Slashdot Mirror
Rowing the Pond Again
Gudlyf writes "Anne Quéméré, a French woman who had previously rowed across the Atlantic Ocean from Spain to the West Indian island of Guadeloupe, is currently on her way to doing it again, only this time in the opposite direction. This season's challenge will take Anne 2700 nautical miles, from Chatham, Cape Cod (USA) to Brittany (France), her native land. She hopes to make it in less than 90 days. Is it just me, or does the giant fish on her boat scream 'shark bait' to you?"
But probably death-from-exposure/hypothermia bait.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
Nerds do things that most people would call obsessive. Why nerds do things is not easily understandable even by the nerds. Just because this appears to be more physical than cerebral doesn't mean that the person is not a nerd.
To put it another way: A nerd doesn't have to be a computer geek. I think nerds have a passion for whatever they are doing. Anything else, like sleep and social contact with non-nerds, doesn't much matter. Anybody who is willing to spend three months alone, rowing across the Atlantic, more than once, has to be a nerd.
It's about solitude and one-ness with nature as well as accomplishing a goal some would call impossible. She will be by herself exposed to the elements for ~90 days. That's a lot of time for deep thought amidst the hard work of rowing. I'm sure life takes on a new perspective of meaning after an epic journey like that. I cannot claim to have the same drive.
Man, I wish I had the balls to do this. Boats are so cool. Well, boats without motors, anyway. In fact, things built by people with their own hands designed to do something crazy are cool in general. I'd love to build my own sailboat and sail from the southern tip of Japan to the Philippines. That's not even a huge distance, and I'm still too chicken to do it... storms scare me.
As for all you idiots making "What's this doing on Slashdot?" comments, what the hell? You guys are worse than those stupid jocks in HS who used to try to pigeonhole us into the glasses-wearing computer nerd category. Worse because you're doing it to yourselves. People aren't two-dimensional (I mean this figuratively, smart ass) and this includes even you. Lots of nerds like sports. It's just that we often like non-standard ones, like martial arts, fencing, bowling, sailing, whatever. But even if it were some "lame" sport like baseball or football, a true geek could find a way to make it geeky. That you can't speaks to your lack of imagination, nothing else.
Thank you, drive through.
I happen to think it's a fantastic thing.
There's no real "why" of why anyone would willingly climb Everest, go to Antarctica, walk across a desert, play any contact sport, play golf, walk up the stairs to the office and not take the elevator.
All of those things are more prone to injury, take longer, are a "waste" of time. But none of that is the point. All of those things are terrific fun - even walking up the stairs gives you a nice glow just before you hit the airconditioning for 8 hours.
Rowing across the Atlantic Ocean? Imagine the isolation, the memories, the weather you'd see, the sense of having conquered yourself you would feel for the rest of your life.
She's not hurting anyone or anything. And she may actually make observations worth listening to.
My response? Bravo!
no wonder she's in love with the ocean.
AnneQue sounds like Anchor.
Mer = Sea in french.
I s'pose it is one way to beat the queues at the airport though.
Is exploring the limits of the human body and mind not a worthy cause? Feats of physical and emotional endurance can inspire, educate, and enrich people's lives. Only considering acts which help people relieve pain "worthy" is an awfully negative outlook on life. I say celebrate the accomplishments of our fellow humans, silly or not.
The "row boat" looks like a giant rapala lure!
Who in their right mind would row anywhere with that thing?
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
I didn't RTFA (yeah, I've been here a while), but what's so surprising about a French woman doing it again?
Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
Somehow, compared to the 32,480 deaths in MVAs (car/SUV/truck crashes), 55 shark attacks just doesn't seem very significant (source). The fact is, compared to the driving we do every day, Sharks aren't particularly dangerous.
"Umm...right. Would you remind repeating that to the family of the woman killed by the Great White not 5 miles from where I live? Giant myth my ass. Some things have been exaggerated, yes, but understating the danger can be just as bad, for both humans and sharks."
It's a giant myth because, of the millions of people who could potentially interact with Sharks each year, there are few reported incidents (55 in 2003).
You could make the statement:
"Umm...right. Would you remind repeating that to the family of the woman killed by TWA 800 5 miles from where I live? Giant myth my ass. Some things have been exaggerated, yes, but understating the danger can be just as bad."
The fact that you know someone who has died in an air crash *does not* make air travel unsafe. The fact is, there really isn't any risk to understimate. The risk is, quite frankly, statistically insignifigant. That's like saying that you should "consider the risk" before eating food because people die from foodborne illness each year (9,000 in the USA alone - 180 times greater than Shark-related deaths).
We can make a sob story out of anything, but the fact is that the only way to assess the risk of an activity is to look at statistics. The statistics say that the danger is minimal. There's nothing to understimate because there is virtually no danger whatsoever.
If you don't consider that, then eating highly radioactive material will seem like a safe activity - just because nobody does that. In reality of course, doing that would be quite risky.
Looking at the US, very large numbers of people are involved with cars on a daily basis, only a small percentage go swimming in the ocean every day. How useful is it really to know that there were no shark-related incidents in Minnesota this year?