“Meanwhile, in Alaska, the change in administrations in Washington had a more direct impact. In 2014, the EPA, which was still under the management of people who believe that the mission of an environmental protection administration is to, you know, protect the environment, virtually stopped the construction of the Pebble Mine. There have been several hearings over the past few weeks and all indications are that the EPA will soon get out of the way and let the project move forward. The Pebble Mine is an environmental disaster in waiting. It is a massive gold and copper mine hard by the world’s greatest salmon fishery. 60 million salmon a month run through Bristol Bay, and the salmon caught there represent half of the salmon eaten in the world last year. There is so much salmon in and around the bay that humans and bears can catch their respective limits and not get in each other’s way. And, for centuries, the bay has been a reliable source of food for the local native peoples, who also have lined up against the mine. The problem is that the gold beneath the earth at the head of Bristol Bay is buried with millions of tons of sulphur. Mix sulphur, air, and water and you get acid, which does not mix well with salmon at all.”
Bristol Bay, home to half the world’s Sockeye salmon population, is about to be destroyed.
“For more than 15 years, Northern Dynasty
Minerals, a Canadian mining company, has sought to build a gold and
copper mine in Bristol Bay. And this spring, the Trump administration
took swift action to make that prospect more likely. Environmental
Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt met on May 1 with the CEO of the
Pebble Limited Partnership, a subsidiary of the mining company, CNN reported on September 22
based on interviews and government emails. Little more than an hour
later, according to internal emails, the administrator directed his
staff to reverse Obama-era protections for Bristol Bay, which had been
created after years of scientific review. Based on that work, the
previous administration had aimed to pre-emptively veto certain mining
activities in the ecologically important region.” (Src)
If this mine goes through: Thousands of jobs will be lost, an entire ecosystem will be destroyed and the world’s Sockeye salmon population will be decimated.
You can also help by sharing this post and telling others that this is happening, awareness is key!
Shared and Commented! Follow the link, there are a lot of words on the page, but the place to comment is on the top right of your screen and says “Comment Here.” It doesn’t require your personal information to comment, but you can submit it with your e-mail for a ‘receipt.’
If you can’t think of what to say here’s mine: “I am opposed to the proposal to withdraw from the 2014 Proposed Determination that protects Bristol Bay.
This proposal threatens the preservation and continuation of a waterway vital to the health of a key species. Its destruction via the byproducts of the mining process would result in the decimation of the local fishing industry and create cascading destructive effects on ecosystems upstream that depend upon healthy Sockeye Salmon spawning runs.
Please continue to ensure the well-being of this vital waterway by enforcing the EPA region 10 July 2014 Proposed Determination.”
Not sure how fast post office is fast enough with only two (maybe three) days left but can also mail
Mail: Water Docket, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Mail Code 28221T 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20460 Attention: Docket ID No. EPA-R10-OW-2017-0369
You and me were at some goldfish pond And I, I was tagging along for the ride All the big-mouthed fish really made us laugh
And while I stood still, I felt a chill I thought that maybe you did too I wanted to feel that way forever
And that’s why if you’re looking at me, I’ll try To be what you want to see, and if I’m If I’m ever that lucky You won’t have to be so, you won’t have to be so sad
You won’t have to be so sad
Last night I was trying to read in bed I got to watching you sleep instead Even when I got tired, I couldn’t stop
Because I love you so And I pray you know But I’m not much for praying I knew I couldn’t say that without making a joke
And that’s why if you’re looking at me, I’ll try To be what you want to see, and if I’m If I’m ever that lucky You won’t have to be so, you won’t have to be so sad
You won’t have to be so sad
Yeah, that’s why if you’re looking at me, I’ll try To be what you want to see, and if I’m If I’m ever that lucky You won’t have to be so, you won’t have to be so sad
You won’t have to be so sad You won’t have to be so sad
Race officials finally posted the full replay of the Alicante in-port race on YouTube, though apparently they kept it hidden for a while, which confuses me, but whatever. Commentary after a cut to preserve the dashboards of the non-obsessed.
Boats designed to surf monster waves in the Southern Ocean aren’t the easiest things to get around a short windward-leeward course in 8 knots of wind. But for me this race was surprisingly exciting to watch for one reason: The whole thing was basically over before the starting gun went off.
I’ve linked to that point in the video (around 8:31). Analysis with screenshots follows.
Here’s a helicopter shot with 1:26 to go:
The wind is blowing from the right. That powerboat sitting by itself toward the lower right is the race committee boat that marks the right end of the starting line; the tiny yellow dot above it is the inflatable buoy that marks the left end of the line.
The seven Volvo 65s are easy to recognize because of their sponsor graphics. Lining up on starboard tack in that group in the lower left, AkzoNobel is in front with the purple and blue sails. They were skippered in this race by navigator Jules Salter, because previous skipper Simeon Tienpont quit/was fired a few days earlier. (There are dueling press releases and much drama; it’s all still playing out as of Monday.)
Scallywag is the boat closest to the camera with the gray sails and the red and white swoosh. Vestas/11th Hour is the light blue main with the dark blue stripe and the white headsail, and Dongfeng is the red and gray sails beyond them.
Coming toward us to the left of them on port tack is Brunel, whose strategy apparently was to swoop in behind the other boats and tack onto starboard at the last minute. But tacking one of these boats with a Masthead Code 0 in light winds is a tricky maneuver.
Just coming into view in the extreme lower left is Turn the Tide on Plastic (TTToP), skippered by Goofball Boat Mom Dee Caffari. They haven’t even unrolled their Code 0 yet. But that’s fine; the boats in front of them are early and will have to kill time.
Way up at the other end of the line, that little red mainsail is MAPFRE. Like TTToP they haven’t unrolled their headsail yet. They’re just hanging out, jogging slowly toward the pin end of the line. The race commentators are going to offer them premature condolences in a minute. But with the benefit of hindsight, looking at this image: They’ve already won.
With 1:11 to go, Brunel is making their tack. They’re slow rolling up the headsail (a requirement for tacking the Masthead 0), though, and it’s going to hurt them badly. On TTToP, Boat Mom has unrolled her headsail and is starting to move into view in the lower left. Meanwhile, MAPFRE is still just chilling out there at the far end of the line.
With less than a minute to go, AkzoNobel is bearing off to avoid being over early. Vestas has them pinned to leeward, though, so there’s not a lot of room. Brunel is head to wind with their headsail furled. It’s been 13 seconds since the last screenshot, which means this tack is taking them a long time. Boat Mom is diving down to try to squeeze in to leeward of Scallywag.
MAPFRE still hasn’t unrolled their headsail.
At 47 seconds to go, the four starboard-tack boats closest to the line are all reaching off to avoid being over early.
MAPFRE’s just hanging out. Um, guys (and gals): You realize there’s a race today, right?
Thirty-seven seconds to go. The three lead starboard tack boats are a mess. Dongfeng has the right of way as leeward boat, and is holding the other two up toward the line rather than giving them acceleration room. Scallywag is diving down to prevent Boat Mom getting a leeward overlap and doing the same thing to them. Brunel has completed their tack, but they’re so far below the line and in such disturbed air from all the shenanigans ahead of them that they’re basically stuck in the water.
Aboard MAPFRE they finally have a headsail, yay! But that’s not all they’ve got:
They’re right up on the starting line, rather than 3-5 boatlengths to leeward of it like the other boats. In these conditions that’s huge.
They’ve got clear air.
They’ve got an open stretch of water into which they can accelerate.
They’ve got a position that in a minute is going to give them the right side of the racecourse, where they’ve (correctly) predicted the wind is going to be stronger during the coming beat.
On the other hand they’re on port tack, and every other boat has the right of way, so they’re basically going to have to duck the entire fleet. But given all the advantages listed above, it’s worth it.
Thirty seconds. The lead group of starboard tackers has hardened up for the line, though they’re still a little early. Each of them is trying to create a gap to leeward into which they can accelerate. But since they’re all trying to do it in the same place none of them is being particularly successful.
Meanwhile, MAPFRE is reaching off with the Masthead 0 trimmed for speed.
Twenty seconds. The leading five starboard tackers are all using whatever gap they have to try to build speed. Brunel is still stuck to leeward.
MAPFRE has started to bear away to go below the starboard tackers. It’s a controlled maneuver, though, unlike the speed-killing gyrations the other boats are doing.
Ten seconds. The starboard-tackers are all hardening up for the line. Brunel is basically parked.
It’s hard to see them, but MAPFRE is screaming in (relatively speaking) on port tack, aiming to shave the sterns of the fleet.
They’re approaching Dongfeng, the lead boat in the starboard-tackers. Antonio Cuervas-Mons (”Ñeti”) is on the bow. As bowman his job is to tell the helmsman (Pablo Arrarte) where to go, because it’s easier to judge the distances from the bow.
The closed-fist gesture means “hold your course.” The wind-it-up gesture means “go for it; head closer to the starting line.”
Ñeti calling the duck of AkzoNobel. This is a key moment. Looking around the front of the headsail, Ñeti sees something that Pablo on the helm can’t see: Brunel is going so slowly that a gap has opened up in front of them, and MAPFRE has a chance to squeeze through. So Ñeti gives the wind-it-up sign: go for it.
That same moment, two seconds before the starting gun, from the helicopter’s perspective.
MAPFRE charging through the gap just after the gun. They’re now in disturbed air, but only for a few seconds, and the speed they’ve built up lets them punch through.
And they’re off, heading away from the fleet in clear air toward the stronger wind on the right. When the fleet comes back together at the top mark MAPFRE is ahead, and with mistake-free sailing they never give up the lead.
And that, long-suffering readers, is how you win a boat race before it’s even started.
“Do you cut down groves of blossoming trees in the spring-time for firewood? We would tend these glades of flowering stone, not quarry them. With cautious skill, tap by tap – a small chip of rock and no more, perhaps, in a whole anxious day – so we could work, and as the years went by, we should open up new ways, and display far chambers that are still dark, glimpsed only as a void beyond fissures in the rock. And lights, Legolas! We should make lights, such lamps as once shone in Khazad-dûm; and when we wished we would drive away the night that has lain there since the hills were made; and when we desired rest, we would let the night return.”
– J.R.R. Tolkien, excerpt of The Two Towers (via captainbookamir)
‘War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend: the city of the Men of Númenor, and I would have her loved for her memory, her ancientry, her beauty, and her present wisdom. Not feared, save as men may fear the dignity of a man, old and wise.’ – The Two Towers.
I could keep writing about this, there’s a career’s worth of pieces to write about how bad software is, and how insecure it makes us, and I have written many of those pieces. But like writing about hackers compromising terrible systems, I don’t want to write the same thing telling you that software is the problem, not the Chinese or the Russians or the boogeyman de jour.
You, the person reading this, whether you work in the media or tech or unloading container ships or selling falafels, need to learn how computers work, and start demanding they work better for you. Not everything, not how to write code, but the basics of digital and internet literacy.
Stop asking what the Russians could do to our voting machines, and start asking why our voting machines are so terrible, and often no one can legally review their code.
Stop asking who is behind viruses and ransomware, and ask why corporations and large organizations don’t patch their software.
Don’t ask who took the site down, ask why the site was ever up with a laundry list of known vulnerabilities.
Start asking lawmakers why you have to give up otherwise inalienable consumer rights the second you touch a Turing machine.
Don’t ask who stole troves of personal data or what they can do with it, ask why it was kept in the first place. This all goes double for the journalists who write about these things — you’re not helping people with your digital credulity, you’re just helping intel services and consultants and global defense budgets and Hollywood producers make the world worse.
Because I really like the premise of the show and I have also seen and liked all of the things that the Tin Can Brothers have created so I trust that they will create something equally as good. The thing is when you follow a group of creative people and you follow all of the shows and sketches that they make, you start to develop this trust and adoration for said group of people. That is how I feel about the Tin Can Brothers, I know they care for their fans and I know they will not disappoint me on this new project. But let’s say I watch the show and I end up not liking it, I will still watch it because I like the people making it and I will also still follow and support everything the TCB do. Sometimes you just have to take a chance on something.
Alicante, Spain (October 14, 2017) – The local heroes on Xabi Fernàndez’s MAPFRE were a popular winner when they won the first In-Port Race of the 2017-18 Volvo Ocean Race.
Fernàndez and his team made a bold call at the start to duck behind the entire fleet in order to sail up what turned out to be the favoured right hand side of the course, coming from behind to earn a narrow lead at the first gate.
The video of the race was streamed on Facebook, which is a little disappointing because the FB video player is inferior to YouTube. Hard to obsess properly when the fullscreen video gets way pixellated. :-)
But yay for MAPFRE! The in-port standings only count if needed for a tiebreaker in terms of the overall race, but this is real (finally). And now it’s less than a week until the first ocean leg starts.
Tale of The Artist Who Photographs Beauties in Gowns Against Idyllic Backgrounds
Cappadocia, Turkey, Finolhu, Maldives, Poppies Field, Crimea, Louvre, Paris, France are few of the many scenic places where artist Kristina Makeeva has travelled to juxtapose elegant fashion against phenomenal architecture for her photographic compositions.
