Tuesday, August 30, 2005
Avian flu H5N1
I've been reading up on the coming avian flu. The potential for disaster is huge. I've read (can't find the link) that the British government is scouting sites for mass graves. Ours might be too, only discreetly. Right now the flyways from east Asia and Siberia are full of infected birds, heading to Europe, North America, India, hell - everywhere. The latest I've seen is that there are already twelve distinct variants identified - this thing likes to mutate. And if a human-to-human mutation arises we'll be in a similar position as the Native Americans vis-a-vis smallpox when the Spanish arrived. You owe it to yourselves to bone up on this. This site lists lots of new articles every day. Also, WHO has an OK site. And a comprehensive site with maps and technical links here. Let's hope for the best, but plan for the worst.
GoogleOS? YahooOS? MozillaOS? WebOS?
That's the title of a great piece on Kottke.
It's filled with OSy and webby goodness and portends a wild ride for your desktop and for the web.
Buckle up.
It's filled with OSy and webby goodness and portends a wild ride for your desktop and for the web.
Buckle up.
Kaus is a god!
I've always enjoyed and admired the New Yorker, even beyond the cartoons. But their antedeluvian liberalism has always been annoying. Knee-jerk, shallow, smug. Leave it to the superb Mickey Kaus to nail it (page down to P.P.S.). "isolated, ill-informed and somewhat gullible" - I won't ruin it for you. Enjoy.
Anemone Armies
Remember how in the 60's every fifteen minutes someone would mumble "Wow, like, the Eskimos have thirty words for snow". Years later (as usual) it occurred to me that Americans have 50 words for pot, 100 for sex and 200 for money. Thirty words for snow? Pussies! The other thing we were always told was that "only humans kill their own". This was patently ridiculous even then, and has become so thoroughly refuted that even leftard 'intellectuals' don't bother with it anymore. Which is a shame, as their main purpose in life is to make us feel bad about ourselves for no reason, except when it's to make us feel good about our enemies for no reason. Anyway, we've seen elephants killing elephants, ditto lions, fish, birds - almost everything with a brain. Now there's something to make the most cynical among us sit up and take notice. Sea anemones organize themselves into armies, with specialists of various kinds, and make war on neighboring colonies. It's absolutely amazing - even creatures one notch above plants make war on each other. I wonder how many words they have for "Yikes!".
