Sydney funnel-web spider

Under a social business dinner recently the newly appointed CIO of Westpac, Clive Whincup, who is a literate of many subjects, told us that the neurotoxin from the Sydney funnel-web spider only was deadly to primates.

This is particularly interesting given that there are no other indigenous primates in Australia than the humans.

The neurotoxin causes wholesale release of neurotransmitters, especially acetylcholine. The puncture wound is intensely painful. Although the bite of the funnel-web spider (Atrax robustus) can be and has been fatal, there have been no reported deaths since the introduction of the antivenom in 1981.

This may be because all Sydney funnel-webs live within commuting distance of the Opera House, a relatively small area dense with well-supplied hospitals.

Although extremely toxic to primates, the venom appears to be fairly harmless to many other animals. So apparently science do not have an answer to why the funnel-web spider has developed a toxin that is harmless to many of its targeting small animals. It has been suggested that these animals may be resistant to the venom's effects due to the presence of Immunoglobulin G (lgG) and possibly cross-linked IgG and Immunoglobulin M (lgM) inactivating factors in their blood plasma that bind to the toxins responsible and neutralise them, or it may involve a non-specific reaction due to the highly basic nature of the toxins.

In other words, we don’t know why the funnel-web spider has developed a neurotoxin that is only able to kill the English convicts and immigrants at their arrival in Sydney more than 200 years ago…

Sydney

Today marks the sixth month after moving to this fantastic and amazing country and city of festivals, [marine] wildlife, exciting insects and friendly people (sydneysiders).







There are a few ‘properties’ we have noted while been living in Sydney for the last six months:
• There are very few churches in Sydney
• There are a number of very skilled buskers (street musicians)
• You will find public toilets on most corners
• There is a festival ‘every day’
• There is a food festival every week (and almost as many wine festival)
• There is a beach on ‘every corner’
• Almost every sydneysider lives by the shore
• All shops are open every day
• This is a very green city with trees along every street
• You can enjoy fresh and very tasty locally grown vegetables and fruits every day
• You can eat your ice-cream inside the cinema
• The wines of Australia is different and very nice
• People in Sydney is not only friendly, but indeed polite and social





So in short I can say, without even mentioning the excellent climate, life is indeed tolerable in Sydney Australia!!

Muslim role model and uproar in the Middle East

It feels good when one read or experiences every day heroes and role models, people that stands out like a lighthouse and gives this good gut feeling that there are after all some people that has courage and self-sacrifice to make a better world for all of us. Nowadays I am sure that the nuclear plant workers in Japan are such role models, but I have also just had the immense pleasure of reading a very inspirational interview in Times (March 21^st 2011) with Shaista Gohir, a British Muslim feminist and an advisor to the government. I myself take an agnostic stand towards religion, to me religion is a personal thing, nothing that one should impose on others or use as a political instrument, those that fights the religious moral police should be supported and Shaista Gohir is such a brave woman.

Traditionally the moral police has been scholars, persons (read males) that had the better understanding of the religious guidelines that you would find in the religious books like Koran, Bible etc., but lately there are more and more people (males again) using these religious guidelines out of context for their own purposes, typically to achieve their own goals and to control other people (women or “subjects”). Ms. Gohir is herself a well educated scholar in the Koran and has many examples of British Muslims that has approached her believing it is the husbands right to hit them and that men are superior to women etc – and Ms. Gohir explains that there are no support for these medieval interpretations of the Koran – its just male interpretations. I have never read the Koran, but I am sure she is right, it does not make sense; I mean if one should have a religion it must be based on respect and tolerance, why should one have a religion if those basic human social qualities are not there. I am sure it is in the Koran, it must be, I myself have lived among a majority of Muslims and has never experienced more tolerant people (Bangladeshis), much more than my “local” Christian protestants that cannot tolerate homosexuality or a priest that publishes a book about sex in the Bible. I shiver when I think about those men that need to control everyone else, specifically their women.

Ms. Gohir has an interesting story about an argument she had with a British imam. The imam told her that “most inhabitants of Hellfire were women” and to back it up he quoted a Hadith. Hadiths are accounts of words and deeds of the Prophet, categorized as strong, i.e., likely to be accurate, or weak, i.e., likely to have been made up. Ms. Gohir argued that it was a weak Hadith and reminded the imam about a verse in the Koran that describes the inhabitants of Hell, “and nowhere does it say that there are more women than men”. The imam then began to list his intellectual credentials. “He was trying to make me feel unsure about my knowledge. But I was sure! So I kept pressing him and eventually he admitted it was a weak Hadith”, explained Ms. Gohir.

I say that this story is repetitive in possibly all other religions – its been used by Christians millions of times over!

Ms. Gohir has received numerous threats to her person, but has relentlessly taken the position to fight for the Muslim women and against the male suppressive interpretation of the Koran, “there is nothing in the Koran that prohibits women to wear trousers” and Ms. Gohir also does not agree to the veil; “in other countries women are fighting to take off the veil, in Britain they are fighting to put it on”. “Young men who think they are the moral police have reduced Islam to a piece of cloth”. Also, she says, those who wants to use the veil should be left alone.

I have hereby put down Shaista Gohir as one of my inspirational and brave everyday hero’s that is dedicated to make the world a better place!

Ok, so here comes the punch; In lieu of what is just now happening in the Arab world, a world of Muslims, why have they tolerated the suppressive dictatorship for so long? I am not only happy for their liberation, but also very impressed by their courage and bravery, but why not earlier? They (read men and women) have clearly demonstrated that they have it in them, is it the religion that has been misused by their leaders to misguide the people to sustain oppression? The leaders themselves have obviously prospered since they all have and are very, very wealthy? Moreover, now that the courageous Libyan people are liberating themselves from their mad dictatorship, where are their Arab and Muslim brothers? It’s only the oil-hungry west that is spending vast their resources in helping them out.

Just like the Chinese and Russians (members of the ‘abstain’ club) it appears that their Arab brothers are just saving their funds till ‘the others’ have fought the battle and then they come creeping to ‘invest’ and put their straws into the resources of the liberated Arab countries.

I think there is a final battle to be fought; lets liberate all nations from the religion instrument!

Paradise, marine life and democracy

Yet again I have had the opportunity to experience a close encounter of the fascinating gigantic manta rays in the Maldives, specifically at the Conrad Rangali resort on the Ari atoll. Two years ago, at exactly the same time of the year, I got to see the first one, now I encountered a giant of something like 5-6 meters wingspan (pictured by my dive buddy Nigel Hossack) – its nothing less than breathtaking – literarily as the encounter happens around 10 meters under water and only 1-2 m away from us. In general, experiencing the amazing marine diversity is in itself awarding. Nobody knows how vast this diversity really is, but the recently published Ocean Census is at least trying to record and find out, so are the scuba divers in the Maldives. Counting only those species being recorded with photos by scuba divers at the Maldives, we already have around thousand fish species, but of course, the reality is much higher, no wonder this marine diversity is important to the diversity of the whole globe, us included.

The Maldives is truly a paradise, but reviewing a few facts may present a different picture in retrospect, not only consists this paradise of about 1200 coral islands and 26 atolls, but the Maldives is the lowest country in the world, with a maximum natural ground level of only 2.3 metres, with the average being only 1.5 metres above sea level, it is the country with the lowest altitude in the world!

Politically, Tunisia is possibly not the first Arab/Muslim country in recent time where the people has successfully overthrown the government and its dictator who where exploiting the people and the country for decades, the Maldives did it already in 2008 when a ‘bloodless revolution’ occurred and the people of the Maldives got a democratic constitution and a President elected fairly by the people. It’s a pleasure and with great admiration I have observed what their young President has achieved in terms of creating a contagious enthusiasm for the Maldives by us who visits the Maldives and by the Maldivians themselves and their hope for the future!

Nokia + Microsoft Mobile = bankrupcy?

About two years ago Nokia launched N97 as a response to the iPhone challenge – all of us who explored this ‘innovative’ new Nokia phone was rather surprised that it was possible to launch anything as poor as this …?#$...

Not only was this a poor mimic of the iPhone, but it was low quality and really poor usability – ages away from anything that could resemble the iPhone or challenge the iPhone. At the time I predicted 10 years before Nokia would go bankrupt if this was the best they could come up with… In the meantime the Google Android OS has been launched and embraced by most of Nokia’s competitors – Android is a real challenge to iPhone, but Nokia did not follow the crowd, they continued with Symbian, until now…. Nokia is so down on their knees that they actually marries another mobile looser, Microsoft mobile 7 which their partners have left already to the benefit of the much more user friendly Android.

HPC, one of the more successful smartphone providers left the Microsoft platform and shifted early to the much more modern Android. Why would Nokia think they will be successful with Microsoft 7 – have they not noticed that there has been a shift of paradigm and that the iPhone, and now Android, represents a disruptive technology? Just like the mobile communication technology (GSM, GPRS, etc) was to the land line telephony in the beginning of the 90's…

"Management is the Most Creative of Arts"

I doubt there are many persons in my generation that can identify the origin of the following quote:

"Management is, in the end, the most creative of all arts - for its medium is human talent itself. What, in the end, is managements most fundamental task? It is to deal with change. Management is the gate through which social, political, economical, technological change - indeed change in every dimension - is rationally and effectively spread through society.
Some critics, today, keep worrying that our democratic, free societies are being overmanaged. The real truth is precisely the opposite. As paradoxical as it may sound, the real threat to democracy comes from undermanagement, not from overmanagement....." (my bold face emphasis)

This is an excerpt from a speech made by Robert S McNamara in 1967 when he set out his vision of the role of management and its importance in our world.
I am sure I share shudders with lots of persons of my generation when we hear the name of McNamara whom the most of us connects with his role as the US Secretary of defense during the Vietnam war, but in reality he is regarded as one of the most brilliant management spokespersons and tutors of the modern management philosophy that I am sure Barack Obama and other 'modern' leaders today subscribes to - not to mention all those that really should read McNamara on management to execute their management roles more efficient and to the best of the team they are managing - simply put, there is lot to learn from this brilliant and wise man.
Another cold war 'ghost', Barry Goldwater, said: "McNamara is one of the best secretaries ever, an IBM machine with legs" - that sounds to me as .......

MC kjøreteknikk og mange gode råd

Endelig en Norsk bok for oss som allerede dagen etter at vi har satt bort sykkelen for vinteren føler abstinens og rykk i clutch- og brems-fingeren for om mulig våren kommer tidlig neste år...
Boka til Geir Ugland Jacobsen fortjener en honnør for sitt forsøk på å balansere behovet, for noen MC-førere, å kjøre fort og samtidig ikke ta unødvendig risiko og/eller å sette andre trafikanter i fare. Geir gir et definitivt modent innblikk inn i MC-førerenes utfordringer blandet med sine egne omfattende erfaringer og gode råd - og gode råd er det mange av.
Sjøl er jeg bare opptatt av svinger, Geir er i tillegg opptatt av fri fart på Tyske autobahn og/eller på Ringen, helt greit spør du meg, dersom det gjøres med fornuft - og til det tror jeg Geir er et godt forbilde.
Sjøl er jeg som sagt, kun opptatt av svinger, dvs svingteknikk og det å kunne ta svingene så raskt og korrekt som mulig - og dessuten deler jeg med Geir hans begeistring for naturopplevelsene du får på Norske veier om de nå er på Vestlandet eller Østlandet.
Jeg deler også Geir's forundring over trafikkmyndighetene og deres tolkning av fornuftig kjøring, dvs ikke all kjøring over fartsgrensen er ufornuftig, det må sees i en helhet. Blant mine egne erfaringer har jeg fra over Dovrefjell i topp vær og sommerføre, nesten ingen trafikk og muligheter til å se veien flere kilometer foran deg, da er det vanskelig å forstå at 101km/t er uforsvarlig...
Geir har mange gode erfaringer og eksempler å dele med leseren som jeg i høyeste grad kan kjenne meg igjen i og som er gode påminnelser nå i vintermørke hvor vi alle bare sitter å venter på mildere klima, vår og sykkelslepp!

Dette var en fin julepresang og en herlig lesing som selvsagt ikke har hjulpet mye på å redusere forventningene til våren. Dersom det skal sies noe ut fra en subjektiv negativ observasjon så måtte det være at bokas forfatter har en lang liste med "riskokere" på samvittigheten som alle mer eller mindre har kraft og høy toppfart som fellesnevnere, ikke sikkerhet som jeg vektlegger høyt. Med dette mener jeg at teknologien innenfor sikkerhet og MC for lengst har løst "stoppie" problemet med f.eks. BMW's paralevel "stupgaffel". Det samme kan sies om frivillig og ufrivilige "wheelies" - bakhjulskjøring som kan skrues av og på med BMW's antispinn. Antispinn løser også delvis problemet med grus i kjørebanen og plutselig glatt kjørebane og på toppen av det hele så har flere andre produsenter enn BMW også løst problemet med feil nedbremsing ved å la ABS og balansert forbrems virker på både bak- og forbremsen. Beklager Geir, men jeg måtte bare si det ;-), et teknologihjerte som mitt lar seg selvsagt også begeistre av disse løsningene. Uansett, boka anbefales på det sterkeste!
Boka kan dere bestille på: www.fastest.no