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Keep in mind that time is moving backwards on this graph, from left to right:
So, what does this tell us about how our planet is evolving? Of course, one must keep in mind that measuring biodiversity millions of years ago is an inexact science; as well as the fact that [...] If you want to build something this weekend that’s not terribly hard but enormously fun, I suggest you take a page from MAKE magazine and build an Atlatl. I built one a couple weekends ago, and why I would love to ramble on about how I did it, I couldn’t explain it better then the wonderful [...] There are many philosophers who claim that the most rational default mental position is one of pessimism; while I understand where they are coming from (pessimistic people are more careful, more discriminating), I have to disagree. Given sufficient evidence, I think we should be as pessimistic or as optimistic as is justified by the situation; [...] Passionate people have a tendency to pull you into their world, and hi-wire walker Philippe Petit is nothing if not passionate about his craft. Regardless of what you think of the world of high-risk spectacle stunts, you can’t help but admire at least some aspects of Petit. He knows what he wants out [...] Descartes was ‘poisoned by Catholic priest’ For more than three and a half centuries, the death of René Descartes one winter’s day in Stockholm has been attributed to the ravages of pneumonia on a body unused to the Scandinavian chill. But in a book released after years spent combing the archives of Paris and the Swedish [...] I know I promised that I wouldn’t fill up my blog with ‘quotes of the day’ and the like, but since making that promise I’ve realized that I really am quite lazy, and quote-posts are very easy. Plus, there are so many good quotes out there, I really can’t resist. So, I decided a quote-post about [...] David Brooks has written a wonderful little article talking about the various successes of Jewish culture. I think it is a fantastic example of how ideas can affect achievement and economic prosperity in a society: Jews are a famously accomplished group. They make up 0.2 percent of the world population, but 54 percent of the world [...] Oliver Stone is producing a new mini-series that intents to put people like Hitler, Stalin, and Mao “in context.” “Stalin, Hitler, Mao, McCarthy — these people have been vilified pretty thoroughly by history,” Stone told reporters at the Television Critics Association’s semi-annual press tour in Pasadena. Wait a minute. Stone really thinks that McCarthy is an equivalent [...] I like the idea of a museum that remembers the atrocities of a political movement that caused more death than any other in human history; the millions of people that died over the past hundred years deserve nothing less. |
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