Speeding Across the Pacific

Historians used to assume that all those Polynesian islands were discovered and settled by chance, as a result of canoes full of fishermen happening to get blown off course. It is now clear, however, that both the discoveries and the settlements were meticulously planned. [...] Transfers of many species of crops and livestock from taro to bananas and from pigs to dogs and chickens, prove beyond question that settlement was by well-prepared colonists, carrying products of their homeland deemed essential to the survival of the new colony.

– from Collapse, by Jared Diamond

You have to have a lot of respect for a people who spread out of Taiwan, through all of Indonesia and the Philippines, northern New Guinea, eastward to every inhabitable landmass in the southern Pacific, including New Zealand, Easter Island, and Hawaii, as well as well as westward all the way across the Indian Ocean to settle Madagascar, off the eastern coast of Africa. With outrigger canoes – an idea Westerners got from them, by the way – and sails, oars, and muscles, they settled half the Southern Hemisphere while Europeans were still living under the assumption that the Earth is flat.

Anyone who still watches the candy-assed “Survivor” on TV, read a book instead.

Very Pretty

Because my mind works the way it does, I can’t teach myself about a part of the world I’d never previously known much about without eventually checking out the guys. Now, I have an enormous crush on half the Samoan rugby team, Manu Samoa. In particular:

New Zealand-born, Samoan rugby hunk, Lome Fa’atau

Rapa Nui

The Easter Islanders’ isolation probably also explains why I have found that their collapse, more than the collapse of any other pre-industrial society, haunts my readers and students. The parallels between Easter Island and the whole modern world are chillingly obvious. Thanks to globalization, international trade, jet planes, and the Internet, all countries on Earth today share resources and effect each other, just as did Easter’s dozen clans. Polynesian Easter Island was as isolated in the Pacific Ocean as the Earth is today in space. When the Easter Islanders got into difficulties, there was nowhere to which they could flee, nor to which they could turn for help; nor shall we modern Earthlings have recourse elsewhere if our troubles increase. Those are the reasons why people see the collapse of Easter Island society as a metaphor, a worst-case scenario, for what may lie ahead for us in our own future.

Jared Diamond, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Guns, Germs, and Steel – one of the most fascinating books I have ever read –, in Collapse draws an analogy between the almost complete implosion of Easter Island society in the 1400s that dragged the island’s twelve clans into a constant state of war with one another, eventually reducing the population from 15,000 – 20,000 to 2,000, due to the Polynesians’ unwitting over-exploitation of that tiny, isolated island’s extremely fragile resources, and what we ourselves may face within our own lifetime.

And Speaking of Polynesia …

… Samoa, where I’d like to be right now.

This Blog Is Fasting

It’s All in Your Head

Sent to me in a thoughtful e-mail by the handsome Mr. V, whose frontal lobes are functioning at full capacity, maybe even double. He had apparently thought of me when he read it.

Israeli psychologists draw conclusions from how brain-damaged people comprehend sarcasm – or not

Just what exactly are you trying to tell me, Mr. V?

A Tall, Dark, Handsome Man

For fun yesterday I had my tarot cards read yesterday and the results were most favourable. This was no mascara’d, faux-gypsy seer with an outrageous accent feeding me portentious news of great joy to ensure a repeat customer; it was just a naive friend with an enormous imagination who dabbles in tarot and kabbalah (Oy! What is it with the Goyim and kabbalah?). Plus for good measure, I followed along in the big flaky, new agey guidebook to see for myself that I wasn’t being given a line. Successful career change, marriage to the man of my dreams (who I apparently already know), prosperity, contentment, peace, it’s all coming my way.

Of course, my little Jewish pessimistic voice tells me I’ve just ruined it all by talking about it *spit three times*

Very Pretty

French-Canadian World Champion and Olympic diver, Alexandre Despatie

Massive Change

I had an inspirational weekend partly due to a visit from a good friend from Montreal whom I don’t see nearly enough and partly due to a visit to the Art Gallery of Ontario to see their collaborative exhibit with the Vancouver Art Gallery, called Massive Change, an exhibit to show our “unprecedented capacity to plan and produce desired outcomes through good design”.

There are nearly ten thousand man-made objects larger than a softball in Earth orbit. Of these, only seven percent are operational satellites. The remaining ninety-three percent consists of dead satellites, rocket fragments and debris. While these objects are generally very far apart, their presence and great velocity can potentially interfere with space missions and even threaten the lives of astronauts – a tiny speck of paint from a satellite once dug a quarter-inch hole in a space shuttle window. North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) has been tracking these objects since 1961. Today, before every critical launch, analysts perform a collision avoidance test to make sure the mission will not cross paths with any of these objects.

In 1983 scientists noticed strangely low levels of ozone, the layer of Earth’s atmosphere that absorbs harmful ultraviolet radiation. They began to produce visualizations that showed an alarming ozone “hole” over the South Pole. These images were key to gaining the attention of the scientific community, the public and governments. By revealing that the ozone was being affected by emissions of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) from aerosol cans, refrigerators and air conditioners, these images mobilized action worldwide that led to the 1987 Montreal Protocol, an international treaty to eliminate CFC production and consumption. Between 1986 and 1997, global production of CFCs dropped by eighty-five percent, a significant victory for the environment, and proof of the power of visualization.

In computing, a network is an interconnected group of machines. The Internet is a vast network of networks, all able to communicate with each other. This map of the Internet shows the hardware that serves as the “skeleton” or infrastructure of the Internet. The colors indicate geographic location. Despite its obvious complexity, this map represents just a fraction of the whole network – the rest is simply impossible to accurately represent. The structure of the Internet is constantly changing, not surprising when you consider its continued growth, with more than 24 million additional host computers added in 2002 alone. Fortunately, unlike many systems, the Internet’s extreme interconnectedness is designed to be extraordinarily resistant to problems stemming from malfunction, war or natural disaster. When any part of the system fails, data is simply re-routed through a different path.

Observing the Earth at night gives us new perspective on worldwide access to electricity, and on population density in developed regions. National borders of North Korea and Israel are clearly depicted and human preference for settlement on transportation routes is obvious along the Nile River and Trans-Siberian rail line. The dark areas can be deceiving, because densely populated poor nations with low energy consumption are not visible. This visualization represents four primary types of light: human settlements (white), fires (orange), gas burnoff from oil wells (green), and heavily-lit fishing boats (cyan). The orange bands of fire that cover parts of Africa, Asia and Australia are the result of agricultural activity and natural causes. The extent of these fires is exaggerated because they occurred over the course of a full year – a single satellite orbited the Earth 2190 times to make this image.

Work Shmork

Obviouly, working all the time makes me tired. It’s not that I work all the time; it’s just that a significant portion of my day is spent getting ready for work, gearing up for work, getting to work, working, running errands during lunch and after work, getting home from work, coming down from work, that suddenly my body decides that enough is enough already and I realise as I’m climbing into bed that I have accomplished nothing but work and work-related details.

It’s as if I had been swallowed by a giant whale and I’m crouched on its tongue, staring out its blowhole, trying to catch a glimpse the outside world.