"Civility is determined by how you behave, not by what you wear."
- Murldogeth the Third, 2014
AKA Maketh the man the clothes do not!
So when that pesky bouncer puts his arm across the gate this weekend, again, just tell im wot u erd 'ere, you'll be fiiine...
Tuesday, December 02, 2014
Monday, November 24, 2014
Thursday, November 20, 2014
West Sumbawa - Beach Cows and The Blood Moon
Had a super fun surf trip to West Sumbawa (with a dash of Bali and Lombok) with some good buddies of mine a couple of weeks ago. We scored heaps of fun waves at Yoyos and the like, but more importantly we saw cows and a blood moon..
Wednesday, November 19, 2014
S U R F - Uluwatu Gold
This oily little gem rolled through Middles at Ulu's on a relatively average day last Tuesday. The wave ran for 2-300m (I had to omit a lot of photos from this sequence) and was like catching a taxi from the southern end of Middles to The Peak. I was on my way back to the cave anyway so it worked out well :) Check out the empty wave in the background towards the end of this sequence - shoulda been on that one!
Photos by Uluwatu Barong
Photos by Uluwatu Barong
Friday, June 27, 2014
F I L M - The Grand Budapest Hotel & "Frank"
Wow, two great movies that I've been fortunate enough to enjoy in the last two days at Leederville's fantastic Luna Theatre.
If you like your movies offbeat and quirky, these two gems won't disappoint. (I'm not gonna say "Indie" and "arthouse" coz those terms seem so overused, but yeah..that's what they are.)
The Grand Budapest Hotel - Another Wes Anderson classic. I love all WA's hits (The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic, The Darjeeling Ltd.), but I reckon Grand Budapest is probably my favourite. Ralph Fiennes absolutely nails his role as the - heck I can't even describe his character, that's how good it is! Let's just say he's a fairly confident, well-spoken, overly-amorous hotel manager who at first appears sly and self-serving, but in the end you wind up thinking he's a bit of a champ -, and Anderson and his team's extraordinary skills of meticulous, all-encompassing stylisation of every scene are a feast for the eyes and an absolute pleasure to absorb. Highly recommend it!
Frank - Another fantastic film. I loved it. It's about a young Gen Y wannabe muso (loves his Twitter, Fbook and Ytube) who gets drawn into a kooky, mentally unstable, alt-experimental band, which he ultimately tries to bend into a mainstream shape to suit his own needs. I won't say too much other than, if you start watching it it's worth seeing it to the end to see the message revealed. Don't know the name of the young wannabe muso (sorry, bad movie reviewer), but Michael Fassbender plays Frank (who lives with a papermache head on his head), and Maggie Gyllenhaal plays the overbearing and intense bandmate Clara. Definitely worth a look if you like your bands (and films) unstable and experimental :)
If you like your movies offbeat and quirky, these two gems won't disappoint. (I'm not gonna say "Indie" and "arthouse" coz those terms seem so overused, but yeah..that's what they are.)
The Grand Budapest Hotel - Another Wes Anderson classic. I love all WA's hits (The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic, The Darjeeling Ltd.), but I reckon Grand Budapest is probably my favourite. Ralph Fiennes absolutely nails his role as the - heck I can't even describe his character, that's how good it is! Let's just say he's a fairly confident, well-spoken, overly-amorous hotel manager who at first appears sly and self-serving, but in the end you wind up thinking he's a bit of a champ -, and Anderson and his team's extraordinary skills of meticulous, all-encompassing stylisation of every scene are a feast for the eyes and an absolute pleasure to absorb. Highly recommend it!
Frank - Another fantastic film. I loved it. It's about a young Gen Y wannabe muso (loves his Twitter, Fbook and Ytube) who gets drawn into a kooky, mentally unstable, alt-experimental band, which he ultimately tries to bend into a mainstream shape to suit his own needs. I won't say too much other than, if you start watching it it's worth seeing it to the end to see the message revealed. Don't know the name of the young wannabe muso (sorry, bad movie reviewer), but Michael Fassbender plays Frank (who lives with a papermache head on his head), and Maggie Gyllenhaal plays the overbearing and intense bandmate Clara. Definitely worth a look if you like your bands (and films) unstable and experimental :)
Thursday, May 15, 2014
S C I E N C E - The Curious Case of Fritz Zwicky
Below is a quirky tale of the astrophysical misadventures and achievements of the man who discovered supernovae and dark matter -
kooky Bulgarian, Mr. Fritz Zwicky - as told by the legendary Bill Bryson in his fantastic 2003 novel, A Short History of Nearly Everything. Enjoy :)
The term supernova was coined in the 1930s by a memorably odd astrophysicist named Fritz Zwicky. Born in Bulgaria and raised in Switzerland, Zwicky came to the California Institute of Technology in the 1920s and there at once distinguished himself by his abrasive personality and erratic talents. He didn't seem to be outstandingly bright, and many of his colleagues considered him little more than "an irritating buffoon". A fitness fanatic, he would often drop to the floor of the Caltech dining hall or some other public area and do one-armed push-ups to demonstrate his virility to anyone who seemed inclined to doubt it. He was notoriously aggressive, his manner eventually becoming so intimidating that his closest collaborator, a gentle man named Walter Baade, refused to be left alone with him. Among other things, Zwicky accused Baade, who was German, of being a Nazi, which he was not. On at least one occasion Zwicky threatened to kill Baade, who worked up the hill at the Mount Wilson Observatory, if he saw him on the Caltech campus.
But Zwicky was also capable of insights of the most startling brilliance. In the early 1930s he turned his attention to a question that had long troubled astronomers: the appearance in the sky of occasional unexplained points of light, new stars. Improbably, he wondered if the neutron - the subatomic particle that had just been discovered in England by James Chadwick, and was thus both novel and rather fashionable - might be at the heart of things. It occurred to him that if a star collapsed to the sort of densities found in the core of atoms, the result would be an unimaginably compacted core. Atoms would literally be crushed together, their electrons forced into the nucleus, forming neutrons. You would have a neutron star. ... The core of a neutron star is so dense that a single spoonful of matter from it would weigh more than 500 BILLION kilograms. A spoonful! But there was more. Zwicky realised that after the collapse of such a star there would be a huge amount of energy left over - enough to make the biggest bang in the universe. He called these resultant explosions supernovae. They would be - they are - the biggest events in creation.
On 15 January 1934 the journal Physical Review published a very concise abstract of a presentation that had been conducted by Zwicky and Baade the previous month at Stanford University. Despite it's extreme brevity - one paragraph of twenty-four lines - the abstract contained an enormous amount of new science: it provided the first reference to supernovae and to neutron stars; convincingly explained their method of formation; correctly calculated the scale of their explosiveness; and, as a kind of concluding bonus, connected supernova explosions to the production of a mysterious new phenomenon called cosmic rays, which had recently been found swarming through the universe. These ideas were revolutionary, to say the least. ... Altogether, the abstract was, in the words of Caltech astrophysicist Kip S. Thorne, "one of the most prescient documents in the history of physics and astronomy".
Interestingly, Zwicky had almost no understanding of why any of this would happen. According to Thorne, "he did not understand the laws of physics well enough to be able to substantiate his ideas." Zwicky's talent was for big ideas. Others - Baade mostly - were left to do the mathematical sweeping up.
Zwicky was also the first to recognize that there wasn't nearly enough visible mass in the universe to hold galaxies together, and that there must be some other gravitational influence - what we now call dark matter. One thing he failed to see was that if a neutron star shrank enough it would become so dense that even light couldn't escape its immense gravitational pull. You would have a black hole. Unfortunately, Zwicky was held in such disdain by most of his colleagues that his ideas attracted almost no notice. When, five years later, the great Robert Oppenheimer turned his attention to neutron stars in a landmark paper, he made not a single reference to any of Zwicky's work, even though Zwicky had been working for years on the same problem in an office just down the corridor. Zwicky's deductions concerning dark matter wouldn't attract serious attention for nearly four decades. We can only assume that he did a lot of push-ups in this period.
- Bill Bryson, 2003
kooky Bulgarian, Mr. Fritz Zwicky - as told by the legendary Bill Bryson in his fantastic 2003 novel, A Short History of Nearly Everything. Enjoy :)
The term supernova was coined in the 1930s by a memorably odd astrophysicist named Fritz Zwicky. Born in Bulgaria and raised in Switzerland, Zwicky came to the California Institute of Technology in the 1920s and there at once distinguished himself by his abrasive personality and erratic talents. He didn't seem to be outstandingly bright, and many of his colleagues considered him little more than "an irritating buffoon". A fitness fanatic, he would often drop to the floor of the Caltech dining hall or some other public area and do one-armed push-ups to demonstrate his virility to anyone who seemed inclined to doubt it. He was notoriously aggressive, his manner eventually becoming so intimidating that his closest collaborator, a gentle man named Walter Baade, refused to be left alone with him. Among other things, Zwicky accused Baade, who was German, of being a Nazi, which he was not. On at least one occasion Zwicky threatened to kill Baade, who worked up the hill at the Mount Wilson Observatory, if he saw him on the Caltech campus.
But Zwicky was also capable of insights of the most startling brilliance. In the early 1930s he turned his attention to a question that had long troubled astronomers: the appearance in the sky of occasional unexplained points of light, new stars. Improbably, he wondered if the neutron - the subatomic particle that had just been discovered in England by James Chadwick, and was thus both novel and rather fashionable - might be at the heart of things. It occurred to him that if a star collapsed to the sort of densities found in the core of atoms, the result would be an unimaginably compacted core. Atoms would literally be crushed together, their electrons forced into the nucleus, forming neutrons. You would have a neutron star. ... The core of a neutron star is so dense that a single spoonful of matter from it would weigh more than 500 BILLION kilograms. A spoonful! But there was more. Zwicky realised that after the collapse of such a star there would be a huge amount of energy left over - enough to make the biggest bang in the universe. He called these resultant explosions supernovae. They would be - they are - the biggest events in creation.
On 15 January 1934 the journal Physical Review published a very concise abstract of a presentation that had been conducted by Zwicky and Baade the previous month at Stanford University. Despite it's extreme brevity - one paragraph of twenty-four lines - the abstract contained an enormous amount of new science: it provided the first reference to supernovae and to neutron stars; convincingly explained their method of formation; correctly calculated the scale of their explosiveness; and, as a kind of concluding bonus, connected supernova explosions to the production of a mysterious new phenomenon called cosmic rays, which had recently been found swarming through the universe. These ideas were revolutionary, to say the least. ... Altogether, the abstract was, in the words of Caltech astrophysicist Kip S. Thorne, "one of the most prescient documents in the history of physics and astronomy".
Interestingly, Zwicky had almost no understanding of why any of this would happen. According to Thorne, "he did not understand the laws of physics well enough to be able to substantiate his ideas." Zwicky's talent was for big ideas. Others - Baade mostly - were left to do the mathematical sweeping up.
Zwicky was also the first to recognize that there wasn't nearly enough visible mass in the universe to hold galaxies together, and that there must be some other gravitational influence - what we now call dark matter. One thing he failed to see was that if a neutron star shrank enough it would become so dense that even light couldn't escape its immense gravitational pull. You would have a black hole. Unfortunately, Zwicky was held in such disdain by most of his colleagues that his ideas attracted almost no notice. When, five years later, the great Robert Oppenheimer turned his attention to neutron stars in a landmark paper, he made not a single reference to any of Zwicky's work, even though Zwicky had been working for years on the same problem in an office just down the corridor. Zwicky's deductions concerning dark matter wouldn't attract serious attention for nearly four decades. We can only assume that he did a lot of push-ups in this period.
- Bill Bryson, 2003
Tuesday, May 13, 2014
Today's Surf Report - Gracetown, WA
Thumping swell and onshore winds again today and Cowaramup Bay was definitely one of the best options for a wave. Below are a few snaps I took of Boris's and North Point, and one of a SUP boarder facing a 6ft+ set at Huzzas. Onshore and swelly again tomorrow, good luck!
Monday, May 12, 2014
Quote d'Jour
Anyone who finds themselves jealous of the wealthy should "..spend less time drinking or smoking and socialising, and more time working."
- Gina Rinehart's recent financial advice to the common Aussie in Australian Resources and Investment Magazine.
Moral of the story: Don't invite Gina to a party :)
- Gina Rinehart's recent financial advice to the common Aussie in Australian Resources and Investment Magazine.
Moral of the story: Don't invite Gina to a party :)
Sunday, May 11, 2014
Today's Surf Report - Margaret River, WA
Onshore winds and booming surf in the 10-15ft range today around Margaret River. There were even a few playful 2-footers rolling through the lagoon at Gnarabup Boat Ramp, with a coupla groms out there having a crack and a passing penguin trying to find a place to rest it's weary wings (an endeavour for which a gaggle of stoked micro-groms were more than happy to assist:)
That was the only place I saw anyone surfing around Margs, though woulda been a party out at Huzzas no doubt. I took the opportunity to do a bit of cross-training and went for a beach run up to Boodji's heaving beachies, wow! Talk about power! Would be great to harness some of that energy for renewable purposes.
Anyway, enough rambling. The good news is that the West Coast Eagles will soon be taking on Greater Western Sydney in Perth and should deliver them a sound shellacking! The bad news is that I am a remarkably vague, distracted, unreliable photographer and hence there are no photos of said booming surf and/or penguins. Fortunately I've got a tasty little archival sequence of a translucent fresh minty gel number from Ulus in October last year. Internet's a bit slow so this is just half the sequence, more to follow.. Enjoy!
Photos by the young fella on the hill.
That was the only place I saw anyone surfing around Margs, though woulda been a party out at Huzzas no doubt. I took the opportunity to do a bit of cross-training and went for a beach run up to Boodji's heaving beachies, wow! Talk about power! Would be great to harness some of that energy for renewable purposes.
Anyway, enough rambling. The good news is that the West Coast Eagles will soon be taking on Greater Western Sydney in Perth and should deliver them a sound shellacking! The bad news is that I am a remarkably vague, distracted, unreliable photographer and hence there are no photos of said booming surf and/or penguins. Fortunately I've got a tasty little archival sequence of a translucent fresh minty gel number from Ulus in October last year. Internet's a bit slow so this is just half the sequence, more to follow.. Enjoy!
Saturday, May 03, 2014
Quote d'Jour
"Any kind of order, even that as simple as the arrangement of atoms in a molecule, is unnatural and happens only by chance encounters that reverse the general trend...the further combination of molecules into anything as highly organised as a living organism is wildly improbable. Life is a rare and unreasonable thing."
- Lyall Watson, from his fascinating book, SUPERNATURE.
Wise words, make the most of it you lucky devil :)
- Lyall Watson, from his fascinating book, SUPERNATURE.
Wise words, make the most of it you lucky devil :)
S U R F - Racing The Racetrack - Uluwatu
This sequence was taken in Oct 2012 on a macking day at Ulus that ended up looking like Hawaii. I snuck out for a coupla cheeky early ones at Racetracks and, as you can see in this sequence, the swell had so much push you could just fly down the line on the surge until the ol' girl stood up and started to deliver. The only downside was the horrendous sweep pushing north; it was a real challenge just to get back in through the cave! Fortunately I managed to negotiate my way back in there, but a South African bodyboarder I met that day wasn't so lucky, he got washed in over the rocks in the bay and copped a bit of a flogging. If you ever find yourself in that situation, might be best to just keep paddling 2km north to Padang-Padang and sneak in there. Apparently there is another little entry point to shore about halfway between Ulus and Padang2, near Thomas Homestay, but you gotta have it pretty sussed to get in there. Anyway, who cares, I'm rambling, enjoy the mind surf :)
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