Programmer Humor

Just skip this if you're not a geek. Really.

Cute blog post someone pointed me to a couple of weeks ago, and I'm just now getting to pass it along. It's a humorous time line of programming languages.

I quite liked this bit:

1964 - John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz create BASIC, an unstructured programming language for non-computer scientists.

1965 - Kemeny and Kurtz go to 1964.

Update: I just clicked through to another post the same guy wrote about diving with a whale shark. He's a pretty amusing writer:

But this was one big krill swilling machine. He was big enough that an accidental bump would be like an accidental bump from a large dump truck - a large dump truck with a mouth the size of a Volkswagen.

Still, Brian and I were determined. So we quickly squashed down our near-pathological fear of dump trucks and swam towards the magnificent creature.

Happy World Oceans Day!

Just a quick post because I'm busy, but I wanted to make sure I mentioned World Oceans Day. This year marks the first time World Oceans Day is an officially-recognized, international holiday.

The short history is that Canada proposed World Ocean Day in 1992 at the Earth Summit, and various folks have been celebrating and observing it for a number of years (including local celebrations coordinated by a group I work with, COARE). Just this year the United Nations declared World Oceans Day (including adding the "s" to "Ocean") as a worldwide holiday to celebrate the ocean.

So take a moment today to ponder the ocean that covers nearly 3/4 of the surface of our planet. This is not a political event or an excuse to support a particular cause. The ocean means something different to everyone, but it's also critically important to everyone in the world. So regardless of whether you agree with my particular issues (such as shark conservation, marine protected areas, ocean-bound waste, marine mammal conservation, coral reef protection), this is a great day to think about what the ocean means to you and your life, and think about what you can do for it.

Diving Recap

Wow...it's over. Lots and lots of diving, and it's done. So let's look back at what we've done:

43 dives, and I think Jan and I were the only ones who did them all. I spent nearly 52 hours under water, or an average of about an hour and twelve minutes for each dive. And Jan averaged about 7 minutes more per dive, which adds up to almost a full five extra hours under water over the two weeks. Amazing!

I guess we're kinda seriously waterlogged by now. But it's OK. A few days ago I was concerned that my ears weren't going to be happy with a dive trip this long, but they seem to have made it through just fine.

So, short summary is that we've done more diving on this single trip than we've ever done at one take before. Was it worth it?

I guess the obvious answer is, "Duh." I can't believe we'd have spent that much time if we weren't enjoying the dives. Although I have to say, we did a night dive the other night that was just dismal. Even the cruise director called it "crappy." And we were still down about an hour. So I guess it's plausible that we might have done a huge amount of mediocre diving, especially having traveled halfway around the world to do so.

Fact is, Raja Ampat and the surrounding area are amazing. I have never seen the sheer variety of corals and colors as we observed here. Just spectacular. And fish! Large numbers of fishes, big schools, great variety, and so on. And the reefs were quite healthy and robust.

Even in those cases where we didn't have spectacular conditions, such as the last few days in the north where the visibility was murky, we saw some great stuff (and could tell that in good conditions, it would be truly awesome).

Looking back, I realize I haven't said much about the dive boat. We sailed on the Archipelago Adventurer II, of the Archipelago Fleet. And I believe the cabin shown in the little slide show on the page is the cabin we actually stayed in. I have to admit to having some mixed feelings about the operation. I can break it down into three separate areas: the diver operation, the business, and the boat itself.

The dive operation is top-notch. The dive guides are terrific (especially Ali and Made), they know the sites and conditions very well. The tenders, tender crews, and deck crew are great. We had some issues with the management of the operation--how they chose sites or limited dive times--but that didn't mar the diving itself. The cruise directors are relatively new on the job, and this is their first time running a liveaboard.

On the business side, I was really impressed with Archipelago Fleet. They arranged all our domestic transfers and lodgings, and all that worked very smoothly. I don't think we could have managed all that by ourselves. It was particularly helpful to have locals there to negotiate all our baggage transfers and fees at the airports. This was all a cut above what I've experienced with other dive companies.

Lastly, the boat itself. The website describes it as "newly constructed," but frankly, it's a bit run down (and I'm told it's going into dry dock in June for some much-needed repairs). The public areas are nice. Both of the dining salons (one of which is used as the camera and TV room) are pleasant, and the dining deck outside the upper dining salon is lovely. The sun deck has no covering, so it's really a SUN deck. Really, it's too hot up there most of the time, so we ended up either indoors or at least under cover on a lower deck. Several of the cabins leaked when it rained. Some of the fixtures and finishing in the cabins were in less-than-perfect repair.

Overall, then, I'm a little conflicted. On the whole, I liked the dive operation and the boat crew and the business operations. On the other hand, the boat itself isn't really up to the standard of other "luxury" liveaboards we've been on.

So Raja Ampat gets a big thumbs-up for the diving. Archipelago Fleet really impressed me as a company and overall operation. I have real reservations about the Archipelago Adventurer II, though. So I would certainly consider going back, but would want to see that the boat had gotten some real upgrades. There are other boats operating in the area, and I would have to look at them, too.

Return Engagements

I've always been of the school that says great experiences aren't repeatable. Your second trip to Disneyland can never be as magical as the first. And if you win the lottery, you should stop buying tickets.

Along those lines, the passengers on our boat last night chose to head back to the sites where we dove with manta rays and under the piers the other day. In the light of not-so-favorable conditions where we'd been diving, the group elected to bypass the signature dive site of the region in favor of sites that had given us great dives. The danger, of course, being that it might not be as good this time. Indeed, I mentioned to Jan last night that we could sit and wait for mantas with no luck, or find that the fish had abandoned the piers and a current was ripping through or something. Ever the optimist, no?

So we arrived early at Manta Sandy to check for favorable currents and such, planning to dive at 8:00 am. Of course, another boat shows up and drops their divers in at 7:30. So we rescheduled to 8:30, so as not to overcrowd the site.

At 8:30 we dropped in, and lo, there are mantas at the cleaning station already, and we had as many as six at a time swooping through for the next hour-and-a-half or more. Marvelous! As good as the first time, and maybe even better in some ways.

Getting back on our boat, we learned that the other boat that had jumped in ahead of us had waited 40 minutes before seeing any mantas, and then had only three. So we definitely got the best of that exchange! They were coming back to the site as we left, so maybe they had something good later.

Then on to the piers, where we dropped in and...no fish. Really. Just desolate. Ghost town. We poked around the reef for a while, finding some pretty nice fish and things, and eventually headed back to the piers. The anchovies had returned, as had the school of trevally jacks that like to hunt there. But no sign of the scads that were so plentiful the last visit.

On the plus side, someone found a little farm of giant tridachna clams (Jan counted 19 of them), including some quite large. Always nice to see big, healthy giant clams.

All in all, it was worth coming back. No great disappointments, and the mantas were at least as good the second time around. We were fortunate.

Great Expectations

All trip long we've been hearing about how great the north was going to be: great visibility, big fish, and so on. And indeed, it's quite different from both the early muck diving we did and the reefs as we worked our way up here.

On the other hand, conditions have been somewhat poor, with unusual currents bringing in murky, yellow water much of the time. The nutrient-rich water is great for the reefs and the critters who live on and around them, but it makes the diving less than spectacular. It's nice to see a school of 100 fish, but frustrating to know that you could see 1000 or more if the water were clearer.

This suggests that perhaps our cruise director should have been a little more circumspect about what we would find here. Yes, we're all experienced divers and know that the conditions are at the whim of the ocean. But we can't help but get our hopes up when we constantly hear how great it's going to be.

It's a little disappointing, but we are still seeing some great stuff. No complaints about the diving; it's just not quite what we'd been led to expect.

Personal Bests

One thing that fascinates me about diving is that the longer I do it, the more I learn about myself. I have, over the years, learned to slow my breathing to the point that I could almost always make a standard tank of air last for an hour under most circumstances. Earlier this week, I faced a challenge, in that some of the folks I was diving with were pushing for longer dive times, up to and sometimes exceeding an hour and a half.

And I utterly surprised myself by managing to do it, too. It was a stretch at times, and I came up with nearly empty tanks a couple of times, but darned if by the end of the trip, I'm not finding 80-90 minutes a very reachable goal nearly all the time. And a couple of times I got to find out what happens when my dive computer runs out of digits to count the dive time. It only uses two digits, so when we aimed for 100 minutes a couple of times, I was curious to see what it would do.

Turns out I can't dive more than 99 minutes on my computer. It just stops counting at 99 (or at least, stops displaying additional time. This seems bad, as it's really, really important to know how much time has elapsed. It was one of a couple of limitations I ran into this week with my old computer. I think I'm going to have to invest in a new one before we do another serious dive trip. Luckily, that gives me a little time to save my pennies.

Reef Encounters

Neat stuff today, in rather unexpected venues. First dive in the morning was a manta dive at a site called "Manta Sandy." As the name implies, it's a sandy sea mount with little coral, but one area is a known cleaning station for big manta rays. And after we sat there for about 15 minutes, here came several big rays. The first ones, I'd guess, we maybe 8-12 feet across their wingspans. Later we saw some that must have been more like 15-18 feet: just massive. They come in, swooping and swirling, with remoras attached, so the cleaner fish can do their jobs. Truly fun to watch, and we had about an hour of that, so it was definitely worth the wait.

Next stop was at the pier at a little island called Airborek (or maybe Air Borek). The main attraction is huge schools of little bait fish (scads, mostly, but also anchovies) that hang out under the pier. Those were spectacular: fun to swim with a great photo and video subjects. The big surprises awaited us on the coral heads nearby. Ali, one of the dive guides, found two pygmy seahorses that he hadn't known about before. Then one of the divers, Mary, found a little blue-ringed octopus.

Basically, I had very low expectations for both of those dives, and both turned out to be great. This is one of the reasons I almost never skip a dive: you never know what you might miss. There's always risk with going to a spot to see one particular thing, since it might not be there. On the other hand, you could always see something great you didn't expect!

The Plural of Octopus

Considerable discussion among the pedants in our group about the proper plural of "octopus." I had never really thought about it, and never looked it up. Apparently,"octopi" is incorrect. Indeed, my spell-checker has just flagged it as an error.

The correct word is apparently "octopodes," although "octopuses" is also acceptable (and the only version my spell checker -- and Blogger's -- seems to accept).

Mixed Results

One of the biggest changes in diving since I started almost 15 years ago is the common adoption of mixed-gas diving. It used to be that the tank on your back held compressed air, and while that is still sometimes true, on most of these tropical dive boats the tanks are mostly filled with Nitrox now.

"Nitrox" is a generic term for "enriched air" which is air with more oxygen added. Oxygen is generally very good for your body. We've all see tired athletes breathing oxygen to recover, and various kinds of patients breathing it under a doctor's care.

Divers have tried lots of modifications of breathing gas over the years. Ultimately there are two (or three) issues they are trying to solve:

• Air contains 79% nitrogen (versus 21% oxygen), and nitrogen bubbles can cause "the bends." The less nitrogen, the better.
  
• Oxygen at high pressure can be toxic. So not too much of that in the mix, especially as you dive deeper.
  
• Breathing too much pressurized oxygen over the course of a day can also be toxic (but in a different way).

I'll spare you all the science behind all this. Suffice it to say that it's desirable to displace some of the nitrogen in breathing gas with another gas. Under many conditions, oxygen is a good choice, but if one is diving very deep (and therefore under very high pressure), that could be deadly, so an inert gas such as helium or argon is generally used instead.

I remember vividly seeing film of divers years ago in a bathysphere breathing a gas with lots of helium added. The resulting "helium voice" was quite memorable. There is still "heliox" in use, but divers more commonly use the heavier (but also inert) argon now.

Fairly recently, recreational divers started using Nitrox (air with additional oxygen), which for most diving provides a margin of safety and comfort.

The drawback for me is that one needs a special dive computer to handle the necessary calculations for allowable depth and time given a particular mix of gases. Most modern dive computers handle this pretty elegantly, but my rather outdated one requires that I set it for the percentage of oxygen in the Nitrox for every single dive. And if I should forget, it defaults to assuming I'm using a 50% oxygen gas for my next dive, rather than the more reasonable assumption that I'll be using whatever I used the last time (usually between 30 and 32% oxygen).

So of course, I have now twice forgotten to set the computer before a dive on this trip, and it has been a huge hassle. I think I've handled it well and responsibly, by occasionally lying to the computer and telling it I was breathing plain air instead of Nitrox, so as to balance out the calculations. But I should not have to do this.

Before I do any more serious diving, I will probably need to invest in a new dive computer. Not that I mind new toys (especially computers!), but I basically like the one I have, but for this one thing. Annoying.

Misool Eco Resort

Been so busy diving the last couple of days, I haven't gotten to write at all! Diving's been really good, though.

This afternoon a few of us had the chance to pay a brief visit to a new dive resort here in Misool, the Misool Eco Resort. To say it's beautiful is an understatement. It's a lovely lagoon, and actually incorporates a small island in the lagoon via a wooden bridge.

The idea of the resort is the be as "green" and sustainable as possible. Thorben Niemann, who designed and built much of the resort, gave us a little tour and pointed out many features, such as the fact that all the wood used in construction was driftwood. They capture and use waste water for gardening. And they will soon have solar panels to generate much of the daily electricity (though not enough for, say, the air compressor in the dive center). And they've created a marine preserve around the resort, so there's no fishing and the like. We saw fish and small reef sharks swimming right in the lagoon.

It's quite beautiful and impressive. My pictures don't do it justice; you should click through to their website which does a much better job. I did get one cool shot of the inside of the roof at the resort's restaurant, though my little camera doesn't do it justice:


All I can say personally is that in the brief time we were there, we were accosted by some of the largest mosquitoes I have ever seen. They were fierce! We had forgotten to put on any repellent, but I have to say it would be a very different experience staying at the resort than on a boat as we are (with no mosquitoes!).

But it's really nice to see someone creating a very different kind of resort.

Motoring from Ambon

After our night dive tonight, we pulled the anchor and started on our way north. Tomorrow morning we'll be at a small island with a fringing reef north of here. We'll do a couple of dives there, then around noon we'll head for Raja Ampat itself, specifically the island of Misool.

Raja Ampat literally means "four kings." It refers to four native kings who controlled the spice trade back in the 17th century. They divided up the spice islands, including the area we're going to now.

Raja Ampat includes one of the largest marine protected areas in the world, and should be quite spectacular. It is known for having the greatest diversity of both coral and fish life of any area known on the planet.

Diving in the Muck

Today's diving is what we call "muck diving," which means searching for creatures (usually small ones), often amongst rubble, sand, or detritus. In fact, some of the best substrate for muck diving is human flotsam, such as bottles, discarded clothing, and such.

We have already seen, after only two dives, some very cool stuff. One highlight is that we've found several pairs of small cuttlefish, and have observed them both eating and mating. Wow! I'd only seem that on video before. We've also encountered more stonefish than I've probably ever observed before. Stonefish are very hard to see, as they blend in with their surroundings. But they pack a punch: very toxic spines that can kill humans. So it's good to know there are a lot of them around, if only to make us really, really careful.

Frogfish Update

Just had a chat with James, one of the cruise directors. He says the much-anticipated psychedelic frogfish hasn't actually been seen by anyone in about a year. As noted in my earlier post, it was first found some twenty years ago, then "misplaced" until last year, at which time it was seen a fair amount for several months, but not since.

We've declared a bounty on finding this fish: free beer for the remainder of the trip for whoever locates it. If that doesn't find it, nothing will!

We did a nice dive this morning, kind of a check-out dive, but we saw good stuff.

Psychedelic Frogfish!

This is awesome, and the timing couldn't be better. News today of the discovery of a new kind of frogfish, called the psychedelic frogfish (good picture here):

A brightly-coloured fish which bounces along the seabed has been hailed as a new species by scientists - who have dubbed it "psychedelica".

Best of all is where they found it:

...the fish was spotted by scuba divers off the island of Ambon in eastern Indonesia.

As it turns out, that's exactly where we're headed next week. Our dive cruise through Raja Ampat starts at Ambon. I guess I shall have to demand that they show us this new fish!

But really, as the AP article points out (quoting Mark Erdman from Conservation International):

"It also speaks to the tremendous diversity in this region and to fact that there are still a lot of unknowns here — in Indonesia and in the Coral Triangle in general."

That is why we go to these places. Cool stuff!

They Obviously Want Me

Just came across this little job opening:

The Caretaker of the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef is a newly created position. There are a few minor tasks that need to be taken care of, but the most important duty is to report back to Tourism Queensland (and the world) and let us know what’s taking place on the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef.

Right. One blog entry per week. I can do that. Heck, I'm even qualified for this job!

We’re looking for someone with an adventurous attitude, passion for the outdoors and good communication skills. A broad range of experience is considered and Tourism Queensland will be selecting applicants based on:

- Enthusiasm for the role

- Entertainment value (personality and creativity)

- Presentation skills (being media-friendly)

- At least one year's relevant experience

I am so there!

Last Seven Seas Thoughts

Just wanted to put down a few more thoughts about the recently-competed diving aboard the Seven Seas before I start scribbling about Bali.

First, I have to say that the Seven Seas was a very nice, very well-run operation. Mark and his crew did an excellent job of making us all feel welcome, comfortable, and safe. The boat itself is lovely, and the dive crew and kitchen crew were all top-notch. Good food (self-serve is nice), friendly service, and all well maintained. I believe we had one of the smallest cabins on the boat, but it was quite adequate. We stored our luggage and some other things on the unused upper bunk. Getting dressed with two of us was challenging at times, but we managed.

And the diving was really, really good. Graham made sure we got a taste of all the different environments available around Komodo, and Tomi and Bram and the boat drivers made sure we saw the key things and got to and from the sites quickly and easily. Best of all, I felt like Mark and his crew had a good, positive working relationship. I didn't sense any of the labor-management tensions that often creep into dive-boat operations.

It was hard to say goodbye, but after ten days and about 35 dives, we were ready to think about heading home.

We'd had some thoughts about trying to get home sooner, rather than spending an extra four days in Bali, but Continental Airlines assured us that the one flight leaving before ours on Sunday, tonight, was already overbooked considerably. So we headed off for a little mini-adventure in Bali.

Poking About

Diving (and the visit to Komodo National Park) is winding down. Josh is editing his trip video, which promises to be splendid, as always. This morning we visited an interesting site where a big boulder from the top of the reef recently (like 12-18 months ago) rolled down to about 90 feet. In the wake of its roll, there are a lot of small rocks in the black sand. And among them, more nudibranchs than I can describe. Graham says it's the premier nudibranch dive in all Asia.

It's funny how we can get from watching schools of big fish one dive to poking under rocks for tiny slugs the next. Truly, I enjoy both. One of the joys of looking so closely at small things is that you notice more and more detail the longer you look. You might start out looking for a pretty nudibranch and notice a tiny shrimp or a well-hidden crab. Much like life in general, I suppose: When you're open to seeing things, you might see things you didn't expect.

Volcano update: The cone was shrouded in clouds this morning. Unfortunately I didn't get to take a picture, so you'll have to take my word for it.

I Don't Know

Good diving today. We're still at Sangeang Island, and this morning conditions were very mild, so we got to dive again at Deep Purple and Bubble Reef in the morning with essentially no current. Then an afternoon dive at Sangeang Rocks, where we bimbled (Graham's term for it) around the rocks looking for critters. I found lots of little shrimps and crabs, some little nudibranchs, and a few little fish. Lots of baby and juvenile fish on all the dives; this is a great time of year for that.

As we rode the skiff back to the boat, we noticed the smell of smoke in the air, and someone pointed out that the top of the volcano is smoking a bit. Last night coming back from the night dive we had noticed an orange glow up there, too. No notion that things might blow, but it's kind of fun being next to an active volcano.

UPDATE: As the sun went down, we could see the orange glow up near the top of the volcano. There was some debate over whether we were seeing lava or a fire, but Graham assures us there is nothing up there that would burn (anymore), so we concluded that it was lava glowing. Kind of eerie and yet cool.

Small and Large

Fascinating deep dive this morning at Sangeang Island, a relatively-recently active volcano with lots of black sand. We dropped down about 110 feet into a canyon full of fan corals and such. I found a huge scallop on the wall, probably the largest I've ever seen. Working with our friend Sharon, I also spotted a tiny pygmy seahorse on one of the fan corals.

Probably the oddest find was a dive mask one of our friends found sitting on top of the reef. The cover on the mask strap had the logo of our local dive shop back home, Bamboo Reef! We decided to leave it there. I'm hoping someone can snap a picture of it when we go back later this morning.

Life on the Reef

Today we're at Banta Island, not technically part of Komodo National Park, but just outside. The water is warmer again, and the dive site we're currently visiting, called K2, is quite spectacular. The late morning dive was particularly good, with lots of light, warm water, and just about the whole range of reef life on display. As we swam along, we could feel different currents blending, which is usually a signal that much will be happening. The different currents bring in nutrients, and that was certainly in evidence.

Many corals that are usually only open at night were fully out and feeding. Schools of reef fish that are normally lurking in or near their coral homes were out in the open, gorging themselves on yummy planktonic lunches. From the perspective of our photographer friends, the visibility isn't all they'd like, but the amount of life on display more than makes up for it.

At one point I spotted a couple of groupers, so I watched, thinking I might get a repeat or a variation on yesterday's courtship dance. Instead, one took off almost immediately, headed down the reef. As I pointed out the remaining one to my buddy, he spooked a little, and moved away. Almost instantly, the “rock” above him moved, revealing itself to be a fairly good sized, very well camouflaged, octopus!

I tried to get the octopus to play, but it only wanted me to go away. Doug came and got a few pictures, but by the time Andrew and his video camera got there, the octopus wanted nothing more than to hide. He found a rather deep hole in the reef, where I could barely see a tentacle and an eye, so I figured we were done.