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Thousands of Rubber Ducks to Finally End Journey
Bert de Jong writes "The Daily Mail reports that thousands of rubber ducks who have traveled the seas of the world since 1992 are about to end their journey. After escaping out of a container fallen off a Chinese freight ship in a storm, scientists have been followed them on their fifteen year trek. This has turned out to be an invaluable source of information for studying ocean currents. Now it seems inevitable though that they will finally land on the shores of South-West England. '[Oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer] correctly predicted what many thought was impossible - that thousands of them would end up washed into the Arctic ice near Alaska, and then move at a mile a day, frozen in the pack ice, around their very own North-West Passage to the Atlantic. It proved true years later and in 2003, the first Friendly Floatees were found, frozen and then thawed out, on the eastern seaboard of the U.S. and Canada. So precious to science are they that the US firm that made them is offering a £50 bounty for finding one.'"
I'm a turtle
I think I've just come up with a new money making scheme!
1) Goto shop and purchase large amounts of rubber duckies
2) Emerse them in water and ice for a few years and so
3) Sell them to this company for 50 pounds each
4) Profit!
More seriously, maybe scientists should be getting more brightly coloured floating objects and chucking them in the sea at various points. What about red for Russia (two types, one for each coast), yellow for (no I won't go there...) and various other colours for other countries.
A great way to learn more about ocean currents.
But they would get into trouble with (some) environmentalists, maybe they need to just "accidentally" knock a few more crates overboard?
I wank in the shower.
duck duck duck duck duck duck duck ...
As a native of the South-West of England I for one welcome our new faded yellow Chinese rubber duck overlords.
ducks!
Wanna bet there's some collector paying more than those 50 pounds on EBay? If I found one, that's where it would end up.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I for one am welcomming our glob-trotting anatid overloads. I wonder, were any of these Bombay duck's?
Will code for new sig.
22,000 rubber ducks = ~3 million US dollars
Who wants to go to an Artic Expedition, we're mining ducks....
That or Michael Moore documentary.
Thanks for the post, I saw "the daily mail is reporting" and didn't even think of reading the article. It turned out to be quite interesting despite me spending the whole time reading it thinking - how are they going to make this a "Thousands of Chinese immigrants ready wash onto UK shores - Labour to blame" story
If this were really happening, what would you think?
That or Michael Moore documentary.
I think you mean a duckumentary...
(I thank you, I thank you. Don't forget to tip your waitresses, etc.)
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Probably all those ex-pats living in Spain and France. You know, the ones who left England because it's "full of foreigners who don't even speak the language"...
Perhaps we should just teach scientists to disguise their floats as rubber ducks or equip the floats with GPS so they're not so reliant of sightings to chart the course their floats are taking.
I foresee a whole new range of scientific devices...weather balloons shaped like alien heads (with a limited edition of Gremlin-features), rubber duck floats...
Yes, replacing the Council with faded yellow Chinese rubber ducks might actually be an improvement.
Pining for the fjords
This story is cute now, but the world won't be so happy when the first batch of Blue whales wash up, dead from clogged Baleen plates full of plastic ducks...
If he's the Walrus then can I be a penguin please?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Looking forward to the iDuck combined mobile phone and ducky on eBay - no-doubt someone would buy it.
AT&ROFLMAO
Quack comedian.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not entirely sure about the universe - Einstein
So here is the link to a more sensible website:
http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn121
You might be a paleneck if:
You complain about pics of scantily-clad babes distracting you from the article about frozen rubber duckies.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Talk about giving everybody the worst possible guide of everyday British life...
That's ok, it's not like we American's don't have anything to be embarrassed about either ;)
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Glaciers are made of ICE, not frost. Mod parent down, and mod me up. (This would make my life COMPLETE.)
*ducks*
You were a great band, Journey! Who could have known that you would be mobbed and killed by thousands of rubber ducks!?!? What did you do to deserve this fate?!?
hackshop.com - My tech hobby project hub
Untreated sewage (as long as it's just that, and doesn't contain non-biologically-generated crap...) is NOT bad for the environment.
It may create local conditions that are unpleasant or even unhealthy for humans, but that's not the same as "bad for the environment". Lots of things that are perfectly natural are unpleasant or even downright deadly, and the presence of mass of fecal matter is no exception.
Where do you think all the fish in the sea go to shit? Ever wonder how lions find that herd of millions of wildebeests and zebras?
Wow, old habits die hard. GOTO? How about: ...
10 LET STEP1$ = "Go to shop and purchase large amounts of rubber duckies
20 LET STEP2$ = "Emerse them in water and ice for a few years and so"
30 LET STEP3$ = "Sell them to this company for 50 pounds each"
40 GOTO 1000
1000 REM Profit Routine
1010
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
You'd think you could spot tens of thousands of brightly colored rubber ducks on Google Earth/Maps, ya think? Anyone have links?
You Cornish are subjects of the British Crown and will dammned well do as you're told.
Please return to your campsites and ice cream shops and await further orders.
Collect them all, and win a PlayStation 3!
Wrong thread?
We're in duck mode here.
AT&ROFLMAO
At the bottom of the