island afooooore ye!	Focus.	Chill.
Upholding the cliche.	Man over board (MOB).	MOB, the sequel.