Mother Nature bats last. From last week’s Bellingham Herald:
BELLINGHAM — A well-liked local doctor who practiced at St. Joseph Hospital died there Saturday, after his surf ski capsized Thursday in Bellingham Bay.
Lanny “Bip” Sokol, 40, of Bellingham, spent three hours in the water before U.S. Coast Guard personnel found him face down and unconscious, approximately one mile from the Fairhaven Cruise Terminal in Bellingham Bay.
Sokol, who was wearing a dry suit and life vest, was rushed to the hospital. He and another man were kayaking from Boulevard Park to Post Point when a gust of wind tipped them over about 5 p.m., Bellingham Police said. The other kayaker was able to recover, get back in his kayak and paddle back to shore to get help.
Three hours in the water is a long time, dry suit or no. I can see a few things I would consider red-flag-ish: 5PM might as well be after dark – what kind of lighting was the pair using? Assisted rescues (where your paddling buddy steadies your kayak while you climb back in) are typically far easier to perform than self-rescues – while the second kayaker may have improved the response time by paddling for help, he might have improved Sokol’s chances of survival by sticking around to see that he got out of the water. And why did he have to paddle for help? Didn’t they have a radio?
I don’t know the answers to these questions. I don’t know how much insulation Sokol was wearing under his dry suit. I don’t know if they had flares or radios. I don’t know if conditions were too rough to perform an assisted rescue. I can second guess, but it’s pretty pointless. I can say that I personally probably wouldn’t have gone paddling in Bellingham Bay that late in the afternoon, but it’s something I might have considered as part of a more experienced group.
Sokol sounds like he was an experienced kayaker, which counts for a lot. But in the end, equipment can fail. Weather can change suddenly. Cumulative decisions, good and bad alike, merge, combine, replicate, and resonate; they intersect and interact with external factors such as wind and tide and light conditions. And in the end, even when you do everything right, it’s still just you against an awful lot of water.
[updated to add: the Coast Guard press release has slightly different information in it - according to USCG, the pair turned back because of the weather. It was upon arriving back at shore that Sokol's friend realized that he was alone, and notified the authorities.]
Posted by protected static as kayaking at 11:26 AM UTC
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*snicker*
Me? Juvenile? Never…
(Actually, I found it via this site, which I found via /. Of course.)
Posted by protected static as geek, humor at 6:24 PM UTC
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How sick is this?
Garrett Anderson with the Illinois National Guard, for example, has been fighting the VA since October 15, 2005. Shrapnel tore through his head and body after a roadside bomb blew up the truck he was driving. He lost his right arm.
The VA initially rejected his claim, saying his severe shrapnel wounds were “not service connected.”
Because, you know, shrapnel happens pretty much everywhere. Boy, those IEDs, they’re going off everywhere these days…
Posted by protected static as politics at 12:06 AM UTC
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Got this gem today:
“Know thyself” is a universal dictum passed down the centuries from all sources of wisdom. As the 21st century dawns, it has become apparent authentic self-knowledge requires comprehension of various fields of research, not only the many schools of psychology, but fields as diverse as anthropology, linguistics, neurology, and yoga, as well as insights stimulated by quantum physics and empirical explorations of alternate states of consciousness. A balanced interweaving of these and other approaches to the mind, such as literature and art, facilitates an extensive grasp of our human predicament, which is indispensable for an individual’s inner growth. But covering all this requires years of full time research. How could one possibly go about such an endeavor when caught up with today’s pace of schooling and career? Is there a solution? What if someone were to spend half a century traveling the earth, accumulating such significant knowledge along with vast worldly experience, then skillfully condense it all into one book? Remarkably, this has been accomplished.
And apparently it has been accomplished without grokking that spammers suck.
Author, poet, artist, [name of narcissistic asshole redacted] set out forty years ago to pursue a life of Zorba the
Greek adventure merged with Socratic questioning of all knowledges, which developed into a spiritual quest of the most compelling sort. After four decades of hard road travel over half the earth, [this asshole] spent seven years condensing his accumulation of knowledge into one truly informative work, [asshole's book title redacted]. This book is gradually being internationally recognized for it’s original approach to the ultimate questions concerning the human situation.
Such as: why do spammers suck? Oh wait… scratch that one…
[This shitty book] is a challenging, enriching journey, encompassing the evolution of consciousness, while skillfully weaving mysticism, theology, psychology, philosophy, quantum physics, neurology, music, art, into meaningful and relevant patterns of clarification, never losing sight of the central theme-the endeavor to realize bottom line truths concerning our place amid the wild wonder of it all, and [this asshole] accomplishes this without succumbing to New Age credulity or sterile scientific skepticism. Every person truly concerned with the essence of philosophical inquiry and spiritual growth should have a copy close at hand.
Bottom line truth of email: spam sucks. Spam heavy on the woo sucks marginally less than spam for penis pills, Nigerian scams, and pump-and-dump stock scams, but it still sucks. Somehow you’d think someone who had mastered this spiritual pursuit would have also learned that spamming is largely the province of scam artists.
On second thought, I think I’ve answered my own question. After all, it’s just the spiritual version of “get a bigger wang,” isn’t it?
Posted by protected static as asshattery, spam at 11:52 AM UTC
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“…to sneak up on a blade of grass?”
I believe that I first read that line in one of Larry Niven’s Man-Kzin War books twenty or so years ago. In the intervening time, it’s been appropriated by some as cheap and easy snark against vegetarians, largely by people who forget that the carnivorous, feline Kzin get their asses handed to them each time by the naked apes who are prone to such flights of fancy and apparent weakness as vegetarianism – but I digress ;-)
Well, turns out that it does, in fact, require a decent amount of intelligence – not to sneak up on grass, but on tubers. Coz’ if you’re going to harvest tubers, you’re going to need tools.
Posted by protected static as geek at 6:28 PM UTC
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Last night, I went for my 2nd pool session, and dammit! I’m just not getting it. Maybe I was just in a mood last night, but I just could not bridge the divide between theory and praxis: when I watch someone else perform a roll, it makes total sense; when I try to make myself move the same way, I Just. Don’t. Get. It.
Bleah.
I’m gonna give it one more group session, then see. If I don’t make any headway next week, maybe that should be my sign that it’s time for an individual lesson…
Oh yeah… a new category and a corresponding re-labeling of the relevant posts.
Posted by protected static as kayaking at 10:41 AM UTC
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With a Sci/Tech headline like “Scientist’s ideas on sex re-examined,” how could you not click, right? Too bad it isn’t really science:
RANGELEY, Maine – Physician-scientist Wilhelm Reich, best known for his claims of a cosmic life force associated with sexual orgasm, died in federal prison, and the government burned tons of his books and other publications and destroyed his equipment.
But half a century later, a small number of scientists and other believers are working to advance the European-born psychiatrist’s work on what he called “orgone energy” — a theory largely forgotten in the scientific mainstream.
Of course, the article never actually interviews or identifies anyone who would actually qualify as a scientist… Whoops…
The 50th anniversary of his death is being marked by a major exhibition on Reich and his work that opens Nov. 15 at the Jewish Museum in Vienna, the city where he attended medical school, began his psychiatric practice and studied under Sigmund Freud.
Also this month, archives of Reich’s unpublished papers, which have been stored at Harvard Medical School, will become available to researchers for the first time. Reich had stipulated that his papers only be opened 50 years after his death.
[...]
Even as the anniversary-related events rekindle memories of Reich and his theories, some of his supporters worry that they are in a race against time.
The challenge, they say, is to keep his work alive and advance it through new studies and experimentation at a time when Reich is not being taught in either medical schools or physics classes.
While I do think that his papers will hold items of interest to historians of science, to say that I have my doubts about their actual utility to practicing scientists would be a major understatement.
So here’s a hint for the Reich supporters and believers out there: you probably aren’t going to have your theories taught, well, anywhere when they’re recurring thematic elements in William S. Burroughs’ novels. Now, I likes me some Burroughs, but I’m thinking that this association probably elevates your situation past ‘challenge’ and into the realm of ‘fucking impossible.’
Just sayin’.
Posted by protected static as 30-second science blogging at 10:07 AM UTC
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…against a Sawzall:
The recent armed robbery of a Chicago-based co-location facility has customers hopping mad after learning it was at least the fourth forced intrusion in two years.[...]
In the most recent incident, “at least two masked intruders entered the suite after cutting into the reinforced walls with a power saw,” according to a letter C I Host officials sent customers. “During the robbery, C I Host’s night manager was repeatedly tazered and struck with a blunt instrument. After violently attacking the manager, the intruders stole equipment belonging to C I Host and its customers.” At least 20 data servers were stolen, said Patrick Camden, deputy director of news affairs for the Chicago Police Department.
[via /., of course]
Posted by protected static as geek at 5:01 PM UTC
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