Germs

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Some semi-random thoughts/impressions after finishing 1491:

  • Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel might be better titled Germs, Germs, Germs and Some Other Ancillary Stuff – at least as far as the New World is concerned. If 1491 is accurate in it’s depiction of the depopulation of the Americas as a result of smallpox and friends, the technological advantage enjoyed by Europeans is almost beside the point. One also wonders how a full-strength local population would have held up against a tiny force (the conquistadors) with superior firepower, but incredibly long and tenuous supply lines. Logistics, logistics, logistics.
  • Still with the Diamond comparo – 1491 gives a much different impression when it comes to food crops. If grains are the only thing compared, then the Old World wins big time – wheat, barley, rice, oats, rye vs. corn (maize) and quinoa. It would be interesting (I’m sure someone has already done it) to compare the caloric and protein output of milpas, medieval European farms, Andean potato plots, etc. and see if Diamond’s suggested European advantage exists.
  • Passenger pigeons. I’m leaving this as a teaser – fascinating… (Or you can click here – a post from before a personal 1492: my discovery of Querencia. In fact, searching Q for ‘1491’ – not a bad idea.)

My two biggest takeaways from the book are, first, how deeply rooted and deeply wrong the popular image of the Indian – and pre-Columbian America – is and, second, how much permaculture went on in the Americas, especially in the Amazon basin. If you haven’t read it – highly recommended.

Random photoblogging

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Some pictures taken during the last week or so…

My office spider, a male Lasiodora parahybana. He has a small fan club led by a middle-school girl (her curiosity and fearlessness rock).

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A couple dart frog pictures taken when I dropped by a fellow frogger’s place to pick up a D. fantasticus. An E. bassleri Black in an ?Aechmea?:

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And a Phyllobates terriblis – the really toxic one – looking tough.

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Shifting gears a bit – a couple awful pictures of a killer vehicle. Spotted in Portsmouth on a misty evening, a Swedish Unimog. It looks like it’s set up for pumper duty – man, I love these trucks!

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Wordly Wise

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Two good new (to me) turns of speech:

  • onageristic analysis – an onager, as many of you already know, is a wild ass (and a type of siege engine – stop trying for extra points!). Analyses go hand in hand with predictions. What we have here is a dress-up name for a SWAG. Via an Aruba Networks training session.
  • Lex Murphiae. Anything this ancient and constant should be rendered in Latin. Via Geoffrey Chaucer.

More Moore

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Win! Hooray for serendipity. I started at Bruce Sterling’s and followed his link to a post on Amazon’s new Kindle (wisdom of crowds says, “Fail!” – also, read this). Speedbird – the blog with the Kindling post – looked interesting; I read a bit. Down a ways mention is made of a new League of Extraordinary Gentlemen title – The Black Dossier. Great news – and news it is. Though I love me some graphic novels, I’m out of the loop – there is much in the comic book world that I’m not particularly interested in, and I haven’t figured out where to find my kind of stuff (I read FLOG, but that’s just one – great – publisher). The only decent comic book store in the area having gone out of business and Million Year Picnic being too far to drive for one book (although I do want to get down to Cambridge soon – visit friends and the HMNH), off I go – virtually – to Amazon.

For those of you who know the League only via the movie – as is often the case – the books are far superior. I need to rent V for Vendetta and make that comparo sometime soon…