Whales

There are a couple of interesting whale stories in the news today.

For nearly nine years Cornell University researcher Christopher Clark -- together with former U.S. Navy acoustics experts Chuck Gagnon and Paula Loveday -- has been trying to answer these questions by listening to whale songs and calls in the North Atlantic using the navy's antisubmarine listening system. Instead of being used to track Soviet subs as they move through the Atlantic, the underwater microphones of the Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS) can track singing blue, fin, humpback and minke whales.

From the acoustical maps he and his colleagues have obtained, Clark has come to realize that he has been thinking about whales at the wrong time scale. "There is a time delay in the water, and the response times for their communication are not the same as ours. Suddenly you realize that their behavior is defined not by my scale, or any other whale researcher's scale, but by a whale's sense of scale -- ocean-basin sized," he says.

Fuller version here.

Whalemeat samples bought from a Japanese sushi market and analysed by scientists indicate that experts have seriously underestimated the size of the populations that roamed the seas before industrial-scale hunting began more than a century ago. The numbers of some species may have been 10 times greater than previously calculated.

Fuller version here.

"This country is sleepwalking towards a Tory government."

Here you can find Ken McLeod's take on the important facet of British electoral politics. I've heard too many people lazily parroting the idea that there's no difference between a Blairite party and a conservative one to do anything but shake my head sadly and agree with him.

Whether a Conservative government woud be a good or a bad thing, of course, is a matter of opinion. Whether it would be a major departure is not. "A new Tory government would not be more of the same - Blairism with a less human face. It would be as different from the governments of Thatcher and Major as theirs were from those of Edward Heath. It would resemble Thatcher's only in its capacity to astonish. The Left would spend the next ten years beating their heads against questions like How can they get away with that? and Where did we go wrong?"

If you have any interest in politics, you could do a lot worse than keep an eye on Ken.

"Much as I detest New Labour's imperialism and its civil authoritarianism, I'd rather have it in government, where we can fight it, than in opposition, where it's in our trench against a worse enemy."

The weekend.

I stayed in on Friday.

On Saturday I wandered down to the shops, picked up some photos and some records - a bit of a cowpunk week, this one, as on top of the Giant Sand concert and album, I got a rereleased Gun Club LP too, along with the rather good new Low album and the Bloc Party record. After a bite to eat I went over to the pub to see the usual suspects, who were basically all late. akicif arrived after being mugged by circumstance and forced to drink eight beers at the Pond before coming uptown to drink with us. He was doing a really good impression of a man who'd only had two or three, though. We were all pointedly impressed.

I buggered off to Vain just after midnight, and chatted to nik_strychnine, Gav and maleficent for some time and several other people for wee bits. Much fun. The music was dire when I got there, but picked up considerably.

Today I read the paper, listened to records, cleaned my keyboard with an old toothbrush and went to Ikea. It isn't as unpleasant going there as it used to be, which probably means that most of the detachable bits of my soul have been stolen already.

I was very good and didn't buy an Ayn Rand rug. It was very tempting, though, and I may succumb in future.

The Remote Part is very good. I'm looking forward to the new one. I'm tempted to go see them in Glasgow. The Barrowlands is a much better venue than the Usher Hall.