I have an unhealthy fascination with Mount Everest. For some reason (which I can’t really explain) I am really drawn to it. I have literally dreamed of climbing it on several occasions. I would just love to go there. Maybe it has something to do with a drive to achieve something so amazing.

However, Everest is an extremely dangerous place. Extreme cold, lack of oxygen, unpredictable weather, dangerous terrain, avalanches, falling rocks – it is easy to die on Everest. My wise fiancé has already told me that any attempt to climb Everest will result in immediate divorce. It is just too expensive and risky to actually do.

For instance, last year (2007) was a pretty good year on Everest: 600+ people made it up and only 6 died. That is a 1% death-summit ratio which is well below the historic 10% ratio. If someone made me an offer – you can spend $60,000 and several months, you might make it to the top, but there is a 1% chance you will die… I just don’t think a rational person can really take that.

Anyway, another largely unknown thing about Everest is that the dead normally stay up there. The effort to get the bodies down is not feasible so apparently there are several corpses along the way which climbers must move past. National Geographic have this little video about an Australian climber and photographer who got the picture above.

Worth a look – especially for those of us who feel strongly drawn to Everest.

Simple one from xkcd today:

I have often wondered why there is often no row I in movie theaters. I wondered if this was tradition, superstition (like skipping the 13th floor in a building), or something else. My theory was that it is because the letter ‘I’ resembles the number ‘1’. I suppose that could lead to confusion and may warrant skipping row I.

I didn’t think that confusion was very likely so I Googled for a better explanation. There isn’t one. After quite a lot of scratching around it seems that possible confusion with ‘1’ is the reason for skipping row I. Apparently many theatres also skip row O and/or row Q because they resemble each other and the number 0.

I just heard that the great author Terry Pratchett has been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimers. Pratchett has written stacks of excellent books which have sold over 55 million copies worldwide. His Discworld novels are brilliant and The Science of Discworld is a superb introduction to scientific thought.

He has released this letter making the announcement. I think that he is remarkably positive (speaking of getting a few more books out) but it is clearly devastating news. Alzheimers is a horrifying disease – I wish him all the best.

I like the end of his letter:

PS.  I would just like to draw attention to everyone reading the above that this should be interpreted as ‘I am not dead’.  I will, of course, be dead at some future point, as will everybody else.  For me, this maybe further off than you think – it’s too soon to tell. I know it’s a very human thing to say “Is there anything I can do”, but in this case I would only entertain offers from very high-end experts in brain chemistry.

Here is quite a cool blood alcohol level calculator. You enter a few simple parameters (gender, type of drink, etc) and it will calculate an estimated blood alcohol level for you. According to this little tool I can drink two glasses of wine in an hour and still be under the limit! Awesome.

National Geographic has this photo and article about a beach on the Dutch island of Terschelling which was recently inundated with bananas which were washed off a cargo ship during a recent storm. Apparently, due to it’s position the island is regularly bombarded with cargo washed off of cargo ships. In recent times the beach has been covered in sneakers, aluminium briefcases and sweaters.

The whole thing reminds me about a blog I wrote a while ago about some rubber ducks which were washed around the world. There is a huge amount of junk floating around the world’s oceans. I read a book about a guy who was adrift for 76 days on his own and he came across a huge river of junk floating in the ocean.

Here is an interesting site that displays a map of the world with near real-time Wikipedia edits as they happen. It can be quite interesting to watch as people around the world make Wikipedia updates.

For instance, while I was watching someone from India edited the article on floor gymnastics

National Geographic has a well written article about memory. It is a sprawling, enjoyable article which bounces around the subject of memory.

As illustrations, two extreme cases are discussed in detail.

There is a 41-year old woman “who remembers almost every day of her life since age 11. She remembers what happened on Murphy Brown on December 12, 1988. She remembers world events and trips to the grocery store, the weather and her emotions.” Mention a date to her and memories of that time come flooding back in extraordinary detail.

“When I’m blow-drying my hair in the morning, I’ll think of whatever day it is. And to pass the time, I’ll just run through that day in my head over the last 20-something years—like flipping through a Rolodex.”

Then there is an “85-year-old man, a retired lab technician called “EP,” who remembers only his most recent thought”. After his brain was nailed by a virus he lost the ability to make new memories. He can’t remember anything that has happened since 1960 – he doesn’t even remember that he has a memory problem.

The article describes meeting and interacting with the man. His existence is only the thoughts currently in his mind. As soon as he is distracted, what he was thinking about is lost forever. If you ask him to remember something, like a number, he can remember it as long as he is thinking about the number. The second he is distracted, he forgets the number, who you are, and even that you asked him to remember something.

But EP is still able to ‘learn’ unconscious memories. For instance over the years he has learned the route of his daily walk around the block – even though he thinks he is heading out for the first time every time he goes. He has even learned who the neighbors are and is comfortable introducing himself to them.

While on holiday with some americans recently I got into a discussion about driving on the left or right of the road. Wikipedia has a good entry on the subject.

• 66% of world population drives on the right
• 72% of the world’s roads are designated for driving on the right
• There is good archaeological evidence that the Romans drove on the left of the road
• It is believed that driving on the left was more common so that a horseman could hold the reins in his left hand leaving his right free for a sword
• The switch to the right in the US happened when wagons pulled by several teams of horses came into use. The drivers then switched to sitting on the left (and driving on the right) so that their right hand could be used for a whip
• In England where smaller wagons were used no such change occurred