Thursday, October 27, 2011

Pacific Vortex: Mark Spitz and more

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Mark Spitz might have made it
Mark Andrew Spitz (born February 10, 1950) is a retired American swimmer. He won seven gold medals at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games, an achievement surpassed by Michael Phelps who won eight golds at the 2008 Olympics.

Between 1968 and 1972, Spitz won nine Olympic golds plus a silver and a bronze, five Pan American golds, 31 US Amateur Athletic Union titles and eight US National Collegiate Athletic Association titles. During those years, he set 33 world records. He was the most successful athlete at the 1972 Summer Olympics. He was named World Swimmer of the Year in 1969, 1971 and 1972.

...consuming several shots of Cutty Sark Scotch
A shot glass is a small glass designed to hold or measure spirits or liquor, which is either drunk straight from the glass ("a shot") or poured into a mixed drink.

Shot glasses decorated with a wide variety of humorous pictures, toasts, and advertising, are popular souvenirs and collectibles.

The Old West
The most popular origin story is that the shot glass originated in the Western saloons of the Old West. The story explains that the cowboys of the old west would trade a cartridge (bullet plus powder and primer encased in brass) for a small amount of alcohol.

Birdshot or buckshot
Another origin story is that a shot glass was a glass used at the dinner table for diners to place any lead shot they found left during the meal.

Quill pen holder
Another story ties the origin of the shot glass to the use of quill pens. According to this story, the term shot glass was coined over 100 years ago, describing a small, thick-walled glass placed on a writing desk, and filled with small lead shot. A feather writing quill would be placed in the glass when not in use, and the lead shot would hold the quill upright. An upright quill was more easily removed from the glass.

Firing glass
Certain fraternal organizations such as Freemasons have a custom of drinking toasts from specially shaped glasses known as cannons or firing glasses, which are slammed on the table making a sound like a gunshot – a firing glass then becomes a shot glass. The firing glass is much older than the shot glass, and has a very specific shape with relatively thin sides, and a very thick protruding base.

Friedrich Otto Schott
This theory argues that the word shot was originally spelled Schott, and named after Friedrich Otto Schott who co-founded the glassworks factory Jenaer Glaswerk Schott & Genossen in Jena, Germany in 1884. This Jena glass has been theorized as the origin of the first Schott Glass and the source of the name, which was later, in the U.S., mutated to Shot Glass and the origin of the word forgotten.

Cutty Sark is a range of blended Scotch whisky and sherry produced by Edrington plc of Glasgow whose main office is less than 10 miles from the birthplace of the famous clipper ship of the same name.

The whisky was created on March 20, 1923, with the home of the blend considered to be at The Glenrothes distillery in the Speyside region of Scotland. The name comes from the River Clyde-built clipper ship Cutty Sark, whose name came from the Scots language term cutty-sark, the short shirt prominently mentioned in the famous poem by Robert Burns - "Tam o' Shanter". The drawing of the clipper ship Cutty Sark on the label of the whisky bottles is a work of the Swedish artist Carl Georg August Wallin. He was a mariner painter, and this is probably his most famous ship painting. This drawing has been on the whisky bottles since 1955.

The Tall Ships' Races for large sailing ships were originally known as The Cutty Sark Tall Ships' Races, under the terms of sponsorship by the whisky brand.

Sharks, he knew, seldom ventured close to shore because the swirling turbulence of heavy wave action forced sand through their gills; this discouraged all but the hungriest from a handy meal.
According to Wikipedia's article on sharks, "sharks attack at 2-3 feet of water so remember to stay closer than that in shark infested waters."

Contrary to popular belief, only a few sharks are dangerous to humans. Out of more than 360 shark species, only four have been involved in a significant number of fatal unprovoked attacks on humans: the great white, tiger, bull[17] and the oceanic whitetip.

These sharks, being large, powerful predators, may sometimes attack and kill people; however, they have all been filmed in open water by unprotected divers. The 2010 French film Oceans shows footage of humans swimming next to sharks deep in the ocean.

It is possible that the sharks are able to sense the presence of unnatural elements on or about the divers, such as polyurethane diving suits and air tanks, which may lead them to accept temporary outsiders as more of a curiosity than prey. Uncostumed humans, however, such as those surfboarding, light snorkeling, or swimming, present a much greater area of open meaty flesh to carnivorous shark predators.

In addition the presence of even small traces of blood, recent minor abrasions, cuts, scrapes, or bruises, may convince sharks to attack a human in their environment. Some sharks such as the Hammerhead seek out prey through electromagnetic detection, an unpreventable transmission relative to natural human intervention in an oceanic environment. Most of the oceanic whitetip shark's attacks have not been recorded, unlike the other three species mentioned above.

Reasons for attacks
While one should be very cautious with great white sharks, they do not target humans as prey.

Large sharks species are apex predators in their environment, and thus have little fear of any creature they cross paths with. Like most sophisticated hunters, they are curious when they encounter something unusual in their territories. Lacking any limbs with sensitive digits such as hands or feet, the only way they can explore an object or organism is to bite it; these bites are known as exploratory bites. Generally, shark bites are exploratory, and the animal will swim away after one bite.

For example, exploratory bites on surfers are thought to be caused by the shark mistaking the surfer for the shape of prey. Nonetheless, a single bite can grievously injure a human if the animal involved is a powerful predator like a great white or tiger shark.

Despite a few rare exceptions, it has been concluded that feeding is not a reason sharks attack humans; as stated on Howstuffworks.com, "Humans are not on the menu. In fact, humans don't provide enough high-fat meat for sharks, which need a lot of energy to power their large, muscular bodies".

Sharks normally make one swift attack and then retreat to wait for the victim to die or exhaust itself before returning to feed. This protects the shark from injury from a wounded and aggressive target; however, it also allows humans time to get out of the water and survive.[35] Shark attacks may also occur due to territorial reasons or as dominance over another shark species, resulting in an attack.

Sharks are equipped with sensory organs called the Ampullae of Lorenzini that detect the electricity generated by muscle movement; another theory is that the shark's electrical receptors, which pick up movement, pick up the signals like those emitted by wounded fish from someone who is fishing or spearfishing, and thus attack the person by mistake.

George Burgess, director of the International Shark Attack File, said the following regarding why people are attacked: "Attacks are basically an odds game based on how many hours you are in the water"

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