So, John McCain has chosed Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate in the 2008 election.

Let’s break this down.

First, this is a fairly transparent attempt to woo staunch Hillary supporters who just really, really want to vote for a female candidate. I’ve got to think this is a pretty small faction.

So, to gain a few thousand voters, what has McCain sacrificed? Well, Palin is a first-term Governor whose only prior political experience was mayor of a town of 9,800 people. She is 44.

John McCain repeatedly attacks Barack Obama’s experience, suggesting the 47-year-old does not have the background required to lead. However, Obama has eleven years of experience as a State and US Senator, while Palin has only ten years experience as a mayor of a tiny town and less than two years experience as governor of the least-populous state in America. I guess experience isn’t that important after all.

Nothing says “winning strategy” like undercutting one of your primary campaign tactics to gain a few disaffected Democrats. I respond thus:

Seems like they’re finding all kinds of “lost” things in the rainforest these days.

Think the ancient Amazon was untouched by human hands? Wrong. Turns out sections of the forest were downright urban. Scientists at the University of Florida have discovered a large network of towns that once supported upwards of 50,000 people in an area slightly smaller than New Jersey. They boasted roads, defense works, and advanced agriculture.

All kinds of fancypants tech went into finding the lost towns, including satellite imaging:

The red lines indicate old roads, while the black ones are ditches used for defensive purposes.

Downtown Amazon flourised from about 1,500 to 400 years ago, until these societies were wiped out by invading Europeans. The jungle gradually reclaimed the settlements, and they faded from memory. This is actually kind of good news, because it means the Amazon has recovered from large-scale deforestation before, and can do so again. We just need to stop cutting the darn thing down.

Oh, to be a Mythbuster. Their apparently unlimited budget allows them to do, well, pretty much anything they want.

Like build a giant, 1100-barrell paintball gun with one mile of high-pressure tubing. And then paint the Mona Lisa. Instantly.

I think they were trying to explain something about the difference between single- and multi-core computing. But who cares? GIANT PAINTBALL GUN. Via Giz.

This entry is crossposted with BlogTO.

Waiting for Godot is the theatrical equivalent of a mine field. Full of starving grizzly bears. Surrounded by a shark-infested moat. On fire.

It is a play where nothing actually happens. Two guys show up and wait for another guy to arrive. But behind this facade of inactivity lies a vast chasm of existential ambiguity. Sixty years after it was written, nobody is really sure what it’s actually about. In fact, the play resists explanation so strongly, any attempt to pin down Beckett’s intent seems doomed to failure.

So when I read that Remain in Light Theatre’s production of Godot featured a World War II setting and the music of Joy Division, I thought: Uh oh. This might be trouble. And it was. But only a little. Almost in spite of itself, Remain in Light has managed to mount an impressive production of Beckett’s classic. Read the rest of this entry »

So my “real” job is making some fairly unreasonable demands on my time today, so I will be blogger non grata for today. Rest assured, I’ll be back to my bloggish ways tomorrow.

In the meantime, if you stumble across a story you absolutely, positively think should be on Nunc, send it along. I will still post contributed stories.

Stay frosty!

New research has revealed something surprising: 13 out of 15 great ancient civilizations- from the Greeks to the Israelites – constructed their cities and empires on top of active tectonic plates. This put them at greater risk of earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis and other forms of geological unpleasantness.

Nobody is really sure why ancient people were so keen on earthquake zones. Geologically active areas typically have richer soils and better water supplies, but this alone doesn’t explain the clustering. Interestingly, study author Eric Force thinks it may have something to do with how frequent instability would demand a more organized society. Archaeologist Geoff Bailey agrees:

 ”It could be that a certain level of geological instability demands organizational responses from the societies that live in such areas,” he says, calling it “a sort of challenge-and-response theory of social development.” In his own work, he’s even speculated that similar tectonic challenges, and not just factors such as climate change, could have spurred the evolution of humans in Africa. A little shaking up, he suggests, isn’t necessarily a recipe for disaster.

Fascinating.

Not a lot of bloggers keep tabs on exciting new developments in bovine world. Thank goodness for me. I don’t do this because it’s glamourous. I do it because, goddamn it, someone has to.

Two big cow-related stories today. First, new research out of Germany indicates that grazing animals such as cows or deer align themselves with Magnetic North. Apparently, this phenomenon is so pronounced, it can be observed on Google Earth. The lessons here are obvious: if you’re lost and need to know which way is North, look at which way the cows are facing. Also, if you’re headed North, why not ride a cow? It won’t let you down, provided you like travelling very slowly.

Meanwhile, an Irish cow breed – the Dexter - is growing in popularity all over the world. Why? It’s the size of a German Shepherd, produces 16 pints of milk a day (that you can drink unpasteurized), keeps your lawn trimmed, and you can eat it. If you’ve always wanted a cow at home, but were concerned over the size/poop of a normal cow, this little guy is for you. They cost between $400 and $4000, and provided you have enough grass nearby, don’t need feeding. And, you can be that one guy on your street taking your cow for a walk at 8:30 on a Tuesday evening.

So there you go. All the cow news that’s fit to print, fresh from the farm to your door. I hope you’ve found this all very moooving.