A New Stroke: Why Australian crawl is on its last laps

Up-and-coming swimmer Bada Choi, along with his unorthodox support team, is poised to disrupt the entire sport of freestyle swimming. We investigate Bada, the minds behind his success, and the novel machine-learning code that has enabled it.

Read More

A Vanished City

The superb city of Aresen stands in the highlands of Isol, set inland from the harbours that feed it. A stream of airship traffic shuffles about the multi-towered citadel of the skyport. Skyscrapers of glittering crystal and steel and stone line parkways teeming with exotic plants and sessile tentacled animals, appendages drifting lazily.

Read More

On Terrors from the Deep and Other Oceanic Mysteries - The Journal of Anther Strein

Hauled to the surface with this equipment was an endlessly fascinating parade of oddity, of which angler fish and giant isopods were the least; creatures with vast, gazing eyes and long, needle-like teeth; pale-skinned fish with immense, unfolding jaws and horrific grimaces; crabs with legspans as great as a Maragana is tall. And, on the largest of these animals, tooth or beak wounds that could only have been inflicted by creatures of much greater size.

Read More

Fourth Year Blues

Schedule: Fourth Year, Semester 2

Week 3

Monday

  • Produce a spreadsheet of your grades for the semester to calculate a running mark. Fiddle with the pending assignment marks to determine the minimum required for a distinction. Reason that Excel is an important workplace skill and that this is not a waste of time. Suppress the anxiety of looming assignments.

Read More

The Marine Platypus and an Ancestry Unveiled - The Journal of Anther Strein

The marine platypus keeps mainly to the warmer waters surrounding northern Proesus, as it lacks an insulating layer--like the blubber of the marspeel or the dense waterproofed feathers of the scalade--significant enough to engage in its lifestyle in the colder climes. Relative to its size, its laying burrows are much smaller and simpler than those of, say, the upriver platypus, Dulaiwarrung yemisibi; those elaborate tunnels are frequently found at tens of heights in length, equipped with blind ends to confuse intruders, plugs against flooding, and a lining of dead leaves for insulation.

Read More

The Clever, Cooperative Cruelty of the Occisor - The Journal of Anther Strein

As with other chireks, one might well be charmed by the curiosity and playfulness of the occisor--until one has seen the cruelty and efficiency with which they dismantle their prey, often with that very same merriment.

Read More

A Fierce Marine Rivalry and a Curious Resemblance - The Journal of Anther Strein

Another naturalist once called the ocean 'the greatest desert of all'. Pithy ironies aside, his analogy would approach accuracy only if the desert was teeming with life underground, presenting the semblance of lifelessness only at the surface. There is actually some truth to this, but not to the extent required of the metaphor. For, as I am now steadily learning, the ocean is utterly laden with life, rich at every layer with hidden activity. If one judges by the fleeting glimpses offered at the surface, one will be sorely misled.

Read More

At Sea with the Remarkable Maragana - The Journal of Anther Strein

In order to facilitate my observations, Captain Naaki has provided me with a remarkable diving suit, one designed for Paluchard use. It is equipped with a canister of magically-compressed air and a complicated apparatus for delivering it to the mouth as needed. Add to that a pair of strange airtight glasses--Paluchard can see adequately in water, but the salt of the ocean stings the eyes--and I was ready to accompany the crew on their fishing dives, so long as I stayed out of their way.

Read More

A Journey Amended in Delta City - The Journal of Anther Strein

The various branches of the bayou re-combined into the river's single fantastic trunk, and then divided once more as it streamed into the Great Delta. Seabirds begin to appear overhead; the rainforest’s eucalypts, palms and raintrees give way gradually to mangrove, and mangrove then to kelp forest and open ocean. It is into this vast body of water, the West Spine Ocean, that the Veduka River finally pours, but not before filtering through the islands of the Great Delta. Such is the force of this outpouring that, for much of the year, the waters remain unsalted for some distance, and can be spotted by vessels approaching from the north or east long before land is visible. Such ships often take the muddied water as their first sign of impending land, and use it to guide their way to Delta Harbour. Assisting in this task are the great light-towers of Delta City, one of which I sit in the shadow of while writing these words.

Read More

A Tour of the Veduka River, Part II - The Journal of Anther Strein

My sole prior visit to Bayou was on that first journey to Forum. It was, at that time, the most people I had ever seen in a single place. The city has changed since then, its engorged suburbs now sprawling from the islands onto the River’s southern banks. Although certainly larger, in reality, than it was when I first passed through, it seems somehow far smaller than in my memory. The world is vast, and the more I see of it the lesser seems all it contains – especially the works of sapient hands. Beside a great mountain or a vast desert, how can a mere city compare?

Read More

A Tour of the Veduka River, Part I - The Journal of Anther Strein

Home to a huge variety of fish and other wildlife, starting at the tiny and spanning to the vast, the River is the lifeblood of the rainforest kingdoms. It traces a sinuous, winding route from its glacial sources in the Crown Mountains all the way to distant Delta, where it pours into the Spine Ocean – at every step, accumulating a greater flow from its many tributaries. Even at its narrowest points, and during the dry season, the river is wide enough to swallow a large erefal tree laid length-way across its stream.

Read More

The Various Vermin of a Veduka City - The Journal of Anther Strein

As little as I care for them, it must be admitted that it is far from fair to think of cities as sterile things – although they invariably displace a good deal of native wildlife, in its stead they play host to a curious range of urban creatures. The teri, the dulgi and the gwaemul are but a few of the animals ubiquitous to cities across Proesus, apparently thriving in the presence of sapients. It would be remiss of me not to make some account of them, as mundane a description as it may seem to any city-dwellers - for whom the animals are a daily fact.

Read More

Grændels Stalk the Sunken River - The Journal of Anther Strein

We had paused in an eddy by the bank for lunch when she emerged from the murk, not a height from our boat. Had I not chanced to be looking in that direction I might have missed her entirely. She lurked just below the surface, the eyes pointed toward me from the centre of her wide, spade-shaped head. She was utterly still - until she raised her head, ever so slightly, for her slitted nostrils – the nostrils only – to breach the surface. They opened slowly, took our scent, and then closed; she receded from sight once more. She had not made a single sound or movement that, if I hadn't already been aware of her, would have betrayed her presence. That deadly stillness, if one has witnessed the speed and ferocious power with which the female can erupt from the water, is as menacing as any roar. We elected to take our lunch on the move.

Read More

Familar Faces: My Kin, the Paluchard - The Journal of Anther Strein

I have lacked both the time and the energy to write anything since my last entry. Over the past week we have been engaged in a hard slog to make up for lost time; first through the outer reaches of the Erefal Wood and then descending into the basin of the Veduka Rainforest. As one approaches the rainforest, the erefal trees become gradually stunted. More light filters through from above, and the undergrowth takes proportionate advantage. Smaller trees become more common - eucalypts, palms, and raintrees - until eventually, the erefals give way entirely to lush jungle. As I hoped we would, we came to a series of old game trails sloughed by other Paluchard. Still, it has not been easy going.

Read More

The Humble Ovix and the Changes Wrought in Her Form - The Journal of Anther Strein

The ovix echidna is farmed throughout Proesus for its meat, milk and eggs. This has been happening for a very long time, far longer than any surviving record has existed. The ovix’s diet – somewhat expanded, depending on those keeping it – ordinarily consists of ants, termites, and the larvae of other insects. Many who keep ovices also keep an ant farm as feed. The most common choice is the friendly ant (Amicus utilis), a species which has itself been thoroughly domesticated.

Read More