Whitewater Rafting is very safe, CNN!

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James Kim Search Discussion – Click here | Mount Hood Climber Search

David Boone, missing hiker in California

I’ve been looking into missing people, danger, and death for the Danger Database project and noted this CNN headline that screams “Whitewater Deaths surge in US”, noting that recently about 50 people per year die on whitewater trips.

Until I got to the last paragraph they almost had me buying into the idea that rafting is really dangerous. I take my kids rafting and certainly realize there is risk, but I’ve been assuming it’s well worth the educational and recreations value of a raft trip down the Rogue River or other great whitewater rivers here in Oregon or other place. I started to wonder but luckily I read this : “Ten million Americans take whitewater trips each summer”.

OK, let’s do the math: 50 people out of 10,000,000 die while rafting. Assuming you take an “average” rafting trip your chances of death are 50/10,000,000 or 1/200,000. Looking at it in the common death statistic parlance this is .5 deaths per 100,000 people which is a very reasonable degree of risk I think, though I need to bone up on my death stats for other activities. Hmmm – 1987 skydiving killed 1 for every 75,000 jumps and it looks like Hang Gliding is the most dangerous activity but I need to find better stats. Lightning appears to average 90 deaths per year, handily beating out rafting in terms of simple numbers.

Of course your chances are actually much lower than 1/200,000 if you avoid rafting while drunk and taking unneccessary risks, which I understand contribute to a lot of the accidents in rafting and many other human pursuits as well.

Hmm – based on some stats I dug up it looks like an hour of rafting is about 3x more dangerous than an hour of driving (ie based on my wild and quick calculations you are 3x more likely to die rafting for an hour than driving for an hour).   Still, it would appear to be a fairly/very safe activity.   See comments below for details

… and speaking of Travel, how about Time Tourism?

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Thanks to Glenn (hey dude, where’s your blog to link to!?)  who just pointed me to this fascinating claim by UCONN professor Ronald Mallet suggesting that we’ll probably be traveling in time this century, and that time travel will be verified on the subatomic level within a few years using this clever experiment:

To determine if time loops exist, Mallett is designing a desktop-sized device that will test his time-warping theory. By arranging mirrors, Mallett can make a circulating light beam which should warp surrounding space.

Because some subatomic particles have extremely short lifetimes, Mallett hopes that he will observe these particles to exist for a longer time than expected when placed in the vicinity of the circulating light beam.

A longer lifetime means that the particles must have flowed through a time loop into the future.

…  Mallett – an advocate of the Parallel Universes theory – assures us that time machines will not present any danger.

“The Grandfather Paradox [where you go back in time and kill your grandfather] is not an issue,” said Mallett. “In a sense, time travel means that you’re traveling both in time and into other universes. If you go back into the past, you’ll go into another universe. As soon as you arrive at the past, you’re making a choice and there’ll be a split. Our universe will not be affected by what you do in your visit to the past.”

The parallel universe stuff is not all that fanciful either, rather it’s consistent with the new but increasingly mainstream thinking in physics called “M Theory” that supports the *possibility* of parallel universes that would be essentially invisible to earch other except perhaps by the influences of gravity.

Yes, it sounds like science fiction but it’s not fiction at all, just speculative rather than hard science.   At least for now.

Holiday Travel Tips from Oregon State Police

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James Kim Search Discussion – Click here | Mount Hood Climber Search

After reading so much about dangerous road conditions I thought it would be a great time to post these road travel tips from Oregon State Police and Oregon DOT. Weather is very cold and some roads will be icy for the Christmas Holiday. Please travel safely:

Oregon State Police and Oregon Dept of Transportation recommend the following travel safety tips to help get you safely to your destination:

* Expect the unexpected. Be informed and prepared when traveling on any of our highways.
* When traveling anywhere, plan ahead and taken known routes if possible. Our weather has been changing quickly and sometimes without warning. For road conditions in Oregon, call 5-1-1 or (800) 977-ODOT (6368). Outside Oregon, dial (503) 588-2941. Visiting TripCheck.com on the Internet provides information on road and weather conditions, incidents and traffic delays, and links to numerous cameras on many mountain passes and major routes.
* Take the time to keep up current and future weather conditions in the area you are traveling. Especially if going to or through higher elevations and mountain passes, areas where your vehicle needs to have appropriate traction tires or devices.
* If considering a remote route that you have never traveled on, don’t hesitate to contact available road and weather condition phone number or Internet resources, or contact police or highway department officials.
* Prepare an emergency kit to place in your car for longer trips and keep track of how much fuel is in your tank, especially if traveling unfamiliar routes or into remote locations.
* Let friends and family know what routes you plan to take when on a trip, keeping them updated and let them know if these plans change.
* Drive to the conditions. If it’s icy or wet, increase your following distance and reduce your speed. Use your headlights to improve not only your visibility, but also so others can see your vehicle.
* In bad weather, don’t use cruise control.

For those who may mix holiday celebrations with alcohol, OSP and ODOT recommend the following tips to help make your journey safer:

* Don’t drink and drive, and don’t ride with anyone who has had too much to drink.
* Volunteer to be a designated driver.
* If you see someone you know who has had too much to drink to drive, take his or her keys.
* If hosting a gathering, provide non-alcoholic beverages.
* Use public transit or local drive-home services provided by taxis and other companies.
* Always use safety restraints.
* Report any suspected impaired driving by calling 1-800-24DRUNK (800-243-7865) or 9-1-1.

Media ridealong requests should be directed to your local OSP office.
For more information about the national effort to battle impaired driving, visit www.StopImpairedDriving.org

Blog Tag Game

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James Kim Search Discussion – Click here | Mount Hood Climber Search

Aaron Shear tagged me to share five things people don’t know about me. It’s tempting to make up some some impressive stuff (but I won’t lie!) since the other folks are all very interesting, namely Google’s Adam Lasnik, International SEO Consultant and speaker Joseph Morin, Search Engine Watch Forum’s Jessica Bowman, and Scottish SEO/SEM Scott Boyd.

Here are five things from my little world:

1) My lab, Chico the Wonder Dog, has been working hard to nab the top Google spot from a Chihuahua by the same name. I told him NOT to buy any links or I’ll sick Matt Cutts on him.

2) A recent blog post about the Kim Family Search here in Southern Oregon now has over 1000 comments and has spawned a new project that will combine blogs and a database to help facilitate future search and rescue info coordination.

3) For a time I was a good Touchscreen Kiosk guy, working in the 90’s on a US Forest Service/Tourism project that had multimedia kiosks in travel spots all over the state. I now volunteer on the project I designed that replaced that one, with internet connected stations at the state welcome centers and other travel spots.

4) I can talk like a Duck. No, not the stupid way, the good way. I started talking duck so I could tease my sister by swearing at her without my parents understanding the conversation. I still feel guilty about it, but time shall heal this.

5) I have a double major in Botany and Psychology from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. I don’t know why. Therefore, naturally, I do travel internet publishing and blog about most anything that pops into my head.

I’m tagging these five bloggers because they are all very interesting AND educational folks:

Nasa Google Space Research Project

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Nasa and Google are embarking on a major space information project called the “Space Act Agreement”.

Details are HERE and this looks like annother innovation coup by the Big G:
Google and Ames will focus on making the most useful of NASA’s information available on the Internet. Real-time weather visualization and forecasting, high-resolution 3-D maps of the moon and Mars, real-time tracking of the International Space Station and the space shuttle will be explored in the future.

“This agreement between NASA and Google will soon allow every American to experience a virtual flight over the surface of the moon or through the canyons of Mars,” said NASA Administrator Michael Griffin

Thanks to Glenn for the tip!

Missing at sea in Oregon

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Today (Sunday) a fishing boat has sunk off the Oregon Coast and a few days ago a Catamaran washed ashore with nobody aboard. I’m looking for more detail now and I’m getting a bit paranoid as it seems Oregon is rapidly becoming the US capital of missing people.

The Coast Guard is asking that anyone who may have seen the Catamaran in transit from San Francisco please contact Coast Guard District 13 Command Center at (800) 982-8813.From Oregonlive:

On Rogue River, rescuers find boat owner’s survival suit
A U.S. Coast Guard helicopter and rescue boat renewed their search today for three crew members from a 43-foot fishing vessel that sank Saturday at the entrance of the Rogue River.

The commercial vessel’s crew, which included owner Robert James Ashdown, 44, of Port Orford sent a distress message about 3:40 p.m. Coast Guard Air Station North Bend picked up the signal and initiated an air and sea search.

A life raft, spotted near the river’s entrance by a crew member who apparently did not go out with the others Saturday, contained no members of the crew, said Shawn Eggert, a public affairs specialist with the Coast Guard’s District 13 public affairs office in Seattle. The life raft is in the custody of the Curry County Sheriff’s office, he said.

Debris from the boat, including some survival suits identified by Ashdown’s family as belonging to him, also were found.

The vessel capsized as it attempted to cross the Rogue River bar in Gold Beach, where it encountered extremely high waves and a strong surf, according to the Curry County sheriff’s office. Witnesses said the boat had just crossed the bar when it was slammed first by a wave that knocked it sideways and then by another, which turned the craft over.

The sheriff’s office said it was not yet releasing the names of the other two crew members.

[Note that about 70 miles upriver from the mouth of the Rogue River lies Big Windy Creek Canyon where James Kim died last week, only about a half mile from this same Rogue River.]

Time’s Person of the year … is YOU!

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 Time Magazine 2006 Person of the Year

Time gets it right naming you, me, and everybody else in the exploding online community the person of the year.   The power of the community internet aka “Web 2.0” is the big story now and for many years to come as millions more flock online every week to surf, buy, blog, meet, marry, and much more.

Unlike the initial thrust that brought millions of ‘techno centric’ folks to the digital water coolers and watering holes of the early web the “new web” has almost no barriers to entry, a far more robust broadband infrastructure, a global reach, and will soon capture all but the most stubborn luddites.

Online community isn’t just big news, it’s great news.

Mountain Climbers lost in China

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Update: There is bad news in this search – one body has been found on remote mountain slope in China: CNN Reports

It has now been identified as Charlie Fowler  Boskoff is still missing but it appears they presume she did not make it either.

Mountain Madness was the company founded by Scott Fisher who died on Mt Everest in the ill fated expedition chronicled in the book “Into Thin Air”.

CLICK HERE for the Fowler Boskoff blog that is collecting any relevant information about the missing climbers Fowler and Boskoff.

James Kim Search Discussion – Click here | Mount Hood Climber Search

CNN reports two elite US Mountain Climbers are lost in China, it appears after returning to a city after conquering one of the world’s tallest unclimbed peaks and perhaps heading off for new mountains.

For more information, check out:

Bill Gates and the Bloggers

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James Kim Search Discussion – Click here | Mount Hood Climber Search

Some very high profile and clever folks in the blogging community got to head up to Microsoft HQ and meet with Bill Gates yesterday to discuss the future of the internet, especially ways to make the upcoming MIX07 conference relevant to the needs of those attending.

I missed meeting Gates at MIX06 earlier this year but I know several of the bloggers that were invited so I’ll have to settle for one degree of separation. I’m a huge fan of Bill Gates’ superb global health initiatives though not at all a fan of many of his “old style” ideas about computing and the internet. I think he, and MS at large, continues to view the internet as primarily a technological rather than a sociological development (clue: it’s 80% sociological, 19% technical and 1% electrical)

The reports are starting to come in:

Mike Arrington

Steve Rubel

Ryan Stewart

Niall Kennedy

Liz Gannes

Todd Bishop