Scary but still Fun

So I get into work this morning and I have 3 emails from the Quoll organisers. the First 1 says that I have registered in the 34hr Quoll adventure race. I imediately start to write to them to say I have actually registered in the 14hr event. Then I stop and think wait maybe they know. I read the second email "Sorry Lewis thanks for registering in the 16hr event". I am now confused I didn't know there was a 16hr event. Oh no they have increased the size of the race. Time to ring Min let her know the "good" news.
The 3rd email lets me know more detail about the race and what we should take etc. but it also tells me about an unusual scoring system for a race, quote "We are using a combination scoring system to add to the challenge of the event". You know we need more of a challenge than running through the bush for 16hr.
Anyway the scoring system goes like this. Scoring will be based on the number of minutes available for each stage of the event. For example, a 3 hour stage will have 180 minutes available. The checkpoints on the course will each be worth differing numbers of minutes. Each team will start the stage at -180 minutes, each checkpoint your team collects decreases the number of minutes you are in the negative by the value of that checkpoint. The aim being to end up at 0 minutes by the end of the stage if you “clear the course”. There are no credits for coming in from a stage early unless you have collected all checkpoints for that stage, in which case you will be given a time credit of the number of minutes you are early to the end of that stage. There will however be a time penalty for being late – 2 minutes for every 1 minute you are late (ie if you are 10 minutes late your penalty will be 20 minutes).
All joking aside this is going to be fun there are paddling stages and running stages and biking stages. This means that It is going to have to be close to a lake or dam. I'm hoping that it is near lake tinnaroo that is some awesome countryside. It's on this weekend so early next week I can post about the big event.

Big Weekend

So I had grand plans this weekend gone by. I was to paddle in the Townsville regatta on saturday then recover go out saturday night to the presentations at the Seaview hotel. Then on Sunday I was to go in the Paluma Push.
What happened is that I went in the regatta paddled increadibly hard with some results. We finished last in the Marathon(12.5km) and 4th or 5th in the Sprints. We did so poorly in the Marathon because we flipped over about 2km from the finish line. After the Regatta I was absolutely shattered so I went home and went to sleep and only got up to go to the presentations. Went home went to sleep agian. When I got up on Sunday morning at 5am I was still shattered I had sore legs let alone my arms and shoulders. With that in mind I decided to call off the paluma push mission. I cannot afford to get sick before IMD2 now can I? (Min has a bit of a cold at the moment).
I am still not quite fit enough to do 2 big things inone weekend. Oh Well the Quoll is only one thing, and tha is comming in 2 week.

Monkeys

They say that a million monkeys writing for a Million year would eventually produce the bible. Here you can test that theory. Crazy what a bit of hard core statistical theory can produce. Good to see it's put towards a worrth while use as well.

High Temperature

Europe and the US are suffering a heat wave This Aritice says that many people are dying from heat exaustion etc. The problem that I see is that the temperatures that they are complaining about are 30-35 degrees C which is a decent daytime (Night time is the same temperature just darker) for the summer here in the good old Tville. You wouldn't call it a heat wave untill the Temp went above 40 for like a week straight.
These people need to work on 42C day in an old john deere 760 elevating scraper with the door bolted open and clouds of dust turning you red. Of course I didn't mind that the door was bolted open as the air rushing into the cabin from the engine had been heated to about 50C, which ment that the 42C air from out side just felt like a cool breeze (albet a slightly dusty breeze).

Scientist Shortage

I recieved this from ABC news mail this morning:

*Govt audit finds Australia facing scientist shortage*

A Federal Government audit has found Australia is facing a severe shortage of scientists.
The Department of Education and Science has found within six years there will be a shortage of 20,000 scientists and engineers.
Federal Minister for Education, Science and Training Julie Bishop says there needs to be a national framework to address the problem.
She says children and students must be encouraged to study in the field.
"We must increase the number of students going into teaching in these areas so we can increase the number of high quality teachers in our schools," she said.
"It will take a coordinated comprehensive effort across the nation and that's what I'm calling for.
"I am aiming for a national approach to science education across the country."

It is all very good and well to say we need more education in the sciences and that will encourage people to go into science when they get older. They have a problem though. That problem is that there is no reward for being a scientist. You work through school and then into undergraduate university then Honours and then a PhD. You are 21 at the end of undergraduate and more like 25 by the time you finish your PhD. You have been scrapping a living off of very little for 7-8 years by this time and you are looking forward to earning any money that might support a slightly better life style Then you can finall get a paying position as a postdoctoral fellow and ear $50 000 a year. That position will only last a few years (3 max mostly 2) then you will have to prove that you are a good little researcher so that you can get another Postdoc (Mostly it will be at another institute). If you are really lucky you will get a pay rise up to 55-60K a year. Your pay wouldn't be likely to rise above 90K a year, unless you are truely exceptional and get one of the 2-4 Federation fellowships that are offered each year. To get these though you would have to be in the top 0.01% of researchers and be increadibly highly recognised.

Lets contrast this with two other situations. An Engineer and a Tradesman. The Tradesman leaves Highschool at the end of year ten and starts in the trade earning a pretty abysmal wage, but they are still earning more than the people still at school. In their last yearof their apprentiseship they would be earning about 34 000 a year. After that as a fully qualified tradesman they could definately be earning between 50 and 70 thousand a year. So by the time a scientist leaves undergraduate uni the tradesman has been earning money for about 5 years and they earnings are up around 60 000 a year. The scientist still has a Honours year and a PhD to go (which will take between 4 and 6 years all up) while the tradesman continues earning maybe starting there own business and earning even more. This senario definately put being a trady as a much better option than being a scientist.

The next comparison between the Scientist and the Engineer you might think is more fair as both groups have to go through University. Neither then will be able to earn much in the way of money untill they have completed their Bachelors Degree. The engineer doesn't have to do a Honours year (though they could and it wouldn't hurt thier career) or a PhD and in their first year out they can be earning over $100 000 a year. My friend dave, his first job out of uni earned him $110 000 a year.

In conculsion if you want more scientists you need to make it an attractive option. Otherwise people will do degrees that will make them a living, or they will take up a trade. Given the options I think you would have to be crazy like me to want to do Science.

Goat on a Pole

I have discovered the new Zen: Goat on a pole. There is a link on the side bar.

When Scientists Lie

So there is a problem out there. That problem is people subverting events to support their own arguments. One of the researchers here at the Centre of Excellence Dr Andrew Baird has been writing Articles on the impact of the Asian Tsunami. His conclusions have been that the Tsunami does relatively little damage to the reef. In the end the damage to the reef from the Tsunami is equivalent to a Storm not even a Cyclone. That is fine and his Data shows what he says. What seems to be happening and what has been keeping Andrew busy is the proliferation of papers on the usefulness of Mangroves in mitigating the effect of a Tsunami on the devastation that is unleashed upon the land. The argument of these people is that it's is simple thermodynamics, the mangroves will create drag and slow the insweeping tide of water. And this is true it will to some degree slow the water. However hiding behind mangrove will protect you from the detonation of a Nuclear Weapon as much as from a Tsunami. A Tsunami would have a great deal more Energy than a single nuclear bomb ( yes even the largest of them look at the Wikipedia article and how it changed hundres of kilometers of coastline), so a few puny mangroves will not stop it totally wiping your village off the face of the earth. I mean the Maldives didn't stop the wave from hitting the East coast of Madagascar.


This is a before and after image of a Village in Aceh taken from the same spot.
"Mangroves are good things why shouldn't people promote the replanting of mangroves and use popular (if a bit incorect) arguments to promote the need for mangrove" I hear you say. Well I agree Mangroves are good things and there are many reasons to have them from Coastal erosion to fish nurserys, but if you tell people that they will be safe if you plant a few mangroves in front of there village and another Tsunami comes along. The people that are left after the Disaster, will then not believe you about the usefulness of Mangroves and will replace them with a series of cement walls to keep the water out. They will be much less likely to listen in the future when scientist say that we need to keep some habitat for whatever reason even when it's legitamate and urgent.
The thing is most peope will see the usefullness of mangrove and will support the conservation of mangroves for legitmate reasons. There is no need to use rediculas (that will be counter productive in the end) reasons such as protecting you from Tsunamis to sell people on the idea of protecting mangroves.

OK I'm done ranting now, but if anyone wants to read the Papers that i linked to above about the impact on the Acehanise reefs and the usefulness of Mangroves please email me and i will send you a copy.

Didn't Do Much

That basically is a nice summary of my weekend. I went paddling on Saturday Morning, got home woke up Min and had some breakfast. Then we bought some essentialls and went to Uni and worked for the rest of the day Min on her Masters and me on mine. Sunday we got up and went to the strand as Min had to do a 2.5km Ocean swim as a qualifier for the Townsville To Magnetic Island Swim.

Min did well she finished the swim in 48 minutes. After the swim Min and I went to Reef HQ here in Townsville. and took some awesome photos of Phishy's.
So there was no Rogaining this weekend, but at least I got in a bit of paddling finally. There has been no paddling for about 2 weeks. It's really good to get back to it. There is a regatta on in 2 weeks. It's the Townsville Regatta, and I might be going in the OC2 race. It would be nice to experience the OC2 and OC1 races. they seem like such lite manourverable canoes. Considering that an OC1 weighs in at about 9-10kg and an OC2 can be 25-30kg they actually are lite but I don't know how manouvrable they are Yet. It depends upon Chris one of the steerers as to wether I will go in the race. He is currently in about 8 races so he might not be up to doing all of the races and I could do one of the OC2 races instead.
So I'm working lots but I'm doing alright, I'm having lots of fun to. Once I finish my Masters (in Ten years time) I will then do the last few things on the house. Then i should have some extra free time.