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Today’s tweet digest 2008-09-01

  • Taizé ceremony (a mix of candles, chanting and tissues) taking place in the rec hall. If camp burns down, they’ll never forgive themselves. #
  • Female Yellow-rumped warbler was caught around a light last night. She would take off and circle it, like a moth, land and repeat. #
  • Aaaand we’re done. My stint as Camp Arowhon Outdoor Centre Director is coming to a close for the season. Back to T.O. Tuesday. #

Russia invades South Ossetia; Georgia decalres a state of war. Tom Clancy silent.

Russia? At war? Why hasn’t Tom Clancy already written a book whose narrative arc eerily echo these turns of events? I feel so lost…

P.S.: I thought we only had to fight wars against terror now. This seems waaay more complicated.

Russia’s ‘Full Scale Invasion’ of Georgia (Updated, with Video) [Link]
US, Europe scramble to stop Georgia-Russia war [Link]

Ikea’s multipurpose bench

Copies of the new Ikea catalogue appeared in the apartment foyer today. I, like the automaton that Fight Club would suggest I am (So I wonder: what kind of bench defines me as person?), picked one up to have a leaf-through.

I opened the catalogue and found this kid on a Jasper bench. Is it weird that I also thought it could pass muster serving a dual purpose as a gaming bench and a gynecological exam chair? Yes, I suppose it is.

Bonus: Fight Club footage after the break.

(more…) “Ikea’s multipurpose bench”

How-to: Create a kayak crate for the transportation of a Border Terrier (or any other small dog breed) on the deck of a tandem sea-kayak

My challenge: to take Ollie (at the time, a five-month-old Border Terrier puppy) on our regular summer sea-kayaking trips on Georgian Bay. Canoeing with a dog is easy. Kayaking with a dog seemed a bit more difficult. So I dreamt up a contraption that would allow Ollie to join us on these kayaking trips. Thanks to my Dad helping in the construction!

Witness it, in situ:

The tandem kayak with Ollie's Kayak crate

My criteria in the creation of the crate:

  • Traction: Kayak decks are fibreglass with a shiny gelcoat. Ollie would need a surface that would allow him some sort of gription as dog nails on gelcoat doesn’t really work.
  • An edge: In wavy conditions, the kayak can pitch quite suddenly. Having something that would contain the dog would help him stay on the boat while in swells seemed important.
  • Sun protection: All day kayaking without sun protection would equal fried puppy. My perfect design would offer some kind of sun protection.
  • Wind sturdy: Winds on Georgian Bay can be fierce (for example we had one evening this trip of ~ 45 km / h winds or 6 on the Beaufort Scale). Any extras (such as the sun protection) would have to stand up to a whipping wind.
  • Waterproof: This seems obvious.
  • Protects the Kayak: Since the Kayaks aren’t mine, I figured it would be bad if it ended up scratching the kayak when installed.

So with these criteria in mind, I set to creatin’. Since the kayak crate was a success, I’ve provided an illustrated step-by-step guide if you’re interested in making one yourself.

(more…) “How-to: Create a kayak crate for the transportation of a Border Terrier (or any other small dog breed) on the deck of a tandem sea-kayak”

My Tamron 90mm macro lens is b0rked

A small bite

More correctly, I should say that the autofocus on the lens doesn’t seem to be working. I’ve been using manual focus and that, combined with the lens’ razor thin DOF when it’s at 1:1, makes the photo on the left something of an accomplishment.

The plan is to drive to Amplis Foto in Markham with the lens tomorrow to drop it off for repair. It would be nice to have it back shortly, but we’ll see what lies in store…

Update (28/8/08): Seemingly, like magic, the lens is working again. I put it on the camera just before making the trek to Markham and it began to autofocus. Hrm. This usually means that the organic meat-bag is to blame rather than the inorganic technology. What have I done or not done? Here’s my preditction: this will be an on-going transient problem for a while. I just now know if this is to occur again to take the lens off the camera for a week and then try it again.

Birds migrate at night in loose flocks

Birds migrate at night. Bird tend to flock together.

These two disseparate facts have been recently weaved together to suggest that birds migrate at night in flocks. What I find interesting here is the suggestion that these flock are “loose”–not the tight configurations visible in the preceding video of starlings flying in a flock–birds may be migrating in groups that are as much as 200 meters apart from each other. As the lead researcher, Ronald Larkin, suggests birds flying in the same direction at one point in time is not the same as birds travelling together over long distances:

“Even back in the 1970s it hit me that you can have two birds flying absolutely parallel in the same direction and at the same height, but they can be flying at such a different speed that one of them gains on the other and they’re just, you know, automobiles passing on the expressway,” he said. “They’re simply taking the same route and not keeping together.”

What Larkin has shown through a magic elixer of radar and statistics is that migrating birds tracked were actively travelling together: same speed, same altitude, same direction. Just much further apart then we had ever imagined before.

For me, this finding brings up the obvious question: how? I know I’ve stood outside during spring and fall migration and heard the whisper thin call of migrating passerines, so perhaps they stay in contact via vocalizations. But that’s just conjecture on my part.

And I have to share Larkin’s sense-of-wonder with this phenomenon:

“To me, that’s the marvelous thing – that they’re flying in social groups in the middle of the night in the middle of the air, over territory most of them have never been over before.”

Link to article