Everest : The Highest Traffic Jam in the World : Discovery Channel

There have been much-publicized cases over the years of people on their way to the summit walking past dying climbers, and it happened again this year. A young Briton collapsed next to the summit route. Many climbers passed him on their way to the top.

Sir Edmund Hillary has been very vocal about this in the past and he had this to say this year: “I think the whole attitude toward climbing Mount Everest has become rather horrifying. The people just want to get to the top. They don’t give a damn for anybody else who may be in distress and it doesn’t impress me at all that they leave someone lying under a rock to die.”

I agree with his view that the attitude of climbing Everest has changed. In his day mountaineers had a code of conduct, and only real mountaineers would attempt the big mountains. You didn’t boast, you didn’t lie about your achievements, and you helped those in trouble. These were the values held dear by climbers like Mallory.

But there is more to it than that. I listened to one of our team members on the radio weeping as he tried to administer oxygen to the casualty. It was one of the most harrowing things I have ever heard. He did his very best to help.

Everyday Rescues

In fact, it was completely ignored by the press that our expedition had already rescued a fellow climber this season lower down the mountain. An Indian climber had lost consciousness on the descent from the North Col and had the luck to do this right in front of our group on the way up.

Far from climbing past him, our doctor, Terry O’Connor, started treatment while guides Shaun Hutson, Bill Crouse and Mark Wynton improvised a stretcher and organized the team to carry him down the mountain. He spent the night in Russell’s tent on our oxygen supplies and the next day he was on his way home. He was seriously ill from cerebral edema (swelling of the brain) and he certainly would have died without our intervention The last I heard from the Indian expedition leader, the climber was “95 percent OK.”

I have seen Russell’s guides perform this kind of rescue every season that I’ve been with them, with no mention in the press. Russell Brice never gets paid for the oxygen ($400 a bottle) and rarely gets any thanks. But when a dying climber is encountered high on the mountain there is a storm of criticism.

The simple truth is that it is very hard to rescue someone from near the summit. Everyone is very near their personal limit, everyone is self-absorbed, and it takes a huge effort of will to organize a dozen other people to carry the casualty, prepare tents and safeguard the route down.

And let’s be blunt, when people have paid $40,000 for a package holiday they are reluctant to turn away from their goal. In my experience, most climbers are decent people only too willing to help. But near the summit of Mount Everest, up in the death zone, your moral being is stripped away to a self-preserving core.

Money has perverted the spirit of mountaineering as it has perverted so many other things. Real climbers follow their passion well away from Mount Everest. I’m only sad that my boyhood dream of an impossibly remote Himalayan peak has evaporated like the clouds that embraced George Mallory.

Everest: Beyond the limit is an excellent documentary about the 70-day $40000 (per person) expedition that has lost a lot of it’s magic. Graham Hoyland has completed an unbelievably demanding project by directing a documentary at a location where a surprisingly big number of people get killed every year trying to survive in the ultra-harsh environment of the high camps. The local sherpas are superstious about touching or approaching the dead bodies. There must be about 200 bodies just lying there.

Posted by api at 23:53 - 3 Comments »

Look at those incredible rays of light. What are they? Laser beams from an alien mothership? Angels crying in the heavens above? A photo manipulation study in Photoshop?

They are Peacekeeper multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles with an accuracy of about 90-100 meters. Each individual vehicle would normally carry an atomic warhead that has 25 times the explosive power of Little Boy.

The most powerful nuclear weapon ever detonated, the 50 megaton Tsar Bomba, was designed to destroy an entire city even if dropped 10 kilometers from it’s center. Tsar Bomba was tested in Novaya Zemlya in 1961. That’s a couple of thousands of kilometers away from Finland but reportedly some windows were broken here as well.

The MIRVS like the Peacekeepers pictures above are designed to “carpet” an area and to result in greater ground damage.

Containment Policy

The concept of containment springs up from the idea that isolation will lead to stagnation. In earlier times, containment was followed as a tactic, rather than a strategy or a policy. Laying a passive siege to a castle where a powerful or influential lord resided, and cutting off supply lines, was a form of containment. This made the lord helpless, as his tactical ability was limited with only a few soldiers at his command.

Posted by api at 21:49 - 2 Comments »

El Cerrito firm unveils the Proteus, ‘a new class of vessel’

The strangest vessel made its formal premiere Thursday on San Francisco
Bay, and it was a sight to see: It looked like a spider, wiggled over the waves
like a porpoise, and was fast as the wind.

It is named the Proteus, after a Greek god of the sea, and is the first of
what might be a long line of wave adaptive modular vessels — WAM-V for short
– developed by Ugo Conti, an engineer and inventor. Conti calls it “the
prototype of a new class of vessel.”

Using technology developed by Conti’s El Cerrito Marine Advanced Research
Inc., the WAM-V is “a new class of watercraft … that delivers a radically new
seagoing experience.” It has twin hulls, like a catamaran, connected to each
other and a control cabin by four metal legs. The legs ride on titanium springs
– like shock absorbers — that allow the WAM-V to adjust to the surface of
the water — to flex like knees.

Dual hulls seems to be trendy thing to do this Winter (among crazy inventors that is).

Spede factor: 10.

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RESETDESIGN

The 2Cycle: two bicycles that can be linked to form a stable four-wheeler in no time. Physically challenged people and senior citizens can ride it together without risking their necks. The spiffy four-wheeler has back supports for a comfortable ride and can be equipped with an auxiliary motor.

I finally got my trusty old Cannondale Silkpath back from Velosport where it was being serviced. They did a really good job and the bike is now as good as new. We are moving to Vienna soon and I’ve found out that you can transport foldable bikes in trams over there. Brompton seems to be the leading brand in that area of bike design.

I guess the contraception pictured above doesn’t count as a foldable bicycle although you can split it in two. It is a design study from Design Academy Eindhoven.

The weather here in Europe has been crazy this Winter and there seems to be a ton of news about ecological matters in mainstream media these days. The alpine tourism industry is being hit by the freight train of global warming really hard this year. I have a feeling that even the most die hard climate change-scepticists are starting to have second thoughts about their stance now. A 1 celsius degree increase in mean temperature would make half of the ski resorts in Germany practically snowless.

I’ve owned two cars in my life and both of them ended up being wrecked in one way or another. I switched to bikes and public transport about 20 years ago. I’m sort of happy that I don’t have to start weaning myself from the car centric way of life at this age.

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Soviet Bus-stops by Christopher Herwig via Boing Boing

The last time I shot at an “industrial building” (a match factory) in that part of the world, I got arrested for espionage. That was during the time of the Soviet Union though when St. Petersburg was called Leningrad. The police let me go after playing around with my video camera (!) for quite some time. Our guide was held for “questioning”.

Posted by api at 11:03 - 2 Comments »

iCarta-Atech Flash Technology

Now you can Enhance your Experience in any room with your favorite music from your iPod.

Features:

• 4 Integrated high performance moisture-free speakers deliver exceptional clarity and high quality sound
• Charges your iPod while playing music
• Audio selector allows you to play iPod shuffle or other Audio device
• Integrated Bath tissue holder that can be easily folded as a stereo dock
• Requires AC Power (AC Adapter included)
• Easy to remove from Wall Mount

For your information… the item above is a genuine “Made for iPod” product.

Posted by api at 20:38 - 2 Comments »

Richard Dean Anderson Web Site

He studied drama at St. Cloud State University and at Ohio University, though he left just short of completing his degree. His travels took him briefly to New York City, and he spent some time experiencing the cultural revolution of the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco, before finally settling in Los Angeles. There he worked as a street mime and juggler, and as a jester-singer at a Renaissance-style cabaret. He also worked for a time at Marineland, where he wrote, directed, and performed in the marine mammal shows. His job included holding fish in his mouth for the killer whales to leap up and snatch, and he tells of the powerful whack to the face he took while rehearsing his routine with an orca. He appeared in plays and live theater as well, including landing a role in Superman in the Bones at the Pilgrimage Theatre. During his early years he also joined his friend Carl Dante, and for a time sang and played guitar as part of Carl’s rock band under the name “Ricky Dean and Dante”.

Intrigued by a Wikipedia entry entitled List of problems solved by MacGyver, I decided to explore the life and achievements of Richard Dean Anderson in more detail. The front page of his web site looked quite promising and sure enough, after reading the biography and checking out the astonishing photo galleries (Early years, A Life in Pictures), I realized that here is a much underrated and multitalented artist. I think that he really belongs up there in the same league with The Hoff.

Posted by api at 10:19 - 2 Comments »

Ahh, what an excellent find! An arts and crafts blog for all the evil mad scientists in the world! Check out Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories. To give you an idea on what kind of stuff they work on, have a look at this list of tools:

The lab staff is travelling this week. Here’s what I brought with me, which might give you a hint about some of our upcoming projects:

• A: MacBook Pro
• B: Cookbooks (We’re doing the cooking!)
• C: AVRISP mkII microcontroller programmer box
• D: Star-shaped cookie biscuit cutter
• E: The microcontroller programmer itself (fits in the box)
• F: USB cable for programmer (fits in the box)
• G: Olimex development board for 20-pin AVR chips (fits in the box)
• H: Power for the Olimex board
• I: Ten Atmel ATtiny2313 microcontrollers (fit in the box)
• J: Microcontroller target board with 17-segment LED display and battery box (fits in the box)
• K: Sheet from ATtiny2313 data sheet showing pinouts
• L: Four fresh nutmeg nuts. (Meg nuts?)

P.S. I maintain the Mad Science group on Orkut. Drop me a line if you want to start moderating it.

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Tivoli Gardens

In 1943, Nazi sympathisers attempted to break the Danish people’s spirit by burning many of Tivoli’s buildings, including the concert hall, to the ground. Undaunted, the Danes built temporary buildings, and the park was back in operation after a few weeks.

Chinese style which in 1874 took the place of an older smaller theater. The audience stands in the open, the stage being inside the building. The theatre’s “curtain” is a mechanical peacock’s tail. From the very beginning, the Theater was the home of Italian pantomimes, introduced in Denmark by the Italian Giuseppe Casorti. This tradition, which is dependent on the Italian Commedia dell’Arte has been kept alive, including the characters Cassander (the old father), Columbine (his beautiful daughter), Harlequin (her lover), and, especially popular with the youngest spectators, the stupid servant Pierrot. The absence of spoken dialogue is an advantage, as Tivoli is now an international tourist attraction.

Tivoli is always evolving without abandoning its original charm or traditions. As Georg Carstensen said in 1844, “Tivoli will never, so to speak, be finished,” a sentiment echoed just over a century later when Walt Disney said of his own Tivoli-inspired theme park, “Disneyland will never be finished as long as there is imagination left in the world.”

Yes, this is just a filler entry with a picture and a long quote from Wikipedia. I guess most of my energy is still going to the digestion of the traditional Christmas meals. Well, here’s a little update of what’s been happening since Christmas.

We’ve been to Stockholm on one of them floating hotels that have their home port in Helsinki. The highlights of the trip included a massage on the ship and a visit to Hallwyl palace.

After the Stockholm trip, we went to Copenhagen to celebrate the New Year with friends. I still had some leftover frequent flyer points from the round the world trip earlier this year and they were good for two free return flights. Incidentally, they let me wait for my flight at the SAS lounge at Copenhagen airport. It had a cozy fireplace, free champagne, fresh newspaper and fruits and was amazingly luxurious in many, many ways. You can easily get enough points for the silver level of Star Alliance’s frequent flyer bonus program with a single round the world trip.

In Copenhagen, the most memorable places were the Tivoli gardens and the utopian hippie community of Christiania. The locals went completely bonkers with their fire crackers on the New Years Eve. The explosives were about twice as powerful as I’m used to.. ambulances and police cars were driving back and forth on the streets.

After getting back to Finland I’ve been trying to get some yearly maintenance done on my essential gear: bicycle, snowboard and computers.

The gadget freak that I am, I couldn’t resist the tempatation to order the topographical map of Austria for my handheld GPS unit (Garmin Vista Cx). Arnoweg, here I come!

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