Author: Paul Handover

The Moon and water!

NASA reveals that there is a significant amount of water on the Moon.

In a rather awful pun, NASA published update on the LCROSS Mission starts with the words, “The argument that the moon is a dry, desolate place no longer holds water.”

LCROSS
The visible camera image showing the ejecta plume at about 20 seconds after impact.

Anyway, the significance of the update is enormous.  As the NASA release goes on to say,

Scientists have long speculated about the source of vast quantities of hydrogen that have been observed at the lunar poles. The LCROSS findings are shedding new light on the question of water, which could be more widespread and in greater quantity than previously suspected.

Permanently shadowed regions could hold a key to the history and evolution of the solar system, much as an ice core sample taken on Earth reveals ancient data. In addition, water, and other compounds represent potential resources that could sustain future lunar exploration.

The BBC also reports the NASA data but, I am bound to say, in a rather more reader-friendly format.

By Paul Handover

Single-handed sailing

A personal reflection on this rather strange way of travelling!

The recent Post about young Jessica Watson sailing alone around the world raised a few comments but also reminded me of my own experiences of solo sailing.

Some years ago, having successfully sold my own IT company, I warmed to the idea of being a full-time yachtie! A second-hand Tradewind 33 was discovered on the Island of Corfu.  (Now here’s a surprise!  I was just browsing the web looking for a picture of a Tradewind and came across my old yacht currently up for sale.  Her name is Songbird of Kent! Picture below.)

Songbird of Kent
Tradewind 33 - Songbird of Kent

Anyway, the deal was done and having sold my house in England I flew out to Corfu to collect Songbird of Kent. Inevitably it was a number of months before the boat was ready to head out into the Mediterranean but in early Spring 1988 it was time to explore the long coastlines of Greece and Turkey.

After a fantastic summer cruising from one idyllic anchorage to another mostly with friends or family on board, it was time to find a winter haven.  Many recommended Larnaca Marina in Cyprus.  Thus it was late in the summer of 1988 that I said goodbye to friends and set out on my own to cross from Antalya in Turkey to Cyprus and for Larnaca, on the SE side of the island.

That sea crossing, only a little over 200 nautical miles, was to become a regular solo experience at the start and end of each summer season. Impossible to do in a single day it was always a night at sea and rarely, if things didn’t go well with the weather, a couple of nights. I hated it! Maybe it was the sudden transition from coastal sailing to a deep water crossing, often going from having friends on board to being alone, but whatever it was I never enjoyed my time on my own and knew that long-distance solo sailing was never going to be my scene.

Read more of this Post

Sabi – the Afghan homing dog!

Sabi – an Australian Army bomb-sniffing dog makes it back to base.

This is a lovely story that has been doing the news rounds recently, and not without good cause.  It’s the sort of ‘cuddly feeling’ story that we all need from time to time.  Anyway, first a thanks to Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism, who included a link to the BBC story in her daily summary on November 12th.

Sabi

In the words typical of many online newspapers:

(AP) SYDNEY — A bomb-sniffing dog that disappeared during a fierce battle in Afghanistan between Australian troops and militant fighters has been found and returned to its unit after more than a year.

And Sabi the black Labrador is getting a celebrity welcome home.

Sabi was with a joint Australian-Afghan army patrol ambushed in restive Uruzgan province in September 2008, triggering a gunfight that wounded nine troops and earned one Australian soldier the country’s highest bravery medal.

From the Times Online:

Sabi, a four-year-old black labrador, was returned to the Australian base at Tarin Kowt after an American soldier found her wandering in a remote area of the southern province of Oruzgan last week.

The US soldier, named only as John, knew that his Australian counterparts had lost their canine companion during a gun battle between Australian, US and Afghan special forces and Taleban insurgents in south east Afghanistan last September. Nine Australian soldiers, including Sabi’s handler, were wounded during the assault and Sabi went missing.

Sabi, who was on her second tour of duty in Afghanistan, was officially declared missing in action. It is not known how she survived the past year, presumably eluding the Taleban, before being discovered by the soldier, who realised that she was not a stray dog because she understood certain commands.

Nice one, guys!

By Paul Handover

Our next generation.

Here’s a great role model – and she’s 16!

Jessica Watson is a teenager.  She is hoping to break the record for the youngest person to sail solo, non-stop and Jessica Watsonunassisted around the World.  Whatever modern materials and technology can do to make sailing easier, sailing solo for weeks on end is grindingly tough at any age.  She’s a wonderful example of the next generation!

Jessica Watson2

Jessica left Sydney Harbour on October 18, 2009 sailing her sloop Ella’s Pink Lady. Her course is an estimated 23,000 nautical miles requiring her to be roughly 230 days at sea.

As was said, this is no mean feat for any person. Read more about her on her website and her Blog.

Wish her luck and fair winds.

Jessica Watson3

Things aviation and the ‘wow’ effect.

Some stunning pictures.

Of the six active authors on this Blog, four have been or still are pilots.  Of course, only young Bob Derham is a ‘real’ pilot having been an Air Transport pilot for almost as long as Pontious Pilate (sorry, that’s an awful pun!).

Anyway, there has been a growing collection of some incredible photographs from odd sources around the Web and it seemed time to share a few.

Here’s a wonderful picture of an F-15C Eagle Fighter circling over the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida with Shuttle Mission STS 108 on the launch pad.

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See more aviation pictures

Integrity in the making of films.

Creativity, Integrity and commercialism – are there conflicts?

This is guest post from Magnus Dennison.  Magnus is a Cinematographer who, together with his wife, Katja Roberts, runs a film production company in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in the North-East of England. Their company is called Meerkat Films.  Magnus writes about integrity in film making.

I am going to write about film producers who have made creative choices to ensure their films are commercial successes. My question is whether these films lose their integrity when the motivation for making them becomes financial.

A little about my background. I am an independent film producer working in the UK and don’t profess to be an expert on these matters; the views expressed here are simply my opinion.

I will start by presenting one of my favourite films: ‘The Lives of Others’ (2006) directed by Florian Henckel von Das_Leben_der_anderenDonnersmarck. The team has, in my opinion, made one of the most powerful films of the decade. But more interestingly, they have made many choices that have preserved the integrity of the story at the risk of reducing commercial viability.

It is obvious why they have done this; they are passionate about the artistry and the integrity of the film, more than the financial gain. The film is very slow paced and the tension builds so gradually you’re almost unaware of it until you are completely engrossed.

Read more of this guest post

Our new logo

A gift from a friend of the Blog

Some of you may have noticed that at the head of the right-hand column on the Blog we have a new image.  This arrived the other day and is from the ‘drawing board’ of Neil Kelly who is one of nature’s more creative fellows.  Anyway, here’s the image in a slightly larger format.  Thanks Neil!

learn

By Paul Handover

Setting the lead – for whooping cranes!

This makes me proud to be human!

Operation Migration

Index_8990

As their website explains:

Operation Migration has played a leading role in the reintroduction of endangered Whooping cranes into eastern North America since 2001. In the 1940s the species was reduced to just 15 birds.

Operation Migration is a founding partner of the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership (WCEP), the coalition of non-profit organizations and government agencies behind the project to safeguard the endangered Whooping crane from extinction.

Want to get involved? Here’s how.

Remember the film ET? Just look at this next picture …

Continue reading “Setting the lead – for whooping cranes!” →

Climate warming – the argument continues

Alan Carlin’s response to Patrice Ayme.

Learning from Dogs is very grateful for having Alan and Patrice argue this very important issue through the medium of this Blog.  Because if there is one thing that has the power to overturn our way of life over the last 50 years, it is climate warming (as a result of man’s activities).

On the 26th October there was a Post published that contained Patrice’s reply to an earlier article containing Alan Carlin’s hypothesis.  Learning from Dogs invited Alan to reply to Patrice and this is his contribution.

With one exception the recent comments by Patrice Ayme are typical of what climate alarmists/warmists so often say when presented with serious climate science by skeptics.  They presumably do this in order to try to distract attention from their inability or unwillingness to respond to the scientific issues raised by skeptics or a desire to hide the weakness of their science.  They appeal to alleged authority; they attack the opposition, often personally–anything to avoid discussion of the science.

In this case, the only exception is Ayme’s weird contention that there should not be a tropospheric hotspot in the tropics IF the UN GHG hypothesis should be correct.  This is weird because there is actually rare agreement between most informed alarmists/warmists and skeptics that such a hot spot should be present IF the UN hypothesis is correct.  So his contention that it is an “absurdity” puts him at odds with his much favored UN reports and with his views on the science of warming.  For further information see Evans here (which is a link from the link I originally gave–but perhaps Ayme did not bother to read it before responding??)

As Evans points out this alleged hotspot predicted by the UN climate hypothesis is actually crucial to the UN hypothesis “because the same water vapor feedback that produces the hotspot in IPCC climate theory also doubles or triples the temperature increases predicted by the IPCC climate models.  If the IPCC climate modellers just turn down the water vapor feedback in their models enough so their theoretical signatures match the observed warming patterns, then the predicted temperature increases due to projected carbon emissions are greatly reduced and are no longer of much concern.”  So Ayme apparently did not realize that his statement that there should be no hotspot means that he believes that one of the crucial features of the UN climate hypothesis is wrong and hence that his views of the science are wrong.

I note that except for his weird statement on the hotspot, he makes no serious attempt to respond to or analyze my four fundamental scientific tests of the UN GHG hypothesis.

For a different view as to the objectivity (or lack thereof) of the IPCC see here.

Most of the remainder of Ayme’s comments are best ignored as attempts to distract readers from the fundamental (and telling) scientific tests discussed in my post.

Alan Carlin

By Paul Handover

Sunrise

Here in San Carlos, Mexico, we have good sunrises most mornings.  But this one made me grab my camera. The picture is unedited. Very simple things can provide a huge amount of pleasure.

Sunrise

Taken at 06:15 local time (GMT -7hrs)  Camera is a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ8

By Paul Handover