What I Learnt Today

Our friend and neighbour Mike leaves tomorrow to climb Mt McKinley, the highest mountain in North America and thus one of the ‘Seven Summits‘. It is a 36 hour journey from Brisbane to Anchorage, and then another flight next day to the small town of Talkeetna, at the base of the mountain.

At 6194 meters (20,320 feet), Denali, (the Inuit name for Mt McKinley) is a challenging climb. It has a significantly higher rise from base camp to summit then does Everest – so it is further to walk.  (The summit of Everest is 8850 meters, or 29,035 feet). Mike has been trekking up and down the hills around here carrying a 30kg pack for the last six months, so fitness should not be the problem. In Alaska he will also have to pull a sled – (as a vet, you think he’d take a husky).

About 1,300 climbers attempt the climb each year, of which about half make the summit. Most take between two and four weeks. 

There are three potential obstacles that might prevent the trek from reaching their goal.

• Mt McKinley is particularly challenging because of the severe arctic weather. April is very early in the season for an expedition to head out, (Mikes team will be the first this year), so the greatest threat will be winds stronger than 50km/hr and temperatures less than -50ºC, which may confine them to the tent for days at a time. They have only a three week window to get there and back again.

• Altitude sickness, or Acute Mountain Sickness (AMS) can strike climbers unpredictably –  you cannot know in advance who will be affected. It can occur at altitudes over 2400m (8000 feet). Remember, McKinley is over 6000 metres! The symptoms initially are similar to those of a hangover, or a case of the flu, with headaches, fatigue, nausea, dizziness, and sleep disturbance. Exertion makes things worse. Sometimes, acute mountain sickness will progress to more dangerous conditions, with fluid build up in the lungs (HAPE) or brain (HACE). 

  Altitude sickness can be prevented with ‘acclimatisation’ and gradual ascent. It is hard to become acclimatised to heights in Alstonville, so medications are sometimes used as prevention. Acetazolamide, or Diamox, is used to prevent AMS, and Nifedipine (Adalat) is used to prevent HACE. Ginko Biloba is sometimes taken to alleviate some early symptoms of AMS. Dexamethasone treats serious illness. Mike is carrying all of these (so he might not make it through customs!) The ultimate treatment is to descend.

• Crevasses are giant cracks in the glacier ice, and there are many glaciers to cross when climbing Mt McKinley. Crevasses are often not visible as snow can blow over the top, freeze, and form a thin snowbridge, which gives way when stepped on (a la Touching the Void). Basic gear therefore includes crampons and ice axes, and the team members are tied together with a rope, so that if one falls in to a crevasse the others can perform a ‘crevasse rescue’.

Mt McKinley has two summits, North and South, the South being the higher. In the early 1900’s, a number of people attempted unsuccessfully to climb the mountain.

Wikipedia reports

“In 1910, four locals, known as the Sourdough expedition, took up the challenge, despite a complete lack of climbing experience. They spent approximately three months on the mountain. However, their purported summit day was impressive: carrying a bag of doughnuts, each a thermos of hot chocolate, and a 14-foot spruce pole, two of them reached the North Summit, the lower of the two, and erected the pole.”

This story was doubted by all, until the first confirmed climbing of the South Summit in 1913 by Hudson Stuck and his party. Looking across, sure enough, they were able to see the Sourdough’s pole on the North Summit. 

We’ll be able to follow the progress of Mike’s trek using the Denali Expedition Dispatches.

You can keep an eye on the weather by selecting ‘Denali’ on this weather page.

As I write this, it is a refreshing -34 degrees (in Alaska, not here). Don’t forget your jumper, Mike. And your doughnuts and thermos of hot chocolate. Good luck and see you in May.

What I Learnt On 14th April in other years

14th April 2012 The Good News in American Medicine

On the night of April 11th 1961, 50 years ago, Lieutenant Yuri Gagarin of the Russian Air Force slept soundly.

His colleague, Gherman Titov, on ‘the reserve bench’ to take over if anything happened to Yuri, hardly slept at all.

On April 12th, Gagarin and Titoy had breakfast together, and then, dressed in his flight suit, Gagarin presented to work at Baikonur Cosmodrome’s Site 1, in Kazakhstan. Although he was an exceptional fighter pilot, he would have no control over the ship he was commanding this day. He would be sitting on top of the world’s biggest rocket, his destiny determined not by his flying skills but by the bomb that would be unleashed below him – 150 tons of highly explosive kerosene and liquid oxygen. He was bolted into the tiny Vostok space capsule, chatting calmly throughout to the engineering team and then via radio to Sergei Korolyov, the chief designer of the rocket, . Korolyov was so nervous he had to keep taking pills for his heart.

Noone knew for sure that a man could survive the acceleration forces that Gagarin was about to experience, nor that he would survive the conditions of space. Certainly, no-one could guarantee that this rocket would not explode uncontrollably as many of the test rockets had done. So Gagarin’s heart beat was monitored remotely throughout the launch.

His pulse never rose above 64. 64! My heart beat is higher than that even thinking about it.

Yuri Gagarin is the coolest person ever.

At launch, Gagarin was heard to say ‘oyekhali!’ – “off we go!”

Such was the power of the Vostok rocket, in just a few minutes he was the first man in space, and then the first man in orbit around the earth. In awe, he said “The Earth is blue. How wonderful. It is amazing.”

After one full orbit, retro-rockets slowed the capsule and it fell back into Russia. Gagarin ejected at a height of 7km, as planned, and parachuted to earth separated from the space craft. It is said that he scared the life out of the peasant farmer and daughter at whose farm he landed. The entire flight took 108 minutes.

There is no doubt that Yuri Gagarin had ‘the right stuff’. He was the son of a peasant farmer who rose by merit through the Russian military to be one of 20 cosmonauts.

He was assessed by the air force doctor in 1960 as follows:

“Modest; embarrasses when his humor gets a little too racy; high degree of intellectual development evident in Yuriy; fantastic memory; distinguishes himself from his colleagues by his sharp and far-ranging sense of attention to his surroundings; a well-developed imagination; quick reactions; persevering, prepares himself painstakingly for his activities and training exercises, handles celestial mechanics and mathematical formulae with ease as well as excels in higher mathematics; does not feel constrained when he has to defend his point of view if he considers himself right; appears that he understands life better than a lot of his friends.”

He was the obvious candidate to be chosen for the first space flight.

After the flight, Yuri Gagarin became the most famous man in the world. He was considered too ‘valuable’ to fly as a cosmonaut again, and retrained as a fighter pilot. Unfortunately, and somewhat ironically, he died in a crash on a routine training flight in 1968.

Gizmodo today has a special tribute to Yuri Gagarin., which includes this video of the launch.

Computers are meant to make life easier, (although I would agree that it often doesn’t feel like that).

‘Power users’ often make use of small applications that enable them to handle repetitious and common tasks with much less work.

Lifehacker recently listed their top 10 micro-utilities for both Windows and Mac.

These applications might be a shortcut on your path to “Power-user-dom’.

Any other suggestions? Let us know in the comments.

What I Learnt On 12th April in other years

12th April 2012 New Goldberg Machine World Record

Dave, my friend the muso doctor, tells me that you can play any pop song ever written if you use the 1 5 6m 4 (I V vi IV) Chord Progression. 

Of course, I dont know what this means, so he demonstrated using Garage Band on the iPad in C major using the chords C G Am F.

You can see how frequently this chord progression is used by watching this video by Benny Davis, from the band Axis of Awesome. This was first performed at the 2006 Sydney University Arts Revue: ‘The Complete History of Everything That Ever Happened Ever. On Ice. On Fire.’

Now, go and write us a pop song.

What I Learnt On 11th April in other years

11th April 2012 The End of Awesomeness

It seems the characters of Pixar have always been part of our family. 

For many months Will was indistinguishable from Buzz Lightyear.

I was very glad it was dark in the theatre as we all watched Toy Story 3 last Xmas. Andy has to leave his favourite cowboy at home when he goes off to college. This year our own little Woody sits lonely on the shelf, ‘Olly’ boldly written on the sole of his boot, waiting for his owner to return tomorrow from his first term away from home.

Pixar was established by Steve Jobs in 1986. Chef animator John Lasseter says that it takes three things to make an animated film: world, character and story. Pixar has remained true to that edict since their first short Luxo Jr – and the other 19 short films and 12 feature films they have made since.

The ground breaking Toy Story came out in 1995. Cars 2 will be released later this year.

An exhibition at the Australian Centre of the Moving Image in 1987 celebrated 20 years of Pixar animation. 

So this year marks 25 years of Pixar. To celebrate, this video has been produced which shows key Pixar moments. 

What is your favourite Pixar movie? Let us know in the comments.

• Toy Story (1995)
• A Bug’s Life (1998)
• Toy Story 2 (1999)
• Monster’s Inc. (2001)
• Finding Nemo (2003)
• The Incredibles (2004)
• Cars (2006)
• Ratatouille (2007)
• WALL-E (2008)
• Up (2009)
• Toy Story 3 (2010)
• Cars 2 (2011)

mancave n. A dedicated area of a house, such as a basement, workshop, or garage, where a man can be alone or socialize with his friends.

Social catastrophe may be just around the corner. Modern houses may have 5 bedrooms, four bedrooms, a living room, dining room, a kids room, four bathrooms, and a home theatre – but they have no backyard and therefore no backyard shed. As the great philosopher, John Williamson, says “Every man needs a shed”.

I remember the father of my friend Paul received a plaque on his retirement that read

‘Watch TV, Sleep a Lot,
Lead a Life That’s Lazy.
Mope around the House all day,
Drive your poor wife crazy”

Wives – you should insist that your husband builds his own special place before its too late.

mancavesite.org is dedicated to celebrating the ‘mancave’ in all its forms. And there sure are some interesting forms!

In my research, I have discovered some common mancave elements.(there are no surprises here)

• A display of sporting memorablia
• A dedicated interest in beer 
• A collection of games – pinball, video games, darts and/or pool
• A large screen TV

Here is a random selection of mancaves to give you some ideas.

Now that I’m inspired, “Tellembugrum”, our shed, could make a humble start. I’ll have some work on convincing the rest of the family.

Have you got a mancave? Or seen any exemplars? Let us know in the comments.