Time Wasted?

The NY Times has a provocative article today on the concept of wasted time at work – especially as it applies to knowledge work. We continually try to graft concepts of efficiency developed for manufacturing onto more creative activities. Money quote: “In other words, what looks like wasting time from where you sit, could be …

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Meteor Strike Update

Dr. Valerius Geist has some ideas. “There may be some thing to this meteor strike. However, the cosmic event did not get rid of megaherbivores, such as mammoth and mastodons. However, the short, but severe depletion pf large prey may have eliminated Arctodus simus, and Miracinonyx. They seem to be gone about 13,000 BP. With …

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Big Fisherman

This photo emerged from a packing box over the weekend. That’s Reid Farmer, age seven, with some rainbows we caught in the Arkansas Ozarks. That’s my grandfather Travis Reid’s hand holding the other end of the stringer. I really liked that sheath knife that I bought while on vacation in the Smoky Mountains. Steve and …

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Overland Journal

The first issue of a splendid new magazine, “The publication for environmentally responsible, worldwide vehicle-dependent expedition and adventure travel”, has just become available. Editors include the Alpha Environmentalist and Roseann of Three Martini Lunch . Both content and style are first- rate. This is going to be a good one.

Ice Age Impact?

Scroll down from here to that title to hear a Canadian broadcast on the possible 13,000- year old meteor strike that may have been implicated in the North American Pleistocene extinctions. We will be hearing more about this. (HT Walter Hingley).

Darwin’s Letters

Annie D just introduced me to this treasure trove of Darwin’s letters. She quoted a very youthful (twelve- year old) Darwin on– washing: “Just as I was going, she said she must ask me not a very decentquestion, that was whether I wash all over every morning — no — thenshe said it was quite …

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Real Hunting…

… and otherwise. On Henry Chappell’s Home Range, he takes us out for a few days of old- fashioned East Texas hunting, fishing, and eating— bream fishing with bait, squirrel hunting with dogs, night hunting for raccoons. This is hunting- gathering as a life. Good pics too! On the (very) other hand, Dave Petzal, the …

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New Wolf Species

Darren has been too busy to post anything but amazing pictures, but he did email me a heads up on–!– not one but TWO new wolf species! “I’ve been following the story here (popular articles and shorter papers reporting the relevant discoveries have been appearing since 2003 at least), but finally we have the full …

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The Roller Scandal

Eight (so far) California roller pigeon fanciers have been targeted in a Federal sting operation and accused of killing as many as 2000 raptors, apparently mostly urban Cooper’s hawks. Some of the info is pretty ugly: “Navarro allegedly told an undercover Fish and Wildlife Service agent that he likes to “pummel” the hawks that he …

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Water Bird

A Black-necked Stilt in Devereaux Slough near Goleta.