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?"
sharks are attracted to blood, they cannot 'see' a fish like that on the side of a boat.
But probably death-from-exposure/hypothermia bait.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
does she run linux?
Wouldn't it have just been easier to buy an airline ticket?
I'm all for exercise and all but geeze!
http://slashome.web1000.com
She has to get back, doesn't she?
If she had the money to get a plane ticket, she wouldn't have made it the first time.
In my day we had to kayak through the Pacific just to buy some foie gras... upstream BOTH WAYS.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
We have to do something about the oil companies, this poor women obviously can't afford gas either. Greedy bastards!
Happy Noodle Boy says "F###ing doughnut! Mock me? You fried cyclops!!"
Ok, and she is doing all this while reformatting her Windows box, and replacing it with the latest Linux distro ? or ... What is this doing on Slashdot ? :P
Shark-Bait HOO-HAH-HAH
Extraordinary Vacations. Exceptional Prices
To each thier own I guess. I hope she brought a PowerBar.
Be Safe! Sleep with a Marine. Semper Fi!
Got curious and browsed that images (images directory. Some odd stuff, but there's also a small map showing (at least vaguely) the intended journey.
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
/)
A. i dont even have a boat you insensitive clod
:)
B. all your oars are belong to us
C. in soviet russia the boat rows you
D.
1. row row row your boat
2. do it again
3. ???
4. profit!!
E. D'OH!
There, I think that about covers it
Did this woman give any thought to her daughter? A man was killed doing this in 2000, what if the same happens to her? What will her daughter think when she gets older? "My mom died trying to row a boat painted like shark bait across the Atlantic Ocean." I do give her snaps for doing something I could never do, but she should be thinking of her daughter's future without her mom.
As a computer, I am amused by the faith you have in technology.
Geek n.
A person regarded as foolish, inept, or clumsy.
A person who is single-minded or accomplished in scientific or technical pursuits but is felt to be socially inept.
But then it could also be:
A carnival performer whose show consists of bizarre acts, such as biting the head off a live chicken.
I mean how many times do you see "sex with a mare" around here??
Here's her website. It's entirely in French, but you can see pictures of her and the boat on the photo page.
And as she does this, a computer aboard the boat will be running an OpenGL application in PHP. If she succeeds, she will break world impracticality records.
Would you have the balls to attack a woman with the arms to row across the Atlantic? I wouldn't...
High latency, low bandwidth, low reliability, single packet, connectionless protocol. RFC 1149 spawned another RFC (2549) and had two implementations to take it out of just a draft version, so why not this. :-)
Maybe she's hoping that the publicity will encourage another lunat^H^H^H rower to do likewise. (or else she's on the SYN-ACK leg of her first attempt).
I'm sure that there are more nerdly connections we can make when we have too much time on our hands
Plus, there's all sorts of technology involved -- GPS, satellite phone, and the materials and construction of the boat itself.
But what it really comes down to is clearly illustrated in this bit from the article:Now if that's not geeky, I dunno what is.
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.
She's navigating mainly by GPS
She has a custom made boat (physics, specialized transportation design)
She expects to lose 30 pounds (lots of nerds need to lose weight / Physical effects of long term physical stress is a good topic of scientific discussion)
Quit flapping your bitching hole.
Paul Lenhart writes words!
Wow, my town made slashdot. Some guy did this a few years back, he tried again last year but failed.
We had to row to school 30 miles and back again in the evening 40 miles! In the snow... Uphill, carring our horses. With no food or clothing. And we were grateful for what we had ! arrrr..
I couldn't think of a sig.
Exactly. This is, like, all athletic and--how you say?--"outsidish?" no, no. i mean, "out of the doors?" oh yes, "outdoorsy." i do not know of this out of the doors activities of which they write...what with the..the...the sweating. And the exerting.
(and before some pumped up jock wannabe tries to make me seriously believe a true nerd can also be mr. macho athlete guy, lemme say a) we're all very proud of you and b) please go crow on some less nerdly site. you are far too cool for us.)
The US Coast Gaurd announced today that they picked up a determined French refugee in a rowboat off the coast of Massachusetts. She has been taken to an undisclosed location for indefinite detention.
Unknown host pong.
Sharks don't live in the north atlantic you insensitive clod, er, dolt!
Only in a Slashdot fantasy can a Slackware install turn into several hours of sex . . . . .
Just imagine a Bay-o-watch cluster of these...
I'm here all week, folks.
Old people fall. Young people spring. Rich people summer and winter.
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!
Net effect is zero.
Which makes her even with all of us who didn't row at all.
"Nice boat. What kinda motor you got on that rig?"
HOO-HAH-HAH! Jay, this is Al HOO-HAH-HAH Pacino. I can't stop saying "HOO-HAH-HAH"! Go see my new movie, Finding Nemo Part HOO-HAH-HAH!
it'd be like getting a handjob from popeye
think about it
eom. They are dickheads, though. cf. Jaws, and are very smart cf. whethever that movie was about super smart shark mutants.
Thank you, John Parr.
I suggest you read Slashdot
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.
Try reading at -1 more often.
...but it certainly looks like a huge arse lure to me.
Trolls lurk everywhere. Mod them down.
How does she sleep?
Where does she keep her food? (90 days of food in this tiny canoe?)
What if there is a storm? (Good weather guaranteed? A ship following her just in case?)
She plans to cover the entire boat with dried sheep's blood.
There's a bi-annual cross-Atlantic rowing race, here's a page on this year's event. They have teans of two, though a few times one member has been taken off to leave one to do most of the journey.
One thing's for sure, this woman could beat you up.
on the wrong day, just getting out of Chatham could be the worst part of the trip. Weatherwise, that is - and the bars (the ones in the water, that is - though around town there' s a bumper sticker that reads "Chatham - a quaint drinking village with a fishing problem.")
Fog blows up over the barrier beach outside of Stage Harbor so thick and fast you'd swear there's a forest fire raging on the other side of the dune - and crossing Stage Harbor on a busy day with a sea kayak is like crossing I-95 on foot in rush hour.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Brittany has a specific language which is in most part unrelated to french.
. . . . . . .
may u!sh 2 sm!le at dz!z bad nn.!m!tat!ion
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.
Really need to mention Raphaela Legouvella here as she recently arived in Tahiti on a windsufer. She already crossed the atlantic back in 2000. http://www.raphaela-legouvello.com/ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3236899.st m
As to whether this should be on /. windsurfing seems a more apropriate geek sport to me than rowing (obvoulsy I'm biased on this). Hi tech construction, always pushing the speed records, and it's 95% technique and only 5% fitness.
Her windsurfer looks biger than your average sailing boat but it was built with the help of the european space agency.
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?
He asked for the NERD connection, not the geek connection. The tagline here isn't "news for geeks".
Anyone read the short novel he Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect? Near the end the main character, Caroline, rows across a huge ocean (on another planet) to reach someone.
no comment
Or maybe her job was outsourced and she's got all this free time now?
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
Offtopic or Interesting? You decide... :-)
Knos: Brittany has a specific language which is in most part unrelated to french.
I know this because my uncle, who is a Welsh speaker, struck up a conversation with what he thought was a fellow Welshman in Brittany. Only half an hour into chatting (and, to be fair, drinking), did he click that the gentleman was in fact a local.
Oh, and interesting fact number two: Brittany is the reason why the largest UK island is called Great Britain- because there is a Little Britain (Brittany) in France. At one point a line of regional kings [1] claimed soverignty over all the Britons (Britons being the Gaelic-speaking peoples of France, Ireland and the UK).
[1] You have to remember that kings were little more than tribal leaders until recent centuries. The word "king" conjures up images of gold and palaces, when in fact for most of Northern European history, kings were the ones who had slightly larger mud huts and slightly warmer animal furs.
Andrew Oakley - www.aoakley.com
lemme guess:
she got a few sponsors who are gonna pay big $$$ to have her stick on a few logo's
she saved up for years to do this
press is gonna waste millions on it in order to cover it world wide
slashdot wastes about 1gb of served bandwidth
what a waste! do something good with your money!
Sure, rowing is great, golf is great, walking up a flight of stairs is great, etc. But only as part of a more complex life. Even in your example, you climbed the stairs, and then proceeded to do something else for the next 8 hours.
Now picture that anyone proposed to spend their next 90 days doing nothing but running up and down stairs. No break except to sleep, no talking to anyone, just boring repetitive mind-numbing running up and down stairs. Endless hours each day just going up and down stairs.
I don't know about you, but it strikes me as supremely idiotic. It also strikes me as a cry for attention. A _really_ sad cry for attention.
You see, a human brain is more complex than that. Even those of us typically labelled as terminal geeks, tend to lead a far more varied life, by comparison. It might involve more sitting at a computer than other people consider normal. But even then it'll be a mix of coding, playing some game, talking on IRC, reading slashdot, posting some comments, etc. You're exercising more than one part of your brain, with more than one stimulus.
Now contrast this with 90 days of just rowing. I can't imagine anyone who's not already retarded, being physically able to put up with that kind of monotony and boredom.
And again, why is it even news? What next? Everyone admiring someone who's spent 90 days in a row just clicking on the exact same monsters in Everquest, taking breaks only to eat and sleep?
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Of course its news for nerds - she's taking a laptop and a pringles can across the ocean to complete the first ever case of war-rowing! There could be loads of open wifi connections out there, from passing ships or electric eels... Sheesh! Didnt you read the article???
A person who is single-minded or accomplished in scientific or technical pursuits but is felt to be socially inept.
See... I would consider this statement to be a compliment.
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"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."
-- George Orwell
I have to wonder how you go to the bathroom on a trip like this... I mean, I understand that you're in the middle of the ocean and can go wherever you want, but think of the logistics... if you try to go over the side of the boat, wouldn't that create an imbalance?
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"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."
-- George Orwell
http://www.adept.net/AmericanPearl/
I think she went the westward direction (Canaries to Carribean) following ocean currents. It was an interesting online event since you could monitor GPS data on the website and she periodically posted messages and photos via satellite. She is now climbing Denali (Mt. McKinley).
Shark bait
Ooh ha ha!
"Enough with the shark bait..."
-- There is no sig line, only Zuul.
If they reposted everything from yesterday, what would they have left for tomorrow?
liqbase
French babe - not on this planet anyway.
It's obvious that you haven't seen any French babes, then.
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." -- George Orwell
Here are some more pics of her canoe and a pic of her too :-)
Karma police, arrest this man, he talks in maths....
I know you were joking, but obsesion of all kinds (athletic and otherwise) ARE nerdy. Spend more time with runners and cyclists and you will find that many of them are very nerdy, and the fact that they are in good shape doesn't detract from that in the slightest.
I am not talking about someone who runs a couple of miles a couple of times a week, I am talking about marathoners, and cyclists who go for 100+ mile rides. We study our equipment, our techniques and our nutrition, all to improve performance.
If you are the kind of person who runs 20 or more miles every Saturday, let me assure you, you are not normal.
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
but all that rowing sounds like a real bummer. I crossed from the Canary Islands to the Carribean in a 56 foot sail boat in 1969 and it was no picnic, even going "downhill" so to speak. Our crossing was in January and we had several days of up to 80 knot wind and 20+ foot waves. NO GPS or satellite phone then, but we had, in addition to celectial navigation, Loran A and I had my ham rig for communications - almost as good.
To the person who asked about food storage, I don't see that as much of a problem. The food for the six of us for the 28 days that it took us seemed to take up little room with a little planning, but we did have one shortage.. We ran out of tonic water after three weeks, but still had plenty of gin so we made do and it wasn't a total loss.
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
There's an image of her actually rowing the beast , which puts the contraption in human perspective.
(in portuguese).
This is the official site of Amyr Klink, the brazilian guy who rowed across the south atlantic from Africa to the Brazilian coast back in 1984 in a boat he himself designed (and which looks a lot like the french woman's boat, minus the fish). Then he went on to spend a winter alone in the Antarctic. His most recent adventure was a global circumnavigation around Antarctica non-stop in a sailing boat.
I know I'm late, but am I the only one who say this article as
Rewiring the pond, again
It's early still...
LongTail SSH Brute Force analysis tool is here!
Ninety days?! Madame Souza accomplished this feat in about two minutes.
Intelligent Design: because MATH is HARD.
Bas Jan Ader made a fatal attempt in 1975 to cross the Atlantic as performance art.
One other thing to keep in mind, which makes shark statics in FL kinda pointless: Any time a shark is involved it has to be counted as an "attack", regardless of how minor the incident was. Scratches and bruises are all considered attacks. So, for example, in 2001 there were 37 shark attacks in FL, but only one was fatal.
I think I'd be more worried about buckling up.
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"Every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief."
Since this article is neither for nerds, nor does it in any way matter, why was it OK'd? Slow news day?
* As is generally the case, my opinions do not reflect those of my employer.
while the one I submitted on the continued existence of the Total Information Awareness Program gets rejected by the editors.
/.
Nice work,
"Stuff that matters"
Right.
Mod this Off-Topic now, morons.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
There's a lot of cool tech going on in rowing, too, even if you ignore the bizarre stuff like sliding riggers that keep the oars perpendicular to the boat throughout the stroke.
--
I wrote a book. All by myself. In less than six months.
= 9J =
Brittany has three languages really, Breton(west), Gallo(center) and French(east & all)