Greetings.
I have returned from South Africa, and I’m now resting up from a busy trip in a cabin on a lake in in the North Country. From where I’m sitting, I can watch as three seagulls and two crows harass one of the two Bald Eagles that nest a few hundred meters from here. Having seen the eagles carry caught fish to the nest a few times over the last 24 hours, I suspect they have young. I suppose that pisses off the seagulls, who compete somewhat with the eagles for the smaller surface-feeding fish. I presume the crows are in it because eagles eat crows. On the other hand, I’m pretty sure the eagles eat crows only because crows harass eagles. Why can’t they just get along???
I’m looking forward to resurrecting “Evolution … not ‘just a theory’ anymore.” Over the next few days, I hope to write on a number of topics including antelope evolution, apartheid, air travel and airports, Harry Potter and homeschooling, this latest hominid news coming from East Africa, Windows vs. Linux (relates to air travel), a word or two about framing, and loons. In fact, I’m watching three loons feeding very effectively offshore and I’m seriously considering casting a few into what must be a school of bait fish. Loons are very cool.
I also want to write a bit about OpenSource education.
I believe that final arrangements are being made for an event at the Bell Museum for a discussion with PZ Myers, Chris Mooney Matthew Nisbet, and me on the public face (communication) of science. This would be on September 28th, and details will be broadcast through various channels when available.
The one good thing about the eagles being harassed is that it causes them to disregard their usual skittishness, and occasionally sweep within feet of the window I’m looking out of. Cool.
I’ve left the University of Minnesota and am setting up shop at home for the time being. My garage is full of lumber and boxes of books, and over the next few days I’ll be physically building the Center for Peripheral Research in my basement. Before the end of the month, I’ll update the “About” section of this web site with details of the transition.
For those of you who are local, you might want to know that I’m giving a talk in October (details will be made available soon) on the biology of race, in Grand Rapids, for the library association there.
Amanda is starting a new job this fall, and Julia is going to attend a new school this fall. Everybody is doing something new. Indeed, we even have two new additions to the family: We’re keeping a colleague’s cats for 7 months or so, so the household grows, and we will have more purring and loose fur than usual.
I also hope to make a second attempt at changing/updating the layout of this website. My original plan involved two parts: A modest change in style and layout accompanied by the inclusion of a bookstore. The first facilitated the second for reasons I won’t bore you with. But Macs, or Mac browsers, could not read the new format correctly. I’ve got an old Mac that has been running Linux, but since the Linux kernel is no longer going to support Power PC’s as they used to, I will probably upgrade that machine to some version of the Mac operating system so that I can test my site on a Mac platform with the one or two browsers that seem to be commonly run on that machine. Then I can go back to redesign.
The Center for Peripheral Research, after all, must be on top of all of the platforms, even though official policy strongly encourages the use of Linux.
Oh, and this: for several years, I’ve used a Nikon to shoot film, especially in Africa. (I am not a great photographer, please don’t assume that!) Once digital got good enough (by some arbitrary standard) I dropped the film camera and started using digital. Film is so expensive and messy when traveling, especially “these days.” But for a long time, unless you spent a zillion bucks, you could not really use digital. The cameras sucked. My biggest complaint is with responsiveness. You see something and grab your camera. Eight, nine seconds later or so maybe you capture an image. The camera had turned itself off while you were not using it, it takes a long time to turn on, eventually you press the button and a while later maybe something happens. Or maybe not. How frustrating.
Just prior to going to Africa, Amanda got me, for my birthday, a used Nikon D70 body. I’ve attached my old lenses, and I’m very very happy with this camera. Its like film but without the film.
Four or five thousand shots later, I am now faced with the challenge of how to deal with all these files. Having done a bit of research, I was smart enough to use only “raw” format, and I’m now researching “work flow,” storage, conversion and processing issues. It turns out that this involves a struggle between OpenSource software writers and the camera corporations over file formats, writing BASH scripts, and so on. Maybe even some Python programming. This is going to be a blast. My wet dream is to make a server onto which I load files, that more or less automatically organizes and processes the files, on which I can find whatever I need, with which backups are automated, and from which I can extract files or sets of files adapted to specific needs (e.g. uploading, publication, and so on).
Those loons have moved farther off shore, and so maybe have the bait fish. But there is a good walleye chop, so maybe this is a good day to get some leaches from the Mule Lake Store and find a rock pile…
Finally, this: Our freaking bridge collapsed. Everyone had heard about it. For me, it was at first a vague rumor about “the Mississippi River Bridge” in “Minnesota” falling down, and it took a few days to get some actual news. Having thought about it for a couple of days before learning any details, I have to say that, acknowledging the immense tragedy for those most affected, and the hassle this is going to be given what has to happen to the roads around here, it could have been a lot worse. There can be hundreds of cars on that bridge, and the collapse could have been more “complete” (i.e., all of the sections going all the way into the river). But for now there is not much I can say. I need to learn more about it. I’ll just say that Minnesota has the most irresponsible and selfish governor we’ve ever had in our history, and for his sake, this better have been an act of god. As an atheist, I’m confident that there will be significant political fallout. (Or will all those people praying at the disaster site serve to distract us from some important realities.)
Well, the northerly wind has really picked up and I’m seeing whitecaps in the bay, which is very rare. The birds have stopped screwing around and are presumably clutching branches deep in the recesses of the larger pines. Most of the loose stuff is now being blown off the deck, the windows are rattling out of their frames, and the few boats on the lake are trying to get to shore. Something wicked this way comes. Winter, I suspect, is checking us out.
Tags: Minnesota, Open Source, Africa, Birds, Events, Blogging, Education, Homeschooling, Commentary by Greg
9 Comments »
