EXPLORE THE WORLD

November 4th, 1979. As the Iranian revolution reaches a boiling point, a CIA exfiltration specialist concocts a risky plan to free six American hostages. Ben Affleck and Bryan Cranston in “Argo” [Photo: Warner Bros.] SOMETIMES A FILM  meets with an event in history and the fusing becomes a moment meant to teach. Ben Affleck’s spectacularly entertaining   ARGO  is that film, coming in the aftermath of the Benghazi terrorist attack. The suspense collides with darkly hilarious moments helping you survive the drama on a sled of emotions, the larger plot some of us  remember  all too well. The Oscar buzz is worthy, especially for Affleck, as is the 94% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. But like all important films it excavates history on the wings of  great  entertainment. It wasn’t anticipated that Affleck’s film would land in the middle of the furor over a terrorist attack on another 9/11 in a country we are trying to help begin anew. Such is the sweet nod of serendipity to artistic br

It is slowly picking up here, meaning that it is the end of the (s)low season, places are opening up again and more and more people are coming back to the island. We enjoyed a great meal by the harbour last night and discussed some plans for the following weeks and months of sailing towards South America, further out into the Pacific ocean and French Polynesia and eventually onto South East Asia. Things look brighter than ever before and with the newly refitted boat, many fabulous projects on the horizon and more energy and excitement than in a long while, we have a lot to look forward to in the nearest future. 

If only the weather was like this also this weekend as we're finalizing our week long film project, instead  tropical storm Rafael  has brought thunder storms, rain and heavy grey skies to our region and there's nothing else to do than sit inside, listening to the aggressive rain drops hammering on deck, drinking tea, eating tartelettes au citron and organizing the material that we have on hand. Hoping for the sun to reappear shortly but seems as we will need to wait at least 48 hours for that wish to come true. Our stay here in St Barts got a bit prolonged which has been very pleasant, and we shall be sailing Southwards later this upcoming week. If all goes as planned, we will be celebrating our three year anniversary as well as our two year anniversary for this  World Tour  on the beautiful private island of  Mustique  in the end of the month.

Compared to living on land where you are dry and safe from storms and torrential downpours, a life on a boat is a little different. For example, it's always a chore to drive back to your home (boat) during heavy weather. Our dinghy, as well as most other dinghies worldwide, has no roof like a car does so you'll always get wet and battered when moving between boat and land during rainfall. If there's a storm expected, like tonight, you'd need to take a few safety precautions to not put your home and yourself in too much danger when the worst of the storm passes by. A house stands for most of the time safely on the ground and we all rely upon it to shield us from any type of weather, whereas a boat is either tied up to a dock, hooked to the bottom of the sea with an anchor or two or tied to one or a couple of mooring buoys with a few lines. I believe it goes without saying that neither of these options, on the ever so changing sea, can ever be as safe as that house w

Purely as a physical phenomenon nuclear fission offers ample scope for intellectual problem-solving. If it implied nothing further it could be left to those specialists who might find satisfaction in its intellectual challenge; the rest of us could busy ourselves with other more pressing concerns. Unfortunately, nuclear fission  - as everyone knows  - implies much more than abstruse mathematical argument and donnish hairsplitting. Almost from the time it was first recognized, in 1938, nuclear fission has implied not merely articles in learned journals but major decisions of public policy. The social, economic and political context of nuclear fission has been from the beginning an essential factor in its development; in turn, it has exerted an extraordinary range of social, economic and political influence. To foresee with any clarity the shape of the nuclear future, a historical perspective is imperative. It is necessary to know not only how nuclear fission occurs, but also

Undoubtedly the most extraordinary things that happen to reactor fuel happen within the core of an operating reactor. But a great deal happens to it outside the reactor, both before and after its sojourn in the core. The odyssey of the fuel material, from its origin in the earth's crust, takes it from a mine, to a mill, possibly through a specialized facility called an enrichment plant, and through a fuel fabrication plant before it enters the reactor. When it emerges from the reactor it may go into storage or into another specialized facility called a reprocessing plant. Some of the material thereafter reaches a theoretically final resting place, while the rest may re-enter the process at an earlier stage. The whole succession of processes, with the transport which links them, is called the nuclear fuel cycle. In practice it is not very cyclic; but the possibility exists of making it much more so, provided certain problems - both technical and otherwise - can be overcom