Here’s a cool story cool story about how researchers are learning more about ocean currents by tracking where the toy ducks wash to shore. Keep your eyes peeled for those ducks – they’re probably worth something.
Monthly Archive for July, 2006
Some clever engineers have figured out how to use standing waves to form all letters of the Roman alphabet and even some kanji characters. What will they think of next?
Check it out: http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science-Fiction-News.asp?NewsNum=695
The LA Times reports that an environmental economist at UCLA, in partnership with Stanford University, recently published a study concluding that each year 1.5 million people get sick from visiting California beaches. The study goes so far as to estimate that all those illnesses cost the economy up to $414 million annually.
“Researchers estimated that healthcare costs for beach pollution illnesses ranged from $21 million to $414 million. Those estimates included not only direct losses, such as lost time at work, costs for medical treatment or doctor visits, but also hypothetical costs that beachgoers would be willing to pay to avoid getting sick.”
Usually when economists set out to model the cost of something, it’s because they’ve got some sort of agenda. In this case the agenda appears to be justifying the cost of cleaning up the beaches, so people won’t miss work because they get sick from going to the beach.
Surfers hate it when there’s a water quality advisory at their favorite spot. When the waves are really good, we often roll the dice and paddle out in spite of the risk of contracting some sort of gnarly illness. It’d be great if this study prompts lawmakers to pass legislation that’s designed to promote cleaner beaches, so we can surf without the worry. Realistically, however, that will probably take a while, so in the meantime we should all do our part to keep the water clean.
http://www.earth911.org is a decent place to check the water quality at your local beach and also has information on what you can do to keep the water clean.
CNN has an article about how surfing helps people stay in shape both physically and mentally. It also points out some of the physical impairments that long-time surfers face.
For anyone, who’s ever paddled a surfboard in the ocean at least once, this article states the obvious. If you’ve never surfed and are considering surfing as a way to get into shape, please be careful. You need to be in decent physical condition before you paddle out into the waves. There are some good exercises that you can do on land that will strengthen the muscles that you’ll need when you’re charging the waves. If it’s been a while since you’ve been swimming, then I’d recommend putting in some time at your local pool.
Surfing requires a lot of effort. An article (on p. 96 of the April 2006 edition of Surfshot) states that when surfers are in the water they spend 48% of their time paddling. Paddling a surfboard through the surf requires a considerable amount of strength and energy. And if you don’t have the strength and energy to navigate your board through the surf, then you’re putting yourself, as well as everyone else in the water, at significant risk of being injured.
Surfing takes a lot of dedication, but it’s worth it for a number of reasons: it’s fun, it brings you closer to nature, and it keeps you in shape. Just remember that it’s no duck walk out there. People, who make surfing look easy, have been doing it for a long time, so keep that in mind when you decide to charge the waves.
Another thing to keep in mind if you’re considering taking up surfing . . . . surfers typically don’t surf just to stay in shape. We surf because it’s impossible not to surf. It’s a way of life and a good one at that. Go catch a wave and you’ll see what I mean.
It’s no secret that Indonesia is a popular destination for surfers. If you’re planning on traveling to Indo, you should read up on the latest news. Until Indonesia implements a reliable tsunami warning system, the rest of the world is going to have to help them along. Awareness always helps.
This site http://indonesiahelp.blogspot.com/ appears to be doing a decent job of reporting Indonesian tsunami news and includes some information on how to help. The site documents the recent tsunami pretty well and includes maps, timetables, etc. I can’t say whether it’s safe to submit contributions to any of the bank accounts listed on the site.
Here are some more links to learn more about it all.
This site contains lots of maps & models on the earthquake that caused the recent tsunami.
The Germans have developed a way for wave-deprived people to experience the feeling of riding a wave. City Wave, as they’re calling it, is basically a fake standing wave formed by fashioning a large wave-shaped conveyor belt out of a special non-sticky material that people can ride with special boards. It doesn’t require a drop of water and can be moved and setup anywhere. 
We’re seeing more and more ways for people to experience the sensation of riding a surfboard without having to get their feet wet in the ocean. I think it’s great that inventive people, who are passionate about surfing, are developing ways to make surfing more accessible to the masses. Hopefully, the more people learn about surfing (when they’re on land), the more they’ll feel drawn to the ocean. That’s not to say I wish the line-ups were a little more crowded. I do wish people had more respect for the ocean, though, and surfing in the ocean has a tendency to earn people’s respect for the ocean.
When people start showing more respect to the ocean, hopefully they’ll think more about taking better care of it. If that comes at the cost of having to ride a wave with 200 other yahoos, then so be it. I’ll just go and find myself a City Wave that I can ride all by myself.
I hate to be the one to break this to you, but according to the New Economics Foundation, a self-proclaimed "think and do tank", if you live in the U.S., then you’re one of the most unhappy people on the planet. Grab a tissue and choke back your tears for a minute while I explain.
The NEF recently published a report called the Happy Planet Index (HPI), The HPI attempts to gage the overall happiness of a country by comparing the average life expectancy of its people to the country’s environmental impact on the planet, so countries where people consume very little and live long lives have a higher HPI than countries where people live as long, but consume more. The HPI rankings have Vanuatu (HPI=68.2) as the happiest country on Earth with Colombia coming in second. The U.S. (HPI=28.8) is pretty far down the list, well below most of the countries in Central America, the Middle East and Africa, which are often thought to be the third world. You gotta love it when economists set out to model something like happiness.
It’s worth mentioning the fact that scientists have actually found that animals tend to live longer the less they eat, so the HPI makes a lot of sense. Thus far I haven’t found any mention of this scientific research in the NEF’s report.
The HPI is clearly subjective and doesn’t account for things like oppressive political regimes, war, lack of surfable waves, or anything else that might make people unhappy. So far it has received a lot of constructive criticism from the media. Despite it’s numerous flaws the HPI is an interesting idea to consider and should serve as a solid foundation for further research on the topic. I doubt people will read the HPI rankings and move to Pakistan, but hopefully it puts a bug in people’s ears and makes them think about how much their own sense of happiness depends on their daily level of consumption.
Now, wipe those snot bubbles from your nose and pack your bags because we’ve got a little research project of our own. Someone’s gotta check out the waves in all those happy countries, so we can bring the HPI down to earth.
Anyone who’s seen or read The Perfect Storm has heard of rogue waves, aka "freak waves", giant waves that form and break far out at sea. These freakishly large waves can obliterate small ships and do serious damage, even sink, large ocean going vessels like oil tankers. Until recently scientists understood little about what causes rogue waves to form, but thanks to a group of European researchers that is no longer the case.
Several European research institutions have partnered on a project called MaxWave, which has made substantial progress in understanding rogue waves. They’ve actually been able to identify, measure, and track rogue waves with buoys, lasers and radar satellites. They’ve determined that rogue waves form more frequently when strong winds blow against strong ocean currents and when different swells traveling in the same direction merge. Makes sense. 
They say that at any point in time there are probably ten giant waves roaming the open ocean. Now that we have the ability to identify conditions that are ideal for the formation of giant waves, as well as the ability to identify and track the waves with satellite radar, one has to wonder when some crazy surfer is going to try and ride one of those suckers.
Check out The New York Times‘ recent article on the topic. It’s got some cool pics & diagrams.
Thanks go to our Junior Brogue Wave Analyst, Stephen, for digging up this story for us. Keep up the good work, bro.
I love it when a plan comes together. Teeka Tan Products, a company that produces sun care products, and SharkDefense, a R&D company that focuses on chemical shark repellent technologies, are teaming up to produce a single lotion that not only protects humans against the sun’s harmful rays, but from sharks, too. Teeka also offers a lotion that they claim inhibits jellyfish stings.
It’s good to know someone’s working on capitalizing on people’s anxiety and at the same time actually trying to mitigate some of the risks that come along with playing in the ocean.
It’ll be interesting to see how well this stuff works…
I knew it! I knew there had to be a reason why most surf flicks all seem the same these days. Turns out it’s because they’ve got a machine that they use to make all the videos…a secret machine.
OK, that’s not entirely true, but check this out. Veteran maritime cinematographer, Sonny Miller, is boycotting the new surf movie Secret Machine claiming that Globe, the big action sports apparel company that’s behind the movie, used a machine to create artificial surfing footage for the film. Globe initially hired Sonny as the cinematographer and now he doesn’t want them to use his name or any of the footage that he shot in association with the project because he thinks Globe’s movie making machine is evil. Globe denies that there is any truth to Sonny’s story and has gone so far as posting a scanned copy of a letter to a website that they evidently created for the specific purpose of dispelling notions that the machine is evil. Anyone who goes through the trouble of registering a special domain name must be pretty serious….
My opinion is that regardless of what the truth about the movie is, surf videos are already pretty homogenized these days. They’re all basically the same: music videos that show nail-biting footage of sponsored surfers ripping gnarly waves. Monkeys could edit them. These types of videos are just advertisements for the big companies that sponsor them. Fine with me if they want to take production to the next level by creating artificial footage. People will still watch them.
I’m confident that there will always be someone out there willing to put a lot of passion and creativity into creating surf films that actually mean something – films that have a soul.