open source mac

Everybody (mac-crazy enough to read such a post) knows that the Mac is not really open-source. "Semi-permeable" is maybe the appropriate term... Of course, it can run open source (so do other operating systems) but the way the marketing people managed to blend "high-end hardware consumerism" with that "hack&tweak philosophy" of UNIX was a smart move.

In any case, this is a two-paged list of some open-source software download links, categorized and commented.

Quote from the website:

"Free and open-source software is good for you and good for the world."

;-)

Continued quote:

"This is the best OS X software that we know of."

;-?

Might be a useful reference list if you do not like to sift through versiontracker all the time.

my next car (if I can ever afford another one)

If my wonderful fire engine-red Volvo 480 ever breaks down, this should be a worthy replacement:



It is using pathfinder technology, i.e. a tethered unmanned vehicle connected to the main two-seater unit with an umbilical cord, all kinds of next-generation navigation, ground-penetrating radar, a reliable heating&air conditioning system, and is probably easy to park, given its compact dimensions. According to the designer, it should fit into the cargo hold of a Twin Otter so bringing it along for your holidays will not be a problem either. No more cheap underpowererd rentals...

And check this out, it has superb traction thanks to double driving belts, and super-maneuvreable steering with a rotating driving undercarriage, while the wheels remain fixed. Here is another shot:



It might be a bt tricky to back into parking slots, though, given the dimensions of the driving belt (think: belts eating their way into a Mercedes front spoiler...;-) and where do you park the umbilical R2D2?

But you guessed correctly, this is not exactly designed for city traffic (although it would look awesome!) but is the new concept car recently unveiled at the Royal College of Art’s final year show. It is supposed to be used by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) some time in the future to perform so-called "ground based deep field surveys". Definitely a good idea, but probably not half as much fun as a good old snocat!

all-time record in database - and yet another bug

Just to provide some more scientific geekdom, here is a shot of the current record of my spectral UV database: 512029 data points! To see what this database is all about, see my previous post, forest behind the trees. After I finally managed to crack the MATLAB code in which I foolishly had decided to save my very first data sets, I was buoyant with joy over that accomplishment and imported everything into my filemaker database, which I use for editing and checking data before it goes on into the MySQL database where it is eventually calculated into outputs and plottable data. But more about that stuff later...

Anyway, I realized that I had broken the barrier, >500.000 data points!



Note that every line represents one spectral data point of one measurement, i.e. one "shot" of the spectroradiometer is broken down into 18 UVB channels, 38 UVA channels, and 70 PAR channels. Cool, huh?

Only one question remains: if every time I push "scan" on the instrument's interface, it records one spectrum (250-575nm, of which I use only 280-550nm) which is broken down into 126 channels with a 2.15nm resolution, why the **** does the database now suddenly contain 512029 records?

It does not take MATLAB to figure out that there is something fishy here - again... :-(

Website reconstruction going on

I am currently testing different tools to edit my 'static' website which indeed has become all too static. Visit me at rupert.krapp.org and see how it develops. If you have any comments, free software, or constructive criticism, you can post it here or find my email address on the index page.

Hope springs eternal

It seems the Bush Administration (anybody else out there who likes the sound of that: BUSH ADMINISTRATION;-) is making another push for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a 1.5-million-acre area in Alaska that had been put off limits for oil exploration about 25 years ago.

Now, The War on Terraforming has provided another argument to include this area in the US oil supply. Whether or not this would actually make a difference for the growing demand of fossil fuels or not is an argument easily diffused as "too technical" - so that the General Public is supposed to go along with The Simple Truth ('we need oil, we have some up there, let's go get it').

So far the Bush Administration ;-)

But there are actually more and more opponents of this proposed opening, and they even use wonderful phrases like: "Hope springs eternal" ...

Here is another quote that sums up the issue:

"It's become almost a symbol for both sides," said Cindy Shogan, executive director of the Alaska Wilderness League, which opposes drilling. "The question is whether the American people and their culture are going to protect the places that are special or develop everything."

For the whole story, follow the link in the header.

one year since ISPOL

I just realized that it has by now been a year since we left Cape Town for the ISPOL expedition, a 3-month scientific cruise to the central Weddell Sea - and I still have not posted a single pic to my website! Well, here are some appetizers:



Here you see our sea ice team from my institute. Our boss (middle) also happened to be the scientific cruise leader.



As soon as we arrived, we were under constant surveillance. Every piece of equipment was inspected thoroughly.



We did some diving there - that's how I usually get my stuff done - and this is a nice action shot of the team ;-)



Another action shot;-) That seal is about 3.5m long and had some big nasty teeth!
Later she came by (it was a big female) and showed me - while we both in the water.
Unfortunately, I could not repay the favour due to the big full-face mask (see pic above).

So as soon as I got these and a lot more pics properly set up on my homepage I will put up another post about it.

Aussies cutting 25% of science support staff

Apparently, the Italians are not the only ones deciding that Science is not worth their money:

"Australia's major government science body, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), announced last week that it is planning to cut up to 25% of its research support staff in an effort to save money."

But apparently, it's not because they need the money:

"According to a report in the Sydney Morning Herald, Whelan told the Senate committee that the CSIRO was already $1 million in deficit for this year and had sought permission from the Department of Finance to be allowed to run up a deficit of around $14 million.

However, he told The Scientist that the deficits were not an indication that the organization was in financial trouble. "It couldn't be further from the truth," he said. "Revenue from government and external sources is growing. Last year was challenging in the context of the plans we've set for ourselves, it's not that in absolute terms we're in problems."

Instead, this is a move to reorganize divisions and focus resources on so-called 'flagship programs' which have been put forward by the administration. In the eyes of the scientists, this is not good news as one puts it:

"Part of the change going on now is as much about saving money as it is about breaking down boundaries between organizational units," Borgas noted.

That change has been accompanied by a tendency for executive management to take a stronger role in setting research agendas, Borgas added, which is angering bench scientists. "It's a real problem. I think the scientists in the organization don't like that sort of top-down interference. I think this will lead to some pretty big problems in the near term. There's distrust between bench scientists and senior management."

The $80,000 Pasta Bible

No, this is not another rant about Italy, but about another of my favourites: remember the "pastafarianism" that was supposed to pose a challenge to "creationism" and "Darwinism" at the same time? No? Let me refresh your memory:

Meatballs. Noodly appendages. An invisible monster made up of these exact materials...

Nothing? Well, then I have a book recommendation for you! Villard, a member of Random House Publishing Group, has been reported to pay "...an $80,000 advance to the creator of a religion designed to make fun of intelligent design. This summer, Bobby Henderson, 25, an unemployed slot-machine engineer, posted a much-forwarded open letter to the Kansas State Board of Education declaring that “there are multiple theories of Intelligent Design” on his Website. He contends that a huge, invisible beast made of spaghetti and meatballs created the world about 4,000 years ago (pasta of that vintage has been found in China, he points out). The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, which will codify Pastafarianism, is set to come out on Valentine’s Day." (from: NY Magazine, www.newyorkmetro.com).

And I promise, as soon as it's out, it will appear in my new spin-off blog, PolarLitBlog ;-)

Academic reforms in Italy

If you already thought that the political course and agenda of the Berlusconi gouvernment were bizarre, to say the least, this article of "The Scientist" on the proposed reforms of the academic systems will not surprise you:

"Last month, the Italian Parliament approved a debated reform proposed by the University and Research Minister Letizia Moratti that, among other measures, eliminates permanent contracts for all but professors, and establishes a national exam in order to qualify as a professor."

The article gives a detailed account of how an "academic career" is supposed to look like in Italy:

"The core of the new law is the reorganization of the career scheme, with the goal of speeding up the process of becoming a professor. For instance, PhD students interested in continuing research will be offered a four year-fellowship and then three-year contract with universities, which can then be renewed for another three years. After that, they will be entitled to compete for posts as professors in a national exam held every 2 years. Then, local universities will be able to take their pick from the exam winners – a move supporters of the reform argue will reduce researchers' dependence on professors to pass. If exam-takers pass and receive local appointments, they will receive a three-year contract. This contract would be renewable for another three years, after which universities would have to decide whether to offer the temporary professors a permanent post."

So every permanently employed scientist is going to be a professor. Nice. I do not have many Italian colleagues so far, but suspect there will be even less around in the coming years, if this plan goes through.

I only wonder: who is going to do all the work?

My other blog is on

My second blogging attempt, PolarLitBlog, is on and my first 'review' on the a piece of polar literature (you might have guessed it from the title;-) has just been posted.

I decided to put it under a separate heading for reasons also mentioned in the "welcome" post of PolarLitBlog: while this here is supposed to be an update on what I do, where I am and why I am crazy about it, the new blog will give you an account on a couple of books that I have read and which I find interesting and recommendable. I also plan to include movies, newspaper articles and maybe even games (?!) if they fit in.

There are by now a fair number of volumes and topics present on my bookshelves, and I felt they deserved their own site. So if you are interested in books and or other media to read/watch/play about the polar regions, you can cut out my ramblings on my computer stuff, what is in my newsfeeds, what my PhD project is all about, and vice versa.

And if you have any suggestions, please post a comment or go to my homepage and use my email link there.

and another piece from WIRED, this time on video blogs

Hey, if you think that I rely mostly on WIRED rss feeds to cannibalize for my own blog, you are probably right (-; at least tonight)

Anyway, the linked piece about video iPod and video blogging (yeah: VLOGGING *yuk*) is a nice list of pros and cons for video instead of audio-only content for blogs. As it boils down, there is a lot less hype and increase in offered content going on in video blogs (and no, I won't type that acronym again...) than there was after the advent of audio blogs and there are several good reasons for that. Probably the most important is that you need to actually add something that makes sense on video, or more sense on video than on audio-only to make it work. And then there are the costs to consider (cited from the WIRED article):

"It's a much more costly endeavor to start a videocast... You'll need to purchase a video input card or a digital video camera and the tools for encoding to video. Currently, there's no standard video format that exists like MP3 for audio. DivX/XviD encoding is popular but run into problems requiring extra software. QuickTime, Real and Windows Media video encoders run into the usual problems inherent with proprietary formats."

The Vatican on Evolution (and yes, also on ID)

In a recent comment reported by Wired, a Vatican cardinal said Thursday that "...the faithful should listen to what secular modern science has to offer", warning that "religion risks turning into 'fundamentalism' if it ignores scientific reason".

The cardinal goes on to say that ..."The permanent lesson that the Galileo case represents pushes us to keep alive the dialogue between the various disciplines, and in particular between theology and the natural sciences, if we want to prevent similar episodes from repeating themselves in the future..."

and:

"The faithful have the obligation to listen to that which secular modern science has to offer, just as we ask that knowledge of the faith be taken in consideration as an expert voice in humanity."

I like that, the Roman Catholic Church presented as an 'expert voice in humanity'. What did the Pope recommend, oh no, decree regarding birth control? And what about... But I am deviating...;-)

Another voice of the vatican addresses the issue of science vs. Intelligent Design (ID):

Monsignor Gianfranco Basti, director of the Vatican project STOQ, or Science, Theology and Ontological Quest, reaffirmed John Paul's 1996 statement that "evolution was 'more than just a hypothesis'."

"A hypothesis asks whether something is true or false," he said. "(Evolution) is more than a hypothesis because there is proof."

Well, monsignor, you got it - almost - right: technically, a hypothesis is - and remains - a hypothesis whether there is proof or not. A scientist will never say that "a hypothesis is right" but instead it would be put more like this:

"the probability that the opposite of that hypothesis is true can be regarded as very slim, i.e. below a reasonable margin (usually set at between 1-5% or even lower)". Unfortunately, this is a somewhat technical and counter-intuitive approach to answering a question, and it is exactly that point the creationists feed on: it is just not so simple.

But for a press release from the Vatican, such open support of scientific reason is in itself a major event, although the afore mentioned cardinal does not take this too literally himself as he concludes: "...the universe wasn't made by itself, but has a creator." But he added, "It's important for the faithful to know how science views things to understand better."

So what is it going to be then, creation without the creationists, scientific reason without the application to the "basic question"? I guess we should call it "theological diplomacy" and leave it at that.

Big Dead Place

To make up for all that Mac-tech-cultish sort of stuff I posted recently, here I proudly present some down-to-earth facts. Actually, this is as down-to-earth as you get ;-) I found it on a genuinely hilarious, alas expired, website which now has become an archive (thanks, for the link, pete!) of a guy who had been working for extended periods on the US McMurdo Base at the Ross Sea. He has compiled a quite extensive site over the years, including a "handbook" part with introductions to some vital aspects of life in the Program, short for United States Antarctic Program (or USAP). Noteworthy is the fact that the handbook comes in two versions, though, one for hopeful newbie employees (="brunts") at the bases, and one for "Distinguished Congressional Visitors".

Here are some excerpts which are meant as appetizers and seemed to be most fitting for this blog - "brunt" version first:


From Big Dead Place:


History ("brunt" version):


"Many of the early explorers who came to Antarctica died miserably of starvation while freezing to death. This unique frozen heritage is visible just across the bay from McMurdo Station at historic Discovery Hut, built by Robert Scott in 1902. In that noble wooden hut, several men once spent four months, clothes awash with gore from their endless seal slaughtering, ..."

History (Distinguished Congressional Visitors version):


"Many of the early explorers who came to Antarctica were underfunded buffoons who did not first consult Appropriations Subcommittees before facing the unique and exciting challenges that Antarctica offered for the future. As a result, they lacked innovative leadership, and died miserably of starvation while freezing to death. This unique frozen heritage is visible just across the bay from McMurdo Station at historic Discovery Hut, built by Robert Scott in 1902. In that noble wooden hut, several men once spent four months, clothes awash with gore from their endless seal slaughtering, ..."

Science (again "brunt" version)

"Science is the process of describing the universe through physical observation. Here are some things that are not science: distributing money to scientists, dispersing press releases to the media, ..."

"Science, as an intellectual process, is not owned or orchestrated by any particular person or agency, nor is the funding of science a scientific act. The National Science Foundation is the manager of American Antarctica much like your department manager is the manager of your department..."

"In Antarctica, science is a parking permit, and those who want to stand in the parking spaces must first be able to afford the permit to stand there..."

Workers ("Distinguished Congressional Visitors" version)

"Workers are intimidating. They wear dirty clothes, they operate loud and greasy machines, and they often bear menacing scowls. They seem to look at you as if you don't belong. This is because you don't...."

A visit to Palmer Station

This is - though outdated - a pretty desillusioning piece by some NSF/WHOI bigwig who visited the third permanent US base in Antarctica, Palmer , onboard an expedition cruise vessel with a group of tourists.

See for yourself (for full-text click the link of the header or above).

I liked it and chose to post it because it reflects both on how tourist visits are generally seen and treated by scientific staff on these same stations (for good reason, some will say) and how tourists - and especially BIGWIG tourists of which there is a surprising number of, believe me - perceive such a visit. Makes me anticipate our scheduled visits to the station during one of my upcoming dive trips even more...

And the best thing is: just because the guy did not get his way - storming through the station, the quarters, the labs for "inspection" - although he played his bigwig card BIG time! he ended up hating the place, no doubt infesting the rest of "his group" with this sentiment in no time, and concludes his piece by recommending that no visit at all would be better for future trips (Uhuuaah! Didna get no toy, Dont wanna toy, Nobody getsa toy! BAH!).

So accidentally, you also get a feel why working with this kind of clientèle IS in fact a lot of work sometimes.

Okay, here are some excerpts again (with my comments in [brackets])

"Our cruise on SOCIETY EXPLORER was meticulously organized and executed. The standard of seamanship and regard for safety and the environment compared favorably or exceeded anything I saw in ten years of involvement in Antarctic marine scientific ship operations. [RIGHT!] During the cruise I observed no incident that threatened the safety of passengers nor did I see any article being jettisoned from the ship or ashore. [GOOD FOR YOU]. Prior to each landing a briefing took place which thoroughly prepared the passengers and informed them of precautions necessary to protect the ecology of the specific landing site. Any passenger who demonstrated inattention to the instructions given was politely but firmly corrected." [LIKED THAT, EH?]
...
"During this circuit of the building discomfort developed. Station and science staff, despite doing the best job possible within the prescribed ground rules, appeared uncomfortable. They were obviously trying to be polite and make people seem welcome, but really did not have ways to demonstrate this in any meaningful way. [WHAT??? SHOULD THEY HAVE BEEN SOMERSAULTING FOR YOU???] The conditions of the visit made it quite clear that we were not really welcome. Almost to a person the passengers left feeling they had been an unwelcome imposition."
...
"To complete this, which was supposed to be a brief letter, I add my personal view and hope you will not consider me presumptuous for doing so.[OH NO...] As I have said, I fully understand and sympathize with the reasons for the Palmer visitor limitations, but if the net result under the present system is decidedly negative, the visits are counter-productive for all concerned--visitors and station personnel. I believe that no visits would be better than the present situation."

updates on the blog/site list

As you will realize from the changed appearance of the sidebar, I have not only included a totally ridiculous "counting device" but also some more links to sites and blogs which I like, and which you might find helpful when interested in Life and Work in the Polar Regions, which is after all supposed to be my primary topic here.