Hacking darts, gill-style.
Hacking darts, gill-style.

The Global Tumor: Scientists engineer computer program that “biologically profiles” Great White sharks in order to save surfers from “vicious, godless” attack!

Specisim.

Mass, illegal, unwanted and unwarranted surveillance is what will eventually destroy our gloriously viral human organism, amiright? No? You enjoy various governmental and non-governmental bodies peeking in to your every purchases, every web search, every….thing because, “I’m not a weirdo, nothing to hide, whatever, etc…..?”

Yeah?

Well, I imagine “man-eating” Great White Sharks are not on #teamyou.

I imagine they are furious in relation to governmental and non-governmental interference exactly as you should be due the shake-down on disemboweling and calorie intake exactly as you should be.

What?

Exactly.

Yet here we go.

Now imagine that a computer program could help researchers and safety officials predict, with some accuracy, where and when sharks may congregate. Such modeling software could offer an important new early warning system that would give everyone a heads up so that they would know when and where to look for our fierce visitors.

Right now, a pair of researchers – one from the state Division of Marine Fisheries and one from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth’s School of Marine Science and Technology – are gathering data from 27 buoys that were strategically placed on both the ocean and bay sides of the Outer Cape. In addition to performing more traditional tasks, such as marking channels, these floats have been recording both the progress of sharks that have been tagged with radio frequency identification devices as well as the water temperature.

Officials want to correlate the temperature data – great white sharks favor water between 55 degrees and 73 degrees Fahrenheit – with the sharks’ travel patterns, essentially painting a picture as to what sort of weather seems the most conducive to shark visits. Taking all of that data into consideration, researchers hope to craft a computer model and warning system that will help local safety officials predict the location of sharks off our shores.

It may, however, be some time before this project produces the desired results. Researchers note that it will take at least two years to get all the necessary information, create a model, and then test that model under real-time conditions. As part of that process, they expect to examine almost 10 years of temperature data, as well as other environmental markers. It will only be after that data has been analyzed that researchers will be able to say with some degree of certainty that they can predict the sharks patterns.

If they are successful, there is the very real potential to attach data-capture devices to these same buoys that could provide real-time results and transmit the data to area beaches.

The science behind such innovations may be beyond the ken of many of us, but most of us can recognize the idea behind such computer modeling as a potentially valuable new tool. Combined with good old-fashioned lifeguarding, a heightened effort to train both rescuers and beachgoers in basic first aid preparedness, and a new emphasis on providing our beaches with emergency communication abilities that are more reliable and available than they currently are, beach visitors can enjoy a sense of being a bit safer than they would be without such improvements.

Big Brother is a Bastard.

No?

Discuss.

Also, no more surfing for at lest the next decade.

Or two.

Discuss.


Extreme weather: “Twenty-two foot waves” slam Spain’s usually waveless Costa Blanca!

Climate Change is real.

Javea is a pretty enough town on Spain’s Costa Blanca, two hundred clicks of mostly waveless Med coastline in the south-east of Spain.

Real famous, too, as a joint where old Brits and Germans come to die in the sun, bickering with their spouses, complaining about tourists in summer and copulating like toads in sex clubs where the red vinyl is rarely hosed down.

The sorta place you wouldn’t normally hear about or or want to visit.

That changed yesterday when Storm Gloria, a monster low, brought “twenty-two-foot waves” to the coastline, lighting up the town’s popular Arenal beach, and bringing out some of Europe’s best big-wave surfers.

Authorities are warning people as far away as Barcelona, five hundred kilometres north, to stay away from beaches to avoid being swept to their deaths. 

Surf Lakes, a wave pool in central Queensland, is monitoring the situation carefully in case it needs to revise its promise of “eight-foot” waves to “twenty-plus.”

Watch!


Fashion: Italian luxury house Ferragamo reimagines “the surfer” as part of new show highlighting “emerging fluidity of modern masculinity!”

We surfers are... fabulous!

In all truth, we surfers, we water dancers, have not been on the bleeding edge of any meaningful cultural shift for years and years and years. “Conservative” is how’d we best be described. “Resistant to change.” But when, a handful of years ago, “gender fluidity” started making the rounds as the “movement of the future” in intelligent circles I thought, “Bingo.”

We surfers, we backdoor shooters, have been gender fluid from the word go. Men wear very fitted pantsuits when the water temperature drops below a comfortable 67 degrees, often pairing them with dainty black slippers. Women wear the same very fitted pantsuits and dainty black slippers. In the lineup we are one and the same, indistinguishable.

“Progressive.”

Well, it was only a matter of time before the word’s luxury houses discovered our secret garden and let us discover Salvatore Ferragamo Fall/Winter 2020 collection. Let us feel pride.

With their Fall/Winter 2020 collection, Salvatore Ferragamo introduces the new men of the new decade, highlighting the emerging fluidity of modern masculinity. Creative Director Paul Andrew uses fashion as a tool for experiment and expression, exploring the conceptual breadth of visual statements of manhood in the 2020s.

Reimagining sartorial elements of commonplace male archetypes including the businessman, biker, racing driver, sailor, soldier, and surfer, Andrew creates a versatile collection of refreshing takes on overdone displays. “The agenda is to retain the aesthetic of uniform while subverting the once-rigid assumptions it enforced,” Andrew explained. The modern man cannot be put into one box, rather he has a variety of intertwining qualities and has the ability to explore all facets of his identity.

And let’s feast our eyes upon a reimagined short-sleeved full suit very likely 2 mm in thickness.

We surfers, we priority interferers, are…

…fabulous.


"Jesus," wrote Italo Ferreira, in response to Uncle Lenny's behaviour.

Watch: Kai Lenny’s frontside chop-hop-to-monster-air-drop at thirty-foot Nazaré!

"Aircamp is getting wild around here!"

Last Tuesday, the multi-discipline surfer Kai Lenny was in Nazaré Portugal, where he competed in a local tow-in event, the Gigantes de Nazare, which also included world champion Italo Ferreira and Brazilian Lucas ‘Chumbo’ Chianca.

While strapped surfing rarely excites anymore, Kai, who says he’s been watching footage of snowboarder Travis Rice doing triple rotations off eighty-foot cliffs and says performance big-wave surfing is barely in its infancy, dropped jaws worldwide with vision of a chop-hop-to-monster-drop on a thirty-footer.

A roll-call of the world’s best surfers stacked up in his IG comments .

“Holy@shit,” wrote Gabriel Medina.

Filipe Toledo, “Brahhhh stop!!”

Nathan Florence, “Aircamp is getting wild around here!”

And, from Italo Ferreira, simply,

“Jesus.”

https://www.instagram.com/p/B7Y_mIVhoSr/


Question: What will “America’s Hawaiian” Kolohe Andino do now that stablemates Julian Wilson, John John Florence are rumored out the door?

Let's help a Brother out!

The demise of once-proud Hurley will be the subject of a Pulitzer Prize winning book, one day, titled “The Merchant of Venice Beach-Adjacent: How Stab Magazine Came Under the Magical Spell of a Beautifully Plus-Size Floridian Boy with Rings on His Fingers and Bells on His Toes.”

Oh wait, sorry. That’s my other Pulitzer Prize winning book. The Hurley book, titled “Blueflame Alliance: How Surfing’s Greatest Brand Was Co-Opted by Plus-Sized…” something. I’m not finished yet but anyhow facts and rumors fly fast and furious. Hurley now makes beard oil, entire divisions have been laid off, the greatest team ever assembled is allegedly dispersing as zero contracts are being renewed.

Rob Machado?

Gone.

Julian Wilson?

Allegedly to Lululemon.

John John Florence?

Allegedly negotiating exit in brave protest.

Kolohe Andino?

Hmmmmm.

The other quarter of the U.S. first ever Olympic Surf Team has been entirely silent in the utter gutting, the apocalyptic massacre.

There must be interest in America’s Hawaiian no?

Lots and lots of interest.

So, where do you think Kolohe will land?

Which brand or company would fit best?

Let’s help a Brother out!