Going Mobile

Apparently reader 'antbus' has grown impatient with my lacksidaisical posting habits, and who can blame him?  So, rather than indulge in a third doughnut while I wait at the auto dealership for a routine maintenance procedure on GHR's beloved Prius, I'm venturing into the heady world of about three years ago and taking a first stab at the world of 'mobile blogging'.  We'll see how it goes...

One thing that hasn't really changed with the advent of the 'new technological era' is the concept of the waiting room.  Sure, there are more people with laptops and mobiles, and there's wi-fi (possibly of the very weak variety, like the network I can't connect to here), but other than that, they're much the same.  Same bleating telly, either on sport channels or the mind-numbing idiocy of day-time chat and tragedy shows, same old magazines and oft-read newspapers, same people trying to kill time until their number is called, or until their car's vital fluids flow viscuous and clear once again.

Uncannily, though, and perhaps as a reflection of the current state of the world, this waiting room is surprisingly quiet.  It's strangely sobering.

Febrile Musings

So I know that I've been less-than-conscientious about the blog this month. What can I say? Sometimes, life gets the better of you. Again, as is usual, I've been writing up drafts of entries, but they haven't seemed to come together in entirely the way that I would like, which has resulted in a lot of frustrated re-writing before slinking off to read a book or do something else less frustrating. Such is the nature of February.

It's also been an extraordinarily busy month, with two weeks of tending my normally part-time job in the science store at a full-time rate, while the owners were off laughing it up at the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show. There was my abortive effort to run the Fossil Identification section of the local Science Olympiad, which was nipped in the bud after about a week of preparation in a twisted fashion which I will recount in due course. Then there were holidays, birthdays, and on-going battles with a nasty bout with a persistent rhinovirus, which is ongoing.

All this against a background of a month of big news in astronomy, paleontology, and a renewed effort by certain cretins in the Missouri legislature to revive some stupid pro-ID legislation, all of which I've simply been too tired or ill or busy to deal with. Happily, you lucky people don't rely solely on me for this information. Thankfully, MousieCat was all over that last one, for instance, and also routinely forgives me for not immediately answering her emails. MC, I owe you a pint, or at least a glass of chardonnay.

I'll be trying to get back into the swing of things again, but the next few weeks are going to be pretty bally busy as well, so no prommises. In the meantime, keep reading and thinking and all of that!

New Toy

So, as my friend Georgia has pointed out, I'm an odd contradiction. When she first knew me, long ago, I was more than a bit of a technophobe. In fact, I actively disliked computers and their ilk. And was rather vocal about it.

Apparently, this has changed. Somewhere along the way, I went from nouveau Luddite to techno-consumer, to the point where technology and I could almost be said to be on friendly terms. A case in point: GHR and I this week-end started shopping for new mobiles, and, after seeing it in person, I decided the new toy that I was already pretty sure of wanting: the Google Android OS-based G1.

And so far, although I'm certainly something of an Apple partisan (writing on a Mac right now, actively detest and loathe but still use Windows), I'm not regretting choosing the G1 over an iPhone thus far. The G1 has some amazing features, and while its interface isn't perfect, and some of the apps tend to kick off suddenly and without warning, it generally works a treat. The full keyboard under the display is great, again once you are accustomed to working at that scale; since I'm planning to use this device at least in part for lightweight blogging and email, it will be important. The display is crisp and clear and fantastically touch-sensitive, once you become accustomed to it. The camera's nothing special, but will probably be useful too.

One of my favourite toys built into the G1 is the GPS, which so far works in conjunction with Google Maps, but also has the potential to work with a yet-to-be-written G1 application which will provide full GPS capabilities. The possibilities, in short, are endless. What I know for certain from this afternoon's drive over to Lawrence is that the GPS is useless if the phone can't connect to Google Maps, which was rather irritating, but also helpful in defining the mobile's limitations. Really, for the moment, I'm just having a good time playing with it.

Oh, and GHR's present to me on the big holiday yesterday was absolutely fantastic: the previously-mentioned Stephen Jay Gould tome, The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, after which I've been lusting a bit, and which I had previously kidnapped from the library. A memorable, if not especially nice dinner rounded off the day well. How was your V-day?

Extinction

To tell you the truth, the story that I'm going to recount angers me quite unreasonably. It all started with a single photograph, which I saw and started thinking about. A photograph of a rare gibbon, and the gibbon's infant.

But to begin: endangered species die all over the world, all the time. More often than not, human action can be attributed to that. Some would argue that we are in the midst of what is called the Holocene Extinction Event, which may or may not be related to humanity. For the moment, let's leave that to one side.

In the beginning, as it were, humanity killed other creatures out of ignorance, or out of need, or out of fear. And, as a step along in the development of a species, that's not really surprising. It seems unlikely that any evolved species would just stumble blithely into awareness one day. It's a process that takes tens of hundreds of thousands of years.

But now, we know better. Or we should. We all should.

Here's an image for you: just take a minute to look at it.

Here's the caption from the BBC Image of the Day that accompanies this image:

With only about 100 individuals remaining in the wild, it's vital that this young cao-vit gibbon (Nomascus nasutus) learns to fend for itself. The Critically Endangered species only found in one location, on the border between Vietnam and China (Image: Fauna and Flora International)

I'm going to sound as though I'm banging on the same drum again, but here we go: if everyone in the world had a basic understanding of evolutionary theory, and understood its full implications, there wouldn't be just about 100 of these beautiful creatures left, fighting for their lives in some remote spot on the Sino-Vietnamese border. Why? Because not only would we understand that habitats and species are precious, amazing resources, which were not ours to destroy, we would also realise that to wipe out things that we didn't understand, to kill them for short term gain, to destroy their habitats for temporary profit: that diminishes humans, and human achievement, just as much as it leaves an ugly scar on the landscape and another hole in the phylogenetic tree.

How aware of their fate are these gibbons? Do they grasp, on some level, their dwindling numbers, the shrinking of their community? In a very real evolutionary sense, these creatures are our relatives. And that realisation should lead to another, which is this: they deserve better.

Humanity's legacy stands atop a vast mountain of the bones of those animals we destroyed to get to where we are. Some of those bones belong to other humans, to our earlier ancestors, or to the species which we have consumed or food and energy. And like I say, for much of our history, it's been unavoidable.

That's no longer the case. We know better. We can manage things better. We're the only species that can: that makes it our responsibility, too. Extinction is a natural process. More than 99% of everything that has ever lived on the face of the Earth is now extinct, by most estimates. But for a single species to drive that process, with such fervour and apparent lack of concern - when such concern is possible - is the apex of irresponsibility.

Think about it. For more information, you can visit any number of sites, but you might try starting with the World Wildlife Fund. Thanks for taking the time.

Happy Darwin Day!

I know, I know... it's been over two weeks. What can I say? I've been rushed off my feet and stupidly busy. More insightful - or shallow, depending on my mood - commentary soon.

But I couldn't let today pass unmarked. Happy 200th Birthday Anniversary to Charles Darwin. A little later today, with luck, I'll assemble some links for you. You can start here, at least...