Books: K-19, the Widowmaker
I loved the movie, bought it on DVD, so when I saw the book by a retired US Navy captain, Peter Hughthausen (say that 5 times fast!) I grabbed it.
VERY interesting - gives the whole story of the sub, the shoddy and unsafe reactors and nuclear history of the former USSR, the human story, and the current reality of tons, literally tons of highly radioactive junk sitting in Russian ports and in dumping places in the world’s oceans.
Highly recommended.
Books: Krakatoa, the Day the World Exploded
Last week I read Krakatoa, the Day the World Exploded, by Simon Winchester.
When I picked it off the shelf, I was looking mainly for the science and info-porn behind the disaster … how big, how much, how hot, how loud, etc. etc., but the book delivered a lot more.
Winchester situates the event in a historical, cultural, and geopolitical milieux that is fascinating. Example: he ties together the volcanic explosion itself with the state of the Dutch colonial presence in what is now called Indonesia, the rise of Islam in Java and Sumatra, and the slowly growing independance movement.
But the disaster itself takes centre stage, of course, with nice tidbits, fully explained, such as:
- the sound of the final, gigantic explosion travelled up to 3000 miles away (unbelievable!)
- the pressure wave from the explosion travelled around the world 7, yes 7 times
- the highest wave (there were several) caused by the explosion was probably around 130 feet high
Krakatoa was probably the first “global village” disaster, as it was the first to be quickly reported around the world, mostly as a result of recently laid telegraph cables.
Good book; perhaps a bit tedious at points.
John on Tuesday freaked out
OK, OK, OK. Language pet peeves today.
Why, oh why, must reporter types write like this:
Sony on Thursday released its $249 PlayStation Portable (PSP) to the North American market.
Is that not one of the most awkward, twisted, and, frankly, stupid-sounding constructions in the English language? Sony on Thursday? What is that? Is Thursday some new kind of corporate drug? Or perhaps a famous street address? Come on. Just bloody well say what you mean:
On Thursday, Sony released its $249 PlayStation Portable (PSP) to the North American market.
What? Not good enough? Editors and journalistic tradition demand that the key words be close to the front of the first sentence of the article? OK, I understand that. But what about this:
Sony released its $249 PlayStation Portable (PSP) to the North American market on Thursday.
What’s wrong with that? It wouldn’t break my jaw, my train of thought, or my tongue, it has the key words near the front, and the not-quite-so-important info near the back. Much better.
Spread the meme.
Relatives in hiding
I had the strangest experience late last week: talking with a total stranger on the phone for 30 minutes - who might be a close relative.
My son Ethan was featured in the local paper. He was at the library during a ’science’ demonstration, volunteered, and a news photog took a series of snaps that made it into the paper:
That night, we received a call from a Nellie Kocsar, who told us that her maiden name was Koetsier, she emigrated from Holland in the 1960s, and went to the same church that my parents had gone to.
Wow!
We spent thirty minutes talking about villages in Holland where she had grown up, and where my parents had grown up (both my parents emigrated to Canada in the 1950s) … and ancestors that appeared to be common, including a Koetsier who featured prominently in the formation of the Dutch Reformed Church in the 1800s.
Very cool - I’m going to invite Nellie and her husband over to meet my parents. The discussion should be interesting!
My del.icio.us visual map
This is a visual map of my del.icio.us bookmarks.
Note: this is just Some Guy’sâ„¢ website; it may disappear at any given moment for reasons and destinations unknown.
Chilliwack Blue Heron Wetlands
Teresa and I took the kids to the Chilliwack Blue Heron Wetlands yesterday, which being Good Friday (the day Christ was crucified) is a holiday in Canada.
The nature reserve is about 20 minutes from our home in Abbotsford, and it was well worth the drive. Here’s some pics of the festivities …
This gives you an overview of the general setting:
There are lots of paths through the swamp, with lots of bridges over little creeks. I snapped a shot of our reflected visages while on one of the bridges:
The kids loved the numerous logs strewn over creeks and ponds, and only one kid got one shoe wet the whole day!
While crossing one of the afore-mentioned bridges, I noticed the pool of water underneath was very still, and captured this image of clouds reflected in the water:
My main man and me, making my wife nervous:
Another nice snap of part of the reserve’s waterways:
Aidan Update
As I previously mentioned, Aidan cut his head open on our fireplace hearth just a few days ago.
How’s he doing now? I thought I’d post a photo of him two days after the accident …
Still happy, still crazy, still doing insane stuff. In other words, the same old incorrigible loveable kid.
That’s 9 stitches in his forehead … scheduled to come out on Sunday (tomorrow). Apparently, if they stay in longer than 5 days, the “traintrack look” is likely to become a permanent feature of his face.
And yeah, that’s the offending fireplace behind him. We’ll need to change it somehow, get rid of the sharp corners. It feels like locking the barn door after the horses are gone, but we’d really never forgive ourselves if it would happen again. For now, two big ugly pillows have taken up centre stage in our living room, protecting all and sundry from the sharp corners of the hearth.
Transparent computer screens
This has to be seen to be believed ….
Check out this photostream of laptops and computers that people are putting a desktop pic on that exactly matches the actual background. The visual effect is as if your laptop screen is completely transparent.
Very cool! I’m sure it’s a ton of work to get it right, but the result is incredible.
Chinese is capital-H hard!
I was foaming the other day (not at the mouth, foaming is my word for trolling recent submissions to del.icio.us) when I saw this article on why it is so hard to learn Chinese.
More specifically, why it is so hard to learn to read Chinese.
This is of interest to me, because I have a friend who lives in China, married a Dutch woman of Chinese descent, and is raising his 2 kids in China. Naturally, learning Chinese is a basic necessity of life for him.
One of the most interesting parts of the article is that even born-and-raised Chinese people often have a hard time reading and writing their own language … even university-education professors of the Chinese language!
I wonder … I know that in mathematics, if you do not have basic numeracy literacy you spend so much effort on the basics that it is very hard to learn the more difficult material. I wonder if the same might be true for Chinese … would it be harder to learn when the tool that you’re using to create, organize, and disseminate knowledge is, to put it very simply, a harder-to-use tool than some others out there?
Interesting question!
A very scary day - Aidan cuts his head open
It’s every parent’s worst nightmare - your child has had an accident, and you have to take him to the hospital.
We have a raised hearth at one end of our living room, and it’s tiled with slate. Slate happens to have very sharp edges … and when my son Aidan fell towards the hearth after tripping on his brother’s foot last night, bad things happened. Very bad.
Aidan hit the hearth with his head, just above his right eyebrow. I saw the whole thing happening, as did Teresa, my wife, and I reached him about 2 seconds after he hit. I’m not sure I’ve ever been quite that scared, because as I picked him up, I saw white bone at the bottom of a very serious cut in his forehead.
I carried him to the kitchen, laid him on the counter, and held a clean cloth to the wound while Teresa called 9-1-1. An ambulance came in about 4 minutes - we’re not far from the hospital. I rode with Aidan in the ambulance while Teresa drove behind with our two other children.
We spent about 90 minutes in the hospital; Aidan got stitched up; we came home. Very, very scary. Teresa snapped these pictures so we’d remember the accident.
In the hospital, on the gurney, with the standard you-might-need-it neck brace:
Aidan got sick of lying down with an uncomfortable neck brace:
The nasty, nasty gash itself, just as the doctor and nurse are preparing Aidan for stitches:
Sparkplug 9 is John Koetsier's blog on life, the universe, and everything,
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