Archive: November 17, 2009

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Origin of Species Revisited

Tuesday,  11/17/09  10:21 PM

Happy Anniversary to Origin of Species, Charles Darwin's amazing work, unquestionably the most important work of natural philosophy ever published.  On the occasion of the work's 150th anniversary, New Scientist has a great survey by Steve Jones, Origin of Species Revisited:

Unique among scientific theories, evolutionary biology finds its roots in a popular book by a single author.  Darwin presented a new and radical view of existence: that life has changed over time and space, in part through a simple process called natural selection.  To a modern reader Origin of Species seems lengthy indeed, with only a single illustration to enliven its 150,000 words.  But Darwin was a clear thinker and the book is an impressive piece of advocacy.

It is amazing that after all this time, all the evidence in favor, and all the debate, there are *still* so many people who don't think this theory is true.  Apparently about 40% of U.S. citizens.  Clear evidence of the ongoing influence of 2,000-year-old religious teachings in our present day lives.

 

Tuesday,  11/17/09  10:47 PM

A really long day, whew.  Up at 0400, drove down to Vista, and meetings and presentations and conferences all morning, over lunch, all afternoon, and over dinner.  I know, I know, queue the violins.

Cyclelog: squeezed in a tough 25 miler through Vista, down to Oceanside, and along the beach back to Carlsbad.  Man I needed that...

Maserati abuse!  If you drink, don't drive.  And if you drive like Michael Schumacher, don't mix a drink :)  [ thanks, Craig ] 

Today was my first on the road with my new Win 7 laptop.  I enjoyed the battery life :)  Didn't have any problems with WiFi, which was good, but missed Sprint PCS (my new laptop has an Express Card slot, so I had to order a new Sprint modem).  Win 7 is rock solid at going to sleep and waking up, and hot docking.  I don't like the trackpad support; you have to click to give focus to a window before brushing the pad scrolls.  This might be a configuration option; must investigate.  Anyway still so far so good. 

Actually I have to say there is one thing definitely better about Win 7: the way Explorer handles image thumbnails.  Under XP rendering thumbnails was excruiatingly slow and buggy.  Not any more.  Yay.

The eight best questions we got while raising money.  A guest post on TechCrunch by Glenn Kelman, CEO of Redfin.  They are all great.  Interesting that Roelof Botha of Sequoia is featured prominently; I remember Roelof as a colleague, he was CFO of PayPal in the early days.  Whip smart.  I am not surprised he is a successful investor :) 

The Alliance for Code Excellence is selling Bad Code Offsets.  I love it. 

I know a few people / companies who should be investing in these...

 
 

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