Dave Schumaker

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DjqR6OucBc

I watched "Restrepo" earlier this evening after a friend's recommendation to me. It's a fantastically done documentary that follows an Army unit over the course of a year long deployment in Afghanistan's Korangal Valley. It's pretty raw and heart-wrenching, but it's a fascinating look into the war and what it's doing to the people we're sending over there.

Also, I recently read a piece by Brian Mockenhaupt, writing for The Atlantic, following the deployment of another Army unit in the Arghandab Valley ("The Devil's Playground") region of Afghanistan. It's equally raw and shares some of the unimaginable horrors of the war.

A thunderclap rocked the tree line, and the concussion punched our ears and rolled through our chests. Beside us, along the canal, a cloud of smoke and dirt billowed 100 feet into the air, far above the trees, against a cloudless blue sky. “IED! IED! IED!” a soldier barked over the radio. Knollinger, leading the element along the road, ran into the field between the road and the canal, toward the explosion, yelling into the hand mike clipped to his vest. “I need a sitrep! I need a sitrep!” Soldiers answered, one by one, save for the two snipers with the patrol. “Viper 4,” Knollinger said. “Are you okay? Viper 4!” Sgt. Christopher Rush responded, dazed, his voice slow. “No, I’m not okay.” Beside him, his partner, Specialist Christopher Moon, lay in a crater five feet wide and two feet deep, his legs missing.

In 2002, I went on a geology field trip to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. Before hiking into the canyon, I took a shot of our class hiking down into the canyon with an old Olympus C-3000Z point and shoot (a crazy, 3.2 megapixes).

Recently, a publisher contacted me to license the photo for the cover of a geology textbook. After negotiating a price, I happily agreed! The featured photo is below:

Interestingly enough, a former girlfriend who was on the same trip (not in this frame), would proclaim a number of months later that I was a "poor photographer." Hah, it's ironic that this particular image ended up being licensed!

(Click to view full size)

Original author unknown

[Via Jon U.]

The annual American Geophysical Union conference is in town this week and I've been fielding a bunch of questions about the strange creatures (known as earth scientists) that are inhabiting downtown San Francisco.

I've probably mentioned this before, but Uncyclopedia nails the description of a geologist.

Geologists are 'scientists' with unnatural obsessions with beer and rocks. Often too intelligent to do monotonous sciences like biology, chemistry, or physics, geologists devote their time to mud-worrying, volcano poking, fault finding, bouldering, dust-collecting, and high-risk colouring. One of the main difficulties in communicating with geologists is their belief that a million years is a short amount of time and their heads are harder than rocks. Consequently, such abstract concepts as "Tuesday Morning" and Lunchtime are completely beyond their comprehension.

The section on alcohol consumption is pretty amusing (and somewhat apt) as well.

If you ever encounter a geologist who is sober after 6pm, this person is an imposter: possibly an alien; probably a geophysicist or engineer, marine geographer or hydrologist etc. Alcoholism is an acceptable, even socially beneficial, disease for an active geologist.

The whole article is a fun read though, especially if you are or know any geologists.

This stuff is so trippy to think about.

Now Stephen Feeney at University College London and a few pals say they've found tentative evidence of this bruising in the form of circular patterns in cosmic microwave background. In fact, they've found four bruises, implying that our universe must have smashed into other bubbles at least four times in the past. Again, this is an extraordinary result: the first evidence of universes beyond our own. So, what to make of these discoveries. First, these effects could easily be a trick of the eye. As Feeney and co acknowledge: "it is rather easy to fifind all sorts of statistically unlikely properties in a large dataset like the CMB." That's for sure!

Crazy!

[Via Kottke]

I wish Bernie Sanders was my senator.

The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven GallowayMy rating: 4 of 5 stars

The "Cellist of Sarajevo" is a fictional account following the lives of four people struggling to survive during the siege of Sarajevo during the Bosnian War of the early 1990's. For those who don't have much time devoted to reading, this book is a quick read.

The story itself is sometimes emotional, sometimes raw, and often depressing as it alternates between the lives of four characters (none of whom know each other) who struggle to survive. It begins when a Serbian mortar shell lands in the middle of a crowded market, killing 22 people and injuring scores more. A man living in an apartment near the market witnesses the explosion and subsequent deaths of many of his friends.

In the aftermath of this particularly gruesome attack, he vows to play Albinono's Adagio in G Minor on his cello in the market, at the same spot and same time the shell exploded, for 22 days -- one day for each person killed. (Why the story makes a big deal of the particular piece the cellist plays, I'm not sure -- perhaps because it's such a sad instrumental?)

Over the course of 22 days, the story shifts between 3 other characters, one who is a female sniper in the resistance (and confronts personal demons over the morality of her killings), an old man who became withdrawn and isolated because of the war (in order to protect himself from becoming too close to anyone else who might die), and a father who must make a dangerous trek every few days to provide food and water for his wife and children.

The personal conflicts each character deals with, because of and in addition to the war make for a somber story. While the story is fictitious, it provides a seemingly accurate and compelling portrayal of what life was like under a sieged city; indiscriminate shelling, snipers picking off innocent people, government corruption, lack of aid, food, water, or information.

Another aspect I thought was particularly interesting was the author's portrayal of the morbid sense of humor the citizens of Sarajevo adopted during the situation. Jokes such as "Oh, you don't want coffee? Now I can take a shower [with the small pot of water]" or "Don't worry, I think the sniper today is just a bad shot!" show how people cope and still try to make the best of an unfortunate situation.

The Cellist of Sarajevo struck a personal chord with me, thanks to having a few friends who lived in or around the Balkans during the actual war. Another friend worked with a humanitarian organization inside Sarajevo during the siege! Their vivid and intense accounts of life meshed well with what this story described.

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Welcome to San Francisco!, originally uploaded by Dave Schumaker.

This has been floating around for awhile now, but it's crazy.

Hurrah, technology!

Original author unknown

[Via and.rw]

The Wikileaks controversy has been pretty horrifying to watch play out, at least with regard to various organizations and companies such as PayPal, Amazon, Mastercard, and EveryDNS denying or revoking their access to services.

In case you were wondering, Wikileaks is actually a good thing. Here is a site that lists various reasons why. Of course, by even mentioning Wikileaks, one might jeopardize their chances of ever working for the U.S. State Department.

Interested in some of the more juicy or amusing tidbits from Wikileaks? Check out Cablegate Roulette!

FROM: PARIS, FRANCE TO: STATE DEPARTMENT DATE: SEPTEMBER 06, 2006 CLASSIFICATION: CONFIDENTIALSEE FULL CABLE An Unforgettable Scene ¶6. (C) As the Ambassador was about to leave, Sarkozy went to the line of floor-to-ceiling windows that open from the interior minister's office to the gardens of the interior ministry, and called over his nine-year old son, Louis, who was playing on the lawn (Sarkozy lives with his family in apartments above his office). Sarkozy was clearly happy -- and proud -- to be in the company of his young son and seemed tickled to be able to introduce him to "the Ambassador of the United States." Louis appeared at the threshold with a small dog at his feet and a large rabbit in his arms. To shake hands with the Ambassador, Louis put down the rabbit -- and the dog started chasing the rabbit through Sarkozy's office, which led to the unforgettable sight of Sarkozy, bent over, chasing the dog through the ante-room to his office as the dog chased the rabbit, and Louis filled the room with gleeful laughter.

(Emphasis mine)