Graphene: Atomic-Scale Chicken Wire

This post will be of interest to all my friends who are science geeks, and maybe to some people who play the stock markets with very high-risk and long-range investment strategies. Or perhaps I should say "gambling" strategies. Bear with me here, because if you are a bit of a geek, you'll be really glad to know about this stuff.

I'd imagine that most of you haven't heard of graphene before, if you aren't into the sciences. I first heard about it a couple years ago, when Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov won the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics for their graphene research. It didn't really come up on my radar again until about seven or eight months ago, although I've been very, very curious about it since then. In the past few weeks, a few articles have hit quasi-mainstream news sites, and a video about graphene went viral a week or so ago, so I figured I'd do a quick write-up.

I think graphene is going to completely change our lives in the future, although it may be five or six years before it starts to have widespread commercial and culturally impacts. But trust me, this is something that you ARE going to hear a lot about within a few years.

Before I continue about graphene, you may think you've heard of it before. Graphite is something that we've all used for years. Graphite (the main component of the "lead" in a pencil), is a crumbly substance that resembles a layer cake of weakly bonded graphene sheets.

In simple terms, to take a line or two directly from wikipedia, "Graphene is a substance composed of pure carbon, with atoms arranged in a regular hexagonal pattern similar to graphite, but in a one-atom thick sheet. It is very light, with a 1-square-meter sheet weighing only 0.77 milligrams. It is an allotrope of carbon whose structure is a single planar sheet of sp2-bonded carbon atoms, that are densely packed in a honeycomb crystal lattice. Graphene is most easily visualized as an atomic-scale chicken wire made of carbon atoms and their bonds. The crystalline or 'flake' form of graphite consists of many graphene sheets stacked together. Graphene is the basic structural element of some carbon allotropes including graphite, charcoal, carbon nanotubes and fullerenes. It can also be considered as an indefinitely large aromatic molecule, the limiting case of the family of flat polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons."

Perhaps that description went over a few heads, especially after the first sentence. Ok, let's make it more simple. Watch this year-old video:





If you really want to get into a deeper understanding of the physical and chemical properties of graphene, click here to read the full, detailed wikipedia article as a starting point. But you don't need to do that. Let's look at it more from a layperson's point-of-view:

Graphene is also flexible, so look at these two graphics to help you envision what I mean. The first is a single-layer graphene conceptualized, and then second makes you think about flexibility.







Back in 2003, I first heard about Peak Oil, and that ended up encouraging me to start learning more about fossil fuels and energy. Energy use and consumption, in all of the possible different forms, is basically the single most important issue affecting the human species in the future. Since 2003, I've quite literally spent more hours researching energy issues than I spent getting my first undergrad degree at Mount Allison. It's been time well spent, because energy consumption and sources are "big picture" items that affect us far, far more than 99.9% of the population could ever hope to understand.

If you pay any attention to energy supply issues yourself, you'll understand that two of the holy grail issues are the fact that a theoretical hydrogen-based economy is highly problematic because hydrogen is a carrier, not a source, and that we as a society have not been able to make great batteries for a variety of reasons.

Let me just show you another video, to give you a better understanding of how exciting this stuff will turn out to be:


The Super Supercapacitor | Brian Golden Davis from Focus Forward Films on Vimeo.

Those of you who understand physics and chemistry probably now realize why graphene can probably change our future completely. Imagine having highly effective and flexible batteries that can be charged almost as quickly as you can feed energy into them, and which you can just throw into a compost heap for recycling. Imagine being able to give your smartphone a full day's charge in one or two seconds. Imagine being able to charge an electric car in under a minute, instead of a few hours (which means that a traditional style "gas" station format would be possible, rather than "park & charge" areas). And of course, that's just a start. There isn't that much more that I need to say about it. If you've followed this far, you'll understand the potential, and you'll be able to do more digging yourself. I'll just leave you with a couple of recent articles to get you started:


http://www.kcet.org/news/rewire/science/super-fast-biodegradable-batteries-made-of-carbon.html

http://www.kcet.org/news/rewire/science/more-good-news-on-those-carbon-supercapacitors.html




Edit, March 19th: Here's a good article about the potential use of graphene in water desalinization:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/13/us-usa-desalination-idUSBRE92C05720130313



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Differences between Gasoline & Diesel, as Fuels and in Engines

Tree planting companies go through a lot of fuel each summer, and most companies have mixed needs for gasoline (called petrol in Europe) and diesel fuels. More often than anyone would like to admit, people put the wrong fuels into equipment or vehicles, damaging the engines and necessitating expensive repairs. To try to reduce the number of incidents in the industry, I just put together a 25-minute video that explains, among other things:
- The different properties of gasoline vs. diesel.
- Differences in gasoline and diesel engines.
- Storage and labelling.
- Handling tips.

If you don't want to read any of the info in the blog post below, you can skip all of it and just sit back and watch the video, which is probably more comprehensive anyway:

Here's a partial summary of the content of the video:


Reasons why you don’t use the wrong fuel in an engine:
Diesel in a gas engine isn’t great. But gas in a diesel is much worse: very, very bad. Modern “fuel injectors” in diesel engines do NOT tolerate gasoline. Or water, for that matter. Or dirt. Replacing an injector is around two thousand dollars right now. Always make sure that you’re actually putting diesel into a diesel engine, and make sure it’s clean. Don’t use jerry cans if you can see dirt or water inside. Make sure you never leave the cap off of a tidy tank, because if it rains, you’ll get water in the tank which will go on to harm another truck.

What’s the difference between an engine and a motor?
Well, technically, they’re the same thing, or at least started out that way. In Latin, there was a term “ingenium” which gave the French the term “engin.” That later became “engine” in English. The word “gin” (as in cotton gin) also came from this root, since the cotton gin was a type of machine. Anyway, the term motor wasn’t really invented until about a century ago, and initially referred to internal combustion engines. However, common usage has changed it. There are no real clear definitions, but you can assume that an engine transforms matter interally, whereas a motor doesn’t transform any type of matter and derives its energy from an external source. So an electric motor has no moving parts, but the electricity (which comes from an external source) allows it to produce work (such as a rotating shaft). The steam engine, which was an "external combustion engine" because the steam was produced externally (in a boiler) should probably be considered a motor. The definitions are pretty vague though, and the two words are constantly interchanged in everyday use.

Chemical differences between gasoline and diesel:
Well, first they smell different, but you really have to smell both types repeatedly to learn the smells. In general, diesel smells almost sweeter (to me) and doesn’t make me sick to my stomach. However, a strong odor of gasoline will make me feel nauseated fairly quickly. If you get some on your hand, gasoline is quite thin and on a warm day will evaporate quite quickly, whereas diesel feels quite greasy. Gasoline doesn’t really change its consistency as it gets colder, but diesel does increase in viscosity, getting slightly thicker. And important, diesel burns at a lower temperature. Diesel will ignite at 210 degrees Celsius and gasoline ignites at 246 degrees. I’ll explain why this is important in a few minutes. Incidentally, gasoline is quite explosive, whereas diesel isn’t. That’s because gasoline has a much lower vapour point, so it evaporates much more quickly than diesel. Essentially, the difference between diesel burning and gas exploding is just the speed of the oxidation reaction (the flames). Diesel combusts very slowly, which we see as “burning,” and gas combusts very quickly, which we see as an explosion.

Products that are closely related to diesel:
There are several different types of diesel, but they are all quite similar in chemical composition. Interestingly, home heating oil, kerosene, jet fuel, and agricultural diesel are all very similar to the normal diesel sold at service stations. In fact, people can generally burn various types of diesel, kerosene, and jet fuel in home heating furnaces. Speaking of kerosene, some camps carry kerosene for use in large heaters for “dry tent” facilities. Basically, kerosene and jet fuel are just slightly more refined grades of diesel, with less wax content. So it's OK to burn kerosene or jet fuel in a diesel engine, but I wouldn't recommend that you try burning diesel in a space heater or a helicopter.

Clear versus Dyed fuels:
Gas and diesel are both generally sold as either “clear” or “dyed” if you go to a bulk station or cardlock facility, although normal consumer services stations usually only have “clear” gas and diesel unless you're in a fairly rural area. The difference between the two lies in the taxes added to the price. Dyed diesel is intended for farm, logging, or other types of off-road use, and does not cost as much as clear diesel, even though they are the same chemical composition. Essentially, you might say that the taxes are higher on clear diesel because the extra money goes to help fund the public highway system. Or if you want an alternative way of looking at it, farm fuel and heating oil is cheaper because it’s considered to be more of a necessity, whereas diesel for public highway use is considered to be more of a luxury.

Diesel versus Gasoline Engines:
Did you know that a diesel doesn’t have spark plugs? That’s pretty strange, eh? No fire to light the fuel. Basically, a gasoline engine is known as a “spark ignition” system, because the gas is ignited by a spark from the spark plug. However, a diesel is known as a “compression ignition system.” Let me get more basic for a second. Both types of engines have cylinders. The fuel, regardless of whether it is diesel or gasoline, burns in a cylinder and this combustion causes the piston to move within the cylinder, and that piston movement drives the rest of the engine. So anyway, with a gasoline engine, gas is mixed with air, because you need oxygen for fire, and that is injected into the cylinder, then the spark plug provides a spark which ignites the fuel/air mixture to move the piston. However, diesel doesn’t need that spark. You see, if you took physics in high school, you might remember that when the pressure of a gas (and by that I mean real gas, like oxygen, not an abbreviation for gasoline) increases, its temperature rises. So in a diesel engine, it is ONLY air that is compressed, and it gets very hot when it is compressed because the high pressure causes the temperature to spike. Then diesel is spayed into the cylinder by the fuel injector, and since diesel lights at 210 celsius, and the compressed air is hotter than that, the diesel will burn. Again, it is more of a “burn” than an “explosion.” The gas engine is a bunch of mini explosions. Now of course, a cold diesel engine makes it hard for the diesel to ignite, even when the air is compressed, so that’s what the glow plug is for. It just warms up the cylinders for a few seconds when you turn the cold truck on, to get the whole processes started. But after the truck has run for a few seconds, the metal of the cylinder is warm enough that the compressed air is sufficient warm to keep things going. Anyway, that’s all kinds of info that a regular lay person doesn’t necessarily need to know, but it’s good for a tree planter. That’s because planters deal with a number of different engines in camp, and most camps use both gas and diesel. So let’s focus on how to keep them separate, because that’s the most important lesson that you should get out of this video.

Labelling and identifying:
There are a couple ways to commonly label or identify gas and diesel. A person shouldn’t have to rely on smelling them to figure out what type of fuel you have. The first way to tell them apart is the UN Number. The UN number is a four-digit code system that was invented by the United Nations to label hazardous materials. The UN code for diesel is 1202, and the code for gasoline is 1203. This isn’t really easy to remember, so the way I remember it is that the word diesel starts with a “lower” letter in the alphabet, and the UN number is also lower. The other way to distinguish the two fuels is by the colour of the containers. Gasoline is always stored in red containers, and diesel is always stored in yellow containers. It doesn’t matter if you’re talking about a small portable plastic jerry can, which usually holds about 25 litres, or a large “tidy tank” or “slip tank” mounted on the back of a pickup, which often hold around 440 litres. This is important: you should NEVER allow diesel to be put into a red container, and you should NEVER allow gasoline to be put into a yellow container. Even if you want to do that because you don’t have another container, and you think it’s OK because you can put a label on it, mistakes happen. Someone might somehow grab that container and not realize that the wrong type of fuel is in it, and put that wrong fuel into an engine and destroy a vehicle or piece of equipment. I cannot emphasize this too strongly. Red is for Gasoline. Yellow is for Diesel.

Which engines require which fuels?
Next, you need to completely understand what type of fuel goes into an engine. In General, small engines take gasoline. So portable waters pumps, generators, and quads or ATV’s usually take gasoline. But it is possible to buy bigger generators, such as a 6000w generator, that run on diesel. Some planting camps use these, so if you’re uncertain about what type of fuel goes into a piece of equipment, ask someone who is absolutely a safe source of information. Ask your cook, ask a foreman, or ask a supervisor. For vehicles, some camps use gasoline trucks and some use diesels, and some run both types. There should always be a sticker beside the fuel tank to clarify the type of fuel that is required for the vehicle. And it is also a good practice to ensure that the designated driver of a vehicle is the only person who ever puts fuel into the vehicle.

Conclusions:
That’s all I have to say about fuels, and if everyone in our industry understands what I’ve just talked about, we run a much lower chance of damaging equipment. And that’s good, because I’d rather see money being paid out as a higher tree price than being used to pay for senseless repairs. Remember, red for gasoline, and yellow for diesel. There should only be designated people who fuel up generators and vehicles. If you’re fueling something, make absolutely sure you know what type of fuel it needs. And finally, always replace the caps on tidy tanks and fuel barrels after filling them or removing fuel from them, so rain can’t get in to the containers.



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 My most well-known book (over ten thousand copies distributed) is called "Step By Step, A Tree Planter's Handbook."  For a free copy, visit this page:

www.replant.ca/digitaldownloads

 

My Little Library

Time to share a book list.

All of my life, I've been a pretty heavy reader. Some people think it's a problem when they pick up a book, and can't put it down, so they just keep reading until the middle of the night when they finish it. I've done that countless numbers of times, and fairly often, I'll even start another book once the first one is finished.

I'm a huge fan of real, paper books that you can hold in your hand. But despite that, I'm not one of these pretentious people who completely eschews technology. I have a couple of e-book readers (the Nexus 7 is my preferred reader). Most of the time, I'd prefer a paper version of a book, but the e-book reader is handy to carry around when I'm travelling and I don't want to carry an armload of real books. It's also good because I can keep a number of reference books on it that I don't refer to very often, but they're handy when I'm working on music or computer projects and I don't have internet access.

My physical library at home is getting to be pretty big, but I've been trying to build an electronic library too. I'm going to print a directory listing from that library in a minute, because I've been talking about books with a couple of people and this will be an easy way to share. Of course, it's not as extensive as my paper library, but it's getting to be more comprehensive every week.

Most of what I read can be grouped into major categories. In order, from the stuff I read the most to the least, they'd be:

     - Science Fiction/Fantasy (more emphasis on the SF, ie. Asimov, Heinlein)
     - Mysteries/Crime/Legal (ie. Agatha Christie, John Grisham, Sue Grafton)
     - Drama (ie. Tom Clancy)
     - Classic Literature
     - Modern Bestsellers
     - Computers/Technology
     - Cooking/Food
     - Children’s Books
     - Miscellaneous

Edit:  By the way, if you didn't know, I'm also an author.  Here's a link to a couple of the books that I've written about tree planting, and you can get a free digital download of "Step By Step" if you follow the links through to the digital downloads page:  www.jonathanclark.ca/reforestation.html

Remember that the listing I paste here in a minute is just my electronic library. There are a lot of notable omissions from this list that I actually do own at home in hard copy. I haven't read all of the books on the list below. I'd guess that I've read a bit over eighty-five percent of them so far, so there are still sixty or seventy in the list below that are on my short-term "to read" list. One of my problems is that once I read a book once, if I like it, I'll often read it again the following year. Of the books on the following list that I've read, about half are volumes that I've read once, and the other half I've probably read about three times each on average. I'm sure that I've read quite a few of them (like Lord of the Rings, the John Carter of Mars series, and many of the Grisham and Agatha Christie and Asimov books) at least half a dozen times each. I'm a fairly fast reader, by the way.

Anyway, so here's my current eBook library listing, for those of you who like to recommend books to me:



Adrian Johns - Piracy, The Intellectual Property Wars.mobi
Aesop - Fables.mobi
Agatha Christie - 450 From Paddington.lit
Agatha Christie - A Caribbean Mystery.lit
Agatha Christie - A Murder Is Announced.lit
Agatha Christie - A Pocket Full Of Rye.lit
Agatha Christie - At Betram's Hotel.lit
Agatha Christie - Best Detective Stories Of Agatha Christie.lit
Agatha Christie - Body In The Library.lit
Agatha Christie - Burden.lit
Agatha Christie - Complete Short Stories Of Miss Marple.lit
Agatha Christie - Death On The Nile.lit
Agatha Christie - Elephants Can Remember.lit
Agatha Christie - Evil Under The Sun.lit
Agatha Christie - Hercule Poirot's Christmas.lit
Agatha Christie - Hickory Dickory Death.lit
Agatha Christie - Lord Edgware Dies.lit
Agatha Christie - Murder At The Vicarage.lit
Agatha Christie - Murder In Mesopotamia.lit
Agatha Christie - Murder In Retrospect.lit
Agatha Christie - Murder Of Roger Ackroyd.lit
Agatha Christie - Murder On The Links.lit
Agatha Christie - Murder On The Orient Express.lit
Agatha Christie - Mysterious Affair At Styles.lit
Agatha Christie - Mysterious Mr Quin.lit
Agatha Christie - Partners In Crime.lit
Agatha Christie - Poirot Loses A Client.lit
Agatha Christie - Poirot's Early Cases.lit
Agatha Christie - Pricking Of My Thumbs.lit
Agatha Christie - Secret Adversary.lit
Agatha Christie - Sleeping Murder.lit
Agatha Christie - The Circular Staircase.lit
Agatha Christie - The Clocks.lit
Agatha Christie - The Man In Lower Ten.lit
Agatha Christie - The Moving Finger.lit
Agatha Christie - The Murder At The Vicarage.lit
Agatha Christie - The Mysterious Affair At Styles.lit
Agatha Christie - The Secret Adversary.lit
Agatha Christie - They Do It With Mirrors.lit
Agatha Christie - Third Girl.lit
Agatha Christie - Why Didn't They Ask Evans.lit
AJ Jacobs - The Year Of Living Biblically.mobi
Alain De Botton - A Week At The Airport.mobi
Alan Paul - Big In China, My Unlikely Adventures.mobi
Alan Weisman - The World Without Us.mobi
Aldous Huxley - Brave New World.mobi
Alessandro Alciato - The Beautiful Games Of An Ordinary Genius.mobi
Alex Haley - Roots.mobi
Alexandra Horowitz - Inside Of A Dog.mobi
Alexandre Dumas - The Three Musketeers.mobi
Alice Munro - Too Much Happiness.mobi
Amelia Jeanroy - Canning & Preserving For Dummies.mobi
Amy Tan - The Joy Luck Club.mobi
Anne Frank - Diary Of A Young Girl.mobi
Anne McCaffrey - The Dragonriders Of Pern.mobi
Anthony Bourdain - Kitchen Confidential.mobi
Anthony Bourdin - In Search Of The Perfect Meal.mobi
Anthony Burgess - A Clockwork Orange.mobi
Arthur C Clarke - Childhood's End.mobi
Arthur C Clarke - Rendezvous With Rama.mobi
Arthur Golden - Memoirs Of A Geisha.mobi
Asimov & Bear - Foundation And Chaos [2F2].lit
Asimov & Benford - Foundation's Fear [2F1].lit
Asimov & Brin - Foundation's Triumph [2F3].lit
Audrey Niffenegger - The Time Traveller's Wife.mobi
Ayn Rand - Atlas Shrugged.mobi
Ayn Rand - The Fountainhead.mobi
Barbara Kingsolver - The Poisonwood Bible.mobi
Barbara Obermier - Photoshop CS5 For Dummies.pdf
Ben H Winters - Sense And Sensibility And Sea Monsters.mobi
Bill Buford - Heat.mobi
Bill Jamison - Around The World In 80 Dinners.mobi
Bobby Flay - Throwdown.mobi
Boris Pasternak - Doctor Zhivago.mobi
Bret Easton Ellis - American Psycho.mobi
Bryce Courtenay - Brother Fish.mobi
Bryce Courtenay - Smoky Joe's Cafe.mobi
Bryce Courtenay - The Power Of One.mobi
Carl E Walter - Red Capitalism.mobi
Carl Sagan - Contact.mobi
Carl Sagan - Cosmos.mobi
Carl Sagan - Pale Blue Dot.mobi
Charles Dickens - David Copperfield.mobi
Charles Dickens - Great Expectations.mobi
Charles Dickens - Ye Olde Curiousity Shoppe.mobi
Charles Dickins - A Tale Of Two Cities.mobi
Charlie Nardozzi - Vegetable Gardening For Dummies.mobi
Chelsea Handler - Are You There, Vodka.mobi
Chelsea Handler - Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang.mobi
Chelsea Handler - My Horizontal Life.mobi
Christine Freehan - Dark Descent.mobi
Christopher Hadnagy - Social Engineering.mobi
Chuck Klosterman - On Film And Television.mobi
Chuck Klosterman - On Media And Culture.mobi
Chuck Klosterman - On Pop.mobi
Chuck Klosterman - On Rock.mobi
Chuck Klosterman - Sex, Drugs, And Cocoa Puffs.mobi
Ciril Hitz - Baking Artisan Bread.mobi
CS Lewis - Prince Caspian [CN4].mobi
CS Lewis - The Horse And His Boy [CN3].mobi
CS Lewis - The Last Battle [CN7].lit
CS Lewis - The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe [CN1].mobi
CS Lewis - The Magician's Nephew [CN2].mobi
CS Lewis - The Silver Chair [CN6].mobi
CS Lewis - The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader [CN5].mobi
Dale Carson - Arrest Proof Yourself.opf
Dan Brown - Angels & Demons.mobi
Dan Brown - Deception Point.mobi
Dan Brown - Digital Fortress.lrf
Dan Brown - The Da Vinci Code.mobi
Dan Brown - The Lost Symbol.mobi
Daniel Halpern - Not For Bread Alone.mobi
Daniel Keyes - Flowers For Algernon.mobi
Daniel Yergin - The Prize.epub
Dante Alighieri - The Divine Comedy.lit
Darrell L Bock - Breaking The Da Vinci Code.lit
David Thorne - The Internet Is A Playground.mobi
DH Lawrence - Lady Chatterley's Lover.mobi
DH Lawrence - Sons And Lovers.txt
Dominique Adair - Last Kiss.lit
Douglas Adams - Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy [HHGG1].lit
Douglas Adams - Life, The Universe, And Everything [HHGG3].lit
Douglas Adams - Mostly Harmless [HHGG5].lit
Douglas Adams - So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish [HHGG4].lit
Douglas Adams - The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe [HHGG2].lit
E L James - Fifty Shades Darker [FS2].epub
E L James - Fifty Shades Freed [FS3].epub
E L James - Fifty Shades Of Grey [FS1].epub
Edgar Rice Burroughs - A Fighting Man Of Mars [JCM07].lit
Edgar Rice Burroughs - A Princess Of Mars [JCM01].lit
Edgar Rice Burroughs - John Carter Of Mars [JCM11].lit
Edgar Rice Burroughs - Llana Of Gathol [JCM10].lit
Edgar Rice Burroughs - Master Mind Of Mars [JCM06].lit
Edgar Rice Burroughs - Swords Of Mars [JCM08].lit
Edgar Rice Burroughs - Synthetic Men Of Mars [JCM09].lit
Edgar Rice Burroughs - The Gods Of Mars [JCM02].lit
Edgar Rice Burroughs - The Warlord of Mars [JCM03].lit
Edgar Rice Burroughs - Thuvia Maid Of Mars [JCM04].lit
Emeril Lagasse - Farm To Fork.mobi
Emily Bronte - Wuthering Heights.lit
Eric Schlosser - Fast Food Nation.mobi
Erica Bauermeister - The Monday Night Cooking School.mobi
Erich Maria Remarque - All's Quiet On The Western Front.mobi
Ernest Hemingway - For Whom The Bell Tolls.mobi
Ernest Hemingway - The Old Man And The Sea.mobi
Ernest Hemingway - The Sun Also Rises.mobi
Evan Mandery - First Contact.mobi
F Scott Fitzgerald - The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button.mobi
F Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby.mobi
Frank Herbert - Dune.mobi
Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Crime And Punishment.lit
Gabriel Cousens - Conscious Eating.mobi
Gabriel Garcia Marquez - One Hundred Years Of Solitude.mobi
Gabrielle Hamilton - Blood, Bones, And Butter.mobi
Garrison Keillor - Leaving Home.lit
Garry Poole - The Complete Book Of Questions.pdf
Gary Small - The Naked Lady Who Stood On Her Head.mobi
Gary Taubes - Good Calories, Bad Calories.mobi
George Carlin - Napalm And Silly Putty.mobi
George Carlin - When Will Jesus Bring The Pork Chops.mobi
George Orwell - 1984.lrf
George Orwell - Animal Farm.lrf
George Orwell - Nineteen Eighty Four.mobi
George RR Martin - A Clash of Kings [GOT 02].mobi
George RR Martin - A Feast for Crows [GOT 04].mobi
George RR Martin - A Game Of Thrones [SOIF 01].mobi
George RR Martin - A Storm of Swords [SOIF 03].mobi
Gordon Ramsay - Cooking For Friends.mobi
Harold McGee - On Food And Cooking.mobi
Harper Lee - To Kill A Mockingbird.mobi
Harriet Beecher Stowe - Uncle Tom's Cabin.mobi
Heidi Murkoff - What To Expect When You're Expecting.mobi
Hervé This - Kitchen Mysteries.mobi
Herve This - The Science Of The Oven.mobi
HG Wells - The War Of The Worlds.mobi
Hunter S Thompson - Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas.mobi
Hunter S Thompson - Hell's Angels.mobi
Hunter S Thompson - The Great Shark Hunt.mobi
Hunter S Thompson - The Rum Diary.lit
Irvine Welsh - Trainspotting.mobi
Isaac Asimov - Azazel.epub
Isaac Asimov - Best Of Isaac Asimov.epub
Isaac Asimov - Buy Jupiter And Other Stories.epub
Isaac Asimov - Complete Robot.epub
Isaac Asimov - Earth Is Room Enough.epub
Isaac Asimov - Forward The Foundation [1F10].lit
Isaac Asimov - Forward the Foundation [1F2].epub
Isaac Asimov - Foundation [1F3].epub
Isaac Asimov - Foundation And Earth [1F6].lit
Isaac Asimov - Foundation's Edge [1F5].lit
Isaac Asimov - Foundation's Friends Short Story Collection.lit
Isaac Asimov - Gold, The Final Science Fiction Collection.epub
Isaac Asimov - I, Robot.epub
Isaac Asimov - Mysteries.epub
Isaac Asimov - Nightfall & Other Stories.epub
Isaac Asimov - Nightfall Two.epub
Isaac Asimov - Nine Tomorrows.epub
Isaac Asimov - Pebble In The Sky.epub
Isaac Asimov - Prelude to Foundation [1F1].epub
Isaac Asimov - Robot Dreams.epub
Isaac Asimov - Robot Visions.epub
Isaac Asimov - Robots & Empire.epub
Isaac Asimov - Robots Of Dawn.epub
Isaac Asimov - Second Foundation [1F4].lit
Isaac Asimov - Stars, Like Dust.epub
Isaac Asimov - The Bicentennial Man & Other Stories.epub
Isaac Asimov - The Caves of Steel.epub
Isaac Asimov - The Complete Stories.epub
Isaac Asimov - The Currents of Space.epub
Isaac Asimov - The Martian Way.epub
Isaac Asimov - The Naked Sun.epub
Isaac Asimov - The Positronic Man.epub
Isaac Asimov - The Rest Of The Robots.epub
Isaac Asimov - The Union Club Mysteries.epub
Isak Dinesen - Out Of Africa.lit
Jack Kerouac - On the Road.lit
Jack Kerouac - On The Road.mobi
Jack Kerouac - The Dharma Bums.mobi
Jack London - Call Of The Wild.lit
Jack London - The Call of the Wild, White Fang.mobi
James Cain - The Postman Always Rings Twice.lit
James Fenimore Cooper - Last Of The Mohicans.mobi
James Fenimore Cooper - The Deerslayer.mobi
James Herriott - All Creatures Great And Small.lit
Jane Austen - Pride And Prejudice.lit
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte.mobi
Jared M Diamond - Guns, Germs, And Steel.mobi
JD Salinger - Catcher In The Rye.mobi
Jeff Potter - Cooking For Geeks.mobi
Jesse Ventura - 63 Documents The Government Doesn't Want You To See.mobi
Jessica Amason - This Is Why You're Fat.mobi
John Allen Paulos - Innumeracy.mobi
John Brunner - The Sheep Look Up.lit
John Erickson - Hacking, The Art of Exploitation.mobi
John Gray - Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus.lit
John Grisham - A Painted House.mobi
John Grisham - A Time To Kill.mobi
John Grisham - The Appeal.mobi
John Grisham - The Associate.mobi
John Grisham - The Brethren.mobi
John Grisham - The Broker.mobi
John Grisham - The Chamber.mobi
John Grisham - The Client.mobi
John Grisham - The Confession.mobi
John Grisham - The Firm.mobi
John Grisham - The Innocent Man.mobi
John Grisham - The King Of Torts.mobi
John Grisham - The Last Juror.mobi
John Grisham - The Partner.mobi
John Grisham - The Pelican Brief.mobi
John Grisham - The Rainmaker.mobi
John Grisham - The Runaway Jury.mobi
John Grisham - The Street Lawyer.mobi
John Grisham - The Summons.mobi
John Grisham - The Testament.mobi
John Grogan - Marley And Me.mobi
John Irving - A Prayer For Owen Meany.lit
John Le Carre - Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.lit
John Steinbeck - Cannery Row.mobi
John Steinbeck - East Of Eden.mobi
John Steinbeck - Of Mice And Men.mobi
John Steinbeck - Once There Was A War.mobi
John Steinbeck - The Grapes Of Wrath.mobi
John Steinbeck - The Harvest Gypsies.mobi
John Steinbeck - The Log From The Sea Of Cortez.mobi
John Steinbeck - The Moon Is Down.mobi
John Steinbeck - The Pearl.mobi
John Steinbeck - The Red Pony.mobi
John Steinbeck - To A God Unknown.mobi
John Steinbeck - Tortilla Flat.mobi
John Truby - The Anatomy Of Story.mobi
John Wyndham - The Chrysalids.mobi
Joseph Conrad - The Heart Of Darkness.lit
Joseph Heller - Catch 22.lit
JRR Tolkien - Lord Of The Rings.mobi
JRR Tolkien - The Fellowship Of The Ring.mobi
JRR Tolkien - The Hobbitt.mobi
JRR Tolkien - The Return Of The King.mobi
JRR Tolkien - The Two Towers.mobi
Judy Allen - Confessions Of An Event Planner.mobi
Justin Halpern - Shit My Dad Says.mobi
Keith Richards - Life.mobi
Ken Kesey - One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest.mobi
Kenneth Grahame - The Wind In The Willows.mobi
Kevin Poulsen - Kingpin.mobi
Kurt Vonnegut - Breakfast Of Champions.mobi
Kurt Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse Five.mobi
Laney Salisbury - Provenance.mobi
Larsson Steig - The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets Nest.lrf
Larsson Steig - The Girl Who Played With Fire.lrf
Larsson Steig - The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.lrf
Learning Python - Mark Lutz.mobi
Lewis Carroll - Alice's Adventures In Wonderland.lit
Lewis Carroll - Through The Looking Glass.lit
Linda West Eckhardt - The High Protein Cookbook.mobi
Louis Debernieres - Captain Corelli's Mandolin.lit
Madeleine L'Engle - A Wrinkle In Time.mobi
Margaret Atwood - Oryx and Crake.mobi
Margaret Atwood - The Blind Assassin.lit
Margaret Atwood - The Handmaid's Tale.lrf
Margaret Atwood - The Year of the Flood.mobi
Margaret Mitchell - Gone With The Wind.mobi
Marian Keyes - Sushi For Beginners.mobi
Mario Livio - The Golden Ratio.mobi
Mario Puzo - The Godfather.mobi
Mark Bittman - Food Matters.mobi
Mark Haddon - The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night Time.lit
Martin Jacques - What To Expect When China Rules The World.mobi
Masanobu Fukuoka - The One Straw Revolution.mobi
Melissa Bank - The Girl's Guide To Hunting And Fishing.lit
Michael Crichton - Airframe.lit
Michael Crichton - Andromeda Strain.lit
Michael Crichton - Binary.lit
Michael Crichton - Congo.lit
Michael Crichton - Disclosure.lit
Michael Crichton - Eaters Of The Dead.lit
Michael Crichton - Endstation.lit
Michael Crichton - Jurassic Park.lit
Michael Crichton - Prey.lit
Michael Crichton - Sphere.lit
Michael Crichton - State Of Fear.lit
Michael Crichton - The Lost World.lit
Michael Crichton - Timeline.lit
Michael Ende - The Neverending Story.lit
Michael Pollan - The Omnivore's Dilemma.mobi
Michael Ruhlman - The Reach Of A Chef.mobi
Michael Schrenk - Webbots, Spiders, And Screen Scrapers.mobi
Miguel De Cervantes - Don Quixote.lit
Mike Ashley - The Mammoth Book Of Apocalyptic Science Fiction.mobi
Mike Riley - Programming Your Home.epub
Mitch Albom - Tuesdays With Morrie.lit
Moby Dick - Herman Melville.mobi
Mockingjay - Suzanne Collins.mobi
Mykle Hansen - Help, A Bear Is Eating Me.mobi
Nancie McDermott - Quick And Easy Chinese.mobi
Nathaniel Hawthorne - The Scarlett Letter.lit
Neil deGrasse Tyson - Death By Black Hole.mobi
Neil Jackson - The Outsiders.mobi
Nick Douglas - Twitter Wit.mobi
Nick Hornby - High Fidelity.lit
Nicole Mones - Lost In Translation.mobi
Nikki Sixx - The Heroin Diaries.mobi
Nitesh Dhanjani - Hacking, The Next Generation.mobi
Norton Juster - The Phantom Tollbooth.mobi
Novella Carpenter - Farm City.mobi
Ode Ogebe - Achebe's Things Fall Apart.mobi
Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray.mobi
Patricia Cornwall - The Last Precinct.lrf
Patricia Cornwall - Trace.lrf
Patricia Cornwell - All That Remains.lit
Patricia Cornwell - Black Notice.lit
Patricia Cornwell - Blow Fly.lrf
Patricia Cornwell - Body Farm.lit
Patricia Cornwell - Body Of Evidence.lit
Patricia Cornwell - Cause Of Death.lit
Patricia Cornwell - Cruel And Unusual.lit
Patricia Cornwell - From Potter's Field.lit
Patricia Cornwell - Hornets Nest.lit
Patricia Cornwell - Isle Of Dogs.lit
Patricia Cornwell - Last Precinct.lit
Patricia Cornwell - Point Of Origin.lit
Patricia Cornwell - Postmortem.lit
Patricia Cornwell - Predator.lrf
Patricia Cornwell - Scarpetta.lrf
Patricia Cornwell - Scarpetta's Winter Table.lit
Patricia Cornwell - Southern Cross.lit
Patricia Cornwell - The Body Farm.lit
Patricia Cornwell - The Scarpetta Factor.lrf
Patricia Cornwell - Unnatural Exposure.lit
Patricia Cornwell - Unnatural Exposure.lrf
Peter Hessler - Country Driving, A Journey Through China.mobi
Peter Hessler - River Town, Two Years On The Yangtze.mobi
Ray Bradbury - Death Is A Lonely Business.lit
Ray Bradbury - Fahrenheit 451.lit
Ray Bradbury - Something Wicked This Way Comes.lit
Ray Bradbury - The Martian Chronicles.lit
Raymond Charles Barrett - Short Story Writing.mobi
Richard Adams - Watership Down.mobi
Richard Neer - FM, The Rise And Fall Of Rock Radio.mobi
Roald Dahl - Charlie And The Chocolate Factory.lit
Roald Dahl - Charlie And The Great Glass Elevator.lit
Roald Dahl - James And The Giant Peach.lrf
Robert Anton Wilson - Schrodinger's Cat Trilogy.mobi
Robert Ludlum - The Bourne Identity [B1].lit
Robert Ludlum - The Bourne Supremacy [B2].lit
Robert Ludlum - The Bourne Ultimatum [B3].lit
Robert M Pirsig - Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance.mobi
Robert Sullivan - Rats, New York's Most Unwanted.mobi
Robertson Davies - Fifth Business.lit
Robertson Davies - The Manticore.lit
Robertson Davies - World Of Wonders.lit
Robin Cook - Acceptable Risk.lit
Robin Cook - Blindsight.lit
Robin Cook - Brain.lit
Robin Cook - Chromosome 6.lit
Robin Cook - Coma.lit
Robin Cook - Contagion.lit
Robin Cook - Fatal Cure.lit
Robin Cook - Godplayer.lit
Robin Cook - Harmful Intent.lit
Robin Cook - Outbreak.lit
Robin Cook - Toxin.lit
Robin Cook - Vital Signs.lit
Roni Sarig - The Secret History Of Rock.mobi
Roy Peter Clark - Writing Tools.mobi
Rudyard Kipling - The Jungle Book.lit
Russell Aiuto - Lizzie Borden Took An Axe.lit
Samuel Beckett - Waiting For Godot.lit
Sean Wilentz - Bob Dylan In America.mobi
Sharon Moalem - Survival Of The Sickest.mobi
Sonny Barger - Let's Ride.mobi
Stan Berenstain - Old Hat, New Hat.mobi
Stan Berenstain - The Berenstain Bears And The Spooky Old Tree.mobi
Stan Berenstain - The Big Honey Hunt.mobi
Stan Berenstain - The Bike Lesson.mobi
Stephen Crane - The Red Badge Of Courage.mobi
Stephen Hawking - A Brief History of Time.lit
Stephen King - 11 22 63.mobi
Stephen King - Cujo.lit
Stephen King - Firestarter.lit
Stephen King - The Dead Zone.lit
Stephen King - The Green Mile.lit
Stephen King - The Stand.lit
Stephen Leacock - Sunshine Sketches Of A Little Town.mobi
Steve Earle - I'll Never Get Out Of This World Alive.mobi
Steve Knopper - Appetite For Self Destruction.mobi
Steven Adler - My Appetite For Destruction.mobi
Steven D Levitt - Freakonomics.mobi
Steven D Levitt - Superfreakonomics.mobi
Stuart McLean - Vinyl Cafe Unplugged.mobi
Sue Grafton - A is for Alibi.lit
Sue Grafton - B is for Burglar.lit
Sue Grafton - C is for Corpse.lit
Sue Grafton - D is for Deadbea.lit
Sue Grafton - E is for Evidence.lit
Sue Grafton - F is for Fugitive.lit
Sue Grafton - G is for Gumshoe.lit
Sue Grafton - H is for Homicide.lit
Sue Grafton - I is for Innocent.lit
Sue Grafton - J is for Judgement.lit
Sue Grafton - K is for Killer.lit
Sue Grafton - L is for Lawless.lit
Sue Grafton - M is for Malice.lit
Sue Grafton - N is for Noose.lit
Sue Grafton - O is for Outlaw.lit
Sue Grafton - Q is for Quarry.lit
Sue Grafton - R is for Ricochet.lit
Sun Tzu - The Art Of War.mobi
Susan Richards - Lost And Found In Russia.mobi
Susie Middleton - Fast, Fresh, And Green.mobi
Suzanne Collins - Catching Fire.mobi
Suzanne Collins - The Hunger Games.mobi
Terry Brooks - Sword Of Shannara.lrf
Terry Brooks - The Elfstones Of Shannara.lrf
Terry Brooks - The Wishsong Of Shannara.lrf
Thomas Hardy - Far From The Madding Crowd.lit
Tim Haas - The Herb Garden Gourmet.mobi
Timothy Ferriss - The 4 Hour Body.mobi
Tom Clancy - Clear & Present Danger.lit
Tom Clancy - Debt Of Honor.lit
Tom Clancy - Executive Orders.lit
Tom Clancy - Hunt For Red October.lit
Tom Clancy - Operation Rainbow.lit
Tom Clancy - Patriot Games [JR2].lit
Tom Clancy - Patriot Games.lit
Tom Clancy - Rainbow Six [JR9].lit
Tom Clancy - Red Rabbit.lit
Tom Clancy - Red Storm Rising.lit
Tom Clancy - Teeth Of The Tiger.lit
Tom Clancy - The Bear And The Dragon.lit
Tom Clancy - The Cardinal Of The Kremlin [JR3].lit
Tom Clancy - The Sum Of All Fears [JR5].lit
Tom Clancy - Without Remorse.lit
Tom Holt - Life, Liberty, And The Pursuit of Sausages.mobi
Tom Wolfe - The Bonfire Of The Vanities.mobi
Truman Capote - Breakfast At Tiffany's.mobi
Various - Golden Age Of Science Fiction Volume 01.mobi
Various - Golden Age Of Science Fiction Volume 02.mobi
Various - Golden Age Of Science Fiction Volume 03.mobi
Various - Golden Age Of Science Fiction Volume 04.mobi
Various - Golden Age Of Science Fiction Volume 05.mobi
Various - Golden Age Of Science Fiction Volume 06.mobi
Various - Golden Age Of Science Fiction Volume 07.mobi
Various - Golden Age Of Science Fiction Volume 08.mobi
Various - Golden Age Of Science Fiction Volume 09.mobi
Various - Golden Age Of Science Fiction Volume 10.mobi
Various - Golden Age Of Science Fiction Volume 11.mobi
Various - Golden Age Of Science Fiction Volume 12.mobi
Various - Golden Age Of Science Fiction Volume 13.mobi
Victoria Boutenko - 12 Steps To Raw Foods.mobi
Walter M Miller - A Canticle For Leibowitz.mobi
William Dietz - Prison Planet.lit
William Golding - Lord Of The Flies.mobi
William S Burroughs - The Naked Lunch.lit
Williams Goldman - The Princess Bride.lit
Yann Martel - Life Of Pi.mobi

Here's the cover of my most popular book (more than 10,000 copies distributed):

NYC Subway System

As a student of history and business, one of my natural curiosities is thinking about "what can go wrong" in the world. Those who fail to study history are doomed to repeat it. The past has lots of lessons about things that can have a pretty negative effect upon civilization. Unfortunately, it often happens that some problems which are in plain view to a few people are only obvious to everyone else in hindsight.

I read a pretty interesting book several years ago, called, The World Without Us. Written by Alan Weisman, the book discusses what would happen to various parts of our civilization if humanity suddenly disappeared tomorrow. It's not a judgemental book, and doesn't attempt to provoke reactions by suggesting how humanity would disappear. It just discusses what would probably happen IF humans magically disappeared from the surface of the planet in a short period of time (something like 24 hours, if I remember correctly).

One of the earlier chapters in the book, if I remember correctly, talked about the New York City subway system, and its vulnerability to flooding. I believe that the background behind the concept was related to the gradual rise of sea levels related to global warming. After all, if you remember "An Inconvenient Truth," you'll know that some humans (only a billion or so) would be significantly affected by a rise in sea levels of only several feet.

But now that Hurricane Sandy is hitting New York City (during a full moon, no less, which increases tidal surges), there is a very real chance that storm surges will produce effects similar to or exceeding the situation described in "The World Without Us."

I can only hope that Sandy will not cause as much damage as could potentially be possible in a worst-case scenario. Looking at articles on the net from earlier today, it appears that people have talked about the potential for the subway system to be non-functional for [possibly] a couple of days. In reality, there is a small chance that the subway could be down for far, far longer than that.


Here's an interesting quotation from Gizmodo:

Most people may not realise it — or never have occasion to think about it — but NYC’s subway system is susceptible to flooding. The possibility is quite real.

What most people don’t know is that we depend on just 700 fragile water pumps to keep the tunnels dry — some a century old.

In fact, if someone powered down all these pumps tomorrow, the entire subway network would be inundated in just a few hours. To give you an idea of how complex and massive this system is, it pulls 50 million litres of water out of the subway on any sunny day. No rain. Not even a single drop of water from the sky. If Sandy manages to kill the power of any of the fragile old pumps protecting the system, there may be some serious problems.

On a rainy day, the pump system is absolute chaos, to the point where the MTA — NYC’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority — lives in permanent panic, fearing events like Sandy, the hurricane system that is approaching the little town right now. “At some point, it would be too much to handle,” said the head of the hydraulics team back in 2006, Peter Velasquez Jr, “you’ve got rain plus wind. It basically would shut down the system. You hope not. You pray that it doesn’t.

“To give you an idea about how bad this could be, some of the oldest pumps in the NYCTA system were bought second-hand from the builders of the Panama Canal. I worked for the TA many years ago and even then the pumps were considered a serious problem. The Panama Canal was finished in 1914.”

One of these days, I'm thinking about writing a series of blog posts about other potential disasters that are surprisingly possible for our modern society. To clarify, I'm not the slightest bit concerned by the Mayan "end of the world" predictions for this December. I think that the "end of the world" is all fear-mongering (although to a small extent, it will probably be somewhat of a self-perpetuating phenomena, at least on a micro scale, for certain people). It is only random chance that nature has produced this hurricane, possibly the strongest in decades on the north-east coast, on the same weekend that Canada experienced its strongest earthquake in fifty years. That earthquake was 7.7 RS, which happened here in BC on Saturday night while I was in the shower (with a follow-up this evening at 6.2 RS).

Anyway, a friend of mine (Drew Dudley) had an interesting conversation with me about "Black Swan" events a few years ago. I think that you'd find some of the scenarios to be interesting, if not always likely. I feel like it would be interesting to make some blog posts along those lines in the weeks leading up to December 21st.


Here's a buy-link to "The World Without Us" if you'd like to check it out:

"The World Without Us" on Amazon

Edit, 24hrs later: Unfortunately, it looks like a worst-case scenario has been realized. See this article from half an hour ago.

Avicii - Penguin (Sadoway & Bolivia's Dubstep Remix)

When I travelled to Antarctica last November, I ended up taking a lot of photos, which have already been seen by tens of thousands of people at this point. But I also took a lot of video footage, which I hadn't had time to play with until recently. Earlier this spring, I was trying to figure out a way to make it interesting, and thought it would be good background footage for a remix or an original track. And with the recently popularity of a track called "Penguin" by Avicii (Tim Bergling, who has also produced tracks such as "Seek Bromance" under the name Tim Berg), I thought this would be a perfect fit for a remix and video.

James Sadoway is a really talented producer and friend of mine that I met a few years ago through a mutual friend in Vancouver, Shawn Cole. When I talked to him about some ideas a few weeks ago, he said that he'd be interested in working together. I started by laying out a bit of basic work on the track and video, and visited him in Edmonton, and we decided to make the effort to finish putting it together. He's the expert at dubstep (as you can see from his SoundCloud page at soundcloud.com/james-sadoway), and he took my initial layout in an entirely new direction that I liked.

Anyway, here's the result, which you can listen to here via SoundCloud, or view on YouTube:









The trip to Antarctica was pretty interesting, and I wrote about it at this link back in the winter. There is a bit of background on the trip, links to hundreds of good photos, and download links for a few DJ sets that I played during the trip. I've got shows booked in a few interesting place this winter (Australia, Beijing) but it will be hard to top that trip.



By the way, if any established dubstep producers are interested in working with James, his email is sadoway at gmail.com.

Trip To Antarctica

Earlier this week I spent a few days getting photos online from a recent trip to Antarctica. I also did a bit of DJ’ing while I was down there, and have recordings of three live shows online. I’m finally getting around to my last project associated with the trip, ie. a description of what we actually did. However, before I do that, if people are curious about seeing the photos that I took, the gallery is at this link:

http://www.djbolivia.ca/photos_antarctica2010a.html

I’ve got a few of those photos here in this blog post too, but in much smaller size & resolution. Really, you need to go to that photo page to do them justice.

Anyway, our trip lasted from November 20th to 30th, aboard a Russian scientific expedition ship called the Akademik Ioffe. The trip was organized by a friend of mine, through Quark Expeditions. There were a total of 107 passengers on the ship, although a smaller group of 17 of us were friends who were travelling together.



November 20th – Day 1

We arrived on the ship at about 4pm, turned in our passports (which the ship’s crew had to hold onto during the voyage), and got settled into our cabins. I was in a triple, and the quarters were obviously tight, but still quite clean and comfortable. We had a quick introductory meeting in the dining room at 5pm, and our expedition leader suggested that we go explore the ship and hang out on the top deck for our departure at 6pm.

We had dinner at 8pm, and a lifeboat drill afterward. Then, after watching our progress from up top for a bit, I headed to bed. I already had a scopolamine patch on to prevent nausea, and I took a gravol too, just to be safe. I expected a pretty rough trip, since there was a Beaufort force 11 storm ahead of us. That basically means waves of up to fifty feet, just slightly under hurricane force winds. However, the seas weren't expected to be bad over night, since we were protected by land for a while yet.



November 21st – Day 2

The anti-nausea drugs really put me out. Not only had I slept through the first night with no problems, I also slept through most of our first day at sea, although I had really intended to do that so I could be caught up on my rest for the adventures ahead. The ship’s crew ran lectures and demonstrations all day, with sessions talking about whales, seabirds, and several other topics. I skipped most of them, in favor of resting.

The Captain made a decision to hide behind Cape Horn before venturing out into the Drake Passage, since the weather was so bad. We actually spent most of the day fairly stationary, without making any real progress. I think a lot of people were disappointed by this delay to our adventure, knowing that it would cut down on our time in Antarctica, but I knew that the crew knew what was best. I was nervous about getting sea-sick, so I didn’t mind avoiding the storm system. I’ve only ever gotten sea-sick once in my life, during a storm on a ferry to Newfoundland, but that was definitely one of the worst feelings of my life. I figured that lots of water, only moderate amounts of food, no alcohol, scopolamine patches, gravol, and lots of rest should keep me in good shape. So far, so good. A lot of people were having trouble at supper though. By that time, we were well underway into open seas, and the ship was dancing around quite a bit. Certainly not as bad as I had expected – average big waves of probably only around ten feet. But of the seven people at my table at dinner, five bailed before eating their main course.



November 22nd – Day 3

Gravol tends to make me pretty thirsty. I had a sink in my cabin, right beside my bed, and I am pretty sure that I drank a couple dozen glasses of water. But I didn’t ever feel sick. From the sound of things though, a lot of other people were. It seemed that everyone wearing scopolamine patches were mostly OK. The crew put on more presentations throughout the day.

Our private group was given access to the Lecture Lounge for the evening, to use as late as we wanted. We moved all the chairs aside and set things up for a night of entertainment. The group stated off by doing a “Century Club” of sorts, which they called “Power Hour.” A real Century Club is one ounce of beer per minute for one hundred minutes. This group changed the rules a bit and went with an ounce and a half per minute for one hour. So in the end, they were ten ounces short of a real century. Needless to say, I had nothing to do with these shenanigans, wanting to keep my supper down. Somehow though, everyone in the group made it through without any nausea problems.

Once the drinking games were out of the way, I set up a system and played a couple hours of Drum & Bass music for the crowd. Shipboard Rave number one. We also had a couple projectors, so we could project random video graphics on the walls, and they had a Wii set up in one corner. I recorded my set, and it can be downloaded from my website. This was a bit of a historical moment in my DJ career. Normally, I’ve always mixed on turntables or CD players, but it was obviously impossible to bring a full set of that equipment with me, halfway around the world. Instead, I used Ableton to play my set, and tapped into the ships entertainment system for a speaker system. This was not the first time that I used Ableton for a live gig – I did that once before at Defcon in las Vegas in 2008. However, this was the first time that I actually recorded the set. I think it turned out pretty good. Here’s a link to that:

http://djbolivia.blogspot.com/2010/12/mix-bolivia-live-in-drake-passage.html



November 23rd – Day 4

This was supposed to be our first day in Antarctica, but because of the storm delay the first day, this was our last day of travel through the Drake. People were starting to get used to the ship’s motion already, and I don’t think many people were sick. The ship’s doctor was also handing out extra anti-nauseants like candy.

I spent a lot of time on the deck of the boat during the day, watching several different types of albatross species, some other sea-birds, a whale, and our first signs of ice.



November 24th – Day 5

We were in Antarctica when we got up. And I might add, we got up early. There was a 5am wake-up call, because the expedition staff wanted to fit as much activity in as possible, to help make up for our lost day. We got into the Zodiacs (motorboats) and went for a cruise at 5:30am at Orne Harbour. We came back to the ship for breakfast, then went for another cruise at Cuverville Island. Some people went climbing, some people went kayaking, and in the afternoon we did a full beach landing at Neko Harbour. Penguins everywhere! We ended the day with a very tasty BBQ up on the deck of the ship.



November 25th – Day 6

The weather was pretty bad in the morning, so we didn’t get to go out in the Zodiacs. However, we went for a drive in the afternoon at Almirante Brown and saw a couple of bases. However, the ice was too bad to get the Zodiacs to show. We did see seals and a whale up close, and of course lots more penguins and blue ice. It was American Thanksgiving, so we had a turkey dinner on the ship. After supper, about thirty of us went camping and all of the non-campers also did a short landing at the camp site in Paradise (Danco Island). That was pretty cool, and possibly the highlight of my trip. I got to play a short DJ set while camping. That’s an interesting story in and of itself, which you can read here:

http://djbolivia.blogspot.com/2010/12/mix-bolivia-live-in-antarctica.html



November 26th – Day 7

We got up early and went back to the ship, and had a solid breakfast. I had a quick nap after breakfast, and then we went for beach landings at Jougla Point and Goudier Island. This is where we saw Lockroy Station, a British outpost. The outpost is manned for six months a year by four Commonwealth staff. Imagine spending six months living and working in a remote outpost at the bottom of the world, surrounded by penguins, with no cell phones or internet, and almost no electricity! I’d have internet withdrawal for a while, but it still sounds like heaven to me. I picked up a job application, just in case. I saw a couple seals and lots of penguins, and a few whale bones. I also bought lots of postcards at the station gift shop. After lunch, there was a quick zodiac cruise at Damoy Point, plus the kayakers and skiers went for special events. After dinner, we did a special “Titanic Night” and I DJ’ed in the ship’s lounge for quite a while, a bit of jazz and then a full DJ set. Here’s a link to that:

http://djbolivia.blogspot.com/2010/12/mix-bolivia-live-on-akademik-ioffe.html



November 27th – Day 8

We spent the day today in the South Shetlands, which were a bit less snowy and ice-covered than the places we visited the previous three days. We did a beach landing in the morning at Whaler’s Bay (Deception Island), and another in the afternoon at Half Moon Island. Whaler’s Bay gave everyone a chance to do a polar plunge. After supper, we knew that we had to start heading north for Ushuaia, and this would be our last view of Antarctica. I spent several hours on deck, watching the scenery, before we finally headed out to the Drake Passage.



The Rest of the Trip

On the 28th and 29th, we passed through the Drake Passage once again. We had waves of about twenty feet one night, but everyone was a lot more comfortable going through it this time. I skipped the gravol, and just used a scopolamine patch, and felt fine. We got back to Ushuaia on the morning of the 30th without any incidents, and everyone headed off for more travelling, or to return to their homes.



If you want to download a PDF summarizing the wildlife that we saw on this trip (probably of interest to the biologist types out there), click here.

One recommendation if you ever take this trip. We drank our ship completely out of mix by the last night of the trip (mind you, I think that can partly be blamed on our small group). If you're going on this trip, and take a bottle or two of alcohol with you for your cabin, make sure you don't forget to take mix too!

Before I go, here's a late addition (June 25th, 2011): some video footage from the trip, set to a dubstep remix of Avicii's "Penguin"




All in all, it was a pretty amazing trip. You’d think that it would be easy to get sick of snow and penguins, but I’m definitely hoping to head back in November of 2012. In fact, I’m going to organize a group tour that would be open to any of my friends and associates from Mount Allison University, and also for music industry friends. Let me know if you’re interested! And again, if you haven’t already checked out the photo galleries that I have online, go up and check out that link at the top of this page. The smaller photos that I included in this blog posting really don't do the trip justice!

Watch Out For Moose!

In many parts of Canada, large animals on the roads are a significant danger at night. If I'm not on a full divided highway, I rarely drive much above 80 km/h at night, and often slower than that, much to the annoyance of my passengers. Although it is kind of slow and painful, it occasionally pays off, like the other night.

On Thursday evening, I was driving a few kilometers away from my property in Port Elgin, and saw a moose on the highway. I swerved to the left, and missed it by about a foot. It's a good thing I swerved left, because if I had gone to the right, I would have hit a second moose behind the first that I didn't see initially. Or maybe even worse, I wouldn't have made it past the first one and hit TWO moose at the same time. This is exactly why I drive a lot slower at night.



(Click on the photos to see them in higher resolution).

I find that moose are harder to see than deer. For one, their coats are darker, so they don't stand out as much. Also, deer are skittish and usually turn to face an oncoming vehicle, so motorists often see the reflections from their eyes. However, a moose is usually either stupid or indifferent, or too high off the road surface for drivers in low cars, so you never see their eyes.

Hitting a moose isn't anything like hitting a deer. Hundreds of thousands of Canadians have hit deer. It's the kind of thing that nearly every rural driver expects could happen at least once in their life. But all that a deer usually does is trash your car. I don't mean to downplay this type of accident, because hitting a deer is still very dangerous. Unfortunately, more than a dozen people die every year in Canada because of collisions with deer. I looked up the stats for deer accidents and the numbers in the United States are stunning: there are an average of a MILLION AND A HALF collisions per YEAR between deer and vehicles. That translates to about 150 deaths, which means that 0.1% of collisions result in fatalities. It seems like a low percentage, but that's still far too many. But your chances of getting killed when hitting a moose (or elk or caribou) are a LOT higher. A deer might weigh up to 200 pounds. A moose is usually north of a thousand pounds. Check out the photos at this link:

http://www.snopes.com/photos/accident/moose.asp


Recently, our part of the province saw a very high profile moose accident just outside of Moncton, where a young couple died, leaving behind a 2-year old child:

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/new-brunswick/story/2010/10/07/nb-neguac-funeral-rousselles.html


Here are a few tips from a BC website:

- Moose eyes do reflect the light from headlights, but often the moose's eyes are too high above the beam to catch the light. A grown moose often stands taller than a car.

- Moose are a hazard in summer (as well as in winter). They crave salt and often get it from the side of the road.

- Long straight stretches of road are still hazardous. Drivers tend to speed and thus cannot react in time if a moose or other animal does appear.

- Deer are herding animals. Just because you miss one does not mean you are clear of them.

- There are no studies proving conclusively that deer whistles work. It is better to be wildlife aware when driving, and not to rely on the whistle.


Anyway, next time you're driving at night and see a "wildlife on highway" sign, remember that you're going to get to your destination a lot FASTER if you don't run into an animal. Driving slowly isn't a bad idea.

Glen Ballard Scholarship at Berklee

I’m currently in the middle of working through two separate Masters’ programs through the Berklee College of Music, one in Music Theory and one in Production. I just found out that I am the recipient of a "celebrity scholarship," thanks to support donated by Glen Ballard.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the name Glen Ballard, you should be. He is an R&B, rock, and pop songwriter and record producer who has had a hand in releases by an incredible number of artists. I’m going to list just a few of the artists that he has either performed with or done production work for, and you’ll see what a huge impact he has had on contemporary popular music: Michael Jackson, the Pointer Sisters, Wilson Phillips, Paula Abdul, Evelyn King, Van Halen, Aerosmith, Alanis Morissette, No Doubt, Shakira, Dave Matthews Band, Christina Aquilera, the Goo Goo Dolls, Annie Lennox, and dozens of others. Wow.

It’s quite an honor to be recognized for this scholarship. Now the only problem is that my cumulative GPA is only 3.82. I’m happy with that, but it could be higher. But now that I’ve finally returned home and to my personal studio today, after four months on the road, I’m excited to really dig into the course work more heavily and see if I can get that GPA closer to 4.0.

Many, many thanks to Glen, both for his support with this scholarship, and also for his diverse contributions to contemporary mainstream music.

Save BC's Forests

The reforestation industry on Canada's west coast is in a huge mess right now. As a result of the recent economic downturn, dozens and dozens of mills have gone out of business. Unfortunately, in an attempt to save money, reforestation of logged areas is being thrown by the wayside.

In addition to that problem, the Mountain Pine Beetle infestation in BC has impacted approximately fifteen million hectares of forest. It is estimated that around a third of that land will NOT regenerate naturally, and will require human intervention in the form of tree planting. The government has no intention to address reforestation in most of this area.

Twenty years ago, the province planted far, far more trees than today. In terms of reforestation, 2010 is the worst year in a couple decades. The low number of seedlings being planted is going to drop even further in 2011. While the province can invest a billion dollars into the Olympics, it cannot muster the political will to invest a few hundred million more into reforestation, which will provide the backbone of a sustainable forestry industry (and tens of thousands of jobs) for decades to come.

Take a look at this graphic, and you can see how much pine has been killed in the province as of 2009:



Original map at: http://www.for.gov.bc.ca/hfp/mountain_pine_beetle/maps/BCMPBv72009Kill.jpg

Check out this story from the CBC in 2007 that suggested that reforesting the Pine Beetle forests might take about thirteen centuries:

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2007/09/19/bc-1000yearplan.html


In this photo that I took near Kamloops in 2008, you can see the extent of the mortality among mature trees. The very youngest trees (about ten years and less) are generally not being affected, but almost everything else is:




Please, if you care about the environment (even if you don't live in British Columbia), take a moment to visit the forestfacts.ca website, and sign their petition urging greater government support for reforestation. It will only take a minute for you to read it and sign. Click on this link so you can read and sign the petition:

Link to the Petition

Please forward this link to any of your friends or family who might be concerned about this issue. Thanks ...

The Meaning of 420

For anyone who smokes pot, the meaning of the phrase "420" is very symbolic. Urban legend says that 420 is the police code to refer subtly to someone who is smoking marijuana.

It turns out that this urban legend is incorrect. I just read one of the most interesting articles I've read in some time, which discusses the origins of the phrase, so I thought I'd share it. Check it out:

Click here to read the article from the Huffington Post.

I don't actually smoke pot myself. That probably surprises more than a few people. I'd much rather sit down with a couple of cold beer, and perhaps a shot or two of tequila or bourbon. However, the Canadian culture is so heavily intertwined with the cannabis culture that the subject is fascinating to almost all Canadians. And I am a believer in the concept that people should be able to decide for themselves whether or not to partake, as long as it doesn't hurt themselves or others around them.


Decriminalization? Makes sense to me.

Health-wise? Smoking isn't good for your lungs. I do like my lungs.

But considering the amount of butter and other fats that I shovel into my stomach and indirectly into my circulatory system, I guess I shouldn't criticize others for abusing their lungs.