Going Around In Circles?

A few years ago, having left Victoria BC on a beautiful clear morning, we were just clearing Baynes Channel via Plumper Passage into Haro Strait when, suddenly, we ran smack dab into pea-soup fog. A trawler just ahead of us, which we were comfortably following, quickly disappeared into the fog. Seemingly alone, we continued on, somewhat nervously, heading north for Sydney, trusting our radar, following the contour lines on our fathometer, and with June up on the bow, listening intently (until the cold fog simply froze her back inside) for any sounds.

Soon a tug came on the radio saying that he was just north of us and had made us and another vessel on his radar, cautioning us that he was towing a log raft. (And that's another whole story for a later blog posting!) Giving him our position, he wondered who the other vessel was that was "making dough-nuts" out there in the Strait.

Going round in circles - - not uncommon in such circumstances. But why circles?

An article published August 21st in the TG Daily (with thanks to Captain Mike Harlick for passing this on to me) gives some help.

Tubingen, Germany — People really do walk in circles when they're lost, and it's not because their legs are different lengths.

That's the conclusion of scientists in the Multisensory Perception and Action Group at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics.

They dumped people in either in the Sahara desert or the Bienwald forest in Germany and set them walking "for several hours", following them via GPS and probably cackling with glee.

As long as the sun or moon was visible, the participants were able to keep a straight path. But a cloudy day foxed them completely, and they started to walk in circles without even noticing it.

"One explanation offered in the past for walking in circles is that most people have one leg longer or stronger than the other, which would produce a systematic bias in one direction," said one of the authors, Jan Souman. "To test this explanation, we instructed people to walk straight while blindfolded, thus removing the effects of vision. Most of the participants in the study walked in circles, sometimes in extremely small ones (diameter less than 20 metres)."

The leg-length theory was exploded by the fact that the circles were rarely in a systematic direction, with the same person sometimes turning left, sometimes right.

"Small random errors in the various sensory signals that provide information about walking direction add up over time, making what a person perceives to be straight ahead drift away from the true straight ahead direction," according to Souman.

The guys haven't finished yet. In future research, they plan to examine the even more bewildering question of how people use the sun and other cues such as tall buildings to guide their walking direction.

This sounds rather less unpleasant for their volunteers, as they get to use state-of-the-art virtual reality kit, including a cool, new omnidirectional treadmill.

The study is published today in Current Biology.

So, are we any wiser? Or are we still going around in circles. Your call.

An Open Letter

An often non-nautical bit of relaxed musing, from the aft deck.

To President Barach Obama, Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, and Representative Jay Inslee.

I write from a level of frustration at the current debate for health care reform in our country. I do not think that I am alone in having great difficulty trying to track the progress, setbacks, design changes, charges and counter-charges, and political maneuverings surrounding this whole lengthy conversation.

I find it difficult to parse the various options to find in them any responsible and universal health care for all who call the United States home. A stranger might well wonder, “What on earth are they talking about?” For me, what we should be engaged in is a conversation that ensures care for all as a given reality, not just as an affordable option; a conversation that takes the burden off employers (and employment) as a conduit for health care coverage and places it within the public realm; a conversation that is not driven by corporate profits, their lobbyists, their beholders within and without the halls of Congress, but the responsible work of those who represent the common person; a conversation that recognizes human worth and dignity as the character of all our citizens, not simply as pawns in a marketing model or political or partisan strategy.

The current level of conversation, if one can even call it that, with its lie, distortion, fear-mongering, and vitriolic tongue is hardly what one could example as a First Amendment right. To hear the cry “socialism” is to re-hear the accusation “communism” of a few decades ago. And perhaps we need to again learn about neighbor and mutual responsibility and what that means in today’s world. I drive Interstate highways, I call 911, I pay school levies, my taxes fund agricultural subsidies, I pledge to my church’s outreach programs, I get my monthly Social Security check, I am on Medicare. Perhaps this and more could be seen as socialism?

I am very concerned where all this current conversation will end. I am deeply concerned that those who live on our margins, those who are disenfranchised, those of all ages who are vulnerable, will be bypassed and again ignored and forgotten.

A mark of a true democracy is how it treats those who do not have power, not by how many become powerful. The ultimate conversation around health care is a conversation about justice, about being able to live with dignity and security.

The art of politics is the making of the probable possible. I ask that you do all in your power and with all your skill to make health care for all, not just a possibility, but a reality!

Thank you.

E. Michael Jackson

Most boaters that I know quite naturally not only have concern for other boaters, but in so many instances are active in expressing this concern, e.g., keeping an eye on absentee vessels, offering tows, sharing cruising knowledge, you know what I mean. This blog posting (which you may or may not support) is written in that same concern for others in mind and with that old boater's candor.