Bill’s Reals Blog - Scuba, Travel & Gadgets

This is so awesome.

An Austrian diver was attacked by a shark while participating in a cage-less shark dive in the Bahamas. It’s tragic, but now questions are being raised on the safety of a cage-less shark diving in the area.

From CNN:

The leader of a shark tour whose customer was mauled to death Saturday was warned that his practice of allowing people to swim close to hungry sharks could lead to tragedy, a colleague said.

I’m not sure I would be in the water, without a shark cage, while they were feeding sharks for these types of dives. However, that’s doesn’t mean that it’s something that should be banned, it simply is getting lots of attention because it’s a shark killing a human.

Wetpixel has the in-depth of the incident.

Scientists investigating the icy waters of Antarctica said they have collected mysterious creatures including giant sea spiders and huge worms in the murky depths.

Here is a video of giant sea spider, the size of dinner plates, on CNN.

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/tech/2008/02/19/vo.aus.sea.spider.ap

The small island nation of Kiribati has created what looks to be the world’s largest marine protection area. The purpose of this 410,500 square kilometers preserve is biodiversity and will be off limits to commercial activities like fishing.

Fishing concessions make money for the Atoll based nation but they have a plan:

Protecting the Phoenix Islands means restricting commercial fishing in the area, resulting in a loss of revenue that the Kiribati government would normally receive from issuing foreign commercial fishing licenses. NEAq and CI are helping Kiribati design an endowment system that will cover the core recurring management costs of PIPA and compensate the government for the foregone commercial fishing license revenues. The plan allows for subsistence fishing by resident communities and other sustainable economic development in designated zones of the protected area.

Basically, they are hoping for eco-tourism. This new reserve is bigger than the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument west of Hawaii (137,797 square miles) and the Great Barrier Reef in Australia (345,000 sq km.)
If you want to read about life on Kiribati , you should pick up, The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific by J. Maarten Troost, who lived on Kiribati and recounts his experience living in a nation that is far removed from most other countries. It’s hilarious, he’s a good writer.

These samples should set you straight on the fact that you need to watch this show… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkgMbU-we1o and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkxiJP3gg14

It’s on obscure cable station FUSE.tv, http://www.fuse.tv actually on IFC, http://www.ifc.com/. Thanks Julie.

I’ve been reading that a nightly glass of red wine can help with your cholesterol, lower your risk of prostate cancer and is good for your heart. Plus, it’s loaded with delicious alcohol.

But how good is it for you? I plan on having a glass every night, after 3 months visiting my doctor for a yearly check up, and see if any of the claims have any affect on me.

So yes, I’ll be drinking for science.

I bought an iPhone about 4 months ago, it was for my Dad’s b-day but when I learned that he had just re-upped his contract with Verizon; I realized I needed a new gift. Now, I will freely admit to fawing over the thing in the store when I first saw it, but I was able to resist.

However, I didn’t return it, I kept it and here’s why: it’s the best phone on I’ve ever used.

This is saying a lot. I should explain that I’ve been using cell phones since the beginning, in fact my part time job in high school was selling cell phones. This means that I’ve owned A LOT of cell phones over the years, including at least 5 “smart phones”. I owned a Sidekick, Sony P800, 4 Blackberries and numerous flip phones.

So, it’s surprising that I would like the iPhone this much but I did, I should have been jaded to the lack of certain key features, the locking to one cell phone provider and the lack of a user replaceable battery.

But it didn’t, I love the thing. From it’s amazing web browser, wifi abiltiy, and easy of use. And not to mention but it’s also a great media player.

I do wish it had Microsoft Active Sync support, a video camera, had better 3rd party application support and wasn’t locked to AT&T for service.

All and all, I’m happy I kept it.

I saw this on TV the other night, it’s called Endless Ocean and it’s a Scuba diving game for the Wii.

Story on MSNBC
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22921830/

Video of the game on YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVTdzVFOsY0

Looks interesting but I’m more of a Half-life, Halo, Guitar Hero/Rock Band type of guy.

So, if you thought you read a weird headline, you did. The UK navy is ending it’s use of goats in experiements related to “the bends”. Which is funny, because I didn’t think people have been doing that for decades. They used to test on pigs as well as goats, hence this picture.   >>>>>>
The only thing I could discern from this article is that the UK Navy was testing decompression theories on goats, animal right’s people got uppty about it, sued the UK Navy, UK Navy finished it’s tests and then agreed to stop. This of course is after the UK Navy scientist completed the experiments.

I mean, they have to test on something and doing tests on human would have brought them a lot of trouble. And if they didn’t test then it might harm human’s doing deep dives anyway.

I’m not up for just hurting animals, I couldn’t think of doing it to my dogs, but there has to be a place for this type of research.

Earlier this week, Kanye West and Prodege launched SearchWithKanyeWest.com, it’s basically a branded search engine powered by Google and Ask.

http://www.searchwithkanyewest.com/
Why would you use it?

From the site:

Every time you search the web you have a chance to win Swag Bucks. Swag Bucks are points that can be redeemed for prizes like limited edition Kanye West posters, iPhones, Macbooks, instruments, Amazon giftcards and dozens of other high end goods.

Best Way To Win Swag Bucks

1. Make this search engine your home page and use it when ever you need to search the web
2. Download a search toolbar or plugin
3. Tell Your Friends about this search engine
4. Send in a picture of you with the prize you’ve snagged!

I guess that’s one reason.