Monterey Bay Aquarium is one of my favorite places.
Back in the 90s one of the USENIX conference receptions was at the aquarium and we had several hours to explore the place without any kids underfoot. I found a chair and put it right in front of the jellyfish tank, and just watched the jellyfish for about an hour.
I wonder how they figured out the ideal lighting combination for emphasizing jellyfish. It’s amazing: a deep blue background with slightly orange light coming in from the sides.
I keep trying to estimate the weight of the lucite panels and the weight of the water that some of the tanks contain. The deep sea tank looks like it’s almost three storeys tall and about 40 feet by 50 feet. It would be really fun to have a couple of jazz musicians improvising sounds for the fish.
When I think about the mackerels in their endless whirling swim that goes nowhere, I sometimes verge on an existential crisis. It could be metaphorical for computer security, too: I am about to go to a conference where apparently the hot thing is a “data lake” (which is some marketing genius’ term for “put all your data in a big cloud storage array and you don’t have to understand it, AIs will understand it for you” – completely absurd) we are all going to swim around in a big school like that, getting nowhere, while Amazon web services pitches useless technology at us and tells us it will solve the problems in the last generation of technology that didn’t work, either.
After a while, we headed down to Point Lobos, where it was foggy and drizzling, and visited the otters and sea lions. I love how you can watch a little bobbing patch of water and sometimes it’ll sit up and wave a paw at you!
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Now that is what I call a “data lake”!
The captive otters at the aquarium seem to be quite happy at their job, which is: being cute.
Much to my amusement, the male waited until he was right up against the glass in front of a bunch of schoolkids and turned himself inside out and started giving himself a great big otter-hummer. The sure are flexible and agile in the water, those otters!
Yes, I totally agree about this one. It’s relaxing.
I enjoy photographing animals, because I just have to chill out while watching through my viewfinder and waiting for the animal to do something that looks particularly cool or interesting. I can spend hours like this. Taking photos instead of just looking at the animal also adds a layer of excitement on top of me being able to chill out and relax—getting a nice photo is exciting. I perceive this as very enjoyable.
Instead of fish, my favorite animals to watch are bonobos. It’s fun, because there it’s not only the animals that I’m observing, it’s also zoo visitors who are really fun to look at. Bonobos are cool. They chill out, masturbate, have sex, masturbate some more, eat something, chill out, masturbate… Human zoo visitors are often very uncomfortable at the sight of ape sex, which is why I get to observe all sorts of funny reactions—giggling, pointing fingers, making comments about what the bonobos are doing, displaying their discomfort with what they see. Here http://fav.me/dbnll1l is a bonobo photo I made a few years ago. While I took this photo, other people who were standing next to me behaved exactly as one would expect Christians to behave at the sight of ape sex. Human attitudes towards sex and nudity are so illogical. It’s just sad. And also annoying—it irritates me a lot whenever other people demand me to be modest even though I don’t want to.
It’s metaphorical not just for computer security, but for human civilization in general.
I went to the Ripley’s Aquarium in Toronto last year during March Break. Don’t ever do this if you appreciate your sanity. We couldn’t even get close to most of the exhibits, except the jellyfish. For some reason there weren’t any crowds at that exhibit. I suppose it might be because the sharks were right next door, but it was an oasis of calm and we hung out for about 1/2 an hour. If it had been quieter I might have stayed even longer. The exhibit had changing colours of light and I don’t remember the sequence, but there was red and purple and orange and each change of colour shifted the look of the jellyfish and what feature stood out the most. It was a bit trippy.
I could stay for hours in front of the deep-water tank at the Monterey Bay Aquarium…
Obligatory transparent aluminum reference: https://youtu.be/xaVgRj2e5_s
@ 2
during March Break !
Madness.
Is this the same Ripley’s as in Wax? As you may guess, I am not a Torontonian.
jrkrideau,
Yep, it’s the same Ripley. They built a huge aquarium beside the CN Tower.
They should really call it a data swamp, cause you throw it all in there and leave it to rot
The otter showing off for the children is hilarious. It reminds me of a passage in a book I read about a lady with a goat farm who had lots of visitors: “The children say, ‘Mommy! Come see this daddy goat, he’s funny!’ Mommy is hardly ever amused.” I’m not sure why humans are so horrified by the behavior of other animals but they sure can be…
Aquariums, big and small, are chill out places. I can spend hours watching mine.
@Ieva: Thats such a great photo, the facial expression alone.
I liked the tank with the giant kelp in at Monterey Aquarium. We’d seen giant kelp washed up on the beach and marvelled, so seeing it alive was wonderful.
And yes the otters did a fine job of being cute. My most excited I’ve ever been about seeing anything in the wild was seeing an otter in the sea off Saddell bay on the Kintyre Penisula i Scotland. It obligingly did the whole lying on it’s back looking cute, then diving and bringing up some king of shellfish which it bashed with a rock. *happy sigh*
i love the monterey bay aquarium! the otters especially are always a joy. i often kayak in elkhorn slough in moss landing, and there are always tons of them frolicking around and giving their version of side-eye to the shaved monkey who prefers to ride in the weird boat instead of swimming about like a proper slough-mammal. highly recommended activity to anybody in the area with a couple hours to kill – there are several rental companies if you don’t have your own kayak. tons of wildlife and beautiful scenery.