Pacific Islands

I have been looking at going to one of the Pacific island nation for a while now. I really think that Tonga would be good for a Sailing trip. I proposed to go on Holidays with Dad Glen and some other members of my family at Durras earlier this year. I was Wondering weather people could hold off until Easter next year. There are several good reasons for this.

One - The Monsoon season should be over by then so we wouldn't have to deal with Cyclones while sailing.

Two - Min will hopefully have enough leave by then to go on a holiday again after her South American epic that she is embarking upon.

Three - It give me more time to save up some money, so I can afford to go.

Four - it will not interrupt seeing family over the Christmas break, and I might be able to do the Hawksbury Classic paddle with glen (hope your getting fit glen).

So Dad, Glen, Christian, Tahl's, Others in the family (whoever wants to come) what do you think are you in. Does Easter next year sound like a good idea. I was thinking of going on a paddling adventure after the sailing trip as well. Tongan Outrigger Canoe Tours - Tours with Outriggers in Paradise, Vava'u, Kingdom of Tonga. This is the website of the tour people if you think that you might want to come along.

Here are some links to Sailing Holiday people in Tonga.
Sailing Holidays in The Kingdom of Tonga with The Moorings Tonga
Tonga Sailing and Yacht Charters
Sail Tonga, Tonga Yacht Charters with Melinda
Tonga Yacht Charters

Now People have to give me an Idea of what they want to do.

Cheers L.

Scientific publishing

The pressure is building, things are coming to a head. There have been rumblings for years, but the time is coming for a decision one way or the other. I’m talking science so the decision will not happen quickly but it will have to be made. There will be much debate and more than one tussle between rivals. I do hope that it is kept above the level that was looked at by Science magazine I think that this is a horrible and particularly political or corporate model to follow. What is he talking about you might ask? I’m talking about the way that science is disseminated.

There is a bit of a stauch brewing over Open Access Science. There has been in recent years an emergence of open access journals such as Public Library of Science and Biomed Central that have become quite successful. These open access journals operate on a different principal to more traditional journals such as Science, Nature or The New England Journal of Medicine. You wouldn’t really call it a war but there are definitely some grumpy people on both sides of the divide trying to hold on to their patch, their turf.

So let's say you're a publisher of a traditional subscription based journal. You charge subscribers hundreds of dollars a year to get the latest studies about oncology or podiatry or whatever field of research your journal happens to specialize in. The money rolls in, the journals roll out, and everything is good.

Then along come a tide of open-access journals that let everyone read research for free. Do you join the trend for the good of humanity? Hell no you try and get rid of the competition. Or that is the path that the people at Science seem to have gone down.

Traditionally you have to subscribe to a journal to read the articles that are printed in that journal. This has been the case to offset the cost of printing the journal and sending it to the reader. The journal can then take submissions of new articles and print the next issue. This was an excellent business model when there were a few relatively well off people pursuing science as a hobby. However now that scientific research has become a career for quite a number of people there are some problems. One of the problems is the ever increasing number of journals and the prohibitive cost of subscribing to them all. This leads to a common problem for scientists trying to produce more research; you cannot access a certain paper that would be an excellent reference for your study.

Then there is the problem that it’s not economic for people who are not currently in research to subscribe to and read these journals. People then end up getting there science information from The Media who distort the finding or put an incorrect spin on the Science to pursue there own ends. Most people wouldn’t choose to read these journals anyway but they may go to a specific journal article if they were to read something referencing it. On the whole at the moment these articles cannot be accessed by anyone without an expensive subscription.

I believe that scientific studies should be accessible by all. To make it fair then for Subscription journals there could be a time after which the article would become open access. For example the bill that has been proposed in America has allows for article to become freely available after 6 months. Most places with journal subscriptions would continue to subscribe because they need the latest results and findings. While some places that are not very well funded would wait the six months to get the same information. This raises other issues of equity but they can be dealt with as time goes by. The time limit could be played with, maybe six months is a bit short and it could be stretched out to a year. But that is more fine tuning rather that declaring for or against an intent.

Below are some links to further information on this whole debate.

Cheers L.

Nature Article - http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v445/n7126/full/445347a.html on PR campaign

Guardian piece on Peer Review –

http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/research/story/0,,2161680,00.html

Article on open access journals Wired News –

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2006/10/71886

US federal Policy being developed for Public Access of Publicly funded research –

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:S.2695:

Congress finds that--

(1) the Federal Government funds basic and applied research with the expectation that new ideas and discoveries that result from the research, if shared and effectively disseminated, will advance science and improve the lives and welfare of people of the United States and around the world; and

(2) the Internet makes it possible for this information to be promptly available to every scientist, physician, educator, and citizen at home, in school, or in a library.

(b) Content- Each Federal research public access policy shall provide for--

(1) submission to the Federal agency of an electronic version of the author's final manuscript of original research papers that have been accepted for publication in peer-reviewed journals and result from research supported, in whole or in part, from funding by the Federal Government;

(2) the incorporation of all changes resulting from the peer review publication process in the manuscript described under paragraph (1);

(3) the replacement of the final manuscript with the final published version if--

(A) the publisher consents to the replacement; and

(B) the goals of the Federal agency for functionality and interoperability are retained;

(4) free online public access to such final peer-reviewed manuscripts or published versions as soon as practicable, but not later than 6 months after publication in peer-reviewed journals;

(5) production of an online bibliography of all research papers that are publicly accessible under the policy, with each entry linking to the corresponding free online full text; and

(6) long-term preservation of, and free public access to, published research findings--

(A) in a stable digital repository maintained by the Federal agency; or

(B) if consistent with the purposes of the Federal agency, in any repository meeting conditions determined favorable by the Federal agency, including free public access, interoperability, and long-term preservation.

Prism - http://www.prismcoalition.org/about.htm

Open Access Launches Journal Wars –

http://www.wired.com/medtech/drugs/news/2007/03/72704?currentPage=1

-According to tax records, the Public Library of Science had a deficit of $975,000 in 2005 and spent $5.47 million. Its total revenue was $4.49 million.

By contrast, The New England Journal of Medicine made $44 million in 2005, $30 million from advertising and $14 million from subscriptions, according to Advertising Age. And its rival, JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association, clocked in with $39 million in revenue, $33.2 million from advertising and $5.8 million from subscriptions.

How much damage could open access cause? Even if federal legislation passes, the journals could still sell subscriptions -- many scientists don't want to wait six months before seeing the latest finding.

Indeed, "for big journals, it's probably not a terrible risk," Banks said. "For someone like The New England Journal of Medicine or JAMA, I don't think many people are going to cancel their subscriptions because they're freely available after six months."

But more obscure journals published less than once a week, Banks said, could find themselves losing subscriptions. "That's the basis of the publishers' worries."

New Favourite Beer

I have been testing the waters (or should that be beers) so to speak lately with regards to beer. I have discovered a beer which is definitely my new favourite.

Barefoot Radler

Radler is German for Cyclist. The radler style of beer started out as a shandy. A German publican in Bavaria started serving beer mixed with lemonade to cyclists so that they could have a refreshing beer and still ride home after a couple. The style has evolved from there to be a beer brewed with lemon and lime.

I baulked initially at the claim on the carton "Phenomenally Refreshing". I'm not sure that I would say Phenomenally but it is a light and refreshing brew with a distinct lemon and lime flavour to it. It's only a mid strength which is good as there are fewer hangovers.

I also like the companies ethics. but you can see that on the link above. I heartily recommend this beer to anyone.

Cheers L.

Water Problems

It seems obvious but we seldom hear evidence of it, but Australia is not the only country in the world that is having water troubles. Obviously there are plenty of problems in the Middle East (especially the Palestinian state but that's another post) but you rarely hear of major water problem from the US. Below is a link to a press release from the Scripps Oceanographic Institute. Some of the researchers there put out a paper titled "When will lake mead go dry?"

http://scrippsnews.ucsd.edu/Releases/?releaseID=876

Lake Mead was created by the Hoover Dam's blockage of the Colorado River. The river is fed by snow pack from Rockies, which has been decreasing. The dam, of course, was one of the prototypical megaengineering efforts of the 20th century and a symbol of how human ingenuity could conquer any obstacle, including supplying water to a city the size of Las Vegas in the middle of the desert.

But the sheer amount of water that natural and manmade climate changes and human usage is drawing out of the Colorado River system is staggering. The researchers estimate that 1 million acre-feet, or 326 billion gallons, of water are being leached out of the system each year. They say that's enough to supply 8 million people.

Based on models constructed from the analysis of historical records from the Federal Bureau of Land Reclamation, the researchers, Tim Barnett and David Pierce, say there is a ten percent chance the reservoir will be dry in 2014, and a 50 percent chance no water will be left by 2021.

Obviously this could put a big dampener on any plans to expand city's in that area. Ha Dampener get it........ well if you don't have humour in the face of these type of things it could drive you to despair.

L.

Apology

I would just like to support whole heartedly the Apology make by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. I think that this day has shown that Australia can Finally Move forward. Here

Accountability of Government agancies

Recently Mick Keelty the AFP commissioner criticised the media over terrorism case coverage.

The Story can be found here and the Audio of Mick Keelty's comments is here.

I can see a bit of What Mr Keelty is saying people are entitled to the presumption of innocence and to be fairly tried in a court of law. Trial by media is a nasty thing and can be manipulate to easily by unscrupulous lawyers. So to this part I agree. The media should stay out of the courts and only report that there is a trial under way, report the crimes and comment on the progress of the case. They shouldn't really be bringing peoples names and emotional arguments about the consequences of the crimes to the public. In depth interviews with family friends and associated people can wait until after the trial. This can help the public find out about what happened and why.

There are several problems with Mick Keelty's comments though.

The first is that the government of the day and the Aust Federal Police were using the media first to blacken the name of the man charged under terrorism laws. This from Journalist Hedley Thomas: "But the facts are that in the Mohamed Haneef case and others, it's been the police and security agencies and the politicians using police information that have smeared the character of the suspects before they've even been charged." Mick needs to start abiding by his own rules. Once the police and others start the media circus the cannot very well expect that no-one else will be submitting information to the media. If the police want a media blackout before trials then they need to abide by them as well.

Next media mostly commented about the handling of the Haneef case and very little was about the actual charges or weather Dr. Haneef was guilty or not. The Media stories were mainly about lack of evidence and subsequent dropping of charges and extended detention before charges had been layed. I think that most Australians disagreed with the extended detention of Doctor Haneef and the way in which the case was handled.

Finally public institutions that apply the rule of law and have control over daily part of lives need to be subject to public scrutiny to keep them functioning properly. Otherwise you slowly move down the gradient of corruption until you have a Secret police that is used by those in power to control the populace. Comments like the following from Commissioner Keelty are absurd and very dangerous. Someone who makes such comments probably shouldn't be leading the AFP.
He also says criticism of the AFP and other government agencies should be limited.

A quote of Mick Keelty-
"We've just got to call a halt to criticising public institutions when it's the same public institutions that we rely upon to keep good governance,".

Media and Public scrutiny should continue, and if these comments are any indication should increase in intensity. Comments like these show that dangerous seeds have taken root in some of the countries most powerful institutions. Maybe it's time for a bit of Weeding.

Diving Activities

So Min is a diver. Diver Min she shall be known as from now on.
Seriously though we went on the live aboard trip on the weekend and we both had a great time. We left on Friday night about 8pm. True to form Min and I were packing and buying the last necessities on the way to the boat at about 5 to 8. Eventually we made it and were introduced to the crew. Ian the Trip director, Rhys the Instructor, Possum the Cook and Ron the Skipper. The crew were really friendly (not al skippers are friendly) and were easy to approach when we had problems.

The first day we were off to Wheeler reef. All of Mins dives on this reef were training dives. I mixed it up between diving with others and tagging along on the Open water course. This way I managed to get some photos of corals and animals as well as some of Mins outstanding preformance as an open water student.

So 4 dives on Wheeler Reef, including the night dive. The night dive was awesome (my first in a while) you get to concentrate more on a smaller patch of reef and see some of the things that you miss during the day as you are to busy looking around. No photos from the night dive though as the camera didn't like the low light conditions and flashes just don't represent the proper atmosphere that you get out on the reef at night.

Next we were steaming over to Davies Reef. This is the reef that AIMS has its weather station on. There were meant to be another 4 dives here but I only managed 3, well 3 and a half. I was down at 10m and waiting for the open water students to descend when I noticed a stream of bubbles coming from my 2nd stage (The Regulator bit that goes in your mouth for those that don't dive). I thought to myself "That's weird I'm not breathing out". Well I took the reg out of my mouth and looked at it as I had determined with my lightning quick brain that something may be amiss. Well I saw that it was leaking from a join in the hose, It was not a dive ending leak though as it was only a bit of a trickle. Then all hell broke loose as I placed it back in my mouth. I herd a large burst almost like a bang, then a absolute gush of air. I looked around and the only person I could see who was looking in my direction was Henrick a Dutch guy and a student on the open water course. I quickly signalled that I was going up and he nodded with large eyes looking at my regulator spewing forth air. The reg had become hard to breath from by this stage due to a lack of pressure reaching my mouthpiece so I decided too switch to my alternate air source. I slowly ascended (not exceeding 18m per minute) watching my pressure gauge slowly dial down. I lost 80 bar or over a 3rd of the air in my tank in the minute (roughly) it took to ascend. I didn't panic but I couldn't say that It wasn't worrying when I was down at 10m. Anyway drama was over then and I slowly swan back to the ship.
Everyone other than Henrick though was wondering where I had gotten to. Henrick signalled that I was OK and then proceeded to write down on the slate that I had surface and gone back to the boat. The big problem was that he wrote it down in Dutch so everyone just looked at the slate in confusion then assumed that I was an experienced diver and could look after myself. They were right but it does illustrate a point about diving. You really should develop your own skills and abilities so that you can look after yourself because buddies and groups are not always that helpful. I do still recommend diving in groups of at least 2 though as other people can and do help in many situations, there are as they say safety in numbers.
The trip was excellent in General and Min loved the diving so we could be doing a bit more of it now that we are both certified.
A concern voiced to me by Min though was that she might get sick on the yacht trip at the end of the year. So we are off to the Whitsunday's to hire a yacht sometime this year as a practice. When would be a good opportunity maybe a long weekend. Oh well details of that to follow.

Cheers L.

First Event for 2008

The first event for 2008 is going to happen this weekend, and it's probably not what you think it might be.
Min is finishing her dive course this weekend. She did the classroom and pool sessions last weekend and she is off out into the wild blue for her first open water dives this weekend. It's a three night and three day live aboard trip to Wheeler Reef, Davies Reef and the Wreck of the Yongala. It should be an awesome trip, we are going out with Pro-dive the company that Ollie and Anika went out with when they were up here. Oh yes I suppose that I forgot to state that I will be tagging along for the ride.
This will be my first non-work dives in a long time. It will be good to get out and just relax look at things and not take the dive to seriously. My camera is not back from the shop yet (more on that later) grrrrr. So I will be borrowing a camera from someone at work. Hopefully a post on that soon with pickies.

Cheers L.

2007 a Year in Review

One of the interesting things that a blog gives you is a look into your year that has gone. It show easily what has happened and how you felt at the time. In a couple of years time I'll even be able to do a look at the decade that was.

2007 has been a fun year but a busy year. This is evidenced not in the abundance of posts this year but in the dearth of posts to come from me. Well I'll try to rectify that this year but it's already not looking good as I have just started working on another website over at Wordpress. It is the Maggie Island Outriggers Website. We'll see how the posting goes though.

I also didn't get around to participating in rogaines much this year. I did how ever venture out into the bush twice this past year and on one of those occasions I introduced a new person to the sport (Karina for those who are not regular readers). I had a more relaxed time though while rogaining and I never even really went out to push myself, Just get out there get a respectable total and see some of the amazing bush that you get to see with these events.

So you ask if I wasn't posting much here and I didn't participate extensively in Rogaines what was I doing all year that made it such a busy year. There is a twofold answer to this question and that is paddling and working. Work has been pretty full on this year with the centre increasing in size and the admin staff not changing in number. This means that my job has has about the same amount of research work but an increasing load of administrative work. I still enjoy working here and I have gotten to go to some very cool place in this last year but it is getting busier. Speaking of amazing new places and work, my work took me to Papua New Guinea last year and also to Heron Island. These were both fantastic trips and well worth the trip. It would be really interesting to spend more time in PNG but alas I am once again chained to the desk trying to help with the production of another Annual report.

Paddling well what can I say about that. I was more involved in the club in 2007 than I was in 2006. I became part of the committee and I managed to get the club some Marques through a government grant. I also trained harder than in 2006 and managed to get close to the Medal positions (we finished fourth in the last couple of regattas of the season). I'm set to be more involved again as I've put my hand up to be the club Secretary. The club is at a bit of a low point as there are fewer members in the club now than there has been at any time in the last 10 years. On the bright side though we have an enthusiastic committee and we have set up some things that could rapidly grow the club and also help it actually earn some money to be financially viable. More news on this later.

Anyway to 2008 what do I want to achieve this year. Well I have decided to loose a bit of weight. Well I'll probably put it on but I need to loose the fat around the mid section. I think that about 5kg of fat could go to bring me down to a nice healthy shape. My total weight has been changing continuously over the past two years and always in the same direction and that's up. I now weigh in at over 122 kg but I have acttually lost some of the fat on my body. Well I've decided that it's time that I loose the last of the fat. I think I need an aim to help me achieve this so I'm going to get fit and ready for the Hawkesbury Canoe Classic at the end of the year. Now I just need a paddling partner (Hey Glen didn't you say that you'd do it with me), oh yes and an OC2 to do it in, and a support crew (any volunteers). These are just minor details though to be sorted out later.

Lastly I hope everyones 2008 is a great an healthy year.

Cheers Lewis

Heron Island

So this is a Aerial shot of one of the more famous Island on the Great Barrier Reef

Heron Island

You can see the rather small Island on the left of the Screen surrounded by a cluster of dots. Those dots are photos of the island that people have put on Panoramio a photo sharing site linked to Google earth.

Anyway why am I showing you all this little piece of heaven you might ask? Well I’ve been on Heron Island for a field trip. I went there on the 1^st of November and got back on the 14^th of November. It was two weeks of boating and diving.

Hmmmmm diving I think I remember what that is it’s that activity where you go underwater and (in my case) work hard. I say this because I was the boat driver for the trip which means that I spent hours sitting on the boat waiting for my divers to come up from their dive. I did get to dive once and test out my regulators that I haven’t used since going to PNG. The gear worked well and I got to see some awesome patches of reef. There was a resident grouper called gus that was about 2m long and about 400 kilos. Also lots of Lion and Parrot fish. I will put some photo’s up on Picassa soon.

I’d never been to Heron (http://www.cms.uq.edu.au/index.html?page=54940) and it was an excellent opportunity to see the place and experience another (I think the last I haven’t been to on the GBR) research station. The station was huge but on this particular visit it was down to about 30% capacity. There was a fire a few months ago and the place is still in the process of recovering from that ordeal. (http://www.cms.uq.edu.au/index.html?page=68420). A lot of research and lab equipment went in the fire as well as all of the Laboratory and aquarium facilities. One weird thing though is that the Resort on Heron operates on daylight savings time all year round while the Research station operates on Queensland time all year round which does lead to some miscommunications between the two groups on the Island. Hard to get mad in a place like that though.

The Reefs around heron look to be in very good condition though. The prevalence of disease was at about 1 in 1000 colonies having an instance of some disease. No real bleaching to speak of and the water temperature hasn’t risen as sharply as it has in some of the more northerly reefs. Apparently there has been some instances of bleaching in areas such as Orpheus Island which is much further north and in an inshore environment. (go to Bleach watch http://www.gbrmpa.gov.au/corp_site/key_issues/climate_change/management_responses/bleach_watch2.html if you know of any bleaching occurring. If you want to see what the current conditions on the reef are at the moment you can go to and use the reeftemp tool developed by CSIRO - http://www.cmar.csiro.au/remotesensing/gbrmpa/ReefTemp_application.htm). Also the Coral cover is fairly high up to 90% in some places.

What did happen on heron though is that it got windy. for about 6 of the 12 days I was there, there was 20-30 knot winds with seas to 3m. Nasty conditions for a 6m fibreglass dingy. The time we did get out though were amazing. Blue water gentle breeze and a slight rocking from some gentle waves. Almost heaven.

Not bad work this if you can get it.

Cheers L