Hey there! Welcome to operation-code-freeze, where I'll be sharing my adventure from Buenos Aires, Argentina, all the way down to Antarctica (and back up through Santiago, Chile). This repo is a collection of Google Colab notebooks that document my cruise on the Holland America ship, the Oosterdam, from December 16th to January 6th - more or less during the holiday code freeze. 😄
You'll find all sorts of details in these notebooks: data visualizations of weather conditions, interactive Python maps of the journey, lots of pictures of penguins, and even some experiments using Google's latest Gemini 2.0 models. Oh, and did I mention penguins? This whole trip was inspired by those adorable little guys, and I've made sure to document all the penguin encounters along the way (including a checklist for the penguin species the Oosterdam encountered).
Journey Overview
So far, the Oosterdam has cruised from Buenos Aires down the coast, visited some incredible places, hung out with penguins in the Antarctic, and (in a few days time) will loop back up through the Drake Passage to Patagonia and the Chilean fjords.
Here's a quick rundown of some of the places visited along the way:
- Buenos Aires
- Montevideo
- Punta del Este
- Puerto Madryn
- Falkland Islands/Islas Malvinas (Stanley)
- Antarctica (Palmer Archipelago, Danco Coast, Antarctic Sound)
- Ushuaia
- Punta Arenas
- The Chilean Fjords (including Amalia/Brujo Glaciers, Sarmiento Channel, Strait of Magellan)
- Puerto Chacabuco
- Puerto Montt
- San Antonio (Santiago)
Notebooks
Here's a look at the notebooks I've put together so far. More are on their way, so stay tuned!
| Notebook # | Title | Dates | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | Buenos Aires and Uruguay | 12/15 - 12/19 | The start of the journey: flying from San Francisco to Buenos Aires via Houston, and the first cruise stops in Uruguay |
| 1 | Puerto Madryn and the Falkland Islands | 12/20 - 12/23 | Visualizing the travel to Puerto Madryn, and the Gentoo and King penguin sightings in the Falkland Islands! |
| 2 | Christmas in Antarctica & Drake Passage | 12/24 - 12/29 | Experiencing Christmas in Antarctica, unexpected surrounding by icebergs, and transit through the Drake Passage. |
| 3 | Cape Horn, Ushuaia, Chilean Fjords, and Patagonian Ports | 12/30 - 1/4 | Tierra del Fuego National Park, stunning glacial features, and sleepy and beautiful port cities in Chile, and then back to San Francisco. Slartibartfast would approve. |
Tools of the Trade
- Google Colab: Platform for writing code in Python, and sharing notebooks (now with AI assistance, powered by Gemini).
- Python: For all the data wrangling, visualizations, and Gemini experiments.
- Gemini 2.0, Imagen, Veo 2, and AI Studio: Used for multimodal and streaming AI experiments.
How to Dive In
- Just click on the notebook file that you're interested in (they have a
.ipynbextension). - Then, hit the
Open in Colabbutton and you can play around with the code right in your browser!
A big thank you 🙏
This adventure wouldn't have been possible without a few key players:
- Starlink: For keeping the internet connection strong even in most remote locations! It was amazing to be able to stay connected to the world.
- Holland America: The crew and staff of the Oosterdam have been simply wonderful! They kept us all safe, entertained, and well-fed throughout the journey.
- Gemini DeepMind, Labs, and Google AI Studio teams: For the fantastic tools that made it possible to experiment with Gemini, Imagen, and Veo 2, and to create awesome projects.
- Google Colab: A big shout out for making creating notebooks, and sharing code and ideas, so dang easy!
Contributions Welcome!
If you've got ideas or suggestions for the repo, feel free to fork it, make some changes, and send me a pull request!